SSCReader
26d ago
Entirely fair. But then America is also the homeland of lots of Asian people and black people and Jewish people and even Haitians and the like. If it is just a matter of time, then everywhere is just a potential homeland for whoever moves there, which I think KMC rejects as he doesn't believe people can really become American. That's the logical hole in his argument I am pointing at.
If he believes America is now the homeland for white Americans, it must also be the homeland for all the other ethnicities, like African-Americans etc. But he explicitly does not think that hyphenated Americans are real Americans.
SSCReader
26d ago
Ok, but what that means is that homeland is mutable. If America is your homeland it is also the homeland of African-Americans, and Jewish-Americans and so on and so forth. Haitians can become Americans just as your ancestors did. That's the logical problem here. Either homeland is immutable which is consistent but means America is not your homeland, or it is mutable and all homeland means is who has the power to move there and live there.
SSCReader
26d ago
As an Ulsterman I would say it does not fit, because while that was an ethnic cleansing (in my view) that is because the locals were forcibly removed from their land and forced into the worst areas with significant violence. In Springfield and other areas 30% or so of the population had left prior to any immigration, and weren't forced from their land as happened when my ancestors colonized Ulster. If anything it is the other way round, where they are being put in the undesirable areas, rather than taking the prime land forcibly from Americans.
SSCReader
26d ago
The ones who are being subjected to migration in their homelands.
But White people's homeland is not America. The Native Americans then would have been ethnically cleansed by us. But if it has to be our homeland to count then we have no claim to be upset about people moving to the US. Leave that to the natives.
SSCReader
26d ago
As an Ulsterman myself, you do have to point out that this was a forcible relocation though as in the locals where literally forced off the prime land and onto less desirable land so that my ancestors could take it. In Springfield 30% of the population had gone for entirely unrelated reasons prior to the later immigration.
Even if we consider the Plantation of Ulster as ethnic cleansing (and we probably should) it is very very different than what is happening with immigration now. No-one external is forcing America to take immigrants and put them in places that have been depopulated by de-industrialization, they are doing so of their own free will because they think it has benefits to them.
Now not all Americans want them, but that still doesn't make it ethnic cleansing, any more than me immigrating to the US from Northern Ireland was, or lots of Irish people who moved to England were ethnically cleansing the English in vengeance.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Sure, he might not think Biden has actually been great, but in political terms, Vote for this side, they are not quite as bad as the other, is not generally a success at getting people energized about the side you want to win. He wants the Democrats to win against Trump. That means hyping them up, even if he doesn't think they are actually good. Seriously read his book, he REALLY REALLY REALLY hates Trump AND dislikes Democrat policies in general (though he is more concerned about small government and fiscal concerns than social stuff). He was a political consultant for Republicans for decades. He created an organization specifically to try and stop Trump getting elected.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Yes? Given he wants the Democrats to beat Trump he is hardly going to say their candidates are terrible is he?
Beyond that:
George Bush also said "Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country."
McConnell: "I know Joe Biden pretty well. He’s a good guy; I like him personally,” McConnell told an audience in Louisville on Tuesday, referring to the more than 20 years they spent together in the Senate and the deals they worked on when Biden was vice president."
Romney: "Romney, who’s called Trump a “phony” and frequently criticized the president the last four years, described Biden as a “man of character" who wants “to bring honor and respect to the White House,” which is “important here and around the world.”
Geoff Duncan: "Well, I am a lifelong Republican. I believe in conservative principles, but I can't help but notice that Donald Trump is a trainwreck for us. And my game plan to try to eliminate him from our party is to vote for Joe Biden."
Christine Whitman: "Biden is a decent man, he's a steady man," Whitman told Reuters. "Trump is trying to paint the world of Joe Biden as horrific - but that's Trump's America now."
You can think your political opponents are good people, good Americans and even great leaders. It still doesn't mean you support their policies. Especially for those who seem to hate what they believe Trump has done to their party.
Again, to be clear, the realignment towards voters is probably a genuinely positive move for the GOP, but that does not mean that the more neo-liberal Republicans who really dislike that change and Trump suddenly become Democrats. They may align with them in a 2 party system, but that is not the same thing.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Because most of his positions have not changed. He is in his own words a Bill Buckley, Hobbesian, small government conservative (which may sound familiar to a certain ex-mod) He wrote a book about how the Republican party under Trump and the Democrats both suck. Now I think his hate for Trump is over the top and he has let it warp his view, Trump isn't the devil. But its clear from his writings, he thinks the best way to get a small g government and fiscal responsibility is to reform the Republican party without Trump. And he thinks the best way to do that is rob Trump of his influence by trying to make sure he loses. But his long term vision is just not compatible with the Democratic party, which he repeats in his book. Its an alliance of convenience, the enemy of my enemy kind of situation as he explicitly calls it.
