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There was a horrible earthquake in Morocco, and rescue efforts have lagged because government officials in Morocco didn’t become government officials to have to do things. Also, they are waiting for orders from the semi-autocratic King of Morocco. But the king was always annoyed by the kind of duties that Queen Elizabeth II was so dutiful about doing. He never liked having responsibilities as king. And now he’s barely been seen for five years ever since he got divorced and forged a mysterious relationship with ex-con kickboxer Abubakr Abu Azaitar.
It’s kind of like Thailand’s degenerate playboy king.
I know it can be fun to talk about the failures of democracy and how we should have a king. But how is the king thing working out where they currently have a real one?
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It was only 6.8 on the Richter scale. You are barely coherent. ESL, much?
Sure took them a while to get around to his name.
I think Steve misunderstands the point of a King. The King of Morocco is doing it right. You’re top of the heap and don’t have to care what others think. This is the point, this is the motivation of every guy who ever founded a monarchy. It’s not good for society but again. Paradoxically, while “King” has position connotations in modern English, “Tyrant” doesn’t despite the historically record showing tyrants were often Howard Beale types who rebalanced things when the elites got too sociopathic towards the common people and common good. (Did some of them become “Kings” or aspire to become them? Yes.) So there was an earthquake, Morocco and the King’s source of wealth will still be there tomorrow, if he doesn’t show up, what are people going to do? See, he’s a better King than Charles.
What the constitutional monarchs in Britain have to do is because they aren’t such good monarchs, they aren’t absolute monarchs and have to contend with outside political forces who might actually take it all away from them (In reality it was taken away from them long ago, now they are just weird public aristocrats who are paid through the state from land they pretend to own) if they don’t put up a show. That to some extent they have been domesticated into this life of “duty” is further proof that they aren’t real monarchs. Which, indeed, has been true for many centuries that they have been “constitutional” (Read: fake) monarchs.
You may not like to hear it but the highest performing disposition of a king to the people is indifference to the people, they are beneath him. Do people not get the motivations of status obsessed people with cluster B personality disorders or something? So many people who have a primal urge to promote inequality in their desire to be elevated above somebody else don’t get the guy above them looks at them the say way. Sad.
If you can help the serfs build a better country, you get more cash, status, and cool stuff.
____________________________________________________________
With a king above it all, he is supposed to have the luxury of a long view, and plan for a better posterity. Maybe keeping the plebes in rubble strewn misery has an upside: hard times makes hard men, so keep times hard. But maybe shitty people raise up shitty kings, and it's difficult to get away from the fat center of the bell curve.
It’s public knowledge that the sultan is ghey!
Re Morocco’s King Mohammed VI –
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2019/03/missing-royals-morocco-and-dubai.html
He sure does lick their boots.
To be fair, you should call out Yarvin or other neo-monarchists by name and address their actual arguments.
Yarvin always mentions some form of accountability for his monarchs, although I fail to see how this would really be practicable.
More concerning is Yarvin’s recent article on El Salvador, which reveals his ideas about how monarchy would work in the modern world to be pie in the sky fantastical hand-wavy stuff. Morocco’s failure here is a clear argument against monarchy, and it’s hard to see how any response would be made that didn’t mostly consist of a No-True-Scotsman fallacy.
The upshot is that authority in modern society becomes sociopathic.
I’d take this chick over Kate Middleton, but seems like he blew it.
The prince chose wisely.
Erronius
White man punches two blacks in Japan.
Leadership should be for the benefit of the led.
- The Godfather III
https://web.archive.org/web/20230911185643/https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/04/14/the-mystery-of-moroccos-missing-king
Libya doesn’t have a king or dictator, we saw to that. I believe they might be having some problems despite being newly liberated.
Pakistan is a democracy of sorts, they also have periodic problems with flooding and poor responses. South Africa also a democracy. I could go on…
Authoritarian rule is fine, it’s a question of priors/philosophy. Authoritarianism combined with some sort of utopian or universalist ideology or unreal plans has horrible outcomes. This is true of any governing system, including our beloved Whiggish liberal one. Authoritarianism combined with amoral familism as one sees in the Middle East results in these kind of screwups.
An authoritarian/monarchical/dictatorship combined with a limited outlook, an acceptance of the limitations of human abilities, and a firm rejection and or violent repression of any sort of Manichean or utopian outlooks would be alright.
I understand I am getting into no True Scotsman territory, but the same could be said of any governing system.
And how is Democracy™ working out on being democratic? Now matter how much people vote against immigration and minority preferences, they keep getting more of them. Seems like a fail at the most basic level.
An autocrat may or may not do what you want, but at least you don't have to listen to his hypocrisy.Replies: @Hypnotoad666, @Ennui
Maybe they need a White King™
http://m.slateafrique.com/sites/default/files/20130903/rss_1378233319_5815621-8670580_0.jpgReplies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Dennis Dale, @Reg Cæsar
What are you babbling about? In countries like Turkey, Iran, Syria and Morocco, a 6.8 earthquake is easily capable of doing grave damage to populated areas because of substandard construction.
“and rescue efforts have lagged because government officials in Morocco…”
are Moroccan.
“Also, they are waiting for orders from the semi-autocratic King of Morocco. But the king was always annoyed by the kind of duties that Queen Elizabeth II ”
Queen Elizabeth was the director of emergency response for Britain? And here I thought her big job was knighting child abusers.
In olden times Morocco, when the king died his many sons would go to war with each other and the most ruthless, cunning one would come out on top. That’s how it was supposed to work anyway.
Things have changed since then.
I don’t think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don’t have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we’re going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won’t say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn’t going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot — they’re the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.
The question is what kind of precipitating event moves this issue to a level of national discussion - naturally, the ruling elite will argue that they are uniquely capable and ought to remain in charge, so a huge variable is whether a significant share of society would revolt through mass non-compliance, protests, etc. My personal view is the existing elites are completely unfit so it's important that there is a lot of messaging that undermines trust in them at the present so it's hard for many of them to hang on when the time comes. Frankly that's what's behind all of the obvious manipulation of information right now, whether it's censorship of certain stories on social media, gaslighting about Ukraine, Covid, etc - it's no different that the ChiComs talking about a record sorghum harvest or the Soviets trumpeting how many tractors their factories were churning out, they are relatively transparent attempts to assure the public all is well in hand, when in reality they know the music is going to stop in the not too distant future.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone
In fairness, Yarvin’s concrete example of what a monarch would look like is FDR: elected, but relatively unfettered.
I seem to recall epic debt, unnecessary war, exponential bureaucracy, and suppression of ancient liberties.Replies: @Art Deco, @Corpse Tooth, @Anon
There’s only one King you want when things start to shake, rattle, and roll… I said shake, rattle, and roll.
How did FDR work out?
I seem to recall epic debt, unnecessary war, exponential bureaucracy, and suppression of ancient liberties.
are Moroccan.
"Also, they are waiting for orders from the semi-autocratic King of Morocco. But the king was always annoyed by the kind of duties that Queen Elizabeth II "
Queen Elizabeth was the director of emergency response for Britain? And here I thought her big job was knighting child abusers.Replies: @Almost Missouri
You’d think more people at an HBD site would pick up on this.
Lol.
Agree.
And how is Democracy™ working out on being democratic? Now matter how much people vote against immigration and minority preferences, they keep getting more of them. Seems like a fail at the most basic level.
An autocrat may or may not do what you want, but at least you don’t have to listen to his hypocrisy.
His grandfather, Mohammed V, was whiter. Here he is next to Walt Disney.
Please dress appropriately and don' t go back to Japan you snowflake
The democracy thing isn’t working out in the USA. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I would take any reasonably competent and reasonably benevolent dictator over the clown show we now have. In a heartbeat.
I’m not seeing the evidence that the King is the source of the problem in a way an elected head of state or parliamentary boss would not be.
==
Should note that in Europe, the position of head of state and head of government are nearly always separated and the head of government is typically the chief executive. The exceptions would be Finland, France, Poland, Roumania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Albania, the Yugoslav states, and the Baltic states. Sometimes the function of chief executive migrates from the prime minister’s office to the President’s office depending on the balance of seats in the legislature. Monarchical chief executives are limited to a couple of microstates. The Arab world has a couple of constitutional monarchs who are chief executives, and the King of Morocco is one.
==
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-politics-behind-morocco-turning-down-help-after-the-devastating-earthquake/
==
Here’s a different view. Don’t know how to assess it. The contention he ‘hasn’t been seen’ in five years is being peddled by The Economist, which has for decades been known for adopting an air of confidence in its pronouncements while having few if any actual reporters on the ground.
I seem to recall epic debt, unnecessary war, exponential bureaucracy, and suppression of ancient liberties.Replies: @Art Deco, @Corpse Tooth, @Anon
You’re wrong on all four counts. Good show.
What the constitutional monarchs in Britain have to do is because they aren't such good monarchs, they aren't absolute monarchs and have to contend with outside political forces who might actually take it all away from them (In reality it was taken away from them long ago, now they are just weird public aristocrats who are paid through the state from land they pretend to own) if they don't put up a show. That to some extent they have been domesticated into this life of "duty" is further proof that they aren't real monarchs. Which, indeed, has been true for many centuries that they have been "constitutional" (Read: fake) monarchs.
You may not like to hear it but the highest performing disposition of a king to the people is indifference to the people, they are beneath him. Do people not get the motivations of status obsessed people with cluster B personality disorders or something? So many people who have a primal urge to promote inequality in their desire to be elevated above somebody else don't get the guy above them looks at them the say way. Sad.Replies: @bomag, @SFG, @Anonymous
There’s something here about helping yourself by helping others.
If you can help the serfs build a better country, you get more cash, status, and cool stuff.
____________________________________________________________
With a king above it all, he is supposed to have the luxury of a long view, and plan for a better posterity. Maybe keeping the plebes in rubble strewn misery has an upside: hard times makes hard men, so keep times hard. But maybe shitty people raise up shitty kings, and it’s difficult to get away from the fat center of the bell curve.
Libyan flooding will likely kill many times the Morocco earthquake toll. The overthrow of the Gaddafi dynasty by Pres Obama is why the dams that failed were left to deteriorate.
Things have changed since then.
I don't think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don't have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we're going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won't say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn't going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot -- they're the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.Replies: @Art Deco, @Arclight, @Adolf Smith, @R.G. Camara, @James J. O'Meara
We’re like Bourbon France right now.
https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/uploads/post-17844-1227801248.jpgReplies: @bomag, @Muggles, @2stateshmoostate, @Rich
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Things have changed since then.
I don't think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don't have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we're going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won't say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn't going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot -- they're the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.Replies: @Art Deco, @Arclight, @Adolf Smith, @R.G. Camara, @James J. O'Meara
This is an interesting subject and one that I think will bubble to surface more frequently in the years to come. It’s increasingly clear to elements of the right and left that at the federal level there is no such thing as democracy in our country, no matter how much the idea of protecting it is flogged by politicians and the media. Frankly there is also probably a latent understanding of this by a lot of normies but absent some kind of crisis or the right political messenger it remains under the surface.
The question is what kind of precipitating event moves this issue to a level of national discussion – naturally, the ruling elite will argue that they are uniquely capable and ought to remain in charge, so a huge variable is whether a significant share of society would revolt through mass non-compliance, protests, etc. My personal view is the existing elites are completely unfit so it’s important that there is a lot of messaging that undermines trust in them at the present so it’s hard for many of them to hang on when the time comes. Frankly that’s what’s behind all of the obvious manipulation of information right now, whether it’s censorship of certain stories on social media, gaslighting about Ukraine, Covid, etc – it’s no different that the ChiComs talking about a record sorghum harvest or the Soviets trumpeting how many tractors their factories were churning out, they are relatively transparent attempts to assure the public all is well in hand, when in reality they know the music is going to stop in the not too distant future.
One key is what system replaces the one we have. The Western European system of democratic socialism was kind of gold standard for what a country could be, but now that has plenty of tarnish. Doesn't seem to be much of a bright line rallying point for organizing a modern polity.Replies: @Arclight
Also, despite it all the US has considerable economic, geographic/military, etc. strengths compared to the rest of the world. There probably won’t be a huge event that shakes people’s faith in the ruling class.Replies: @Kylie, @Anonymous
Yarvin always mentions some form of accountability for his monarchs, although I fail to see how this would really be practicable.
