Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On January 12 2026 05:20 ChristianS wrote: I do think “why does someone like oBlade support this?” is a valuable question to answer, and one I don’t have very clear ideas about. Unfortunately I don’t think actually talking to oBlade about it provides any meaningful illumination. It’s a bit like WW1, he’ll fight you all day long but it’s virtually impossible to find out what his actual war aims are; he’ll just continue forever, occasionally on offense but mostly on defense, until he believes his side has either won or lost.
Intro, I’m not convinced. I think he’s selective in his attention but probably believes the things he says, and if he seems overly credulous about this or overly skeptical about that, it’s not just rhetorical; it’s a genuine window into how his political understanding functions.
How do you not have clear ideas about it, they keep posting great replacement theory, they identified "generations of successful people getting smaller" as the greatest threat to civilization and identified Biden's approach to immigration as the most unspeakable of horrors justifying any response.
I understand the want for more sophisticated opponents, but they're really that simple. They told you 100 times who they are and here you are saying they're virtually impossible to read ???
They could be out here calling the victim of the ICE shooting a "race traitor" and some of you would still go "hmm, what could this mean"
I think you and I disagree less than you think. I’ve been reading They Thought They Were Free, for instance, which is explicitly about Nazis – average citizen Nazis, not the leaders – and trying to understand why they became Nazis and what their relationship to it was before, during, and after the Third Reich. I think that kind of exercise is valuable, and not a particularly simple question to answer.
That is to say, it sounds like you’re saying “what do you mean why do they support fascism, it’s because they’re fascists” and I’m saying, okay, yeah, maybe, but that’s not really the end of the questions, right?
Trump just indicted Powell and the fed over bullshit. Forget ICE, immigration and identity politics. The US have 38.5tn in debt and a president who thinks hyperinflation is the best way to deal with it. You guys are so fucked. 😜
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
Kinda feels like I’m taking the bait here but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You said it was obvious ICE was targeting blue jurisdictions and I agreed with you. What I tried to do was answer your question "why?"
I don't know why they wear camo, I don't know what they should wear, besides that they should be identifiable as federal law enforcement. You are right, it's superficial imo.
I'm all for real oversight of every government agency, not just ICE/DHS. As well as accountability. If citizens are unduly detained they should be remunerated. As always mistakes will happen, but they should be corrected. I have no doubt that within DHS, as again, within every organization of any size, there is a instinct to defend their own even when they shouldn't.
The long established immigration laws have a lot of provisions and rules that have been very underused, but to put it simply the suite of constitutional processes don't apply to people about whom there is no doubt to their status. It's why Kilmar Abrego Garcia doesn't need to have a trial to be deported, despite what some people here seem to think. What rights he does have come from federal law as passed by Congress, not the Constitution.
The "right" of members of Congress to enter CBP facilities is large but still less expansive than you think. Members of Congress do not, in general, have the ability to show up at any federal facility just walk in and "inspect." Such rights as there do not come from some Constitutional rule, which is what they seem to claim, but from specific laws which are currently in dispute. Nonetheless, it wouldn't bother me. What does bother me is pretending that these objections are what matters. Is anyone who is upset at ICE mad because of these particulars you have laid out? Not really so far as I read. They are more mad that people are being deported at all.
I say again what I said above. This is an excellent lesson in why we don't so flagrantly violate the rules we have in the first place. If the population of illegal immigrants was small or very old with no new arrivals, the political calculations would be different. As it stands now, a lot of people are going to have a hard time, even innocent people. And they should be fully recompensed. The difference is that I am not a utopian and also I have memory better than that of a goldfish. I know what happens when rules are ignored more and more. Everyone who enters illegally knows they could be deported at any time. It is a calculated risk, and sometimes you lose.
There was an ICE action in Chicago where, if I recall correctly, they went through every room of an apartment building. Knock knock, open up, bash the door down as necessary, shout and wave guns around and intimidate and grab who they want to and drag them out into the night. I’m going off memory here, we can try to look up specifics if you want but that’s the gist. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you and I agree that is not consistent with the 4th Amendment. So what do you think should happen here?
For starters, what does “remuneration” look like? Are these people supposed to sue the federal government for the cost of replacing their front door or whatever? The 4th Amendment says no search and seizure without probable cause, not “you can do it but you have to cut them a check after.”
And if they did find any undocumented immigrants, do they get any protection because they were found in an illegal way? Or is it, well, we don’t love how they got the job done but we’re not gonna undo it either? Because if it’s the latter, surely they’ll just keep doing that kind of thing, no? I haven’t heard a single ICE official acknowledge that operations of this sort are an overreach or talk about ceasing them, let alone compensating the victims of their past mistakes.
