Tossing some politically pertinent notes out there as we gird ourselves for whatever trickery the frantic Putinists are going to try, desperate to save their hash..
== Wealth Tax? ==
In California we are inundated with adverts against Proposition 40, the “Wealth Tax,” touting a number of Democrats opposing it. While I am inclined toward yes – for reasons given below – it may be that this version itself is deeply flawed, hence some dem opposition. Certainly there WILL be some flight from the state by zillionaires… who will regret leaving the most creative and vibrant place on Earth.
Robert Reich – very smart and on our side, tho a bit to my left and needful of more imagination – offers the following:
“America’s oligarchs — the richest 0.00001% —together they hold the equivalent of 14% of U.S. GDP in wealth: roughly $4 trillion. At the peak of the first Gilded Age at the beginning of the 20th century, that same group of the population owned just 4% of the U.S. GDP in wealth. Billionaire wealth is undermining our democracy. Just look at what Elon Musk is doing. Other billionaires are also polluting our politics.”
...or else Karl Marx (whom the GI Billers drove into near extinction), will prove right after all. Nescient would-be feudal lords will keep pushing to kill the goose that laid all of their golden eggs, like kings of old or the 1850s plantation slavers, until fed-up modernists rebel and the zillionaires will win nothing but tumbrel rides.
I am with the GI Billers! And hence, we may be forced to innovate.
== Assuming America wins, in November ==
Even with Trump still in the White House, a Democratic Congress will rein in many outrages, e.g. by defending civil servants and science and commencing massive hearings, with a House that will hold at least FOUR TIMES as many hours in session as the terminally lazy/corrupt GOP majority under Mike Johnson... whose banishment to deserved obscurity will be one reason for explosions of joy.
Will Trump veto any and all legislation passed by a new Congress? Sure he will.
But there are work-arounds! Some of which have never been tried or even mentioned, elsewhere!
No, you will not be getting Constitutional Amendments! We see so many earnest proposals would reform weaknesses in the US system that were exploited by traitors. Alas, too many are politically impractical, like Amendments, or would waste our political capital unnecessarily. We need a to-do checklist of fixes that
(1) will sell well to most voters,
(2) that can pass quickly, almost the moment we get a good Congress… with some of them immune to vetoes!
And (3) that will PRAGMATICALLY reverse the treason-evisceration of the USA and ensure this never happens again.
Want to see how to do all of that? Here is the full list of my own proposed Newer Deal tactics and reforms. And yes, there is plenty that even just a Democratic House can do, all by themselves!
(And no, I do not expect a single Democrat politician to show even a glimmer of the imagination it would take, to read and promote any of these**.)
Anyway, here is my top one, urging to House members and candidates to watch your backs! Up your security. Hire some of the top FBI guys who Kash Bestiality Patel fired, for being honest and skilled.
And speaking of Nazi tactics...
== A movie with important lessons ==
We watched the incredible 2025 film Nuremberg, based on the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist. Very dramatic, fascinating and informative. A fine partner to the 1961 Judgment at Nuremberg, the old Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster classic. Amazing to see Göring portrayed as brilliant (and hugely evil) rather than the fat buffoon depicted by Chaplin and the Stooges and in all those World War II songs.
I would have written in some mention about how his Luftwaffe never kept a single promise that he made to Hitler. (That would've hurt.) And how Adolf would never let anyone truly respected get that high in the hierarchy. Still, Russell Crowe's portrayal was chillingly convincing. Michael Shannon conveyed so well an era when American leaders were of the highest caliber.
And Rami Malek's dire warning at the very end is what we need to bear in mind as we fight similar demons today. Malek, playing the psychiatrist who evaluated Göring after the war, is rejected as he warns that "there are people like the Nazis in every country in the world today."
== Responsibility and Presidential power ==
One issue of importance, does a U.S. president have completely free rein over the military as Commander in Chief? Are presidents free to order any and all actions against any ‘foe’, under any pretext?
...as related in this episode of The History Guy, concerning the 1858 Paraguay Incident, under President James Buchanan. Who was universally derided by historians as the USA’s worst president… until George W. Bush and Donald Trump came along, that is. Letting JB finally stop grave-spinning and rest.*
This is pertinent because even George W. Bush (the younger) went to Congress (with lies) to get force resolutions against Saddam Hussein. Though would-be king Trump sees no need for even a fig-leaf permission to order the finest men and women on the planet to bomb anything his whim demands.
One of my 35 pragmatic proposals to the next Democratic administration/Congress will be to rescind ALL prior ‘emergency declarations and restore in-future some role to Congress, as demanded in the Constitution.
See my proposed “Defend our Defenders Act.” It patches holes and flaws that were never exposed before, till a madman – leading a party of blackmailed cowards – ran amok, abusing every power that previous presidents mostly used with restraint.
