Discussing the authoritarian standoff in Texas

 So...Texas situation. Feel like this is a really important one to discuss. Basically, Texas wants to gerrymander congress by redistricting in the middle of the decade. Democrats can't do much to stop it, except refuse to show up. If enough democrats dont show up, the vote can't proceed. So democrats decided to stop showing up to the state legislature to obstruct it. Ya know, like republicans often would do. Greg Abbott decided to go full authoritarian and put arrest warrants out on all the democrats who refused to show up. I'm not kidding. They literally wanna arrest the democrats who refuse to show up. This is psycho crap. This has caused the dems to flee the state, going to states with democrats who will protect them, like Illinois and New York, this is causing Texas to petition the FBI to go into blue states and arrest them, which is gonna create one heck of a constitutional crisis. Now the republicans are talking about kicking those members out of the legislature altogether and redistricting congress to be even more right wing. Again, psycho crap. 

Honestly, I respect the democrats for having backbone here. The GOP have spent a good 15 years obstructing everything the dems do and this is fighting fire with fire. Of course, the GOP aint happy about it and they're escalating. And i think they're in the wrong. Arresting them is basically authoritarian behavior, and another example of creeping fascism in our society. 

 Again, my stance is that we must fight fascism. Even at the expense of principles I'd normally hold. I have changed on some views since trump took office.  I hate gerrymandering, but if the GOP does it, so must we. If the GOP obstructs, so must we. Cancel culture? Well, okay, if we're fighting outright fascists calling for literally messed up and evil things like throwing people into concentration camps. And yeah, we're playing for keeps, we're playing to save our democracy, and if we gotta go scorched earth, so be it. We cant constrain ourselves while they just go around doing whatever they want breaking our democracy. If we play by one set of rules and they play by another, we lose. So yeah, i know it's distasteful, but that's what we gotta do.

Honestly, it terrifies me that things have gotten this bad in the first place. But I am happy to see some people standing up to them. We gotta do what we gotta do. We cant just let the GOP do a fascist takeover of our government.  And yeah that's all I gotta say for now. 

Why moderate Christianity doesn't make sense to me

 So, without going into the context, I feel a need to write this article. It's been something that's been bugging me for a while, and honestly, I really want to make this clear

So....worldviews. You have the biblical Christian worldview conservatives have which sounds like a cult, and then the secular humanist worldview which is secular. But then you got moderate and liberal christians who kinda sorta do something...different. Having gone from one to the other, I just don't understand the point of liberal or moderate christianity. As an ex christian i feel more honest not beiing a Christian at all, than merely tweaking my philosophical bases and trying to make this work. I tried the moderate christian thing for a while, and honestly, I just felt a need to leave. If people make it work they make it work, but I honestly don't see the point in trying. 

To map out the moderate or liberal Christian worldview:

Theology- Christians normally start out their worldview based on their theology. While more secular and naturalistic worldviews tend to approach philosophy first, as a way to build up to God (I do this), Christians tend to presuppose God, often by faith here. Their worldview begins with "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", and they go from there. I assume liberal Christians do too, but already I see tension here. Conservative Christians normally assume God exists, and the Bible is the reliable word of god, and they tend to make those views their primary overriding beliefs that trump everything else, including reality itself. Which is how we get weird ideas like Satan made dinosaur bones or they were from the flood. Because science says differently and that comes from a philosophy first perspective like what I hold. What do moderate christians do here? Do they trust god and the bible? or do they trust naturalistic accounts of things? often they trust naturalism to some degree. And that's where the conflicts begin appearing.

Philosophy- As stated above, as a guy who has primarily secular humanist leanings, at the very least the base and core of my worldview is based on humanism, for Christians, philosophy is second to theology. And then moderate christians do this thing where they tend to accept the bible, but then they tend to have more naturalistic leanings. They seem to start with a more naturalistic understanding of the world, but then accept christianity on faith. It comes off as a form of compartmentalization, and for most people, it seems to work since many of them...dont think about it very hard and ask all the hard questions. But eventually, I couldn't do it. I tend to think in the same camp as, say, David Noebel, who i got this conception of worldviews from as a young christian teen. Either all of it is real or none of it is. But moderate and liberal christians just have a mishmash of things.

