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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1172 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 23, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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The President of Columbia seems to be having a meltdown on twitter over Trump sending people back to Columbia: https://x.com/petrogustavo/status/1883624818811236502

Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighbourhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.

I don't like your oil, Trump, you're going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.

You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.

Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take refuge in its African songs.

There's not really much point quoting individual parts, it's all just the most deranged stuff I've ever seen from a serious politician. No, I don't think Columbia can claim heritage from Ancient Egypt. I really don't understand why these small weak countries make such a big fuss on the world stage. "We are peoples of the winds and mountains" isn't so great compared to the peoples of the armies, markets and missiles.

There's probably more that can be unearthed from the implications of 'blacks and Latinos should be working together... in fights in the US capital' comment too, you get a glimpse into the minds of these people.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombias-petro-will-not-allow-us-planes-return-migrants-2025-01-26/

Trump is also playing the cringe-diplomacy game:

"These measures are just the beginning," he wrote. "We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!"

He later posted a picture of himself on Truth Social in a pinstripe suit and a fedora in front of a sign reading FAFO, a common slang acronym for "Fuck Around and Find Out".

How many years until presidents are tweeting soyjaks at eachother?

Edit: Trump victory: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/26/politics/colombia-tariffs-trump-deportation-flights/index.html

The egypt thing according to twitter's translate is

My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.

which appears to be a reference to the Quimbaya goldsmiths whose artifacts date back to ~500 BC. Beautiful work and the pharaohs ruled until Cleopatra, so he's correct. Were the Chiribiquete natives the first artists? Probably not, but their rock paintings were pre-history so close enough.

where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades

What the hell is he referring to here? The Floyd riots?

Deranged ranting on Twitter can make you a whole-ass US president, so presumably it will be adopted as a strategy by politicians all around the world (possibly adjusting for other social medias according to local popularity).

Deranged ranting on Twitter can make you a whole-ass US president

Deranged ranting can make you a national leader generally.

Trump looked a lot less cringe to me. The Colombian president looks deranged, in denial about the massive differences in wealth between Colombia and the United States (it's a bit boring -- really? Is that the takeaway?), and obsessed with applying the racial dynamics of his country to a country it's clear he barely understands. He's trying to be serious, and lobbing all the rhetorical force he has at Trump.

Meanwhile Trump posts a silly picture of himself and restates his position. The point is that Trump thinks the Colombians' posture isn't even worth seriously responding to; he's posting a soyjack in response to a passionate claim of blood and soil. Per internet rules, the one who cares the least wins.

I agree that Trump behaved much better. But I want to go back to the days when diplomacy was conducted by professionals and genuine experts (not whatever neocon idiot can grease enough palms). Leaders should maintain dignity and decorum, internet rules shouldn't apply.

But I want to go back to the days when diplomacy was conducted by professionals and genuine experts (not whatever neocon idiot can grease enough palms).

Was there ever such a period, and did it ever produce better results than what we see now?

Kennan used to have some influence in US foreign policy and he got almost everything right, only he wasn't really listened to except for one time. It's like economics, there are some schools of thought that are just better than others. Austrians aren't perfect but they're better than Maoists. In foreign policy, realists are the most accurate analysts but are usually unpopular and uncharismatic compared to liberals and constructivists. They were the ones behind all these spreading-democracy and regime-change wars that realists usually opposed from day 1.

To add on to what Campfire said, we are arguably at this point because the dignity and decorum of old was practiced by professionals who were those exact same palm-greasing neocon fools you complain about. The modern mean-tweeting style simply exposes the rot that was always under the surface.

If people have become disaffected from dignity and decorum, there's probably a reason why. It might not be a great reason, but it's worth pondering.

Yet another illegal immigrant who should've been expelled long ago went out and stabbed a child to death. Just our weekly bit of cultural enrichment here in Germany. This week it was in Aschaffenburg, not that it means anything to anyone. I for one have no idea where that is.

But wait, it's federal election time! The chancellor, leader of our much-maligned tripartite coalition government, recently called a vote of no-confidence and promptly got it. So now everyone is campaigning, and our conservative CDU party, led by the very un-merkelian Friedrich März Merz, is calling for blood stricter immigration laws and faster deportations. This kind of thing obviously does not sit right with the left-green parties, so it's a non-starter that can't make it through parliament.

...unless all the non-green-left members of parliament support it. Including those of the far-right AfD party. Cooperation with whom is a strict no-no for absolutely everyone above the municipal level. You can get figuratively shot and your political career ended just for getting the AfD's support by accident. Actually coordinating with them, or just talking to them, is absolutely verboten. They're normally not even allowed on public TV talk shows. We call it the "firewall".