(Several provisions are of special interest, like a way to allow GOP members of Congress to stand up to Trump, in some safety!)
*In my opinion, by far the worst president of the 20th Century was George H.W. Bush, the elder. This mess of a 21st Century is his doing.
** Senator Kim of New Jersey has been promoting one of my ideas (pretty much alone for years) that the INCREMENTAL step toward Medicare-for-all that will pass swiftly and pay for itself is MEDICARE FOR ALL CHILDREN. The ratchet would then be irreversible.
== Furthermore... ==
As we encounter more nonsense concocted in Kremlin basements aimed at splitting the Democratic Party, consider that mainstream Democrats won almost everything in recent elections except NYC and a midwest governor nomination.
Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom is uniting vast numbers across the party.
Consider that AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren & other pragmatic leftists helped Pelosi pass the 2021-22 miracle bills. (I bet you could not name one thing from those bills). Because ignorant sanctimony is a high and that's what splitters are in it for. Exactly like MAGAs.
See my earlier posting: The Threats We Face.
In truth, I like AOC and Bernie and other members of the sane and pragmatic left.
But the Democrat lifting hand from Bible in January 2029 must be a governor, so that any initial flubs will not be administrative ones. No learning curves. Fierce determination to restore the republic, yes! But also experience and skill.
75 comments:
I won't comment on the pros and cons of a local bill, but will note that New York found that billionaires threatened to depart for better tax havens more than they actually did when it came to it.
My life is packed with prop 40 ads. Mostly opposed. I expected that side to be well funded but I didn’t expect our liberal folks to split enough to join the No side. Planned Parenthood has endorsed NO on grounds that the sales pitch for it is a temporary patch.
I’ll be voting No.
I am likely to vote yes, especially if it is losing, because I want them scared into negotiating.
When I ready about Prop 40, I felt reminded of our Reconstruction Law of 1952. In short, at that time, the conservatives passend a law that taxed 50% - fifty ! - of the total wealth of all persons who owned one million Marks or more (approx. 8 Million in todays' money), payable in thirty rates per year.
In the end, most paid less, and through the post-war economic boom that was financed partly through the funds gained and the accumulated Inflation.
What differed then from Prop 40 now is that the money went to infrastructure and housing projects, not day-to-day running costs.
I assume that the fear of communist subversion or revolution and the responsibility of the owner class for their support of Hitler let them swallow it.
Economist Gabriel Zucman proposes a global tax rate of 2% for centibillionaires.
Centimillionaires, not just Centimillionaires.
Gov. Newsom is a dangerous candidate that cannot be allowed to gain the Dem. nomination for POTUS. His actions regarding the WB / Paramount merger and AI regulation show very clearly that he is not to be trusted, never mind that his poor choice in former partners would also open him to blackmail. No serious reformer should consider him *at all* in a federal position. He is not to be trusted.
Other than that, I agree with most of the host's suggestions here with this caveat - the #1 job for a (hopeful) Democratic House is to start the process of impeachment for numerous DoJ and Judicial appointees.
Even if the Senate does not flip, the impeachment hearings for Patel / Blanche / Carr / Boutros / Judges of the 5th and 8th Circuit of Appeals / Alito / Thomas would reveal enough criminality to give a hypothetical Dem POTUS the political capital for mass prosecutions of the GOP for blatant corruption.
The rule of law must be re-established in the US, and House impeachment hearings are the path to it.
Dre Oger:
"Centimillionaires, not just Centimillionaires."
???
I suppose you mean "Centimillionaires, not just CentiBillionaires".
2nd matthew para was unusually cogent. First one ignores that Newsom is by far the only dem with the verbal ferocity needed. His scandal-free CA administrations run smoothly and his constraints on the left never breach respectful negotiation. Buttegieg is close in polemical skills but short on administrative ones and a reach for voter acceptance. Let the country get used to him as VP. Heck VP is where to train AOC for future greatness.
There's an SF short story rattling around in my head where an historian employed by Luna University is traversing Sol System trying to piece together the history of the ruined megastructures erected on Mars/Jovian moons/Ceres and other asteroids, including faces carved into planetoids and unfinished cities-cum-mortuaries, left behind by the trillionaires of the 22nd and 23 centuries: One of the main problem she encounters is that the record has been so corrupted by competing AIs and the lack of surviving, uncorrupted hardcopy that she has to go back to Earth to confirm, as a starting point, that there was never an Atlantis.
Pappenheimer
P.S. it's a hopeful story in that it presupposes we actually, as a species, survive feudalism/fascism in a nuclear age, expand into space on a permanent basis, AND still allow males to achieve high office.
By the way, someone on the last line argued to me that rumpT has average, not low IQ. I'd argue that whatever he's got now is less than what he had in his 'prime' (to use the word loosely*), but I will also quote a New Yorker:
"You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump."