More concerning is Yarvin's recent article on El Salvador, which reveals his ideas about how monarchy would work in the modern world to be pie in the sky fantastical hand-wavy stuff. Morocco's failure here is a clear argument against monarchy, and it's hard to see how any response would be made that didn't mostly consist of a No-True-Scotsman fallacy.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone, @Ian M.
Agree.
One consideration is viewing history as a cycle of people calling for a monarch/tyrant/strong man, then rebelling against the monarch/tyrant/strong man when the feedback loop corrupts him.
As the rule of law falters in America, we slide closer to open, violent conflict. That will result in social revolution. Countries afflicted with social revolution (ie, not the 1776 kind where a local elite pushed out an overseas elite) end up with autocrats.
Whether anyone wants America to be governed by an autocrat is irrelevant. Our political deterioration makes an autocrat inevitable.
I’ve visited Morocco many times, lived here in 1999-2000, and am back permanently as of this summer. It’s really striking how much more prosperous it seems now. Automobile ownership was rare in 2000, common now. The roads were bad then, pretty good now. The internet was rudimentary then. Now I’m on fiber optic. There was little in the way of social services then. Today it may not be a European style welfare state, but it’s getting there. The kinds of political and social conflicts that are tearing the US apart are being navigated much more deftly (and with far more respect for tradition) here.
Having a not-so-power-hungry king who likes underdogs better than high-level functionaries may be a feature, not a bug. Pelham aptly notes that the low-key Moroccan monarchy is running the country much better than the hands-on one in Saudi Arabia:
“I do find that comparison between Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed IV of Morocco fascinating. Morocco has quite a well-functioning system, which has made substantial progress in terms of its infrastructure and population. It seems to be one of the better run states in the Middle East and is doing that all without really having a strong man or present leader. In contrast, Saudi Arabia is a kingdom that seems to be racing ahead in multiple directions and spending fabulous sums of money on projects that might end up being white elephants.”
As for the earthquake response, the jury on that is still out.
The question is what kind of precipitating event moves this issue to a level of national discussion - naturally, the ruling elite will argue that they are uniquely capable and ought to remain in charge, so a huge variable is whether a significant share of society would revolt through mass non-compliance, protests, etc. My personal view is the existing elites are completely unfit so it's important that there is a lot of messaging that undermines trust in them at the present so it's hard for many of them to hang on when the time comes. Frankly that's what's behind all of the obvious manipulation of information right now, whether it's censorship of certain stories on social media, gaslighting about Ukraine, Covid, etc - it's no different that the ChiComs talking about a record sorghum harvest or the Soviets trumpeting how many tractors their factories were churning out, they are relatively transparent attempts to assure the public all is well in hand, when in reality they know the music is going to stop in the not too distant future.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone
Good analysis.
One key is what system replaces the one we have. The Western European system of democratic socialism was kind of gold standard for what a country could be, but now that has plenty of tarnish. Doesn’t seem to be much of a bright line rallying point for organizing a modern polity.
A parliamentary system would be interesting insofar as it would presumably break the current duopoly and give people at the fringes some opportunity to feel like they had some representation or at least the possibility of it. Perhaps it would also have the side effect of improving the quality of the average federal elected representative - it's hard to imagine we'd do worse than our current lot.
It has less to do with Morocco being a monarchy and more to do with Arab countries being corrupt, low-trust, low IQ places, even when grading on a curve for Islam. And to be fair, if a fair election were held today in Morocco, they’d almost certainly vote for something like the Muslim Brotherhood or some strongman like they did in Tunisia. And Tunisia is wealthier and more advanced than Morocco!
Yarvin always mentions some form of accountability for his monarchs, although I fail to see how this would really be practicable.
More concerning is Yarvin's recent article on El Salvador, which reveals his ideas about how monarchy would work in the modern world to be pie in the sky fantastical hand-wavy stuff. Morocco's failure here is a clear argument against monarchy, and it's hard to see how any response would be made that didn't mostly consist of a No-True-Scotsman fallacy.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone, @Ian M.
Like most political theorists (including everyone from Ayn Rand to Karl Marx), Yarvin is at his strongest understanding and critiquing the current regime. Building a new one that is stable and effective is a much harder task. The only people who have done so successfully were pragmatic empiricists, rather than theorists.
The question is what kind of precipitating event moves this issue to a level of national discussion - naturally, the ruling elite will argue that they are uniquely capable and ought to remain in charge, so a huge variable is whether a significant share of society would revolt through mass non-compliance, protests, etc. My personal view is the existing elites are completely unfit so it's important that there is a lot of messaging that undermines trust in them at the present so it's hard for many of them to hang on when the time comes. Frankly that's what's behind all of the obvious manipulation of information right now, whether it's censorship of certain stories on social media, gaslighting about Ukraine, Covid, etc - it's no different that the ChiComs talking about a record sorghum harvest or the Soviets trumpeting how many tractors their factories were churning out, they are relatively transparent attempts to assure the public all is well in hand, when in reality they know the music is going to stop in the not too distant future.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone
Playing devil’s advocate, I was shocked by how many people went along with Covid BS and general media lies. Don’t underestimate the power of the US propaganda machine over the voting populace.
Also, despite it all the US has considerable economic, geographic/military, etc. strengths compared to the rest of the world. There probably won’t be a huge event that shakes people’s faith in the ruling class.
You wouldn't have been if you spent much time on the distaff side of social media. Their eagerness and ability to parrot the party line, march in lockstep and screech and shriek to drown out the opposition are horrifying. And they're getting worse.
I thank God for my tiny coterie of sensible, conservative female friends, who are firmly on the "I will not comply" side.
The relevant comparison for a North African monarchy is not the UK, but other North African countries. If it got rid of its monarch to become a republic, one might expect it to more closely resemble places like Libya or Algeria.
Bob Dylan called it. King or not, everybody must get stoned.
Those pundits could have even more fun if they actually understood what form of government was
runningbeing run by the greatest country in the world for a century and a half*. I’m hoping everyone here knows which one that is … almost, it looks like it’d be only fair to give Art Deco a pass… not his specialty, I can see….
* Hint, not a democracy.
What the constitutional monarchs in Britain have to do is because they aren't such good monarchs, they aren't absolute monarchs and have to contend with outside political forces who might actually take it all away from them (In reality it was taken away from them long ago, now they are just weird public aristocrats who are paid through the state from land they pretend to own) if they don't put up a show. That to some extent they have been domesticated into this life of "duty" is further proof that they aren't real monarchs. Which, indeed, has been true for many centuries that they have been "constitutional" (Read: fake) monarchs.
You may not like to hear it but the highest performing disposition of a king to the people is indifference to the people, they are beneath him. Do people not get the motivations of status obsessed people with cluster B personality disorders or something? So many people who have a primal urge to promote inequality in their desire to be elevated above somebody else don't get the guy above them looks at them the say way. Sad.Replies: @bomag, @SFG, @Anonymous
The French had a solution for that sort of thing.
One of the traditional arguments for monarchy is that a king thinks long term (he wants his son to succeed him and keep the dynasty going) and has no incentive to deliberately weaken the country to feather his own nest. An elected politician thinks in terms of the next election and is quite willing to damage the country if he thinks it will keep him in office (we are getting an enormous dose of that right now). We are seeing liberal democracy devolve into a tyranny that most of the old monarchs would never have dreamed of, especially the growing surveillance state/social credit system.
Lichtenstein is doing great.
And how is Democracy™ working out on being democratic? Now matter how much people vote against immigration and minority preferences, they keep getting more of them. Seems like a fail at the most basic level.
An autocrat may or may not do what you want, but at least you don't have to listen to his hypocrisy.Replies: @Hypnotoad666, @Ennui
When one finally gives in to accepting the Iron Law of Oligarchy it puts all the political claptrap about “our Democracy” in perspective. Basically, every system is just a different version of rule by oligarchs. “Democracy” is just the type of oligarchy in which the oligarchs decide they like cola, and they let the non-oligarchs have some input on whether it may be Coke or Pepsi.
What is needed is an autocrat who isn't ideological, but is cynical, ruthless, but committed to the long term health and order of the society. An unrealistic ideal, I know, but just as realistic as the Mr. Smith goes to Washington b.s. they've peddled to us for generations which is equally fictional and far more eye-rolling.Replies: @Almost Missouri, @res
I seem to recall epic debt, unnecessary war, exponential bureaucracy, and suppression of ancient liberties.Replies: @Art Deco, @Corpse Tooth, @Anon
How did the Cheney Regency work out? I recall a cruise missile or drone slamming into the Pentagon. The traitorous Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime even eclipses the ghoulish Obama/Biden cult in criminality. What they have in common: fealty to the same globalist cabal.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1701329362791133318?t=h1OcPjoiSQazjiDqdHOMZw&s=19Replies: @puttheforkdown
Little Asian fellas always need a white guy to show them what to do, even in their own country. Maybe if there was a single white man in the Japanese diet (!) with influence over immigration policy, he could lead his little buddies in the right direction there as well. Strong Asian ethnocentrism means foreigners in your government is only for the white man’s country, though.
Re: Steve’s final sentence: It would depend on who is king or queen. Imagine if Joe Biden was king and lived until the age of 88 or 92 rather than president who’ll be voted out of office in 2024 if he doesn’t die or isn’t forced to resign before the end of his 4-year term.
I'd take this chick over Kate Middleton, but seems like he blew it.Replies: @Erronius
No way. I don’t regularly get involved in ‘who is hot and who is not’ arguments, but Kate Middleton is effectively perfect as a British princess. She’s pretty but not screamingly beautiful, she does not speak out about controversial political issues, and she has borne a couple of male heirs. She has comported herself in an admirable fashion.
The prince chose wisely.
Erronius
https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1647120511288197121Replies: @AndrewR
Where’s the German?
The whole Arab world is rotten and dysfunctional to its very core.
https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/uploads/post-17844-1227801248.jpgReplies: @bomag, @Muggles, @2stateshmoostate, @Rich
I don’t think his being gay has much to do with any problems in Morocco.
Other than having a true biological heir. He is the only Muslim monarch with any actual kinship heritage to the original Mohammad. Remote at this point.
Other than more or less ruling a nation where you can’t be kicked out of office, no big deal. Like Chairman Xi in China or Putin in Russia. That can make bad habits like indifference to results, worse.
Biden has the same problem since he knows he’s not really running for re-election. So he really doesn’t care about natural disasters or hordes of illegal migrants flooding into the country. Not his problem. Time for a nap or another week at his beach house.
But his Democrat replacement, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, will have the same problem. He is the longtime ruler of a one-party state where his performance isn’t based on actual leadership results. So he plans for more ruination of America if elected. California will just be rear view mirror stuff.
(This has the happy side effect of legally removing VP Kamala Harris from the ticket, both being from the same state…)
Of course we have elections, not a monarchy. Sometimes even fair elections…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites#Members_and_family_tree
They have competitive elections in Morocco and have for decades. The performance of Islamist parties is uneven.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/morocco/freedom-world/2022
I thank our host for bringing about a post for which I have put a little bit of time thinking about.
The first order of business for American politicians is to get re-elected. The long-term effect of any policy they promote is not considered.
Apres moi, le deluge.
It occurs to me that we need some entity that considers the long-term effect of any given policy. A president has four years. A senator 6. A congressman has 2. They do not care about what happens to the country after they are gone.
A monarch that has no policy prescription powers, but does have veto powers might do the trick. For example, opening the borders will have a long-term negative effect on America. If a monarch was available to say ‘no’ because he felt it would be harmful to the republic in the long term, then we might have a more stable republic.
