domain:greyenlightenment.com
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
21m ago
Normal human being don't really give a shit how things are run and go with the flow. In fact that's what so unnatural about liberal democracy is this constant demand of permanent and tiresome involvement in public affairs of a whole nation.
It's psychosis at this point. Youths gunning down public speakers is not the healthy marketplace of ideas that liberals envisioned.
People would be happier dealing with their local affairs. Moreover I believe both that the HRE was far less alienating than modern Germany to individual human existence and that this is not a tradeoff against technological progress.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
26m ago
I seem to recall that in at least one of the alleged Discord group[s?], someone thought the photo looked like him and they joked about it. That implies that at least that group more broadly wasn't aware. I presume it's possible a Discord friend helped him on a more individual basis, but nothing other than maybe the questioner really required any help. In fact, he literally used a drop spot for the rifle, so I'd assume an actual accomplice would have been ready to grab it - actually would have been smart, or even worked, since no cameras covered the area and the other person would have looked different, though transportation would still be risky. Kirk's last questioner was interviewed and seemed innocent to me, despite affiliation with a group that usually hounds Kirk with gotchas allegedly he wasn't doing so on that particular day, though I supposed given the context and timing it's possible (OTOH, it's a right-wing AMA, of course guns are going to come up and probably trans issues too at some point no matter who has the mic).
The texts suggest that he really thought there was a good chance he'd get away with it. He was maybe loosely correct, but criminals of all types often forget that they have more human connections, even when loners, than you might think. Plus witnesses are everywhere in a manhunt, and he seems to literally not have planned for cameras (I mean come on dude, there are ALWAYS cameras somewhere, and an accomplice probably would have said as much). The grandpa recognized the rifle, and at least three people that we know of instantly thought it looked like him based on the pictures only.
The lone caveat then is I don't think we were told exactly how he got back home to Washington county - one report I believe mentioned a vehicle, but it wasn't clear if they actually matched its location to anywhere relevant that day, or found out where he parked, etc. I suppose someone could have driven him?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
41m ago
Do you think that a mommy-mentality or "egalitarian therapy culture" would have been more effective in terms of pure politics?
It might be a question of methods. I think to most Democrats being a good person for selfless and societal reasons was part of the messaging, but were they "gentle and firm"? Seems to me that the mainstream left decided that shame and blame was more effective. They were, of course, almost completely wrong on medium- and long-term time horizons, though not the short-term one.
However, it's undeniable that some parts of his plan did get implemented. When he says "government is about 'necessities' – health, education, housing, protection, jobs with living wages, and so on – not about “programs.” Economic success lies in human well-being, not in stock prices, or corporate and bank profits" that does sound pretty familiar to me! Another weak point: he theorizes that it's impossible to be all talk but no action. He says "language use, over and over, affects how citizens understand policy choices, which puts pressure on legislators, and ultimately affects what policies are chosen," but is that really true? Did a shifted linguistic landscape around housing, education, health, jobs, etc. lead to matching policies? Biden Democrats would say yes, but that they simply were too modest to take credit (or that people were too dumb to give them that credit). I kind of think no, and that's where maybe it all falls apart for me - I don't think I'm really a Lakoff acolyte. Messaging does frame the issue, but I don't think I buy the value-shift theory. Or to be more precise, backlash from a mismatch between values and action (even if perceived and not truly real) overwhelms any incremental gains provided by the linguistic landscape of the fight. As I like to say, betrayal is actually one of the most powerful emotions (and voters are really fairly good at sniffing out bullshit).
Yet I wonder. DO we in fact have a shifted attitude toward some of these issues? Health care yes! Conservatives were very resistant to "health care is a human right" but I think that attitude is everywhere now. People are less sympathetic to corporations, even if deregulation still has lots of appeal. Social spending they maybe even went backwards; he says "Social Security and Medicare are earned" but today that reads like a GOP talking point. I assume he's pretty unhappy with the current landscape, although I don't really know - but if so, who does he blame? Centrists, or progressives?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1hr ago
Horseshoe theory suggests that there actually were some significant similarities between the Communist and Nazi methods and tactics, and there were, though of course you could argue all day about how much was deliberate or temporary vs inevitable due to their opposing radical positions. And, you know, although they didn't outright nationalize industries they did adopt a sort of command economy... although war quickly messed up the politics from its "natural" internal course, and it's not like the regime lasted so long outside of war, so I really don't see it as a fair trial of his point. (Also, it's not like there were lots of fair elections either in that narrow pre-war period we can look at)
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1hr ago
Though Atta was 33 and engaged to be married. Leaders have different demographics to foot soldiers, and thank God that the forces driving American domestic political violence don't appeal to potential leaders.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1hr ago
Probably not? Not no? Like maybe you could see an argument justifying their murders over cartoons? That's disgusting mate.
