Three ways to organize society

 So, the video game thing got me thinking about how we should view society as a whole. I'm not sure if I ever fully gave an article about it on this blog, but I think that it's a good approach to how different sides view politics.So I kind of want to walk people through this and explain my thoughts on these approaches

Conservatism- From the top town

Conservatives love to rely on supply side economics in talking about the economy, or "trickle down" as it's called on the left. Basically the general premise is that if you give wealth to the top, to those who consider themselves "job creators", then the wealth will trickle down. And as we know, this doesn't really happen. Most wealth accumulates at the top, and the middle and bottom stagnate and struggle to keep up. Society has been operating this way since the 1970s or 1980s. 

Liberalism- From the middle out

Liberals, on the other hand, like to focus on the middle class. In their hay days from the 1930s to 1970s, the ratio between the average worker and the rich largely decreased, and the middle grew along with the top. Average wages were high, Americans had great living standards, could afford homes, healthcare, etc., but at the same time, things weren't perfect. Despite all the good the new deal and great society did, around 10-15% remained poor. And while the government offered programs for those people, they weren't really the best conceivable programs and they were normally aimed at simply offering temporary aid to encourage people to work their way out of poverty. And of course because as I like to say, the economy is a game of musical chairs, with the chairs being jobs, well, you're always going to have some without jobs, and some stuck in poverty. For some reason, around 1970, some in this country believed the time had come for a basic income, although the policy never materialized.

Social libertarianism- From the bottom up

Recognizing the failures of the past, the social libertarian basic income movement has created their own idea of trickle up economics, where instead of focusing on the supply side of economics, we focus on the demand side. We focus primarily on peoples' needs, as well as their liberty, and believe a basic income is necessary to help all people stay out of poverty. 

In a sense, this is based on Rawl's veil of ignorance. I know Phillipe Van Parijs was the first to use this concept to argue for a UBI and his "real libertarian" philosophy, although Rawls himself seemed to dislike this, not liking the idea that a UBI would allow someone to live without working. 

But, I have to ask, what is the purpose of life, what is the purpose of the economy? Well, there is no inherent purpose to live. I'm going to take the absurdist position that life has no purpose, and that a life full of meaningless work for its own sake is as dismal as the myth of sisyphus. I dont believe there is any coming to terms with this absurdity, or that we should see sisyphus as "happy", no, I think the whole thing is fricking pointless and sad and a waste of a good life. 

And I believe the economy exists to serve human needs. I get that conservatives and liberals think people need to be motivated to work in order to work so we can produce what we need, but here's the difference between us, I only accept meritocracy as a means to an end. We need work done, so we tie rewards to it to motivate people to do it. I dont believe that work is inherently a good thing, or that people should be forced to participate in someone else's social project, and I believe that UBI isn't just about providing for the poor, but preserving their liberty. 

Karl Widerquist adopted similar attitudes with his indepentarian theory, and expressing the problem of society through his "big casino" essay. Basically we're all born into a society owned by property owners or benevolent authoritarians in the case of socialism and both force us to work and adopt the values of the society we're born into. These societies do not respect peoples' liberty. As Rousseau would say, "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." It is true. And the only way to liberate people is by making society designed from the bottom up. by giving the worst off possible person a basic stipend to live on and leaving them alone to pursue their own lot in life, we not only solve the poverty problem is capitalism but we free people from being forced to participate in a system they hate or otherwise don't benefit from. And I know capitalists will say everyone benefits from capitalism and that poverty is the natural state of nature, but honestly, I don't think you can claim that when you're forced to work and struggle to provide sustenance for yourself even if you do. And while liberals try to make work fair, I really have to ask, why work at all? The only reason work is important is because we need work to provide for the goods and services we want and need. But given how productive our economy is, I would argue we don't really need everyone working to provide the basics for people in 2023. Much of the modern economy is based on wants, luxuries, etc. And we regulately automate jobs that in the past we needed people to do. At one point in history, most people worked in agriculture. Now only like 2% do. And given how we're just gonna keep automating jobs, shouldn't we work less? Why continue to work as much as we used to when there's less work that has to be done? For infinite growth? That really IS the hellish myth of sisyphus if you ask me.

I say we give everyone a minimum standard of living and then let people make their own decisions. Most evidence suggests that people will still work. maybe some won't, but what's that to those who decide to do so? And before people complain about getting less, well, that only happens at the top. Most people in the middle and under will either get the same and come out ahead. The break even point is somewhere around the 73rd percentile on an individual basis based on the current year's UBI plan, and could go over 80th percentile applied to households.

So...yeah. An economy that is built from the bottom help only hurts those at the top. And those people will have the greatest ability to pay for such programs. And even after tax, they'll still be better off than the rest of society. All this really does is decrease income inequality and ensure that no one is in poverty, and everyone is free. The ideal libertarian society IMO is based on these adaptions of Rawl's principles, and I know Rawls himself disagrees with this interpretation of them, but other scholars like Van Parijs and Widerquist seem to whole heartedly embrace them, and I largely agree with them. 

Unlikely a video game, with the venture being based on a set of agreed upon rules that apply to all, and all are to play by them in order to win, life is actually like a sandbox. It's less like counter strike and more like an minecraft or an open world RPG where you choose your own narrative.

Being forced to accept other narratives foisted on us by society or those who own the most property is dystopian and authoritarian. And conservatives, liberals, and communists all seem to be on the side of forced participation in their state projects in regards to work. And even so called (right) libertarians often try to force people to work, claiming it's natural and blah blah blah. No it's not, it's a political system imposed on people. 

A system that is genuinely libertarian has a duty to try to stand out of peoples' ways and let them live as they want to the greatest possible extent given that it doesn't harm others. And such a system would, in my opinion, have a basic income as the cornerstone of its mechanism to maximize liberty within an otherwise capitalist state. 

Despite fiery anti capitalist rhetoric at times, I'm not entirely anti capitalism. There's a difference between critiquing a system and wanting to abolish it. I do the former, not the latter. Phillipe Van Parijs has made a convincing case that capitalism does a better job providing liberty for people than socialism would, and I don't see how you can have a truly libertarian system that doesn't operate off of some sort of market principles, rather it be capitalism or market socialism. 

And that is why I support a state that is designed to help people from the bottom up, and not the middle out, or the top down. Both of those kinds of systems generally lead to a system of winners and losers where the losers are forced to work and struggle just to survive, in a world with more than enough resources for everyone.

Discussing video games, skill shaming, and player feedback

 So...as I always like to say with these types of blog posts, I don't like to primarily discuss video games on here, although I can if it's in at least a quasi political context, in which I discuss the state of modern gaming or the political divides within video games, and I'm going to be honest, video game communities can quite frankly be toxic AF. 

Basically, it's the obsession with "skill". While there has always been some level of trash talking in games, in this era of "modern gaming" and esports and hyper competitiveness, the problem has gotten WAY WORSE in recent years. In the past, this behavior would mostly exist in like, say, the counter strike community, where you had these hyper competitive tryhard buttholes who loves to sniff their own farts after they played 29492392 hours of dust 2 to the point that they could headshot someone exactly 3.2 seconds after the match starts through random door slits from the other side of the map, and they'd mostly stay in their own communities, acting like normal games were "too easy" and generally having an ego bigger than TFS's version of Vegeta's. 

But, again, modern gaming. We started getting these esports pro types migrating to other games, and as a result, FPS gaming has, in general, become much more toxic and try hardy than it was in the past. I mean, for me, gaming is a recreational activity. Unlike zoomers and the like who need constant reward systems and seem to be doubling down on the competitive try hard mindset, gaming has always, for me, been an activity as an end in itself. I play games for gaming's own sake. Because games are fun. And yes, I like modern shooting games. I like to compete to some level, but I've always been laid back with it. And it's a huge reason ive always been attracted to traditionally casual franchises like COD, battlefield, planetside, and more recently battlebit. Because those games are generally not about being the most sweaty games on the planet, they're about just having casual fun. 

But....it doesnt mean those franchises dont have a hardcore competitive problem at times. Battlefield has these old crusty vets I've discussed in past blog articles that seem to romanticize some past that never existed or never was that great to begin with. I call them "battlefield boomers" or the "make battlefield great again" crowd. And even battlebit is getting this problem as the player base starts to decline. 

And after being told I have a so called "skill issue" any time I dare have an opinion on ANYTHING, I wanted to actually lay out my thoughts and philosophy on this subject.

So, let's talk about, first of all, skill in video games. In FPS games, KDR (kill death ratio) is one of the most common metrics to measure skill. This is basically the idea that the more kills you get relative to the amount of times you die, the better at the game you are. Statistically, the average KDR is going to be around 1. Because for every kill, there is a death. For every death, someone gets a kill. It isn't always 1. Like suicides exist so maybe it's closer to 0.98 or something. And then in games like battlefield/battlebit revives happen and maybe KDR is higher if your "death" doesnt count in the stats. But generally speaking, 1 is your average KDR. I also would argue skill exists on a bell curve. Where 1 or thereabouts is average, but then as you get further away from it, the better or worse you are. Idk what the standard deviation is in a game, it probably varies, especially since a 2 KDR on one end might translate to like a 0.5 on the other end, but generally speaking there is probably some bell curve like function going on there, and there is a standard deviation. 

