Just because the global right only agrees on no "Open Borders" doesn't mean that they aren't communicating or cooperating with each other. I'd also argue that there is plenty of stuff that they agree on besides even if it doesn't rhyme completely.
The basic problem is that the global right is cooperating internationally in ways that that global left is not. This is both at the formal state level with Vladimir Putin being very close to people like Trump, Netanyahu, Modi, and others and at the informal level. The various rightist online communities talk and help each other. The global liberal and left side of politics is filled with people that make each other retch and aren't talking or cooperating on a formal or informal level.
At the other blog we had long talks about the past few days on what the actual data shows from Harris' loss and what it means for the Democratic Party. There was naturally a lot of heat rather than light but contemporary liberalism and leftism might be an electoral loser. People seem to like center left policies but not the aesthetics of liberalism or center leftism. It's too feminine, bougie, namby pamby, etc. We might be looking at a Poland like situation where the best counter to the Far Right is a sane Center Right party.
I think most historians disagree with the idea of the dark ages and even the dark ages were seen as a thing, they were assumed to have ended around 1000 rather than the 14th century. The period between the 11th and the mid-14th century were seen as a Medieval boom time with lots of innovation.
The propaganda tools that the 21st century authoritarians have are a lot greater than that of the 20th century regimes. Goebbels would have loved social media and YouTube. Just an easy way to lead people down the rabbit hole.
The first theory doesn't require DHS to prove things. All the Secretary of State has to do is issue a letter on why this person is a foreign policy embarrassment and the IJ will approve it. The second theory is a lot more risky because it puts the burden of proof on DHS. I hope that Khalil's lawyers are consulting with people who know immigration law though.
Resident immigration lawyer here. The immigration lawyer community believes that DHS is going argue one of these two theories for removal Khalil.
1. There is an obscure provision in the INA that allows the Secretary of State to remove non-citizens who are believed to be foreign policy embarrassments for the United States. This is a very rare but very broad power.
2. They will argue that he made a material misrepresentation in his immigration paperwork by saying no to the questions regarding to material support for terrorism when he clearly supports the terrorist organizations of Hamas and Hezbollah. Material support for terrorism is again given a very broad definition under the law.
"So here’s where we get to my bill of indictment, based on my own lived experience (ahem) of these debates way back in the 1990s. In those days, when I was in college and grad school at Berkeley, a standard normie liberal critique of poststructuralism was that the anti-Enlightenment epistemic radicalism of the left, while overtly trained against the complacencies of small-l liberalism, would eventually “make space” for right wing critiques of liberalism.
This was a point that Jurgen Habermas made over and over again in his many debates with the likes of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Niklas Luhmann, and others. Having been raised in Hitler’s Germany, Habermas understood very well the risks associated with abandoning discourse ethics and embracing epistemic relativism, cynicism, or even nihilism. Habermas argued that the ideas these men were promoting, allegedly “from the left,” were sapping the epistemic foundations of democratic practice, which depended on the “regulative ideal” of reasoned, good faith discourse as a mechanism for achieving a “fusion of horizons.”
A lot of theories that originated in the Ivory Tower managed to escape it thanks to the power of the Internet. Now you have people who really don't have much background or training in those theories lecturing other normies about the inherent racism of whiteness.
This is something that I don't understand. California highways are filled with big electronic billboards remindins people that "buzzed driving is drunk driving" and "if tired, pull over and take a rest." This suggests that the government knows that driving is dangerous, many people are bad drivers, and they are going to drive under less than ideal conditions. They then set up a system that requires people to drive to get anywhere and go out at night.
I'm sorry but the anti-Zionists always claim to not be anti-Semitic but then they do things like go to random Jewish neighborhoods and yell and hit at residents like a crowd of protestors did at Boro Park, Brooklyn in late February this year. They don't say what Jews should have done in light of the exclusion and persecution we faced. Many of them even pretend it never existed.
Anti-Zionists at best demonstrate serious antipathy towards the Jewish people and basically find us an ideological nuisance. They have this neat cosmology in their heads and Jews don't fit into it.