Erronius
Just for you,
Straight outta the St. Louis Fed:
and the CBO:
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-our-great-purge-of-the-1940s/#p_1_19:1-196
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_challenges_to_the_New_Deal
==
The war was 'unnecessary' in Buchanan's mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler's Germany dominated Europe and Tojo's Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it's an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.Replies: @Anon, @Hypnotoad666, @bomag, @Almost Missouri
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYPUGDA188SNote that there are different ways to measure the federal debt. Did you pick yours because of the longer time series available or another reason? Some discussion of the different methods here.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/12/a-lesson-in-measuring-the-federal-debt/I think this data series is better because it includes the Social Security trust fund related debt.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S This article has a graphic with both data series.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/26/why-us-national-debt-will-likely-keep-growinghttps://now.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/large_1366w_912h/public/uploaded-assets/images/2023-06/230626_national_debt_explainer_lg.jpgThat 2020 bump is something. But I guess for some people it was all worth it to get rid of Trump.P.S. I can't wait to see how Art Deco tries to spin this debt level as not epic. Lately he has been spinning things so hard I am getting dizzy.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Hypnotoad666, @Peter Akuleyev
Buchanan's argument, from what I recall, is that Hitler dominating Eastern Europe, while bad, would not have been as bad as what we ended up with: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
I'd say true (or at least plausible), as far as it goes, but it assumes, first, that Hitler would have been content with his conquests to the east had Britain and France not gotten involved. Is that true?
Second, a Germany that dominates Europe is a much bigger threat to Britain's supremacy and security than the Soviets are, so I think it's more understandable why England would find German continental hegemony intolerable and feel compelled to fight.
I also found Buchanan to be intellectually dishonest at parts in the book.Replies: @Mr. XYZ, @Anon, @Anonymous
Also, despite it all the US has considerable economic, geographic/military, etc. strengths compared to the rest of the world. There probably won’t be a huge event that shakes people’s faith in the ruling class.Replies: @Kylie, @Anonymous
“Playing devil’s advocate, I was shocked by how many people went along with Covid BS and general media lies. Don’t underestimate the power of the US propaganda machine over the voting populace.”
You wouldn’t have been if you spent much time on the distaff side of social media. Their eagerness and ability to parrot the party line, march in lockstep and screech and shriek to drown out the opposition are horrifying. And they’re getting worse.
I thank God for my tiny coterie of sensible, conservative female friends, who are firmly on the “I will not comply” side.
Deep ignorance of North Africa and of Islam: the word may be the same and we imagine such a “king” as our medieval kings from the past, Saint Louis of France or Edouard III , when we are dealing here with muslim despots, sans genealogy (in the female line generally any harem specimen – in Morocco, heavily negrified).
These insignifiant despots regard their plebs as little more than dirt, i.e. as nothing.
And they are right.
During the period running from 1933 to 1940, the ratio of federal spending to domestic product averaged about 0.065 and the ratio of public sector borrowing to gdp topped out at 0.04. That’s a consequence of production below capacity, a situation he inherited. The ratio of federal debt to domestic product in 1940 was 0.52, manageable.
==
The war was ‘unnecessary’ in Buchanan’s mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler’s Germany dominated Europe and Tojo’s Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it’s an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.
Time has made me less sure of the utility of our efforts in WWII. Seems to have installed the cringy notion that war is good; we're the good guys; interventions are necessary.
No matter how you spin it, FDR oversaw massive increase in indebtedness.Germany has dominated Europe and Japan has dominated East Asia since at least the 1970s, and there is nothing particularly terrible about it that justified massacring millions of people to prevent or delay it.You're preoccupation with onanism is best kept to yourself.Au contraire. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US was overwhelmingly isolationist, despite FDR illegally conducting covert war against Germany in the Atlantic. Even after Pearl Harbor, American ire was primarily directed only against Japan. FDR lucked out when Hitler foolishly declared war gratuitously a few days later without any actual attack plan, but then FDR's already existing war wasn't so covert to him.Coulda, woulda, shoulda ... somehow it never works out that way.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev
Queen Elizabeth II didn’t have any kind of executive role, only ceremonial.
She was however criticized for not showing up on time at the Aberfan disaster in ?1964, when a colliery slag heap collapsed on top of a primary school and more than 100 children were killed.
Not that there was anything she could do except to be shown on black and white television expressing her sympathy to the families.
By the way it is a crime to insult the king of Thailand, so you have probably been entered into a database and will be arrested if you ever make it to Siam.
The problem in Morocco is that many of the areas worst affected are high up in the Atlas mountains and narrow mountain roads have been blocked with massive boulders from landslides making it difficult for rescue workers to get into the area.
Send Kanye West.
The “king thing” is working out better for the Moroccans than the “Congress thing” is working out for the Americans.
Is Morocco under mass invasion by foreigners (like the United States is)? Are the Morrocan people being replaced wholesale by aliens (the fate that is befalling the Americans)? Are Moroccan culture and heroes being destroyed or torn down? How for that matter does the birthrate of native Moroccans compare to that of Americans?
You are so undeservingly smug sometimes Steve.
==
The war was 'unnecessary' in Buchanan's mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler's Germany dominated Europe and Tojo's Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it's an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.Replies: @Anon, @Hypnotoad666, @bomag, @Almost Missouri
It was better for Europe that it be ‘dominated’ by Germany and Great Britain than by nation-wrecking globalists from the United States and nation-wrecking Bolsheviks from the East.
And what if, added to that, that elected politician (or his financial backers), have a “homeland” and optional citizenship in a foreign country?
Also, despite it all the US has considerable economic, geographic/military, etc. strengths compared to the rest of the world. There probably won’t be a huge event that shakes people’s faith in the ruling class.Replies: @Kylie, @Anonymous
What lies are you alleging were put forth?
What the constitutional monarchs in Britain have to do is because they aren't such good monarchs, they aren't absolute monarchs and have to contend with outside political forces who might actually take it all away from them (In reality it was taken away from them long ago, now they are just weird public aristocrats who are paid through the state from land they pretend to own) if they don't put up a show. That to some extent they have been domesticated into this life of "duty" is further proof that they aren't real monarchs. Which, indeed, has been true for many centuries that they have been "constitutional" (Read: fake) monarchs.
You may not like to hear it but the highest performing disposition of a king to the people is indifference to the people, they are beneath him. Do people not get the motivations of status obsessed people with cluster B personality disorders or something? So many people who have a primal urge to promote inequality in their desire to be elevated above somebody else don't get the guy above them looks at them the say way. Sad.Replies: @bomag, @SFG, @Anonymous
You’re an idiot. One always has to care what others think.
http://m.slateafrique.com/sites/default/files/20130903/rss_1378233319_5815621-8670580_0.jpgReplies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Dennis Dale, @Reg Cæsar
Young Mo to his, errr, partner: “Please understand. I want to be… your … holy man.”
It’s likely you don’t understand how the Richter scale works. Generally, earthquakes of magnitude 6 and above are the ones for concern and are considered “strong”.
It’s curious how Mr. Sailor left out the part about this “king” being totally controlled by Israel.
This is a big deal
This POS traitor to his own country and Arabs in general just “normalized” realations with the squatter colony of Israel.
Since then Israel has been suppling the Moroccan “security forces” with weapons and know-how on how to treat citizens like Palestinians.
The citizens of Morocco hate the traitor king for that.
His days as king are numbered.
https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/uploads/post-17844-1227801248.jpgReplies: @bomag, @Muggles, @2stateshmoostate, @Rich
This King is very likely being blackmailed by the Israelis.
He sure does lick their boots.
https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/uploads/post-17844-1227801248.jpgReplies: @bomag, @Muggles, @2stateshmoostate, @Rich
Married father of two. Not so homosexual after all.
Can we just go back to allowing only land-owning White males to vote? Asking for a friend.
Not sure if you realize just how much your FRED graphic understates the current epicness of our debt. According to more recent data from the St. Louis Fed (using the same metric as yours, some others look even worse) the debt topped out at 99.8% of GDP in 2020 and is 95.2% as of 2022. Compare those to the post-WWII figures. And what exactly have we received for all of that money?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYPUGDA188S
Note that there are different ways to measure the federal debt. Did you pick yours because of the longer time series available or another reason? Some discussion of the different methods here.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/12/a-lesson-in-measuring-the-federal-debt/
I think this data series is better because it includes the Social Security trust fund related debt.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
This article has a graphic with both data series.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/26/why-us-national-debt-will-likely-keep-growing
That 2020 bump is something. But I guess for some people it was all worth it to get rid of Trump.
P.S. I can’t wait to see how Art Deco tries to spin this debt level as not epic. Lately he has been spinning things so hard I am getting dizzy.
I'll say here that this money was, if not spent, arranged to be spent, pretty early on, when Trump was still President, though I get that he doesn't write and vote on the budget. That "CARES ACT" money was a big sum, maybe most of that big bump. Trump is included with ALL of the politicians who don't even mention debt and its consequences anymore, much less care about it.
Who do we have left who does? Ron Paul is in his mid-80's!
Or maybe the good old: "Meh, who cares, it's just money we owe to ourselves."
But seriously, the macro effects of debt are kind of weird when you really try to think about them. For example:
> When the government issues a bond, it becomes an asset (wealth) on somebody's balance sheet. But nobody's balance sheet carries the corresponding debit for the taxes to pay the interest and principal. Thus, government bonds create "fake wealth" in the economy. But what does it mean that Americans collectively have $27 Trillion less wealth than they think they do? (It's the macro equivalent of thinking you're rich because you wrote yourself a $27 Trillion check).
>The conventional Keynesian view is that government deficits are "fiscal stimulus" to the economy. But the current situation is that the government borrows $800 billion per year from capital markets, and then turns around and pays the same $800 billion to the same capital markets as interest on the previously accumulated debt. So any net "fiscal stimulus" is zero.
I think the real lesson is that the only thing that matters is keeping government spending down. Deficits are just government dishonesty about what can be purchased for the available tax revenue. And the National Debt is the cumulative measure of dishonesty over time.Replies: @Anon, @bomag
Things have changed since then.
I don't think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don't have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we're going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won't say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn't going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot -- they're the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.Replies: @Art Deco, @Arclight, @Adolf Smith, @R.G. Camara, @James J. O'Meara
Raiding clitoral communities?? Count me IN!😮
A different take is like this: you give up the blind faith in a utopian idealistic political institution; you know, like your grandfathers had been given up the blind faith in an imagined benevolent ruler.
There are different views of democracy. But if you view democracy as giving up blind trust in a individual ruler, then why not taking the next step in giving up blind trust in a political institution.
If you see something not working, try something else. And if something is working, even though there might be theoretical dangers down the road, how about let it be for just a while longer?
this is one of the fundamental problems for advocates of limited government.
who watches the watchman?
organization of people into states require the government have a monopoly on force. but a monopoly on force means the government can visit any injustice on the people.
the best answer created by people was the united states. a tripartite government where each branch balances the power of the others. a federal system where state power fights against federal power. a written document of enumerated powers, meaning limited powers, clearly stated. a bill of rights which is belt and suspenders on enumerated powers but is now the last bulwark on government overreach.
it was an elegant and thoughtful construct.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYPUGDA188SNote that there are different ways to measure the federal debt. Did you pick yours because of the longer time series available or another reason? Some discussion of the different methods here.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/12/a-lesson-in-measuring-the-federal-debt/I think this data series is better because it includes the Social Security trust fund related debt.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S This article has a graphic with both data series.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/26/why-us-national-debt-will-likely-keep-growinghttps://now.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/large_1366w_912h/public/uploaded-assets/images/2023-06/230626_national_debt_explainer_lg.jpgThat 2020 bump is something. But I guess for some people it was all worth it to get rid of Trump.P.S. I can't wait to see how Art Deco tries to spin this debt level as not epic. Lately he has been spinning things so hard I am getting dizzy.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Hypnotoad666, @Peter Akuleyev
Thanks, you and Almost Missouri, for the data. It’s not like I don’t already know how big a hole we are in myself – additionally, unfunded obligations are a whole lot larger than these numbers. Anyway, I’ve got a question or comment on:
I’m not sure what you meant. If you meant that this huge bump was due to the Kung Flu PanicFest, which was implemented to get rid of Trump, I agree with the 1st part 100% and the 2nd part 75%. (I think there are other reasons the Panic was made into what it was.)
I’ll say here that this money was, if not spent, arranged to be spent, pretty early on, when Trump was still President, though I get that he doesn’t write and vote on the budget. That “CARES ACT” money was a big sum, maybe most of that big bump. Trump is included with ALL of the politicians who don’t even mention debt and its consequences anymore, much less care about it.
Who do we have left who does? Ron Paul is in his mid-80’s!
And how is Democracy™ working out on being democratic? Now matter how much people vote against immigration and minority preferences, they keep getting more of them. Seems like a fail at the most basic level.
