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Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
2018-06-30, 5:41 PM #9801
Have y’all heard about this QAnon ****? If you haven’t yet you probably will soon.
2018-06-30, 5:42 PM #9802
An alternative is some exogenous force like a war with China comes in and Americans unite around that. I don't know if there's a force from within American politics that can reverse course and bring about a renewal.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 5:42 PM #9803
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Have y’all heard about this QAnon ****? If you haven’t yet you probably will soon.


I've heard the name. What is it?
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 5:44 PM #9804
Originally posted by Eversor:
An alternative is some exogenous force like a war with China comes in and Americans unite around that. I don't know if there's a force from within American politics that can reverse course and bring about a renewal.


China won’t attack the US and trust in public institutions is so poor that attacking them would probably have the opposite effect. And the US would have no allies in that war. And the US can’t afford to do it.
2018-06-30, 5:45 PM #9805
Originally posted by Eversor:
I'm not into "purges".


Let me be very, very clear about this, since you've more than one practically accused me of totalitarian beliefs.

People on the left jokes about purges, gulags, reeducation, quite a bit, and quite insensitively. None, and let me be straight on this, none of it is meant to be a serious advocacy. I'm somewhat familiar with the history of purges from left-wing movements in the 20th century, and I take it very seriously that we ought to avoid the mistakes of the past. I've gotten into debates that came pretty close to outright shouting with left-wing friends of mine about Lenin, as I refuse to take him as a role model for the left because of his role in killing people and setting up camps during the revolution.

But you have to understand what the discourse on socialism is like in America. If you advocate anything under the brand socialism, you will be accused of advocating Stalinism. Time and time and time again. The discourse is horrendous in America, people understand zero history outside of a few propagandized talking points, and wield them like an angry child who wants a candy bar. We joke about it because some people are so adamant that medicare for all is two steps from Stalinism that joking about it to mock the people just happens. It's a bit crass but, I'll repeat for the third time, it is not a serious advocacy.

Originally posted by Eversor:
Look, I think if candidates in a certain district can win on a Democratic Socialist suite of policy ideas, they should run. But it's not going to be popular in every district, unfortunately. I'm into building consensus, not getting just enough power that you can do whatever you want without dissenters being able to do anything about it. It should be clear by now that that doesn't work, and only means more conflict in the long run.

At the same time, I acknowledge that consensus is impossible to achieve if your opponents are dedicated to disagreeing with you no matter what you do. We have to recognize that that is the problem that needs to be solved: how do you produce the conditions that make governance by consensus possible, when the other side is completely committed to obstruction?

It's a really, really hard problem, and unfortunately I don't think the solution is that you take a more radical position assuming that if you get what you want the causes of disagreement will evaporate. But consensus is the only way: otherwise, you just have alternating presidents coming in promising to undo everything their predecessor did.


Such a thing is impossible until there are some radical structural changes. There's simply not enough manpower or resources to combat the amount of propaganda and money in the American political scene. I don't think you realize how hopeless the general landscape is for socialism.
2018-06-30, 5:48 PM #9806
Originally posted by Eversor:
In general: psychologically speaking no, philosophically speaking, yes. But it also depends what kind of conservative we're talking about.


To clarify: I think conservatives are just as much driven by motivated reasoning as liberals are, and just as much motivated by visceral, kneejerk responses. However, I think conservatives on aggregate are more likely to recognize that they are adherents of an ideology. Liberals are more likely to claim that they've actually transcended the parochialism of ideology altogether.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 5:48 PM #9807
Originally posted by Eversor:
Yep. As I've said in the past, I'm pretty fatalistic when it comes to the future. But when the bar for success is high, you can't just pretend that it isn't. So failure seems likely.


So, uh, if you admit that ~30% of Americans are unhinged and want to destroy America, why exactly are you still talking **** on liberals instead of them?

Instead of asking them to reorganize, you might ask why power/money would rather align with the 30% than with the more liberal-minded people (hint: they don't like sharing).
2018-06-30, 5:51 PM #9808
Originally posted by Eversor:
I've heard the name. What is it?


