MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
1d ago
There weren't country clubs when Austen or Dickens was writing - if you were rich enough to afford a country club then either you owned a rural estate, you had a relative who let you take trips to their estate, or you were saving up to buy an estate. I also don't think Austen was mocking the social norms of the English landed gentry except in the sense that the British sense of humour is incompatible with describing something in detail in an entirely unmocking way.
Wikipedia says that country clubs became a thing in the US around 1880. I don't think they are a thing in the UK - the term "country club" is more like an affectation used by some golf clubs.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
1d ago
Palestine was a win?
Israel isn't and wasn't pro-USSR. Jordan (which got the West Bank) isn't and wasn't pro-USSR. Egypt (which got Gaza) wasn't pro-USSR until American-backed communists under Nasser couped the British-backed government. So a win by the criterion I stated.
Is your assessment of sub-Saharan Africa now, or at some prior point post independence?
My assessment of sub-Saharan Africa is that Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe were pro-USSR during the Cold War, which was a failure of British policy. I don't think the people making decisions in postwar Britain were thinking forward to a future where the USSR no longer existed, so I don't think we can assess their success on the basis of sub-Saharan Africa today.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
1d ago
I think one of the problems here is that the US side isn't talking about the talks that broke down, and doesn't see why they might need to. In particular, nobody is pushing back on the claim by Carney that there was a last-minute bait-and-switch from the US side, with various media outlets (admittedly probably all relying on the same anonymous source) saying that this was because Commerce Secretary Lutnick took over the reins from USTR Greer.
Based on Trump's MO going back to his real estate days, I think we can assume that there was a bait-and-switch from the US side - it is less clear whether or not it was a planned dick move as part of "tough" negotiating tactics or whether it was unintentional chaos as a result of divisions within the administration. But all we have to go by in terms of what the bait-and-switch was about is Carney's talking points (which I assume are selective and biased, because politics) and various pro-Canadian poasters amplifying them. Trump could say (or could get his people to say) that of course the US doesn't have a problem with Quebec preserving its language and culture and try to play divide-and-rule with Quebec the way is (ineptly) trying to do with Alberta, but he didn't.
This round of talks began with a unilateral escalation by the US (the various proclamations of 20th July) and the only intelligible demand the US has made on substance is that Canada reverse the retaliatory measure they put in place after the previous unilateral escalation from the US side, including steel and aluminium tariffs which the US said were not negotiable and other tariffs which were announced as a threat to force Canada to address a non-existent fentanyl problem and then TACOed.
So the US does not have a public negotiating position here. And if the bait-and-switch theory is correct, they haven't communicated a stable non-public negotiating position to the Canadians either.* It might be the case that normalcy could be restored if the Canadians agreed to end the retaliatory measures and accept the steel and aluminium tariffs, but we don't know and Carney has now said that he doesn't either. As far as I can see based on Trump and his supporters' social media posts, the actual MAGA theory of the case is that the correct process is that Trump commands and Carney obeys, and that the real problem is Canadian insistence on LARPing as a sovereign state.
* The actual US negotiating position in this case needs to be non-public because the Trump administration is abusing emergency powers to impose the tariffs. Everyone on both sides of the border knows that the legally colourable US-law justifications for the tariffs in the official White House proclamations have little or nothing to do with the real reasons they are being imposed, but can't say so.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
Why? Biden could become a President (indeed, beat Trump at a debate!) while in early stages of dementia
Pandemic era Biden didn't come across as demented. He came across of someone who was still compus mentis when fully awake, but who was too physically frail for the demands of executive leadership (or indeed running an in-person campaign, which he fortunately didn't need to do in 2020 because of the pandemic). This is consistent with what staffers have said about the administration, which is that Biden was lucid for 4-6 hours a day and able to use those hours to prevent a power vacuum appearing that could be filled by someone else.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
Didn't the US identify bilingual-labelling laws as a non-tariff barrier that they wanted removed?
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
I do not think that the United States would ever attempt to take and hold ground within China
This is the original meaning of "Never get involved in a land war in Asia".
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
inability of the Germans to break out into the Atlantic at Jutland set the stage for the conclusion of the war
What is particularly weird is that the surface navy theatre of WW1 (the U-boat war was separate) was decided by a single battle that was a tactical draw.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
The Great Game never worked out particularly well for the locals in Afghanistan, and wasn't supposed to. The Taliban, somehow, managed to flip the table and say that Afghanistan wasn't a gamepiece any more. The locals prefer this, and were therefore willing to fight for the Taliban but not for the Karzai government.
Taliban rule is a disaster for urban women (unfortunately) and religious minorities (who are, by definition, minorities). When western journalists and NGOs tried to get rural women to complain about Taliban rule, they basically got "We didn't actually have any more freedom under Pashtunwali but now at least our sons won't end up as bacha bazi boys and a warlord who rapes our daughters will be expected to marry them"
How are those Post-colonial Westminster constitutions in Africa going?