And that's relevant when I talk about these games online. Because in most games, i'm the epitome of average. We're talking 0.9-1.1 KDR typically. Some I do a bit worse than that, but that's where I normally line up after spending a significant amount of time on a game. 

But then any time I give an opinion on forums I'm told that I have a so called "skill issue" but these toxic sweats who have KDRs upwards of 2.0 or even higher. Even people like 1.6 or 1.7 like to talk crap, and they act like they're "average" when they're not, they're actually really good players well beyond the skill level most players have. And they act like their opinion is more valid simply because they're better at the game than me. 

But in reality...they're a very small insular minority. A lot of these players are hyper competitive, they play with clans or teams, they in the old days owned their own community servers, and they often act like their experience is the average experience, and they typically demand the game is balanced around them.

This is why games are getting more punishing with recoil. it's to satisfy these players. because for them, everything is higher skill ceilings. They want the skill ceiling of the game to be high to inflate their ego. Now, what's the benefit of a high skill ceiling? Well on the plus side there's more room to improve, but on the down side, it leads to the best players absolutely DESTROYING everyone else, where they can't fight back. Like, imagine picking up a gun, and not being able to aim properly, but since they played for 292834892828 hours they can laser you like its nothing. And if you say this is too hard, they say "skill issue."

The fact is, most gaming wasn't like this for the vast majority of its existence. Most games WERE casual, and they WERE easier for casuals to play. But "skilled" players dont like that. Because it doesnt stimulate them. They're stimulated by dumping tons of hours into a game and being the best, and they think everyone should have to "earn" their skill. They dont like dropping into a so called "easier" game and being lasered by some guy with a low recoil gun, because it's not fun for them. And in the past, those guys would just screw off back to counter strike where they hung out with like minded people and continued to huff their own farts. Now these guys tell us to "go play Call of Duty", never mind that COD isn't even super casual friendly in some ways these days and has a sweat issue too (thanks, warzone). 

And here's the thing. If these guys are a small insular minority, with KDRs well above the average, then where are they on a bell curve? Normally at the top, by themselves, with the masses just being completely stomped by them. Keep in mind, if they got some crazy 2.5 KDR, that means your average player is getting destroyed by these guys over and over again. it's just the statistics of the situation, for every kill, there is a death. The low skill analogue of a 2.5 KDR player is a 0.4 KDR one. And most players are probably somewhere between 0.75 and 1.33 or so. 

I'm not saying that we should listen to the feedback of anyone who genuinely sucks. At some point, there's going to be a statistical minority that's just bad at the game, and at some point, that IS a skill issue, and it IS their problem.

But I'm of the opinion that someone who is within a standard deviation or so of the norm is going to be far more in touch with the majority of the community than people on either end. I mean, 68% of your player base, around 2/3, are going to be within 1 standard deviation. 96% are going to be within 2. Even going by the 68% figure, there's gonna be about 16% who is above that, and 16% below. 

So if we're listening to these players that are 2 standard deviations above the norm, then how in line are their experiences and opinions with the rest of the player base? Not much. But it seems like in FPS communities, everyone cedes to them because they're the most skilled. I'm not saying a high skill level can't reveal certain things about statistics with weapons and the like average players might miss due to not dedicating as much time to the game or not caring, but generally speaking, a game that is balanced around the top 2-5% of players is generally going to be absolutely grueling and punishing to the other 95%. And this has actually caused me to leave a lot of games I otherwise enjoyed in recent years. Because as the game just got harder and harder to play, eventually I just say screw it, quit cold turkey, and move on to another game. PUBG is one example of this. BF2042, despite being more casual, is another (quit once battlebit came out as it's far more fun and engaging to play).

The fact is, when devs listen to these kinds of people, games end up not getting better, but worse. Because casuals start dropping like flies and suddenly all you have left that care about the game ARE those sweats who remain whose toxic opinions alienate everyone else. Sometimes it even kills games after a while. I know the arena shooter subgenre died in part because of this, because the old grizzled UT vets and the like wouldn't bend even a little to make their game more casual friendly. Games like Halo and even BF to some extent (although 2042 has so many issues its ridiculous) are also having these problems. Again, you get the most die hard players just bullying the community into submission, devs listen to them, and then you get crappy games no one wants to play and people long for the good old days of the franchise, with those longing for them often the most out of touch. 

If you listen to a 50th percentile player, or thereabouts, you actually are capturing how the MAJORITY of the player base feels. because again, 68% of the player base is within one standard deviation of that. Maybe the bottom 16% who actually do suck to a point that their opinions are never gonna be worth considering, and the top 16%, who are so above the rest of the player base that in a "high skill ceiling" environment, no one can compete, won't be happy with the results. But tough crap. Again, at some point, yeah, some players are gonna be so bad that they can't be saved and dumbing down the game around them will just cause more problems and solutions. And some players aren't gonna be stimulated by the "lower skill ceiling", but hey the majority will have fun, and those guys can just go back to counter strike where everyone just sits around huffing their own farts at how good they are.

Basically, we need to make hyper competitive gaming a niche again, and return to the pre 2017 casual feel of most FPS games. I had A LOT more fun gaming when games were made for the middle of the player base out, than from the top down. 

It's the same problem with politics in america. Everything serves the top 0.1%, and to a lesser extent the top 20%, while 80% are kinda just...existing and struggling to get by. Similar phenomenon. We used to think in those terms too, growing the middle out, rather than the top down.

I will insist that gaming is always going to be more of a meritocracy than the economy should be, since the point of a lot of games is to compete and some are statistically gonna lose, in politics I generally think most in terms of the social libertarian interpretation of rawls "veil of ignorance" where I think from the worst off person up, but in PVP gaming, I'm fine to settle on "from the middle out." And I honestly think games are more fun when designed for your more casual 50th percentile player than your top 16% or 2% or whatever player. All game play decisions do when they serve the top is help the top stay on top at the expense of everyone else. They dont make games more fun or fulfilling, except for those extremely toxic try hards who take competition to insane degrees. 

And yeah, I know this is an extremely unpopular philosophy in gaming circles, given how they seem to skew "right wing" in a general sense, but that's how I honestly feel about this issue as a leftie who games for its own sake, rather than in a weird cut throat hyper competitive format.

Discussing Mitch McConnell's second blue screen of death

 So, Mitch McConnell did it again, he basically was asked a question in a press conference, and then he froze, and he had to be handled by an aide and taken away. This is concerning.

Between this and the Dianne Feinstein issue, we clearly have a problem with our congresspeople getting too old to serve at times, and being propped up despite not being in a well enough state.

I don't like to approach this lightly. I know a lot of people will ACT LIKE Biden is like this and he's too old and he has dementia, but nah, he doesn't. Dude's actually healthy for his age. And I know conservatives like to act like John Fetterman can't serve due to his stroke, when his issues are purely with speaking. 

Let's not act like anyone who is unhealthy at all, is unable to serve. They're not. But we do have an issue here.

Some people want an age limit for various reasons. but I don't think this is the answer. Some people decline in their 50s and 60s. Some are well until almost 90. The human life span is variable, and I honestly still like politicians like Bernie, who are in their 80s. But that doesn't mean some of them aren't dealing with some serious issues, with their congressional staff and parties basically pulling a "weekend at bernies" with them. And that's not good. 

I also don't want to be ageist in terms of political views, I know some like to downplay the views of the elderly for being older or out of touch, claiming they dont have long to live so why do we care what they think, and while I think in larger generational trends we do have a problem with older voters holding the country back, but those are generally cohorts of voters, not individuals. And I wouldnt want to discount them because it's anti democratic. The idea of one person one vote exists for a reason. 

And let's be honest, there are based 80 year olds, like Bernie Sanders. And then there's Vivek Ramaswamy who is 38. And Pete Buttigieg on the democratic side, who isn't insane like Ramaswamy is, but let's face it, he's a young Joe Biden. The point is, younger is no guarantee of better quality. Marianne Williamson and Cornel West are both in their 70s. But so is donald trump. 

So yeah, just shutting that down.

I'm mostly focusing on people who are literally, demonstrably unable to serve. And we should avoid partisanship here. Whatever is going on with Mitch McConnell is just as concerning as what's going on with Dianne Feinstein. These people aren't well, folks, like demonstrably unwell. I honestly think Feinstein should be replaced and how the dems are propping her up is disgraceful. McConnell...I'm less sure what the issue is. It is possible it's like some sort of mental problem or early alzheimers or whatever (dude looks like he forgot what he had for breakfast that morning), but we don't know. But we, the public, have a right to know what is going on with these people, and if they're unable to do the job, they should resign and let someone younger take over. I mean, these people are in their 80s. They're already past your typical life expectancy, and a lot of issues with mental decline happen at such an advanced age. Maybe they'll live in some form for another 10-15 years in some cases, who knows. But....if they're unable to serve, they should step aside. 