You come extremely close here to just coming out and saying that you don’t believe it’s possible to enforce the law while generally complying with the law on this issue. In which case, again I ask: why the zeal for absolute compliance with the law when it comes to, say, deporting dreamers, while shrugging “yeah, well, I’m not a utopian” when an agency appears completely unwilling to abide by legal restraints of any kind on their operations?
Trump, for his part, has been remarkably honest and consistent on this. Going back to the 2016 campaign, he promised to pay the legal bills of anybody who assaulted reporters on his behalf, because he thinks street fighters doing mundane violence in his name is a good thing, and he’ll shield them from consequences for that behavior any way he can. That’s why he pardoned the J6ers, that’s why ICE hide their faces and refuse to give identification or badge numbers, that’s why the administration makes up “domestic terrorist” bullshit when an officer panics and shoots a suburban mom. He’s been as explicit and detailed as he could possibly be on this point: no consequences of any kind, no legal constraints apply, he advertised this operation as such and he’s delivering.
So when their leaders are insisting it’s unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, and their agents are acting like they’re unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, how can you possibly salvage a position that you support all this on grounds that we need to have laws and follow them, no matter what?
I'm out and about so sorry if I don’t cover everything.
If the government doesn't willing make things up to them then that's what the courts are for.
Again, lots of different rules but the fourth amendment talks about "unreasonable". I don't know about the specifics of every action except that as I said, what the government is allowed to do re:people in the country unlawfully is far more expansive. For all the resistance judging we've seen so far, I dont think most courts have challenged the aggressive enforcement the administration has adopted except in specific circumstances. You don't need a warrant to detain and deport an illegal immigrant, it's just that internal deportation has been so rare before this that we didn't hear about it much (the vast majority of Obama's "deportations" as they counted them were removals of people who recently entered).
I think a lot of your confusion is displayed in
You come extremely close here to just coming out and saying that you don’t believe it’s possible to enforce the law while generally complying with the law on this issue.
The law is actually where most of your problems are. Just like people who say "ICE can't arrest citizens!" Like yes, yes they can. They just don’t normally *need* to. The people not complying with the law are of course those here unlawfully, but also those trying to interfere.
The way I have described ICE to people when I talk IRL is that they are a little overzealous at times. But things like sanctuary cities existed before 2025. The real opposition is not to ICE going a step over the line, it's the existence of the line. So you can ask me a million examples and I can say that if it is not what the law allows, then ICE shouldn't do it. But I always emphasize that we are in a position where laws have been ignored and when they are ignored we get worse and worse behavior. The worst thing that ever happened to the illegal immigrant mother of US citizens who has been here for 20 years with no criminal record is letting so many people in over the past 4 years. It's what I said earlier.
Meanwhile, you and others seem to think that personally interfering is just fine, that there are no consequences, and that if someone feels justified then they can't do anything wrong.
I guess the Tldr is that very many people are simply mistaken on the law as it pertains to immigration enforcement, and their objections are not really to, say, raiding every apartment in a building, but actually do the very idea of deporting people. This does a lot to color how people interpret the events that they see. I wouldn't want the mother I referred to earlier to be deported necessarily. But if I have to pick between that or no one gets deported, then that's how it has to be. And that appears to be the position of most Americans, based on previous election results.
See, the fact that your only response to this scenario was to obliquely reference it at the end as “not people’s real objection” is the kind of thing that makes me question your sincerity. I went out on a limb assuming you’d agree that’s not consistent with the 4th amendment, and you haven’t even said whether I was wrong! You’re gesturing generally at stuff other people have apparently said (e.g. “ICE can’t arrest citizens”) as proof that I’m probably wrong about the law, but the operation I described is about as explicit a violation of the 4th Amendment as I could conjure in my imagination, it’s not especially subtle. It’s so unambiguous it would have to have been conceived by people who simply did not believe those rules applied to them.
Then you’re reiterating that illegal immigrants aren’t entitled to due process anyway. They are though! You need a court order to deport someone! And it’s trivially demonstrable that the principles which due process is supposed to protect would have to apply to deportation of noncitizens, most obviously because how do you even know they’re noncitizens if you don’t make the government prove it? If they already had proof the people in that apartment building were illegal immigrants, 1) they could show that proof to a judge and get a warrant, and 2) they wouldn’t need to go door to door like that! It’s a fishing expedition, plain and simple!
In a sense you’re right, though, in that I do think these actions are deeply and fundamentally immoral, and that would be true even if they were being undertaken in full compliance with the law. But I don’t need you to tell me what I think, I’m asking what you think, and it’s hard not to read this as evasive. “Oh, are they not following the law? Hmm, maybe, who’s to say, I’m a pragmatist not a utopian anyway. But also these operations are Very Important because regardless of morality we must always, everywhere, no matter what, Enforce The Law.”