Now, given I have a spiritual worldview myself, and still call myself a secular humanist, most will wonder how that works. I got criticized for this recently. To answer, most humanists dont have a hard line on god not existing. They are soft atheists, skeptics, agnostics. They dont know. They dont claim absolute knowledge, and if the concept is demonstrated to them, they'd just do what I ended up doing in supplementing their existing worldview by acknowledging that there is a supernatural realm that exists outside of our current naturalistic understanding of things. It's a lot like how in our every day lives we have a newtonian concept of physics, but then in an atomic level, we might have a more relativistic or quantum understanding. The fact is, we dont understand everything about how this world works, and there is room in a naturalistic oriented worldview for the supernatural if such a concept is properly demonstrated. While I dont have scientific proof for such a thing, on an anecdotal level, I've seen enough.

I guess liberal christians can do the same, but given the nature of the christian worldview and its specific claims about the world and god, it seems significantly harder to square that circle in my opinion given the specificity of the claims surrounding christianity and the christian god. And that's what I see as limiting, why this specific concept? It was made by bronze age people for a bronze age concept and it seems as ahistorical to accept as say, the greek or roman gods. 

Ethics

From a christian worldview, ethics comes from God. He is the author of the universe, his word is final. From a secular worldview, ethics comes from humans. They're social conventions we make up about our lives. While, ideally, god's ethics can be tested and their goodness can be self evident, if they are valid, christians are often more...axiomatic. As in, they would accept the plank of the euthyphro dilemma closer to "stuff is good because god said so", whereas I'd go in the direction of "god said so because it is good." You see, with the first version, again, it leads to reality denial and prioritizing the religion and the book over reality. In the second, morality becomes a testable thing. We can figure out what's good or not by other means and study christian ethics and see if they're good. And outside of the golden rule and stuff like that, christian ethics just dont work. The old testament was a bunch of old and antiquated stuff that clearly only applied to that culture, and should not be seen as the gold standard of morality. Even jesus's morality in context is strange and seems unsustainable in the long term IMO. It only makes sense if one considered he was an ascetic apocalpytic preacher from the 1st century. Im not saying everything in christianity is bad, but there isnt enough here to justify calling myself christian or a follower of jesus. I guess liberal christians do do that, but idk, to me it just seems to defy the point. I think that once you start placing your own morality over god's where you start contradicting your own source material you might as well just leave and say you're out. 

Biology- So the christian worldview assumes creationism. The secular worldview assumes an old earth evolution. Moderates and liberals tend to accept the scientific explanation, but how does adam and eve fit into all of this? Were they real people? Were did sin come from? Is it a metaphor? Why do we need salvation? While liberals have explanations, they often seem unsatisfying to me. Because to me, I tend to accept noebel's line of "either all of it is real or none of it is." Again, why accept any of this stuff? Why try to reconcile these two ideas that are clearly at odds with each other? Doing so just leads to unnecessary complexity and seems to be an exercise in futility. If old earth theory and evolution is real, then "sin" as christians understand it isn't a real thing. The arguments for suffering and theodicy no longer make sense. Because we are trying to reconcile two different views that can't be. I know one of my moderate christian friends once gave me a list of like 5 explanations for how salvation fits and none of them make sense to me. Again, because it's all or nothing.

Psychology- Christian worldview, humans are evil and at odds with god and need salvation. Most mental illness comes from sin. Secular worldview, humans are animals who arent necessarily evil, but do evil things. I feel like the humanist worldview is more nuanced, charitable and realistic. I also feel like it's more aligned with reality, given it follows science, while christianity is based on this old book and an ancient society's faulty assumptions about human nature. 

I admit, I am inclined to believe souls exist, and humans have them, and our inclinations may partially come from the soul. However, I am not likely to strongly emphasize this, and tend to represent scientific consensus. Either way, again, the christian worldview tends to assume a lot, while a naturalistic worldview tends to just let the evidence speak for itself. 

Sociology- From a secular worldview, sociology is the study of society, or humans in a collective fashion. And once again, we tend to led the evidence speak for itself. Christian sociology is more authoritative and prescriptive, with god proscribing how people should live by saying they should go to church, get married, have kids, respect the state, and work. Liberal christians and people with a more "cosmic humanist" spiritual view can respect the science, but i feel like given the bold and prescriptive claims christianity makes, it's far more likely to go against scientific consensus and just push their ideas instead. Once again, moderate and liberal christians seem between two worlds here.