- Fran Liebowitz
Pappenheimer
* another meaning of 'prime' is "A parry in classical fencing that is used generally by someone who is desperately and usually unsuccessfully trying to avoid losing a point", at least according R A Heinlein in his uneven but very fun novel, "Glory Road."
Culminating in my own 3 words, at bottom: "How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America is a 464-page investigative book by veteran journalist David Corn, published by Harper on September 15, 2026, that examines Vladimir Putin's decade-long covert campaign to subvert the United States and how Donald Trump and his allies aided that effort.
A Decade-Long Shadow War: The book details how Russian leadership ran secret operations to weaken American democracy and boost Donald Trump starting in 2016 and continuing through subsequent election cycles.
Complicity and Denials: Corn argues that Trump, the MAGA movement, and right-wing media acted as "useful idiots" or active participants in covering up and denying the Kremlin's interference. [2]
Collusion and Contacts: The narrative explores direct connections between Trump associates (such as Rudy Giuliani) and Russian intelligence operatives, as well as the political fallout surrounding these events.
See 1st comment for the image that says it al. And those 3 words are "Save us, Zelensky!"
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-russia-won-david-corn
Yes, damn auto-correct.
With that kind of glowing review of our Governor, I'm going to have to take a closer look at him and see if I'm inclined to support him. 8)
But Yah. Impeach the lot of them.
A worthy objective.
Continuing on in the theme of the 'Presumption of Guilt', our fine host roundly condemns Trump for 'Russian Collusion' & being a 'Putin Puppet', despite a very lengthy and expensive investigation which failed to convict, while he fails to mention how California Governor Newsom has repetitively violated the Logan Act by illegally negotiating with foreign President Xi, resulting in official Chinese support for Governor Newsom's ongoing presidential campaign.
From having a large public gathering at the posh French Laundry restaurant during his own 'all-inclusive' COVID lockdown, to gifting his current future ex-wife a 3 million US dollar 'educational' book deal, to squandering between 23 & 231 billion US dollars on a nonexistent High Speed Train, Governor Newsom's many grifts make Trump look more like Diogenes in comparison, as Trump's border wall is at least 40% complete (and 10 times longer) at a paltry cost of 43 billion US dollars.
Even so, I can only hope that California Governor Hair-Helmet succeeds in his presidential ambitions, as his disastrous presidency will most certainly lead to the total destruction of US Democrat Party & the subsequent election of a true right-wing conservative US president, instead the current politically moderate US president that is Trump.
And, yes, by all objective criteria, Trump is a political MODERATE.
Best
Sorry Locum, I don't have the spoons to research and refute all your questionable claims. I will say that Newsom's gaffes are several orders of magnitude smaller than Trump's power and money grabs.
TML several order of magnitude, right. But the diagnosis is simple. They aren't just mad and evil, they are hypocrite cowards who refuse ever to put up stakes of wager-accountability for fact checks of their assertions vs ours.
If today's locums weren't mad, they'd at this moment declare: "Given that Trumpism is a total calamity, likely foreign run, that has destroyed the credibility of US conservatism. So, what can I and others do to rescue conservatism as a movement that positively influences American life?"
It would be best done by reaming out Trumpism, root & branch. Take the moral and ego hit and start fresh by returning to Goldwater and Buckley and Burke and starting to reclaim Adam Smith.
It could happen. But he and his ilk can't screw up the moral and cerebral courage to face that daunting task. The most contemptible thing is not the craziness or corruption --- it is a cowardice.
I'm invoking Brandolini's law.
Again, to paraphrase of Joseph Kennedy: would the Epstein class prefer to keep half their fortunes and their heads, or lose both.
Pappenheimer @ 3:19,
That would have been me, and I certainly don't disagree with your point about decline. However, I believe Ms Liebowitz may be guilty of applying a scale with a high bias in her comment.
I remember being in a discussion with ex-schoolfriends several decades ago where this general topic came up (in a completely different context). One of the participants pointed out that we were all members of a group that had been in the advanced streams for the main school subjects, so all the people we personally knew well, including those who had struggled with the curriculum, were well above average in the context of the general community.
Things may be different elsewhere, but I read an estimate once where it was estimated that you wouldn't find many National level politicians here in Australia that were intellectually less than a full standard deviation above the norm.
If Dr. Brin believes the next Democratic Presidential candidate should be a State Governor, I would be interested to read his views on JB Pritzker.
And yes, I am aware that his physical appearance might weigh (sic) against him. A bit like Katie Porter's voice, sadly.
I assume they will insist on continuing to take fortunes and heads of orhers, and block, water down or subvert changes.
To be honest I would say, go then. Go screw up somebody else's democracy. But I think the real need is to change company law. Finally recognize that companies are not people.
If it has to be a governor, then the current governor of North Carolina would be a good choice.
