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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   2944 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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☁ INAUGURATION THREAD ☁

I was going to post this to encourage Americans to participate in our show of civic unity. Let the messages of unity and American exceptionalism wash over you. Pay no mind to the commentators muttering about President Biden's last-minute preemptive pardons, or to the persistence of each Democrat speaker in reminding everyone that the Constitution exists and definitely binds the hands of the executive, too.

Kavanaugh has sworn in VP Vance. Now for the President.

Here's to four uneventful years. May the new administration succeed in delivering on their promises.

Edit: some of these promises kind of suck. I sure hope we don't do anything stupid over the Panama Canal.

I sure hope we don't do anything stupid over the Panama Canal.

Carter already did something stupid over the panama canal - this would be just correcting his mistake.

Yeah, was going to say the U.S. already fought a war in Panama in the modern era. It was over in a few weeks.

Obviously there are some other parties who might object to the U.S. controlling it this time. But I think there's probably a solution that falls far short of warfare here.

The US could offer Panama statehood. We'd get the canal and a quarter of global shipping.

Here's to hoping that the next four years do indeed make America great again, again. And we manage to dredge some unity and goodwill out of our desiccated corpse.

For all that we complain, I always ask people: if not the United States, where would you go? And where would you invest? Whatever my family and friends say, they're still investing in American securities. They're mostly still working in the USA. The opportunity here in most fields in unrivaled.

And to paraphrase Curtis Yarvin, I'll bet you 50$ that if you look around your neighborhood, you'll notice 0 changes over the next 4 years attributable to Donald Trump.

I love the United States! We're the fucking best. Almost everywhere else sucks by comparison and even the places that are pretty good are on such a small scale that they're more akin to nice states than major nations. Nonetheless, being the best doesn't ensure that there isn't just a secular decline in quality of life across the world, which is what I think would happen if the Pax Americana recedes. To that end, I hope we do reassert our authority with a Monroe Doctrine style of foreign policy.

And to paraphrase Curtis Yarvin, I'll bet you 50$ that if you look around your neighborhood, you'll notice 0 changes over the next 4 years attributable to Donald Trump.

We could talk about deportations, but on a small scale, I do credit Trump for appointing Supreme Court justices that sided with Grants Pass. Cities not being able to stop bums from camping in parks really would be a pretty terrible outcome that would be immediately obvious to everyone involved. They may or may not realize what the cause of that effect is, but pretty much everyone would notice bums camping in parks freely.

I always ask people: if not the United States, where would you go? And where would you invest?

Unless you tethered by your job, live elsewhere where it's cheap but always invest in 'Big Tech'. Nothing beats tech as far as returns are concerned or Bay Area real estate. But otherwise, America is too expensive and you can save tons of money living aboard and than using the saved $ to invest in FAAMNG.

Unless you tethered by your job

What about friends? Family? Your bond to the land?

I can never understand this mindset of just being freely floating without any ties besides where you work...

Sure but why would a U.S. company hire you to telecommute from Europe for U.S. wages? Why not just hire a European for European wages?

The U.S. is downright cheap compared to other countries when you factor in the wage gap.

To put things in perspective, if you earn 68,877 euros, you are 95th percentile in France. 99th percentile is 115,313 euros. You will also pay half of it in taxes. Europe is much poorer than Americans think.

I'll bet you 50$ that if you look around your neighborhood, you'll notice 0 changes over the next 4 years attributable to Donald Trump.

I'll take that bet, but only if "Vance/Desantis 2028" yard signs and flags count as a change, since I think that would easily be 'attributable' to Donald Trump. As far as Material changes, go, I have a few Hispanic neighbors, its entirely possible some of the are here illegally, so if they get removed and housing prices in the neighborhood go down due to fewer migrants in the South Florida area generally that can probably be attributed to Trump as well.

Note: I like my neighbors so I'm not going to be the one calling ICE.

I'm not sure how many people were watching compared to the Inauguration proper, but right after the end of the Inauguration ceremony, Trump went downstairs to the 'Emancipation Hall' inside the Capitol to give a second speech to his supporters -- it was 33 minutes, vs. 29 minutes for his official Inaugural, and it was basically a mash-up of his stump speech with improvised riffing on the news of the day (Biden's last-minute 11th-and-a-half hour pardons of his family and political supporters). More importantly, Trump said that his staff & advisors told him he couldn't say certain things in his official Inaugural, so now he gets a chance to say all of them, which makes this a kind of Inaugural 2.0. I honestly don't know what to make of it, and I expect that this speech might actually overshadow the Inaugural Address itself (especially since Trump said he thought that the 2.0 speech was a better speech than the official speech upstairs!)

I genuinely have no idea what to make of this.

Will he give hit bitcoin and 'tech people' what they want?

The official speech was a teleprompter speech, was pre-written, and as usual Trump hated every second of giving it.

The 2.0 speech was largely impromptu, involved Trump talking from his head, and had his actual energy.

Trump is an engaging off-the-cuff speaker, and a terrible, terrible speech reader. And he knows this, which is why he hates pre-written speeches.