Law/Politics- In biblical christianity, states exist as an institution put there by god, with god putting rulers to rule over people and people needing to obey them. Christians, and christian nationalists, tend to put their religion over secular law, and use secular law as an excuse to push their religion. Secularists tend to believe in separation of church and state, recognizing that theocracy ends poorly for people and leads to persecution. Moderate christians tend to side with the more secular side here, which is why i respect them. They DONT push their religion on people all that much, although their philosophy still finds their way into their politics sometimes through their ethical assumptions (they may be pro life, for example). They might also oppose trump and the republicans on being pro social justice, or pro immigration, as they prioritize jesus' words over the more law and order sentiments of right wing christians. Still, to retread ethics, I see the two systems at odds and see liberals as trying to reconcile that which shouldn't be. 

From a secular perspective, morality, law, and politics all intertwine and I tend to approach things from a largely consequentialist perspective that focuses on improving human well being. I sometimes align with liberal christians but do recognize my own basis for supporting ideas is a bit different than theirs, since they often still inject jesus into everything (although let's face it jesus had good points sometimes, like on healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and loving your neighbor). Still, again, i tend to see conflicts due to aforementioned issues further up the worldview chain that I just mentioned.

Economics- The christian worldview often assumes work as an institution put here by god, and that humans are here for a purpose, and should work, and not doing so is sinful. Even liberal christians tend to assume as much, although are less hardline and cruel about it. I feel like, as a humanist, my lack of the protestant work ethic often puts me at odds with society. Because i DONT accept that crap, and see the whole point of the economy simply to serve our needs. I dont glorify work and productivity, if anything, i am rather anti work. This puts me at odds with most forms of christianity, even though I can sometimes align with the liberals a bit more. 

But to me the liberals....once again, even if their understanding of the issue and emphasis on social justice because of jesus makes them align with me more, I still dont really agree with them. Im not sure if on law/politics/economics that liberals are necessarily moderates, they just seem to take the "god said so" thing from a different perspective, downplaying the old testament and focusing on jesus instead. Which is an improvement as jesus was more loving and less authoritarian, but it still has that "god said so" thing. Even more so, if we go back to conservatism, it seems to be cherrypicking. I mean, I guess conservatives to it too. They will emphasize some weird passage from leviticus while ignoring the love your enighbor parts, but that is a broader worldview issue. The bible, as properly understood, represents an emerging religion and cultural tradition spanning 1000 years. It's not intended to be read coherently as a single document. Different authors in different ages and sometimes in the same age didnt always agree. And that's fine. If we dont put some weird priority on it being the end all be all of morality, and thus, law, politics, and economics. 

I ask, why accept any of it? Again, if i cant agree on the more abstract fundamental stuff, I struggle to find agreement on issues of more specificity. I just rejected the entire thing and built my perspective independent of christian influences. If i agree, i do so on my own terms. If i disagree, I'll make that clear. I dont "follow" the bible or 'follow" jesus, and I think making my whole philosophy around some other guy as really weird. Think for yourself, people.

History- While I would have put history well and above as more basic philosophical diferences, noebel put his account at the end. here, he defends the historical account of Jesus, and ends his book claiming that either all of it is true or none of it is. As I said, I agree with the premise, but after studying the history itself in various bible courses in college, I kinda learned that maybe the gospels arent all that reliable. Maybe there was no empty tomb and it was just a story spread like a game of telephone. I mean they didnt teach it that way for the record, but there is room to argue it. Most sources about jesus came decades after his death and alleged resurrection. And they come off as hearsay. Tall tales spread by locals who spread rumors like wildfire.

Christians tend to accept the historicity of Jesus. Even liberals do. But as I said above, how does this whole death and resurrection fit into a world where the concept of sin itself is...incoherent? if I dont accept the biblical account of biology and history of the universe, why should I accept this? At the end of the day it's faith. 

Conclusion

And that's where I'll end this. It's faith. Christians believe in this stuff because of faith, and then they will try to see the world in accordance with their preconceptions. Fundamentalists do this in an extreme form, where they'll literally say that reality is wrong and that their stuff is right. And they come off as dangerous cultists. Liberal and moderate christians...well...they seem to acknowledge the bible and the religion being wrong where its wrong, but they still accept it on a level where they actively identify with it and its ideas. They'll often accept it where it doesnt seem to conflict with reality, but will reject the parts that do. That is...okay I guess, but I dont see the point. Because at that point youre clearly using your own judgment to decide what's true and false, and what to follow and what not to, and the further upstream we get with this worldview toward the bigger metaphysical ideas of this worldview, the less I see the point.