Without know exactly i would assume you need to a warrant or obviously some explicit legal authority to search apartments. I am agreeing with you. I'm basically granting all your particulars.
The "due process" due to illegal immigrants is different. It isn't non existent, but a great deal of it is set by federal law and it isn't as expansive as it is for citizens. I keep repeating this because I recall earlier in the year many posters were absolutely convinced this was not the case.
Meanwhile I told you what I think. You, I think, want me to have no conflicting feelings or worries. I told you, it some sense it is "mean" to deport someone who hasn't done anything besides cross the border. But I will accept it (not cheer, but accept) if it means A) or deters future law breaking B) removes less sympathetic characters.
This is a tradeoffs eveyone makes depending on the topic. Presumably the people who were sympathetic to "defund the police" but didn't actually want to defund it, understand that having bad cops is bad, but having no cops is worse. For someone who do often likes to use a great many words trying to work your way through something I am somewhat surprised you seem to want easy, short answers.
“Granting all my particulars” (whether only for the sake of argument, or because you actually agree they’re true) would seem to imply you’re also granting that this enforcement is being conducted with flagrant disregard for any legal constraints whatsoever. Indeed, hiding identities and badge numbers means that even if we as a society decided we wanted to punish some particularly egregious violation, we may or may not ever be able to do it – the agency or fellow agents might have to give up their identity if the OSINT types aren’t able to identify them.
You’re also acknowledging that the enforcement has significant human cost, and in many cases is unnecessarily cruel (“mean”) in ways you personally would prefer not to happen. But you’re still supportive of the enforcement because you think having laws and not enforcing them is just such a problem we need to do it anyway.
You see why I’m emphasizing the conflict here, right? If the enforcement is lawless and unaccountable – pretty explicitly advertised and celebrated as such by the President enacting it, by the way – then someone who believes it’s important to have laws and enforce them, even if it’s difficult or cruel, shouldn’t be a fan of it. But if you don’t actually believe a bit of noncompliance with the law is such a problem that must be rectified immediately, then why do we need to do all these cruel deportations? This commitment to law-abidingness seems to be one you pick up or set down depending on whether it serves some other, deeper commitment you apparently have.
My (some say misguided) purpose here was to determine what that deeper commitment is, and why you hold to it. I can form my own guesses, and maybe somewhat more informed ones based on this conversation, but is there a reason you can’t just tell me why you’ve decided the one version of law-breaking must be rectified, while the other is, meh, not ideal but we’re not utopians here?
On January 12 2026 10:50 Introvert wrote: But if I have to pick between that or no one gets deported, then that's how it has to be.
Nobody is making you pick between those.
When you're arguing "if I have to choose between the straw man I imagined or cruelty then I choose cruelty" it's pretty fucking obvious that you just like cruelty.
Nah, lots of the people in the streets are the same people who say things like "no human is illegal." They want almost no deportations.
In how many of Biden's four years in office was nobody deported?
I was answering ChristianS's question. I have already repeatedly stated that anyone wronged by immigration enforcement actions should be made whole. But in the context of immigration, I err on the side of more enforcement, not less, espeically since most who cross illegally know what very well could happen.
Okay but given you're justifying the abuses with
On January 12 2026 10:50 Introvert wrote: But if I have to pick between that or no one gets deported, then that's how it has to be.
then I have to ask you, in how many years was no one getting deported?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
“Losing” depends on what I’m trying to achieve, no? I’m losing some of my time, certainly. + Show Spoiler +
I have no illusions that my rhetorical prowess will allow me to convince oBlade or Intro of the error of their ways. I don’t even the three ghosts could do that.
I do think “why does someone like oBlade support this?” is a valuable question to answer, and one I don’t have very clear ideas about. Unfortunately I don’t think actually talking to oBlade about it provides any meaningful illumination. It’s a bit like WW1, he’ll fight you all day long but it’s virtually impossible to find out what his actual war aims are; he’ll just continue forever, occasionally on offense but mostly on defense, until he believes his side has either won or lost.
Intro, I’m not convinced. I think he’s selective in his attention but probably believes the things he says, and if he seems overly credulous about this or overly skeptical about that, it’s not just rhetorical; it’s a genuine window into how his political understanding functions.
Or, well, sometimes it is, at least. I’ve lamented the loss of Danglars a little over the years, partly because while getting his true perspective was still like pulling teeth, I think it was still a lot easier than with Intro. But he’s sui generis just like the rest of us.
