Survivor guilt
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To a degree, yes. Particularly in the age of "Nationalism" (read: Ethno-Nationalism supported by Progressives), there was a lot of intenitonal de-populations or forced removals of ethnic groups that established governments didn't trust. That being said, this had been an ongoing issue for several hundred years in Europe as different ethnic groups were favored, re-located, pogromed, purged, or otherwise given unfair shakes.
Ethnic Collectivism as a methodology of political control isn't really a new thing.
There is an aspect of Libertarianism that is effectively nothing more than controlled opposition. This is effectively a group of libertarians that will refuse to object to corporate power, but will use libertarian arguments, or even anachro-capitalist ones, to support that corporate power. A lot of these are some Reason.com, Koch Brothers funded "Lolbertarians".
For example:
A Koch Brothers funded Lolbertarian demands that we recognize the rights of public corporations, doesn't believe that publicly funded and owned corporations aren't private, advocates for removing corporate taxes (but not property or income tax), and supports open borders as a "true" libertarian position because it will allow unfettered mass migration that will create a vast underclass labor supply to corporate conglomerates in California.
A genuine Libertarian will stand there and tell you that the 1964 Civil Rights act is unacceptable because the government is intentionally creating protected classes in society that will lead to government sponsored discrimination along those lines
A lolbertarian position sounds like a Corporatist. They embody what the Left wing considers a "Capitalist". A genuine Libertarian is dropping red-pills so hard you'd think he was fucking Neo. To a normal person, he's so anti-mainstream narrative that he sounds like a fucking lunatic.
A Lolbertarian talks about limiting government power, a Libertarian is someone seeking to destroy it.
Liberalism is all about actually setting the power of government against itself in order to render it incapable of harming the individual. Normally by constructing elaborate procedures within law in order to make it too difficult for the government to subvert.
Libertarianism is basically: American Liberalism, or Revolutionary Liberalism. It's about incapacitating the government to the point that it is harmless.
A British Liberal from 1801 advocates private property rights, strict regulation of government power, and road-blocks to the concentration of power, regardless of voting.
An American Liberal from 1801... abolishes the US Navy because the government shouldn't be allowed to have a peace-time navy. If the country needs a navy, call upon the militia and issue a letter of marque from Congress.
A Liberal position is to regulate the Navy from being used against the citizenry, and to have civilian oversight. A Libertarian position is to disband it so it can't be used by the government at all.
Who would a modern normie think is the lunatic? The guy abolishing the Navy. Yup, that's the Libertarian... and it's what our country was actually built to be. That's how far we strayed from our original position. Hell, the US military used to almost fully demobilize after every single war.
So when a Lolbertarian says "This corporation shouldn't be regulated", the Libertarian says "This is a public entity and an extension of government power which should be dissolved".
Nope, terrible and self-destructive coping mechanisms. I just kinda had to learn my way out of them.
Pretty much Spok and Picard.
I've seen a lot of adults adopting the Christ figure as a useful positive role model, but that's not for me being an antitheist and all.
Though, I'm confused why you would think you couldn't have made a different choice. You can always make a different choice. You just have to deal with the consequences of those choices.
The entire Left-Right dichotomy is false. That's why I keep saying Left & Anti-Left. There is no "Right". The Right is simply: that which opposes the Left's current policies.
I have trouble remembering historical dates, so I was assuming that that kind of depopulation effort wasn't a big thing since ww1 cooled down. But maybe part of that cool down process was depopulation; Germany got fucked hard by the end of that war, but other nations must have had some problems to fix.
Irritating, I'm still trying to work backwards, so I need to have better understanding of ww2 before I get into ww1 too hard. Some of our current bullshit is helping me grasp some things, at least. I respect the economic lens approach you seem to be able to use, but it's a little dense for me to dig through right now. Thinking it might serve well to help cut out some of the sensationalism.
Ughh, so it was this label that had the regional variants. I was just assuming a definition of "pushing the boundaries of what's accepted" since I see it often treated as the opposite of conservatism's "maintain status quo". I don't think I'll be able to remember it if it's this complicated.
I think that's fine for role models. They each present a variety of traits to aspire towards.
Closest I got was various fictional characters that I would rather be. It did not take a deep analysis to realize how depressing that was, nor how there was no trait to aspire towards. I was ultimately just desiring less suffering - I didn't have a clue how to achieve that didn't involve death.
I think there might be some fundamental mindset necessary for the development of role models, even on the basis of sound judgement. Desperation really hinders the ability to make good choices. Other kids were learning how to function in society while I was learning how to survive at home - it didn't seem safe to devote resources to societal integration when I had to make plans for when would be the most secure time to sleep.
Sounds naive to me, even now. I'm not theistic, but I do follow my own form of soft determinism. Not every choice, but some choices are false choices. Like getting a multiple choice test question where the options are A, B, and C - but the correct answer is E. Likewise, a human cannot be expected to make a choice that does not appear to be an option to them (even if it's possible, it's unrealistic to expect it).
An example, since I'm having a bad day. There was a short period of time where I could have gotten help from a relative before they died. The possibility was not unknown to me, but there was not even a glimmer of hope from it at the time because they'd been making a bad impression on me, I was too demoralized to muster any motivation, and I was being coerced beyond my understanding to not complain. So I think about it, playing "what if" and realize that it wasn't actually possible under those circumstances. Any one thing being different might have permitted the path. It's painful to think about even so, because I realized too late how much that relative actually cared.
I technically chose to do nothing, though, and I do believe I had some wiggle room to at least try to make some small things better. Looking back now, of course I see all the flaws in my choices, but it all seemed like the best choices available back then. For me to have chosen anything else would have been me choosing a sub-optimal strategy intentionally. Since I think that's illogical, I consider it a non-choice; you're given choices A, B, and C, and B sounds better than A and C, so of course you're going to choose B.
In summary, I think free will doesn't actually exist, but for all intents and purposes it should be treated as real because to do otherwise leads to some really decrepit philosophies like nihilism. (Similarly, I use a form of agnosticism where I believe that religion is disrespectful without a personal sign from god - because there not being a sign given to you personally is indication that all existing deities actively desire you to live without knowledge of them.) I'm open to refutation, but I'm already working on it myself by bothering to examine my past choices in any capacity.
Perhaps there's a semantic problem in there as well. Assumptions about causality. If a bad thing happens, how many involved choices can fault be placed upon? How many points of blame should a single person receive when making multiple choices leading up to a bad thing? Not that it's wrong or useless to place fault in either way. Part of taking responsibility should be the seperation of your own responsibility from the responsibility of others.
I like that. I can imagine some normie counters to it, but they aren't difficult to deal with. I think it's a lot more helpful as framing to say anti-left because a bystander that doesn't know better is going to assume that "the right" has its own qualifying set of principles that don't change (which I guess is part of the point of it being used so much by the left).