An autocrat may or may not do what you want, but at least you don't have to listen to his hypocrisy.Replies: @Hypnotoad666, @Ennui
I think the hypocrisy is what drives most anti-democratic and anti-liberal impulses now and in the past. It’s just so tiresome.
Autocrats are often kleptocrats and can be bought. Very rarely have there been leaders who can’t be bought. The problem is they are often committed to destructive ideologies.
What is needed is an autocrat who isn’t ideological, but is cynical, ruthless, but committed to the long term health and order of the society. An unrealistic ideal, I know, but just as realistic as the Mr. Smith goes to Washington b.s. they’ve peddled to us for generations which is equally fictional and far more eye-rolling.
What’s the difference between him and Biden again?
I mean, besides the fact that Steve insists, for no reason, that Biden is actually in charge and doing the things he’s doing by his own will and is totally coherent, yo.
Biden skipped 9/11 ceremony this year — First president ever to do it, the first time. Likely an attempt to prevent his dementia from kicking in and making him rant at ground zero about how he was “in NYC on 9/11” and “Beau died in the Twin Towers” and that Trump is a “dog-faced pony soldier.” Of course, it could also be a self-conscious diminishing by the Deep State to make his 25th Amendement/not running for 2024 seem palatable (Kamala was at Ground Zero for the ceremony this week, thus implying visually that she was in charge).
But anyway–Biden not only skipped 9/11, but also the Ohio rail disaster and other major events that Presidents have long been expected to make an appearance at. He took a lid. Because he’s a figurehead.
So how is he any different/better than the figurehead king of Morocco?
Good powerless kings and queens are usually rallying points for the people. E.g. Franco restored the monarchy in Spain despite retaining power because of the power of the symbol; Queen Victoria, despite diminishing her office by hiding, was still revered; Queen Elizabeth II made an art form out of cultivating British patriotism despite being just a doddering old lady. Bad ones, like Mr. Wallis-SImpson, do not.
So Biden is a bad figurehead like the king of Morocco.
Again, whats the difference?
Huh? Mohammad lived 1400 years ago. About 45-50 generations ago. That’s 2^45 spaces on your family tree. By this point pretty much every person in the world is descended from him, in many cases via tens of millions of separate paths.
Huh?
Why him and not any other rando that was alive 1400 years ago.
lol. Is that what Steve Jobs’s widow told you to write, Jeffrey Goldberg?
One key is what system replaces the one we have. The Western European system of democratic socialism was kind of gold standard for what a country could be, but now that has plenty of tarnish. Doesn't seem to be much of a bright line rallying point for organizing a modern polity.Replies: @Arclight
Democratic socialism isn’t really possible with our demographics, and a lot of Euros are learning the hard way that embracing diversity is wrecking the social cohesion necessary to keep this system running, not to mention creating a growing parasitic class that has no intention of contributing and feels absolutely no connection or gratitude for their new home.
A parliamentary system would be interesting insofar as it would presumably break the current duopoly and give people at the fringes some opportunity to feel like they had some representation or at least the possibility of it. Perhaps it would also have the side effect of improving the quality of the average federal elected representative – it’s hard to imagine we’d do worse than our current lot.
Things have changed since then.
I don't think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don't have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we're going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won't say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn't going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot -- they're the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.Replies: @Art Deco, @Arclight, @Adolf Smith, @R.G. Camara, @James J. O'Meara
One of the advantages the Catholic Church gave to ruling elites was a place to shuffle off second and third sons to prevent intercine warfare. Yes, the kids would hardly be chaste or live in poverty despite their vows, but being a rich abbot or powerful bishop was a pretty good gig not worth raising a war against, e.g. Tallyrand was first made a bishop of the Catholic Church before he was laicized and became Europe’s greatest diplomat of the age.
Indeed, between the Church offering a second powerful non-government/military career to second and third sons and the Church’s unique ban on cousin and uncle-niece, aunt-nephew marriage (done to promote warring clans to intermarry and make peace through familiar relations), the Church likely did much generationally to slow the many bitter civil wars and coups that seem to have plagued non-Catholic societies more.
==
The war was 'unnecessary' in Buchanan's mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler's Germany dominated Europe and Tojo's Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it's an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.Replies: @Anon, @Hypnotoad666, @bomag, @Almost Missouri
Getting the U.S. into WWII was very much a Roosevelt policy. The conventional wisdom, however, is that that was a good thing. For example, he put the oil embargo on Japan that caused them to attack Pearl Harbor.
I seem to recall epic debt, unnecessary war, exponential bureaucracy, and suppression of ancient liberties.Replies: @Art Deco, @Corpse Tooth, @Anon
The point is that Steve was transparently referring to Yarvin and claiming he endorses a Moroccan king-style leader. Yarvin has never done that, and however bad FDR may or may not have been, he was qualitatively different from the Moroccan king, in his badness or goodness. FDR was present and in charge and active in his governance.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYPUGDA188SNote that there are different ways to measure the federal debt. Did you pick yours because of the longer time series available or another reason? Some discussion of the different methods here.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/12/a-lesson-in-measuring-the-federal-debt/I think this data series is better because it includes the Social Security trust fund related debt.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S This article has a graphic with both data series.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/26/why-us-national-debt-will-likely-keep-growinghttps://now.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/large_1366w_912h/public/uploaded-assets/images/2023-06/230626_national_debt_explainer_lg.jpgThat 2020 bump is something. But I guess for some people it was all worth it to get rid of Trump.P.S. I can't wait to see how Art Deco tries to spin this debt level as not epic. Lately he has been spinning things so hard I am getting dizzy.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Hypnotoad666, @Peter Akuleyev
If I were him, I’d go for the MMT rationale: “Debt schmet, what difference does it make when you own the money printer.”
Or maybe the good old: “Meh, who cares, it’s just money we owe to ourselves.”
But seriously, the macro effects of debt are kind of weird when you really try to think about them. For example:
> When the government issues a bond, it becomes an asset (wealth) on somebody’s balance sheet. But nobody’s balance sheet carries the corresponding debit for the taxes to pay the interest and principal. Thus, government bonds create “fake wealth” in the economy. But what does it mean that Americans collectively have $27 Trillion less wealth than they think they do? (It’s the macro equivalent of thinking you’re rich because you wrote yourself a $27 Trillion check).
>The conventional Keynesian view is that government deficits are “fiscal stimulus” to the economy. But the current situation is that the government borrows $800 billion per year from capital markets, and then turns around and pays the same $800 billion to the same capital markets as interest on the previously accumulated debt. So any net “fiscal stimulus” is zero.
I think the real lesson is that the only thing that matters is keeping government spending down. Deficits are just government dishonesty about what can be purchased for the available tax revenue. And the National Debt is the cumulative measure of dishonesty over time.
One response is that bond buyers have money under their mattress which wouldn't be in use unless the gov't coaxed it out.
Another is that the gov't, being centralized and all-seeing, is better able to invest and use the money that would otherwise sit on the balance sheet of bond buyers.
Maybe made some sense back in the day of interstate highway building, and soil conservation.
Nowadays, it seems much of fed debt money actively damages the country.
The King is a Queen!
Not in the male line, though.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn liked to point out that the “absolute” monarchies of Europe didn’t conscript young men to be soldiers, or demand declarations of one’s yearly income, the way democracies do.
There’s likely to be a blow-up there. I was only there for two weeks in 2015 — but I wouldn’t buy stock.
Hey, I was born in that hospital.
Sure took them a while to get around to his name.
Yes, Morocco is actually in pretty good shape generally, without interference by the government, Casablanca is the business capitol of N. Africa and pretty modern (my son lived there for a bit)–unlike the West or the rest of Africa…
If he’s only “semi” autocratic and wholly disinterested then the authorities aren’t waiting for his orders.
If I was being as glib about this as you are I might ascribe Morocco’s problem to being full of Moroccans. But mostly I’m thinking a 6.8 quake in a country with (presumably) poor infrastructure and old architecture is a little more difficult than a clean up on aisle twelve.
I’m not a monarchist but I’d also like to note how our advanced “democracy” here seems to be getting less and less capable of responding to natural disasters.
King Kamehameha’s ghost is in the back trying to get our attention by quacking “Maui, Maui” like the Aflac duck.
C’mom, Art Deco isn’t Jeffrey Goldberg. Everybody knows Art Deco is really Andrew Tate.
http://m.slateafrique.com/sites/default/files/20130903/rss_1378233319_5815621-8670580_0.jpgReplies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Dennis Dale, @Reg Cæsar
Reminds me of when I came to the realization the Ayatollah Khomenei, without the beard and headdress, was a dead ringer for my old man.
Morocco is in the Middle East?
Or maybe the good old: "Meh, who cares, it's just money we owe to ourselves."
But seriously, the macro effects of debt are kind of weird when you really try to think about them. For example:
> When the government issues a bond, it becomes an asset (wealth) on somebody's balance sheet. But nobody's balance sheet carries the corresponding debit for the taxes to pay the interest and principal. Thus, government bonds create "fake wealth" in the economy. But what does it mean that Americans collectively have $27 Trillion less wealth than they think they do? (It's the macro equivalent of thinking you're rich because you wrote yourself a $27 Trillion check).
>The conventional Keynesian view is that government deficits are "fiscal stimulus" to the economy. But the current situation is that the government borrows $800 billion per year from capital markets, and then turns around and pays the same $800 billion to the same capital markets as interest on the previously accumulated debt. So any net "fiscal stimulus" is zero.
I think the real lesson is that the only thing that matters is keeping government spending down. Deficits are just government dishonesty about what can be purchased for the available tax revenue. And the National Debt is the cumulative measure of dishonesty over time.Replies: @Anon, @bomag
If they had to use mark to market to value their assets, they would be finished like Lehman.
So how is the President thing working out, guys?
Power is a burden to those who do not have it.
– The Godfather III
How is that whole Democracy thing working out it America?
Perhaps the world’s great democracies like USA and Britain should assist the people of Morocco to form their own democratic government like they did in Libya? I imagine things must be going much better there now.
Things have changed since then.
I don't think we need a king, but we need something other than what we have now. When it comes to politics I don't have much of a clue as to what will work; about the only thing I feel confident predicting is that a lot of people are going to stop listening to/complying with the increasingly ridiculous demands coming from the people who are supposedly in charge.
Ultimately we're going to have to think our way out of this mess. Michael Anton thinks this is going to be really hard:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/modernity-and-its-discontents/
All the better. Challenges are invigorating.
I won't say much here, but I would like to offer my opinion that the mad philologist (genius though he may have been) Nietzsche isn't going to help much in this effort. I happen to like Nietzscheans a lot -- they're the kinds of guys you want to have along on some adventure, like raiding littoral communities or what have you. I just have my doubts about their ability to forge a realistic, sustainable cultural framework.Replies: @Art Deco, @Arclight, @Adolf Smith, @R.G. Camara, @James J. O'Meara
Nietzsche was exactly the kind of guy you wouldn’t want on a raid. He was the hollow chested, asthmatic, four-eyed nerd who could only survive in the modern world. As are his „followers“. That’s why the promote him, even though he loved Jews and hated nationalists (especially Germans). Rather than writing “philosophy” today he’d be constantly online in the gamer community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhKF6WVjy3o
Having a son in the clergy was greatly beneficial to the less well off as well, bringing benefits to the family (thus to his gene pool). One less mouth to feed but also access to food, money and protection. Not noticed by the grug level “the Joos stole our good genes” crowd.
who watches the watchman?
organization of people into states require the government have a monopoly on force. but a monopoly on force means the government can visit any injustice on the people.
the best answer created by people was the united states. a tripartite government where each branch balances the power of the others. a federal system where state power fights against federal power. a written document of enumerated powers, meaning limited powers, clearly stated. a bill of rights which is belt and suspenders on enumerated powers but is now the last bulwark on government overreach.
it was an elegant and thoughtful construct.Replies: @James J. O'Meara
No, it wasn’t. It was a ridiculous, Rube Goldberg machine or pocket watch of the sort that delighted minds soaked in deism and “The Enlightenment.” It’s answer to every problem was “Let us compromise, gentlemen!” as if that solved any problems. That’s how we got a capital that was totally unconnected to the rest of the country (unlike every other capital), but located exactly in the geographic middle. That’s how they settled slavery: count slaves as exactly 3/5 of a citizen for apportionment. Genius!
