vonbaronhans @ vonbaronhans @midwest.social

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2 yr. ago

I love poke balls with the super big and legendary ones turned off, more like the Melee and Brawl ones.

I'd like to add some nuance to your observation.

We Americans, most of us anyway, went to public school. And in our history classes, we teach what has been called the "Standard American History Myth" by YouTube channel Knowing Better in their video on American Neo-slavery.

In short, America is founded on many ideals (freedom, liberty, etc), and we generally write our histories as if we have always believed in and acted according to those beliefs (with slavery being a "failure to live up to those ideals"). That's the simple history we teach our kids here, it's what we grow up believing, and the only people who ever really learn anything different had nontraditional learning opportunities (e.g. local experts in black history, American Indian history, etc), studied history at a university, or nowadays maybe learned from social media (like the above Knowing Better channel).

Manifest Destiny is a big example. We teach that America believed in their divinely inspired right to the American continent, from sea to shining sea. We do mention the Trail of Tears, but it's taught as a brute fact at best, and as punishment for standing against America at worst. There's no emotional processing that we did a bad thing and that we shouldn't do that thing anymore. Most Americans would do it all again given the opportunity.

And that's the big thing. We just... simply don't have any sort of national level conscience. If we did something bad to someone, no we didn't, and if we did, they deserved it.

I only really came to grips with America's dark side in grad school by reading, listening, and watching interviews with black people who protested Jim Crowe and Asian Americans who told their experiences living in concentration camps (euphemistically "internment camps") during WW2.

That, I think, is the biggest problem in the American psyche. Not only have we "never done anything wrong, really" but we're also pumped up on religious symbolism (we're a beacon on a hill, a light into the world, etc).

"Divinely inspired" crybully, basically. There's a reason Trump resonates so strongly here. He's the embodiment of "I am the best, I never did anything wrong, and fuck you for trying to insinuate otherwise, you ungrateful traitor."

Hey there. So I'm doing some reading trying to see if I'm just wrong here. I might be?

Just for context about where I learned about Conservatism, its roots, and how it functions in America now, this is really good distillation of what I've been learning: The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 3: The Origins of Conservatism.

There's a few bits in there that I find particularly salient for this discussion. First, that early Conservatism was trying to figure out how the aristocracy could maintain its position in society post-monarchy, and they eventually settled on "the market". Second, that Conservatism has an everpresent undercurrent of "the wealthy deserve what they get, the poors are just freeloaders." And third, that conservatives in the US say they care about measured steps and slow steady progress, but then all of a sudden they're about swift, decisive action (usually by invading somewhere).

That final point is a big reason I tend to balk when people say that conservatism is about slow and steady progress vs revolutionary action. That's something I grew up believing in the US, but it just never seemed accurate to how any conservatives in the US actually behaved. Virtually nothing conservatives say or do here make sense through the lens of "slow and steady" but make a lot more sense if you view it through a lens of preserving hierarchies and ensuring the people at the top stay there and those at the bottom grovel harder.

So I see these throughlines, and I have a hard time imagining that Conservatism (of the old European variety) simply had no strains here in the US. Yet, a lot of what I'm reading suggests that American conservatism is, as you said, a bit different. I haven't looked deeply enough yet, but my initial thought is because the USA itself was instituted against monarchy, the pro-monarchy bits may not have fit, but the strict traditional hierarchy preservation certainly did.

I dunno. You have any idea how hard it is to unfuck your brain? It's harder than you think!

This was all interesting, and I'm thankful you've shared. On reading, I'm not seeing any connection to the discussion at hand, that of Conservatism and whether or not it has or hasn't existed in the US.

But to comment anyhow - I find it difficult to understand what the transcribed speech is saying. Mostly because I don't think I understand what the speaker means by "spiritual". As a term, I have found "spirit" and its derivatives to be nebulous and unhelpful at best, and pernicious at worst. But my experience with the word is primarily through American Christianity, from which I'm an apostate. So I must decline to ascribe to the speaker there what my own brain interjects. But that leaves the speech largely unintelligible to me. That's nothing against the speaker, but rather an admission of my own ignorance.

The Dawn of Everything seems interesting though. Seems to have gotten good reception from historians. I'll add it to the list.

I'd somehow never heard this argument before, so I found some random article about it: https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2023/06/slavery-militias-and-methodologies-thoughts-on-carl-boguss-madisons-militia

I can't speak to the quality of the source above, but they argue that your basic thesis is true, but is not the full story. All the former colonies (including non-slave states) wanted militias instead of a peacetime national military, which was as much or more of a driver for adoption of the 2nd amendment than the idea of using militias for appearing slave rebellions.

But that's just literally the first article I read about it, so I dunno.

I'm no economist, but I hear the economists are not thrilled with what Trump is doing to the economy. We're headed for a recession at minimum, if those folks are anything to go by.

Two things started the slow 10ish year journey to atheism for me. I can't remember which happened first.

Some Mormon lads doing their mandatory missionary work knocked on our door when I was home alone. I decided, screw it, kill them with kindness. Maybe I'll convert them! After I got them some ice water, they started the spiel. It was so stupid, how could anyone believe this? Then I thought, wait, how is what I believe any more believable? That was an unsettling thought that I could never really shake.

I also challenged myself to read the entire Bible (NIV) front to back (which I did, thankyouverymuch). I already had a lot of apologetics for the pentateuch warfare, slavery, etc. but in Psalms there's a verse that basically goes, "blessed is he who dashes the babies on the rocks." And like. What the fuck is that. In what possible circumstances is killing babies okay, let alone with God's explicit endorsement? That also stuck in my head ever since.

There was a lot else in between, but years later I stumbled into a copy of The God Delusion. "Know thine enemy, right?" So I read it on lunch breaks at work. While I now know the book has a reputation for kinda bad philosophy, by the end it had tidily dismantled the last vestiges of the purely "rational" arguments to believe in God I still had. So I sat there, an atheist for the first time in my life.

Jesus fuck me

At this point, I don't know if America can heal with Mt Rushmore still there. I'm not saying we would blow it up, but I do think it might be good if it was blown up.

Survey researchers are well aware of the biases from different data collection methods. Phone polling tending to overrepresent old folks is a a big one. They try to balance that out with various statistical weighting methods, usually by combining with census data or other demographic survey sets.

It's unfortunate, but yeah we do have about a third of the country going hard conservative/fascist.

Then please, enlighten me.

Surely I'm not so "brain fucked" that I can't learn? Help a brother out.

Edit: I love how for a supposedly leftist community, a guy asking for a lesson is down voted. The leftist infighting is real. You think I wouldn't read what you sent?

Yeah, I don't buy that. Liberalism and Conservatism have different ideological foundations, philosophical traditions, and political histories.

If you don't know the difference, that's on you.

I have to make a lot of leaps to guess what you mean by "conservative liberal". Do you mean a modern "social liberal economic conservative"? Aka a neoliberal?

Cuz yeah US Dems and Repubs are almost all economically neoliberal, sure. Is that what you mean?

So conservatives are... what? Not a group of people? Or in your view, are conservatives just fascists already?

It does, but not everyone sets up their 2fa, or uses the least secure forms. Then passwords get hacked, and those lists get shared so when the next hack comes along, they have that many more tools to try and break the encryption (assuming there is any) on a bigger site, compromising even more people.

It's a whole systemic shit bag. Passkeys were meant to solve a lot of these problems, and they would, but Big Tech is botching the execution in favor of yet another thing locking you into their ecosystem.

Jesus Christ, dude, that is exactly it.

We're trying to implement passkeys at work and the testing has been an absolute nightmare. Literally have no control over the onboarding experience because each tech giant is clamoring over each other, interjecting into the process to be the "home" for your passkeys. It's bananas.

When it's all set up, it's kinda great! But getting set up in the first place is an exercise in frustration.

This was very helpful to read. Thank you.

At the same time, "what the population votes for is what the population gets" ignores that we are often only presented with crappy options to start with.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "you get what you fight for, and if you don't fight you get what you get."

I... haven't really fought for anything. I believed the right things. I voted as best I could. But that clearly didn't stop this.

I want to protect my ego and say I'm not a coward. Is there a distinction to be made between cowardice and simply not knowing what to do? I don't know. I just know I'm trying my best, but maybe that's just not enough.

Depends on what you mean by "much"? I'd argue the Democrats, on the whole, are liberals, not fascists.

I'd certainly prefer progressives and leftists though.

The support for Israel whole they genocide Palestine, thought... ugh. That can certainly be viewed as fascism, although where you draw the distinction between fascism and imperialism is up for debate. Not that imperialism is good either, just saying.

That about sums it up.

I'll vote Democrat as long as the alternative is fascism.

But fuck me, I'd love to vote for something else. And I'll be honest, I have no idea how we get anything better.

I hear people saying to organize, but I can't even imagine what that takes. I wonder if most Americans feel as helpless as I do in the face of this absolute bullshit.

I'm sure the media played a part.

But fuck. He was so obvious with his racism, with his desire to be a dictator, fuckin everything.

Fuck.