Reconciliation

[Trond]

There are higher values than leading "comfy and safe lives." This attitude is pure mental-slavery.

Particularly when said "comfort" and "safety" are paper-thin.

"We need a revolution, anyone who disagrees is a mental slave"
Yes, the far left and right do sound very similar.

[Zelen]

There are higher values than leading "comfy and safe lives." This attitude is pure mental-slavery.

Particularly when said "comfort" and "safety" are paper-thin.

"We need a revolution, anyone who disagrees is a mental slave"
Yes, the far left and right do sound very similar.

I am a centrist, actually. The vast majority of people seem agree that there are higher values than just achieving material comfort.

Do you have an actual argument, or are you just going to continue on with the dishonestly smearing other people while taking the "I'm so above-it-all" approach?

[Trond]

There are higher values than leading "comfy and safe lives." This attitude is pure mental-slavery.

Particularly when said "comfort" and "safety" are paper-thin.

"We need a revolution, anyone who disagrees is a mental slave"
Yes, the far left and right do sound very similar.

I am a centrist, actually. The vast majority of people seem agree that there are higher values than just achieving material comfort.

Do you have an actual argument, or are you just going to continue on with the dishonestly smearing other people while taking the "I'm so above-it-all" approach?

How about you actually continue the conversation in an honest way before talking about "mental slavery"? Notice what the argument was before you jumped in. There was talk about "burning down the house".

[Trond]

On top of it, people are talking about moving out, or their kids having to move. Move where? I have lived in three countries, probably more than most people here, and my wife even more. There is a MASSIVE disconnect here between what has actually been built and the perception of a grimdark situation. A lot of people think they have to rebuild society from the ground. Gee, I have heard that one a few times before, Pol Pot for instance. Much more serious problems arise when people throw out the baby with the bath water.

[3catcircus]

  Oh its never getting passed by the general voting public and I would never entrust such a means of voting to our current politicians.   I am simply offering an idea, a thought experiment.  There would have to be a burning of the old rotted house to build a new one.  No attempts at a coat of paint on a ruined structure is going to work out.

To me THIS ATTITUDE is part of the problem. You see it in lefties all the time too. Thinking that burning down the system and building it up somehow will make it better. No you need to tweak and adjust. It's also just bizarre to me that people can live relatively comfy and safe lives and still think they are living on the edge of total destruction. I have relatives who live normal lives in countries that are far worse off. Yes, people are angrier than they used to be ten years ago, but you have to steer away from the cliff, not head straight for it.

The western world is 3 days without food or electricity away from anarchy.

[Trond]

  Oh its never getting passed by the general voting public and I would never entrust such a means of voting to our current politicians.   I am simply offering an idea, a thought experiment.  There would have to be a burning of the old rotted house to build a new one.  No attempts at a coat of paint on a ruined structure is going to work out.

To me THIS ATTITUDE is part of the problem. You see it in lefties all the time too. Thinking that burning down the system and building it up somehow will make it better. No you need to tweak and adjust. It's also just bizarre to me that people can live relatively comfy and safe lives and still think they are living on the edge of total destruction. I have relatives who live normal lives in countries that are far worse off. Yes, people are angrier than they used to be ten years ago, but you have to steer away from the cliff, not head straight for it.

The western world is 3 days without food or electricity away from anarchy.

I have so many questions.
The western world specifically? Wouldn't this affect any area? Why the western world? Because you live there? And where does the time limit come from?
But OK let's say we agree, what should be done about it? Increase our own production I suppose? this I can agree with.

[Willmark]

  Oh its never getting passed by the general voting public and I would never entrust such a means of voting to our current politicians.   I am simply offering an idea, a thought experiment.  There would have to be a burning of the old rotted house to build a new one.  No attempts at a coat of paint on a ruined structure is going to work out.

To me THIS ATTITUDE is part of the problem. You see it in lefties all the time too. Thinking that burning down the system and building it up somehow will make it better. No you need to tweak and adjust. It's also just bizarre to me that people can live relatively comfy and safe lives and still think they are living on the edge of total destruction. I have relatives who live normal lives in countries that are far worse off. Yes, people are angrier than they used to be ten years ago, but you have to steer away from the cliff, not head straight for it.

The western world is 3 days without food or electricity away from anarchy.

I have so many questions.
The western world specifically? Wouldn't this affect any area? Why the western world? Because you live there? And where does the time limit come from?
But OK let's say we agree, what should be done about it? Increase our own production I suppose? this I can agree with.

Likely?

From this:
In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, "There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy."

ETA: also likely form the replenishment rates of cities. Most major cities (roughly) churn through their food every three days i wining to just in time delivery.

[Zelen]

How about you actually continue the conversation in an honest way before talking about "mental slavery"? Notice what the argument was before you jumped in. There was talk about "burning down the house".

Sure, I'll agree we don't want to "burn down the house" -- But what the house is, and what the house isn't, is important to define and understand. I'll agree that certain types of rhetoric are unproductive, and it's useful to understand what is useful rhetoric and what isn't useful rhetoric.