I'm hoping you were just caught up in couching because it's the motte, because 'they deserve to get their faces punched in' is a more respectable position than that by several orders of magnitude, and I assume anyone who disagrees has never had their face punched in.
lurker
1hr ago
If you actually read anything hitlers ever said, you quickly realize that he lifted his language and vocabulary pretty much directly from that eras communist rhetoric. Going by this guys thesis, thus the nazi's should've slowly drifted towards communist policies and been continually losing elections to communists because they used a communist frame.
I make no attempt to hide my disdain for people who advocate for these kind of language games.
No_one
1hr ago
Let's not forget Ryan Routh who camped out for 9+ hours in bushes next to Trump's favorite golf course with a rifle, waiting. He is 59.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1hr ago
To me, the most interesting point is how Lakoff's programme interacted the change in what the left-wing project was about between then and now.
In 2011, centre-left politicians thought they were in politics to deliver rising material standards of living for the bottom 99%. The activist base had started to shift to social issues (the tipping point was the failure of Occupy in late 2011) but the establishment wouldn't for a few more years. The frame that Lakoff was telling the Democrats to adopt was to fully lean into their role as the Mummy Party. (It isn't in the excerpt above, but Lakoff explicitly said was that the correct frame was that the nation was a family and the State was a "nurturant parent"). Of the six points, 2 is "accept support from successful businessmen who offer it", 4, and 5 are "git gud" and 1, 3, and 6 are "always talk like Mummy, talking like Daddy only benefits the Daddy party".
What actually happened is that the broader left-wing ecosystem of which the Democratic Party is part did embrace the spirit of points 1 and 3. They did organise around a single morality, optimise their communication to reinforce the frame of that morality, try to change the world through brain-changing morality etc. But the morality they adopted wasn't egalitarian therapy culture with the State as mother, it was woke culture with the State as HR lady. By 2020, centre-left politicians thought they were in politics to raise the relative social status of historically oppressed groups at the expense of white males.
No_one
1hr ago
Yeah, and we're also witnessing a spectacle of US president trying to get Europeans to put suicidal tariffs on China over Chinese trade with Russia.
Curious, very curious.
Botond173
2hr ago
Presumably a leftist similar in some way to Charlie Kirk has been killed at some point in the last ten years (and if not, is that an interesting datapoint in its own right?).
There indeed was such an intentional hit-and-run in Portland in 2019, although it was supposedly not politically motivated.
cpcallen
2hr ago
I appreciate this articulation of a distinction I felt but I was having trouble formalising. I thought the comments about Thatcher were in poor taste but not fundamentally harmful.
With Kirk, I am even sympathetic to those the "reaped what he sowed" variety of comments, because they are at least not unambiguously in favour of political violence (and from the non-US, non-pro-gun point of view there is a sad but also delicious irony in a gun rights advocate who argued that occasional deaths were a price worth paying himself paying that very same awful price himself)—but I am appalled by those who openly celebrate the murder of another human in any circumstances (save perhaps a very narrow exception for those who present a clear and immediate danger of doing the same or worse to others).
Charlie Kirk might have been a reprehensible shill for a harmful and destructive political movement, but no sane person should be pleased to see people being gunned down for their beliefs.
As they say: send not for whom the bell tolls.
In the chaos of the Charlie Kirk shooting, a lot of people forgot about the weirdness of the multiple arrests.
Apropos of nothing, I'd like to talk about a tangent that I picked up on in Patel's Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing today. He was directly asked by Senator Kennedy if there was the possibility that the shooter wasn't working alone. Patel said there were a number of individuals currently being investigated and interrogated by the Feds.
I'm pretty much caught up on the trans partner and their chat logs, but it seems like the FBI is doing a deeper dive into some of the other connections. Perhaps other users in the Discord channel of interest?
Does anyone else have anything on accomplices? Does the idea of the trans partner knowing nothing about the shooting seem a little suspect? I know the partner is apparently an AnCap follower of Jordan Peterson and immediately cooperated with the police, but the text logs seem a little off. Particularly when combined with an 'IT WAS ME!' note left by the shooter under his keyboard for his partner to find.
Edit: Additional links
Botond173
2hr ago
The big difference is that Carson's killing was not politically motivated at all, was it?
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
2hr ago
to shut the Senate out of power
The thing about the Senate is that it held almost no legal power at all. It was basically a club which every notable Roman was a member of. It had power as long as its informal methods of influence worked: elected public officials had to align their values with the Senate norms or they would be badmouthed and never win any important election. It was their version of "the Cathedral".
