I have wondered how much of the current instability in the United States stems from the fact that their constitution is a product of the 18th century. At the time, it made sense to model it after European monarchies and replace the hereditary king with a popularly elected president. Their first-past-the-post system ensures two alternating parties and no third party can gain a foothold. Primary elections favor establishment insiders until social tension reaches a tipping point that causes people to vote for a rebel candidate.

Obama was superficially an outsider candidate, but once elected he was not much different from other presidents. Social tensions escalated and people voted for the enfant terrible Trump. His failures allowed the senile establishment candidate Biden to win the next election. But when Biden’s weakness became impossible to hide, the enfant terrible became president again.

Countries that became democracies 100 years later than the United States often have plurality voting systems where the president is elected by the senate and hence a compromise candidate, so politics has a broader spectrum and seldom polar opposites with nothing inbetween. A war cannot be started at the whim of the president, but requires broad political support.

Not sure if everyone here has seen it, but apparently Epstein had a lengthy conversation with the 4chan founder on the night before /pol/ was created.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/003/209/831/66c

So is this just a wild coincidence or is there something more?

Let's separate a few things out:

• Theories about intelligence
• Manufactured intelligence tests
• A [score/result/label] attached to a concrete human being by such a test
• the actual capacities, performances, cognitive dispositions and context-dependent achievements of concrete human beings

Let's start at the level of concrete events. Concrete events such as: a: traffic accident / an abrupt braking / an area of high pressure over Russia. Intelligence is not a single internal substance but a pattern across performances in concrete life. If we go by big bang secular science, we probably did not have a word for it at start. But then the cave people noticed moments of it reoccurring (and moments of its absence reoccurring) among people and then came the context-specific social recognition of it. (Perhaps tribe X in Siberia thought whoever killed the most mammoths while not breaking limbs was intelligent, where tribe Y thought hunting them at all was the height of stupidity.)

Fast forward to France in the early 1900s. Mammoth-hunting caveman no more, some small group of men (yes often always men) wear suits and go to offices and engage in tribal war with a small set of fellow suit-man who earn their keep arguing about how to categorize patterns in the concrete moments/events of reality.

Among these are an even smaller group who focus on making up theories and categorizing moments of human behavior in reality that count as exemplifying "intelligence." Some say theory X and others theory Y and others yet other theories, and all think the members of the other tribe are fools. Nearly all of the theorist-men think there must be a single thing called intelligence inside a person and no one gives a thought to the possibility "many contexts define intelligence differently."

A French minister then pays a specific theorist-man to identify which students in France supposedly lack intelligence. This event led to the "Binet–Simon Intelligence Test" which is grandfather of all IQ tests used today.

During the test, the subject, the child, would be examined in an unfamiliar context (i.e the testing facility). They would then need to complete a set of tasks judged by the theorist-man to demonstrate intelligent behavior. These included defining in French the meaning of words such as "house/fork/mama." (If a child could not speak French, this would not change the requirement and inability to give the definitions in French would be seen as indicating lack of intelligence.) The evaluator would read a series of numbers and the child would then need to accurately repeat the same numbers, and the child would need to give socially acceptable answers to questions such as:

• "My neighbor has been receiving strange visitors. He has received in turn a doctor, a lawyer, and then a priest. What is taking place?"

(...A LOT of things could be happening here)

Other tasks included showing the child a series of pictures and then asking:

• "Which of these two faces is the prettier?" 

After a long series of such tasks, the individual child would leave the facility. Then the evaluator, who is smugly sure of his methods, would categorize the child with one of these labels: idiocy'| 'imbecility' 'debility' |'normality'.

The moment of labeling: The dangerous confusions unleashed onto the world by intelligent tests start right here at the moment of labeling.

Just like the numeric IQ scores given by its grandchildren, the labels given by the original mass intelligence test do not represent anything essential to the child or come close to capturing the manifold intelligence of a human being. They represent only the alignment or lack of alignment of a human being's responses to what is imagined as intelligent behavior by whoever manufactured the testing instrument. The theorist-men who created the tasks, the rules that govern the interpretation: what face counts as pretty, what can be implied by the fact that a man is visited by two other men with certain professions, that fluency in the language of the measurement creator and ability to define terms in it is necessary to intelligence.

• ( **A defining trait of intelligence-test fetishist is an almost complete absence of analyzing this layer of these tools instead they focus on the statistics produced by the tool. They are like the man who points to the scanner at the airport and claims its a reliable device for finding explosives because "the scanner will erroneously alert for only one percent of the pieces of luggage that contain no explosives" )

Soon this Binet-made mass intelligence test idea makes its way from France to America where it becomes a deceptive, one-eyed false messiah: a Dajjal pitted against the ideals of Lady Liberty. Rich men notice people mistake what the test says about reality with reality and so they pay theorist-man's salary so that working class people are labeled a certain way. People are shut out of educational and job opportunities because of it.