QAnon is a teenaged white supremacist who is pretending to be a top-level intelligence agent on the Internet. He claims Democratic Party and liberal media are secretly child trafficking rings and the Mueller investigation is actually about that, and the Trump collusion investigation is only a cover. QAnon has told his followers to arm themselves and get ready to help him gun down the “pedophile conspiracy” (i.e. Democrats and journalists). A lot of people believe him.

The usual Fox News stuff.
2018-06-30, 5:51 PM #9809
Originally posted by Eversor:
An alternative is some exogenous force like a war with China comes in and Americans unite around that. I don't know if there's a force from within American politics that can reverse course and bring about a renewal.


Yes there is. A depression. A real one.
2018-06-30, 5:54 PM #9810
Originally posted by Reid:
Let me be very, very clear about this, since you've more than one practically accused me of totalitarian beliefs.


Hey, I literally quoted your own language back at you. If you don't like that your own language has authoritarian connotations, I suggest you use different words.

Originally posted by Reid:
Such a thing is impossible until there are some radical structural changes.


Duh.

Originally posted by Reid:
There's simply not enough manpower or resources to combat the amount of propaganda and money in the American political scene. I don't think you realize how hopeless the general landscape is for socialism.


I'm not optimistic. We're headed for catastrophe. We're going down, and the world will be a horrifically violent place and nowhere will feel safe.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 5:56 PM #9811
Originally posted by Reid:
So, uh, if you admit that ~30% of Americans are unhinged and want to destroy America, why exactly are you still talking **** on liberals instead of them?

Instead of asking them to reorganize, you might ask why power/money would rather align with the 30% than with the more liberal-minded people (hint: they don't like sharing).


Honestly it all confuses me.

A while back Eversor was complaining about anti-liberalism in this thread, before that he was complaining about anti-conservatism, now it seems like he’s using liberal as a catch-all for all people considered on the left - to the extent that he doesn’t recognize the many ideologies to which those people ascribe.

It’s hard not to make this criticism personal when I’m honestly baffled about what position he holds and who he is criticizing. What exactly is your ideology, Eversor?
2018-06-30, 6:00 PM #9812
Originally posted by Reid:
So, uh, if you admit that ~30% of Americans are unhinged and want to destroy America, why exactly are you still talking **** on liberals instead of them?

Instead of asking them to reorganize, you might ask why power/money would rather align with the 30% than with the more liberal-minded people (hint: they don't like sharing).


Power and money does side with liberals. $hillary, my dude. Remember?! Both parties cozy up to big business.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 6:01 PM #9813
Originally posted by Eversor:
I'm not optimistic. We're headed for catastrophe. We're going down, and the world will be a horrifically violent place and nowhere will feel safe.


Why?
2018-06-30, 6:03 PM #9814
Originally posted by Eversor:
Lol, what is this m'lord/m'lady thing?


Well the Reddit thing is just the "m'lady" meme, but since you asked:

2018-06-30, 6:05 PM #9815
(Fedora tip: Finland)
2018-06-30, 6:09 PM #9816
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Honestly it all confuses me.

A while back Eversor was complaining about anti-liberalism in this thread, before that he was complaining about anti-conservatism, now it seems like he’s using liberal as a catch-all for all people considered on the left - to the extent that he doesn’t recognize the many ideologies to which those people ascribe.

It’s hard not to make this criticism personal when I’m honestly baffled about what position he holds and who he is criticizing. What exactly is your ideology, Eversor?


No, in this part of the conversation I've been pretty careful to use liberal as a term that contrasts with left, an by left I've mostly meant something like social democratic.

What's my ideology? Uh, I'm sympathetic to communitarian critiques of liberalism, and that's the north star of my specific brand of pluralism, but I also have sympathies to leftist economics even though leftists are too materialist for my tastes.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 6:14 PM #9817
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Have y’all heard about this QAnon ****? If you haven’t yet you probably will soon.