The trouble is he is a billionaire. One of the enemy.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-xi-jinping-videos-chinese-flags-backlash-1844043
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/10/25/governor-newsom-meets-with-chinese-president-xi-jinping/
From Chinese Lickspittle Newsom to Russian Puppet Trump, it's sadly ironic to hear Dr Brin demand the elimination of Foreign Run politicians from national politics, as the 'Foreign Run' & 'Foreign Influence' slur was a frequent talking point of a certain Austrian Painter, especially in view of the growing antisemitic sentiment towards Israeli & Israeli-adjacent ''Foreign Influencers'.
I believe that our fine host just paraphrased the catchy lyrics of a song called 'Auslander Aus'. How interesting.
Best
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
Conservatism does not conserve. It is a 'misnomer' - or in other words, a Big Lie.
Maybe he's a class traitor like FDR?
@paradoctor
Conservatism does not conserve. It is a 'misnomer' - or in other words, a Big Lie.
A “conservative” in a liberal system is a liberal. If you believe in a Conservatism which is about something else, then you are necessarily radical. People like the host want good liberal “conservatives” who pose no threat to the underlying liberal system and generally agree with liberals about most things, they just want to go slower. Republicans in the past were content with this role: basically the second stringers, the controlled opposition. Trump offered something more transgressive, with a few elements of a non-liberal Conservatism, but not many—it’s really a different form or radicalism, similar to fascism.
The real Conservative doesn’t go the fascist route, nor does he become an activist; he prefers to wait for the present cycle to play out, the system to collapse and the age to end. This is totally alien to the modern Western mindset, where liberals, progressives and fascists all believe they can become gods and bend history, the future, the universe and human nature infinitely to their wills. Real Conservatism doesn’t buy any of that.
Strangely enough, I’d say the “leftism” of people like Mamdani has more elements of Conservatism than mainstream liberalism, Republicanism or Trumpism. And that probably has a lot to do with the Islamic influence. Say what you want about Islam, but it has never produced the kinds of arrogant, hubristic people and ideologies we take for normal in the West, and now some of its Conservatism is taking root in the heart of WEIRDworld.
Well said, Treebeard.
In his 1964 short story 'Name of the Snake', RA Lafferty noted the fastest & ultimate evil path forward was to "keep the venom and change the Name of the Snake," and this is the fastest path forward that the most ardent western progressives have adopted.
This is the braid braid road of redefinitional wickedness, a duplicitous approach that allows the progressive to redefine sin & immorality as modern virtue in an attempt to dismiss traditional value systems as immoral & contemptible.
Ultimately, however, the progressive outsmarts 'xyrself' by assuming that their increasingly delusional redefinitions still reflect reality, which they do not, as evidenced by the swarthy muslim 'English Nationals' who rape children in Rotherham.
And, as far as the old school traditional conservatives go, you'll meet them when those locals begin to hate.
Best
But the Democrat lifting hand from Bible in January 2029 must be a governor, so that any initial flubs will not be administrative ones. No learning curves. Fierce determination to restore the republic, yes! But also experience and skill.
I suggest two things:
1) I think the panic level of many people will drastically rise the closer November 2028 comes. I assume that this desperation might drive them to use the DoJ or simply assassins to remove whoever is the blue nominee.
The most likely candidates should sit together and develop a strategy and a succession line should something bad befall one of them..
2) Tens of thousands of career officials will be needed to replace Trump loyalists and to rebuild the massive institutional holes the previous administration created. Recruitment should start ...now.
@Locum &Treebeard: I just want to mention that there were times in human history where it was a totally excepted behaviour and position to slay and eat you, to burn you at the stake for witchcraft and heresy, or to hang, draw and quarter you because someone felt you where guilty of treason.
Obviously, most of us have developed away from those positions.
"he [ JB Pritzker ] is a billionaire. One of the enemy."
No, he's not. He uses his powers for good, not for evil.
"The real Conservative doesn’t go the fascist route,..."
Which only goes to prove that the current Republicans with any political power are not conservative.
You say that Islam has never produced arrogant, hubristic people and ideologies. Seriously?! :-D
How patronizing of you. Are they noble savages?
I disagree. Islam produced such people and programs at its founding, at its golden-age height, and at present. At its founding by the boatload - as is normal for a young religion - much less so at its brilliant and enlightened golden age, and again by the boatload at its decadent present.
As is often the case for, quote, conservatives, unquote, you focus all your opprobrium on sexual nonconformity, and none on the malefactors of great wealth. For instance, as for redefinitional wickedness, remember "Greed is good"? And let's not forget the Felon-In-Chief. By endorsing him, and even worshiping him, the 'conservative' evangelists have exposed themselves as immoral and contemptible.
@paradoctor, I could imagine that his statement is a deflection of Cornell University and the frat-bro rape culture of the US.
