A Deeply Fractured US

[ytz]

Oh so now American oligarchs are in with Red China? Whatever will the Republicans do?

Like everything else, they'll bitch and whine until BYD puts up a factory in a red state and then they'll act like BYD EVs are the greatest thing sliced bread. Not like those woke American EVs made in California.

Two weeks ago, Chinese EVs were security threats (which I somewhat agree with).... But suddenly the Trump administration is happy to consider them, as long as they get their cut.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Are you saying that religion imposing constraints on how one lives one's own life is OK, but,. without it one would have to, somehow, have to figure out how to react to someone else's attempt to do so? No!

I claim that for a lot of people, religion is the difference between dealing with their frustrations peaceably and dealing with their frustrations expediently.

 

[Brad Sallows]

So to be clear. You are triggered and went back and forth because of "sea level rise". That's enough for you to think American senior officers should stop being sent to graduate programs at Ivy League schools?

I suppose you see it that way. As I see it, I made one unflattering remark about the example (and suggested there were better ways to make arguments against the administration's policy) and you were triggered by that one thing into launching yourself into a bunch of "climate risk" strawmen.

Don't concern yourself with what you think I understand about scope and breadth. I read the links I posted, before I posted them.

 

[Brad Sallows]

We've gone from cancel culture from the left to cancel culture from the right. Horseshoe theory at work.

Not horseshoe theory. Tit for tat. The people using the left's tactics first warned the left that those tactics could be used by anyone, then talked about using them because the usual gentry Republican turn-the-cheek behaviour wasn't working, and finally are using them. That interval in which they noted the problem and expressed their frustration was when American progressives could have had whatever kind of civil war they needed to have to fix the problem, but didn't.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I looked at Rubio's speech. It may have had some positive bits too it but - IMHO -what it said is that the US and Europe can get along. But that has a condition. “We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who together with us are willing and able to defend it.”

Boy. You really want to know what culture and heritage he's talking about. I guess I'm okay, Jack - mine's German.

An easy guess is that it's "code" for "stop letting Muslim immigrants take over local government and replace western civilization with theirs". No particular European culture need be identified.

 

[FJAG]

Sure. But like everything else they have to turn it into some culture war nonsense with two lesbos in a Prius dying of heat. It could have been an email.....

By the way start-stop doesn't turn off your AC. And hybrids don't work like that.....

Also like doesn't change anything for anybody who already has it on their car....

I've stayed away from hi-tech stuff - it's just another thing to break that costs a lot to fix and - more likely then not - makes it impossible not to fix it.

Until this last one which came with quite a few bells and whistles including Start/Stop as standard. I'm not fond of it either. When I pull into the garage and stop the engine turns off - but the car isn't off - if you get what I'm saying. There are times I get out of the car not realize its still "running." Not a problem. Easily gotten used to. Nothing to make a Federal case out of it.

All in all, I'm using about 20% of what the car can do. My favourite by far is the adaptive cruise control.

 

[FJAG]

An easy guess is that it's "code" for "stop letting Muslim immigrants take over local government and replace western civilization with theirs". No particular European culture need be identified.

You see, that's where my theory of having a Constitution that guarantees "freedom from religion" is much more useful then one that guarantees "freedom of religion."

The last one is only useful until there's a block of folks that is even more attached to their religion then you are to yours. Then they become a threat.

You know that "woke" institutions don't exist because the majority of the people are in favour of "woke." "Woke" institutions are the product of small activist groups that really care about their theory of society and who make the effort to finagle their way into local, then regional and then federal governments and institutions. Most of us are far too lazy to get involved. We're happy to let other folks do it and barely show up for elections. We let them make our society "woke."

We've had this immigrant thing before. Talk to the Irish and Russians and Jews who came back around the 1890s and thereafter about how easily they could integrate. Look into the KKK resurgence in the US in the late 1900s to 1930s. Hell, I grew up in Toronto when Poles, and Italians were the standing butt of all jokes.

I've always believed in "progressive conservatism" as the proper balance between respecting what needs to stay and what ought to move forward. I've had a troubled relationship with just plain old "conservatism" or , what's worse, a call to turn the clock back being what's needed to make things great - again.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I've had a troubled relationship with just plain old "conservatism" or , what's worse, a call to turn the clock back being what's needed to make things great - again.

A given set of conservative principles can be maintained only if no-one changes anything. As soon as someone changes something, "turning the clock back" is the only alternative. If there is nothing that can be improved (restored) by undoing changes, what is the point of conservative politics?

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . . Hell, I grew up in Toronto when Poles, and Italians were the standing butt of all jokes.

What? No Newfoundlander jokes?

 

[FJAG]

What? No Newfoundlander jokes?

I don't want to sound dismissive, but Newfoundlanders never really entered into our consciousness in Toronto (Scarborough actually - it makes a difference). There was no world north of the 401 nor east of Markham Rd.

 

[lenaitch]

we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who together with us are willing and able to defend it.”

Read: white, Anglo, Christian.

What? No Newfoundlander jokes?

No critical mass. There has never been an equivalent to Little Poland, Little Italy, Greektown, Chinatown, etc.

 

[ytz]

I don't want to sound dismissive, but Newfoundlanders never really entered into our consciousness in Toronto (Scarborough actually - it makes a difference). There was no world north of the 401 nor east of Markham Rd.

Hello fellow Scarberian. Although from a different era. Guessing my 90s childhood home in Malvern was a cornfield when you grew up in Scarborough. I think the house was built in the early 70s. Though the area my parents live in now was forest and fields when I was in high school. Was Johnny's Burgers and the Markham Station Restaurant around when you were growing up? Those are landmark institutions for me. Likewise the bakery at Warden Station.