Like RFK switched to supporting Trump but many of his positions are not Republican ones. He is still an independent, he is just aligning with Trump for the moment. He may well run again as an independent next election.
The Republican party under Trump has moved somewhat away from the neo-liberal conservatism of Bush and Reagan and towards a set of more populist, protectionist policies. That means there are indeed Republicans who have not changed their positions who are now less happy with the party. And vice versa with the Democrats move away from the working class. Doesn't mean they have suddenly flipped their positions.
SSCReader
2mo ago
In Northern Ireland when the British Army shot into crowds it wasn't stopped by other people with guns (in fact it was soldiers fear of that which often presaged such events), it was stopped by a largely unarmed populaces horror.
The chances of the US nation descending into tyranny in the next say 50 years is in my opinion, very close to zero, no matter which side wins elections.
Magical (or advanced tech indistinguishable from it) aside, the problem with removing guns through banning them, isn't that I think it would make the government more likely to be tyrannical, privately owned guns have a negligible impact on that in my view. Its that criminals would still have them, and that even the attempt of a ban would create (understandable!) widespread instability and violence among legal gun owners which is I think is much more of a risk than government tyranny to long term civilizational stability.
So pragmatically the 2A should remain, at least in my view.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Let's say that reference to "the Cathedral" or "the Elites" is not a good way to approach this conversation. What would be a better approach? Reference to Blue Tribe?
Blue Tribe is probably even worse, because almost certainly the vast majority of the Blue Tribe didn't have anything to do with journalist or tech company decisions and the like. Elites is at least a bit more specified, but there are non-Blue elites. As our own statement above says, we should try to be as specific as possible, so maybe Blue Tribe Elites would be better. But even then almost certainly not all Blue Tribe elites were doing X or Y. But every level of specification takes work, it would be crazy to expect you to find the exact people who did x or y. We'd never be able to carry out a conversation. So perhaps settling for some Blue Tribe Elites did X or Y is the balance. It indicates allegiance and position and that it is not all of the group.
Mind you, I'm as guilty as anyone of just saying Red or Blue, when I know it wasn't all of Red or Blue. Trade offs between saving time and mental effort with short-hand and generalizations vs accuracy is a real thing.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Though note, we're not talking about a ban, we're talking about Thanos snapping away every gun and every future gun in private hands, depending on how you word your "wish" that might include anything that acts like a gun. This is magic (of a sort) not law.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Sure, that's what allying with people you disagree with means. It doesn't mean he has all of a sudden become a Democrat, after 40 some years. I think it's kind of odd that people talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome, but don't seem to want to see that it affected some Republicans too.
SSCReader
2mo ago
I think those are a proportionally negligible as to the total number of deaths that occur annually, though.
Indeed, but as we are talking Thanos snapping, we can handle the small issues and the big ones too. No additional cost. Of course there are better ways than snapping away the guns as we mentioned above, just fix the aggressive people, then nobody really has much of a need for firearms, so we can get rid of those to stop accidents and the like. We can even stop animals being aggressive to humans as well.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Right, but as we are Thanos snapping we might as well deal with the small stuff too, there is no extra cost to it.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Right, but then we can also make them happy to stay in small towns right? We're already turning them into productive citizens, might as well make them happy where they are productive citizens. The reason why Thanos's plan in killing half the universe is stupid is because he has power over Minds, Reality, Souls , Space and Time. He can create resources, change people to not need so many resources, change people to work together better, create housing and planets, and suns.
If we can turn people into productive citizens then housing is the least of our worries. We'll turn a chunk of them into builders and contractors and miners and some into interior designers and so on. Snap loads of bricks and mortar into existence. Make New York into a TARDIS where Manhattan can have infinite housing in a finite area or whatever. Or make people happy to live 10 a room. Sky is the limit.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Sure, but that won't catch people who snap and go on a spree, or accidental deaths, or suicides etc. But it's not like there is any chance of either happening in the US.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Eh, I don't think the US government is likely to slip into tyranny, I'm for big government not against it. Bad cops would still be a problem of course, but overall i think the trade would be worth it. Though see the below discussion there are probably other Thanos snap interventions which would be more useful (if perhaps more immoral, depending on your POV).