The political goal of post-WW2 British decolonialisation was to hand colonies that had become obviously unprofitable over to governments able and willing to prevent their territory being used by the USSR. I don't think we even pretended that the point was to set up durable democracies.
On that basis, decolonialisation in East Asia was a win (notoriously against serious opposition in Malaya), South Asia was a draw (India was more sympathetic to the USSR than the West, but took nonaligned status seriously), the Middle East was a win (apart from Egypt where we were beaten by American-backed communists who would go on to double-cross the US and side with the USSR), and sub-Saharan Africa was somewhere between a draw and a loss.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
The "minelayers" in @Mantergeistmann's ONI report look like the sort of thing that is affordable to the average middle-class American (though not the average middle-class Europoor). Very unlikely to be worth more than the munition that sunk them.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
Thanks - I would say that the only thing that could pass for a capital ship is the three Russian-made Kilo-class attack submarines.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
I was thinking about the scenario where the Republicans nominate a better candidate (i.e. DeSantis or Abbott against Harris) rather than the scenario where the Democrats run an even worse candidate (Trump vs zombie Biden). I don't think any of us doubt that either party can lose an election if they try hard enough. Vote for the uncouth, not the undead!
If the 2028 Presidential election is Don Jr vs AOC, Americans will deserve it.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
3d ago
If we are nitpicking, "Great Britain" is both the toponym for the main island of the British Isles, and also the legal name for the mostly-obsolete political entity that includes both the main island and the minor islands (like the Isle of Wight and the Hebrides) associated with it. (Apart from an old joke about Berwick being at war with Russia, Great Britain in the political sense = England + Wales + Scotland)
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
3d ago
Yes - I think the core fact about Trump's three elections is that in 2016 and 2024 either party could have won by nominating an empty suit instead of the unpopular candidate they did nominate, and in 2020 the Democrats did win by nominating an empty suit.
Interestingly, even if he had won the popular vote 55-45, DeSantis would only have got 15 more EVs. So many states are deep red or deep blue that 1980-style electoral college blowouts are no longer possible.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
3d ago
There is an old joke in anti-cop circles that certain words have an unusual technical meaning in police reports. On the list is "Pitbull": a small pale-coloured dog that barked at a cop and "Rottweiler": a large dark-coloured dog that barked at a cop.
TACO is the way to bet.
Apart from raw materials, most of the Canadian goods surplus with the US comes through the highly integrated auto industry-based economy of Greater Greater Detroit, most of which ends up in vehicles badged Ford or GM (even if final assembly was in a Canadian plant). If this trade war lasts for more than a few weeks then two iconic American companies are going to be screaming in pain, and UAW workers who voted for Trump are going to be laid off. Even if the tariffs are working to shift demand to cars made with a US/Mexican supply chain and not a US/Canadian one, the politics of "one union job noisily lost at a US-owned plant in purple Michigan, two nonunion jobs quietly added at a Japanese-owned plant in red South Carolina" is a disaster for the administration.
It isn't clear that Canada think they can give in even if they wanted to. What Carney has said is pretty close to "Trump's America is not agreement-capable, so we will make no concessions." Trump's public antics and the online activity of his core supporters have been entirely consistent with the MAGA view on Canada being that it should be a vassal-state and that the punishment beatings will continue as long as Canada perversely insists on pretending to be sovereign (see also @Shakes and @Ex_Nihilo above).
I also think the intra-MAGA politics of this mean that we can expect to see the "Blame Canada"/TACO pattern continue for the rest of Trump's term. Increasingly I am leaning towards a model of MAGA psychology where the beatings are the point. One of the things the right-wing base thought they would get when they renominated Trump in the 2024 primaries was a President who would use the powers of the Presidency to inflict visible pain on the hated Blues. Right-wing Americans who pay some attention to foreign news but don't actually understand foreign countries (this isn't intended as an insult - very few people anywhere actually understand foreign countries) see Soviet Canuckistan and the EUSSR as Blues-over-the-water, so punishment beatings of Canada (which cause fewer legal and constitutional issues than punishment beatings of domestic political opponents) scratch the same itch. But I'm pretty certain that MAGA would support a 50% tariff on Massachusetts if there was a legal way of doing it.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
3d ago
My favourite story of this type is that USA Today published temperatures for US cities in Fahrenheit and for Canadian cities in Celsius without saying what they were doing, and nobody noticed for several years because Americans find it completely reasonable for Toronto to be as cold as freezing brine in the winter.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
3d ago
I fully believe that Iran's warships and fixed-wing warplanes have been destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable. So what.
I don't remember hearing about Iran having warships worth mentioning before the war. Sinking a few minelayers may deprive Iran of a strategic option they don't currently want (mining the Straits so they are off limits to everyone) but doesn't achieve any US political goals - although it isn't clear if it even does that given that you could probably mine the Straits with rowboats if you wanted to.