I dunno. I was able to find threads depicting him as John De Lancie. As they say on 4chan, it sounds like some "/x/ tier" delusion, right up there with "meme magic".
2018-06-30, 6:17 PM #9818
Originally posted by Jon`C:
QAnon is a teenaged white supremacist who is pretending to be a top-level intelligence agent on the Internet. He claims Democratic Party and liberal media are secretly child trafficking rings and the Mueller investigation is actually about that, and the Trump collusion investigation is only a cover. QAnon has told his followers to arm themselves and get ready to help him gun down the “pedophile conspiracy” (i.e. Democrats and journalists). A lot of people believe him.

The usual Fox News stuff.


Oh I see.
2018-06-30, 6:27 PM #9819
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Why?


Because something somewhere in the world will go wrong. Not a satisfying answer, I know. International orders are established and then they collapse and then there's war. Metternich designed the post-Napolean equilibrium and it lasted for a hundred years until WWI. After WWI, Wilson advocated an end of empire and the beginning of a nation-state based system based on the equality of all nations rooted in a right to self-determination. That order is now under pressure, likely in no small part due to the over extension of its guarantor, the United States. As it pulls back and other countries are responsible for their own security, there's potential for conflict as regions have to find new equilibriums and the old security infrastructure withers. Additionally, the economic inequalities that this international system has produced also will promote instability, as it is produced and continues to produce desperation throughout the world, and people will want their governments to do act on their behalf, leading to aggression.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 6:42 PM #9820
We've lived in a world where to a large extent the NATO alliance (and also, the standoff between the US and the USSR, and afterwards, US hegemony) has made it impossible for countries to invade, seize and annex other country's territory. We're now moving into a world where that's no longer the case: bilateral relations rather than regional, multilateral orders are going to become more important, which means more shifting alliances, and a very different distribution of military power throughout the globe. There will be much more incentive for countries to throw their weight around. It's a much more dangerous world, where, for example, the incentive to have nuclear weapons is much greater.
former entrepreneur
2018-06-30, 7:25 PM #9821
Well, I guess it depends on whether you view today as more like the end of the Belle Époque or more like the beginning of the Middle Ages. I consider it more like the latter, since the stresses I see are within the great powers, not between them as in the Belle Époque.

I certainly don’t see the United States in 20 years having either the appetite or the time for bona fide territorial conquest, and a United States that is satisfied with achieving those ends via projecting a sphere of influence is just the status quo.
2018-06-30, 11:19 PM #9822
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Well the Reddit thing is just the "m'lady" meme, but since you asked:



That was good... I didn't see that twist coming.
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 12:12 AM #9823
I thought so too when I played that game half of my-life-so-far ago ;-)
2018-07-01, 12:15 AM #9824
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Well, I guess it depends on whether you view today as more like the end of the Belle Époque or more like the beginning of the Middle Ages. I consider it more like the latter, since the stresses I see are within the great powers, not between them as in the Belle Époque.

I certainly don’t see the United States in 20 years having either the appetite or the time for bona fide territorial conquest, and a United States that is satisfied with achieving those ends via projecting a sphere of influence is just the status quo.


There are going to be more opportunities for interstate conflict. It's not a stretch: it's already happening. What was it, a year ago when the US killed all those Russian mercenaries in Syria? There will be more of confrontations.
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 1:41 AM #9825
Originally posted by Eversor:
There are going to be more opportunities for interstate conflict. It's not a stretch: it's already happening. What was it, a year ago when the US killed all those Russian mercenaries in Syria? There will be more of confrontations.


Events like these have always been happening and have never at any time stopped. Even stuff like the annexation of Crimea has been happening well before now. Russian Federation belligerence, in particular, is not new. They’ve been engaged in territorial conflicts since the moment the Soviet Union fell, some of which, like Syria, involved guns pointed at American soldiers. Their repulsion and eventual conquest in Ukraine isn’t really any different from what Russia’s been doing in Chechnya and Georgia since 1991, other than the fact that I guess Ukraine is a NATO buffer zone that CNN has kinda heard of once.