EDIT: Apparently McConnell was cleared after his episode. Dude fell and suffered a concussion a few months ago and apparently this is gonna happen occasionally during the recovery process. Still concerning but whatever.

So...Trump's court case is going to be during the primary...

 So, remember how I said I hope this is resolved by the end of 2023? Yeah no, not gonna happen, apparently we're gonna have the court case right around the time of super tuesday, one of the most pivotal days of the primary. Trump himself wanted it delayed until after the election, some time in 2026. Which is ridiculous. This guy is a threat to the country, and we need this resolved ASAP. The sooner the better, because let's face it, the republican voter base deserves better than to support orange man only for him to be found guilty and sent to prison. I want them to have a decent primary in which they can vote for who they want with all of the facts in.

And of course if the guy is gonna be disqualified, the sooner the case, the less damage to the election process. I know that the justice department really took their time with charging trump, but i think they did that to ensure that their work was the highest quality possible and that they crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is. You dont wanna do it sloppy only to get it thrown out on a technicality. 

And of course, I would like him to be disqualified the sooner the better if it's gonna happen because i deserve better than another orange man vs biden election. I've warmed up to biden somewhat, but i still ain't a HUGE fan. As we can tell, there are significant ideological differences here, and while Im not sure I'll vote green this time even if I didn't have to worry about trump, as I differ from leftists too, I would like to have a choice that isn't just "vote Biden to avoid orange man." 

This is gonna be a complete crapshow, isn't it? Season 3 of this trump drama is just nuts, and the show should've been long canceled by now.

Well, it does prove my point that if we don't change the democratic party's culture, every election is just gonna be the lesser evil over and over again until someone has the balls to stand up to them. We did this in 2016, we did it in 2020, and now it's part 3 in 2024. 

I just wanna be done with this guy, man. I get that in 2016 he won because hillary was a turd and he didn't sound that bad to your casual low information voter, but this guy is a nutcase, and his supporters follow him around like he's a cult leader. And it's starting to get scary. I just want him to go away so we can move on with our lives.

Biden administration expands union rights

 So, I see a lot of online spaces talking about this, but apparently the NLRB just made it far easier to unionize, where if the business tries to interfere with the unionization process, the union automatically goes through and the business has to negotiate with unions. This is intended to crack down on union busting. And some are calling it one of the biggest advances in labor rights in the modern era. 

This is good. I think this is a win for the Biden administration, and it's another thing I'll be considering going into 2024. I mean, I may not be a huge fan of democrats, but I do think Biden is doing good things, and do want to be fair to him in that regard. Especially since I don't feel like leftists would necessarily due a better job here. This is true a "dark brandon" moment, and Biden's administration deserves all of the credit for this. 

At the same time, I do want to emphasize that we need to go further. It's not enough to just support unions and regulations and reforming work. Too many liberals, and leftists, tend to lean into this, not wanting to alleviate the core component of what causes people to suffer (coercion to work in the first place) and instead want to focus simply on reforming the relationship between workers and employers, rather than solving the core issue with it. We still need basic income, we still need the right to say no. Unions help, don't get me wrong but most liberalism, and even leftism for that matter is still a band aid.

That said, as far as band aids go, this is a really good one, but like I always do, I'm going to keep my eyes on the prize and call mere reforms for what they are. I'm sorry, but theres more to life than working 40 hours a week doing some union job, I get that under capitalism it's been the best we've had, but we need to do better.

Facts don't care about your feelings: a message for the SJWs regarding the Till Lindemann situation

 I know, I know, cliche saying, and it makes me sound like freaking Ben Shapiro, but given the hostile reaction I've seen from various subreddits toward Rammstein/Till Lindemann supporters today, it needs to be said. 

Because here's the thing. There is no evidence that Till lindemann committed any crimes. And people are going to have to deal with that.

The fact is, the original accuser's story always was shaky, and I've been highly skeptical of it since around...day 5 of this whole incident. For the first 3 days i tentantively believed her because I do believe in taking sexual assault allegations seriously, but after the cracks in her story started to form, I very quickly realized this was a nothingburger and stated that I would leave it to the courts. When the media and social media are promoting a crapstorm of unsubstantiated rumors, it can be hard to know what the truth is. In cases like that, institutions with a duty to the truth and the ability to sift through facts and allegations to a more accurate degree than average people reading about this through the news are going to be more accurate. And sometimes, media and social media are WRONG. Remember the Kyle Rittenhouse thing? I know a lot of lefties will still act like he was guilty, and I'm quite frankly still salty about how far off the left was on that situation and how Rittenhouse's actions were bona fide self defense.

The same applies here. Except to a greater degree. I don't have to LIKE kyle rittenhouse, like I like Till Lindemann, but I respect his innocence in the eyes of the law. With Till, not only do I accept this verdict, I honestly dont believe he did anything wrong, and I will continue to appreciate his art. And they investigated a lot of stuff outside of the original allegations, including that 15 year old story. You would think if that happened they would have reasonable evidence for it, but instead it was just some random anonymous BS like the rest with no evidential backing.

But...despite the complete and utter lack of evidence supporting criminal wrongdoing by Till Lindemann, people are still acting like he's guilty. Because these people don't believe in the justice system. They recognize its high standards and the need to prove innocence beyond a reasonable doubt fail to provide convictions, so they believe in reflexively believing all women, and in mob justice against the accused in the form of cancel culture, suppression of alternate viewpoints, etc. 

And a lot of them have been out in full force today acting like Rammstein supporters are fanatics who are in a cult, meanwhile, these guys don't see the irony of just believing stuff without evidence. Like really, I'm an ex christian and an ex atheist. As an ex christian, I know what cult like behavior is. Christianity IS that, to some degree. And social justice ideology is just a weird form of that on the left. And those guys dont like to hear the truth, they dont like to hear anything that questions their narrative, and when they step outside of their social justice bubble and see what actual uncensored dialogue looks like, they think everyone else is in a cult. No, it's you. It's always been you. Because if one side of the issue is literally just following the evidence, and the other side is just automatically "believing all women" and daring to censor anyone who speaks the truth on the issue, then guess what, if you're on the latter side, YOU ARE IN THE CULT. 

I get why social justice people think like this. Like many aspects of social justice ideology, it comes from a good place. Sexual abuse is common, victims are afraid to speak out, and it is good to give them the benefit of the doubt. But that does not mean you should shut your eyes to any conflicting evidence, or beleive one is guilty without evidence, or engage in mob justice, or silence anyone who dares disagree with you. Like always, social justice people might have good intentions to start out with, but at the end of the day, they become authoritarian and intolerant of anyone else's views.

And this being my blog, I'm just going to say it. TILL LINDEMANN IS INNOCENT, THE COURT HAS SPOKEN, AND FACTS DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS. You can silence me and others on your subreddits, but you will NEVER have a monopoly on the truth, and in the long term, you turn people against your cause. 

Seriously, anyone who has been following this blog for a while knows that my tone has shifted on SJWs significantly since it started. At first I was critical of them, but focused on their good intentions and tried to make nice with them, but between this and all of the other abuse I've put up with from them over the years, I'm just done. Facts are facts, they might not make you feel good or are convenient for your circlejerk, but they are what they are.

And I know that some have shifted to say that regardless of the legal outcome, they still don't approve of till and his behavior. That's fair, but much like the religious right, I dont care what your morals are, and you guys have no right to impose your morals on the rest of society. Till Lindemann is no angel, he has even admitted he doesn't wanna be one (lyrically speaking). Yes yes, he bangs groupies, including people a third of his age, but you know what? If you don't like the guy, don't listen to his music. What can I say? You don't have to like him. I only have an issue with people try to stop other people who actually do enjoy his art from enjoying it.

That's the thing about freedom. You dont HAVE to like him, or anyone. And likewise, I dont have to like you. I believe we all have a right to our opinion, and the right to do what we want unless we substantively harm others, and a duty to stay out of other peoples' ways. And going off of that note, if you don't like it, then don't read it. What can I say?

But yes. This was a great victory for the band. I feel like Till has been legally exonerated here, and I expect the issue to eventually die off, with only weirdo social justice types still holding a grudge against the guy. And you know what? Screw them. Let them stay mad. I'm still enjoying Rammstein. 

Hopefully this will be the last time I have to raise this issue on this blog, but if i get more info and I feel a post is relevant, I will post it.

Investigation against Till dropped

 So, the investigation against Till Lindemann was dropped. And the nightmare is over. I just wanted to post something to celebrate that. Justice was done, the allegations were substanceless, and now we can move on with our lives.

Some social justice types want to keep insisting on till's guilt regardless of evidence. Some reddit mods are banning anyone on certain subs who dare defend till, and who don't eternally "believe all women", including the one who didn't make an accusation but kinda did and has no substance to her case. It's ridiculous.

Facts don't care about your feelings, Till won, you have no case. It's over. And yeah, I'm celebrating. Maybe I'm a bit of a sore winner here but after putting up with this for 3 months I'm just over the haters. 