The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates that second world armies facing second world air defences don't fly fixed-wing warplanes in anger, so destroying them doesn't hurt Iran much. Even mid-price reusable drones like the Turkish Byraktar are steering clear of enemy air defences (Ukraine is mostly using them over water) with the proper air war fought using cheap disposable drones and missiles. Iran's behaviour in the current war is consistent with this picture. The Fog of War means I can't be sure whether or not the 5th Fleet base in Bahrain is rekt, but if it is the damage was done by cheap drones.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
4d ago
The EU institutions are more based than western European governments, because of the eastern European influence. The EU has its own uniformed border force (Frontex) who largely have closed the eastern land border to illegal immigration and would have stopped the boats if they weren't being sabotaged by fake search-and-rescue NGOs protected by the French/Spanish/Italian governments.
If the people and governments of the EU wanted to pursue an anti-immigration agenda, they could do so through the existing institutions with no reform needed. And "If the peoples and sovereigns of Christian Europe want to keep the Turk out, we need to do so together or we will end up letting him in separately" is 1000-year old cached conventional wisdom for a reason.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
4d ago
Although their self-identity is more complicated than that, and they now consider themselves to be de facto indigenous to Ulster in the same way that non-woke white Americans consider themselves de facto indigenous to the United States or Boers consider themselves de facto indigenous to South Africa.
As a descriptive comment about how British people use language, we don't consider "British" to be an ethnicity. Self-identifying as "British" is a marker for civic nationalism, and self-identifying as "English" is a marker for ethno-nationalism. Everyone agrees that "English", "Scottish", "Welsh" and "Irish" are ethnicities and nations, but it isn't clear how they relate to Britishness. Scottish ethno-nationalism is (again, descriptively) explicitly anti-English and is increasingly linked to a left-aligned secessionist movement, Welsh ethno-nationalism is implicitly anti-English because it is tied to preserving a non-English language, and Irish ethno-nationalism is basically anti-Britishness boiled down to tar.
Reform don't run candidates in Northern Ireland, and do badly in Scotland. Welsh Reform do very well indeed, but they do so by being the only party in Wales to uncomplicatedly oppose Welsh language policy, not by running the same messages they do in England. "Monoglot English speakers shouldn't be second-class citizens in parts of the UK" is the kind of position which blurs the distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism.
I suspect "I meant that British identity (specifically as opposed to English, Scottish or Welsh identity) is civic" is the motte Phillips was planning to retreat to if her comments got her into enough trouble.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
4d ago
Almost certainly, Phillips is not a Zionist who is motivated to delegitimize British ethnic identity because of her Zionism, but rather a Zionist who is also a progressive or who is trying to appeal to progressives, and so must start from the default progressive position on ethnonationalism and then explain why Jews should be an exception.
Melanie Phillips was a progressive in her early career, but has been publicly taking the standard right-populist positions on education, crime, Muslim immigration, Pride parades and vaccines causing autism since before right-populism was fashionable. She has not been a progressive in any way, shape or form for decades. Her motivation for opposing British ethno-nationalism is that she (correctly) thinks that it doesn't have a place in British public life a Jew whose primary loyalty is very visibly to Israel and not the UK. And she knows she might need such a place, because she can see the risk that Israeli society will develop in a way which makes Jerusalem an unhappy place for an outspoken woman who self-identifies as Modern Orthodox Jewish but isn't exactly frum (and whose husband is even less frum).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
4d ago
Old enough to vote, old enough to swing. Some cases are easy and, assuming that she was indeed a co-conspirator, the Dutcher case is one of them. I don't see why you are comparing it to an infanticide.
Mothers who kill their children is one of the absolutely classic hard cases - not because it isn't heinous, but because anyone who has been a mother, or even an involved father, bellyfeels that
- Only a crazy mother would do it
- A mother going crazy is a "there but for the grace of God" thing, not a "those people are awful" thing.
In England, a separate crime of infanticide (with the same range of sentences as manslaughter) was carved out of murder in 1922 because all murders were capital back then and nobody wanted to hang women for it. It is possibly significant that the law passes just after women got the vote and started serving on juries, but probably not given:
- There was a single-figure number of women MPs at the time the law passed
- There was still a super-majority male electorate because the female voting age was set at 30 for the first decade
- The law had been known to be non-functional since the 1870's. The last woman to actually be hanged for infanticide was Rebecca Smith in 1849 and she poisoned eight children with arsenic (which was seen as a particularly heinous way of killing at the time). Even in the era of all-male juries, prosecutors and judges felt they had to tell the jury that they could assume the death sentence would be commuted in order to get a conviction.
I don't think it excuses violence against women. Finding a man hitting a woman funny is an unforgiveable sin, unless it is part of a kinky sex thing.
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