Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
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User ID: 732
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1d ago
I'm sure this isn't a consensual opinion given how hot button age gap discourse has become, but it's how I see it.
Let the record show that @IGI-111 plied me with multiple gin-and-tonics, held me down, overpowered me, and forced me to read this opinion. I will be preparing a long and detailed Tumblr post, with accompanying YouTube video, detailing my accusations. Users here will be harshly scrutinized based on how fully and unflinchingly they believe and signal-boost my story.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
There was actually a wide range of opinions about the level of top-down coercion that would be permissible/necessary/useful. Many progressives, as far as I understand, explicitly rejected coercive measures, while others argued that they would be needed, since the populations most in need of eugenic correction would be precisely the ones least likely/able to voluntarily practice it. Some people wanted to limit coercive sterilization only to criminals and psychiatric inmates, while others wanted it practiced far more broadly. It was a sophisticated constellation of issues with a lot of nuance.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
The number of people being actually fully fluent in both languages is currently extremely low (when compared to existing countries with multiple national languages).
Is this true? Perhaps my perspective is skewed by living in San Diego, which is roughly one-third Latino and is deeply integrated with Mexican and Mexican-American culture. I personally know dozens of people who are fully fluent (in the sense of being able to competently converse about a wide range of topics) in both Spanish and English. When it comes to second-generation Latinos in most parts of the country, or at least in the Southwest, my perception is that bilingual fluency is actually very high. Sure, a given individual would probably struggle to write a novel or interpret a dense legal document full of technical jargon, but that’s true of a great many monolingual English speakers as well.
(And in fact in some cases, native Spanish-speaking Latinos may actually be more conversant with the formal grammatical structure of written English than they are with written Spanish, since they learned Spanish as a spoken language growing up, but didn’t receive any formal education in it since they attend English-speaking American public schools.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
2d ago
I'd like to register that both Seder and the young woman didn't come out looking well.
Oh, she came out looking very well. Her ideas…. eh, whatever.
(I would do her, is what I’m getting at.)
The thing is, both she and Seder are correct about “what America is.” Both strains of thought have been equally prominent and influential throughout American history. The people who believe it’s purely a colorblind “propositional nation” of ideas divorced from ancestry need to explain the Naturalization Act of 1790, and why so many of the Founding Fathers — particularly Thomas Jefferson, who was obsessed with the specifically Anglo-Saxon character of America’s founding stock — wrote so much about their race and about the vast differences between themselves and both the Africans and the Amerindians with whom they shared a continent. The people who believe white Christian nativism is core to American history, though, similarly have to deal not only with the strongly universalist rhetoric of many of the Founding Fathers and of the religious denominations in which they were involved, but also the distinct lack of Christian belief among certain others important Founding Fathers.
There have always been lots of Americans who sincerely believe that America was a creedal land of universal promise, in which every immigrant can make good by working hard, and there have always been lots of other Americans who believed that America is an ethnos based, at least in part, on shared ancestral ties to a particular founding stock. America means very different things to different factions, and each of those factions is strongly and sincerely patriotic to its specific conception of what America means. This jockeying for control of the narrative, and the exclusion/suppression of the other side’s narrative, has been going on since before this country even properly began. Neither side in that exchange had any hope of moving the needle on that set of issues — especially considering someone on Twitter deduced that the pretty young right-wing zoomer is from Canada anyway!
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
4d ago
Wait… “Moskau” is by Dschinghis Khan. “Rasputin” is by Boney M. Fake fan!!!
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
4d ago
I said that there is a very loud contingent, not that they represent a majority. (And to be clear, they were much louder and more active a year ago than they are now.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
5d ago
It works fine for me…
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
5d ago
Here’s one from less than two weeks ago, although at less now there are people pushing back on it, in a way that they wouldn’t have a year ago.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
5d ago
I’m sorry, but the discourse about Russia I’ve seen both online and IRL since the very early days of the war (and even some before the invasion began) has gone far past “supporting Ukraine for utilitarian reasons.” I frequent several subreddits dedicated to architecture and classical music, and any time a Russian building is posted — even if it was built hundreds of years before this war — or any time there’s discussion of the great Russian composers, there’s a very loud contingent of people either saying that Russia has no great culture, or else expressing disgust that anyone would post anything that paints any aspect of Russia in a good light.