Briefly discussing prager U's dumpster fire of a video on UBI

 So, Prager U released a video bashing UBI today, and I won't do a super deep dive on it as it's a massive gish gallop of all of the usual talking points against it I'd expect from a conservative, and many of them aren't really that good or worth really considering at all. Still, being the UBI guy, I do want to address some.

Yes, we know that UBI will raise taxes. I support a $1250 UBI that costs $4.3 trillion. I know this will pretty much double our taxes. But I have found that despite that, 73% of workers would benefit directly, and scaling in families this goes over 80%. 

You see, you're not gonna functionally pay back a $15000 UBI until you earn $75000 through working. And given every family member gets a UBI, this can often scale much better.

The same applies to Yang's plan. You would need to spend $120000 to break even on his VAT tax, anyone under that is a net beneficiary.

Yes, I'm aware if you print money that would be dangerously inflationary. I don't advocate for doing that.

Yes, we need other programs than just UBI. Medicare for all, free college, and a housing program are top priorities of mine along side a UBI as those three industries seem to suffer the most extreme market failures and UBI would be unable to properly provide for them.

Yes, people might sit on the couch, but most evidence shows that people would continue to work.

You even cited the UBI study later done in finland in which they found no more people were employed than under their unemployment system. But the same applies the other way, people werent particularly less likely to work either, and this effect has been replicated over and over again. Because UBI can be designed to both give people a basic amount of money, but not enough to discourage useful work. 

I say useful work because I don't fetishize employment for its own sake. Screw your stupid "dignity that comes from work", whenever I see anyone, left or right, push that idea, I can't help but think of a certain phrase a certain german had about their super not cool death camps. It's a completely arbitrary idea that humans came up with to try to justify people working. 

On the topic of personal responsibility, it's good to some degree, but I don't fetishize it. Also I feel like UBI empowers people and provides them the same dignity without work. You might wanna read Charles' Murray's book on that one. 

And oh, purpose? Yeah, screw your purpose. That crap comes from the protestant work ethic and christianity. Let people find their own purpose, not have it imposed on them via authoritarianism from the state or church. let's get calvinism out of our economics once and for all. I admit I intend to replace that with nihilism and absurdism, but I'd rather people figure out their own purposes than literally live out the myth of sisyphus.

Im not a fan of social cohesion, I'm a fan of freedom. But this guy did just give away the game in saying that social cohesion is a primary purpose behind the work ethic. Basically, because some have to work, conservatives want all to "share in the misery" and find meaning and purpose and solidarity with others through work. I don't value these things, i see them as authoritarian. I value freedom and liberty. 

Also, don't get me started on how the cohesion narrative is BS anyway, the right has been pushing their form of grievance politics against minorities and allegedly lazy people for decades. They dont value cohesion. Half of their voter base votes for them because of a white hot rage that other people that they don't approve of exist. 

I'm not interested in being forced to live out the myth of sisyphus so that I might find meaning in my suffering dude, and also hate on everyone who doesnt suffer like I do. 

Yes, if UBI is implemented, it will be hard to repeal it, that's the point. i don't want what happened to the child tax credit happen to UBI. I want it to be a third rail of politics like social security.

And yes, the amount will have to be raised over time. I already advocate for $1250 a month because $1000 a month was so 2014. Inflation happens, ya know?

 And back to Finland, so...they found people to be happy...and that doesn't matter to you? I mean, you give away the plot in being like "well duh, they're getting free money!" Shouldn't that mean that basic income is a good thing? Shouldn't we want people to be happy? Then you realize these guys' idea of life is based in calvinism and shared suffering building solidarity with others so i guess not.

 Honestly, conservatives are gonna crap on good things. because their ideology is anti good things. They're a bunch of regressives who think that suffering is good and provides dignity and purpose, and their worldview is literally based on one of the more batcrap insane versions of christianity. 

In leaving christianity in 2012, I abandoned these attitudes for good, and I rebuilt my ideology without them. And that's why I support UBI, because I have HUMANIST ethics, not conservative religious ones. This guy is just spending half the video claiming about the fiscal problems and the other half complaining about his own ideology's moral problems. But as an ex conservatives, i say screw their ideology. There's a reason I keep saying conservatism is intellectually and morally bankrupt. And this is why. 

But yeah, that's my summarized approach to the points in his video, and it only took me a bit longer than the video itself did. Honestly...it didn't deserve much more attention than that.

Discussing lesser evilism and the GOP field

 So, like always, the blue no matter whoers are trying to push their whole "YOU HAVE TO VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO" crap on us, and I'm once again pushing back. This time I want to look at the 2024 field in particular. 

Between Biden and West, as we know, I'm fairly mixed. I do agree more with west on economic agenda, although Biden has done some good things I like. At the same time, Biden is MUCH better on foreign policy. And given the threat of Trump winning again, I am leaning toward voting Biden if Trump is the nominee. 

At the same time, Trump MIGHT not be the nominee. Despite winning in polls commandingly, he IS facing a metric crapton of legal trouble and this might inevitably disqualify him. And if so, my 2024 strategy may change. One of the big things keeping me voting for Biden IS the threat of an illiberal psychopath in office, but after watching the GOP debate, I am reminded other candidates exist who are potentially a lot "safer" than Trump is. This is not to say they are great or they are problem free, but given I only suspended my normal vote my conscience perspective to defeat the illiberal psychopaths and have no desire to make this an every 4 years thing, I'm going to be less constrained to vote blue if Trump or someone like him DON'T win the nomination. 

That said, let's look at the existing field and polling.

Trump- 53%

DeSantis- 13%

Ramaswamy- 7.5%

 Haley- 5%

Pence- 4.7%

Christie- 2.8%

Scott- 2.7%

Burgum- 0.4%

Hutchinson- 0.4%

Hurd- 0.4%

As we can see, Trump is winning by a whopping 40 points. This puts him 10 standard deviations according to my statistical methods away from a 50-50 race with another candidate, which gives him well over a 99.99% chance of winning. It's not even close. Unless movement changes MASSIVELY in the next 6 months, Trump IS going to win the nomination. PERIOD. 

And let's say he does end up being forced to concede, given legal issues, what have you. 

Vivek Ramaswamy, well, I already covered him. He's a nutcase who explicitly wants to raise the voting age to 25 unless they serve in the military. And a lot of his other ideas seem outright dangerous. 

Ron DeSantis I don't think is AS dangerous as Trump or Ramaswamy, but he has a record of trying to ban ranked choice voting, suppress entire points of view with his "Stop WOKE act", and a bill that more or less engaged in voter suppression. I have to admit, researching it further, the case against desantis isn't as hard as the one against Trump or Ramaswamy, but he's still not great.

As far as the others go, meh. I know one person told me Pence is a fundie Christian and Christie is anti teachers unions, but to be blunt, don't care. That's just NORMAL republican scumbaggery. The thing that makes me suspend my normal ethics is the threat to democracy that these guys are.

Trump is a CLEAR threat to democracy. The dude literally incited an insurrection and should go down for that. He should not be allowed near the white house again and I think he should be disqualified from running for office again.

DeSantis and Ramaswamy are subtle threats to democracy. They do things that are scummy, but still largely within the lines of civilized society. While democracy as a whole may survive with them in office, we won't escape unscathed if they have their way, although I don't think the damage will be AS BAD as the left acts like it would.

The others...I just...don't care. I'm gonna be voting my conscience, period. 

As such, if Trump is the nominee, I will probably vote for Biden.

If DeSantis or Ramaswamy are the nominee, I will take that into consideration, but otherwise vote my conscience.

And if Pence, Christie, Haley, etc, are the nominee, I'm just gonna act like this is a normal election and not care.

You can't fear monger with just any republican threat against me. NO. I voted green in 2016, I voted green in 2020, and Trump's danger to democracy is the only thing causing me to suspend my ethics there in 2024. if he's no longer a threat, I'll feel more freedom to do as I want. And I'll evaluate the democrats primarily on their POSITIVE record, as opposed to the threat the GOP present. And if the democrats don't stand up and there's a better third party nominee I feel it's worth voting for, I will do that.

Discussing the lawsuit suggesting Trump is ineligible to be president

 So, a new lawsuit is suing to stop Trump from running again, claiming he can't run because he committed insurrection, which prohibits running running for office as per the 14th Amendment of the constitution.

In principle, I agree with this move. After January 6th, Trump is, IMO, a literal danger to society, and given his blatantly illiberal and unconstitutional actions, I honestly think he should be barred, and that this be a moment of saving democracy from itself.

If trump gets in elected office again, he might try this crap again, and he might succeed. Best to shut him out from power as much as reasonably possible. 

The real question is, how can we properly enforce this? Everyone deserves their day in court, even trump, and everyone has a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, even trump. 

And while trump is facing a lot of charges, some of which might be relevant, barring a criminal conviction, I'm not sure he can be held liable in this sense. 

Also, if the mechanism is congress, good luck getting republicans to go along with it. As much as the party establishment would LOVE to get rid of trump, barring him from running from office could cause them to basically commit electoral suicide. Unlike the left, republican voters dont take party establishments playing political games well and are more likely to metaphorically burn the party to the ground for trying to screw with them, than to go along with being shoehorned by the establishment into supporting another candidate.