What I think they want is for the Jews to be seen and not heard. They want us to exist in obscure little islands that keep to ourselves while the big block groups that they love get to make a noise.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe people can try to bel less evil overall rather than having the forces of liberalism continually have to compromise to get the votes of the less evil of the evil people?
A lot of the Pro-Palestinian activist in the West argue that the only just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is in fact the disappearance of Israel. Sometimes this involves a South African solution and sometimes this involves all the Jews going "home." This is why they adopted the specific framework of anti-Zionism and settler-colonialism during the protests and chanted "from the River to the Sea, Palestine should be free" and said that Israeli Jews should go back to Poland.
There is no evidence that they are lying when they say that or whether they, and the Palestinians themselves, will back down if given the WB and Gaza.
Just because inter-city passenger rail in the United States might not have made sense like it did in Europe, doesn't mean that we should have totally ignored intra-city transit. Like the gigantic sprawling cities create a lot of miserable driving experiences and road rage. Even with dispersed work destinations rather than everybody going downtown or to a few industrial areas for work, having everybody have to drive everywhere causes problems.
On “A Dark Age”
Just because the global right only agrees on no "Open Borders" doesn't mean that they aren't communicating or cooperating with each other. I'd also argue that there is plenty of stuff that they agree on besides even if it doesn't rhyme completely.
"
I'd start the early modern period at sometime in the early to mid-17th century and end it around the American/French Revolutions.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
Netanyahu apparently decided to launch a surprise attack on Gaza for no good reason with Trump's backing. We are in a world ruled by mad men.
On “A Dark Age”
The basic problem is that the global right is cooperating internationally in ways that that global left is not. This is both at the formal state level with Vladimir Putin being very close to people like Trump, Netanyahu, Modi, and others and at the informal level. The various rightist online communities talk and help each other. The global liberal and left side of politics is filled with people that make each other retch and aren't talking or cooperating on a formal or informal level.
At the other blog we had long talks about the past few days on what the actual data shows from Harris' loss and what it means for the Democratic Party. There was naturally a lot of heat rather than light but contemporary liberalism and leftism might be an electoral loser. People seem to like center left policies but not the aesthetics of liberalism or center leftism. It's too feminine, bougie, namby pamby, etc. We might be looking at a Poland like situation where the best counter to the Far Right is a sane Center Right party.
"
I think most historians disagree with the idea of the dark ages and even the dark ages were seen as a thing, they were assumed to have ended around 1000 rather than the 14th century. The period between the 11th and the mid-14th century were seen as a Medieval boom time with lots of innovation.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
White supremacists are going to white supremacists.
On “From The New York Times Editorial Board: The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education”
The propaganda tools that the 21st century authoritarians have are a lot greater than that of the 20th century regimes. Goebbels would have loved social media and YouTube. Just an easy way to lead people down the rabbit hole.
On “Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, and Protest Expectations”
The first theory doesn't require DHS to prove things. All the Secretary of State has to do is issue a letter on why this person is a foreign policy embarrassment and the IJ will approve it. The second theory is a lot more risky because it puts the burden of proof on DHS. I hope that Khalil's lawyers are consulting with people who know immigration law though.
"
Resident immigration lawyer here. The immigration lawyer community believes that DHS is going argue one of these two theories for removal Khalil.
1. There is an obscure provision in the INA that allows the Secretary of State to remove non-citizens who are believed to be foreign policy embarrassments for the United States. This is a very rare but very broad power.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2014/07/25/3400.pdf
2. They will argue that he made a material misrepresentation in his immigration paperwork by saying no to the questions regarding to material support for terrorism when he clearly supports the terrorist organizations of Hamas and Hezbollah. Material support for terrorism is again given a very broad definition under the law.
