FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
46m ago
A lot of would-be immigrants change their mind about crossing the border.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
58m ago
Revoking Harvard's accredited status wouldn't harm Harvard, it would destroy the concept of accreditation.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
5hr ago
Reading through Scott, and the replies here and there to Scott, it seems that POSIWID is primarily a meme, or perhaps it has even attained the status of a minor shibboleth. The argument is becoming less intellectual and more and more personal. I'm not sure what that indicates.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
9hr ago
I'm a dirty monolingual so I read it in English, but the language wasn't difficult, nor were the concepts. There is a lot of mentions of interplay between dialect and "Italian" in the text, so idk if in the original you'll run into Neapolitan slang. The first book is pretty self-contained, and it's mostly one of those post-modern one damn thing after another books anyway, but knowing it's a quartet I'll probably finish it up.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
9hr ago
The Bukele government might want him in jail anyways.
Might. I think it's relevant to ask if they do, independently of the Trump admin, want him in jail.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
20hr ago
I think it's valuable to formally count for a while to get the hang of it, but mostly I just try to mostly eat large amounts of food with a better protein/kcal than whole milk. Simple rule of thumb, does the job.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Wait, I'm a little confused here: is the foreign country in this case holding him for any reason other than on the USA's request?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I just finished Elena Ferrante's second Neapolitan novel. The writing is terrific and beautiful, but the plot movement left something to be desired in my mind. The first book was far better. I might still get around to the third some time this summer if I can get it from the library, it's not a difficult book to read, so it's a good vacation book.
This weekend I'm planning to dig into Moneyland, which my mother picked up for me at the bookstore because an old advance copy was available free, I guess it's a book about how rich people move money around. Should be a fun read.
I'm wrapping up The Cartiers on audiobook. I'll do a bigger writeup when I finish it, but it's a really fascinating work of family and business history. The jeweler aspects are interesting, the innovation of platinum settings and the creation of iconic pieces like the Santos and the Tank. There's also a personal view of European history to it, the family firm working its way through wars. In 1870, the business almost failed during the commune, but ultimately survived and made money selling the gems of bankrupt Paris aristocrats. In 1914, all three brothers (Louis, Jacques, Pierre) served; Louis most famously as a general's aide behind the lines would invent the Tank style of watch based on seeing early tanks at the front line, though it was Jacques who would win the Croix de Guerre and serve at the front lines despite his brothers and father urging him repeatedly to avoid combat service and think of the company. After the war they lost their Russian customers, but did a roaring business recycling gems for cash for exiled Russian Whites and (sub rosa) for the Soviets. With the firm remaining open through WWII, it's a snapshot of real life for frenchmen in occupied Paris, and what it actually looked like. The aftermath permanently reoriented their business toward their US offices. It's not exactly a worms-eye view (these are guys who had bitter rivalries with Faberge, challenged Rothschilds to duels, and made gems for kings and capitalists) but it's a uniquely selfish view: the Cartiers cared most about Cartier, and though they were often patriotic ideology was secondary to personal interest.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Anyone know anything about the Order of Nine Angles? Sounds a little Monty Python.
Policy proposal: anything with an American Flag on it must be manufactured in the USA. American flag T shirts? Must be MiUSA. Buckets? MiUSA. NFL making those weird camo sweatshirts with the patch on it? MiUSA. Your beer can better have American beer in it if it has a flag on it.
Why am I wrong about this one? Seems like a slam dunk.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
To what extent is it incumbent on a person who desires to see more US manufacturing to purchase already existing US made goods?
To what extent is it a fair critique to say "If you want to see Tariffs, buy all your t shirts and underwear from LAA, buy your shoes from Allen Edmonds, buy an American car, etc. And if you aren't already doing that, you aren't serious about Tariffs."
Or is that the participating in society meme?
Personally, I'm not really pro-autarky, but I do try to buy as much as possible from America. I had to giggle at some of the tariff takes the last couple weeks: I already buy American made socks (from Costco but that's too obscure I guess) and most days the majority of my outfit is American with LAA and Gustin handling most casual basics, Outlier pants, and a lot of things from Boathouse right where I used to row at Dadvails every year. Sneakers are the one thing I buy exclusively foreign, in that I only buy obscure Amazon minimalist-shoe knockoffs because they're the only thing that fits my weird feet. And that's pretty much my ideal: I should have the ability to buy American, and I prefer to, but I like having the ability to buy a vast variety of things that are exactly to my taste. If there were a MiUSA alternative to WHITN, I would buy them, even for a premium!, but they don't exist to my knowledge.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I believe just a short jump through time brings us to alien worlds, besides across geography.