What the house is: Normal American/European families, living their lives
What the house isn't: Regime institutions, regime personnel

For a hyper-contemporary example, we can look at Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. According to some reports, Elon has cut between 50 to 75% of the Twitter staff, and fired numerous high-ranking employees. What has the impact of this been at a practical level? I'm not a Twitter user, but my impression from accounts I have read is that this has improved Twitter by reducing the number of artificial trends, artificial users, and accounts see more of the content that they wanted to see.

We can argue that Elon Musk, "destroyed" Twitter. In a certain sense that is correct. But the functional and underlying experience for most people was not destroyed, it was improved. That's pretty incredible when you consider the number of staff that were cut. Were 1/2 (or more) of employees at Twitter really dead weight? The answer seems to be Yes.


Lets take a look at another example:

Issue	Extremist Position	Centrist Position
Should we permit dangerous gain-of-function research geared towards creating novel pathogens that might result in deadly pandemics like we saw in 2020?	Yes, we should permit people who we know are irresponsible and immoral to conduct dangerous research.	No, we do not permit people who we know are irresponsible and immoral to conduct dangerous research. People who do this must be stopped.
Worst-Case Consequences:	Worldwide pandemics, mass death, medical tyranny	The world goes on normally and everyone lives their lives without fear of genetically engineered superviruses ravaging the planet. The normal and unavoidable risk of death from illness remains.

Of course, the Extremist position is virtually indistinguishable from the current ruling Regime's position. The Centrist position shared by the majority of people might in some cases require decisive action, but generally isn't terribly disruptive to the average person's normal life. The ruling Regime is in almost all cases the ones who push the extremist position, and they do so for reasons that are directly beneficial to them but deeply destructive to normal life. (Ex. Coronavirus, Censorship, Climate Lockdowns, Wars, etc)

The engineering of crises in order to provoke a response is a pretty common theme here. Whereas a centrist position in contrast is deliberately not trying to create crises. However, to get to that centrist position might require substantial institutional & personnel changes. The positive news is that, as we can ascertain from the Twitter example, the number of truly irreplaceable figures in most institutions is quite small.

[oggsmash]

  Oh its never getting passed by the general voting public and I would never entrust such a means of voting to our current politicians.   I am simply offering an idea, a thought experiment.  There would have to be a burning of the old rotted house to build a new one.  No attempts at a coat of paint on a ruined structure is going to work out.

To me THIS ATTITUDE is part of the problem. You see it in lefties all the time too. Thinking that burning down the system and building it up somehow will make it better. No you need to tweak and adjust. It's also just bizarre to me that people can live relatively comfy and safe lives and still think they are living on the edge of total destruction. I have relatives who live normal lives in countries that are far worse off. Yes, people are angrier than they used to be ten years ago, but you have to steer away from the cliff, not head straight for it.

  Buddy motherfuckers here are convincing people to mutilate their kids, that boys are girls and that it is fine to let a trannie stripper read to kids.  There is no tweak and adjust when the powers that be have decided that is the course this country takes.   My attitude is probably part of the problem, mainly the part of it where I am willing to watch the shit burn and look out for my own kids rather than get an activist group together, meet regularly and start making steps towards some vigorous political change.   But seeing as how I am for actual borders and boys staying out of girls locker rooms....how far do you think me and the other men and women having activist meetings will get before we get fed alerted?    As for being able to start over somewhere....well I am directly descended from the people who built what you enjoy here today.  What can be done once can be done again...with the right people I guess.

[Chris24601]

  Oh its never getting passed by the general voting public and I would never entrust such a means of voting to our current politicians.   I am simply offering an idea, a thought experiment.  There would have to be a burning of the old rotted house to build a new one.  No attempts at a coat of paint on a ruined structure is going to work out.

To me THIS ATTITUDE is part of the problem. You see it in lefties all the time too. Thinking that burning down the system and building it up somehow will make it better. No you need to tweak and adjust. It's also just bizarre to me that people can live relatively comfy and safe lives and still think they are living on the edge of total destruction. I have relatives who live normal lives in countries that are far worse off. Yes, people are angrier than they used to be ten years ago, but you have to steer away from the cliff, not head straight for it.

There are higher values than leading "comfy and safe lives." This attitude is pure mental-slavery.

Particularly when said "comfort" and "safety" are paper-thin.

Not to atheistic slave mentality types who have no hope beyond this life and no great love for the good of future generations. They think if they just kowtow to the elites they'll be allowed to keep some of their sense of normalcy. They ignore things like the Armenian Genocide, Holodomor, Khmer Rouge, etc. that always accompanies the rise of the Totalitarians and just hope that being accommodating will buy them more life than they'd have if they took a stand.

Funny thing... only the statists see the collapse of the state as a bad thing whereas archeological evidence suggests that Europeans lived longer and healthier lives after the collapse of the Roman Empire's central authority than before. It wasn't until the return of the Nation-State in the late Medieval period that living conditions again started to degrade.

[Lynn]

As someone who is an immigrant to America, and a bit of an "outsider" politically speaking (I still can't vote), it's hard not to notice the simmering hatred the two political sides have for each other. This also makes political compromises less and less tenable, and leads to breakdown of cooperation. To me, views like "this can only lead to civil war, there's no way back now" aren't helping. Do you see any way of bridging the gap between the factions? I have a couple of thoughts off the top of my head, and I think some admissions have to be made on either side, but I'll see what you guys think first.