Speaking of classical music, a year and a half ago I attended the San Diego Symphony’s annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular, which always concludes with the 1812 Overture. When I arrived, I was handed a program with an insert informing me that the orchestra had decided — and not informed its patrons until we arrived at the venue — to omit the 1812 Overture and to perform a music lesser-known (and inferior, although still good) piece by Tchaikovsky because “we feel that it is inappropriate to perform a piece of music that glorifies a Russian military victory, while there are Ukrainians dying every day defending their country from this indefensible invasion.” What the fuck does Tchaikovsky have to do with Putin’s invasion? The overture in question was written to celebrate Russia’s army repelling an invading army! It honors a battle that took place two centuries ago!
What, other than a jingoistic, atavistic, propagandistic hatred of Russia would motivate a decision like this? It’s disconnected from reality and causality. It doesn’t even attempt to provide a consequentialist or utilitarian reason why we have to disfavor aspects of historical Russian culture which were nigh-universally beloved before the current war began? It’s very clear that places like Reddit have decided that since the current fifth-generation warfare paradigm involves psyops, propaganda, and control of social-media messaging, it’s imperative to impose a blanket policy of negativity toward anything Russian or Russia-adjacent in order to aid (in whatever way possible, even if it has no basis in reality) Ukrainian morale and international standing. This goes way beyond just wanting to punish and degrade Russia’s military.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
I dunno, it’s had multiple articles a day for as long as I was reading it. (I finally bailed on the site a few months ago, but I was a regular reader for a few years.)
You have made Malaysia sound very charming! I had already planned to do a combined Singapore-Kuala Lumpur trip at some point in the not-too-distant future, and you’ve inspired me to want to visit more of the country! I’m nowhere remotely as well-traveled as @2rafa, so I’ll almost certainly hit you up for some tips and recommendations once my trip idea actually starts congealing into concrete plans.
(EDIT: I picked a random spot in Malacca on Google Street View, and I’m immediately confronted with a food truck advertising, in English, “Luojia Stinky Tofu.” I am committed to being as adventurous an eater as possible during this trip, but I may have to draw the line at anything where “stinky” is considered a selling point.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
Here are all of the articles he wrote for Counter-Currents, and here are the articles he wrote for the now-defunct AlternativeRight.com.
(And here is Hanania’s own apology post.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
I mean this is pretty much word-for-word the apology offered by Richard Hanania in regards to his past writing for white nationalist publications under the pen name Richard Hoste, and the apology appears to have been broadly accepted. His substack is popular and, as I understand it, widely read among very powerful people in America, and his book (about the need to dismantle and repeal the Civil Rights Act, no less!) doesn’t appear to have suffered any decline in sales as a result of the revelation of his past views. I think an apology seen as sincere because it’s backed up by an observable alteration in behavior is easy for most people to accept in good faith.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
7d ago
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
Yeah that’s fair, I probably did express myself too harshly initially. Probably a better way to frame it would have been, “You have consistently failed to engage effortfully and in good faith with the reasons why people here disagree with you. You haven’t demonstrated a serious approach to discussion.” And in fairness to @justawoman, I did acknowledge that I have had at least one back-and-forth with her which, though I don’t consider it to have been especially fruitful in changing either my mind or hers, at least demonstrated her capability to seriously engage. I think it’s very lamentable that she has elected not to apply that ability to discussions about Ukraine.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
It’s interesting, this is similar to my impression of the 2024 film Civil War. A lot of ink was spilled speculating about the degree to which it was an anti-Trump or anti-right-wing film, and criticizing the implausibility of the different coalitions in the civil war. (“Why are Texas and California allied? Don’t these dummies know that California and Texas are politically opposed to each other?”) When to me the film clearly seemed to want to capture the sense of fish-out-of-water befuddlement that journalists experience covering foreign war zones.