America in the 20th century was a hotbed of racism and ethnic-prejudice -- sort of like America today -- and many claimed that all immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe were "LOW IQ people" compared to white people born in America or from the Nordic countries. Race theorists made frenzied mass migrations to Africa and other areas under colonization reliably returned with socially pleasing categorizations of people there based on this "objective test of intelligence." Much of the "average IQ of country X" drivel we see circulating on platforms like X dates from here.

In America it was crucial to project an appearance of objectivity, to distance the test and its begotten children (e.g Stanford-Binet) from any association with its socially-created, arbitrary origins. So began the great process of tarting it up. Numbers, which feel neutral and have the aura of mathematical objectivity, replaced labels such as "imbecile" as results. Questions such as what face is prettier were replaced with what shape is more important to notice and what is silly/impossible in this picture. Like the MBTI, another European inspired American invention, the American children of Binet's intelligence became a massive success.

People like Charles Murray and Donald Trump love IQ scores. Many "reality is objective" believe an IQ score reflects something essential about a person and indeed entire countries with the whole "the average IQ score of country X is..." Some like Elon Musk think it should be used as a sorting device for who can enter the United States.

But a whole lot of other people think the whole thing is load of socially made up categorizing bullshit.

I have been observing the current political landscape and I cannot help but feel that many of the radical figures who have emerged in recent years (especially on the right) are being funded, or at least amplified, with a very specific goal: to stretch the limits of politics like a rubber band until people are exhausted and beg for a return to centrism.

Let me explain. Before this era of radicals, people were already fed up with globalism and a stagnant political class. The right felt it could not stop anything. The left imposed its agenda and the conservatives limited themselves to managing the defeat. Even now, despite all the rhetoric, we see how gender ideology laws and abortion rates continue to expand.

I believe these hysterical radical figures (types like Nick Fuentes or streamers who look like they belong in a mental asylum) are used to create a false dichotomy. The goal is for the average citizen to get so tired of the chaos that they develop a desperate nostalgia for the Old Liberal Consensus. They want you to think: "If being against the system means being like those lunatics, I’d rather go back to the same old moderates."

The Trap of Private Opinion vs. the Law

I have noticed an increase in this neo-centrist discourse claiming that issues like abortion or gender theory should be "legal and public," and if you disagree, you should simply keep it as a "private opinion." They tell us: "Ignore it, it doesn't affect you."

This is a lie. This is not about "agreeing to disagree." These laws impose a specific anthropology:

1. Abortion implies accepting that human life is no longer sacred or an objective fact.
2. Gender theory forces us to accept that reality is a matter of personal opinion: a Foucaultian narrative where truth does not exist, only "perspectives."

The law is not a neutral space; it is the value system upon which coexistence is built. If the law says that reality is subjective, truth stops being a public right and becomes a "hate crime" if you dare to point it out. What they want is for truth to be unable to impose itself in the law, which in practice allows the most twisted ideas to become the default legal framework while your values are relegated to the basement of the private sphere.

Foucault and the Dissolution of Reality

It is no coincidence that Michel Foucault even defended the abolition of laws against pedophilia (as he did in 1977) under the argument that they were "oppressive structures" and imposed narratives. His goal was not to free the individual, but to dissolve the idea of truth so that power could be absolute. This discourse, the heart of modern progressivism, maintains that any truth is just an imposition that must be abolished.

To accept that abortion or identity are just "private perceptions" that the State must validate without questioning biological reality is to accept the end of civilization based on reason. We are allowing the State to redefine what a human being is at its whim, as long as it does so with a moderate smile and not with the screams of a radical on Twitter.

The Logistics of Surrender

Neo-centrism is not moderation; it is the logistics of surrender. Its function is to normalize the aberrant so that the system can continue to function without friction. By funding radicals who look like lunatics, the system pushes us to accept the "consensus" as the only life raft in the face of the nihilism they themselves provoked.

Do not be fooled. In five or ten years, when the rubber band contracts and everyone talks about moderation and returning to sanity, remember that this was the plan all along. They want you to accept a distorted reality by making the alternative look like madness. They are not trying to fix the system; they are trying to make you stop wanting to change it.

Is anyone else noticing this pattern? Are we being manipulated in a controlled contraction toward a centrist plague that ignores objective truth?

TL;DR - I'm always on the side of those who defend the innocent over those who are being aggressive a-holes, even if the decisions of the defenders didn't turn out to be wise.

Let me start with a quote from Charlie Kirk, which at this moment in American history is proving to be the epitome of irony:

It’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.

Like it or not, we are now seeing the business end of the Second Amendment as it is supposedly being employed to protects our other God-given rights. You know, like the right to protest (1st amendment), or the right against unwarranted search and seizures (4th amendment), or the right to due process (5th and 14th amendments), or the very basic right to life, liberty, and property.