Don’t read this as Putin apologia, I’m only saying this as a matter of fact. Tibet, Golan Heights, North Cyprus, Panama (functionally), East Timor,... annexation is certainly not as common as your run-of-the-mill invade and ****emup anymore, but it never stopped, and it’s not worse today than it’s been in recent history. And the invasions aren’t getting worse, and neither are the dust-ups between nuclear powers (you can thank GWB for setting those bars high, and by that I mean, of course, invading Iraq and intentionally bombing Pakistani border outposts to the point that it almost became another war).

What you’re looking at today honestly - sadly - isn’t any different from the rest of the post-Cold War world peace. You just think it’s worse because of a well studied cognitive bias which at least some people attribute to 24/7 news.

That’s why I really don’t agree with your assessment. International conflict doesn’t seem like an especially important issue right now compared to internal political issues, such as the return of literal frickin fascism throughout western countries, economic/climate migration, overfinancialization and economic fragility.
2018-07-01, 5:01 AM #9826
Originally posted by Jon`C:
That’s why I really don’t agree with your assessment. International conflict doesn’t seem like an especially important issue right now compared to internal political issues, such as the return of literal frickin fascism throughout western countries, economic/climate migration, overfinancialization and economic fragility.



It's funny to me that you'd call these "internal political issues", since all of them have important international dimensions (to the point that, really, at their most troublesome, they are international issues).
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 5:47 AM #9827
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Events like these have always been happening and have never at any time stopped. Even stuff like the annexation of Crimea has been happening well before now. Russian Federation belligerence, in particular, is not new. They’ve been engaged in territorial conflicts since the moment the Soviet Union fell, some of which, like Syria, involved guns pointed at American soldiers. Their repulsion and eventual conquest in Ukraine isn’t really any different from what Russia’s been doing in Chechnya and Georgia since 1991, other than the fact that I guess Ukraine is a NATO buffer zone that CNN has kinda heard of once.

Don’t read this as Putin apologia, I’m only saying this as a matter of fact. Tibet, Golan Heights, North Cyprus, Panama (functionally), East Timor,... annexation is certainly not as common as your run-of-the-mill invade and ****emup anymore, but it never stopped, and it’s not worse today than it’s been in recent history. And the invasions aren’t getting worse, and neither are the dust-ups between nuclear powers (you can thank GWB for setting those bars high, and by that I mean, of course, invading Iraq and intentionally bombing Pakistani border outposts to the point that it almost became another war).

What you’re looking at today honestly - sadly - isn’t any different from the rest of the post-Cold War world peace. You just think it’s worse because of a well studied cognitive bias which at least some people attribute to 24/7 news.


I hope that you haven't somehow gotten the impression that I think that 2016 was some pivotal, transformative year where everything suddenly changed and took a radically different course. I'm not sure from what you wrote that gave you that impression, but either way let me be clear that I certainly didn't mean that. That's not to say that historians won't look back on these decades and think that 2016 was a helpful point for periodization. They may: it's too soon to say, of course. But whether they do will in part depend on what happens in coming years. But if in the future, 2016 turned out to be a pivotal year, it will be because Trump and Brexit aggravated certain tensions that had been brewing for some time.

While there's certainly been conflict since the fall of the Soviet Union, that doesn't mean that things aren't also getting worse. The post-Cold War order has changed significantly since the USSR fell. In the EU and the Middle East there has been a drastic shift that has occurred in the past decade. Over that span of the decades that followed the collapse of the USSR, there has been in Europe an increased integration as former USSR states were gradually incorporated into the EU and NATO, followed by an increased unraveling that has been exacerbated by the 2007-2008 financial crisis, that now is leading to a backlash in the form of euroskepticism and the rise of far-right movements -- it's impossible to say that these far-right movements (and also, far-left movements) in Europe are "internal domestic" issues, because euroskepticism lies at their very core.