Here's why people are moderate christians. many of them were raised in it, they never left, but they moderated their tendencies away from the extremists. Which is GOOD, the moderation part I mean, but it just comes off as coherent. Why accept any of it? And I guess some people like me who "come to god" (or "come back to god" in my case) later in life adopt the framework because it's the go to default option of society for that sort of thing. But that's the thing. Even i didnt feel a need to go back TO CHRISTIANITY. Because to me, it's an incoherent mess, and my own understanding of god is closer to the cosmic humanist worldview which is a lot more nondescript and spiritual. Really, I'm one of those "spiritual but not religious" people these days. If you wanna know how i square the circle, it's as i said above, I saw enough to acknowledge something is there, and even have theories on it, but quite frankly, I'm really just building upon the agnostic atheist perspective of understanding that there is room for a god to exist, and im acting as if I found something that convinced me that it's real. And that's all it is. I see no reason to accept strange dogmas of some jewish guy from 2000 years ago who died and rose from the dead. I dont see a need for the sin and salvation dynamic. I dont accept the bible AT ALL. And yeah. I just dont see a point in being a moderate or liberal christian. It seems to be an exercise in futility.  It's fine if people believe it (as long as they don't force it on me), but yeah, I just don't see the point.

Everyone is going nuts over this jobs report, I think it's insane we measure economic success by the number of jobs we create in the first place

 Seriously, does anyone else find this dystopian? like OMG, we create millions of jobs! This is great! Oh noes, we barely created any, this is horrible!

I mean, I get it, we designed our society where everyone has to work to get money, but given I'm literally the guy to question that whole relationship, I find the whole concept dystopian. Like we sit around cheering on rich people creating things for poor people to do in exchange for money. We value creating as many jobs as possible and people working as much as possible when it seems so unnecessary. Does the sky fall when we dont have jobs? Did the sky fall during COVID? Again, ignore the fact that people need to work to get money, which is something that we as a society made up and can change at any time. 

 And again, that's my point, we can change that at any time. I honestly think that the biggest marker of social progress is job destruction. I mean, read my previous article. I would argue that AI destroying jobs is a good thing. I think that society working less is a good thing. We just gotta come up with an alternate way to provide for people outside of the job market. Which isn't a bad thing. I mean, why should we wanna spend all our time working for rich people? It's stupid and dystopian. I literally feel like we're all brainwashed into this, and that if we just came up with a different way of doing things, we would be free. 

Some people think the alternative is socialism and communism, but the people who say that don't even know what socialism and communism are. They think government doing stuff is socialism and communism. It isn't. Well, complete state control of the economy is basically authoritarian communism, but I don't advocate for that. I support some privatization and dont think the government running everything is a good thing. But the government providing an income from taxing the rich who own the means of production, and providing basic services like healthcare, education, and stuff like that? Sure! That's more aligned with like, social democracy than communism. Although even they glorify working for a living. Still, the whole high tax cradle to grave welfare state thing within capitalism is based. We should do that instead of working our lives away. Sorry, not sorry.  

Kyle once again misses the point on automation

 So, kyle kulinski just put out a video on how a CEO is "excited" about firing workers because of AI, with the CEO saying they dont go on strike or ask for a pay raise. And....he's acting like this is comic book villain level stuff. I mean, it can be interpreted that way, but it doesn't have to be. This is just the reality of jobs and labor. 

I mean, this is a big premise of my ideology, so I'm going to bold it and make it clear. BUSINESSES DON'T WANT TO HIRE PEOPLE. THEY WANT THE MOST WORK DONE FOR THE LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY. IF THEY COULD GET RID OF ALL HUMAN LABOR AND REPLACE IT WITH MACHINES, THEY WOULD. 

That's the thing I really wish people would understand. Work under capitalism is servitude. It's wage slavery. The left has this weird view that work is dignified and they want fair wages and fair working conditions. But...at the end of the day, they want to preserve the social contract as it exists, ie, the idea that workers HAVE to work, and businesses HAVE to pay them. It's not an arrangement either side actually likes IMO. But we all pretend to like it, because we see labor as necessary for survival, and we structured society and conditioned people to accept the idea that work has to be done, they should want to do it, and they should be paid for it.

