and you are standing there pretending this is something that would normally get students kicked out of school if it was about anyone but Jews. At least, that is what I understand you are saying.
When in reality, it wouldn't get anyone kicked out of school _except_ pro-Palestinian people. Who _are_, in the actual world, getting deported.
Is Columbia and Trump’s crackdown of the pro-Palestinians the ‘Canary in the coalmine’ (link at bottom, their answer is “yes”) or is it a lot more reasonable?
Why are we asking about canaries when the Trump administration has asserted the right to detain people and ship them to foreign gulags without a trial of any sort?
If they can assert that someone, with no evidence or court proceeding, is not an American citizen and is a gang member, and ship them to an El Salvadorian gulag, then we are actually at fascism, we do not need to argue it is coming. In fact, even if they _aren't_ allowed to do that, even if the court stops them, it is still fascism. It is just a fascist executive that is very slightly constrained by courts.
And I frankly could care less watching Columbia actively destroy itself and every single ounce of respect anyone ever held for it. Because, frankly, it never deserved any of that to start with.
You want to talk about academic freedom, let's talk about it for the colleges that _don't_ instantly and cowardly cave.
I will try to summarized a very complicated thing I barely understand.
There were the Young Conservatives, which seemed to just be...anti-modernism in the sense they were anti-democratic and pro-authoritarianism. Often very corporatism, often harken back to Divine Right. Think Peter Thiel and all the other techbros that seem very sure the best system of government is one where someone Really Smart is eternally in charge.
There were National Revolutionaries, who embraced modernity and just wanted a revolution for some reason, after which they were sure we'd be happy people with modern technology but simple lives. These guys eventually argued _against_ the Na.zis. There's not really an analog here. Honestly, these guys do not sound too far from modern 'normal' conservatives except they were slightly anti-capitalist.
And there was the group I focused on, the Völkisch, who came up with the base-level horrific part of Na.zi ideology, the idea that German blood belonged to German land, and vis versa, and everyone was not 'volk' was the problem. And part of volk was an understanding of gender roles.
But, anyway, to the question: The far-right didn't really care about queer people in the 1920s. They were much more into ultra-nationalism and nativism.
No one actually cared about them. Yes, there were laws against them, laws that at various times and places were implemented or ignored, but no one actually _cared_. Berlin was incredibly gay. You want to be gay in some small German town...well, people would probably pretty strongly suggest you move to Berlin.
I can't find any real information about how the rest of the German right felt about this, I suspect logically the Young Conservatives saw that as part of the modernity they despised, but I don't think they really did anything.
And same with the rest of the world, who were increasingly seeing queer people as an oddity, not a threat. The acceptance of gay people isn't a slope, it's a cycle. Indeed, the entire cycle would cycle, during the Great Depression, going back to presenting queer people as dangerous.
The Völkisch were _out of cycle_. Like I said, they were a reactionary movement, at least partially in reaction to social rules about gender loosening, which had just sorta hit Germany at the end of WWI.
The exact same reactionary movement that, once integrated into Na.zism, resulted death camps.
Like, there's a hypothetical Germany without the Völkisch, where the left falls to infighting and ultranationalism still takes over and they go to war again because of their war debts, but they _aren't_ genocidal lunatics. The Völkisch are the thing that makes fascism _fascism_, and not just general totalitarianism.
And incredible hypocrites considering that they, to an individual, all screamed holy heck about “teh emailz” a decade ago.
I also feel the fact that Hegseth fired a bunch of military leaders because they might _hypothetically_ be incompetent because they were women and minorities and might possibly have gotten the job that way is relevant. And how he repeatedly emphasized that, from now, it was all about competence, pure competence, not any sort of affirmative action.
You know what Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. did not do? Discuss upcoming military operations on unsecured channel.
4. President Trump _isn't_ in this chat (Or, rather, the chat they should be having over a different, secure communication system), and instead this chat consists of people trying to guess what he wants them to do. This by itself should be a scandal, but 'This by itself should be a scandal' is basically the motto of the Trump administration.
5. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, aka, the military leader that exists to advise the executive on military action, isn't in the chat either.
This attack leveled apartments and killed civilians to attempt to kill someone that the US did not like, a thing which the Chairman of the Joint Chief might have had something to say about the legality of under the laws of war. That's literally part of his job. Because you're supposed to use the method of attack that uses the least collateral damage, and he might have been able to suggest another. I am not saying this attack was not legal, I don't really know enough about it to weigh in, but that sort of question is exactly why you include people in a discussion who understand that question and can weigh in on it legally, and is almost certainly why he was _not_ consulted.
Now, this is theoretically less of a scandal, because he could have hypothetically been looped in elsewhere. We have no idea where the plans came from.