And now the big thing in the papers is this: März said he'd do the right thing, walk the right path, "no matter who comes along". Is the firewall about to fall? Will the CDU actually accept the AfD's support? Are they perhaps even in actual talks with each other?

Friedrich März

Suspicious that you write Merz with an Umlaut.

Honestly I just wrote by ear, and "Merz" or "März", sounding the same, is usually encountered in the context of the month of March "März", so I instinctively went with that one.

But if you like, we can treat it as suspicious. I just don't know what it is you might suspect.

Who are you voting for this election? I'm having a really hard time deciding. Usually I go for the fringe pseudo libertarian loser parties like bündnis deutschland or partei der vernunft for vote signalling purposes.

I'm fairly ignorant of the day to day political discourse and shit slingings. I dont know of a single good german non-midwit political analysis source. Mrwissen2go only gets me so far. Which party would scott alexander endorse?

AfD, without a doubt. I'm an FDP member, but right now Germany doesn't need reasonable miniature reformers who make some reasonable tweaks here and there to maybe let the average Michel have a few more coins jingle in his pocket by the end of next year. Germany needs strong fucking medicine, needs to have the leftist mind-viruses that have plagued it for the last half-century blasted out of it, needs the overton window rammed back into a less exasperatingly retarded position, and as quickly as possible. We can already see some success in this - strong words from the CDU, the FDP reconsidering in how far its progressivism needs to be aligned with that of the left, and even the leftist parties aren't so sure of themselves anymore. It's small potatos for now; too early to stop administering the bitter medicine. But it is working. It needs to do more work. And if the only thing that can scare the other parties straight is the AfD, then the AfD it will have to be.

It may take another twenty years. It may fail to have the desired effect. But right now I want Germany to put up a fight against its internal enemies, those who hate it and those who opportunistically see it as a mere economic zone, and this is the only way. If the only ones who will stand up for it are the neo-nazis and their suit-wearing front-pieces, be they in Russian pockets, be they dumb as bricks, be they the second coming of Hitler himself, then come hell or high water, they have my vote.

Also, there is still, after so many years, a giant graffiti on a large piece of public infrastructure right in view of my window, ordering people to give not a single vote to the AfD. They tried to mess with the wrong contrarian.

That seems like a fairly strong argument. Out of curiosity I hopped over to the r/de subreddit. The vibe shift in regards to immigrants has definitely happened there. Not /r/canada but discussing issues caused by immigration is no longer verboten.

The economy though? Im a doomer when it comes to the economic zoning, as you put it, i think its an inevitable future. The only shot i have is being able to afford to live in a nice gated community with legal schnitzel and weißwurst.

Forget the actual leftists, among even my most intelligent thoughtful and moderate peers at my uni, they all pray to moloch. "Just a few more regulations and better allocated welfare subsidies, if only deutsche bahn wasnt so underfunded and we need to put more taxpayer money in critical government approved research and tech investment!"

The fdp suffers from this knob fiddling approach to governence too. And if you have a state full of german cog workers that probably works. The german mind cannot comprehend the permanent dysfunction of what weve imported.

I just dont see an actual way out. In the anglo countries at least they have a some ideological tools to discuss productivity and immigration.

Germans are so hyperfocused on the small in absolute terms amounts of violence that some groups generate and not on how were crafting a parallel society for a resentful underclass. Huge ethnic Differences between mittelschule and gymnasium attendance of groups will cause huge problems.

It would be hilarious if the most wishy-washy establishment party anywhere, ever, broke the cordon sanitaire around the AfD.

The Union is still more right-wing than the Tories, honestly.

The president of South Africa has signed a law to allow for land expropriation.

BBC article

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law a bill allowing land seizures by the state without compensation—a move that has put him at odds with some members of his government.

[The law] replaces the pre-democratic Expropriation Act of 1975, which placed an obligation on the state to pay owners it wanted to take land from, under the principle of "willing seller, willing buyer".

The new law allows for expropriation without compensation only in circumstances where it is "just and equitable and in the public interest" to do so. This includes if the property is not being used and there's no intention to either develop or make money from it or when it poses a risk to people.

I just checked several German newspapers, and all I found about Südafrika was...whales attacking sharks?

BBC article

Thailand has been ahead on gender-fluidity (lady boys) and sex-in-public-life (mature prostitution industry) for a while now.