That's enough to be losing imo.
It's a precious resource. One you (and the rest of us insist) we have precious little of to devote to (discussing/reading/practicing) politics unworthy of our attention. Your time and brain power would be better spent in a multitude of ways, not the least of which being that which has been requested/suggested by ZerO, Jankisa (hardly fans of mine personally), and others.
You're not going to get anything of value from the Sartres. You can actually find much better insight imo from something like The Colonizer and the Colonized
PG 52:
He finds himself· on one side of a scale, the other side of which bears the colonized man. If his living standards are high, it is because those of the colonized are low; if he can benefit from plentiful and undemanding labor and servants, it is because the colonized can be exploited at will and are not protected by the laws of the colony; if he can easily obtain administrative positions, it is because they are reserved for him and the colonized are excluded from them; the more freely he breathes, the more the colonized are choked. While he cannot help discovering this, there is no danger that official speeches might change his mind, for those speeches are drafted by him or his cousin or his friend.
PG 65:
It must leave him, they insist, for humanitarian romanticism is looked upon in the colonies as a serious illness, the worst of all dangers. It is no more or less than going over to the side of the enemy. If he persists, he will learn that he is launching into an undeclared conflict with his own people which will always remain alive, unless he returns to the colonialist fold or is defeated. Wonder has been expressed at the vehemence of colonizers against any among them who put colonization in jeopardy. It is clear that such a colonizer is nothing but a traitor. He challenges their very existence and endangers the very homeland which they represent in the colony.
His world is dependent on maintaining this irrefutably exploitative relationship. He is smart enough to know that he's either with it or against it. He is basically just as disillusioned as Kwark, but instead of fleeing (there's nowhere to hide), he is choosing to side with the oppressors/fascists (who he has spent his life enjoying the spoils of/cheering on to some degree).
That's the gist of it.
I appreciate your concern for my free time, I suppose, I don’t think typing two or three posts about current events is that big a timesink though. I don’t think I could reasonably be accused of posting too frequently in recent times.
Those are interesting quotes, I’m not sure I 100% agree with the diagnosis, though. I mean, in broad strokes, yes, somebody like oBlade (and myself!) was brought up in a system of various modes of exploitation, both shocking and mundane. And he (like me!) has benefited from many of them, maybe also been victimized by a few, and is forced to try to form a conception of what a just world should look like despite living in a deeply unjust one, and lacking any example to look to of a working, effective, just system to examine and study. He’s landed in very different places than me, obviously, and I’d agree that many cases he’s landed on defending many of those systems of exploitation.
Of course those folks don’t call the thing they’re defending “colonialism,” but when they talk about something like “Western Civilization” they might mean something pretty similar. They look at a world order that is shaped the way it is, to a significant degree, because of the activities of a bunch of Western Europeans (activities we sometimes lump together under the heading “colonialism”) and they think, here’s something fundamental about how the world has been constituted that, I think, is essential and valuable. Other people don’t see why it’s good, but I understand that it’s actually load-bearing to lots of good stuff, and I need to defend it.
So far, the diagnosis is fair enough. The specifics feel pretty dated, though. oBlade is not hoping for some viceroyalty or colonial administrator position, things haven’t worked that way in a long time. These days we get our dividend from colonization through obscure mechanisms like cheap goods from China, a fair number of which guys like oBlade have convinced themselves are actually systems of oppression *against them*! They want to kill all that stuff and work 12-hour shifts in factories again!
And the specifics wind up mattering quite a bit. For instance: do these right-wingers want (secretly or not) to see me executed? That matters to me quite a bit, obviously, but it also matters in deciding, for instance, whether publicizing evidence of the administration doing something like that would be an effective persuasion strategy. If that kind of explicit political violence is something they’re in denial about, maybe so. If it’s what they wanted in the first place, it’ll only make them support the administration more.
So I’ll tentatively disagree that there’s nothing of value to be gained in examining modern right-wingers and how they respond to current events, or that all those answers could be easily found reading theory instead. But I do appreciate the book recommendation (with a pdf link to the whole book, no less!) and I’ll certainly add it to the list.
@GH: about halfway I think? I paused reading it for a while but this is reminding me to pick it back up.
I got about 3/4 of the way through so far and I can't help but notice how much it sounds like things I've been saying for years. Including pretty quintessential examples of the quotes I gave you from The Colonizer and the Colonized.
I find Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism and Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth more useful personally, but I can understand why/how They Thought They Were Free could be more relatable and applicable for some/in some ways.
I'd like to hear more about your thoughts and analysis on it thus far, but you can take it to my blog if you don't think you can keep it topical.