Watching Biden during the innaguration, I felt bad for him. He looks terrible.

There's no way this man has been running the country. I'm just glad he's out -- for his sake -- so his wife and his son and his handlers can no longer pour piss on his reputation in his name. Watching him leave the ceremony, I just wanted to give him a hug. May God have mercy on him, and may his sickness and his humiliation in public life be unto him a participation in cross of Christ, a call to repentance that leads to eternal life.

Oddly, I had a dream last night: that in his final speech Biden closed by saying something like I "resign myself," or I "recuse myself" or I "deny myself" or something like that. The man was a senator forever, and the VP to a president popular with his party and a large segment of the country; now his reputation will forever be that of a sick old man pushed out by his own party and his own president.

He could have retired after Obama, and just coasted on the reputation his association with Obama gave him. But politicians are like TV shows: they run until they're cancelled, not until they're finished. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword, and he who lives seeking power will be destroyed by it.

https://www.murdoch-murdoch.net/html/wb/inauguration-day.html

Can non-Americans engage in civic divisiveness?

By the power invested in me by the ghost of George Washington that came to me in a dream last night, I proclaim you an American for one (1) day. Enjoy the complimentary American flag cake and bald eagle. Don't forget to leave all civic divisiveness at the door.

Don't forget the AR-15 and ticket to Dollywood.

Jeez at least give him some fireworks.

and one (1) gallon of genuine iowa high-fructose corn syrup.

Give us your trolls, your bots, your huddled masses yearning to post freely, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Found the Russian bot.

Days like this I kinda wish I was still on Reddit because I couldn't resist telling them how badly they screwed up for things to get this far and reminding them how utterly powerless they are to stop what is coming (whatever that is, I can't even say for sure), and if they had an ounce of self-awareness and the ability to reflect, this might cause them to change some of their beliefs about the world but no, they will be stuck in a cycle of learned helplessness because they can't even exit the echo chamber that has rendered them completely incapable of interfacing with the reality on the ground, and the beliefs 'normal' people hold anymore.

And also Sotomayor has a decent chance of dying or retiring in the next 3 years so lol enjoy having that shoe waiting to drop the entire time.

I'm not really sadistic, but that site has really become a pustulent sore on the Internet's face. I want to keep poking it until it pops. At least 4chan has the decency to stay hidden on the internet's ass.

I was pretty nervous but everyone remained civil. I hope that we can keep that civility for the years to come.

I was hoping he'd announce an executive order putting the whole country back onto year-round Standard Time.

Paging @DuplexFields. As previously discussed, you owe me a mea culpa.

The predictions I made:

  1. Court case - they tried, but realized any sentence for “feloniously committing a misdemeanor” would be a bridge too far.
  2. rent a mob - there are demonstrations in D.C. but the inauguration was moved indoors.
  3. assassination attempt number three - the inauguration was moved indoors.

Thanks for reminding me that the blackpill mentality is extremely online and conspiracy-focused; mea culpa.

I don't think you were wrong to make the predictions, but try to give a confidence estimate next time for sanity checking purposes.

And props for taking the outcome with good humor.

This is a man who doesn't forget his debts... noted!

I loved Trump listing Americas accomplishments. Bring back patriotism! We have so much to be proud of as a nation.

We're going to dig deeper into this speech, but first, I think we want to hear Carrie Underwood...

Thanks, CBS. You have captured the American ethos.

One thing that stands out: President Trump is a much better speaker than either of the Congressmen or even the commentators. He hasn't been filling space with an "um" or an "ah." Since we can't see the original text, I don't know if he's sticking to the script, but I'd be willing to bet it's improvisation.

Oh yeah he's an incredible orator. I am so happy to have some good pomp back. Most Congressmen and Senators and even the priests (ugh) were terrible at speaking.

he's a professional public speaker and rehearsed it

I naively expected that to apply to sitting Senators.

Sitting senators have generally not run a competitive race in quite a while.

It's beautiful hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, seeing soldiers march to it. Same with Glory, Glory Hallelujah. I can't imagine how incredible these songs would've been when they were written, back when most people believed deeply in the Republic, and in God.

Definitely moved me.

Didn't catch that, but the (impromptu?!) a capella America the Beautiful by Carrie Underwood was delightful. Hearing the crowd sing along like a proper church hymn gave me a little thrill.

impromptu

Hah yeah, whoever was in charge of the music is (hopefully) getting fired. Super embarrassing for a mistake like that to happen at such an important event.

Fun fact, here it's been turned into a Christmas song (trigger warning: sung by a 13 year old Céline Dion).

Also a Japanese nursery rhyme (TW: exactly what you would expect, dead_dove.gif)

And the jingle for a Japanese camera shop chain.

A Finnish nursery rhyme, too.

I wanted to add another song with that music to the list, but Johnny Rebel apparently has an exclusive contract with Apple music.

It's beautiful hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, seeing soldiers march to it. Same with Glory, Glory Hallelujah.

Uh, isn’t the latter just (part of) the chorus of the former?

oh maybe idk

Couldn't agree more. High point of the ceremony, probably because no one was speaking.

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