NATO is premised on the idea that European countries all share the same security interests: namely, containing the USSR. But now NATO seems like a raw deal for many European countries, because they don't all have the same security concerns: in the south, countries are primarily worried about he migrant issue. In the east, they're worried about Russia. So countries can ask: what's in it for us to be a part of this thing? (Never mind there are indications that Trump is now setting his sights on dismantling it.) Well, one of the advantages of NATO is that European countries don't need to have very powerful armies for their own self-defense, because the US presumably has their back. What happens when NATO disintegrates, and suddenly these European countries are responsible for their own self-defense? It will change the dynamics between these countries significantly, when, for example, German austerity measures imposed on other countries are backed by a threatening military, just to name one example.

And in the Middle East, there has been widespread state failure in the wake of the Arab Spring: in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and in Yemen. I don't need to explain why this is bad, and all of the ways in which it affects the broader world outside the Middle East (migration being an obvious factor), but needless to say, these simply are not the same conditions that existed in 1989: al-Qaida did not have the capacity to organize at anywhere near the same scale is it did in the 1990s, just to name one example. These days we really want to color al-Qaida and ISIS as marginal phenomena in the Muslim world because we don't want to stir up anti-Muslim xenophobia and we see it as making more difficult the integration of Muslims into Western countries. There's definitely much merit to those justifications, not least because the threat that these groups pose is often drastically overstated: no, Salafi-Jihadist Islamic terrorist organizations are not an existential threat to the United States and its preposterous to suggest that they are. But at the same time, many people also drastically underestimate the way in which the internet has altered these terrorist organizations. There are cells out there that comprise tens of thousands of people. ISIS isn't going away just because we've taken their territory in Syria and Iraq, and neither is al-Qaida. There's an immensely large, well-organized group out there which is on the look out for places where the state barely has a hold on the monopoly of power and is incapable of maintaining internal security.

So, no: things are actually getting worse, and I don't think we've even really seen the beginning of it. The decline of multilateral institutions backed by American military and economic hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world doesn't jsut mean that more tensions between China and the US (and to a much, much lesser extent Russia). It could very well mean that areas of the world that we don't even think of as regions become venues for triangulation between great powers and the other countries that make up those regions (especially as some countries continue to develop and gradually become regional players).
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 6:43 AM #9828


Reid's not going to watch this.
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 9:37 AM #9829
Originally posted by Eversor:
It's funny to me that you'd call these "internal political issues", since all of them have important international dimensions (to the point that, really, at their most troublesome, they are international issues).
There’s a difference between an issue having “important international dimensions” and being an armed conflict between nations, of the sort you have expressed concern. In each of the concerns I identified there is an element of external forcing, but how each country responds is up to that country, not up to others or the military successes of others.

The break-up of a country is technically “international” too, but it is a silly technicality.

Originally posted by Eversor:
I hope that you haven't somehow gotten the impression that I think that 2016 was some pivotal, transformative year where everything suddenly changed and took a radically different course. I'm not sure from what you wrote that gave you that impression, but either way let me be clear that I certainly didn't mean that.
The most recent event my post mentioned was the annexation of Crimea, which happened in 2014. Please explain this part of your post because I do not understand why you wrote it.

Quote:
While there's certainly been conflict since the fall of the Soviet Union, that doesn't mean that things aren't also getting worse. The post-Cold War order has changed significantly since the USSR fell. In the EU and the Middle East there has been a drastic shift that has occurred in the past decade. Over that span of the decades that followed the collapse of the USSR, there has been in Europe an increased integration as former USSR states were gradually incorporated into the EU and NATO, followed by an increased unraveling that has been exacerbated by the 2007-2008 financial crisis, that now is leading to a backlash in the form of euroskepticism and the rise of far-right movements -- it's impossible to say that these far-right movements (and also, far-left movements) in Europe are "internal domestic" issues, because euroskepticism lies at their very core.

NATO is premised on the idea that European countries all share the same security interests: namely, containing the USSR. But now NATO seems like a raw deal for many European countries, because they don't all have the same security concerns: in the south, countries are primarily worried about he migrant issue. In the east, they're worried about Russia. So countries can ask: what's in it for us to be a part of this thing? (Never mind there are indications that Trump is now setting his sights on dismantling it.) Well, one of the advantages of NATO is that European countries don't need to have very powerful armies for their own self-defense, because the US presumably has their back. What happens when NATO disintegrates, and suddenly these European countries are responsible for their own self-defense? It will change the dynamics between these countries significantly, when, for example, German austerity measures imposed on other countries are backed by a threatening military, just to name one example.