But...we all know he wasn't. Hegseth literally came out and said the military was going to stop caring about civilian casualties a month ago, it's why he fired the JAG lawyers.
There has been a lawsuit filed over this over and claims it violated Federal record keeping laws (Which it objectively does).
It was randomly assigned to Judge Boasberg. You know, the judge that the Trump administration is trying to insist it is a state secret when an airplane took off and landed, despite it being a commercially chartered flight that Trump administration literally took pictures of and announced the landing of.
Reading that article, I have no idea how gay people are involved in this. Normal people, and I include straight people in that, have conversations about and general understandings of their level of a relationship.
This is not a new thing they need to start doing. Hell, the article talks about Sisson _literally explaining_ things to them. This is just some subset of women who willfully ignored it.
And I actually have a theory here: I suspect it's because he's an influencer, and that they have a obvious parasocial relationship in _addition_ to talking to him personally.
We've long had a problem with people thinking parasocial relationships are real and the people on the other side are in love or good friends with them, despite the celebrity not actually knowing their names. This is the same thing, except the celebrity does know the person's name and like to talk to them..but that person still has hallucinated a huge aspect of their relationship.
Some sort of blending, in their head, of the stuff he puts out publicly, blended with their conversations, to make them imagine he's spending _way_ more time with them then he is.
It's like they've discovering the guy who says he won't commit but has been living in their house and spending almost every waking hour talking with them...has been doing that with several other women. I think that would, reasonable, upset a lot of people, even with clearly explained relationship rules.
Except they just hallucinated the 'he's living in my house and spending every waking hour with me' because they're watching his tiktok a lot, and in reality they're just chatting like thirty minutes a day.
To be fair to David’s original point, I expect the Tesla firebombers really have their shit together.
It kinda depends who it is. I said something similiar when Brian Thompson was killed, that if someone on the actual left did this, good luck. But if they did, we'd never know anyway.
Then he was tracked down, and it turns out he wasn't. So...at least that doesn't invalidate my point.
I haven't seen any reports on how competently this was done, although I have very little respect for people who use fire. I guess it could hypothetically be save to burn _cars_, which are in theory in a parking lot, but you can destroy Teslas just by throwing paint on them.
On “Martin Niemöller, and Who First They Came For”
You think being undone by the courts means the Trump Administration isn't fascism?
Fascism currently slightly constrained by other parts of the government from doing individual actions is still a fascist administration.
"
It really boggles the mind how we are in a world where Canary Mission is getting students kicked out of school and deported for writing this op-ed:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj
and you are standing there pretending this is something that would normally get students kicked out of school if it was about anyone but Jews. At least, that is what I understand you are saying.
When in reality, it wouldn't get anyone kicked out of school _except_ pro-Palestinian people. Who _are_, in the actual world, getting deported.
"
Why are we asking about canaries when the Trump administration has asserted the right to detain people and ship them to foreign gulags without a trial of any sort?
If they can assert that someone, with no evidence or court proceeding, is not an American citizen and is a gang member, and ship them to an El Salvadorian gulag, then we are actually at fascism, we do not need to argue it is coming. In fact, even if they _aren't_ allowed to do that, even if the court stops them, it is still fascism. It is just a fascist executive that is very slightly constrained by courts.
And I frankly could care less watching Columbia actively destroy itself and every single ounce of respect anyone ever held for it. Because, frankly, it never deserved any of that to start with.
You want to talk about academic freedom, let's talk about it for the colleges that _don't_ instantly and cowardly cave.
"
The thing is, there was not one German far-right movements. There were multiple ones. Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Revolution#Currents
I will try to summarized a very complicated thing I barely understand.
There were the Young Conservatives, which seemed to just be...anti-modernism in the sense they were anti-democratic and pro-authoritarianism. Often very corporatism, often harken back to Divine Right. Think Peter Thiel and all the other techbros that seem very sure the best system of government is one where someone Really Smart is eternally in charge.
There were National Revolutionaries, who embraced modernity and just wanted a revolution for some reason, after which they were sure we'd be happy people with modern technology but simple lives. These guys eventually argued _against_ the Na.zis. There's not really an analog here. Honestly, these guys do not sound too far from modern 'normal' conservatives except they were slightly anti-capitalist.
And there was the group I focused on, the Völkisch, who came up with the base-level horrific part of Na.zi ideology, the idea that German blood belonged to German land, and vis versa, and everyone was not 'volk' was the problem. And part of volk was an understanding of gender roles.
But, anyway, to the question: The far-right didn't really care about queer people in the 1920s. They were much more into ultra-nationalism and nativism.