Some American journalist covering a civil war in some random African country is sure to have the same sense of “What the fuck is even happening here? Why is the Kibunda tribe allied with the Yojinga tribe, when all my research says these two groups have longstanding enmity toward each other? Why do any of these groups care about these obscure disputes, and why are they willing to kill each other (and innocents) and wreck their countries over something that, to an outsider, seems petty and incomprehensible?” I think the screenwriter wanted to get Americans to consider that their own country’s internal politics aren’t immune to being seen in this same way. To put it in terms Americans can relate to. Just like with that movie though, it sounds like Far Cry 5 hit a little too close to home and people weren’t able to view if with any sort of distance or detachment from current hot-button issues.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
But if a specific user’s output is consistently unserious, I don’t see an issue with offering commentary on that user as a whole, rather than simply on individual positions they might take. Personally I’m in favor of a bit more of a rough-and-tumble exchange that acknowledges users as having consistent personae over time, rather than just taking shots at individual claims each time.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
Alright, then let me offer a clarification: I think that refusing to engage with the substance of people’s arguments, and instead accusing them of being unwitting stooges of a hostile foreign power, is the mark of someone who is not willing/able to be a serious interlocutor.
I think that probably a lot of your opinions are rooted, ultimately, in your exposure to top-down messaging which I would characterize as, if not overt propaganda, then certainly propaganda-adjacent. I’m sure you think the same of me! However, this does not give me license to simply dismiss those opinions as “regurgitating propaganda” and making a big show of being scandalized by the fact that someone here would dare to express them. If I did so, I think it would be extremely fair to accuse me of not taking the spirit of open debate seriously. And if I did it repeatedly, I think it would be fair to accuse me of not being a serious person generally. Perhaps that would be an insult, but I personally believe it’d be permissible within the rules of this forum because it is directly related to the question of whether you ought to continue to participate. (Not, to be clear, whether or not you ought to be allowed to participate; I’m certainly not calling for you to be banned or censured.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
Yes, of course you can call me unserious! I wouldn’t be offended if you did! (Particularly because I know it’s not an accurate characterization of me, and also because I don’t respect the source!) I don’t interpret the rules of this site as prohibiting any commentary on the quality of a user’s output, provided that said commentary is not egregiously acrimonious or ad hominem.
I’m not saying you’re a bad person, or even that you’re dumb. In the last extended exchange I had with you, while I strongly disagreed with your arguments and I don’t believe you’re conversant with all of the available data, I think it’s fair to say that you engaged in a serious and effortful way. That’s the opposite of what you’re doing now, which is just saying that any discussion of a particular topic you don’t like is tiresome and illegitimate, and threatening to pick up your toys and leave because some people here have the temerity not to share your same visceral aversion to the discussion of those topics. That is corrosive to the purpose and ethos of this forum; me calling you unserious in response is small potatoes in comparison.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
You didn’t even make an argument to critique, though! You just said that any discussion of Ukrainian corruption is ipso facto Russian propaganda. There’s no attempt to justify this with evidence. (Was nobody discussing Ukrainian corruption before Russia said we should? What if there’s counter-evidence of neutral parties acknowledging corruption within the Ukrainian government, regardless of anything that Russia has to say?) There’s no attempt to grapple with why somebody who is not Russia-aligned might independently arrive at the conclusion, based on observable evidence, that Ukraine’s government is corrupt relative to Western standards. It’s just “These conversation topics give me the ick.” That’s not a valuable contribution to this forum.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
I’m sorry, but you are a deeply unserious person. Ukraine was widely recognized as a highly corrupt country (as was Russia) by neutral international observers for a very long time before this war began. It is simply verifiably the case that government in Ukraine, from the federal level on down, features a ton of shady money changing hands, graft, oligarchic patronage, etc. You would easily identify these features as “corrupt” in the Russian context; why are you so willing to excuse or overlook them in a Ukrainian context? It’s completely possible — trivially easy, even — to acknowledge that Ukrainian government was (and still is) corrupt and ineffectual, without thinking Russia is any better or that it gives Russia a legitimate mandate to invade.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
8d ago
By the way, this is one of Trump’s plays I actually support. Canada should be annexed by the US. The completion of Manifest Destiny would be an extraordinary achievement, and any Anglo-Canadian identity that stood out from American identity has, as our dear friend Kulak has chronicled, vanished almost entirely. There is nothing left; might as well join the US.
I find it amusing that you and I both agree that the United States should do something extravagantly impressive and historically novel, but we disagree so strongly on the particulars of what that thing should be. I understand your fondness for empire and for your desire to be a citizen of an imperial core.