Non-christian nations are less bothered by change which has frictions with christian conservatism. India is comfortable with MTF transitioners. Pahadi muslims are comfortable with gay-sex (as long as you dont call it gay sex). Japanese have widespread tolerance for cheating.

Loyal monogamous heterosexual marriage matters matters most to Anglo Christians.

Do have a theory as to why that might be? I'm struck that, even if not quite as strong, norms around marriage as a theoretically faithful, male-female bond do seem to have arisen all around the world.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one: most people are naturally heterosexual monogamists. They quickly pair bond and prefer living with a long-term partner to the alternative.

Social norms reinforce this model, because it works - both for achieving social stability (groups of single young men are dangerous) and for getting the most children to adulthood (the father being present is a huge advantage).

All baser instincts are a threat to this model, so there's an expectation that they are suppressed (or at least kept secret).

Well, yes, I agree, but then I'm inclined to natural law arguments in the first place. There is a telos to human sexuality which is discernible from nature and implicitly known to almost every human culture, despite occasional deviation. We can cash that out in either evolutionary or moral terms, but it seems fairly evident to me.

This position is naturally consistent with Christian theology (it is in fact the traditional Christian position), but it would cut against the idea of any kind of 'Christian exceptionalism', where male-female monogamy is a unique Christian innovation, rather than a Christian re-statement of a universal principle. Hence my asking the question - if male-female monogamy is unique to Anglo Christians, why isn't it, well, unique? Why does the same pattern recur globally, even in very isolated cultures and communities?

The alternative - that, ironically enough, the Christians are right and it's a human universal - seems to make more sense to me.

it would cut against the idea of any kind of 'Christian exceptionalism', where male-female monogamy is a unique Christian innovation, rather than a Christian re-statement of a universal principle

This idea is a bit foreign to me, are there people actually arguing that?

Monogamous marriages are much older than Christianity. Ancient Greek and Roman societies universally had monogamous marriages (in the sense that marriage was between one husband and one wife, and men were not allowed to have concubines living in their household). The entirety of the old testament describes pretty much only monogamous marriages for commoners (and royals pretty much did what they wanted anywhere, anytime - including in Christian kingdoms much later).

This idea is a bit foreign to me, are there people actually arguing that?

Well, someone just upthread for a start.

I don't assert that everybody in every culture throughout all of history has had exactly traditional Christian beliefs on sexual morality. Demonstrably it is not universal human consensus that marriage is an objective reality constituted by the decision of a single man and single woman to form a faithful, sexually exclusive lifelong bond oriented towards the begetting and raising of new life; and I'd argue that there are some ways in which the early Christian understanding of sexual morality was revolutionary.

However, I assert that in broad strokes, it appears to be relatively universal that humans form monogamous male-female pair bonds in order to raise children, and while there are forms of alternative sexual behaviour that we often see in history (polygamy and homosexuality being likely the most common), the universality of the male-female parenting unit, and likewise its universal recognition in social institutions either equivalent or roughly analogous to marriage, is apparent. (It is perhaps also relevant that polygamous relationships typically have been understood as marriage, but same-sex relationships have not; the possibility of children is the most obvious explanation for that difference.) What the consequences of that observation should be for our understanding of sexual morality today is, of course, a controversial question, but I can see no way to evade the observation itself.

That is, for better or for worse, marriage, by which I mean sexually exclusive long-term male-female pair bonds, appears to not just be a quirk of Christian or Abrahamic culture. It's widespread enough that I think it must be understood as either part of human nature itself, or as an inevitable consequence of human biology and evolutionary history in the environmental context of this planet.

I doubt you disagree with me on that, but I might as well state it as clearly as I can in my own terms!

This idea is a bit foreign to me, are there people actually arguing that?

"Arguing" is giving it too much credit. There actually are people (generic everyday wokes, leftists-by-default, young women who want to maximally exploit their sexual market value right now damn the consequences) who reflexively claim as much, but it's strictly arguments as soldiers. Christianity, the Patriarchy and Capitalism are to blame for absolutely everything ever, no need to explain or differentiate, and obviously the natural state of things is some utopian vision of free love, don't you know that Science has proven it (i.e., she once read a magazine article that vaguely gestured at studies)?

This may sound uncharitable, but I have encountered it often enough.

If there’s really 96.6% public support, I’m just shocked it took this long.

That actually leads to a question that I wish would be asked more often -

Why isn't gay marriage the default?