And in the Middle East, there has been widespread state failure in the wake of the Arab Spring: in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and in Yemen. I don't need to explain why this is bad, and all of the ways in which it affects the broader world outside the Middle East (migration being an obvious factor), but needless to say, these simply are not the same conditions that existed in 1989: al-Qaida did not have the capacity to organize at anywhere near the same scale is it did in the 1990s, just to name one example. These days we really want to color al-Qaida and ISIS as marginal phenomena in the Muslim world because we don't want to stir up anti-Muslim xenophobia and we see it as making more difficult the integration of Muslims into Western countries. There's definitely much merit to those justifications, not least because the threat that these groups pose is often drastically overstated: no, Salafi-Jihadist Islamic terrorist organizations are not an existential threat to the United States and its preposterous to suggest that they are. But at the same time, many people also drastically underestimate the way in which the internet has altered these terrorist organizations. There are cells out there that comprise tens of thousands of people. ISIS isn't going away just because we've taken their territory in Syria and Iraq, and neither is al-Qaida. There's an immensely large, well-organized group out there which is on the look out for places where the state barely has a hold on the monopoly of power and is incapable of maintaining internal security.

So, no: things are actually getting worse, and I don't think we've even really seen the beginning of it. The decline of multilateral institutions backed by American military and economic hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world doesn't jsut mean that more tensions between China and the US (and to a much, much lesser extent Russia). It could very well mean that areas of the world that we don't even think of as regions become venues for triangulation between great powers and the other countries that make up those regions (especially as some countries continue to develop and gradually become regional players).
None of these things are new at all. Sorry if this seems insubstantial, but I’m not sure what else I can say about it. State failure in North Africa, frustrations and failures of NATO commitments, euroskepticism... this has been happening for a long time. (Look at EU referenda since it began, for example of the latter.) The world isn’t any more dangerous now than it was in 1991.
2018-07-01, 9:53 AM #9830
Originally posted by Eversor:


Reid's not going to watch this.


I didn't watch it, but I was reading about it the other night. What crossed my mind was just how utterly disinterested I've become in Bill Maher's show. After 10 months of mocking and debasing Donald Trump, the man (edit: was still president, and I stopped watching). Ah well, I guess it didn't work on George W. Bush either.
2018-07-01, 10:20 AM #9831
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
I didn't watch it, but I was reading about it the other night. What crossed my mind was just how utterly disinterested I've become in Bill Maher's show. After 10 months of mocking and debasing Donald Trump, the man still seems to be president. Ah well, I guess it didn't work on George W. Bush either.


He's always totally sucked. His career is built on his unique ability to be really, really grating.
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 10:32 AM #9832
Yes, I've come around to that view myself. I admit I got a kick out of his show before because he was telling me what I wanted to hear. At any rate it got old fast enough.
2018-07-01, 10:44 AM #9833
Originally posted by Jon`C:
There’s a difference between an issue having “important international dimensions” and being an armed conflict between nations, of the sort you have expressed concern. In each of the concerns I identified there is an element of external forcing, but how each country responds is up to that country, not up to others or the military successes of others.


Originally posted by Jon`C:
None of these things are new at all. Sorry if this seems insubstantial, but I’m not sure what else I can say about it. State failure in North Africa, frustrations and failures of NATO commitments, euroskepticism... this has been happening for a long time. (Look at EU referenda since it began, for example of the latter.) The world isn’t any more dangerous now than it was in 1991.


I don't see how you can pretend how, as you put it, "the return of literal frickin fascism", which you acknowledge is pressing issue, is not also an international issue, given that skepticism toward international integration is the precise thing that these groups are recoiling against. Concerns about the migrant problem has contributed to the rise of all these movements. The international dimension of the issue is not peripheral: these European countries are constrained in their ability, effectively, to control their own borders, because the Schengen Agreement prevents them setting up border controls.