Fun fact:
- Number of female physics Nobel laureates: 5
- Number named John: 10
Der Ogre - though I sympathize, I knew someone who was falsely accused, and in a court of law you have to believe the evidence first and foremost, and remember that the accused are innocent until proven guilty.
Because an accusation alone, even if completely baseless, is enough to destroy a man's life.
And I am troubled by Jane Doe's earlier sworn statement that the activity was fully consensual.
Such rushing to judgement and presumption of guilt are what gave us the Central Park Five and the majority of the lynchings of Black men in the Jim Crow South.
Larry, I agree that he is one of the good billionaires, but that doesn't change that he can't be a representative of the more egalitarian society we want to build.
I don't know any movements in the history of Islamic civilization comparable to what we've had in the West over the past few hundred years. Ideas like men becoming gods (or women), separating religion and state, normalization of various forms of deviancy, radical individualism, hedonism, worship of capitalism, technology or secular "progress" -- when were those things celebrated in Islamic societies? This kind of hubris seems to be concentrated in modern West. Sure, they’ve had the hubris of thinking Islam is a universal religion destined to rule the world, but their basic tenet is mankind’s submission to God, not assuming the role of God – the latter being the ultimate form of hubris, never entertained to such an extreme outside modern Western civilization. For me this is the essence of Conservatism: humility before something outside ourselves (God, the Tao, nature, tradition, whatever). With Islam it's clear what that something is. With our civilization? Not so much.
@Celt: Agreed, innocent until proven guilty in that special case , but I believe that this special combo of fraternities + manosphere propaganda + lack of sex ed & exp has ... calculable outcomes.
@DerOger; locoweed mentioned "swarthy muslim" rapists, not lily-white Cornell rapists, nor the Felon-in-Chief's pedophilia. "Conservatives" care less about the crime than the skin-tint - and bank balance - of the criminals.
As usual, the two fecal spewers are dismal rationalizers for evil, accusing others of the sins they see in the mirror. In fact, the normalization of every human sin is THEIR thing.
But let’s test that, SHOW US the past era when your methods had better outcomes? When accounts by the few who could write weren’t describing and lamenting the brutal horrors of their own times? When their very BONES show modern scholars the wretched, disease-plagued, violent and short lives of even the children of aristocrats?
The ‘humility’ and ‘submission’ you demand was primarily and compulsorily paid to rigid hierarchies of brutal lords and their spoiled inheritance brats… and to priests who justified those rigid orders by claiming that they extended all the way into Heaven. SO SHOW US the outcomes! The happy, pleasant, well-governed eras of justice and accomplishment and peace and progress and joy, under the brutal hierarchies you sing praises to?
Go ahead. Name one
If God wants us groveling before Him, let him open up the skies and SAY SO directly, to our faces, Monty Python style. Skipping the corrupt middlemen. YOUR favorite story… about Jesus… lays claim to being that kind of a theology based on proof that you could see. Well, so it claimed. And if he had shown the Temple priests the magic wonders he showed gullible Galilean peasants – and also proved himself to the Romans – that would have been that!
But no, your priests and lords enforced stunningly stupid, rigid, calcified, cruel and self-destructive hierarchies – granted by God! - with swords and fire and rape and starvation in order to maintain their harems and to keep their own brats fed from the meager larder that feudalism ever provided.
And PERVERSIONS? You dare lecture us about that? All historical accounts are rife with priests and lords grabbing girls and boys and piling on… exactly as Republicans do today. And BET LIKE A MAN over the disparate rates of perversion in the two US political parties. Bet now over rates of every mortal sin and turpitude in red states (except Utah) vs blue. Step up if those danglies of yours contain actual T-producing testicles.
Conservatism? It used to be (supposedly) about Adam Smith’s recommendation for flat-fair-transparently open COMPETITION. Buckley said so. But oligarch cheater-lords always hated that word, deep-down, and now you neo-feudalists never even mention it at all. Because it’s proved that DEMOCRATS stimulate Smith’s approach and your cult always, always crushes it.
Competition is the vehicle. Upl;ifiting of all children to be able to compete is the method. The underlying lesson is STOP WASTING TALENT by presupposing someone’s character or abilities from some trait they had no voice in choosing. The divine madness of American mythology is not perversion. It is “I should have a right to remake myself!” And yes, taken to extreme – as the far left does today – it can get silly (furries) or even creepy. Fringe excesses, to, are the American way.
But Bue America CONTAINS some twits, while your entire cult CONSISTS now of fact-hating, future-hating, science-hating other-haters who make excuses of traitors and perverts.
And contains is a very different word than consists.
scidate cute supposed proof of discrimination, And utter crap. ASK any of those five.. or almost ANY top flight woman scientists. 9 out of ten will say "I know prejudice happens and I help by talking to girls a lot. But myself? I never experienced any at all."