But...if you ask me, almost all evils under capitalism come from this wage labor system. This is literally the point of my own ideology. Unlike marx, capitalism doesnt just alienate people from their labor, as if work is good and it's just the capitalist mode of production that's bad. No, work itself is bad. And to bold the other side of the above claim: We shouldn't want to work. We shouldnt want to spend all day on a factory line making widgets. We shouldnt want to spend all day asking customers if they want fries with that. Eliminating wage labor would FREE humanity. 

The whole thing is, we need to then come up with another system that distributes resources to people. Currently, people are expected to work, and they're expected to be paid by employers. And employers never ever did wanna pay. Hell, the entire history of capitalism outside of the new deal era was oppression and wage slavery and the new deal era only managed the symptoms of that rotten system, and didnt address the root causes. We need another system of economics to some extent if we're going to move past wage labor. 

And for the record, it doesnt have to be full on socialist. One of the only reasons we've been on this treadmill of work for so long is because business leaders have feared that if we kept automating away work we'd automate ourselves out of capitalism. Businesses wouldnt be able to make money because they'd value their freedom from work over buying more crap. So FDR set the system up around the 40 hour work week and here we are almost 100 years later still using his system, except with most of the worker protections stripped out of it, leading to a return to gilded age like conditions and attitudes. 

But yeah. That's what my ideology is about solving, and that's why I believe we need a second new deal or economic bill of rights that guarantees an income, healthcare, eduation, housing, and reduces the work week gradually over time. We should WANT to see the end of the wage labor system. We should cheer it on. As I said, businesses don't wanna pay us. And quite frankly, I dont wanna spend my life working. So why don't we just...do away with this crappy system and come up with something else?

Btw, I dont think businesses realize what they're doing. It's possible the dark enlightenment types see the next stage of human development as returning to feudalism as, after all, they see the state as their army to protect their property rights. But, as a believer in democracy, and as someone with left wing ideas, I believe that the answer is that, yes, the voters have to vote to redistribute property away from the rich toward everyone else. And again, that's what my own ideology is about. I'm not a dark enlightement MFer who wants to give corporations all the wealth while we have nothing. They'd LOVE for society to go in that direction as we transition away from the 20th century wage labor system. BUT, if we want society to work for ALL of us, yeah, we need redistribution. And that involves a lot of taxes, and that involves people getting paychecks for doing nothing, and healthcare, and housing, and education, etc. And the wealthy arent going to like it. The economy exists for us, we dont exist for it, and what's the point of all of this wealth in the first place if it doesnt go to us anyway? This is where i start sounding a bit leftist, but the system is inherently unjust, if we exist just as cheap labor for rich people who sit around hoarding wealth all day. But to be honest, that's what the wage labor system is, and always had been. So yeah, I cheer on its end, and hope society can reorganize itself around a more humanist ethos where we quite frankly DON'T have to work any more. 

Quite frankly, I think Kyle, and a lot of the left, misses the point. Like, they are just stuck in this weird 20th century idea of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, when that was just the compromise all along. And it was a crappy one that at best was done out of the necessity of getting the work that had to be done, done. In reality, we shouldnt want to work, just as businesses don't want to pay us. But they should pay us anyway, because it leads to a better reality for us all. Just do it through taxation and expansive social services. It really is that simple. 

EDIT: Okay i watched the rest of the video, I reacted hastily in response to the first minute, but he kinda is at the point of "what do we do if we get rid of all the jobs?" Well, to answer that, I'll paraphrase scott santens. If we give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If we teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life. If we create a robot to fish for us, do all men starve or do all men eat? And that's the question and it really depends on what we do to address this. If we have a society as it exists now where everyone has to work to eat and that's the ironclad law of society, yeah, you're gonna have a bad time when you transition away from that. But if we have a society where we recognize that property is just a social construct in the first place enforced by men with guns, we realize we can change it. It really just depends on what the men with guns do. Do the men with guns defend the privileges of the wealthy? Or do they tell them "no, you have to share." 