The “three branches” and “system of checks and balances” and all the rest of that silk stocking crap that high schoolers are taught to worship are more “compromises” although they so thoroughly gum things up (e.g., see today’s DC) that arguably that was the idea: to create a system in which “the people” wouldn’t be able to do anything, while the elite are free to plunder. Again, e.g. today.
Americans never seem to notice that no other government (except Liberia, ha ha) has tried to emulate our “perfect machine”. After the failure of the American and French attempts, the Brits got it right, which is why every self-styled “democracy” in the world has a parliamentary system.
Even a military occupation and two atom bombs didn’t allow us to force our system on the Japanese, the Germans, the Afghanis or the Iraqis, all of whom have a parliamentary system.
So does Israel. Democracy for me, but not for thee, hee hee!
Notice how every country sliding into autocracy tries to “reform” itself by emulating the US: eg., Canada’s 1970s “constitution” with its “Charter of Rights” and judicial rule to overrule the people’s voice (aka kritarchy). Same with the UK. “Muh Constitution” is the same Yankee poison as “Muh Free Market”.
“the last bulwark on government overreach” means leave the govt powerless to do what the people want, but also give it the power to overrule the legislature or voters, in the name of “Muh Constitution”. Eg., Trump vs. Obama judges. Congress and the President at the mercy of some district judge in Hawaii. Pitiful.
You can take your Constitution, stuff it in your tricorn hat and go back to your log cabin.
Here's a problem with the monarchist critique of the USA: Yarvin wants us to trade the Constitution for order and government efficiency. But the problems he identifies are blue city problems. SF and LA may have rampant crime, homelessness, and drug problems, and be unable to get a high-speed rail built between them. If the USA were just SF and LA, maybe he would be offering a good trade-off. However, my parents' hometown doesn't have rampant crime, homelessness, or drug problems, and it doesn't need a high-speed rail.
So, in a sense, it appears Yarvin is saying "FDR created the conditions for massive failure (i.e., 'blue' governance and culture), so what we really need is more FDR.". I'm not buying that without more consumer research.
One of Yarvin's favorite lines is "your iPhone was built by a monarchy," but this ignores the fact that the majority of start-ups fail. Corporate governance structure is not a key to success. Take SpaceX vs NASA. Yes, it's true SpaceX does NASA better than NASA. But if you read about SpaceX and Musk, it becomes obvious that SpaceX is a success not because it has a CEO but specifically because it has Musk. And in fact, before SpaceX, there were other companies that tried to do what it does and failed. The world needs a CEO is an argument, but the world needs Elon Musk is not an argument.
One major problem confounding the debate about democracy is that WW2 and the Cold War re-set everything on different timelines. So, for example, monarchists like to point out that NYC is ancient beast while Moscow and Shanghai are new, clean, safe, efficient. But part of the reason is that Russia and China were seriously backward compared to western democracies until recently, so they're in a sense starting their developmental trajectory under different conditions.
The USA is in a very bad state now with regard to liberty and the economy, but it's not clear that the Constitution is creating problems rather than helping to mitigate them.Replies: @Ian M.
Schopenhauer on “Muh Constitution”:
Sounds like a formula for a good Western.
for a “white” woman.
Please dress appropriately and don’ t go back to Japan you snowflake
Didn’t the King of Morocco some years ago insult her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth by leaving her sitting on a reviewing stand in the sun?
I would have have sent jets to violate his airspace in daylight in a very blatant way but I’m sure our government sent a polite note, or possibly not even that.
deposits, at great risk to himself; the present one, Mohammed VI, gay or not
is still wrapped tight enough to have rejected US and French "help".Replies: @BB753
John 8:7
https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/1000-emails-exchanged-between-hunter-bidens-firm-and-vp-office/
How did Schopenhauer know us so well?
So, Chris, you would prefer to be ruled by incompetent psychopaths, as long as they are selected by some kind of democratic process. May you get what you wish for, and get it good and hard.
The “German” kickboxer Abu Azaitar.
==
The war was 'unnecessary' in Buchanan's mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler's Germany dominated Europe and Tojo's Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it's an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.Replies: @Anon, @Hypnotoad666, @bomag, @Almost Missouri
It wasn’t so much the actual numbers; it was the ethos of central planning/nanny state-ism that FDR brought in. I recall Galbraith chortling that DC became a magnet for those with a penchant for planning the lives of others.
Time has made me less sure of the utility of our efforts in WWII. Seems to have installed the cringy notion that war is good; we’re the good guys; interventions are necessary.
Pretty damn well compared to the rest of the world. The funny thing about American Doomerism is that as bad as things are in the US it’s still worse pretty much everywhere else. Generally much worse.
Yeah, Morocco is in the Middle East in the same way that New Zealand is part of the West, despite being about as far east as you can get from the prime meridian, and Iceland is part of Europe, despite being closer to North America. These things are fuzzy.
The significance of that distinction isn’t obvious. In a democracy, a man is a citizen. He is expected to contribute to the defense of his country and to the revenue of the government. Because he contributes, he also the right to a vote on matters of war and finance. In an absolute monarchy, he does not. In a democracy, each man shoulders the burden that an aristocrat was expected to in non-democratic forms of government.
Yeah, the king of Morocco doesn’t sound like a very praiseworthy individual.
But if you look at Muslim countries that used to be monarchies -Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya maybe there are others- did those countries become better places when they got rid of their monarch?
The Gulf monarchies are easy to criticise -and rightly so- but if they had no monarch would that make them better places?
Muslims and representative government just don’t work out.
So the UK and all the parliamentary democracies emulating them are doing better than the USA at preserving liberty, are they?
Here’s a problem with the monarchist critique of the USA: Yarvin wants us to trade the Constitution for order and government efficiency. But the problems he identifies are blue city problems. SF and LA may have rampant crime, homelessness, and drug problems, and be unable to get a high-speed rail built between them. If the USA were just SF and LA, maybe he would be offering a good trade-off. However, my parents’ hometown doesn’t have rampant crime, homelessness, or drug problems, and it doesn’t need a high-speed rail.
So, in a sense, it appears Yarvin is saying “FDR created the conditions for massive failure (i.e., ‘blue’ governance and culture), so what we really need is more FDR.”. I’m not buying that without more consumer research.
One of Yarvin’s favorite lines is “your iPhone was built by a monarchy,” but this ignores the fact that the majority of start-ups fail. Corporate governance structure is not a key to success. Take SpaceX vs NASA. Yes, it’s true SpaceX does NASA better than NASA. But if you read about SpaceX and Musk, it becomes obvious that SpaceX is a success not because it has a CEO but specifically because it has Musk. And in fact, before SpaceX, there were other companies that tried to do what it does and failed. The world needs a CEO is an argument, but the world needs Elon Musk is not an argument.
One major problem confounding the debate about democracy is that WW2 and the Cold War re-set everything on different timelines. So, for example, monarchists like to point out that NYC is ancient beast while Moscow and Shanghai are new, clean, safe, efficient. But part of the reason is that Russia and China were seriously backward compared to western democracies until recently, so they’re in a sense starting their developmental trajectory under different conditions.
The USA is in a very bad state now with regard to liberty and the economy, but it’s not clear that the Constitution is creating problems rather than helping to mitigate them.
I would have have sent jets to violate his airspace in daylight in a very blatant way but I’m sure our government sent a polite note, or possibly not even that.Replies: @nokangaroos
Hassan II was a national hero for kicking the Spaniards off their phosphate
deposits, at great risk to himself; the present one, Mohammed VI, gay or not
is still wrapped tight enough to have rejected US and French “help”.
OT, but just for your pleasure: possibly the greatest guitar entrance in rock history, maybe better than Hendrix. It’s an entrance worthy of the great Brahms piano entrance in his Third……
The whole track is stellar, but look particularly for Thurston’s guitar entrance starting to roll up around 2:30, but then exploding with that exquisite note and the follow-up at 3:58. Bob Wilson used to say to me, Doesn’t really matter what an actor does while he’s onstage. So long as he’s got a great entrance and a great exit, that is what sticks in people’s heads. Proven of course by Malkovich’s legendary entrance and exit as Pale in Lanford Wilson’s “Burn This”.
3:58 — one of the best entrances ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASCf0yLku7o
I wonder what the king is doing tonight?
Or maybe the good old: "Meh, who cares, it's just money we owe to ourselves."
But seriously, the macro effects of debt are kind of weird when you really try to think about them. For example:
> When the government issues a bond, it becomes an asset (wealth) on somebody's balance sheet. But nobody's balance sheet carries the corresponding debit for the taxes to pay the interest and principal. Thus, government bonds create "fake wealth" in the economy. But what does it mean that Americans collectively have $27 Trillion less wealth than they think they do? (It's the macro equivalent of thinking you're rich because you wrote yourself a $27 Trillion check).
>The conventional Keynesian view is that government deficits are "fiscal stimulus" to the economy. But the current situation is that the government borrows $800 billion per year from capital markets, and then turns around and pays the same $800 billion to the same capital markets as interest on the previously accumulated debt. So any net "fiscal stimulus" is zero.
I think the real lesson is that the only thing that matters is keeping government spending down. Deficits are just government dishonesty about what can be purchased for the available tax revenue. And the National Debt is the cumulative measure of dishonesty over time.Replies: @Anon, @bomag
Thanks.
One response is that bond buyers have money under their mattress which wouldn’t be in use unless the gov’t coaxed it out.
Another is that the gov’t, being centralized and all-seeing, is better able to invest and use the money that would otherwise sit on the balance sheet of bond buyers.
Maybe made some sense back in the day of interstate highway building, and soil conservation.
Nowadays, it seems much of fed debt money actively damages the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_brBShfdrE
The whole track is stellar, but look particularly for Thurston's guitar entrance starting to roll up around 2:30, but then exploding with that exquisite note and the follow-up at 3:58. Bob Wilson used to say to me, Doesn't really matter what an actor does while he's onstage. So long as he's got a great entrance and a great exit, that is what sticks in people's heads. Proven of course by Malkovich's legendary entrance and exit as Pale in Lanford Wilson's "Burn This".
3:58 -- one of the best entrances ever.Replies: @The Germ Theory of Disease
…or of course, the legendary-slash-notorious guitar entrance of Tom Verlaine on the live cut of “Little Johnny Jewel”, which explodes into one of the greatest solos of all time…….
You don’t understand how royalty works or how homosexual behavior is tolerated in Muslim countries. Muslim countries are very gay, just not in the Western sense.
Oh, are they celebrating the chopping off of kids’ genitals in Hungary? Open borders and out of control carjacking in Japan? Decriminalizing crime for the minority population in Singapore? Sending people of the wrong political persuasion to jail for years for trespassing in Norway?
==
The war was 'unnecessary' in Buchanan's mind because he fancies it was a matter of no concern for anyone that Hitler's Germany dominated Europe and Tojo's Japan East Asia. He fancies that because it's an onanistic exercise for him, as it is for you. The inter-war isolationists who knew there were real world consequences to their follies did not hold to that view.
==
The federal debt in 1945 was large (1.19x domestic product), but not a consequence of any policy peculiar to Roosevelt or the Democratic Party. There was no component of the political spectrum not ready in 1941 to fight the war other than Miss Rankin and whatshisname who ran the German-American Bund. That was the peak of the federal debt, btw. Prudent fiscal policy (which we did not have after 1960) could have brought down that ratio to 0.40 by 1978 without disagreeable inflation.Replies: @Anon, @Hypnotoad666, @bomag, @Almost Missouri
Don’t know why you want to exclude the last five years of FDR, when his influence was greatest.
from Hoover, who was doing FDR-lite.
No matter how you spin it, FDR oversaw massive increase in indebtedness.
Germany has dominated Europe and Japan has dominated East Asia since at least the 1970s, and there is nothing particularly terrible about it that justified massacring millions of people to prevent or delay it.
You’re preoccupation with onanism is best kept to yourself.
Au contraire. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US was overwhelmingly isolationist, despite FDR illegally conducting covert war against Germany in the Atlantic. Even after Pearl Harbor, American ire was primarily directed only against Japan. FDR lucked out when Hitler foolishly declared war gratuitously a few days later without any actual attack plan, but then FDR’s already existing war wasn’t so covert to him.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda … somehow it never works out that way.