TRY ACTUALLY ASKING! Most women scientists had proud and helpful male mentors.and colleagues, almost from the beginning. Science... is... different.
I'm not going to comment on prejudice against women is the sciences, but an old college friend left the field of mathematics (topology, as I recall) - in which she excelled - because she was cute, short, blonde and blue-eyed. She wasn't taken seriously and had to forcibly rebuff unwelcome advances. Another friend, my Fullbright Girl, was offered the chance to become a Central American general's mistress and was delivered a phone invitation to a bedroom rendezvous with a US Senator/ex-astronaut (now deceased) from Ohio, both times after musical performances. At least the general's offer was direct and not through a PR lady.
Science may be different, and things have hopefully changed for the better in all fields, but I suspect that women still have to navigate situations that their male peers do not.
Pappenheimer
Saudi authorities are on a bit of a witch hunt-and-execute spree right now, and it's suspected that MBS is using the law to get rid of perceived political enemies as well, even though he had promised to stop executions as of 2022 "except for cases involving Sharia law." 345 killed in 2025, many for 'witchcraft' and more in 2025.
That's some loophole, that Sharia law loophole. I presume that MBS feels free to initiate such a spree because the US won't call him on it, with rumpT in office.
Pappenheimer
Re: swarthy rapists, I stumbled on mention of a German author from the 1930's and 40's who wrote, probably with one sweaty hand above the table, novels about Jewish villains abducting and raping pure Aryan maidens. I'm sure the Nazis loved this dude and I would expect similar filth today with black and Arab despoilers. A quick dip into the internet and....yep. Never going to dive in there.
Pappenheimer
Yes, I agree. I just thought it was a striking factoid (10 Johns?!). It came from an astronomer I admire (partly because she's a Scot).
https://bsky.app/profile/astroroyalscot.bsky.social/post/3mwnno47tss2f
Science IS different. But let me modify. I meant physical sciences. Biology is rife with exploitation of women. Less sexually than keeping their sharp eyes and meticulous patience slaving in the egotist's lab. And yes, even in physical sciences, an attractive woman needs both a thick skin and eyes in the back of her head. As has needed every woman our species ever produced... and half the men.
I saw discrimination in my first year, but it wasn't widespread and it was done in a manner that could plausibly be denied. I thought hard about it and saw it was a couple of the older generation and all we had to do was wait for them to die off for the issue to become a lost opportunity cost.
The plausibility technique always looked like "that student just isn't going to make it" and was never phrased as "no female student is going to make it". The reason I saw what was done as discrimination is the particular woman was both bright and motivated. She was also married to one of the other grad students and that led to assumptions about family planning and division of labor.
Times like these occasionally make me thankful we aren't immortal. The kids need us to go away at some point so they can make their own mistakes. 8)
Looking back on this subthread, I see that I misrepresented locoweed when I said sexual 'nonconformity' - i.e. LGBTQ, which I suspect is on locoweed's Little List. But no; he spoke of sexual criminality. I stand corrected. But it was about 'swarthy muslims' rather than Cornell fratboys. But here too I rushed to judgement, for I have no evidence, yet, of them being 'lily-white'. But they're rich, and therefore, by 'conservative' logic, innocent of everything, especially when guilty.
reason, politics is the art of the possible. I'll take any class traitor I can get. For instance, FDR brought on the Great Compression.
Treebeard, I am glad that you do see foundational hubris in Islam after all. Taking over the world is very hubristic; and it sits oddly with insistence on Arabic without translation. Also with bowing towards Mecca on a spherical world. In the Society Islands, antipodal to Mecca, every direction is towards Mecca, yet also opposite to Mecca; so a Moslem in the Society Islands is expected to regularly moon Mecca. What do the imams have to say about that?
Also, there's a fine line between submission to Allah and submission to the imams. If the imams entirely agree with Allah, as they insist, then it follows that Allah entirely agrees with the imams; and according to Spock's Law, a difference that makes no difference is no difference. My problem with theocracy is less with the theo- than with the -cracy.
As usual, accusations are confessions.
It's estimated that 70% of domestic abuse allegations that occur in US divorce court are FALSE, even though those falsehoods are typically accepted as valid by the family court system.
White male university students are accused of rape, there is zero evidence, no trial & often no official police report, yet their lives are destroyed, and it's revealed later to be a huge hoax, as in the case of the Yale Lacrosse Team & Emma Sulkowicz the Mattress Girl.
An English native is stabbed by a knife-wielding foreigner and the victim is immediately handcuffed -- only to die in handcuffs -- while the police ignore & protect the knife-wielding killer because bias.
A foreign rapist is given probation after admitting to a brutal child rape but the white male native is sentenced to 5 years for declaring too loudly that he likes bacon.