That, for me, is the core difference between the right and the left. Between the christian worldview that underlies capitalism with its protestant work ethic, and a more humanist worldview. Does society exist for the sake of the wealthy? or does it exist for all of us? because historically, property rights primarily exist for the sake of the wealthy. Heck, the whole idea that we are entitled to nothing and have to work for everything was a construct created to make us have to serve the rich. Because they create the jobs, and we're expected to work them. ANd then they get all of the rewards and we get what's left over. Again, all new deal liberalism was, was a compromise that they had to pay us decently. It was basically the idea that the rich had to share a bit. But only if we worked for it. They never addressed the work thing. I do address the work thing. Just provide us all money and basic services, and let the economy work as it always has. If people want to work for more money, fine, as i dont think we'll ever do away with ALL human labor. But they shouldnt have to. And income and wealth should be distributed in a way to lead to a utilitarian outcome for all in society, ideally according to some rawlsian "veil of ignorance" style fairness. And that's where we get UBI, and that's where we get universal healthcare, and all of the other stuff I'm for. That's the path forward. And that's what the left SHOULD be emphasizing, rather than being luddites and preserving an old compromise neither side was truly happy with. 

Who is more evil? Trump or the people behind him?

 So, there was a discussion about the most evil person alive. I said donald trump, but then some people said that people behind him like curtis yarvin, peter thiel, and JD vance are actually worse. And that's the real debate. Trump is bad. But the big threat might be the people behind him. Either way, it's the entire movement and what it represents, but in a way, trump is just a front man. yes, he's responsible for a lot himself. he has the desire to be a dictator and filled his second administration with lots of yes people who tell him what he wants to hear.

BUT...I have kind of detected that there are people behind him with some REALLY dark ideas who are even worse. And yes, they are the dark enlightenment MFers. These guys dont believe in democracy. They seek to overturn it. There are probably many among their ranks who are outright fascist. At the very least they give cover for fascism. I dont think it was trump who came up with the idea of doing concentration camps. He probably is listening to some neonazi MFers who is feeding him the hitler playbook. Again, you got that whole peter thiel wing of the party behind him that's genuinely scary. Quite frankly, billionaires have been declaring war on democratic society since the 1970s. They were forced to give up some privileges in the 1930s and ever since they wanted them back. And in the 1970s, i remember watching a noam chomsky documentary where they were saying the US had too much democracy and we had to correct for that. The result: neoliberalism and reagan. And here we are, with that era at its time of passing, and instead of the left taking power back, the right is trying to go in a full on fascist direction instead. These guys want to undo democracy. And they seem to be feeding trump his agenda. I dont think hes smart enough to figure out how this stuff works. Rather he has donors, he has people like vance behind him, he has institutions like the heritage foundation. And they're doing a coup in plain sight. They're trying to destroy democracy, and put people who they dont like into literal camps. It's scary. We are going in a dark direction.

This is why in a way i think the trump administration would be scarier without trump. I know a lot of people say trump's bad. But he's also unstable, and trust me when dealing with these guys, instability is what you need. Let them destroy themselves from within. Trump is, in a sense, the mammoth graveyard to curtis yarvin's blue eyes ultimate dragon if people understand that reference. For those who dont, its a yugioh reference, yugi merged kaiba's blue eyes ultimate dragon with a mammoth graveyard card which caused it to rot from within and become weaker and weaker. Trump actually weakens his own movement in a way. He's an idiot in and of himself, and probably useless without people around him. If anything can blow up this attempted coup, it's trump's ineptitude. 

So....is trump evil? yes. Are the people behind him even worsee? Arguably so. As I keep saying, trump meets many definitions of fascism but he lacks an ideological commitment to the idea. The idea people are behind him. That whole administration is rotten to the core and I would say that they're the biggest face of evil in the US at the very least right now. One can argue xi, kim jong un, or putin are worse. And maybe they are. But they live over there terrorizing people on the other side of the planet. Trump and his people are over here. So for me, trump and his administration are the personification of evil in the modern day. They represent an illiberal anti democratic movement that mirrors 1930s nazi germany. And we should be very scared of these people. Because by our standards, they DONT have morals. Their entire moral system is cut from a different cloth and have this entitlement complex that they deserve to rule and oppress everyone else. And anyone who doesnt fit into their social darwinistic view of society? Gone. 

Like for a while the left had this idea that we can just compromise with the right. You cant compromise with these people. because youre compromising with the devil. it just makes you half evil and complicit. The democrats should fight these guys with everything they have. Unfortunately they're run by billionaires too and they dont wanna do anything. Which is why their approval ratings are so low. 

Discussing the limits of free speech for the left

 So, my previous article on not tolerating the intolerant was primarily aimed at the right, particularly fascist types. However, one might wonder what about the left? Should tankies get the same treatment and stuff like that?