Also, we know where the voters lie. If Trump doesn't get the nomination, the most likely candidates to win in his stead are currently Ron Desantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of which are also quite illiberal and may pose their respective threats to democracy. I'd expect Ron Desantis to act lawfully, but still act in ways that could threaten political opponents subtlely, while Ramaswamy might as well be the schwarze mann from the Angst music video with how nuts that guy is. 

Again, that's the real long term problem with trump....even if we get rid of him, his coalition may not go anywhere for a while (especially if the democrats keep sticking to their existing approach to politics), and we may be getting nutcases out of the GOP for quite some time. 

So...the real question is...can we really bar trump from running? if we can, it's better to do so sooner than later. I mean, the closer we get to the election, the less likely the forces that be are going to wanna intervene. It would be best to wrap this up in 2023. Which means the justice system better haul butt in trying these cases against the Don. Indicting is one thing but this stuff needs to actually GO TO COURT. I think it would be ideal for this to be settled before the 2024 primaries start at the beginning of next year. And if he ain't barred from running by the time he clinches the republican nomination in July 2024 at the republican national convention, well, we're gonna be stuck with the guy. And I'm gonna feel more pressure to vote for Biden myself, and I really don't want that. I want freedom to be able to vote for whomever I wanna vote for, without having the gun of a nutcase like trump at my head, negatively influencing my decision in ways that I would normally resist, but I feel like I can't say no to given the severity of the threat against democracy itself.

Is Vivek Ramaswamy the new Ron Paul?

 So, I've been seeing a lot of "Is Vivek Ramaswamy the new X" posts lately. And I primarily want to address the ron paul one, but I will address others as well. 

First, is Vivek Ramaswamy the new Andrew Yang? I think Saagar made this claim once, based on the idea that he inherited Yang's strategy of using the internet to push his campaign. As we know, from various Yang related books, Yang kind of forged a new path for campaigns that primarily relied on social media to drive interaction instead of traditional high dollar donations. I can't comment on Ramaswamy's campaigning approach, I've largely been kind of ignoring the guy, but generally speaking, I don't get Yang vibes at all other than in stereotypes. Yang and Ramaswamy are both anti establishment and offer an alternative to traditional politics. And both are quirky, with Yang having "tech bro" vibes and Ramaswamy kinda sorta being like the conservative analogue of that. But....at the same time....no.

Yang's big thing was he ran on a policy no other campaign would touch, and much like myself, he was one of the first to try to cobble together a new ideology and voting coalition around it. It never got very far because of the demographics of the democratic party that I've discussed previously (and I find this frustrating as a "Yang guy"), but I don't think Ramaswamy offers that. He is more a Trump bootlicker. He's a young, energetic cheerleader whose entire thing seems to be to sheepdog people back to Trumpism, positioning himself as a Trump VP pick (since trump likes brown nosers), or as an alternative to trump if the dude is unable to run due to his legal problems.As such, no.

I've seen people compare Ramaswamy to Buttigieg. And I don't see the comparison other than age and maybe being a brown noser. Buttigieg is like a young Joe Biden. He's trying to get in the establishment's good graces and position himself for future success within the party. But the difference is that The GOP establishment DOES NOT LIKE TRUMP. And it doesn't like vivek either. Quite frankly, after trumpism and trump pulling the crap he is, the party's establishment is trying desperately to lead its party's voters back to more mainstream and controllable candidates who probably aren't going to incite literal insurrections. Vivek is siding with Trump. If Trump goes down, Vivek's future is questionable. He could be the trump successor and continue to harness that coalition of voters, or maybe trumpism will be a flash in the pan and burn out. I do suspect that post trump, trumpism might start collapsing. I don't know.

But yeah, either way, I see SOME buttigieg similiarities but other than being the same race, and both being brown nosers, they're not much different. The conservative 1:1 analogue of buttigieg would be someone who sounds like Mike Pence but is in his 30s or early 40s. 

But the one that I find most interesting is I've seen some republicans comparing him to Ron Paul, and I find this one interesting given I was a Ron Paul supporter back in the day. Basically, like Yang, Paul had that internet demographic, with little to no real world support. But ideologically, they can't be any different.

As I said, Vivek...he's just a trump brown noser. He's just trying to adopt the most extreme positions to outflank the other nominees, regardless of whether he looks like an idiot. 

Ron Paul...well, as someone who was on the Paul train in 2008, let me explain his appeal at the time. We just had 8 years of Bush. Republicans controlled both congress and the presidency until 2006, and then congress in 2006 because of malaise over the iraq war. Like what happens with cyclical politics, the side in power ends up losing support over time, and even conservatives were seeing the warning signs. On top of this there was a generational divide. Older conservatives were often like Mike Pence. They were both religious, and conservative. And honestly, the younger generation at the time, millennials, just didn't care for that as much. We were more live and let live, and had gay friends, and kinda backed off of the social issues somewhat. In addition, we had a malaise with the old school reagan conservative at times. The fact is, neoconservatism in the bush era didnt age well. Bush cut taxes, then went to war, and now we got this massive national debt that doubled under a republican's rule, combined with an unpopular war that it seemed obvious in retrospect we never should have gotten into. 

In some ways, Ron Paul seemed to be the conservative answer to all of this. He wanted to get us out of the wars, return to small government, cut taxes, cut spending, focus less on social issues and let people live as they want, and this appealed a lot to young conservatives at the time. It almost came off as a return to form. Like getting back to the way conservatism was supposed to be, not what conservatism in the late 2000s actually was. 

And of course, in 2008, the republicans missed the memo, we got John McCain, no  one really liked him, and he got destroyed by Obama. It's like, the party establishment, at the end of an 8 year term, keeps wanting to run a third term of the guy who won the last two times. So we end up getting gore after clinton, and mccain after bush, and hillary after obama. And as it turns out no one really likes that. The party in charge has an attitude of wanting to continue the same legacy, and is incapable of introspection, so morale on the incumbent side is low and people are holding their nose, while the other side is a change agent that wants to offer something different. In some ways, Ron Paul was the conservative Bernie Sanders. The alternative to the current status quo establishment politician of the times. And much like with Bernie, the conservative establishment HATED paul, and ended up largely suppressing him in terms of media coverage, leading to ron paul supporters on the internet being very vocal and anoying about their candidate (kinda like how we bernie bros do/did that with bernie sometimes). 

Vivek isn't that guy. He's a continuation of a highly controversial one term president who is popular within their own party, but not among the general electorate.

In 2008 on the republican side and 2016 on the democratic side, morale was at an all time low just about. Even the party's ardent supporters in both cases were like "ugh...fine, i guess ill hold my nose", meanwhile the other side was fired up, and independents swung toward the side with more enthusiasm. 

On the flip side, Trump IS enthusiastically supported by his voter base. It's the PARTY ESTABLISHMENT that hates his guts and wants him gone because he's a liability in the general election, since the other side, while not fired up for their guy, is united in absolute fear and hatred of this guy, and independents are like "ugh, these trumpers are in a cult, biden it is then." 

It's not like Biden actually has positive support. Only DNC bootlickers and neolibs look at biden as if he's truly great. Meanwhile the GOP does have a cult of personality around trump and are FANATICALLY SUPPORTIVE of him. Vivek Ramaswamy is just trying to cash in on that trend and position himself as the only super pro trump guy on stage. He might energetically get the support of the trump supporting base in a debate where trump himself is absent, but he himself is just a flash in the pan, and going against the party trends.

What the party wants to do is desperately find someone who can foil trump, the way the DNC constantly foil bernie sanders and the like on the left. They're trying to find that establishment anti trump option that no one on the right might be crazy for, but they'll show up and hold their nose and vote red. Vivek isnt that guy. He's not much of anything. He's just a trump cheerleader trying to continue the cult of trumpism and only shines in trump's absence. 

He doesnt even offer any unique policy positions worth mentioning. Paul offered a vision of limited government that for better or for worse was worth considering and valid among supporters. Yang offered UBI. Bernie offered social democracy. What does vivek offer? He's just mccain to trump's Bush. He's just Hillary to Trump's Obama. He's like George HW bush, that guy trying to repackage what the last guy offered and who might capture the enthusiasm of the most ardent supporters but who lacks the charisma and the vision. 

Generally, party alignments and realignments operate in those cycles. You have this once in a generation guy who comes around and realigns the parties, and then you got successors who try to walk in the same footsteps, but are progressively less successful in doing so. It's like some guy forms these coalitions, and then future candidates try running the same game plan, only to fall short as cracks in the ideology form, or the successor lacks leadership abilities or moral purity, and then eventually the entire ideology falls apart. 

Failing ideologies seem to be more of a "flash in the pan" type than successful ones. Ron Paul's movement seemed to die out. Bernie's is floundering post bernie with weaker candidates like williamson and names suggested like nina turner. And as I said the other day, I feel like the UBI movement is dying because Yang brought it to attention, and after he abandoned it, it's now imploding and steadily losing steam in this post covid world of high inflation. 