When political outsiders realized they could bypass the Senate by dialing up their populism without violating the letter of the Roman law, the whole republican system started crumbling. It took them a hundred years to get from Tiberius Gracchus to Augustus, but Israel in 4BC had no mass communication Rome had no mass media, let alone social media.
Ioper
3hr ago
For literary vocabulary i could see that this might be an issue but isn't most technical vocabulary imported words from English and German?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3hr ago
TL;DR: see the bullet points at the end
Today, let's talk an old article and see if it still has relevance. Way downthread when talking about language, I was reminded of one of the language influencers of the left, George Lakoff. A linguistics professor by trade, he wrote a number of books, two which I'll mention briefly: "Moral Politics" in 1996, where he argued conservatives and liberals differed in their emotional and subconscious attitude towards government, and "Don't Think of an Elephant!" in 2004 as a rough guidebook accompanying his progressive think-tank, where he argued that the linguistic framing of the debate often would often determine who would win. Conservatives think of government like a strong and strict parent who needs to strictly raise their citizen-kids into more-responsible adults, then be hands-off from there, he argued. Liberals, however, think the government is and should be a nurturing parent, promoting good virtues and protecting against corruption and badness that encompass various common ills of society. Lakoff thought that liberals were often losing because they were using conservative linguistic frameworks. He was especially active in trying to push a certain brand of linguistics during the Bush years, but upon the 2008 crash his think tank collapsed and he more or less retired at 67.
However, for today, the year is 2011 and he comes out to pen one more article with some advice. Enter The “New Centrism” and Its Discontents. The event he's worked up about? Obama's 2011 State of the Union, with whom he disagrees about political tactics. Please note that any emphasis is purely my own.
There is no ideology of the “center.” What is called a “centrist” or a “moderate” is actually very different – a biconceptual, someone who is conservative on some issues and progressive on others, in many, many possible combinations. Why does this matter? From the perspective of how the brain works, the distinction is crucial.
Because we think with our brains, all thought is physical. Our moral and political worldviews are realized as brain circuits with strong synapses. If you have two conflicting worldviews, you have two brain circuits that are mutually inhibitory, so that when one is activated, it is strengthened and the other is shut off and weakened. When a worldview applies to a given issue, there is a neural binding circuit linking the worldview circuit to that issue circuit in such a way that the issue is understood in terms of that worldview. The right language will activate that issue as understood via that worldview. Using that language strengthens that worldview.
When a Democrat “moves to the center,” he is adopting a conservative position – or the language of a conservative position. Even if only the language is adopted and not the policy, there is an important effect. Using conservative language activates the conservative view, not only of the given issue, but the conservative worldview in general, which, in turn, strengthens the conservative worldview in the brains of those listening. That leads to more people thinking conservative thoughts, and, hence, supporting conservative positions on issues and conservative candidates. Material policy matters. Language use, over and over, affects how citizens understand policy choices, which puts pressure on legislators, and ultimately affects what policies are chosen. Language wars are policy wars.
He goes on to argue that while many Obama-style Democrats were using the playbook of using friendly-sounding packaging to sell good liberal policies, that this was bound to backfire dramatically as the packaging would become the product - or perhaps more accurately, the framing determined the (often hostile) battlefield. Well, wait, actually it's worse - he thinks that to some extent, fighting wars of words on hostile territory actually pushes moderate voters to the right in a sort of self-reinforcing cycle! He thinks not just that politics is a value conflict, but that the fight itself shifts the power of the players. This was a little bit new to me.
Conservatives are trained not to use the language of liberals. Liberals are not so trained. Liberals have to learn not to stick to their own language, and not move rightward in language use. Never use the word “entitlement” – Social Security and Medicare are earned. Taking money from them is stealing. Pensions are delayed payments for work already done. They are part of contracted pay for work. Not paying pensions is taking wages from those who have earned them. Nature isn’t free for the taking. Nature is what nurtures us, and is of ultimate value – human value as well as economic value. Pollution and deforestation are destroying nature. Privatization is not eliminating government – it is introducing government of our lives by corporations, for their profit, not ours. The mission of government is to protect and empower all citizens, because no one makes it on their own. And the more you get from government, the more you owe morally. Government is about “necessities” – health, education, housing, protection, jobs with living wages, and so on – not about “programs.” Economic success lies in human well-being, not in stock prices, or corporate and bank profits. These are truths. We need to use language that expresses those truths.
I found this especially interesting. He thinks that conservatives are really good at using the right language, partly through what elsewhere in the article he describes as a far better and more organized (or at least, disciplined) media ecosystem. Is he right? Do liberals regularly lose the language framing wars among moderates and swing voters, and thus the battle, even before they begin?