The idea that the situation with NATO now is anything like the situation in the 90s is totally untrue. In the 90s, NATO was seen a way of integrating former USSR states in Eastern Europe and making them stakeholders in the European project. It was a completely different situation than now: back then, bringing new countries into NATO gave NATO renewed purpose, while now it's unclear what its purpose is at all. It's also the case that during the Obama administration the US has been less eager to maintain its presence, due to the pivot to Asia policy, and that this caused a rift between Europe and the US that began during the Bush administration.
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 10:51 AM #9834


http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/08/02/number-of-refugees-to-europe-surges-to-record-1-3-million-in-2015/
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 11:18 AM #9835
Originally posted by Eversor:
I don't see how you can pretend how, as you put it, "the return of literal frickin fascism", which you acknowledge is pressing issue, is not also an international issue, given that skepticism toward international integration is the precise thing that these groups are recoiling against. Concerns about the migrant problem has contributed to the rise of all these movements.
Because it isn’t. Look at the demographics for the alt-right: they aren’t people who have been exposed to global competiton, the failures of international institutions, or migrants. They’re predominantly people from historically low-investment regions where economic migrants and refugees don’t even want to live.

The German shift rightward for example isn’t a uniform phenomenon, it’s happening almost entirely inside East Germany which is and always has been a ****hole. The sentiment on the ground is basically that immigrants are gonna steal their welfare, even though, well, unlike them the immigrants actually work for a living. Not that any of them have ever met an immigrant to ask.

You assume the alt right’s positions are informed, nuanced, and substantial, but their positions are exactly none of these things. They’re the people who have been left behind by modern economies, they’re angry, and they’re gonna blame anything and everybody but themselves. This is what fascism is. The international flavour is coincidental, the outrage would happen the same regardless.

Quote:
The idea that the situation with NATO now is anything like the situation in the 90s is totally untrue. In the 90s, NATO was seen a way of integrating former USSR states in Eastern Europe and making them stakeholders in the European project. It was a completely different situation than now: back then, bringing new countries into NATO gave NATO renewed purpose, while now it's unclear what its purpose is at all.
And in the 90s the US *****ed and moaned about subsidizing the defense of the poorer new NATO members and threatened to rip it up. And NATO didnt honor its defense obligations, only occasionally dragged out to give US unilateral actions international legitimacy.

It’s never been especially good or effective. Losing NATO would change precisely nothing that isn’t already gonna happen when the US fails.

Quote:
It's also the case that during the Obama administration the US has been less eager to maintain its presence, due to the pivot to Asia policy, and that this caused a rift between Europe and the US that began during the Bush administration.
The ‘rift’ started in the 1960s - the European economic union was conceived as a counterbalance and analogue to the United States. Because guess what? Countries have always been looking out for their best interests. Sometimes that still means trying to gain leverage over your partners and allies, not only your enemies and rivals.
2018-07-01, 11:24 AM #9836
I want to clarify one thing, just so we don’t get off track here:

I agree these are bad times. Our point of disagreement isn’t about times staying good, it’s about whether existing nations will still be capable of conflicting in the ways you’ve warned about. I don’t think they will.
2018-07-01, 12:55 PM #9837
Originally posted by Jon`C:
I don’t think they will.


Why?
former entrepreneur
2018-07-01, 1:59 PM #9838
Originally posted by Eversor:


Reid's not going to watch this.

What were your motivations in linking this? It couldn't have been because of the intellectual merit, because there is none. Was it just to upset me?
2018-07-01, 2:14 PM #9839
Originally posted by Eversor:
Say more. It seems like, at the very least, being "un-civil" means that you are willing to use tactics aside from participating in a dispassionate back-and-forth conversation. If your goal is to achieve some political outcome involving others not through persuasion but through some other means, it seems as if the tactic used will be force.


Maybe force in the sense of legal force, in some cases, or social pressure; don't recast everything as physical force.

Originally posted by Eversor:
I don't think I was clear about this before, but I think this civility debate is incredibly stupid. It's very unclear what the word even means. You can't really have a coherent discussion about the value of something if you don't even know what it is. It's better, I think, to talk about what are the phenomena you're actually referring to when you talk about civility (or its opposite, whatever that is). That's what I tried to do in my post: I tried to discuss what my concerns are about trends in the discourse, and what outcomes I want to avoid. Are those things civility or not? I don't know. I don't think it matters.

With that in mind, there's something I don't think I got a satisfactory answer from you about my last question about the upshot. (Maybe it's implicit in other things you wrote, but i'm not going to go in and try to infer it. I'd rather let you speak for yourself.) You basically said that you think incivility is worthwhile because civility can't go far enough to achieve the outcomes you want. But I find that quite circular, because I have no idea what civility and incivility even are! So when you defend incivility, what are you actually advocating? What tactics?


I'm trying very hard not to get too philosophical because the other posters hate it. I'm also trying to not reply to everything for the same reasons.

I'm not really advocating incivility per se. My stance is more that people make it out to be way more big a deal than it is. Pretty much all complaints about civility are stupid hypocritical bull****. I hate the whole subject and wish people could stop with this meta-level stupid b.s.

Unless you have good ideas for how to actually improve civility and also fix political problems, maybe you should also stop being so preachy towards other people about how they choose to participate in politics.

Originally posted by Eversor:
So you think that by using racial epithets a person is surrendering their legal right to be able to press charges for assault? (Obviously, you don't think that's literally the case, as in, you don't think that's what the laws are. But you think that it would at least be a more just, fair arrangement than what we currently have?)


You've pulled this strawman a few times already. When I advocate for something someone doesn't like, their first move is to claim I'm speaking about something legally. I'm not talking about the legal system. Think of it this way: if a guy who lives on your street sexually harassed your wife when she was walking home, you would be somewhat justified in kicking his ass for doing it. It certainly wouldn't be legal, moreover I wouldn't want it to be legal, but I don't think it would be an immoral thing to do so. There's a gap between what's moral and what should be legislated. I feel the same about punching people who are advocating racial violence.

Not everything someone advocates must become law. Get that through your head so you can stop using this strawman argument.

Originally posted by Eversor:
Yeah I don't really disagree with you about the inequality here. It's still better, though, to live in your personal life as if we do live in a world of equality, to treat others with respect and dignity, not to diminish them, and to insist that they're entitled to those things (including basic protections) even when they deprived of them, etc.


Why should people be nice to their boss? I think that's stupid. In fact, I think that's morally repugnant. The same argument molds perfectly into someone saying slaves should act civilly towards their masters. When there's real inequality, forcing people to be polite is a moral bad.

Originally posted by Eversor:
I mean, again, what tactics that don't fall under civility do you think would make an appreciable difference improving the lives of America's poor? To me, it seems like constructive things, like getting poor people out to vote, would do more.


Organized protest. Wildcat strikes. Shutting down the buildings of people who hold political and social power, like Occupy Wall Street. Things like that.

Originally posted by Eversor:
Why not start or participate in an online campaign and try to make it go viral? Raise consciousness of the issue amongst a critical mass of people, so that it enters into the mainstream political debate? Invent a national "Poverty Recognition Day" on social media. People need to do this work. Would "uncivil" action really be more productive at improving the living conditions of the poor than all that?


None of that will do a single thing. Yes, uncivil action will be far more productive. The wealthy doesn't care about online campaigns, but they ****ing panicked about Occupy Wall Street. Because OWS was actually threatening, which meant it was tangible political pressure.

Basically everything you're saying is perfectly mocked by this tweet:

[https://i.redd.it/ezg560qpv4711.jpg]
2018-07-01, 2:19 PM #9840
Originally posted by Reid:
What were your motivations in linking this? It couldn't have been because of the intellectual merit, because there is none. Was it just to upset me?


To see how you'd react?

It's an awkward moment when Shapiro refers to Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama", as if he temporarily forgot who his current audience was, and that his current audience wouldn't see it as a dig, but as the racist dog whistling that it is.
former entrepreneur
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