Lord Ratner

Yeah, between that and his defense of Israel I suspect there are a lot of (even more) unhappy progressives.

I actually mentioned that to my wife. I know it's normal that each era has a tone and inflection that all public speakers adopt, which is why all the radio people from the twenties and thirties sounded so hilarious, but I really hate this current era of shouting with frequent, inappropriately placed pauses. It makes it sound like the people speaking are idiots who don't believe what they're saying, which is pretty fitting. The

I know exactly what they want. Meaning and money. They spent decades fighting the good fight, and the cause was righteous. Problem is, eventually they ran out of victims. Now the people who made their living as professional activists when activists were needed (Al Sharpton, Gloria Steinem, etc) are facing economic doom if the battle is over, and the younger progressives grew up believing they would carry the torch, only to reach adulthood prepared for a war that already ended. It benefits both groups to "find" victims, mentally and financially, so that's exactly what they do. But the only people you can inaccurately cast as victims are the mentally broken, and so we see the "homeless" drug addicts, those with gender dysmorphia, women who confabulate ridiculous fantasies of sexual abuse (e.g. the Kavanaugh accuser), men who are attracted to children, all become the oppressed. It's not because any of these activists actually care about these "victims;" they want fame and money and found a way to get it.

Yeah except for fundamentally there's a key difference. The universities are teaching the citizenship that they themselves are the enemy of the cause. The third Reich did not teach that german-born German citizens were the fundamental roadblock to Utopia. They picked a minority internal demographic, and larger external demographics to villainize. The force of the modern progressive movement in America, for better or worse, is fueled by well-off white liberals. They will happily preach and post about an ideology that paints themselves as victimizers, oppressors, and tyrants, so long is nothing actually comes of it. "Virtue signaling" is the most appropriate term. However if that glorious day comes that the progressive movement is ready to act on their nonsense, it will require the sacrifice of it's largest support base. Not going to happen. All those upper middle class, well-to-do white ladies are Republicans the day the revolution starts. And half of their husbands who provide for their privileged lives by exploiting the evils of capitalisms are already silent conservatives; they just have no inclination to scream about politics with their ignorant partners.

Are we just talking about the random people who make these movies and shows? I think overwhelmingly the people involved with these movements are not true believers, they're just regular people, slightly below average in intellect and well below average on the assertiveness scale, who just look for a movement or ideal to attach to and do so. They were never "social justice warriors" when it was risky or uncomfortable to be one (pre-1960), but now you get all sorts of "likes" and back-patting for changing your profile picture to a black square, so that's what some of the sheep are doing now, including writing shitty TV episodes that are "woke." The right has them too. They are very conservative now that conservatism means nothing in the Big-R Republican party. Cut spending? Yeah sure, but not any of the spending people are actually used to (SS, Medicare, Medicaid, military). Pro police? Hell yeah! But don't raise my taxes to fund them. Get rid of the homeless? Finally! But I'm not going to support government funded mental asylums to house them... It's also why I don't see a real civil war in the US anytime remotely soon. Most of the most vocal partisans will vaporize the moment their beliefs and positions put them at risk. I was seduced into the ideology. I didn't realize what "the leaders" really meant! *I'm* the victim of a cult. I never really believed that in the first place! More likely we will be pulled into a World War of sorts, and the deaths of our young will have a focusing effect on the population. After the first couple judges or politicians or activists are beaten to death in the street for saying something stupid, the rest will fall in line quickly and without protest. That's just what sheep do. I'm not looking forward to it, but there will be some silver linings.

Yeah humans don't look like that, no matter how much muscle milk you drink 🤣😂

Amazing what happens when you have a director who respects and adores the source material.

The new speaker, who has accomplished exactly nothing and is passing a clean CR that McCarthy was annihilated for suggesting. Gaetz is a preening hack. I like the new speaker, but he has no business doing that job and anyone who thinks he belongs there has no idea what that job actually entails. You want a principled conservative, look to Chip Roy. Both nothing more that actors, just playing different roles. Interesting comparison. No worries. I did like his grilling of Austin, it's just the only thing he provides, and he fucks up other things. It's going to take a war. A bad one. Something to refocus the population and provide a new batch of heroes to vote for.

That's all well and good, but that skill set is a dime a dozen, and he did far more damage with his McCarthy stunt than his theatrics can offset. He is, however, just another useless politician in an ocean of unaccomplished amateur actors pretending to be competent and in control. I can't fault a sociopath for finding a position to exploit.

Yes, about the only thing he's good at is theatrics

No. I am applying the legal sense. There's not a court in the world that will convict that cop for shooting Babbit, applying the reasonable expectation. That's why no one is in jail for her death, aside from the obvious political bias in DC. You said it yourself. Beyond a "reasonable" doubt. You don't enter a locked door. It's locked. You break it down, or at a minimum defeat the locking mechanism. Those are proactive steps to violate a space. If you do not have a right to the space, which citizens do not have an unfettered right to occupy government buildings, you can not defeat the barrier mechanisms innocently. And if you do it as part of a rioting mob, as she did, I don't expect a cop to wait to find out, with his life, if they are just there for hugs. Trespass at your own peril. Rioting ≠ Protesting. It didn't for the George Floyd riots, it didn't for the Jan 6th riots. If things get so bad that I feel the need to riot, I expect for people to die. Sometimes blood is the price. Possibly even mine if I feel strongly enough about it. Breaking Windows, no unless there were people behind those windows that could be hit by the bricks. Lighting fires, if there was any reasonable possibility that innocent people were in the vehicles or structures at risk of being set on fire, open fire, and shoot to kill.

I don't think I implied anywhere that Iraq made sense. It didn't. To your second point, yes.