Vivek just...isn't "that guy", he's "the successor to that guy" who has none of the charisma and who kind of ends up exposing the faults of the previous guy's ideology. I look at vivek, and I just see an energetic nutcase who has no idea what hes talking about. Maybe he could position himself as a trump successor if trump is himself unable to run, but honestly, to anyone outside of the trump cult, he sounds certifiably insane. As I said, Im baffled people like him. There were objectively better conservative candidates on that stage. And while Im not the kind of guy to vote republican at all at this point (I'll vote blue, vote green, or even abstain before i vote red these days), honestly, as an ex conservative who left when everyone started going insane, I look at the likes of Haley, Pence, or Christie, and I see the conservatism of my youth. It's not what I want any more, but they're packaging the ideals in a more relatively sane package. 

So yeah. That's my opinion on that.

Btw, I do think Ron Paul, for all of his faults, did succeed in a way. He did inevitably drive the GOP right. He is indirectly responsible for the tea party. Once McCain had lost and that wing of the party had been repudiated, the tea party arose in its place, and I do think it had the same "back to roots" energy Paul's campaign tried to harness. It's also what convinced me that conservatism was in fact, not a good thing at all. 

I kinda wished the left would've been able to pull off its own similar victory. I hoped if Hillary lost the democrats would have a similar moment and we would have a tea party movement on the left, and we kind of did, but it wasnt successful, and now I'm dealing with crazies on my own side, causing me to distance myself from both the establishment dems and the left. So maybe while some level of back to roots is needed to serve as a reality check, sometimes that level of moral purity isn't a good thing as it just drives people to extremes. And I've honestly been repulsed from both sides here. Post 2010, I got alienated with the tea party and left conservatism. Then post 2016 I saw the rise of SJW politics and "democratic socialism" in the US, and as we can see, I'm distancing myself with both of them.

The difference is that while I abandoned conservatism completely, with the left, I just repudiate exact ideologies while offering my own alternatives. And as I said, my current ideology has no lane in the democratic party. Which is why Yang never got more than 2% and got destroyed in the mayoral race, and why the UBI movement seems to be dying right now.

Yesterday, Donald Trump has finally made America great again

 ....after trying to ruin it. 

So, last night, around this time of night, maybe a bit later, Donald trump got arrested for the fourth time. This time in Georgia, and he's facing RICO (racketeering charges) as well as charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. AND THIS TIME WE GOT A MUGSHOT! Truly, he has made America great again.

Because in America, no one is above the law. And even if you're a rich pompous butthole, and even a former president, it shows that if you screw around enough, you will eventually find out. And MAN this guy is finding out in a lot of ways this year.

I want to emphasize that I don't normally advocate for the locking up of my political opponents. I believe that everyone has the right to their views, no matter how immoral and disgusting they are, and only people who commit crimes should be arrested and punished. But this guy is facing serious charges. Hoarding top level classified documents (INCLUDING CRAP RELATED TO NUCLEAR SECRETS), the january 6th thing, trying to overturn the election. He's not only a criminal, he's a threat to our civil society, and the foundations on which it rests.

And after screwing around, he's eventually finding out. 

I wish in a speedy trial, and I hope him spend the rest of his life in jail. I also hope he's barred from running for office again. Adios, scumbag.

Trying to get to the bottom of the Ramaswamy fad

 So, I went on a conservative forum and found an article talking about how the entire field was dunking on Ramaswamy last night, and decided to read the comments in order to get to the bottom of this. because I LITERALLY DON'T see the appeal in the guy. As I said, he's very counter to my former old school conservative beliefs, and even if I can get the appeal of say, christie, or pence, or haley, ramaswamy is just another whole level of WTF to me. I KINDA get trump given he was a bit moderate in 2016 and seemed to have some economic populist ideas at the time (as well as his normal anti PC mindset, which given political correctness is nails on a chalkboard to some people, was appealing at the time). But at this point I wouldnt go for trump again, even if i was a conservative in 2016. I think he's gotten dangerous, was a horribly inept president, and yeah, even on top of disliking conservatives, its time to go. But now we're dealing with ramaswamy and i just dont get it. This guy has NONE of the charisma trump did, and 2024 feels like a different beast than 2016. I can't understand why people would go for someone as extreme and off the wall as him when there are much...quite frankly, better GOP candidates than that. So let's see. 

I thought it was super odd Pence kept attacking him for not having experience. Uh, weren't you the vice president of someone who had no experience? Wasn't that like, a major part of their 2016 campaign? What a schmuck

 I mean, sure. Kinda hypocritical. Still, Trump was a DISASTER. Like, even as an ex conservative, he was an idiot who had no idea what he was doing. Why would you want more of that? After trump, I'd want to bring the party back to its normal sane routes. And honestly, pence seems like a "best of both worlds" guy. he could be a more sane trump successor being his former VP, while also being experienced and not a literal threat to democracy.

If I stayed conservative, and voted trump in 2016, and in 2020, and in 2021 realized trump was dangerous because of his attempts to overturn democracy? pence would be a strong candidate, both because of his link to the positive aspects of trumpism, but also because he actually was principled enough not to go along with trump and the mob.

Like really, whatever happened to conservatives caring about freedom and our constitution? Even if i were a die hard conservative of the same tradition I was, I would've abandoned trump after 2020 probably. I'd probably be like "okay, let's go back to normalcy now", and pence seems like the best "all in one" candidate for that from a conservative viewpoint. 

Again, this isn't what i actually think now, being a liberal. This is me putting my own conservative cap back on and channeling my best alternate history conservative me to make sense of this primary environment.

The fact that he’s the most pro Trump out of the lot, has to be a factor.

 I swear that's the only reason anyone likes him. He's pro trump, he's on board with the cult. 

Funny thing is he's not even that pro Trump, he's just principled and isn't a fan of obvious political persecution even if it would benefit him.

 As an ex reagan conservative, let me just say a principled conservative would wanna throw the fricking book at trump for what he did.

If trump had a D after his name, they would be screaming for blood here. So don't give me that.

I like Vivek, but ain't no way dude. Most everybody on that stage has railed against the blatant lawfare against Trump. Vivek in particular has swapped positions multiple times to cover Trump doing the same. He's there because he wants to make a name for himself riding on Trump's name and get a cabinet/vp position. He knows he's not going to be the first pick for Trump voters and is trying to John Kasich whomever the field consolidates down to. It's a smart move on his part.

 Well at least some conservatives are sane.

Probably because like Trump, he's not a politician. They can't have an outsider breaking into the DC Special Interest Bubble again.

 Ok, but ramaswamy has NONE of trump's charisma. That image worked for trump because he was this businessman who had the public persona of getting things done, and conservatives have this weird fixation of trying to run government like a business.

Of course that's also why trump was a giant manchild who couldnt handle being told no. Because like socialists would say, businesses are dictatorships, and trump is used to getting his way all the time. 

So maybe running government like a business actually ISNT a good thing...

Because the PACS and donors backing all the other candidates would be financially hurt if the status quo is not maintained.

 Question, if you care about PACs and donors, why arent you a leftie? We care about this stuff over here. I dont understand why right wingers would. For all the drain the swamp talk, most of their ideology is built around donors' interests. You cant have conservatism without appeasing donors to some degree. Also, trump didnt drain the swamp, he WAS the swamp. Why would ramaswamy be any different?

All the experienced people have made USA what we see today; an absolute fucking mess...

I'll take Vivek over all of them.

 In what way? I always see conservatives these days complain about the state of the country. What's so bad about it? Gay people? Abortion? Diversity? "Bad spending policies" without telling us what they are? Blaming inflation on biden simply because he's a democrat in office right now? Explain how experienced politicians make america a mess and how to actually solve the problems we have.

Because let's face it, I have issues too, and again, that's why I'm on the left. You're not gonna get solutions out of the right. Even Trump didnt do anything to make america better but republicans act like he was so amazing. All he did was inherit Obama's economy. And all Biden did was inherit the mess that was COVID (which happened on trump's watch, although i dont inherently blame trump for that, but just pointing that out).

It’s literally Vivek’s first debate… wait till the 2nd one, Trump wasn’t the best in the first debate either.

 It's like they're trying to recreate the trump phenomenon with this guy and it just doesnt work. 

Sorry, but this guy has none of the same charisma, the times are different from the 2016 environment, and this guy isn't it. 

You cant save this guy. He's a nutcase. I had more sense for politics at 16 than this guy does at 38.

It's interesting that red state, a deeply conservative news site, is misrepresenting Vivek's foreign policies so much

 Not really, he's that insane. And Nikki Haley was right in saying that he had no idea what he was talking about and his inexperience was showing.

How so?

So far foreign policy seems to be the only spot where I can't get behind Vivek. His plan for the Russia/Ukraine war is basically to concede everything to Russia in exchange for a pinky swear that they will break military ties with the Chinese. It's the same kind of idiocy as the Obama era Iran nuclear deal, where the USA gives up all its leverage to a hostile foreign power in exchange for a promise that will certainly be broken.