On “From The New York Times Editorial Board: The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education”
The money quote from the essay:
"So here’s where we get to my bill of indictment, based on my own lived experience (ahem) of these debates way back in the 1990s. In those days, when I was in college and grad school at Berkeley, a standard normie liberal critique of poststructuralism was that the anti-Enlightenment epistemic radicalism of the left, while overtly trained against the complacencies of small-l liberalism, would eventually “make space” for right wing critiques of liberalism.
This was a point that Jurgen Habermas made over and over again in his many debates with the likes of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Niklas Luhmann, and others. Having been raised in Hitler’s Germany, Habermas understood very well the risks associated with abandoning discourse ethics and embracing epistemic relativism, cynicism, or even nihilism. Habermas argued that the ideas these men were promoting, allegedly “from the left,” were sapping the epistemic foundations of democratic practice, which depended on the “regulative ideal” of reasoned, good faith discourse as a mechanism for achieving a “fusion of horizons.”
"
A lot of theories that originated in the Ivory Tower managed to escape it thanks to the power of the Internet. Now you have people who really don't have much background or training in those theories lecturing other normies about the inherent racism of whiteness.
On “Of Amtrak, AI, and Arguing About Trains on the Interwebs”
This is something that I don't understand. California highways are filled with big electronic billboards remindins people that "buzzed driving is drunk driving" and "if tired, pull over and take a rest." This suggests that the government knows that driving is dangerous, many people are bad drivers, and they are going to drive under less than ideal conditions. They then set up a system that requires people to drive to get anywhere and go out at night.
"
I'm actually a bit pissed at the speed because it shows that a government can move fast on physical work when it wants to.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/10/25”
I'm sorry but the anti-Zionists always claim to not be anti-Semitic but then they do things like go to random Jewish neighborhoods and yell and hit at residents like a crowd of protestors did at Boro Park, Brooklyn in late February this year. They don't say what Jews should have done in light of the exclusion and persecution we faced. Many of them even pretend it never existed.
Anti-Zionists at best demonstrate serious antipathy towards the Jewish people and basically find us an ideological nuisance. They have this neat cosmology in their heads and Jews don't fit into it.
What I think they want is for the Jews to be seen and not heard. They want us to exist in obscure little islands that keep to ourselves while the big block groups that they love get to make a noise.
"
The Courts don't shut down immediately but they do eventually shut down.
"
Being a citizen comes with responsibility. I don't like how the trend is to permit the abrogation of citizenship responsibilities.
"
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe people can try to bel less evil overall rather than having the forces of liberalism continually have to compromise to get the votes of the less evil of the evil people?
"
The Jerusalem Post puts the vote for Harris between 63% or 71%. 66% is still an overwhelming majority if that is the correct figure.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-832086
"
American Jews voted overwhelmingly for Harris.
On “Of Amtrak, AI, and Arguing About Trains on the Interwebs”
The gates are being put up fast.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/10/25”
Heritage Foundation drafts report calling for end of U.S. aid to Israel. So much that the Right is better for Jews:
https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/heritage-foundation-prepared-report-calling-for-ending-u-s-aid-to-israel/
"
A lot of the Pro-Palestinian activist in the West argue that the only just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is in fact the disappearance of Israel. Sometimes this involves a South African solution and sometimes this involves all the Jews going "home." This is why they adopted the specific framework of anti-Zionism and settler-colonialism during the protests and chanted "from the River to the Sea, Palestine should be free" and said that Israeli Jews should go back to Poland.
There is no evidence that they are lying when they say that or whether they, and the Palestinians themselves, will back down if given the WB and Gaza.
On “Of Amtrak, AI, and Arguing About Trains on the Interwebs”
SF has been adding fair gate barriers that people can't jump over to the system. I haven't seen any bad behavior in months.
"
Just because inter-city passenger rail in the United States might not have made sense like it did in Europe, doesn't mean that we should have totally ignored intra-city transit. Like the gigantic sprawling cities create a lot of miserable driving experiences and road rage. Even with dispersed work destinations rather than everybody going downtown or to a few industrial areas for work, having everybody have to drive everywhere causes problems.
"
I take BART everyday. There was a problem with disorderly conduct but that has been cleared up.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.