Short, short time jumps. I'd be curious to correlate answers to the question about the USA over the past 250 years, with their answers to two questions:
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When did Rome end?
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Do you think that your father approves of you and your life?
The first is obvious. Do you think of Flavius Aetius before riding into battle against Attila, reflecting on himself as part of a Roman tradition that reaches back to Scipio; do you hear that and think "You absolute fool, don't you realize that the post-Marian reform legions were a completely different thing, and the imperium again, and the dominate yet again?"
The second, I'm curious to what extent the personal is the political. I have an older father, he was in his late 40s when I was born, and so many aspects of my world are inexplicable to him. Nonetheless I feel that he loves me and approves of me and my life. I suspect the feeling that the Founding Fathers would not approve of the modern USA because of it's inexplicability is related to an observation or feeling of rejection by one's biological ancestors.
As for my answer: I don't think that America has ever exactly been one thing. There are visions of America that failed, and visions of America that succeeded. The Founding Fathers were not, by nature, factionalists or followers, they were individualists to a fault. There were at least a dozen views of what America would be among the signers of the Declaration and the Constitution. Some of the Founders expressed different views at different times, and probably felt different ways at different times. It is hard to imagine that Thomas Jefferson had a consistent view on race when one reads his writings on the subject.
My view is more along the lines of how do you define a dynasty in sports, as long as you have consistent success and players who played together with other players, you have a single team. The break comes when you have bad seasons or you have a complete turnover in personnel. So the 1920-1964 Yankees constitute a single Dynasty, even though no single player could possibly span that period, and the game itself changed so much in that time. Because you never had discontinuity, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra played with Joe DiMaggio who played with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. It wasn't until the down years that you see discontinuity.
Similarly, the Trump admin is a big change from the Bush II admin, but there are a lot of guys who served in both, and you can push that back through every Republican admin (and parallels in the Dems) to the start of the century, and probably earlier. Over time the population of the country has turned over, is demographically different, but there's direct succession. As long as that exists, there's America, and I think some of the founders would look at it and smile, at least some of the time.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Man, this is one of those times I read something and think living in the 80s must have been awesome. What kind of pissant planning commission would put up with that? Nowadays even in the small towns I work in, they'd tell you to go fuck yourself and call the cops on your concrete pour.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Combined with this we might be seeing a major back-down on a lot of Trump's programs:
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that farmers will be able to petition the federal government to retain some farmworkers in the U.S. illegally, provided the workers leave the country and return with legal status.
"We're going to work with farmers that, if they have strong recommendations for their farms, for certain people, that we're going to let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process, a legal process. We have to take care of our farmers and hotels and various places where they need the people," Trump said.
I'll note that personally I'm basically in favor of a policy by which migrants who are employed should be a much lower priority for deportation, and that ultimately a variably-sized fine is the best punishment.
But this fundamentally undermines any wignat hopes that this administration will seriously halt the melanation of America.
Pessimistically, the upshot of all this is that both Tariffs and Deportations are fundamentally unserious policies, which won't really help the headline numbers, while a few random unlucky individuals get caught up and destroyed in the gears of government.
Optimistically, this is the start of both a more restrained approach from the Trump admin and perhaps even an understanding that we need to restrain the imperial presidency.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
It depends if we're talking about big decisions or little ones. One of the pernicious aspects of the administrative state is that you have minutiae that can have huge impacts on businesses, tax classifications of particular business inputs or what constitutes a "tree" or whatever, and I can absolutely believe that those kinds of decisions are influenced by money.
On the other hand, the recent SCOTUS kerfluffles seem goofy to me, in that it seems to be built around the idea that Clarence Thomas can't possibly believe what he does in fact believe.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
‘mowing the grass’ was politically impossible after October 7th
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What does politically impossible mean? It always seems to mean something like "restraint was impossible without ending Bibi Netanyahu's political career." Which isn't something that I think we need to value all that highly in terms of impossibility. We wouldn't accept, in a wartime situation, saying "It's impossible to take that position" when what we mean is "it's impossible to take the position without suffering casualties." If Bibi isn't patriotic enough to take one for Israel, history should hold him accountable for that.
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In what way is this operation not just another example of mowing the grass? Even accepting the absurd maximalist goal of "eliminating Hamas;" let's imagine that Hamas ceases to be a going concern, does anyone really think we won't see a new terrorist organization form? Israel may not be mowing the grass, but they are fertilizing it.
If a violent response was necessary, it had to be done in three months. Dragging it out over multiple years has been foolish.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
could just hire a bunch of people. And he has many options for external manpower too - local police, red state governors, the national guard. Even the military is an option under the Insurrection Act.
Lots of people like eating meat, not everyone will work in a slaughterhouse.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
The problem with TPOASIWID is that the WID part isn't typically uncontested, and where people think it is uncontestable we're typically lacking in nuance. You start with taking the most uncharitable view of something or someone you don't like, then smugly pronounce that TPOASIWID. You have to do the work to prove that is what the system does, before you can determine that is the purpose of the system.
So for example, the purpose of the Dallas Cowboys in this millenium is to field a premium-mediocre NFL team that never makes it anywhere in the playoffs, while making money selling merch. You can tell because they never get anywhere in the playoffs and TPOASIWID!
That's just a boo light, a funny applause line on an Eagles fan forum.
On the flip side, one can justify the statement.
The purpose of the Dallas Cowboys, despite the regular pronouncements from the Jones family that they are ALL IN this year, is to field a great regular season team year in and year out, and winning a Super Bowl is secondary or tertiary to that. You can tell, because they consistently try to abide by the salary cap year to year, rather than accept dead money in future years the way teams like the Eagles have to maximize their effective cap during the current seasons and improve their chances of winning during a specific window, because they don't want to maximize the amount of money they can spend this year, they want to save money and make sure they never have a down year in the future when they have to eat the dead cap. You can tell, because they don't typically trade away draft picks for useful players, like the Rams did, because they don't really want to win a super bowl, like the Rams did, they want to maintain competitiveness such that they can win more games than they lose and fleece their fanbase. You can tell because, instead of extending players early to lock in lower rates the way the Eagles or Chiefs have, the Cowboys wait until the last possible second and pay extra. This reduces the odds of a big miss, which might put them into a losing season or two, but it slowly saps their resources to keep them from getting over the top, but that doesn't matter because their purpose is to win regular season games. TPOASIWID, the Cowboys exist to sell the idea of a good football team, not to win championships.
TPOASIWID went from the insightful the first few times I read it, to unbearably smug and annoying, within a very short period of time. It's used to shut down a conversation, without justifying why that is, in fact, what the system does.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
I feel like "the sign" one taps should be a single sentence. Like the classic tweet:
I meant fuck YOUR feelings, my feelings must be handled gently, like a baby bird.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
That's why I cited to Tolstoy specifically, rather than the always contested and complicated historical record.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
It's fascinating the way people frame what things constitute facts about reality, and what things are supposed to be changeable.
This turn in public opinion was not just entirely predictable given Israel's actions, but it was undoubtedly the plan within Hamas before 10/7. Hamas was never under the impression that they were going to sweep from there to Jerusalem, they were hoping to do something so horrible that Israel would "have" to respond, Israel's response would lead to global backlash against Israel, and bring the conflict back to front of mind.
This was obvious from the word go. The goal from the beginning was to bait Israel into committing atrocities.
Why was world opinion widely treated as something changeable, while Israel's reaction wasn't? "Any country in this position would have to invade!" "You can't expect Israel to restrain itself!" "People need to realize that Israel has the right to defend itself!"
It's interesting to me that people who frame themselves as hard-nosed-unemotional-realists refuse to accept public opinion as an aspect of reality. Especially for Israel, a country that has always depended on western public opinion. I guess we need to have someone write a popular Warhammer 40k fanfic in which a grizzled commissar with some kind of cyberpunk eye patch gives a speech about sacrificing lives for public opinion gains, and then it will fit into their framing of themselves as hard-nosed-unemotional-realists.
I'm realizing that realism is just a different form of woolly headed idealism. In the same way they decry foreign policy idealists who want to see a rules based international order, they live in an imaginary world where war is the only reality and might makes right.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
I'm not clear where the relevance of your comment to mine is so forgive me if I'm off base.