Besides this the Ramaswamy campaign has been pretty on point. I love his idea about dissolving the FBI. No other way out of the swamp at this stage.

 This responded to the previous comment, and I both have to commend him for understanding foreign policy and cringe at abolishing the FBI. 

These weirdo "abolish X agency" arguments on the right never made sense to me. it shows these people dont actually understand how the government works at all.

I seem to be in the minority because I'm not sold on him. I don't know what it was, but he irritated me the entire debate.

There were very few moments where he laid out actual policy positions so I don't know anything about what he wants to do. And I mean specific things, not just "Stabilize the US dollar." The majority of his time was spent shouting slogans and having really high energy.

People are being swayed by his theatrics, and his "Gotcha!" moments, without seeing that he has no actual policy positions. And the ones we do know about are either a. over the top (raising the voting age to 25) or b. logistically impossible (ban addictive social media under age 16).

I'm not saying an outsider can't be a good President. I think Trump's term was a good one. But for all of Vivek's energy, he doesn't come across as sincere. He shouts gigantic ideas without thinking of reality.

 This guy seems relatively sane. I disagree with him on trump but this is exactly how I see ramaswamy. he has no policy. he just said batcrap insane things and people cheered.

I found him very immature, like underclassman frat boy on a Friday night immature...

If he seriously thinks his shit doesn't stink, he has a hard lesson in life to learn.

I was seriously hoping for better.

 Or your typical college republicans club member...

Eh, I watched, he came across a bit arrogant and over his head.

 Yes, yes he did.

Personally, I thin it;s cause Vivek is doing WAY better than the public polling is showing.

ALL these campaigns have hyper focused, hype targeted polling that is WAY more detailed and accurate than anything a public newspaper or polling company does. They spend millions and millions of dollars to get this info.

The only justifiable reason everyone dogpiled Vivek would be because their internal polling, which si far more accurate than any public poll, showed him to be a MUCH bigger threat. No one spends time on a NATIONAL debate stage attacking the guy obstensibly in third place.

They left DeSantis alone for the same reason, I'm sure their internal polling has him a non factor so they aren't going to waste time on him

 Eh, he is #2, and trump's de facto surrogate, so by dogpiling on him they're dogpiling on trumpism. 

I was curious to see who'd be targeted in Trump's absence

 Eh, fair. I also think it's because the establishment republicans REALLY dont want trump and they wanna take their party back and crush the populists like the dems often do.

Can't say i blame them in this case. Trumpism is a stain on the GOP and democracy in general.

I found him kinda awkward in that debate. He seems better in smaller settings.

 I cant see myself liking him in general. He's a literal idiot and a nutcase IMO.

It's a lot harder to attack Desantis than it is to take Viveks popularity. The problem with going for someone with a record is that a lot of the guys on there actually have been in politics for a while and the attacks get reversed easily. Teflon Don was able to run on 0 record and any attacks could just result in him pointing out their record.

 To be fair, Ron Desantis actually has a record and despite his extreme and hardline stances, can actually make a case for his stuff in a republican debate environment. I dont think attacking desantis would do anyone any favors, except desantis. Because he can just one up everyone else and call them rinos.

However, ramaswamy has ZERO public record and has no clue what he's talking about.

Also, let's not forget, the establishment pushed desantis early on to topple trump. He's a team player. The GOP establishment REALLY wants trumpism out. So they're going after trump and his vocal supporters. 

Im not sure an old school conservative can survive given how crazy the GOP base seems to be, but i respect them for at least trying here. 

I was a bit hesitant going into the debate on how I felt about him but after seeing him stand up to the neocons and hear his stance on the issues discussed, I gotta say I'm much more confident in him now.

It's too early still to say he's my #2 pick behind Trump but the guy made it clear he will be a contender in the party for years to come. For his first debate he killed it.

 WHY?! He's an idiot, dude.

Did they watch the debate? The other candidates didn't "pile" on Vivek. He openly antagonized them to get them to mention his name.

The rules gave him a chance to speak everytime he was mentioned, and he used that to get extra air time. Him and Pence really knew how to got a shit ton of extra time to speak because of that rule.

 Yeah thats part of it too and why i dislike the guy so much, he was like that annoying kid who F-ed around and found out. He picked fights with people only to get slammed back to reality by an older generation of conservative that actually knew wtf they were talking about.

Probably because he is not actually running to be president but to ensure Trump is the nominee and maybe he gets to be VP.

 I've seen this a few times. Wouldn't doubt it. Trump likes bootlickers and this guy deepthroats the entire shoe.

If I may be completely honest for a second, I'm very disappointed in this squad. None of these clowns stood out for me - specially nothing solid on policy from any of them. And I'm worried none of them is a winning prospect for us in 2024. Only Trump can unite Republicans today and maybe bring in some independents.

Most of their ammo seems to be to avoid the Trump subject altogether. DeSantis hesitating about supporting Trump was like a child in a classroom looking around for what most people believe is the right answer to a math question. At this point I want to see someone with conviction and Vivek showed hints of that, but I do not want to fall victim to showmanship and all he seemed to do was parrot what his polls said were popular among the primary base, which is extremely short sighted (because winning a general is a different ballgame). He said climate change is a hoax. I'm really sorry to anyone who disagrees here, but in this day and age, that's a no go. There are climate events happening literally everywhere in the world, including in our red states.

The flip side of that argument is that Trump has also famously lost 3 elections now and has alienated large groups, specially post Roe, so the truth is if he's nominated we'll very likely lose barring some sort of major disaster between now and then.

 Yeah im going to be honest, if the GOP DOESNT go full on fascist, i cant see the party surviving in its current form into the 2030s. It's out of touch with the younger generation, and if you actually want change, I dont see why anyone would still be interested in the GOP.

Even if I start trotting out my old conservative values here, i admit, i dont believe them any more for a reason. I just wanna encourage people to NOT go full on fascist and vote for literal idiots when they could vote for the people who are just sane people who happen to be religious and conservative ideologues.

He’s a carbon copy of trump. Loud, obnoxious, arrogant, cocky, argumentative, takes extreme stances, doesn’t have a political resume, seem as a wildcard

 Without any of the charisma.

It seems pretty simple, everyone on that stage came off looking like a typical politician and he didn’t. While he won’t be able to pull off what Trump did in 16 he has created a launch pad for himself in 2028.

 After trump, a normal politician is what the conservatives need. Seriously, if you want change, you should become a progressive. Those guys have ideas. Conservatives...don't. They're stuck in small government and associated ideologies. Even trump isnt massively different on policy. And despite the populist rhetoric, he doesn't offer anything new.

Anyway, that's about all of the comments worth sharing, and my general view, they want something different than an establishment politician, but cant define it in terms of policy, and they seem to be trying to replicate the trump 2016 effect with some snarky 38 year old indian guy with no charisma. I don't get it. He doesn't offer anything. He's horrible on policy. He's like the right's RFK Jr. It's like people just want something different, dont know what they want, and vote for populist grifters who dont actually offer any meaningful change.

At least on the left, for all of its faults, we offer ideas to actually improve peoples' lives. But they dont want that for some reason. 

I don't get it. Like....I just dont get it. What do these people think they're gonna get with trump or vivek that they cant get with any other politician on stage? Their views are mostly the same outside of foreign policy, and honestly, vivek has that idiotic anti war streak the far left seems to like. Like im sorry, we need to participate in the world, my views are close to nikki haley's last night, and perfectly aligned with biden's, and yeah. 

Sometimes hating on the establishment for its own sake doesnt actually help anyone or advance any causes. It just doesn't. 

My ultimatum is this. If you want the status quo, vote R, if you want progress, vote D. And yeah, I do recognize that someone like mike pence or chris christie or nikki haley aint that meaningfully different from biden....but....WELCOME TO WHY I DONT LIKE BIDEN! Seriously, if i wanted a status quo guy, I'd vote R. I am on the left because i do want change, and i try to actually think of how to get the change done. These guys just want something that isnt a bog standard establishment politician, but they dont know what they want so they end up voting for demagogues. it's so dumb. Sorry, it is.

 

 

 

 

Ramaswamy "won"?! WHAT?!

 I have to admit, debates can be a bit of a rorschach test sometimes. I've seen atheists and christians debate and see atheists thinking their side won and christians thought their side won. Same happens with republicans v democrats, with republicans thinking their side won and democrats their side. 

But at the same time, I try to be at least somewhat objective. I put my own values aside and try to look at things as objectively as possible. And I have admitted in the past that Bernie and Yang, my favored candidates, have either bombed debates or had weaker performances than I would have liked. 

And let's face it, I went into the republican debate not really having ANY dog in this fight other than not liking trump and trumpism. And if anything, my expectations were rock bottom. I expected people to be trying to one up each other and trying to act more conservative than thou, and the extremes getting rewarded, and the moderates being tarred and feathered.

But it actually seemed to work the other way. There were a lot of big name establishment conservatives on the stage and honestly? They seemed almost sane compared to our current republican standard bearers. I'm going to be honest, I'm NOT a conservative, and I largely have a disdain for conservative values post 2012, but let's be honest. I also WAS a conservative at one point, and I did have values that leaned that way at one time. And my views were much more aligned with the moderate wings of the party these days than the extremists.