There's an argument you sometimes hear from Western progressives that goes "there is literally no argument against it" - that is, gay marriage is so much of a no-brainer that failure to affirm it isn't even wrong so much as it is utterly nonsensical. If asked as to why it hasn't already been the case, a common answer is to blame Abrahamic religion and specifically Christianity. (Just above we see a variant of that answer.)

But if so, then why isn't gay marriage the historical default, and exclusive male-female marriage the weird aberration? Why haven't China or India had gay marriage for thousands of years? Why didn't the Persians, or the Mongols, or the Bantu, or the Mississippians? Suppose that poll is accurate - what's going on in Thailand, that not only did it not have gay marriage last year, but it also didn't have it for centuries?

Historically, marriage has pretty much always been primarily about child-rearing, which of course requires both a man and a woman, rather than pair-bonding, as most people see it today. In any society with that view, gay marriage is a ridiculous notion.

For the ancient Greeks, the highest love was that between two men (or a man and a boy) of equally high virtue. Those friendships were committed, largely lifelong, and frequently sexual, but they existed alongside opposite-sex marriages. The Romans weren’t quite as gay as the Greeks, but they generally didn’t see anything wrong with a freeman having sex with another man as long as he was the active partner (nobody cared what slaves got up to). Nevertheless, when Nero married two men (in one case as the active, and in another as the passive partner), all of Rome was appalled. If memory serves, we have other surviving sources ridiculing other purported same-sex marriages from that time as well.

Christians of course inherited the Jews’ extremely negative views on homosexuality, but even they saw clear differences between (chaste) same-sex friendships and marriage, usually extolling friendship as being the higher love. I believe St. Jerome even once wrote that marriage was only good because it produced children for the next generation of friendships to form. But the ancient Christians never condemned same-sex marriage because it just wasn’t a thing.

My understanding is that most Asian societies also didn’t really care about what sexual practices people got up to outside of marriage, as long as they also did their duty and had children within marriage (monks were of course excluded and apparently had a reputation for same-sex behavior).

Moving to the Middle East, even today in Afghanistan, there’s a saying that “women are for children and boys are for fun” (or something along those lines), which further emphasizes the universality of that link.

It seems to have been only in the past 150 years or so (at least in the Anglo world) that marriage began to be seen as obviously higher than mere friendship, and that the bond between husband and wife was seen as so special. I don’t know why that trend started, but I wonder if it might have had something to do with Victorian England’s strict anti-homosexuality laws leading to a de-emphasis on same-sex friendships just to be safe. Whatever the reason, that special bond started to redefine marriage. Once the Sexual Revolution and the pill severed the link between marriage and sex, and between sex and procreation, the common perception of marriage changed finally and completely. Now marriage is all about “the love of my life” and “marrying my best friend,” and all the tangled emotions that come with it. No-fault divorce helped here too, since it meant that the only thing keeping a marriage together—the only thing that actually mattered—was the emotional high of “being in love” with another human being. Once the high goes away, the marriage is dead, since those two are seen as completely synonymous. (Kids in such marriages are like houses, an asset to be divided when the marriage inevitably fails.)

With that redefined understanding of marriage, it’s completely arbitrary to restrict it to heterosexual pairings only. Two men or two women can love each other just as deeply as a man and a woman, and since that’s all that matters in a marriage, there’s no reason to deny it to them.

Now, take that final product, export it with McDonald’s, Elvis, and Levi’s, and you eventually redefine marriage for the rest of the world.

Ugh beautifully said but it’s so depressing. I miss the days of intense friendship, and I never even lived them.

A lot of it too I think is parents pressuring children to beget children. More so in the past, a larger family is stronger than a smaller number of family members. So while dalliances of the same-sex variety aren't extremely persecuted you still want your homosexual offspring to marry an opposite biological sex to make the family stronger.

I'm not completely sure on this point, but with same-sex marriage inheritances can fall out of the family easier with the spouse as an heir, something that could occur with opposite-sex marriages but those also have the chance of biological offspring.

Why isn't gay marriage the default?

Because most people aren't gay, and most gay activity doesn't naturally converge on consistent pair bonding as an eventual requirement (involuntary reproduction isn't a risk in gay relationships, obviously).

I don't think it's much more complex than that.

I can't say that I'm surprised that a country which has been famous for its Ladyboys for decades has legalised gay marriage. They're clearly not that conservative when it comes to sex.

They also have a TFR of 0.95, one of the lowest in the world, the same as Singapore.

It may well be cohesive, but Thailand is certainly not a conservative place. It's going extinct with the same liberal modernity as everywhere else.

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