And the answer is yes. If you're on the left, and you're outright an authoritarian communist who advocates for violence and revolution, you should get the same treatment as a fascist. Once again, fined and possibly disqualified from repeated offenses if running for office. Cancelled by people for openly expressing such views in the public square.

However, I would like to point out that this should only apply to TANKIES. I want to keep the act of cancelling and deplatforming for the worst of the worst. I actually am a believer in free speech and a huge reason ive been reluctant to get on board with cancelling or deplatforming people is just how slippery that slope is. We've had red scares in America before over communism. And in those red scares, we didnt just go after die hard communists sympathetic to the Soviet Union. We went after labor activists, liberals, democratic socialists, that sort of thing. And that's not okay. Should people be fired from their job for trying to organize and form a union? Should I be fired for expressing overt anti work views? Should views that advocate for a redistribution of wealth via taxation be deemed "violence" as some far right libertarians would argue? No. And quite frankly, on the right, I dont think all right wing views should be cancelable either, even if i disagree with them or find them distasteful. 

My view is this. if your views are compatible with liberal democracy, ie, they generally respect the democratic process, constitutional rights, and dont advocate for overt or systemic violence against people, they should be allowed. We should allow views to the greatest extent reasonably possible. Again, the whole thing that got this started was on the idea of tolerating the intolerant. Tolerate doesnt mean to like, it means to put up with. You dont have to like everyone. You dont have to have positive views on everyone, but you do have to tolerate their existence, respect their rights, and not try to kill or oppress them, ya know? That's what it's really about. I just think we should be cracking down on these sick fricks who want to end democracy, impose dictatorship on people, and put people they don't like in literal gulags or concentration camps. That's all I'm saying. Anything short of fascism or tankie ideology should be okay in my book. I'm just starting to think that yeah, democracy and free society need some defense mechanisms against the whackjob extremists because they're starting to get in power and actually do the batcrap insane things they used to "joke" about. Ya know? As long as youre not talking about ending democracy and imposing dictatorship, or killing people or putting them in camps, you're good. 

Discussion on the limits of tolerating the intolerant

 So yeah, I think that medhi hasan thing awakened something in me. And not just me, Kyle Kulinski had a similar discussion on his program. The fact is, there are all of these weirdos coming out of the woodwork since trump won saying all of these awful and profane things, and it's disturbing me greatly. And it's one thing if it's a joke. Like....conservatives have this dark humor sometimes where they say F-ed up things just to trigger the libs. I get it, but here's the thing. I get the impression these guys arent joking any more.

Take, for example, Alligator Alcatraz. I know that right wingers make jokes about alligator moats on the southern border and stuff. And when I first heard of trump building a concentration camp in the florida everglades, I thought it was a joke. But here we are, with a LITERAL CONCENTRATION CAMP in the florida everglades, with actual human rights abuses, and actual people in them, many relatively innocent. This is messed up, and this crap aint a joke any more, it's not funny. Quite frankly, Trumpism has been this accelerating over the past decade. Trump provoked people in 2016 by saying he wont accept the results of the election if he lost. And the liberals lost their minds, and it was all fun and games until this guy decides to BASICALLY INCITE AN INSURRECTION as a result of losing the election. Like, that's the thing. These people say they're gonna do stuff, AND THEN THEY DO IT! At that point, we're no longer joking, these "jokes" are inciting violence and oppression in the real world. We got the "your body my choice" people. Again, provocative, but again, are they even joking at this point? I dont think they are. 

Heck, and this is actually what triggered this thought process before Kyle brought it up, I won't post it, but there's this one guy running for governor of california as republican. He's known to be very provocative. He's previously said things like "illegal immigrants can stay if they marry an incel" and stuff like that. And recently, and this is how I found out about this guy, he posted a picture of himself in front of auschwitz with a tweet saying that this is his "zero percent unemployment plan." So...now we're talking about rounding up the homeless and unemployed and throwing them in concentration camps. And keep in mind, trump just signed an executive order to make it easier to remove homeless people from the streets. Uh....are the homeless next? The unemployed next? Are they gonna throw those kinds of "undesirables" in their camps like the nazis did? Looks like it! 

And that's the thing, we don't know if these people are joking or not. If anything, the modern direction of the alt right and trumpism seems to be that they say crazy provocative things, and then they do that stuff if they get a positive reaction, although if they dont they'll just back off while saying "it was a joke."