Obama’s new centrism must be viewed from the perspective of biconceptualism. In his Tucson speech, Obama started off with the conservative view of the shooting. It was a crazy, lone gunman, unpredictable, there should be no blame – as if brain-changing language did not exist. It sounded like Sarah Palin. But at the end, he became the progressive of his election campaign, bringing back the word “empathy” and describing American democracy as essentially based on empathy, social responsibility, striving for excellence and public service. This is the progressive moral worldview, believed implicitly by all progressives, but hardly ever explicitly discussed.
Whoa. Brain-changing language is quite a claim. This caught my eye a little bit because of how it makes at least a theoretically-grounded factual case for language as a thing that influences people on a physical level. Is he to be believed? I have my doubts about the scientific application, but it was interesting to see this discussion happen in 2011. However, that's not an accident! Obama was, in the referenced Tuscon speech, speaking soon after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting that is now seen as one of the earliest examples of political assassinations now frequently discussed. If language usage choices rewire the brain, are we actually to blame, at least in part, for these kinds of shootings? (I hope I'm not misrepresenting his point here)
"[Obama] is now Mr. Reasonable Centrist – except that in substance there is no reasonable center to be had. A well funded and tightly organized right wing has been pulling American politics to the right for three decades now. And with a few instructive exceptions, Democrats who respond by calling for a new centrism are just acting as the right’s enablers. What exactly is the beneficial substance of this centrism? Just how far right do we have to go for Republicans to cut any kind of deal? Isn’t the mirage of a Third Way a series of moving targets – where every compromise begets a further compromise?" [NB: This quote is lifted wholesale from a column by Robert Kuttner, a progressive writer]
Kuttner has good reason to feel this way. The conservative moral worldview has a highest principle: to preserve, defend and advance that worldview itself. Radical conservatives have taken over the Republican party. Their goal is to make the country – and the world – as conservative as they are. They want to impose strict father morality everywhere. In economics it means laissez-fair capitalism, with the rich seen as the most disciplined, moral and deserving of people, and the poor as undisciplined and unworthy of safety nets. In religion, their God as the punitive strict father God, sending you to heaven or hell depending how well you adhere to conservative moral principles – individual not social responsibility, strict authority, punitive law, the use of overwhelming force in defending conservative moral principles, and so on. Big government is fine when used to those ends, but not when used to social ends. Only “spending” on measures to help people should be cut, not the use of money to fund what conservative morality approves of. The concern for the deficit is a ruse. They regularly support ideas that would raise, not lower the deficit. Science is to be believed if new weapons systems are based on it, but not if it shows that human pollutants are causing global warming and disastrous climate change.
In a way, this seems pretty prescient. According to progressives, at least (and certainly others) radical conservatives did take over the Republican party, and they did espouse authority and overwhelming force to punish the unworthy and the enemies, and they did use the deficit as a ruse, and they did have a uniquely selective approach to which science to believe. It's all over the news these last few months. As a pretty classic centrist myself, that feels like a pretty damning indictment, if true. Is it true? And even if he's wrong, does he have some useful advice?
The "progressive" solution
He ends by giving essentially a nice bullet-point list of things that progressives need to do. (I should note that there is some question as to whether 2011-era progressives are the same group as 2025 ones, so maybe it's best to consider it more broadly). If you read nothing else, this is his thesis, distilled.
- First, they have to recognize the reality of biconceptualism. Adopting conservative language helps conservatism. Adopting conservative programs makes the world more conservative and, so, helps drive empathy from the world, and that is disastrous.
- Second, progressives should recognize that the business of America is business – that there are successful businesses and businesspeople with progressive values, and they should be praised and courted – and separated from radical conservatives.
- Third, progressives have to organize around a single morality, centered on empathy, both personal and social responsibility and excellence – being the best person you can be, not just for your own sake, but for the sake of you family, community and nation. All politics is moral; it is about the right things to do. Get your morality straight, learn to talk about it, then work on policy. It is patriotic to be progressive.
- Fourth, progressives must understand the critical need for a communication system that rivals the conservative system: An overall understanding of conservatism, effective framing of progressive beliefs and real facts, training centers on understanding and articulating progressive thought, systems of spokespeople on call, booking agencies to book speakers on radio and tv, and in local venues like schools, churches and clubs.
- Fifth, it is progressive to be firm, articulate and gentle. You can stand up for what you believe, while being gentlemanly and ladylike.
- Sixth, progressives have to get over the idea that conservatives are either stupid, or mean or greedy – or all three. Conservatives are mostly people who have a different moral system from progressives.