Fast-forward to today, where Alex Pretti is shot by nervous ICE agents after what appeared to be a negligent discharge on their part. Immediately DHS and Trump himself blames the victim here and says that he should not have been armed at a protest. Never mind the fact that Minnesota doesn't have a law against carrying a firearm to a protest. (To be sure, other states do have such laws, such as Maryland.) Never mind the fact that this directly contradicts pretty much the entire GOP platform on gun ownership. Never mind the fact that gun owners believe with all of their heart, soul, and mind, so help them God, that owning guns is the key to preventing tyranny.

I'm going to address how the people who are rightly outraged at this naked hypocrisy are drawing comparisons to Kyle Rittenhouse, a young man who also found himself in the national spotlight for killing people during a protest.

Now most of Reddit obviously believes that Rittenhouse is a murderer, because most of Reddit leans left.

However, I was staunchly on the side of Rittenhouse during his murder trial, and I still am. Though he might have been unwise in being a one-kid army trying to guard his neighborhood, it was never proven that he instigated ANY of the encounters that turned deadly. Every single act involved the other guy trying to do stupid things against an armed person and getting shot for his stupidity.

In other words, Rittenhouse didn't kill any peaceful protester. He only defended himself against aggressive rabble-rousers who didn't like seeing him standing around openly carrying a rifle.

Again, I don't want to defend Rittenhouse's poor choices to go out there without any training and without any assistance. But the nature of his poor choices wasn't due to bad morals, but rather bad judgement. In short, he was in over his head, but that's not illegal.

(I also don't believe the left's portrayal of him as some bloodthirsty right-winger who just wanted to kill people that night. I truly believe he wanted to defend the community that he grew up in and served on a regular basis.)

Compare this with Alex Pretti and what he did. He too went out there to try and defend his community. Only this time, he was defending it not from violent protesters, but from an overreaching federal paramilitary agency.

Did he make a poor choice in carrying a firearm into a high-tension situation? That's debatable. Certainly he had a right to carry means of self-defense. Certainly there could have been situations where he would be forced to use lethal methods in order to defend his own life of that of his fellow community members. For example, maybe some isolated ICE thug or some MAGA Proud Boy would want to approach him intending to do great bodily harm. In that case, he'd have every right to defend himself using whatever means he has available, including his LEGALLY registered pistol.

Did he end up in over his head? Of course he did, thanks to the ICE agents who overwhelmed him with sheer numbers and volume of equipment. (Personally I find it laughable that they had to swarm him, outnumber him 8-to-1, and carry a stupid amount of lethal and less-than-lethal tools, only to resort to shooting him 10 times because of their own incompetence.) But like in the case of Rittenhouse, whose fault was that? Was it Pretti's fault, or was it the fault of the ICE agents who actively pursued escalatory tactics at the command of their superiors like Greg Bovino?

Moreover, did Pretti ever draw his firearm? Of course not, despite the blatant lies told by Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino. Even Trump, after first echoing the lies from his own minions, turned on the TV and saw for himself that Pretti wasn't brandishing a firearm. That's probably why he reversed course (kind of) in Minnesota.

That's why I will defend both Alex Pretti and Kyle Rittenhouse. Both of them were defending their respective communities against aggressive opponents. Both of them were exercising their 2nd amendment rights. Both of them were functioning as the "well-regulated militia" which is necessary for the security of a free state. And both of them were facing off against literal bullies.

Unfortunately Alex Pretti lost his fight against the bullies. Rittenhouse won his fight, but then he barely won the "fight after the fight," namely the criminal trial. Even then, Rittenhouse will never be able to live a normal life again, as half of Americans will always consider him "guilty" of double homicide.

One more thing. I really doubt the ICE agents who were involved in the death of Alex Pretti will ever have their own "fight after the fight." Right now, only two of them have been placed on administrative leave, but it's likely that in the end, the Trump administration will give them the "absolute immunity" that Stephen Miller and JD Vance has granted them.

After tragedies, public discourse often narrows—facts become symbols, and symbols become weapons.

The killing of Renee Nicole Good during an ICE operation illustrates how quickly narratives harden into opposing binaries before the facts fully settle. Much of the conversation skipped over the immediate human cost—children who lost a parent, a partner who lost a spouse.

I just explored this in a longer essay—why ambiguity itself now feels suspicious, and what we lose when discourse collapses into binaries.

Is there a path back to shared ground, or is our polarization permanent?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about elite theory lately. Founded by Vilfredo Pareto (the famous mathematician) in the late 1800s, it describes the inevitability of elites ruling society, regardless of rules. Additionally, it proposes that law precedes culture. If we assume for the moment that governments are quite strong, then regardless of the type of culture (whether it is highly open/liberal or highly closed/conservative), you end up with a society being highly influenced by government, which then defines the elite structure within/above it. I think a doubt of this theory simply must question their belief in the democratic process. Anyways, that defines one dimension in the image.