This is what currently passes for Law Enforcement in the Progressive West, the selective application of legal processes & punishments in accordance with predetermined identity group biases & prejudices, in a manner that Samuel Francis described as Anarcho-Tyranny, resulting in a gross parody of both Impartiality & impartial Justice
This is why our fine host demands to be shown proof of historically 'better outcomes' under the previous standard of jurisprudence, mostly because the morally relativistic term 'better' is both fairly vague & functionally meaningless.
Although he seems perfectly happy to assume that whites, males & conservatives are necessarily 'guilty' of all the crimes of which they have been accused, I'm sure he'd sing a very different tune if the other side made similar criminal assumptions about his most favoured identity groups.
Then & only then would he demand IMPARTIALITY and the legal 'Presumption of Innocence Until Proven Guilty', but if that is the 'better outcome' he really prefers, then he better do it now before he's measured & corrected on the very same Procrustean Bed that he made to measure others.
Please note that I'm more than willing to abide by Dr Brin's morally relativistic definitions of modern jurisprudence, especially if this means that I can assume criminality, guilt & meter out brutal punishments to all concerned based on allegation alone in the manner of '"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius', as this (by far) is the 'Better Outcome' in terms of recidivism.
Best
"according to Spock's Law, a difference that makes no difference is no difference."
Am I mistaken, or is that a specific reference to James Blish's novel Spock Must Die rather than a general Star Trek reference?
" ...he [ JB Pritzker ] can't be a representative of the more egalitarian society we want to build."
But excluding those with actual power from the fight that we still need to win is a bad idea.
Pritzker may well be akin to the protagonist of V for Vendetta--a revolutionary who understands that once he's taken down the old tyranny, he is not the one to build the new from the ashes. That different circumstances call for different heroes.
Again:
" ...he [ JB Pritzker ] can't be a representative of the more egalitarian society we want to build."
You would then tell Oskar Schindler that he should not be allowed to save the lives of Jews because as a member of the Nazi Party, he is one of the enemy?
"I don't know any movements in the history of Islamic civilization comparable to what we've had in the West over the past few hundred years."
Wait, I'm confused. You like Islam now? I thought you wanted them all deported as Muslim terrorists so that you could live surrounded only by your own race. You know, the one from Western Europe?
"... worship of capitalism, ... -- when were those things celebrated in Islamic societies?
Right now in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the UAE...pretty much all of the oil rich countries.
And this may be old, but in the 80s, I knew some students over here from the UAE, and pretty much all they cared about was money and hedonism.
"Sure, they’ve had the hubris of thinking Islam is a universal religion destined to rule the world, "
Heh. Really, that's just a parenthetical?
"but their basic tenet is mankind’s submission to God, not assuming the role of God"
No, their basic tenet is their own submission to God, and mankind's submission to them by force of arms if need be.
"For me this is the essence of Conservatism: humility before something outside ourselves (God, the Tao, nature, tradition, whatever). With Islam it's clear what that something is. With our civilization? Not so much."
Do you really see any modern self-described conservative politicians running on anything resembling submission to a higher cause? Strange effing planet, man.
Sigh and alas. Instead of being interestingly wrong, as previous, now he is back to shrieking at areas of the meme horizon that is not only fart-level but way away from any stance that has anything to do with me. Sadly pathetic, alas.
Loco lies about statistics. Not one person here believes him, not even his right-wing fellow travelers.
I wonder to which false statistics Matthew is referring?
https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/legal/legal-trends/the-silver-bullet-method-the-rise-of-false-allegations-in-divorce-and-custody-cases
The statistic that false domestic abuse allegations against men in divorce court have become exceedingly common, affecting up 86% of men in the above article?
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43
The statistics that US blacks (who represent about 13% of the total US population) are responsible for nearly 50% of all US violent crimes in cases of murder, robbery & weapons use?
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/
Or, perhaps the statistics that show LGBTQ+ youths are at least 4X more likely to attempt suicide than their normative peers, while all-cause transgender suicidality rates approach 41%?
All of my quoted statistics are dispassionately fact-checked & quite unlike Matthew's frequent emotional appeals based on his childish 'fee'fees' in regard to abstractions like fairness & other BS.
Best
"
Or, perhaps the statistics that show LGBTQ+ youths are at least 4X more likely to attempt suicide than their normative peers, while all-cause transgender suicidality rates approach 41%?"
Not sure what you're trying to conclude from that one? To me, it argues for more support (or at least less persecution) of LGBTQ+ people, not the other way around. I would think that LGBTQ+ people commit suicide for the same reason those "employees" in Chinese sweat shops routinely throw themselves out of windows--hopelessness. Pretending that they don't exist, backed up by violence and death, is not solution to the problem. It is the problem.
I shouldn't bother. But "86% of the AFFECTED. me" implies a subset and it is stunningly implausible that a majority of divorces that are settles 'amicably' or as adults involve any such thing and hence he is as usual a cherrypicking liar who doesn't care about his collapse credibility.