However, I think there’s an important dissimilarity between the British Empire of old and what you’re proposing for the American Global Empire: namely, that the British Empire was bringing the genteel Anglo-European culture to places which were genuinely backward and benighted, and whose populace and their posterity stood to gain immeasurably from being annexed by the British.
When you lament America losing its grip on Europe, though, or you long for the American annexation of Canada, you’re talking about the conquest and vassalization of civilizations which are, at worst, at the same level of civilizational development as America. I understand that America is richer than the U.K. and Canada, and perhaps you think that alone is evidence enough of American superiority that it justifies geopolitical domination of those countries. In terms of American cultural output, I don’t think what America is putting out into the world is generally impressive or indicative of a culture that the rest of the world ought to want to emulate or be absorbed into. Even leaving aside our repellently boorish president — a man about whose personal qualities you and I seem to be in resounding agreement — the culture we’re exporting to the world right now is, largely, vulgar and soulless trash: Marvel movies, The Fast & The Furious, race-swapped remakes of blockbusters from the 80’s, and hip-hop culture. These are not the artifacts of a civilization which deserves to rule the world and lord over other white first-worlders.
Like, I’m not some blanket Europhile who thinks all things European are sophisticated and all things American are crude. But it’s tough to see Donald Trump of all people talking down to valuable allies who are ailing — due in part, yes, to the fecklessness of their leaders, a state of affairs which can be reversed, and without Trump’s interference. If anything he’s making it much less likely that these countries will want to be more culturally and politically integrated with America. He’s highlighting differences and exacerbating the instinctive resistance to vassalization which the people of these countries still feel viscerally. I don’t want America to be like imperious Britain imposing the Raj on the benighted Indians; I want countries to be lining up to voluntarily integrate into it, because the example it sets is so undeniably great and impressive that they can’t fail to recognize the better deal that awaits them in America’s embrace. Trump’s shambolic bullying and lowbrow populism are the last things I would expect the leader of such a country to lead with in its outreaches to the rest of the world. If America does eventually annex Canada it will be a welcome reconciliation — perhaps by an American president married to a Canadian woman and with deep cultural ties to both countries, highlighting our nations’ shared past and shared future. It won’t be by idiot Donald Trump braying incoherently about fentanyl.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9d ago
It’s unfortunate because I don’t think most of the content they’re posting is even particularly inflammatory. Sure, it’s ideologically unpleasant for the majority of commenters here, but there’s nothing inherently inflammatory about anti-Trump content. I thought that many of the posters in questions brought up very salient and valuable points, and that a strongly and well-argued anti-Trump perspective is sorely lacking in this community. It’s a real pity that so many of the individuals who come here to post such content appear to either have ulterior motives, or to otherwise be unwilling to stick it out and defend their positions in a persistent manner.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
9d ago
Yes, but would those corporations all actually coordinate in suppressing all anti-war or anti-conscription content? Im not sure that they would. I suppose in theory it depends on the war. If the U.S. declared war on Iran, for example, in order to protect Israel, I cannot imagine platforms like Reddit and TikTok all getting into lockstep and suppressing all content skeptical of the legitimacy of that war. These platforms are currently full of content hostile to Israel and to American adventurism in the Middle East; it would represent a very abrupt 180-degree turn if they suddenly started censoring such content.
Now, your original claim was about the likelihood that the British government could get young men to comply with a draft to fight Russia. You probably have a much stronger argument in favor of that narrow and specific claim; the extent to which media platforms have been able to gin up jingoistic hatred of Russia has been very eye-opening to me, and it didn’t even require lockstep, heavy-handed, coordinated suppression of contrary viewpoints. Do you believe that these same platforms could just as easily inculcate the same level of jingoism and bellicosity toward another non-Russia country such as China, though?
Here is footage of Arbery being arrested in 2017 for attempting to shoplift a television with a group of teens. Greg McMichael had worked on a shoplifting investigation of Arbery in his capacity as an investigator for the Brunswick County District Attorney’s office.
You’re correct that as far as I’m aware there is no concrete evidence that Arbery was the one responsible for the theft of items from the construction site in question, but there had been a recent spate of thefts in the area, including from that site, and Arbery had been caught fleeing from the site late at night during a prior confrontation. The McMichaels absolutely did have specific reasons to suspect Arbery of attempting to commit burglary.
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