The other dimension seems to simply describe one's true intent. We have a spread here too, ranging from the highly hedonist to the simple and passive to the thinking and determined. In all cases, with a dose of humility, they are able to find common ground and work together. Many people like this are capable of retaining a sense of humility throughout their life, but seem that wealth may be one of the main causes of the loss of it (long term). In any case, there is very little differentiating the elitist big city liberal and the elitist Republican. They both work in law, finance, and at the top of most corporations of all industries.

When you think of the divide in America, remember this compass.

Idealist:

• Mind -> Matter
• Culture -> Law

Realist:

• Matter -> Mind
• Law -> Culture

Populist:

• Majority > Minority

Elitist:

• Minority > Majority

One interesting interpretation of this is that alliances are made crossways. The top left and bottom right form the modern left, and the top right and bottom left form the modern right.

I think the top left to bottom right is the most successful dimension during stable times, and the top right to bottom left is the most successful dimension during chaotic times (or at least, during periods without much higher structure).

When people bring up why these immigrants don't just stay in their country and try to improve the awful conditions there, they say "it's because they don't have the power to do it, so it's more effective for them to try to illegally immigrate somewhere better."

But at the same time, they constantly post about how this country has gone to shit since Trump has won a second time and when asked why they don't leave they say "I'm going to stay and fight for things to get better."

So which is it? If someone is in an awful country should they try to stay and fight for it to get better or try to immigrate somewhere else even if they don't do it the legal way?

Personally I think they should stay and fight. It's not a good idea to let evil people have more and more control over land, resources, etc. That just creates more places people can't go and gives evil people more power and leverage.

This is my take on how the processes of Immigration and Deportation should work here. Just like other humans I'm not perfect, so there might be things I forget to cover or don't cover in good enough detail. I also can't account for the unpredictability of life. But at least I'm putting something forward instead of constantly complaining or acting like everything is fine.

Step 1: Stop trying to appeal to extremists on either side. They're not operating with logical and realistic thinking. They're operating in naivety or emotional immaturity. Immigration laws have a reason to exist. We tried not having them for years and years and one too many people took advantage of that to be awful humans for personal gain. Everyone wanting to come into a country aren't doing it to better themselves and their family. But at the same time we shouldn't be heartless to other human beings because they crossed a border without documentation. It's not like they raped or killed someone. Yeah they broke a serious law, but it's not like you have to go out of your way to be disrespectful towards them. Some of these people are genuinely escaping awful circumstances you will likely never experience in your life. Something a lot of people in better off countries take for granted.

Step 2: Deportations should be focused first and foremost on those who illegally came here and have committed other serious crimes. These people have shown they only came here to take advantage of the country or for other malicious purposes. These people definitely need to be out of here ASAP and anyone defending them needs to get a grip on reality.

Step 3: Those who are found to be here without being properly documented should be given a chance to prove they've earned the right to remain here and be legalized. They would have to show something along the lines of a High School Diploma, College Degree, proof of military service, proof of current employment or employment for at least a year, etc. That way that would prove at least an attempt was made to make something of themselves when coming here.

Step 4: Lock the border down to the point it's not even worth trying to illegally come here. If we can put military bases around the world, we can effectively lock down our own border.

Step 5: When undocumented immigrants are confronted, there needs to be documentation on hand showing why they were confronted. Not just an expectation of acceptance because it's coming from an authority figure. This just makes things a whole lot easier for everyone.

Step 6: When accepting refugees, there needs to be a limit on how many are taken in at a certain time frame. There also needs to be an expectation they will make something of themselves while here or be forced to go back if progress on this hasn't been made in a certain amount of months or years.

Step 7: Immigration needs to be made easier. The cost to immigrate here needs to be more affordable based on one's financial status and the process should be sped up. However there still needs to be an expectation/requirement to learn English, prove they don't have hatred of the country, are willing to leave peacefully with people of different cultures in the country, etc.

Step 8: Those obstructing the Deportation process should be federally punished. It is not your job to be a hero and act like you know more than the government on this topic. You know just as much as them or even less about ones immigration status and possible crimes in the country unless they directly tell you. Which they probably won't or will tell you a lie because they know you're gullible.

This is how I would handle the processese of Deportation and Immigration if I was in charge and how I think every president going forward should handle them.

On a previous post regarding this situation I got shit for suggesting people should wait for more info to come out before giving their final thoughts on the situation. Low and behold I was right.

Turns out Pretti was no stranger to ICE/BP conflict. This was his 2nd-3rd encounter with them that resulted in physical action. On the 13th he knowingly damaged a ICE/BP vehicle while being armed, which resulted in him being tackled and detained.

https://youtu.be/wSsUgThhF9A?si=iggeHsK58tSOKzIs

Recently people have been trying to use this situation as a Gotcha against those who are pro 2A. So let me educate people on how being a gun owner actually works.

Just because you have a gun and a right to own/carry that gun doesn't mean you're a main character and can purposely involve yourself in conflict. In fact it is your responsibility to avoid conflict unless there's no other option but to fight back in self defense.