And? The economy grew, America prospered. Debt per se is not a bad thing, depends where the borrowed money goes. „FDR ran up the debt“ is just a statement of fact but without context hardly a criticism. Reagan also ran up the debt. So did Trump.Replies: @Mike Tre, @Almost Missouri
Only if you assume perfect outbreeding every generation. That’s rarely an accurate assumption. In Muslim world even less so.
What is needed is an autocrat who isn't ideological, but is cynical, ruthless, but committed to the long term health and order of the society. An unrealistic ideal, I know, but just as realistic as the Mr. Smith goes to Washington b.s. they've peddled to us for generations which is equally fictional and far more eye-rolling.Replies: @Almost Missouri, @res
Right, and the problem with democratic leaders is that the price is so low.
King Charles III is descended from the prophet through some Moorish princess.
There was no Cheney Regency. And, no, nothing Bush did eclipses the Obama regime abuses.
None of Europe’s signature problems are a consequence of any policy adopted by the United States or by the Soviet Union. They’ve bloody done this to themselves.
Your complaint has already been addressed.
What is needed is an autocrat who isn't ideological, but is cynical, ruthless, but committed to the long term health and order of the society. An unrealistic ideal, I know, but just as realistic as the Mr. Smith goes to Washington b.s. they've peddled to us for generations which is equally fictional and far more eye-rolling.Replies: @Almost Missouri, @res
How close was Lee Kuan Yew to your ideal?
No matter how you spin it, FDR oversaw massive increase in indebtedness.Germany has dominated Europe and Japan has dominated East Asia since at least the 1970s, and there is nothing particularly terrible about it that justified massacring millions of people to prevent or delay it.You're preoccupation with onanism is best kept to yourself.Au contraire. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the US was overwhelmingly isolationist, despite FDR illegally conducting covert war against Germany in the Atlantic. Even after Pearl Harbor, American ire was primarily directed only against Japan. FDR lucked out when Hitler foolishly declared war gratuitously a few days later without any actual attack plan, but then FDR's already existing war wasn't so covert to him.Coulda, woulda, shoulda ... somehow it never works out that way.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev
No matter how you spin it, FDR oversaw massive increase in indebtedness.
And? The economy grew, America prospered. Debt per se is not a bad thing, depends where the borrowed money goes. „FDR ran up the debt“ is just a statement of fact but without context hardly a criticism. Reagan also ran up the debt. So did Trump.
As you say, it is a question of how much and why.
FDR's increase was unprecedented in both speed and scale. The purpose was war.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYPUGDA188SNote that there are different ways to measure the federal debt. Did you pick yours because of the longer time series available or another reason? Some discussion of the different methods here.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/12/a-lesson-in-measuring-the-federal-debt/I think this data series is better because it includes the Social Security trust fund related debt.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S This article has a graphic with both data series.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/26/why-us-national-debt-will-likely-keep-growinghttps://now.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/styles/large_1366w_912h/public/uploaded-assets/images/2023-06/230626_national_debt_explainer_lg.jpgThat 2020 bump is something. But I guess for some people it was all worth it to get rid of Trump.P.S. I can't wait to see how Art Deco tries to spin this debt level as not epic. Lately he has been spinning things so hard I am getting dizzy.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Hypnotoad666, @Peter Akuleyev
That was Trump. It’s amazing how many Trump fans act as if his Presidency ended in 2019. No, the shitshow that was 2020 with lockdowns, BLM and massive deficits was all under his watch. The best possible spin you can put on that is that Trump was an incredibly weak and ineffective President when it mattered. Who would want that loser back in the White House?
—ThoreauReplies: @Dennis Dale
“By this point pretty much every person in the world is descended from him, in many cases via tens of millions of separate paths. ”
Huh?
Why him and not any other rando that was alive 1400 years ago.
The Jordanian Hashemite royals claim descent from Mohammed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites#Members_and_family_tree
This is a bizarre post
Because IQ differences wouldn’t apply to Kings?
King Charles would have been an epic leader of Britain…EPIC
Had Charles been Dictator of All Decisions, London would be the most beautiful city in the world right now
Even Camilla is a woman with a good head on her shoulders
The European Royal Families are all quality people
And? The economy grew, America prospered. Debt per se is not a bad thing, depends where the borrowed money goes. „FDR ran up the debt“ is just a statement of fact but without context hardly a criticism. Reagan also ran up the debt. So did Trump.Replies: @Mike Tre, @Almost Missouri
…there were over a million US casualties that didn’t need to happen, fighting invented enemies that were no threat to US citizens, for starters.
And? The economy grew, America prospered. Debt per se is not a bad thing, depends where the borrowed money goes. „FDR ran up the debt“ is just a statement of fact but without context hardly a criticism. Reagan also ran up the debt. So did Trump.Replies: @Mike Tre, @Almost Missouri
So has everyone since Eisenhower.
As you say, it is a question of how much and why.
FDR’s increase was unprecedented in both speed and scale. The purpose was war.
You are correct.
If the alternative is an incredibly weak and collusive President (e.g., Biden), I’ll take “weak and ineffective” every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
———
“That government is best which governs the least.”
—Thoreau
We’re screwed either way.
deposits, at great risk to himself; the present one, Mohammed VI, gay or not
is still wrapped tight enough to have rejected US and French "help".Replies: @BB753
You mean, by invading the Western Sahara which didn’t belong to Morocco.
I understand how a man who has sex with women and produces two children cannot be considered a homosexual. I haven’t been to the Middle East in many years, but I understand in most Muslim countries homosexuals face prison or even death. I am completely unaware of any openly homosexual men in any Muslim country. Rumors about a king isn’t anywhere near the degeneracy we have here in the West.
In the Muslim world, man on man action is very common. As long as you're the top and not the bottom, you're not considered a homosexual. However, flaming homos or gay couples are shunned by society and even sentenced to prison or death. Until the 1960s, Muslim countries were the preferred destination of Western gays because gay sex was plentiful and also cheaper.Replies: @Rich
Commenters here really do say the darndest things.
Aren’t you confusing democracy with republic?
http://m.slateafrique.com/sites/default/files/20130903/rss_1378233319_5815621-8670580_0.jpgReplies: @Achmed E. Newman, @Dennis Dale, @Reg Cæsar
If the King really is a fruit, then this photograph must be one of his most prized possessions.
By the way, where are all the Trump bashers on the Western Sahara issue? Curiously silent.
None of those things are happening in New Hampshire. The US is a very big country. It really isn’t that hard to avoid the crime and the liberal freaks if you are minimally capable.
New Hampshire:
Adoption: Same-sex couples allowed to adopt
Discrimination protections: Sexual orientation and gender identity protections
Gender identity: Altering sex on birth certificate and other documents allowed
***
On March 28, 2019, the state Senate approved a bill to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, amongst other categories, in all New Hampshire public schools. It was approved by the House on May 5, with an amendment, which was accepted by the Senate on June 13. The bill was signed into law by Governor Chris Sununu on 19 July, and went into effect 60 days later
***
MILFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - A packed and heated meeting inside Milford High School in Milford, N.H. Monday saw the school board opt to keep a current rule in place allowing transgender students to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice.
***
NH News
Several NH mayors, police chiefs say it’s time to give undocumented immigrants access to IDs
Manchester Health Center offers the following services specifically for clients who need Transgender Hormone Therapy:We are proud to offer gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) at all of our health centers in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. GAHT is offered to people 16 years of age and older. 16 and 17-year-olds will need parental consent.***A high school student in New Hampshire is being called a 'pioneer' after becoming one of the youngest people to undergo gender reassignment surgery. But her long and challenging journey began when she was just a child.At 17 years old, Emily Tressa finally feels fully herself. Last month, she became one of the youngest patients in the country to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Emily says, "For me, it feels almost like I'm finally fully complete now."
Whites are being exterminated.
Schopenhauer bought into the Narrative. What a cuck.
Which group is more inbred, jews or Muslims?
Since about the Enlightenment though, Jews have been outbreeding in droves, at least in the West, so now I dunno.
Probably there are genetic studies that could answer it, but I suspect the answer would heavily depend on who is counted in each group. Is a non-practicing quarter-Hebrew mischling "Jewish"? Is an illiterate, Shariah-ignorant Moro tribesman "Muslim"? I dunno.
—ThoreauReplies: @Dennis Dale
More importantly, are those behind the cut-out Biden weak? Trump was easily rolled on Covid and his populism maybe isn’t that deep—after everything he’d already been subjected to he still went with Pfizer and Fauci because he bought into their early hysterics about infection and fatality rates.
But that’s water under the bridge. It’s either Trump or you surrender to the post-democratic neoliberal tyranny. What scares me is how easily Trump will be rolled into, say, war with “Jhina”.
We’re screwed either way.
And having a useless daughter as a nun was also helpful, for the same reason. If she was too ugly/old/spinsterish/slutty to get a husband, you didn’t have to turn her out or prostitute her to make ends meet; send her to a nunnery, where she prayed all day, ate 3 squares (except during fasts), and had a valued role in the community.
Jeffrey Goldberg is much less erudite than Art Deco, and way more misinformed.
So what? Oscar Wilde was also married and fathered children.
In the Muslim world, man on man action is very common. As long as you’re the top and not the bottom, you’re not considered a homosexual. However, flaming homos or gay couples are shunned by society and even sentenced to prison or death. Until the 1960s, Muslim countries were the preferred destination of Western gays because gay sex was plentiful and also cheaper.
Oscar Wilde was convicted of engaging in a homosexual act. He repented of that descent into sin and became a Christian before his death. Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge.Replies: @BB753, @Anonymous
This essay provides a better defense of monarchy than Yarvin’s:
https://bonald.wordpress.com/in-defense-of-monarchy/
I also recommend the writings of Charles Maurras, particularly “Dictator and King”.
Yarvin always mentions some form of accountability for his monarchs, although I fail to see how this would really be practicable.
More concerning is Yarvin's recent article on El Salvador, which reveals his ideas about how monarchy would work in the modern world to be pie in the sky fantastical hand-wavy stuff. Morocco's failure here is a clear argument against monarchy, and it's hard to see how any response would be made that didn't mostly consist of a No-True-Scotsman fallacy.Replies: @bomag, @Moral Stone, @Ian M.
The more difficult challenge is how to make modern governments accountable. The traditional European monarch was far more accountable than modern liberal democratic governments are. The latter attempt to replace the actual personal exercise of authority with faceless bureaucracies and a web of impersonal procedures, but this does not remove personal authority, it merely hides it and therefore makes it unaccountable. Ultimately, a person has to make an authoritative decision – and this concealing results in men exercising authority while claiming that they are not, which amounts to the exercise of authority sans personal responsibility. In a traditional monarchy, the connection between power and responsibility is much clearer.
The upshot is that authority in modern society becomes sociopathic.
The first order of business for American politicians is to get re-elected. The long-term effect of any policy they promote is not considered.
Apres moi, le deluge.
It occurs to me that we need some entity that considers the long-term effect of any given policy. A president has four years. A senator 6. A congressman has 2. They do not care about what happens to the country after they are gone.
A monarch that has no policy prescription powers, but does have veto powers might do the trick. For example, opening the borders will have a long-term negative effect on America. If a monarch was available to say 'no' because he felt it would be harmful to the republic in the long term, then we might have a more stable republic.
ErroniusReplies: @Ian M.
We have such an entity, though in distorted form, in the Supreme Court.
My recollection from Buchanan’s book is that he argues against Britain’s decision to enter World War II, not against America’s (but perhaps I am misremembering). Presumably, by the time the U.S. entered the war, the die was already cast and much more was at stake. Although at the end of the book, he tries to take the conclusions he drew and apply them to U.S. involvement in more contemporary conflicts.
Buchanan’s argument, from what I recall, is that Hitler dominating Eastern Europe, while bad, would not have been as bad as what we ended up with: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
I’d say true (or at least plausible), as far as it goes, but it assumes, first, that Hitler would have been content with his conquests to the east had Britain and France not gotten involved. Is that true?
Second, a Germany that dominates Europe is a much bigger threat to Britain’s supremacy and security than the Soviets are, so I think it’s more understandable why England would find German continental hegemony intolerable and feel compelled to fight.
I also found Buchanan to be intellectually dishonest at parts in the book.