Sorry dude, but you're being willfully obtuse if you can't see how a crowd of people trying to force their way into *any* structure that is being defended by law enforcement, knowing full well that their presence in that building is not welcome, and that their numbers require the use of lethal force to satisfy the concept of proportionality, would be setting themselves up for a fatal interaction. Our system doesn't work if it has to be designed for the dumbest people amongst us. This concept is why we have such a litigious society now, where you can sue McDonald's because you didn't realize your cup of coffee was too hot. If it is unreasonable to assume that breaking through a window and crawling through with a literal rioting crowd behind you into the line of fire of a sole police officer will get you shot, then the word "reasonable" has no meaning. If the police tell you not to go somewhere, and you go there anyways, and especially if you have to use force to literally break your way into that location, you should know that the potential for getting shot is high. That is a reasonable expectation. People defending January 6th have gone from reasonable to unreasonable, because everything must be black or white now.

If they (let's say France) only kill Russian soldiers in Ukraine, then Russia has no basis to attack France. If France launches attacks into Russia, then it's game on for Russia to attack France, but NATO should not have to join in.

But it is Europe's fight, yes? So France and Poland have an interest and right to participate as they see fit? Or does NATO membership mean the US dictates everything? I don't want it, but I'm much more sanguine about it. WWIII is inevitable. The details are flexible but the catastrophic nature is not. I would rather get it over with while we are morally weak but physically strong, rather than both morally and physically weak. Another decade or two of "peace" and I think we will look much more like the European countries do today. I don't want to give China any more advantage than they already have. Interventionism doesn't have a bad track record, weak commitment does. Our intervening in world war II led to a pretty incredible period of prosperity and calm. South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, Israel, and even Taiwan are evidence. Righteous intervention can yield good results. Fucking around in the Middle East without a goal or real leadership is proof that mindless intervention can be catastrophic. Let's not forget that the Western governments had no interest in intervening in Ukraine with military support. It was only when the populations expressed shocking and very loud support for the Ukrainian cause that the politicians jumped on board. Everybody assumed that after 20 years of pointless wars the citizenship would be permanently biased against any form of intervention, but the cartoonishly evil nature of the Russian invasion hit a part of the human psyche that we forgot we had. Before world war II the youth of that generation were all hot and bothered over the Oxford pledge, yet when the actual war came, that generation became the "GI generation" and then the "greatest generation" and formed a sense of community that they rode to the grave.

You absolutely will, always, have a reasonable expectation of dying if you are trying to force your way through a locked door with law enforcement behind it. That doesn't make it right. But it is absolutely a reasonable expectation. You have to be fucking delusional to think otherwise.

Being right about covid is like being right against a flat earther. Not a very high bar. So now your argument is that because the European countries are a part of NATO, they are not allowed to engage in military conflict outside of the alliance without the permission of the US? Or of all NATO countries combined? So basically the existence of NATO means, non-nato countries are expressly excluded from any form of direct military support from NATO countries, because that would, in your opinion, necessitate the intervention of NATO as a whole, including the US. What a fantastically interesting argument, and then why wouldn't Russia want other countries excluded from joining NATO? Not only are they not part of the alliance that Russia overtly hates, but they are now fair game for conquest because NATO countries cannot defend non-nato countries by your logic, regardless of their regional interests in the war. Now, if you want to make an argument that the United States should declare ahead of time that they will not invoke Article 5 if NATO ground forces participating *in* Ukraine are attacked *on* Ukrainian soil, that's a more reasonable position. But your arguments is the best advertisement I've heard yet for other countries joining NATO. If you don't join NATO, there are literally no circumstances under which friendly NATO countries will intervene on your behalf. You're on your own, good luck. You're just arguing for pure isolationism. That doesn't have an impressive track record.

No. I thought the whole point was America shouldn't be meddling in European affairs. Now the European countries are deciding they don't want to tolerate Russian expansionism in their back yard. That's their choice, right? But you're against that too? So countries should be able to defend themselves without external assistance, or be taken by whoever decides to invade. That'll play out well 😂🤣 So now you're not an America First isolationist, you're just pro-Russian. You've always had the weakest arguments on this board, but this is a particularly interesting development.

Wait, are you against non-US NATO countries sending ground troops into Ukraine?

This has been building for decades. The election of an idiot political class is part of the process, not the cause. Francis Fukuyama is going to have to release a revision to his book. I'm just glad my kids will be too young for what's coming.

Small blessing. His mental breakdown involved just killing himself, rather than shooting up a base.

You'll notice this dude was shit-canned as soon as he started hinting that the disappearance of expensive equipment would need to be reported. As soon as his "antics" transitioned from obnoxiously advocating for his unit to potentially tarnishing the reputation of his leadership, he was toast. You don't get to the top in today's military (college, government, etc) through competence, results, and successful leadership of your subordinates, you get there by protecting those above you. When the consequences for failure are restored, the institutions will resume filtering for and rewarding competence. It's going to get a lot worse before that happens, I fear.

This sounds like the O6 leadership at every base I was stationed at. At some point people are going to realize that the corporate, academic, and political rot within the leadership class has completely infiltrated the military as well. It's a bummer, but it should not be surprising.

An economist would ask: what is the organization maximizing? They aren't hitting foul balls, they're just not playing the game you think they are.

That'll be the innovation part. 20 years ago we could track debris the size of a baseball, and that was just the unclassified level. Model the debris, predict the hole, and launch. We got bombers made of century-old tech to fly through oceans of flak, this won't be the challenge some are predicting it to be. Not ideal, but it never is. I can't even think of a capabilities scare that came true. Peak oil, deforestation, the ozone hole, Moore's Law, overpopulation, etc. Our problems will always be socio-political, not technological.