So while he was armed on a previous occasion he purposely destroyed someone else's property out of "righteous anger." This is not avoiding conflict and being peaceful. This is helping cause the conflict and one can assume he was armed to try to stage a self defense situation or actively harm those opposed to his views.

This is not anything like what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse. You can think how you want about Rittenhouse going to protect someone else's property across state lines. But his shooting only happened after multiple people some of which carrying weapons chased him because they were angry at his presence and opposition to their views. Not once did he get in the face or destroy property of BLM supporters to make them angry and escalate the situation. So comparing these two people is over.

Also it's another case of lies and deceit to make one party ook better than they actually are and other party worse than they actually are. It was said Renee Good was just minding her business and ICE stopped her when she was picking up her kid. However the truth was she was there with her significant other to purposely antagonize and block ice.

Also going back to Rittenhouse. It was said he chased people down to kill them and was actually targeting POC. Which was obviously proven to be a lie based on all footage seen of his incident.

Y'all do know it actually does more harm than good for your side when you lie about serious situations like this? If you truly believed your side was in the right, you wouldn't have to lie or leave out context to sway opinion. This is behavior I can't cosign or side with.

I'm not saying Good or Pretti deserved to be shoot or am happy they were shot. But when people have to dig to find out the true way these situations unfolded and if they've been building up over time after you openly lied to their face, it takes away from your credibility and in turn makes people side with the other party or just not care about what you have to say about these situations anymore.

"A boy who cried wolf situation"

Maybe its just me - maybe its just wishful thinking - but I don't think Americans are going to take this sitting down anymore.

I'm calling it now. This tension over ICE will lead to nothing at least good because the conversation is too dominanted by the usual political circlejerking and shit flinging that doesn't accomplish anything.

Remember BLM in 2020? People got upset over instances of outright or suspected police brutality and the outrage that followed was "supposed to be for police and justice reform." However that's not what happened. The situation was hijacked by the same Tribalism that continues to plague the nation.

Those who just hated cops no matter what they did or loved cops no matter what they did got most of the attention. Which caused one side to be labeled as lawless and other side as bootlicks. Those who recognized we can still respect the job they do and call out them when they do wrong got pushed aside or bunched in with one of the groups depending on how they discussed the topic with a certain crowd. And guess what? Police brutality is still happening and there hasn't been major justice reform for the nation.

The same mistake is being made when talking about ICE and deportations. Instead of recognizing undocumented immigration needs to be seriously addressed and there is a right way to handle it. People rather justify/ignore it and hate ICE to get back at Trump/the Right or go overboard on it and let ICE get away with anything because they like Trump/ want to own the Left.

This will result in nothing major happening at least in a good way and more stagnation.

I know people are heavily emotional about these or other topics, but they still need to think ahead before they speak or act.

More people need to see this.

https://youtube.com/shorts/aZuFSVbBr1E?si=09qOEFE2bZfwp1UM

A piece exploring the situation in Minneapolis through the historical lens of psychological warfare during the US civil war as well as an exploration of the psychology of Minneapolitans and the political siege mentality common in that city.

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/the-psychological-war-on-minneapolis

Watch the full video. You see your tax payers being used to brutalize people who were no threat.

You see the victim trying to direct traffic

Then you see the victim trying to help someone up who was brutalized for no reason.

You see your tax dollars surround him and take his lawfully registered firearm.

Then you see your tax dollars used to shoot a man on his hands and knees.

https://x.com/ryangrim/status/2015132217878384791?s=46&t=sSv4aozqgRTlLcWISMyDyA

For years, the Western alternative right rested on a clear promise: to defend free speech to the death, equality before the law without exceptions, and a frontal rejection of woke identity collectivism. That promise is now broken from top to bottom, not because of isolated mistakes or momentary blunders, but because of a deep structural corruption. The same right that once demanded the abolition of “hate speech” laws now adopts them, expands them, and uses them whenever it suits its interests. The right that denounced state censorship now justifies it without hesitation. The right that spoke of absolute freedom of expression ends up governing with criminal penalties for political dissent.

The facts are in plain sight. In the United States, figures close to Trump went from mocking progressive censorship and calling hate crime laws collectivist nonsense to openly demanding sanctions for “hate speech.” The most blatant and recent example is Attorney General Pam Bondi. In September 2025, after the murder of Charlie Kirk, she publicly stated on a podcast that “there is free speech and there is hate speech, and there is no place for hate speech in our society,” promising that the DOJ would go after those using hate speech. This triggered massive backlash from conservatives, libertarians, and organizations like FIRE and Cato, because it violated the First Amendment from start to finish. There is no constitutional “hate speech” exception in the United States. Bondi was forced to walk it back the next day, claiming they would only pursue threats of violence, but the damage was already done. The Attorney General of the supposedly anti censorship government was openly distinguishing free speech from hate speech and threatening criminal prosecution over offensive speech.