This is because I value, above all else, ideas that work, and as a conservative, I valued stability. Because that's what conservatives are supposed to do. it used to be "the left were the ones who wanted to push all of these extreme untested ideas on people and they dont work and end in disaster". But now the right is...being as extreme as possible?

That's one of the reasons I ended up abandoning conservative values in general. I followed the assumptions through to their conclusions, realized the radicalizing GOP was just going for the conclusions of their stated ideologies, and shifted away from them as a result. And as I said, my value for stability and some lessons from conservatism did serve me well in my life as a liberal, where I'm now ripping on my own new side's extremist impulses at times in talking about socialism and SJW ideology. 

But seeing a return to establishment moderates to the stage after dealing with trumpism, the most psychotic of GOP ideologies, and something that would have caused me to abandon the current party even if the tea party didn't force me out, it almost feels like a breath of fresh air. And seeing pence prattle on about conservative values and someone else go on about reagan almost made me slightly nostalgic. 

But then vivek entered the fray. And he's a 38 year old idiot who has no idea what he's talking about. he took the most extreme, delusional positions possible, and he came off as someone who doesn't know crap about politics but thinks they know it all. And I just saw a bunch of older, more experienced candidates with more realistic positions on things take him to school over and over again, and tell him to sit down, shut up, and take notes.

But somehow, people think he WON?! What PLANET are you people on? Has trump like rotted your sense of reality so much you now like this guy over a team of older, more experienced classical reagan conservatives who actually know how to govern? What?!

I admit, as a leftie, I like outsiders. This is because my ideology isn't well represented in politics and I am trying to act as a change agent. And sometimes you have to fight the battle with the army you got, not the army you want. I know vivek has been compared to like yang before. I mean, I like yang, but I also wish i had someone more experienced than yang with a similar value set, and to have someone who is more consistent with those values. And I like williamson, but lets face it, she's no bernie sanders. 

And I have to admit, when yang debated democrats like biden and harris, he looked TERRIBLE at times. Totally out of his depth. Even bernie kinda just went on about the same old stump speech and never stood out. Candidates like biden and harris dominated the 2020 debate cycle, with bernie only offering a middling ron desantis level performance. 

As such, I feel qualified in saying, no matter how you FEEL about vivek ramaswamy, he was out of his depth. He was young, he was inexperienced, he didn't know what he was talking about, and in a room full of conservative experts he looked bad.

And I know republicans tend to dislike things like expertise and think bob the 38 year old car mechanic from iowa knows better about virology than fricking dr fauci, but COME ON. Vivek was an idiot, he was out of his depth, and his ideas were often dangerous.

I get he was the best trump stand in given trump wasn't there (and i do think trump would've at least held his own because love him or hate him, he DOES have experience for this job), but seriously, he looked like an idiot. He really did. He didn't have the charisma or smooth talking trump did in 2016, and he sounded like that annoying hyperactive nerd people like trump and their hyper masculine alpha male mentalities would otherwise stuff into school lockers. It wasn't a good look. Hell, Christie, Pence, and Haley DID metaphorically stuff him into the school locker and handed him his butt on stage several times, and people still think they won?! WHAT?!

I don't get these people. I really don't. Like even, as an ex conservative, I dont get these people. There was a whole room full of more qualified candidates than vivek ramaswamy. Fricking Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum had better debate performances in my opinion. And you might be asking WHO? Yeah, that's the point. Ya know, old white guys with white hair no one can remember the names of with like 1% in the polls? Those are their names. That's how much vivek sucked in my opinion.

I stand by my opinion that anyone who actually thought he did a GOOD job literally doesnt understand politics, and probably would benefit most from taking the citizenship tests that vivek wants to force on people. Not that I would advocate for his proposal, because that's authoritarianism and the history of giving tests to people in order to allow them to vote is rife with negative consequences and open voter suppression. And unlike vivek, I'm not an authoritarian nutjob and knows better than to go down that route, regardless of how idiotic I think some voters are sometimes. 

Like really, forget my existing views for a second, as an ex conservative, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU PEOPLE?! I DONT EVEN RECOGNIZE THE PARTY ANY MORE! This is not the realignment I had hoped for. You had a stage full of experienced conservatives, many of whom i dont particularly like or agree with, but i can at least respect, and you go for fricking trump, who doesnt even believe in debates any more, and this vivek guy who basically is certifiably insane?

The republican party I grew up with cared about limited government and the rule of law. They fricking WORSHIPPED the constitution. They werent perfect, and as I got older, I became more liberal and left. But then I look back, and I really have to wonder what happened? because I look at the state of the party and I feel like we're in 1920s weimar germany. We even already had our failed fascist takeover like they did. And if this trend of illiberal extremists continues, then I fear that this country is screwed. 

Just fricking moderate enough where i dont have to fear for the state of american democracy if the right wins. That's all you have to do. Reject Trump, reject Ramaswamy, reject Desantis. Just reject your authoritarian nutcases. That's all I'm asking of you people. It's not like I'm expecting you guys to support universal healthcare or UBI any time soon. I get that, not gonna happen. Just fricking stop running candidates who make me fear for the future of democracy and who are a few fries short of a happy meal, ya know?

Discussing Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson

 So this one is going to be a brief one, I don't have a ton to say about this other than this interview had a much different vibe than the debate. The debate was civil and almost sane. I have to admit the general vibe of it may be out of touch with the republican voters and their current extremist tendencies, but it almost felt like a time warp of going back to like the 2000s and debating issues civilly and people having relatively sane positions on issues.

Now, I want to be blunt. This does NOT mean I LIKE these conservatives. I disagree with them. BUT, I am a bit nostalgic for the old days of the republican party when most conservatives ended up just huffing Reagan's farts instead of Trump's. Republicans are going to republican, but if the republicans can shift back to the center a bit where they are no longer threats to democracy itself, that would be nice.

But watching the trump interview was a totally different animal and it really just hammered home how much I hate Donald Trump these days. First, he talked about how he wasn't gonna debate because he didn't think that some of the other candidates had any business running for president, and how everyone would dogpile on him anyway, and holy crapballs batman, mask off from the start. He didnt wanna debate because he felt like his competition DIDNT DESERVE TO RUN (despite him starting off as some businessman butthole with ZERO qualifications) and how he would be attacked. This guy does not respect democracy, he wants to be a DICTATOR. And this is why i put him on a different level than the other candidates. I might think that Mike Pence is one of those small government fundie christian weirdos, but again, republicans are going to republican, this guy (Trump) seems to want to bar his competition from running.

And then most of the discussion seemed to be a massive portal to some alternate reality Jon Stewart might call "BS mountain." He was going on about Jeffrey Epstein not killing himself for some reason, and for much of it he spent defending his actions with the 2020 election and how the democrats stole it and how he was just fighting for his rights or whatever. And it just came off as gaslighting to me.

Not gonna lie, I can see how a lot of ignorant people can fall for his charade, but I'm just going to say it. Folks, this is getting DANGEROUS. I dont expect to agree with the right on much, if anything. But holy fricking crap, this guy is a LITERAL threat to democracy, and a LITERAL liar. Stop lapping up everything he says. He's bad for you. He's bad for our democracy. He's DANGEROUS. He represents a threat now that I dont believe he represented in 2016 and 2020. he won 2016 fair and square, and while I mightve despised the guy in 2020, I still was willing to believe it was business as normal. But post January 6th, there is no normal. THis guy is a full on threat to our country. He's dangerous. Don't listen to a word he says. 

As I said, if I were STILL a conservative, and I have enough sense to still be able to go back to the 2000s and my mindset then and think about which candidates i would like, I would go for Mike Pence. Not only does the dude have tons of experience, but he could offer both a fusion of old school conservatism and a less harmful version of trumpism in his platform. He seems like the strongest conservative pick for me, if I were to put my conservative thinking cap back on. He has everything past me would want in a conservative, and he is very clearly, the strongest candidate on that side of the aisle.

I totally get how Chris Christie and Nikki Haley might come off a little RINO-ey at times. I kinda respected their concessions to the middle and sanity as a liberal, but I do understand they might not be solid conservative standard bearers these days.

Just, for the love of god, avoid Trump and Ramaswamy. Those guys are dangerous and represent threats to our democracy, and that's coming right from both current me and pre 2012 me. Those guys are bad.

Desantis, well....I still see him as a hardliner, and some of his actions in florida concern me quite a bit, but he didn't have overt crazy vibes either last night. He did try to do his hardline thing, but yeah. it didn't resonate. Of course, what do I know? Given Trump, Desantis, and Ramaswamy are the top 3 candidates right now, I seem out of touch with the current GOP. Even if I didn't leave 2012 and stuck true to my values at the time, I still might find myself forced out by this trumpism BS. 

And yeah. Just....get away from him. Trump is insane. His lackeys are insane. The whole party is insane, and just like I feel like sane lefties need to push back against the communists and SJWs on my side of the aisle, I feel like the right needs to push back and take their party back from the trumpers.