A new centrism that makes sense ought to be one that unifies progressives under a single moral system centered on empathy; that recognizes, and shows respect for, the progressive side of biconceptuals; that respects the intelligence of conservatives; that allies with progressive businesspeople as well as with unions; that builds a communication system that brings it in touch with most Americans; that calls upon the love of nature; that is gentle and firm; and that refuses to move to the right, either in language or action.
Again, strong language. Conservatism drives empathy from the world? Uncharitable, but I can kind of see it. My parents originally flipped from Republican to Democrat, even as religious social conservatives, because in the words of my dad, "they at least pretend to care about poor people, but the Republicans don't even try". There's some pragmatism here, even among the moralization, for finding good allies. His vision of morality as the wellspring of progressive vision is an interesting one that I think partially got lost in the political noise, though I'm unsure how well it would work in practice. Most of all, though, the sixth bullet point has almost objectively been flagrantly violated in the last decade. Support Trump? You must be stupid, or mean, or shortsighted. Different values? No, clearly you just didn't see all the facts. If nothing else, I think for Democrats to get their mojo back, that probably has to change. You can't persuade someone you don't even understand.
What do you think? Is he right about language choices molding the political conversation and even changing values themselves via mere reinforcement? Should Democrats focus on long-term value-change strategies? Even if he's wrong, would you appreciate a Democratic party following his six proposals? Are "progressives" still losing the language battle? Food for thought.
aaa
3hr ago
Ok, now formulate the rest of the argument using this definition of initial condition.
ulyssessword
3hr ago
Have you read uncleftish beholding?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
3hr ago
There were a long series of religious right-motivated censoring movements in the 90s (and not to mention the Dixie Chicks and Freedom Fries stuff following 9/11)
The Dixie Chicks can barely even be called a boycott, let alone censorship, and "freedom fries" is just a way of saying "fuck France", again I fail to see how it prevented anyone from speaking their mind.
The only consistently free speech people have been the centrist democrats (Liberals who want higher taxes) and centrist republicans (Liberals who want lower taxes).
The moment you start criticizing the core ideas of liberalism, liberals start doing the same deplatforming campaigns that the far left does, using the exact same arguments.
FistfullOfCrows
3hr ago
And of course as we have now seen, it is pretty much incontrovertible that more lefties than righties tend to support, or at least excuse violence as a means of settling political disputes, up to and including murder. Not all of them, but a significant amount, and these members are NOT policed by other lefties so they have an outsize effect. My first encounter with this was back when the Charlie Hebdo murders occurred, and I went on Reddit's /r/anarchism subreddit to find them twisting themselves into pretzels to explain why killing a bunch of cartoonists wasn't exactly the moral abomination it sounds like. You can still find some remnants of their discussion.
On charlie hebdo, I was a fedora tipping atheist back then and even I found the comics profane. I didn't like islam either, infact I had a burning passion of hatred for it. These days when I see those comics again I think to myself, good, fuck those guys. Should they have been killed? Probably not, but I would have been done for them getting their faces punched in.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
4hr ago
martial arts
Let me hijack this to relay an anecdote from last Saturday. I.e., about one day after Charlie Kirk's murder. It is a useless anecdote that goes nowhere, and I'd like to get rid of it because it serves no purpose.
Having spent far too much time on the motte, on Friday, I ended up dreaming in the night that people all around me would finally pick up whatever weapons or improvised weapons they could to go, meet up, and beat do death their political opponents. In my dream, that ended up subverted by my old instructor, who turned those violent impulses into a peaceful tournament. I awoke in the morning poorly rested, reminded myself not to dwell so much on American culture war issues, and packed my stuff to go to the day's actual real-world fully-awake HEMA tournament.
Where I met a gaggle of fighters from a "workers' sports club", who were fully decked out in gear sporting images of raised red fists, anarchist signs, "FCK AFD" and the usual far-left symbology. They were perfectly decent and civil people and nobody said a word about politics.
That is all.
clo
4hr ago
I think the final point is what gets me, the one about the rebuilding after Shock and Awe receiving no more thought as if Good People naturally get Good Outcomes, medals and a parade. The idea that good is an emergent property of killing all the bad people is something I don't understand except as a seductive lizard-brain problem of having some people to blame. Solzhenitsyn's line about good and evil has stuck with me all my life.
Mmm, yes, but selection effects going both ways. Yes, people who don't care about politics don't tend to show up at rallies. But social justice warriors also don't tend to show up at religious-right rallies unless they're explicitly planning to attack or disrupt them in some way (as Zinn probably did). Not sure which is the stronger effect.
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