I also suspect that Hitler would have been less likely to mass murder European Jewry had the Anglo-French not stood in his way due to the fact that he could have used them as hostages to deter Anglo-French (and American) entry into WWII. In fact, Michael Tracey has presented some evidence that in real life, the US's decision to go to war with the Nazis was at least a partial motivating factor in the Nazis' decision to escalate their mass murder of the Jews:
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-fairy-tale-version-of-world-war
European Jews would have, of course, been deported en masse from Europe after the end of any Nazi victory in any large-scale European war that the West itself would not have gotten involved in. Hitler did not want the Jews to stay in Europe even in the event of a Nazi victory; he simply initially wanted their deportation instead of their mass murder.
In which towns are high schoolers taught to worship three branches today? I would wager no where and no where for a good decade.
The French Revolution ended in a reign of terror. To equate that with the American Revolution is ignorant or mendacious.
The American revolutionaries were aware of the experience of Greece with democracy. They quite intentionally limited the power of the mob to run over and destroy individuals, we have or had individual rights .
LMAO
Commenters here really do say the darndest things.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before… But, for how long?
Here's a problem with the monarchist critique of the USA: Yarvin wants us to trade the Constitution for order and government efficiency. But the problems he identifies are blue city problems. SF and LA may have rampant crime, homelessness, and drug problems, and be unable to get a high-speed rail built between them. If the USA were just SF and LA, maybe he would be offering a good trade-off. However, my parents' hometown doesn't have rampant crime, homelessness, or drug problems, and it doesn't need a high-speed rail.
So, in a sense, it appears Yarvin is saying "FDR created the conditions for massive failure (i.e., 'blue' governance and culture), so what we really need is more FDR.". I'm not buying that without more consumer research.
One of Yarvin's favorite lines is "your iPhone was built by a monarchy," but this ignores the fact that the majority of start-ups fail. Corporate governance structure is not a key to success. Take SpaceX vs NASA. Yes, it's true SpaceX does NASA better than NASA. But if you read about SpaceX and Musk, it becomes obvious that SpaceX is a success not because it has a CEO but specifically because it has Musk. And in fact, before SpaceX, there were other companies that tried to do what it does and failed. The world needs a CEO is an argument, but the world needs Elon Musk is not an argument.
One major problem confounding the debate about democracy is that WW2 and the Cold War re-set everything on different timelines. So, for example, monarchists like to point out that NYC is ancient beast while Moscow and Shanghai are new, clean, safe, efficient. But part of the reason is that Russia and China were seriously backward compared to western democracies until recently, so they're in a sense starting their developmental trajectory under different conditions.
The USA is in a very bad state now with regard to liberty and the economy, but it's not clear that the Constitution is creating problems rather than helping to mitigate them.Replies: @Ian M.
This is the best argument against monarchy I’ve ever heard.
In the Muslim world, man on man action is very common. As long as you're the top and not the bottom, you're not considered a homosexual. However, flaming homos or gay couples are shunned by society and even sentenced to prison or death. Until the 1960s, Muslim countries were the preferred destination of Western gays because gay sex was plentiful and also cheaper.Replies: @Rich
Yes, the rampant degeneracy of the 1960s in some Middle Eastern countries is what led to the backlash of sharia law being imposed. I wouldn’t say homosexuality is common in Islamic countries, I’m sure it occurs privately, but I’m also pretty sure that because it is considered a crime, as well as disgusting and isn’t promoted the way it is in the West, it’s less common.
Oscar Wilde was convicted of engaging in a homosexual act. He repented of that descent into sin and became a Christian before his death. Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge.
What I said was that Western homosexuals had no need to go to MENA countries anymore to engage in their proclivities after the 1960's because public morality and prohibitions were gone by then in the West.
"Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge."
Pleading not guilty is what most lawyers advise you to do. Remember, this was a man who crossed the ocean just to make out with Walt Whitman, another famous homo.Replies: @Rich
Kings in general probably aren’t a good idea. Still, I can imagine some exceptions. For instance, Cambodia with a king has generally been better than Cambodia without a king. Likewise, Afghanistan with a king has generally been better than Afghanistan without a king. And Russia with a Tsar (its equivalent of a king) has (adjusting for the overall times and living conditions throughout the world back then) generally been better than what came afterwards.
Bringing back a king to Libya might not be the worst idea, actually. Ditto for Afghanistan. It previously worked out OK for Cambodia, after all. Though their king is a figurehead as far as I can tell.
Buchanan's argument, from what I recall, is that Hitler dominating Eastern Europe, while bad, would not have been as bad as what we ended up with: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
I'd say true (or at least plausible), as far as it goes, but it assumes, first, that Hitler would have been content with his conquests to the east had Britain and France not gotten involved. Is that true?
Second, a Germany that dominates Europe is a much bigger threat to Britain's supremacy and security than the Soviets are, so I think it's more understandable why England would find German continental hegemony intolerable and feel compelled to fight.
I also found Buchanan to be intellectually dishonest at parts in the book.Replies: @Mr. XYZ, @Anon, @Anonymous
Yes, I suspect that he would have been, since AFAIK what Hitler wanted for Germany was a combination of the US and the Anglo-French Empires. Huge empires with Lebensraum and subject populations. His main sin other than the genocide and forced sterilization, of course, was that his desired colonial/empire subjects were other whites/Europeans rather than non-whites/non-Europeans.
I also suspect that Hitler would have been less likely to mass murder European Jewry had the Anglo-French not stood in his way due to the fact that he could have used them as hostages to deter Anglo-French (and American) entry into WWII. In fact, Michael Tracey has presented some evidence that in real life, the US’s decision to go to war with the Nazis was at least a partial motivating factor in the Nazis’ decision to escalate their mass murder of the Jews:
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-fairy-tale-version-of-world-war
European Jews would have, of course, been deported en masse from Europe after the end of any Nazi victory in any large-scale European war that the West itself would not have gotten involved in. Hitler did not want the Jews to stay in Europe even in the event of a Nazi victory; he simply initially wanted their deportation instead of their mass murder.
Buchanan's argument, from what I recall, is that Hitler dominating Eastern Europe, while bad, would not have been as bad as what we ended up with: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
I'd say true (or at least plausible), as far as it goes, but it assumes, first, that Hitler would have been content with his conquests to the east had Britain and France not gotten involved. Is that true?
Second, a Germany that dominates Europe is a much bigger threat to Britain's supremacy and security than the Soviets are, so I think it's more understandable why England would find German continental hegemony intolerable and feel compelled to fight.
I also found Buchanan to be intellectually dishonest at parts in the book.Replies: @Mr. XYZ, @Anon, @Anonymous
Yes, that is true. Germany did not have designs on Britain or France (or Italy).
Such as?
1. Buchanan points out that the eastern European countries often welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression as a way to bolster his argument that Nazi rule of eastern Europe would have been preferable and less tyrannical than Soviet rule. But he never mentions the flip side of this: after these nations actually experienced Nazi brutality, they reconsidered and switched sides.
2. He writes about how Mussolini was not nearly the villain that people often make him out to be, but then in the very next section, he criticizes Churchill for having said some nice things about Mussolini. (He also damns Churchill for praising Hitler. But it’s fairly obvious from the Churchill quotations – even without any additional context to situate the quotations – that Churchill’s praise is not unqualified. He merely recognizes Hitler as an effective leader.)
3. While I found some of his criticisms of Churchill persuasive, I found others to be disingenuous: he criticizes Churchill for his conservative views on immigration, race, on the Jews, etc., when these views are likely very similar to Buchanan's own! In general, I thought Buchanan's animus toward Churchill distorted his objectivity and marred the book.
4. Buchanan makes much of the spirit of vindictiveness of Versailles on the part of the Allies as having contributed to the outbreak of World War II, but while he does mention that Brest-Litovsk was even more draconian, there is no further elaboration on this, or how this might put things in a different light.
Another flaw in the book: Buchanan consistently singles out England for decisions she made that made the outbreak of war more likely, when other countries could also have chosen different routes to avoiding war as well (most notably, um, Germany: for example, he blames Chamberlain's War Guarantee for inciting Hitler to invade Poland. But obviously, the purpose of the Guarantee was to prevent war by dissuading Hitler from invading, and so ultimately the outbreak of war depended on Germany's decisions as well). Near the end of the book, for example, he gives a bulleted list of the things Britain did wrong. Some of his items are just bizarre though in terms of pinning the blame on England and some are contradictory.
I also found it tendentious how he blamed Austria for precipitating the Anschluss by Schuschnigg calling for the plebiscite.Replies: @Art Deco, @Art Deco
Buchanan's argument, from what I recall, is that Hitler dominating Eastern Europe, while bad, would not have been as bad as what we ended up with: Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
I'd say true (or at least plausible), as far as it goes, but it assumes, first, that Hitler would have been content with his conquests to the east had Britain and France not gotten involved. Is that true?
Second, a Germany that dominates Europe is a much bigger threat to Britain's supremacy and security than the Soviets are, so I think it's more understandable why England would find German continental hegemony intolerable and feel compelled to fight.
I also found Buchanan to be intellectually dishonest at parts in the book.Replies: @Mr. XYZ, @Anon, @Anonymous
This all depended on Hitler’s word. It’s is why collapse of the Munich pact was so important. It was a test of Hitler’s character and he failed. If his word couldn’t be trusted on minor things (no occupation of Prague) how could it be trusted on important things (no attack in the west)?
They had elections in Egypt following the Arab Spring, but when the ‘wrong’ guy won, the US gave green light to the Egyptian military to pull a coup and mow down hundreds of people.
That’s how ‘democracy’ works.
And Trump could be behind bars.
The Muslim brotherhood, MAGA Trumpism, even Bernie Saunderism - all must be kept out of power by any means necessary - because 'extremism'.
The prevailing sentiment is a base Utilitarianism with its inevitable companion, ignorance; and it is this that has paved the way for a union of stupid Anglican bigotry, foolish prejudice, coarse brutality, and a childish veneration of women.
Sounds like a formula for a good Western.
Our rulers are consistent here. No ‘extremists’ will be allowed to take power under democracy. This is the ‘lesson’ they learned from Hitler and his party’s participation in German democracy. (What they would really like is actual laws, as exist in Germany today, banning ‘extremists’ completely from political activity.)
The Muslim brotherhood, MAGA Trumpism, even Bernie Saunderism – all must be kept out of power by any means necessary – because ‘extremism’.
Oscar Wilde was convicted of engaging in a homosexual act. He repented of that descent into sin and became a Christian before his death. Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge.Replies: @BB753, @Anonymous
“Yes, the rampant degeneracy of the 1960s in some Middle Eastern countries is what led to the backlash of sharia law being imposed”
What I said was that Western homosexuals had no need to go to MENA countries anymore to engage in their proclivities after the 1960’s because public morality and prohibitions were gone by then in the West.
“Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge.”
Pleading not guilty is what most lawyers advise you to do. Remember, this was a man who crossed the ocean just to make out with Walt Whitman, another famous homo.
Huh?
New Hampshire:
Adoption: Same-sex couples allowed to adopt
Discrimination protections: Sexual orientation and gender identity protections
Gender identity: Altering sex on birth certificate and other documents allowed
***
On March 28, 2019, the state Senate approved a bill to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, amongst other categories, in all New Hampshire public schools. It was approved by the House on May 5, with an amendment, which was accepted by the Senate on June 13. The bill was signed into law by Governor Chris Sununu on 19 July, and went into effect 60 days later
***
MILFORD, MASS. (WHDH) – A packed and heated meeting inside Milford High School in Milford, N.H. Monday saw the school board opt to keep a current rule in place allowing transgender students to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice.
***
NH News
Several NH mayors, police chiefs say it’s time to give undocumented immigrants access to IDs
Transgender Hormone Therapy in Manchester, NH
Manchester Health Center offers the following services specifically for clients who need Transgender Hormone Therapy:
We are proud to offer gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) at all of our health centers in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. GAHT is offered to people 16 years of age and older. 16 and 17-year-olds will need parental consent.
***
A high school student in New Hampshire is being called a ‘pioneer’ after becoming one of the youngest people to undergo gender reassignment surgery. But her long and challenging journey began when she was just a child.