I said in 2016, we shouldnt feed the trolls. But at this point, it's beyond mere trolling. These guys are radicalizing into fascism really quick, and then implementing these ideas FOR REAL. And again, that's very scary and very concerning. Again, it's not a joke any more when the camps are being built and the insurrections are happening. 

So...now we gotta wonder, when should free speech carry consequences? Legally, I'm still not sure about charging people unless the behavior is clear incitement of something. I like to be as lax on free speech as i can, I used to consider myself an absolutist, but now I'm like...uh...maybe there should be consequences? I think at the very least if youre RUNNING FOR OFFICE you shouldnt be inciting this stuff. Uncle jim bob on facebook, whatever, he wants to talk about whatever deranged crap he does, okay. But if you're running for public office and making literal holocaust jokes like mr california guy, uh...maybe there should be penalties tied to that. I mean, thats what made things different pre trump. The whackjobs in the party would say whatever foul provocative thing that came to mind, but politicians like george bush or john mccain or mitt romney would be like "what? no, that's insane" for the most part. There was a diifference between the crazy crap the base was for, and what the politicians were. In the trump era, the people running for public office and have public positions of power are the ones saying insane crap themselves. So if we focus on stuff legally, maybe politicians should be fined if they say things that imply or incite real world violence. I do believe they should be held to a different standard. 

For the rest of us, eh, let's revisit cancel culture a bit. I'm very mixed on cancel culture. I believe the left gets way too self righteous and trigger happy with their cancelling behavior where theyll cancel just about everyone over minor sleights against their dogma. They are lambasting AOC for voting yes on iron dome funding for israel. They attack cenk uygur for not being pro trans people in sports. They ban people from subreddits for buying the new harry potter video game because jk rowling is a transphobe. And I've been moderated before just for putting my foot down with these people before. The problem with cancel culture is its mob justice. The problem with mob justice is the mob gets out of hand. Which is btw, what's also happening on the right, with these insane suggestions being turned into actual policy. 

At the same time, take mr fascist from the medhi hassan thing. He called for a dictatorship, thought franco in spain was based, wants a catholic theocracy, and struggled on the idea of admitting that the nazis were bad, despite them killing catholics! Should that guy be cancelled? YES! Should some motherfricker calling for putting people in concentration camps be cancelled? YES! At some point, yes, when your words are so vile and vulgar, you should face social consequences for them. I admit, my own opinion on this is still being formulated and the kinds of behaviors i find cancellable is far smaller than most cancel culture happy lefties are. I mean, I'm not just talking minor offenses. I'm talking the people who are out in out fascists, calling for the end of democracy, putting people into camps, that sort of thing. THOSE PEOPLE, THOSE WITH ACTUAL NAZI AND FASCIST VIEWS, yeah, they should be cancelled. Society should thumb their nose at those people to the greatest extent possible, and they should face society wide shunning for their actions IMO. We need to make people scared to be open nazis again to some extent. There should be social consequences for that. 

Again, I'm not sure what this kind of framework this should take place in. Legally, i dont want the government to step in more than necessary because government crackdowns on speech are dangerous. Look at trump weaponizing arcane laws clearly intended for other purposes in order to push his authoritarianism. You dont wanna give him more tools. But, yeah, I do think fining and maybe even disqualifying candidates for repeat offenses involving advocating for really dangerous policies should be on the table.

For cancel culture, that's the double edged sword with it. Clearly lefties get too trigger happy over that stuff, but at the same time, there should be some line somewhere. We can't just have people openly calling for throwing the unemployed in concentration camps or having a catholic dictatorship becoming common opinions. Once these opinions were fringe weirdos but since trump won in 2024, these guys are getting too comfortable just letting it all hang out and being like "yeah im a fascist." So....I can get behind SOME level of cancel culture if it reaches that level of moral depravity. Either way, we need to stop platforming these guys or making them feel comfortable giving such opinions. The fact that these ideas have entered the commonplace so easily is greatly disturbing and yeah...maybe we really shouldn't, because these guys are inciting real world violence and oppression with their speech. One day they're talking about it, the next they're actually doing it. It's fine to have an abstract political conversation about something. But when we got people "joking" about throwing people in camps and as it turns out they're not actually joking...uh yeah, maybe those guys should be held responsible for their speech somehow.

Again, this is an opinion im developing. We'll see where it goes, but Im kinda on the same page as kyle here.