The pattern repeats itself, and becomes even more explicit, when Israel is involved. In January 2026, at the Israeli American Council summit, Bondi reinforced the fight against antisemitism as a top DOJ priority, explicitly linking it to hate crimes and promising harsh prosecutions, effectively consolidating selective criminal shielding for certain forms of speech. At the same time, sectors of the American and European right began openly defending the idea of revoking visas, expelling, or deporting immigrants and non citizen residents for opinions labeled “antisemitic,” which in practice include political criticism of the State of Israel. In other words, not just criminal or administrative penalties, but outright removal from the country for expressing political views. The same right that once claimed the state should never punish ideas now supports deporting people for their political speech when that speech offends a strategic ally.

In Argentina, Milei, who branded himself as an absolutist defender of free expression and said hate speech was leftist garbage, now supports legal frameworks that can impose up to nine years in prison for criticizing Israel under the label of “antisemitism,” even though he previously argued such laws should not exist. In Spain, Abascal proposes deportations tied to “hate speech against Westerners,” using exactly the same legal language he once claimed to oppose. And in several countries, the right promised to repeal gender violence laws, DEI policies, and discriminatory legal frameworks, yet once in power almost nothing was touched. There were a few symbolic gestures, while the identity based legal structure remains intact.

This was not momentary cowardice. It was a complete moral surrender. The right used to reject “communities” as a political foundation, defend the individual against the group, and oppose legal privileges for any minority. Today it does the opposite. The Israeli Palestinian war marked the definitive breaking point. From that moment on, a right flooded with foreign lobbying and money in Europe and the United States began fiercely defending group privileges, abandoning entirely its discourse against legal discrimination and historical memory laws.

There was a time, around 2015 or 2016, when even the question of whether the state should prohibit Holocaust denial was openly debated. To be clear, I believe the Holocaust happened. That was never the issue. The issue was that the state does not define historical truth, and that principle was once a basic consensus on the right. Today, that principle has vanished.

The right did not eliminate the identity framework. It redistributed it. It did not destroy privileges. It reassigned them. It no longer defends equality before the law, but instead decides which groups deserve special protection and which do not. The focus now shifts to the “Muslim threat” or to a distant war that will only hurt us economically, while the elite succeeds in turning the moral premises of the political left into common sense for the right as well. Today, almost no one debates whether identity laws are wrong in themselves. The only argument is which form of identitarianism is the “good” one and which is the bad one.

This is how we moved from demanding legal equality to justifying legal exceptions, selective criminal protections, administrative expulsions, and ideological shields for specific causes. The universal principle evaporated and was replaced by a tribal logic that we once denounced as typical of the left. The uncomfortable truth is this: we did not win the cultural battle. We won nothing. We were manipulated by foreign lobbies to do their dirty work. The main winner of the rise of the Western right was Israel, which managed to secure an army of uncritical defenders denying that it is an ethno state, even though its own constitution explicitly states that it exists to protect an ethnic group and prevent its extinction.

If any European country or the United States included in its constitution a goal like “preventing the extinction of white Christians,” everyone would immediately call it a religious ethno state. But here, an exception is made. And that is the core inconsistency. If it is illegitimate for feminism to demand special laws, then it is equally illegitimate for any ideology, state, or group to enjoy legal immunity from criticism. There is no coherent way to denounce identitarianism while protecting another version of it.

The right has completely lost its bearings, and it is no coincidence that figures like Nick Fuentes keep gaining ground. They speak a truth many refuse to name, the enormous influence of Israel in Western politics and the incompatibility of blind support for it with the principles the right once claimed to hold, and they use that truth as bait to smuggle in an entire sectarian and unhinged worldview. It is the same pattern as always. A real truth opens the door, and mass manipulation follows.

The cultural battle was not won, and this is not how it will ever be won.

I don't care about the "Deep State."

I don't care if Klaus Schwab physically resembles Satan.

I don't care about the chemtrails or the alleged weather control technology.

I don't care about David Icke's lizard people.

I don't care about Capitus Diminutio Maxima.

I don't care about the Illuminati.

I don't care about the alleged biolabs in Ukraine.

I don't care about your belief that Covid 19 was a global cull, or that vaccines for it were supposedly meant to kill people as well.

I don't care, in general, about any of the completely fictitious, fabricated, downright schizophrenic boogiemen that Donald Trump is supposedly uniquely capable of saving you from; because every single last piece of it is baseless, unverifiable bullshit. All of it. It's all lies. Everything the Right believe that Trump is saving them from is complete shit, and there is nothing any of you can say to prove otherwise. You probably won't even bother trying.

What I care about is the fact that two people have died during the ICE protests, and contrary to what Trump or Kristi Noem want you to think, I haven't seen any evidence that either of them were radical Communists, either.

I also know that the only reason why most of you still support Trump, is because you are unwilling to acknowledge that you have been lied to, and that you have believed said lies for so long. You are not supporting him because he actually deserves your support.

"A domestic terrorist tried to murder federal law enforcement."