At 17 years old, Emily Tressa finally feels fully herself. Last month, she became one of the youngest patients in the country to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Emily says, “For me, it feels almost like I’m finally fully complete now.”
Going mostly from memory:
1. Buchanan points out that the eastern European countries often welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression as a way to bolster his argument that Nazi rule of eastern Europe would have been preferable and less tyrannical than Soviet rule. But he never mentions the flip side of this: after these nations actually experienced Nazi brutality, they reconsidered and switched sides.
2. He writes about how Mussolini was not nearly the villain that people often make him out to be, but then in the very next section, he criticizes Churchill for having said some nice things about Mussolini. (He also damns Churchill for praising Hitler. But it’s fairly obvious from the Churchill quotations – even without any additional context to situate the quotations – that Churchill’s praise is not unqualified. He merely recognizes Hitler as an effective leader.)
3. While I found some of his criticisms of Churchill persuasive, I found others to be disingenuous: he criticizes Churchill for his conservative views on immigration, race, on the Jews, etc., when these views are likely very similar to Buchanan’s own! In general, I thought Buchanan’s animus toward Churchill distorted his objectivity and marred the book.
4. Buchanan makes much of the spirit of vindictiveness of Versailles on the part of the Allies as having contributed to the outbreak of World War II, but while he does mention that Brest-Litovsk was even more draconian, there is no further elaboration on this, or how this might put things in a different light.
Another flaw in the book: Buchanan consistently singles out England for decisions she made that made the outbreak of war more likely, when other countries could also have chosen different routes to avoiding war as well (most notably, um, Germany: for example, he blames Chamberlain’s War Guarantee for inciting Hitler to invade Poland. But obviously, the purpose of the Guarantee was to prevent war by dissuading Hitler from invading, and so ultimately the outbreak of war depended on Germany’s decisions as well). Near the end of the book, for example, he gives a bulleted list of the things Britain did wrong. Some of his items are just bizarre though in terms of pinning the blame on England and some are contradictory.
I also found it tendentious how he blamed Austria for precipitating the Anschluss by Schuschnigg calling for the plebiscite.
==
That would only have been true of the Ukraine, White Russia, the Baltic states, and a fragment of inter-war Poland. Note that the Red Army seized and stomped on the Baltic states just a year before the Germans invaded Soviet Russia.Replies: @Anonymous
==
It did stoke revanchist sentiment in Germany. Problem: every salient feature of the Treaty of Versailles had been abrogated by the end of 1938 except the 'war guilt clause' and the return of certain territories. The territories in question were those arguably a net drain economically (the overseas dependencies) and those occupied by populations which would have been antagonistic to the rest of Germany society (Alsace-Lorraine, north Schleswig, the Polish portions of the Prussian provinces of Silesia, Posen, and West Prussia). OTOH, Germany had acquired productive portions of the old Hapsburg lands which were content to be a part of Germany. The Danzig zone was a de facto dependency of Germany from 1935 onward and the Lithuanian government turned over the Memel district in March 1939 when it was demanded. About the only pieces of Germanophone territory left in Europe that it would have been practicable to attempt to acquire and hold were some municipalities in South Tyrol held by Italy. They pretty much had it all but couldn't stop there.
Originally probably Jews, if only because there were far fewer of them.
Since about the Enlightenment though, Jews have been outbreeding in droves, at least in the West, so now I dunno.
Probably there are genetic studies that could answer it, but I suspect the answer would heavily depend on who is counted in each group. Is a non-practicing quarter-Hebrew mischling “Jewish”? Is an illiterate, Shariah-ignorant Moro tribesman “Muslim”? I dunno.
Oscar Wilde was convicted of engaging in a homosexual act. He repented of that descent into sin and became a Christian before his death. Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge.Replies: @BB753, @Anonymous
You’d be wrong about what goes on in Islamic countries. Strict Islamic societies are a bit like permanent prison situations for the unmarried men, and there is a culture of friends ‘helping each other out’, as well as pederasty.
As for homosexuality itself (sexual attraction to the same sex instead of the opposite), whatever it is that causes it, my guess is it’s neither significantly more nor significantly less common than in the West.
Yeah, whoever heard of hypocrisy in Muslim societies.
Amazing.
Whether he truly repented I don’t know and (not being religious or bothered by strangers’ sexualities) don’t care, but either way, Wilde died a homosexual.
There always seem to be some bizarre comments here in which people try to deny or relativize the sexualities of notable homosexuals, or even homosexuality itself. Still, even by those standards… Wilde? Seriously??
If you think Morocco has fair elections, I’ve got a bridge in eastern Libya I’d like to sell you!
https://freedomhouse.org/country/morocco/freedom-world/2022
What I said was that Western homosexuals had no need to go to MENA countries anymore to engage in their proclivities after the 1960's because public morality and prohibitions were gone by then in the West.
"Remember, too, that Wilde denied being a homosexual and sued a man who accused him of it. He also pled not guilty when arrested on the charge."
Pleading not guilty is what most lawyers advise you to do. Remember, this was a man who crossed the ocean just to make out with Walt Whitman, another famous homo.Replies: @Rich
In other words, Wilde publicly claimed he wasn’t a homosexual. On numerous occasions. And at the end of his life repented of any occasion of sin he may have engaged in. Point being he wasn’t a good example of a “proud degenerate”.
Because some degenerate homosexuals once went to degrade themselves in the Middle East, in your experience, is meaningless since at the time those countries were under the spell of the degenerate West. They immediately outlawed and enacted severe penalties for the disgusting acts that have become the American sacraments of today.
Obviously, you’re a sophisticate, who knows better than everyone else. But facts is facts, Nancy, and Wilde repented of his sins before his death. Became a Christian.
Your experience in the men’s room at the airport in Dubai doesn’t make you an expert on the sexual preferences in Islamic countries. Sorry. Just because you fantasize about joining some sheik’s harem, doesn’t mean he’d let you. However, in a country where death or imprisonment is the punishment for homosexual actions, I’d be pretty sure, has less of the degenerate activity than countries that actively push it on their children.
1. Buchanan points out that the eastern European countries often welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression as a way to bolster his argument that Nazi rule of eastern Europe would have been preferable and less tyrannical than Soviet rule. But he never mentions the flip side of this: after these nations actually experienced Nazi brutality, they reconsidered and switched sides.
2. He writes about how Mussolini was not nearly the villain that people often make him out to be, but then in the very next section, he criticizes Churchill for having said some nice things about Mussolini. (He also damns Churchill for praising Hitler. But it’s fairly obvious from the Churchill quotations – even without any additional context to situate the quotations – that Churchill’s praise is not unqualified. He merely recognizes Hitler as an effective leader.)
3. While I found some of his criticisms of Churchill persuasive, I found others to be disingenuous: he criticizes Churchill for his conservative views on immigration, race, on the Jews, etc., when these views are likely very similar to Buchanan's own! In general, I thought Buchanan's animus toward Churchill distorted his objectivity and marred the book.
4. Buchanan makes much of the spirit of vindictiveness of Versailles on the part of the Allies as having contributed to the outbreak of World War II, but while he does mention that Brest-Litovsk was even more draconian, there is no further elaboration on this, or how this might put things in a different light.
Another flaw in the book: Buchanan consistently singles out England for decisions she made that made the outbreak of war more likely, when other countries could also have chosen different routes to avoiding war as well (most notably, um, Germany: for example, he blames Chamberlain's War Guarantee for inciting Hitler to invade Poland. But obviously, the purpose of the Guarantee was to prevent war by dissuading Hitler from invading, and so ultimately the outbreak of war depended on Germany's decisions as well). Near the end of the book, for example, he gives a bulleted list of the things Britain did wrong. Some of his items are just bizarre though in terms of pinning the blame on England and some are contradictory.
I also found it tendentious how he blamed Austria for precipitating the Anschluss by Schuschnigg calling for the plebiscite.Replies: @Art Deco, @Art Deco
Buchanan points out that the eastern European countries often welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression
==
That would only have been true of the Ukraine, White Russia, the Baltic states, and a fragment of inter-war Poland. Note that the Red Army seized and stomped on the Baltic states just a year before the Germans invaded Soviet Russia.
This fact has been airbrushed out of history because both sides find it embarrassing.Replies: @Art Deco
1. Buchanan points out that the eastern European countries often welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression as a way to bolster his argument that Nazi rule of eastern Europe would have been preferable and less tyrannical than Soviet rule. But he never mentions the flip side of this: after these nations actually experienced Nazi brutality, they reconsidered and switched sides.
2. He writes about how Mussolini was not nearly the villain that people often make him out to be, but then in the very next section, he criticizes Churchill for having said some nice things about Mussolini. (He also damns Churchill for praising Hitler. But it’s fairly obvious from the Churchill quotations – even without any additional context to situate the quotations – that Churchill’s praise is not unqualified. He merely recognizes Hitler as an effective leader.)
3. While I found some of his criticisms of Churchill persuasive, I found others to be disingenuous: he criticizes Churchill for his conservative views on immigration, race, on the Jews, etc., when these views are likely very similar to Buchanan's own! In general, I thought Buchanan's animus toward Churchill distorted his objectivity and marred the book.
4. Buchanan makes much of the spirit of vindictiveness of Versailles on the part of the Allies as having contributed to the outbreak of World War II, but while he does mention that Brest-Litovsk was even more draconian, there is no further elaboration on this, or how this might put things in a different light.
Another flaw in the book: Buchanan consistently singles out England for decisions she made that made the outbreak of war more likely, when other countries could also have chosen different routes to avoiding war as well (most notably, um, Germany: for example, he blames Chamberlain's War Guarantee for inciting Hitler to invade Poland. But obviously, the purpose of the Guarantee was to prevent war by dissuading Hitler from invading, and so ultimately the outbreak of war depended on Germany's decisions as well). Near the end of the book, for example, he gives a bulleted list of the things Britain did wrong. Some of his items are just bizarre though in terms of pinning the blame on England and some are contradictory.
I also found it tendentious how he blamed Austria for precipitating the Anschluss by Schuschnigg calling for the plebiscite.Replies: @Art Deco, @Art Deco
4. Buchanan makes much of the spirit of vindictiveness of Versailles on the part of the Allies as having contributed to the outbreak of World War II, but while he does mention that Brest-Litovsk was even more draconian, there is no further elaboration on this, or how this might put things in a different light.
==
It did stoke revanchist sentiment in Germany. Problem: every salient feature of the Treaty of Versailles had been abrogated by the end of 1938 except the ‘war guilt clause’ and the return of certain territories. The territories in question were those arguably a net drain economically (the overseas dependencies) and those occupied by populations which would have been antagonistic to the rest of Germany society (Alsace-Lorraine, north Schleswig, the Polish portions of the Prussian provinces of Silesia, Posen, and West Prussia). OTOH, Germany had acquired productive portions of the old Hapsburg lands which were content to be a part of Germany. The Danzig zone was a de facto dependency of Germany from 1935 onward and the Lithuanian government turned over the Memel district in March 1939 when it was demanded. About the only pieces of Germanophone territory left in Europe that it would have been practicable to attempt to acquire and hold were some municipalities in South Tyrol held by Italy. They pretty much had it all but couldn’t stop there.
I don’t hate homosexuals or think less of them for something they cannot change, so you’re not gonna achieve much trying to insult me that way.
However, it is pretty funny how, in your outrage, you accuse me of being gay for… calmly stating the facts about Wilde’s sexuality and some well-known Islamic social phenomena.
You, however – the guy desperate to claim anyone who’s married with kids or anyone who feels bad enough about his nature can’t be gay, and who reacts to basic facts about homosexual conduct in the Muslim world with fevered fantasies about gay harems and glory hole adventures – are not suspect at all.
That’s alright, Rich. I’m sorry to have hurt you. Life’s difficult enough. Whatever helps you get through it.
==
That would only have been true of the Ukraine, White Russia, the Baltic states, and a fragment of inter-war Poland. Note that the Red Army seized and stomped on the Baltic states just a year before the Germans invaded Soviet Russia.Replies: @Anonymous
Even Polish Jews welcomed the Nazis in 1939. (They had nostalgic memories of the Poland under the Kaisers.)
This fact has been airbrushed out of history because both sides find it embarrassing.
This fact has been airbrushed out of history because both sides find it embarrassing.Replies: @Art Deco
In your imagination only.