No one actually cared about them. Yes, there were laws against them, laws that at various times and places were implemented or ignored, but no one actually _cared_. Berlin was incredibly gay. You want to be gay in some small German town...well, people would probably pretty strongly suggest you move to Berlin.
I can't find any real information about how the rest of the German right felt about this, I suspect logically the Young Conservatives saw that as part of the modernity they despised, but I don't think they really did anything.
And same with the rest of the world, who were increasingly seeing queer people as an oddity, not a threat. The acceptance of gay people isn't a slope, it's a cycle. Indeed, the entire cycle would cycle, during the Great Depression, going back to presenting queer people as dangerous.
The Völkisch were _out of cycle_. Like I said, they were a reactionary movement, at least partially in reaction to social rules about gender loosening, which had just sorta hit Germany at the end of WWI.
The exact same reactionary movement that, once integrated into Na.zism, resulted death camps.
Like, there's a hypothetical Germany without the Völkisch, where the left falls to infighting and ultranationalism still takes over and they go to war again because of their war debts, but they _aren't_ genocidal lunatics. The Völkisch are the thing that makes fascism _fascism_, and not just general totalitarianism.
On “Signal Controversy Over Houthi Strikes Deepens”
I also feel the fact that Hegseth fired a bunch of military leaders because they might _hypothetically_ be incompetent because they were women and minorities and might possibly have gotten the job that way is relevant. And how he repeatedly emphasized that, from now, it was all about competence, pure competence, not any sort of affirmative action.
You know what Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. did not do? Discuss upcoming military operations on unsecured channel.
If we're talking about _competence_.
"
4. President Trump _isn't_ in this chat (Or, rather, the chat they should be having over a different, secure communication system), and instead this chat consists of people trying to guess what he wants them to do. This by itself should be a scandal, but 'This by itself should be a scandal' is basically the motto of the Trump administration.
5. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, aka, the military leader that exists to advise the executive on military action, isn't in the chat either.
This attack leveled apartments and killed civilians to attempt to kill someone that the US did not like, a thing which the Chairman of the Joint Chief might have had something to say about the legality of under the laws of war. That's literally part of his job. Because you're supposed to use the method of attack that uses the least collateral damage, and he might have been able to suggest another. I am not saying this attack was not legal, I don't really know enough about it to weigh in, but that sort of question is exactly why you include people in a discussion who understand that question and can weigh in on it legally, and is almost certainly why he was _not_ consulted.
Now, this is theoretically less of a scandal, because he could have hypothetically been looped in elsewhere. We have no idea where the plans came from.
But...we all know he wasn't. Hegseth literally came out and said the military was going to stop caring about civilian casualties a month ago, it's why he fired the JAG lawyers.
"
There has been a lawsuit filed over this over and claims it violated Federal record keeping laws (Which it objectively does).
It was randomly assigned to Judge Boasberg. You know, the judge that the Trump administration is trying to insist it is a state secret when an airplane took off and landed, despite it being a commercially chartered flight that Trump administration literally took pictures of and announced the landing of.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/26/signal-lawsuit-trump-judge-boasberg-00250606
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Reading that article, I have no idea how gay people are involved in this. Normal people, and I include straight people in that, have conversations about and general understandings of their level of a relationship.
This is not a new thing they need to start doing. Hell, the article talks about Sisson _literally explaining_ things to them. This is just some subset of women who willfully ignored it.
And I actually have a theory here: I suspect it's because he's an influencer, and that they have a obvious parasocial relationship in _addition_ to talking to him personally.
We've long had a problem with people thinking parasocial relationships are real and the people on the other side are in love or good friends with them, despite the celebrity not actually knowing their names. This is the same thing, except the celebrity does know the person's name and like to talk to them..but that person still has hallucinated a huge aspect of their relationship.
Some sort of blending, in their head, of the stuff he puts out publicly, blended with their conversations, to make them imagine he's spending _way_ more time with them then he is.
It's like they've discovering the guy who says he won't commit but has been living in their house and spending almost every waking hour talking with them...has been doing that with several other women. I think that would, reasonable, upset a lot of people, even with clearly explained relationship rules.
Except they just hallucinated the 'he's living in my house and spending every waking hour with me' because they're watching his tiktok a lot, and in reality they're just chatting like thirty minutes a day.
"
It kinda depends who it is. I said something similiar when Brian Thompson was killed, that if someone on the actual left did this, good luck. But if they did, we'd never know anyway.
Then he was tracked down, and it turns out he wasn't. So...at least that doesn't invalidate my point.
I haven't seen any reports on how competently this was done, although I have very little respect for people who use fire. I guess it could hypothetically be save to burn _cars_, which are in theory in a parking lot, but you can destroy Teslas just by throwing paint on them.