On January 12 2026 15:29 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Trump just indicted Powell and the fed over bullshit. Forget ICE, immigration and identity politics. The US have 38.5tn in debt and a president who thinks hyperinflation is the best way to deal with it. You guys are so fucked. 😜
He didn‘t want to give him a second stonk booster like on the first term. Can‘t blame him, if this is the result, another one would make it even worse.
Divesting economies away from fossils should be a priority. Not find ways to burn them faster.
Switzerland did exactly that IIRC. At one point they just fixed the official exchange rate to devalue the franc, to sell shit to Europeans.
I'd just think Europe should make it self free of trump clown currency before the effect hits too hard, not while the market sets a price to the dollar.
On January 12 2026 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote: Switzerland did exactly that IIRC. At one point they just fixed the official exchange rate to devalue the franc, to sell shit to Europeans.
I'd just think Europe should make it self free of trump clown currency before the effect hits too hard, not while the market sets a price to the dollar.
Speaking of which, China has just dumped 48% of its US debt at a huge loss. Looks like they're desperately trying to rid themselves of USD.
Everyone can see there is a colossal AI bubble growing that underpins the entire US economy. Its going to come crashing down even without Trump fucking with the economy. Every country around the world should be looking to isolate themselves from the inevitable crash.
It doesn't have to be a war signal. Can also be just insulation against USD crashing. What worries me though is that Japan, UK and Belgium who bought this debt might be in trouble because of it.
What's scary for the US though is probably the fact that their biggest debt buyer has started selling it instead so it will be harder for them to run on a deficit if no one else will be willing to buy their debt.
On January 12 2026 21:17 Manit0u wrote: It doesn't have to be a war signal. Can also be just insulation against USD crashing. What worries me though is that Japan, UK and Belgium who bought this debt might be in trouble because of it.
What's scary for the US though is probably the fact that their biggest debt buyer has started selling it instead so it will be harder for them to run on a deficit if no one else will be willing to buy their debt.
Other countries have already reduced their US debt over a long period of time. They still own debt but a much smaller part than before. This makes it more difficult to service it and it's bougth by domestic investors, trending away from citizens towards private investors. These guys want profit so the interest rate has to go up. Traditionally other countries bought US debt at very low rates. As it becomes even more risky these rates will go up even further. Having private capital and banks lend money will also likely raise interest rates on loans for citizens to get comparable margins.
It's funny because US monetary policy is already somewhat captured by the debt and interest rates on it and it's a concern. And Trump wants to YOLO it in the other direction because he likes seeing numbers go up. There is a big risk that if he manages to push it there will be no real way to fight inflation in the future (a new fed won't be able to raise rates because the national debt payments will crush all other government spending).
It absolutely isn’t a war signal, like above mentioned most countries are dumping.
The entire US economy is basically a circlejerk of AI investments going around and around, with a government that is openly telling everyone they want to run the economy extremely hot.
Add in a government that is also openly signalling that they do not want an independent Fed run by competent economists that are constantly dealt with a bad hand and will legally prosecute those that refuse to follow government demands no matter how insane. Is there any wonder that everyone is jumping ship.
Unfortunately for Americans, we can already see this result in stuff like adjustable mortgage rates and credit card APRs.
I bet politicians do hedge against that in private but it has been 23 years since a german chancelor actively spoke out against US interest (The russian asset Gerhard Schröder).
Chancelor Merz is a weak appeaser of Trump who won't do anything necessary.
From an EU POV it's necessary to link economy with stockmarkets again.. and thus popping the stupid AI bubble, massively bring down asset prices again.
Tariffs on AI.. or simply a change in regulation, not allowing money spent on AI to be accounted for as business expense + Climate-Change fee for AI usage. Make selling of US-Stocks Tax exempt for 500.000€ in gains per person. Consider no longer allowing EU-citzenz to trade US stocks afterwards.
Similar to Plaza Accord of 1985, the idea is to devalue the dollar but still keep it as the world reserve currency, how, well, basically, the biggest tool would be coercion by means of tariffs and threatening to withdraw military protection and support, which, if you've been paying attention is being implemented in a very dumb way because most of the tariffs were implemented broadly without much of a plan and the US Security doctrine indicates that US is not interested in it's "old" alliances and offering protection to basically anyone.
As with everything else this regime does, it's half baked as an idea and it's being implemented badly.
On the other hand, the regime is acting like all the benefits of this will be there and is increasing spending, seems like a recipe for disaster but so do so many other things.
In other news, Trump's usually stand out (as compared to his Democratic rivals) economy rating has hit a new low of 36%, and we haven't even gotten started with all the consequences of this stupid shit.
EPT