SSCReader
2mo ago
If we're talking Thanos-snapping, I'd pretty much prefer to Thanos snap any person with a propensity for uncontrolled violence away, I think it'd create more immediate gains, even if there were second-order impacts.
Sure if we had that power then there are probably other interventions. Instead of snapping them away, why not just "fix" them, so they become contributing citizens. Indeed we could fix everyone to be maximally productive and happy.
SSCReader
2mo ago
His political positions on most things except Trump aren't really compatible with Democrats. And he was part of the Republican party since the 80s. He is just a Republican who really hates Trump.
SSCReader
2mo ago
In this case Trump talked about firing workers who strike. Which is a pretty big issue for a union. And the union leader was very vocally unhappy about that. Without that he probably gets the endorsement, given the Union leader spoke at the RNC and the majority of members liking Trump.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Right, his tweet was that his choice to support was Trump in 2016 not that he voted for him.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Again, he lied about voting for Trump!
His tweet actually said, that Trump was his choice, not that he voted for him actually. The article I was reading interpreted that to mean voted for, but strictly that is not what he said.
And come on, you can't just rely on calling out people who make threats, you also need to profile and plan for attackers regardless. Doing A does not mean not doing B.
SSCReader
2mo ago
It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It comes on ten years of media calling Trump a threat to democracy, a traitor selling the country to Russia, a violent fascist thug who needs to be executed, take him out and beat him, put his severed bloody head on TV, talk about blowing up the White House -- what, I apologized, and Trump deserved it for all his violent rhetoric, I can't believe Republicans would try shooting him like this.
Sure, but none of this in anyway indicates he might not have been a Trump supporter at some point who became disillusioned. You are in fact describing how that could have happened. If we are believing all his stuff about Ukraine and disliking Trump now, the most likely explanation is that his previous statements are also true. He did think Trump was a good choice, and then whether by Trump's actions or by the media, or by a mixture of both, he came to despise him.
There is no reason for him to lie about Trump being his choice all the way back in 2020 publicly. It doesn't impact what he tried to do now, other than, if it is true that disaffected ex-Trump supporters or ex-Republicans are more likely to try to kill him, because converts and those who feel betrayed are more zealous in their new belief systems, it might slightly shift who needs to be watched more carefully.
If both Crooks and Routh were ex-Republicans or ex-Trump supporters who turned against him then that is important information when trying to keep Trump alive. It doesn't say anything about the morality of current Republicans or Trump supporters. I'm not trying to make a political point or to shift blame, rather than observing than if both attempted killers were currently Blue affiliated, but seemed to previously not be, then that is really important information if you are a Trump supporter or do not want him killed. 1) Because stopping that happening seems pretty important generally, and 2) Because it shifts the profile of likely further attackers.
SSCReader
2mo ago
Conservatives feel that elected Republicans don't represent them. Conservatives would overwhelmingly not identify Rick Wilson as one of them.
This is probably true, but being a Republican and being a Conservative are not the same thing. He presumably feels that his party is no longer what it once was, and I think he is correct. Whether it is better or worse depends on who is doing the judging, but he at least clearly feels Trump has hijacked the party.
I am not saying he is right to feel that way, or that the Republican party is not more representative of much of its electorate now (I think it is, or at least is cosplaying it while Trump is around, we'll see how things go after him), but rather his level of hate is driven by that feeling of betrayal, which looks to be much stronger than even the average Democrat. So strong he created an entire organization to try and stop Trump getting elected and is willing to work with people he also disagrees with just to do that.
But some of those who conquered the continent were Jews however, and there were Jews in America before it was America, so why don't they count? They were there before the nation was born, and bequeathed their part to their progeny, just as your ancestors did. What logic lets in your ancestors and not yours? Sure, white Europeans made up the bulk of settlers, but their were others. There were free Africans in the colonies as early as 1625, would their descendants not be just as American as you? And certainly African slaves were putting their blood and sweat into the continent before it was a nation.
What rule excludes descendants of Jews and Africans who worked to tame the continent prior to the nation being formed but includes only Europeans? Even if there are fewer of them, don't they have an equal claim?
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