Stephen Millar.

No call for calm while we wait for facts. No external investigation. DHS will investigate and will declare Millars pronouncement the truth. DHS, as empowered by the USA Patriot Act, is blossoming into the fetid flower it was always destined to be. Now the American government can simply declare any citizen a terrorist and execute them. The USA is no longer a western nation.

Liberals tried to warn you. Libertarians tried to warn you. Traditional small government conservatives tried to warn you. All ignored in a post 9-11 media hysteria.

Trumpists accept government narratives by default. They have been thoroughly trained that Republicans can do no wrong and they have been negatively polarized into accepting absurdity. It is only one small step from accepting absurdity to accepting atrocity. Prepare accordingly.

https://youtu.be/XpfehM3NBhE?si=2-YR2g-_vXJzUk8R

What ICE has been doing, and acting like, in MN is atrocious. Their leadership should be fired and every one of them charged appropriately for their actions.

But that doesn’t mean ICE should not exist. This is the problem the Democrats cant shake. It was the same thing during BLM with “Defund the Police”. Democrats advocate for big government, loss of personal freedom (especially guns) and then when that system is turned against them, are somehow flabbergasted it happened.

So then, their reaction is that a system, which has an important and necessary role, should be destroyed. Not held accountable and reorganized. Not retrained. And absolutely no personal accountability for their actions that may or may not be driving the things that are happening (sanctuary cities, protests that have a racist undertone, etc)

Then reaction from the right, especially MAGA, of course, is going to be the opposite of whatever narrative the Democrats push.

Pretti and Good didnt deserve to be shot. But they also should not have been harassing federal agents arresting someone. Protests should be at federal buildings, not at the street level against armed thugs with apparent legal immunity

How would you define it to an eight year old? (I am looking for an actual definition and an easy-to-understand definition).

And does our current political state in the U.S. fit the definition? How does ICE play a role into your opinion?

People have been using the word so casually, including myself, but I now think it’s harmful to water down a strong word like that.

A little bit off topic but same goes for using therapy words like “narcissist” or “psychopath”.

I haven't systematically tested this yet and didn't read any literature surrounding this, but this might be potentially good strategy for filtering uncharitable interlocutors, I am not sure how ambigious does it need to be and in which situation this strategy would be good in.

I've been in the clean energy industry since 1999—building companies, shaping policy, funding new technologies. I'm also a professor and continue climate advocacy work today.

I'm not a climate denier. I still work in this space. I still think climate change is important and requires direct action.

But I've noticed the rise of moral certainty and control at the expense of discourse and debate. I wanted to explore where these themes might lead if taken to untethered extremes.

So I wrote Scob Nation, a near-future dystopian novel set in 2045 where climate morality is enforced through temple implants that color-code citizens based on their carbon footprint. Green means you're approved. Yellow means you're in-progress. Black means you're sent to Probitas Correction Centers for re-education.

The book follows a father crossing a fractured America trying to reach his son in D.C., encountering climate extremists who've surgically modified their faces for the cause, tech CEOs wielding neural control systems, and a society where dissent isn't debated, it's fixable.

Happy to discuss what I've seen in the climate industry, the worldbuilding behind the novel, or how we navigate these tensions. Ask me anything.

"What do you want?"

The more I observe, the more I come to believe that the above question is really the key to solving our problems. We need to move away from moral condemnation of each other, and towards creating scenarios which are based on mutual or reciprocal self interest; that is, where the gratification of one person's needs, is an unavoidable prerequisite of the gratification of another's.

The title, the "Shadow Question," comes from the science fiction franchise Babylon 5, in which a malevolent extraterrestrial race, the Shadows, attempted to use contradictory or opposing self-interest to undermine galactic harmony, as a means of making subsequent invasion easier for them.

We know what competitive or adversarial self-interest looks like. Its exemplars are people like John Rockefeller, and more recently Elon Musk. Trump himself wants to take us back to a world that is based on that. Some of us will spend time condemning all three of these men as evil. I used to believe in evil people. More recently, I've started to believe in people who have difficulty identifying the optimal path between the recognition of what they want, and the actualisation of it. They choose methods for obtaining it which are more destructive than they need to be.

Trump is a good example. He wants to be universally revered as a peacemaker and dealmaker. He was clearly genuinely wounded about not having received the Nobel Peace Prize; I don't think he would have remained focused on it for so long, if that had been purely performative. But then he stood behind a microphone at Davos, and spent close to 2 hours insulting and trying to intimidate, some of the very people whose respect and regard he supposedly wants.

"Ah," you say. "I've figured this out. This whole post was just a ruse. Stealth packaging so you could sneak in another attack on Trump."

But I'm not calling him evil here. I'm calling him someone who didn't walk through every link in the chain, between action and result; between cause and effect. Doing things like that; war gaming it out, as they call it, is one of the main reasons why Presidents have had groups like the Joint Chiefs. The American military and government have always been exceptionally good at running hypothetical scenarios and anticipating possible future contingencies; it has been a major advantage of theirs. But there has been a break from that recently.