But yeah, his bitter life obsession is so much like someone I knew while young. Get out of your grudges, fellah they are killing you. Watch the last episode of MAD MEN for the very last scene... the best final scene of any movie or show, ever.
Agree with LH... LGBTQ+ folks ARE closer to the edge than orthos! Pete Buttegieg said that in abstract, had he been ortho "it would be a much easier life."
Indeed, the sheer STRESS of those lifestyles... except the "Ls", who live long in monogamous contentment without us... would be a deterrent of huge effect if it were 'just a lifestyle choice.' It is UTTER disproof of the mad right's narrative that most such folks choose it out of some casual decadence.
Okay what follows is UNofficial before-coffee grumbling and of low-cred when someone digs it up to use against me in 20 years. But the if anything proves the absolute idiocy of today's mad right, it is the botched execution in Tennessee. It's not just capital punishment as a whole. To be plain, I do not oppose it in principle, though yes, as practiced, across the board.
No, it's the insane stoopidity of the 'search for a humane and effective method.' Carumba! Really? The French knew how. Remove the head from the body. Swiftly and cleanly.
Okay, the whole process leading UP to the Gulliotine was stressful and a kind of torture. The tumbrel ride, being shackled and escorted to the machine and having to kneel down... A guy like me would prefer that - the drama and shouted final words and carping they shoulda cleaned the blade and maybe a final flipped bird... but sure that'd be torture for some. For most.
So? What we CAN do is anesthetize.
In other words. These are proven imbeciles.
David, I am totally against the death penalty for a number of reasons, the nature of the Trump "Department of Justice" is an illustration of just one of them.
The main reason I oppose the death penalty is because it is incompatible with the idea that any person, even the most wicked and bestial of criminals, deserves to have human dignity preserved by the state.
Leave that path, for any reason*, and you are entering a slippery slope. Most of the time, that path is left to gain votes and clicks, and once you are in the spiral of retributive brutality, it is hard to leave it. Sunk cost fallacy. Overton window. General desensitisazion.
From there, it is just a small step to forget about the whole die process thing and bomb marriages and Motor boats oversees to "battle terrorists", and you probably could guess what the next step could be.
*To be frank, only Norway has so far to be able to reach this ideal. Yet even our system produces only a fraction of brutality we see ... Elsewhere.
I do not deem life imprisonment to be any better morally than execution after generous opportunities to disprove or cast doubt on firmly established execrable guilt. We are still animals, unable to solve or resolve all of the quandaries that lead to horrible crimes... though civilization has been moving toward that much sought and desired goal. As long as we are pushing that progress as hard as we can and helping increasing percentages of children to reach sane adulthood, then I will deem us forgiven for still having to be pragmatically imperfect.
Indeed, the MILLIONS that it costs to house the very worst men in life sentences could be better spent on those children... as can the Billions ripped off by oligarchs. I spend vastly more of my attention and ire on the latter. And if pressed, I'll admit that I'm not joining organizations aiming to eliminate the DP totally. My stance offers me some dissonance and discomfort... and I can live with it.
I'm with Gandalf on this one. Life changed me from a death penalty supporter in college to an opponent today
I had a conversation with a Mexican citizen who'd sought asylum in the US because her family had been threatened at gunpoint in their own home in Guerrero, and who would have cheerfully had the home invaders executed.
I asked if the government who'd allowed these men to act with impunity could be trusted to execute the right people, and she admitted she had no such confidence.
And in truth, I remember reading long ago that executions are ridiculously expensive these days. Not sure there would be much in the way of savings.
Pappenheimer
"The French knew how. Remove the head from the body. Swiftly and cleanly."
No surprise that I'm totally with you there. Were I to face execution, my first choice would be to be guillotined. I think the US is more squeamish about the actual spilling of blood than about pain and suffering, which is why our methods (other than firing squad) don't involve literal bloodshed.
"A guy like me would prefer that - the drama and shouted final words and carping they shoulda cleaned the blade and maybe a final flipped bird"
A Tale of Two Cities portrays some French who were so curious about the guillotine as to offer themselves up for execution even without having been denounced. I wouldn't go that far, but if guillotining was inevitable, I would lie back and enjoy it, as it were.
"I do not deem life imprisonment to be any better morally than execution ..."
Execution doesn't allow for correction of mistaken conviction, and for that reason, I am hinky about the death penalty because of the way it is applied here in the States. The current administration especially makes one think twice about trusting government with such decisions.
But I take your point that we also suck pond water at handling incarceration, and that a life sentence awaiting the day you are shivved in the shower is its own brand of torture. I'll refer to fiction again, but in the dystopian movie Escape from New York, lifers who were about to be deposited into the prison that was Manhattan Island were given a choice to be put to death instead. Maybe that's an option?
oward
onward
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