The devil is in the details, but most of the questions on the immigration forms, I don't really care, bigger fine. Probably not terrorism, though given the broad strokes the new admin is painting with I'm probably associated with a terrorist organization by being on this forum with some of y'all. 生不如意事十之八九.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
I'm not really sure he could. I don't actually think there's a practical point at which one could recruit a sufficient number of new officers to ICE without serious unintended consequences. There just aren't that many people who want that job.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4d ago
I recently read Barry Lam's excellent pamphlet Fewer Laws, Better People, which has a similar theme around increasing discretion granted rather than focusing on formal discretion-free rules, so that is influencing my thoughts on this. I highly recommend the book
I started off being a bit taken aback by the idea Tyler proposed that we should almost just abandon accountability. I've generally been somewhat pro-accountability...
Two thoughts about what accountability means.
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." When you make people accountable for their decisions, you encourage conservatism. You target not their results, because nobody totally controls results, you can only punish them for bad process. And this leads to conservative process. You stick with the big reputation contractor, you never take a risk or do anything bold. Defensive medicine. Follow the procedure, check the boxes, and whatever happens happens. We don't like this result.
On the other hand, people point to internal loci of control, we need people to want to act with excellence, with skin in the game. But think of War and Peace, of the Grand Armee marching into Russia. If Kutuzov had been held accountable for the loss of Moscow, we'd all be speaking French. Every other general was worried about being held accountable socially, of being judged a coward. Kutuzov alone was willing to take on the social opprobrium of being judged a coward, of losing Moscow, of running away from Napoleon. Napoleon expected Kutuzov to act like every other brave general he'd faced, afraid of being held accountable, when the right decision was to behave like a coward.
The important thing is to pick the right people, and trust them. Give them discretion to achieve their goals. And then hope for the best.
I always think it's worth noting that out of all the kings of Israel in the bible, there are maybe three and a half good ones. Out of 70-some Roman emperors, only perhaps a dozen were any good. Out of 43 presidents, the majority were pretty mid. Ditto kings of England, or France, or Ottoman Sultans, or Chinese Emperors. History consists mostly of mediocrities, a single great leader sets up the system and everyone coasts off that for dozens or hundreds or thousands of years.
I don't understand your use of the word "morally" here. The question isn't who counts as an American citizen in some legal or moral sense, so much as what physically can happen to a citizen or non citizen. Facts are disputed, and even the worst cops get things right most of the time, but it is unclear to me where in the process the circuit breaker exists for me to avoid being deported to El Salvador. This is of course, incredibly unlikely: I'm a blond American and I've never lived anywhere north of the Narragansett or south of the Mason-Dixon. But assuming I was picked up, it's not clear at what point any of that becomes relevant. I don't get a hearing before deportation. Speaking English, or being white, are no guarantee of anything. Once I get to El Salvador, do they give me a hearing?
If there is no functional way for me to assert my citizenship, then my citizenship is of no value, and in order to protect my rights as a citizen I must protect the rights of anyone else from whom it is impossible to distinguish myself. I don't want to live in a country where I must carry an ID card at all times at risk of being sent to a foreign torture prison.
The moral core of the question in my mind is whether El Salvador is acting primarily as the USA's paid jailor, or are they acting as a sovereign choosing to imprison their own citizen. I'm not sure there is a clear answer there.
A little analogy...
I go over to BJJ tonight, an assistant coach is teaching class. During open mat after, one of the three guys at the gym named Tom rolls with me. Tom is a bit of a dirty fighter, and when we're rolling and he's trying to get out of a single leg, he hits me with the old oil check. I shout what the fuck, we yell at each other, I leave. The next day I come back for the morning class, and the gym owner asks me how the Tuesday night class was, I tell him the class was good but Tom fucking oil checked me and that's not why I come here, if it keeps happening I might have to quit. The owner says no, that's fucked, Tom is fucking banned.
Two scenarios from here:
The next day, Tom calls me, and says "Hey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I got too worked up, I'm gonna work on myself and make sure that never happens again. Let me buy you a case of Yuengling as an apology, and maybe we can be friends again?" I might forgive Tom, or I might not, but I'm under no obligation to tell the gym owner to let Tom back in. After all, it's his gym, not mine, I can't make him change his mind, if he feels that behavior is unacceptable even once that's his right.
The next day, Tom2 calls me, and says "Hey, what the fuck dude, I didn't oil check you, I wasn't even there that night, you got me confused with Tom1!" At this point, I definitely have a moral obligation to tell the gym owner to let Tom2 back in, and explain the mistake, and that he shouldn't keep Tom2 out on my account. The gym owner could, of course, ban Tom2 for totally unrelated reasons. It's his gym not mine. But I'm obligated to tell him that he has the wrong Tom.
Which of these scenarios we are in makes the difference for me, morally.
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