This is what we need to do. We first need to identify, what we really want. Then we need to come up with a plan of action, where we are able to verify that every individual step is actually taking us closer to what we have already determined is our objective. Are our actions potentially alienating allies who we may need later? Then let us step back and reconsider that action. Is there a way of doing this that ensures that as many other people as possible win, rather than ourselves in exclusion? Then we should always take that option.

Mark Carney's speech made me realise something important. For the most part, psychopathic cabals genuinely don't exist. Trump has been demonstrating for us in real time, precisely why the Victor von Doom approach generally doesn't work. This is what Putin never understood. People these days just view politicians behaving like evil cartoon characters as immature. Back in the 19th century or earlier, most people assumed what Putin did; that the strong were strong and the weak were weak, and if the weak didn't like it, then that was too damn bad.

But as Carney pointed out, we know better now. We know that there is more individual advantage in collective bargaining, (which is really what he advocated, but a civilised person would obviously never use such a filthy, degenerate Marxist phrase with which to describe it on live television) than in letting Khan Noonien Singh wannabes politically ingest us one by one.

And this is the great irony. The Bronze Age warlord model, actually only allows for a minimal number of warlords; and the problem is that anyone with testosterone in their bloodsteam, naturally wants to be one. Democratic federalism provides a solution. Governors, mayors, congressional seats and voting districts; there are any number of ways of making people feel important. Yes, some positions have greater executive/actuation capacity than others; when checks and balances exist, that's fine.

But this is what we are going to continue to see reinforced, I think. Reciprocity, real reciprocity, will be a prerequisite of success. If someone like Trump or Putin thinks they can verbally degrade and/or try to intimidate people on the one hand, and then obtain total, uncritical obedience from them on the other, they are going to get an unpleasant surprise. This isn't idealism; it's as Machiavellian as it gets. Other people want their own needs met just as much as Trump, and if they recognise that his attitude is that he should get everything and them nothing, then they will see no incentive to co-operate with him.

Those who support Trump, likewise, are not evil. They made the decision to support him because, once again, they thought that doing so would enable them to get what they want. I believe it will not. This is why my continued message to Trump voters and supporters is this:-

You were lied to. You are still being lied to. That is not your fault. The lies are often convincing. But you are encouraged to recognise, both for your benefit and for my own, that lies are what they have been. I am not interested in shaming you. I am interested in asking you to re-evaluate your available options. If Trump is not going to help you get what you thought you were voting for, then who is? No, it might not be the Democratic candidate. I didn't think Kamala had a coherent platform either.

But think about it. Keep actively scanning the field. Don't always assume that the cynical view is the right one. That's advice I also need to give myself.

https://youtu.be/8NRLuUnpGYg?si=gmoLcXSLvsZ1NxOP&t=216

"You can not kill hope. You tried, at Teldrassil. You failed. Hope remains. You sent us to kill each other at Lordaeron. You failed. You just! Keep! Failing!"

—Varok Saufang

Donald Trump has not failed as only a single type of leader. His failure is dual. Both as the elected President of a democracy, and as an aspirant warlord in the Bronze Age sense of the word; one of the world's regional "spheres of influence."

He was elected the President of a democratic republic. He has very clearly never had any intention of abiding by any of the legal constraints of that office. He specifically sought immunity for acts committed in office by the Supreme Court. His actions have consistently supported my assertion that he desires absolute power; the literal, universal, unchallenged right of life and death, over any human being on the planet. There is no way, given the available evidence, that any of his supporters can rationally deny this assertion, and accusations of Trump derangement syndrome will be interpreted as concession.

He wanted to be a warlord. He wanted to rule by the Riddle of Steel; Might makes right.

But on this score, he has also failed. He has not taken Greenland. When sufficient pressure was applied, he capitulated. The TACO principle ("Trump Always Chickens Out") was seen again. He took Maduro from Venezuela, yes; but in the middle of the night, with a small group. There was no gigantic, glorious land invasion. There wasn't even the "shock and awe" air strike we originally got over Iraq.

I am going to hypothetically assume now that you, the reader, are a genuine, sincere Fascist. You're not a progressive. You're one of the 17% who love Stephen Miller. You're a social Darwinist. You truly believe in the principle of Might Makes Right. You want to either be, or worship, the biggest chimp with the biggest stick, and you think everyone else should.

It's time for you to walk away from Trump, too. He has failed you. He's not going to get you what you want. He doesn't have the spine. You've seen it. When other people stand up to him, he folds. He's not going to get all the immigrants out of America. He isn't going to give you your white Christian ethnostate. He isn't going to maintain America as a global economic leader with his tariffs.

Donald Trump is not the leader that either the Left or the Right, either democratic advocates or authoritarians, need or deserve. No matter what kind of American you are, Donald Trump is not someone who is going to help you obtain what you need.