The hatred is really its most palpable online and there are many inside both parties, the media and many outside that see the conflict as a means to their own benefit. It is always going to be worse where extremists gather.

I think its possible to get back the 'missing middle' where decisions come about through compromise, and radical change isn't forced on others by a tiny margin, but that has to be a decision moving forward. I think its going to be a few years before that happens.

[Chris24601]

As someone who is an immigrant to America, and a bit of an "outsider" politically speaking (I still can't vote), it's hard not to notice the simmering hatred the two political sides have for each other. This also makes political compromises less and less tenable, and leads to breakdown of cooperation. To me, views like "this can only lead to civil war, there's no way back now" aren't helping. Do you see any way of bridging the gap between the factions? I have a couple of thoughts off the top of my head, and I think some admissions have to be made on either side, but I'll see what you guys think first.

The hatred is really its most palpable online and there are many inside both parties, the media and many outside that see the conflict as a means to their own benefit. It is always going to be worse where extremists gather.

I think its possible to get back the 'missing middle' where decisions come about through compromise, and radical change isn't forced on others by a tiny margin, but that has to be a decision moving forward. I think its going to be a few years before that happens.

The 'missing middle' is presently 'on the right' (even if they don't identify as that) because the radical Left controls the lion's share of the media and voting apparatus and wishes to portray itself as middle-left. This is the problem with reconciliation... it can't be achieved by further compromise with the Left, its happening instead via moderate Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard aligning with the right against the psychotic fringe Left.

[jhkim]

I wonder if the word "reconciliation" is the best description for what is possible.

In U.S. history, opposed sides have always remained opposed. But we have gone through periods of higher and lower levels of conflict.

Obviously, the Civil War was the highest point of conflict. After the war, there was punishing period of Reconstruction and radicalism, but soon after that, more moderates won out. Freed slaves kept some rights - but they were not given twenty acres and a mule, and most of their civil rights were stripped away with Jim Crow laws. Slave plantations were replaced with more moderate prison plantations or apprenticeship plantations.

The 1960s was also a high point of conflict - with acts of terrorism, lynchings, assassinations, and other extremism. This de-escalated in the later 1970s and 1980s, though. However, I wouldn't say that conservatives reconciled with communists - or that liberals reconciled with the KKK. Rather, the moderates of both sides became more dominant.

I suspect that the current period of extreme partisanship will have a similar de-escalation starting a few years from now.

[Lynn]

The 'missing middle' is presently 'on the right' (even if they don't identify as that) because the radical Left controls the lion's share of the media and voting apparatus and wishes to portray itself as middle-left. This is the problem with reconciliation... it can't be achieved by further compromise with the Left, its happening instead via moderate Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard aligning with the right against the psychotic fringe Left.

It is hard to imagine how bad things need to get to wake them up or, how badly elements need to turn on each other.

In the Portland area, the Portland Mayor is at loggerheads with Multnomah County (arguably worse than Portland City Council) and, I suspect, will run up against the new governor (who as speaker of the house in the Oregon legislature, passed some of the most damaging laws that had previously and adversely affected Portland). It is like the slogan for Alien vs Predator: "No matter who wins, you lose." Funnily enough, the public found out that one reason why homelessness is so bad in Portland is that before last winter, Multnomah County distributed thousands of tarps and many hundreds of tents so that the homeless could occupy sidewalks.

[SHARK]

Greetings!

"Reconciliation" with fucking Libtard, woke Communists isn't even necessary, let alone desirable. Let the Libtards choke in their filthy, crime-ridden, urban sewers. Let their standard of living and their tranquility be steadily beaten down into the gutter by living amongst hordes of diseased, insane homeless troglodytes. Let them wallow like huge herds of unarmed, helpless sheep in urban hellscapes where the criminals are always armed--and the Libtards can live in fear of being constantly robbed, harassed, raped or murdered.

It is a pathetic shithole that they themselves have created, for years. Let them cry to their Democrat officials endlessly, while nothing improves. The Democrats are good at letting more scum criminals out of prisons, and releasing them into the population to rape and brutalize. Pretty standard operating procedures for Libtards now. Oh well. Let them eat their own cake. Deep down, they like it! They have supported all of these terrible Democrat policies that have created the environments they currently live in. They voted for it all--one policy, one Democrat politician, at a time. Again and again and again. FOR YEARS.

Meanwhile, in Red States, it is refreshing not living or working or being around a bunch of Libtard freaks. It's *outstanding* being armed to the teeth, and being FREE. It is great being amongst so many people that are right-thinking Americans and don't America, our heritage, and history. It's great not being around a bunch of hate-filled shrieking Libtard clowns that somehow always seek to corrupt, pollute, and destroy everything great in America. It is a HUGE improvement in standard of living and peace of mind living amongst so many right-thinking people that actually love America, and actually love having manners and courtesy, and cherish maintaining a normal, happy, peaceful life for everyone.

So, there's no "Reconciliation" necessary--or even wanted.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK