General Politics Three: But what is left/right?

[Farm Boy]

Well scale is not our forte here, small is beautiful, scale is for the Germans they are plenty

Per capita is a useful measure, often enough.

Murica is rich, depending on where you look.

 

[Farm Boy]

@Farm Boy curious to hear your thoughts on this interview

How the Ruling Class Became Vulgar

Old-money WASPs once ruled America with an air of clannish exclusivity. Then the economic crises of the 1970s upended their world, opening the corporate floodgates to new-money barbarians — and replacing elite social norms with wanton money lust.

jacobin.com

I'm about 1/3 through and so far it's sounding a rephrase of siloing and polarization.

People invest, sometimes, in things bigger than themselves. But it's hard, people are actually selfish outside thier in group. Used to be we 'melted' people into that. But then we were taught they stay 'chunky' to thier 'identity' phrased not as Americans or humans in an overarching religion, but by melanin and testicle juices. We went from WWII to 'Nam.

We pulled all the warriors faces off our sports teams. The fighters of the good fights that lost, and we kept the '49ers. Because the get rich schemes that led to the eradication of those peoples is more palatable to gaze upon than thier memory. I think the communists tried to sway higher education for 50 years, and they had success, but the counterstroke turned them mostly into vanity projects.

Edit: ok, yes, the points about deregulating ownership of the markets is well-taken. Glass-Steagall desperately needs to come back. "Real results" as you like to put it, I think, are always less profitable and slower than shucking and devouring something*. Like we do with suburban sprawl, for example, in vast real terms.

*this goes all the way down. Plants move slow, but convert sunlight energy. Herbivores need to spend a lot of time eating and grazing plants(or growing and tending them, then communally protecting the piles of food/seed from rats of all mammalian varieties). Carnivores, they can run hot. It all collapses after a while without the sunlight energy, though.

Double edit: you realize their point about gilded age ownership is my entire beef with how government debtspending is funded, right? Rumpelstiltskin, man. Rumpelstiltskin.

 

[Core Imposter]

Interesting that Lex brought up the WASPS. My wife and I happened to watch Love Story last night. Oliver Barrett the third or fourth. I forget.

I am not sure what sort of military stuff we should be preparing to produce. We have been using million dollar kill shots to down ten thousand dollar Houthi missiles.

 

[Kaitzilla]

After the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade ended, there was a shooting as people left.

1 dead, 22 injured, many very seriously.
Kansas City, Missouri.

Maybe 1 million people attended the parade?

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe the shooter didn't see the need for fanfare?

 

[Crezth]

We will neither shut up or pay up, sod off

Gee I wonder why supporting Europeans is so unpopular in America. Something to do with gratefulness

 

[Farm Boy]

Wonder what percentage have been to the doctor in the last two years?

 

[Lexicus]

Hm - even without the US we would still want to be allied with the others, for us it is particularly important to cooperate with the neighbouring nations, France, Germany, UK and the Netherlands, Denmark.

Belgium is very small, modern artillery shoots straight across it, our F16 pilots can hardly complete their post take-off checks before they reach the border, only way to operate a military here is in some form of multinational alliance.

NATO's primary function is ofcourse to protect the trans-Atlantic trade routes and the Channel.

In more general terms - you either compete or cooperate, it is not practical to compete with all, so you ally with some to compete with others, in this manner you shape and control your surroundings which is ultimately beneficial to the individual.

Alliances have been formed since the beginning of history, it's a force multiplier, cowboys join a posse, criminals join a gang, nations join an alliance

I see. Thank you.

After the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade ended, there was a shooting as people left.

1 dead, 22 injured, many very seriously.
Kansas City, Missouri.

Maybe 1 million people attended the parade?

Normal country stuff that happens in normal countries

 

[Samson]

I do not really know, it is hard to find anything and the youtube I watched seems to have disappeared. It seems there was a shooting with 21 dead and 40+ wounded over the lunar new year in Shandong.

Some of the things that are said about it are: This is a tobacco growing village, and there is a lot of village politics going on. The suspect is an ex-SWAT member who was sent to prison for some years. He had recently got out, and he targeted those who gave evidence against him with what appears to be a fairly effective long gun made out of a nail gun. It is supposed he chose the new year as he knew the families would be at home. Doctors treating the wounded were also targeted. The authorities are restricting information, and highlighting "mental illness".

References are Reddit and Forbidden News for whatever that is worth.

 

[Snowygerry]

Gee I wonder why supporting Europeans is so unpopular in America. Something to do with gratefulness

You get no credit for the actions of your ancestors, anymore than you need to pay for their crimes.

Without "Europeans" there would be no USA as we know it today.


That being said, if you tell me exactly where your ancestors died in defence of my private property, PM me, I'll go and put flowers on their grave.

 

[r16]

nato's primary function has always been the protection of American bomber bases . In the 1940s , for a war that would last up to 2 years . Later to soak up Russian nuclear weapons which might instead could be used against CONUS . Later as an offensive instrument on its own but still serving the original purpose as in soaking up effort in going through all that stuff to reach the B-61s in all those vaults . Ben Hodges is wrong . Trump was in money laundering , he merely cosplays as a mob boss . Ben Hodges should have actually written much fiercer articles to have the finished before Trump's re-election could have been a factor . But yes , he has so brilliantly mocked the Russians and their single M-1 . Everything is rosy and funny .

 

[Gorbles]

Saying this:

You get no credit for the actions of your ancestors, anymore than you need to pay for their crimes.

Then immediately this:

Without "Europeans" there would be no USA as we know it today.

Is pretty funny

 

[Farm Boy]

You get no credit for the actions of your ancestors, anymore than you need to pay for their crimes.

Without "Europeans" there would be no USA as we know it today.


That being said, if you tell me exactly where your ancestors died in defence of my private property, PM me, I'll go and put flowers on their grave.

Who is talking about yesterday? We pay today. I am questioning the worth of it tomorrow.

The Chinese and the Indians can perhaps worry about the waters off Yemen, for example, if the trade is so important.

 

[Snowygerry]

We best wait for Crezth there to be honest, we don't know what she was talking about, I doubt she's paying for me,

usually it's the second war

 

[Farm Boy]

I think I picked that fight in the conversation. I'll stand by why. Promises are about tomorrows. Honor is yesterdays, valuable because it helps explain today and predict tomorrow.

 

[Snowygerry]

Well while we wait,


you pay for the US army, if you think it is too large by all means downsize it, if you think too much of it is stationed here, go some place else ?

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm thinking maybe it should? But step one, for the illiberal man, would be reevaluating the promises. Seeing as those take preparation and planning to meet. At an individual level, a dated old thing like myself might refer to it as "being a man, not a boy" or something along those lines. Who knows? Pick your flavor on the sentiment or ask for another idiom, happy to tap along.

 

[Snowygerry]

Promises from a US president are not worth much these days, we'll see soon enough.

 

[Samson]

@Farm Boy Just to be clear, you are advocating that the world would be better off if Germany and France (and the Austro Hungarian Empire or whatever it is called these days) spent more money on guns?

 

[Farm Boy]

Promises from a US president are not worth much these days, we'll see soon enough.

Trump and voters have no honor. But that doesn't excuse the rest of us being dupes in another way.

@Farm Boy Just to be clear, you are advocating that the world would be better off if Germany and France (and the Austro Hungarian Empire or whatever it is called these days) spent more money on guns?

Nope. I am questioning the wisdom of pledging to protect countries if they don't see the need to protect themselves in agreed upon ways. Seems they'd know better. Even if they didn't, they're not imperial subjects. Or fellow citizens. They can make thier own choices just fine.