Commenter Archive

Comments by Dave*

On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 5/1/2023

Apparently so. Not sure how it could have ever gotten a $5.7 billion valuation.

On “I Agree With Donald Trump (For Once)

Yes, that's why it's fair to me to finish it.

Now where's my old ban hammer. I assume it's in the same place because it's too heavy for anyone else to lift!!!

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Damn. This place got soft!!!!! :D

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Isn't calling me names a violation of the commenting policy? Who enforces that around here these days?

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I smoke them slowly to ensure a long, painful death!

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Hipsters...well...pretty much - and their culture war stuff is cringe, but most culture war stuff is - unless I'm writing it then it kicks ass!

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Goldwater raised his objections about Welch but I don't think he pushed that much harder, nor could he, at least not until his presidential campaign ended.

He definitely wasn't one of them but like any politician, he wasn't going to openly piss off his base.

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You're right and it's interesting because in 1964, the populist right, aka pretty much every kook, bigot, crank and hardcore conspiracy theorist, cast their lot with Goldwater.

Trump wasn't the first outsider to have populist outrage surprise the GOP Establishment and win the nomination. Can't say for certain that Goldwater was but his nomination fits the bill.

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I'm trying. 100 lb dumbbell rows aren't too kind on the shoulders.

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Mostly anti-liberal but not always driven by race or culture as you describe it.

The populism of George Wallace? Well...

On “Can We Stop With The Anti-Semitism Nonsense About George Soros?

I'm old too. I'm old enough to remember Lee Atwater and the Willie Horton ad. I'm also familiar enough with the work of Sam Francis to know why Atwater was so effective.

And if I'm smart enough to recognize the parallels between Willie Horton and this weird need to defend criticisms of Soros that aren't even being framed as criticisms of Soros (Soros-backed prosecutor does not qualify), then I'm sure the rest of you can as well since I'm an idiot.

Think of it as understanding "brand value".

EDIT - Oh, and for the record, since I think "Koch-backed" is a brain dead statement, even if I concede that "Soros-backed DA" is not in of itself anti-semitic, all anyone wins from me is me referring to them as an idiot instead of anti-semite.

Classic example of a winner's curse if there ever was one.

On “I Agree With Donald Trump (For Once)

It is but it's hard to disentangle the two when the populism is fueled by cultural grievances.

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"Real" whiff? I guess that's true on some level. I think the consequences of the last serious populist push - Buchanan in '92 - contributed to Trump in 2016. The conservative vote got split and never reunited, especially after Perot came into the race.

I'd argue that Ron Paul's presidential run had it but i don't think it was as visible as it was with Buchanan seeing Paul had a lot of support from a younger crowd (though we whiff we got thanks to the articles about the newsletters was a hell of a whiff).

I think the style we're seeing always existed on the right but lacked critical mass or leverage until recently. Donald Warren's work on the Middle American Radicals showed that target population when he published his work in the 1970's and the late Sam Francis took that and ran with it (Francis was the intellectual firepower behind Buchanan and is still one of the most influential paleoconservative intellectuals - for better and worse).

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Alive and well. Causing tons of trouble on Twitter - albeit anonymously (well...semi - I think one of two people here know my Twitter handle). Always fun comparing the online anti-communists to Robert Welch!

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You can argue that the Trumpist candidates cost the GOP the Senate. Blake Masters comes to mind on that one. There's another state or two that comes to mind (GA, NH?)

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So much has happened since the old days - and since the last time I wrote anything for this site that I'd have to write a book to describe it.

Back around the time this site was kicked off, I don't think anyone read Jamie Kirchick's article on the Ron Paul Newsletters and thought it would have predicted the future.

The "establishment" libertarians, if they weren't completely useless back in that day, are pretty much irrelevant now. It was no surprise to see libertarians jump on the alt-right bandwagon given the proclivities of the paleolibertarians to march in lockstep with the paleoconservatives and anything else anti-government coming out of the fever swamps.

If we were surprised by Trump, it's because we may not have been as focused on what was going on behind the scenes in the conservative movement, which was an establishment that was well to the left of a very conservative base.

It's why I think something like Michael Anton's Flight 93 Election article is not a fringe position on the Right. It's also why we've seen a major shift on the right towards a populist form of nationalism.

That's it for now - hope you're all doing well.

On “Them’s Fightin’ Words: The First Amendment and Incitement

A genuine national security situation - game, set, match.

This isn't even close and any attempt to turn this into some kind of intellectual discourse goes nowhere.

Q always talks about the "Deep State" and now they're about to meet the real Deep State - the national security apparatus.

And the social media platforms? Consider the possibility that they're taking defensive measures because their lawyers are telling them that they're potentially in deep shit. They had no problem allowing Trump to spew his endless stream of crap until they realized that it may have had something to do with what happened in the Capitol.

The whataboutism that I've seen on Twitter, much from what I'll refer to as "anti-Left" Twitter is so morally and intellectually bankrupt that I'm almost personally embarrassed to have ever found those people and positions somewhat persuasive.

That shit's gotta stop. Nothing personal.

On “Pity Parler 3: Amazon Brings the Receipts in Lawsuit Filing

Trust me, it will all be money thrown down a rathole.

The ToS agreements are clear in that the determination of a violation is made by Amazon in accordance with the language in its agreement.

That Twitter chose to ignore certain instances that Amazon did not is legally irrelevant, especially if the violations are clear under the agreement Parler signed. This all falls on the interpretation of the language in the agreement and that language is crystal clear.

Honestly, this is almost worse than the election fraud lawsuit and that's saying a lot. I'm no lawyer but I deal with legal issues all the time and the idea that a counterparty to a mega-company's canned legal language thinks it has an out here is insane, especially when you consider that Amazon would have gotten sign off from both inside and outside counsel on this one.

On “Linky Friday: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures, Or Something

The same exact thing that happens in NJ when the beaches, hotels and other facilities start to re-open - not much and likely not enough to turn the red states into Manhattan.

One side makes idiotic appeals to tyranny and liberty and uses dumb ass terms like "lock down". The other either assumes people are so f--king stupid that people can't act responsibly or nutpick the idiots and assume that people are going to act in the worst way possible.

They better get the god damn gyms open because it's obviously that no one even lifts. Pathetic.

On “Latest Round of Stimulus Debated in Congress

Apparently, we're supposed to applaud capitalists and not give a shit about how business are actually operated because we can't force those of a certain mindset to take themselves out of their high-minded theory mindset and join the rest of us in the real world.

Right. Thank the Waltons for providing millions of jobs but heaven forbid anyone talk about how business is actually operated and how capital actually calls the shots, especially in public companies.

That would require understanding things those with their heads in the clouds are incapable of understanding.

Annoying.

On “Call Us, Maybe? Ordinary Times, By Any and All Labels Necessary

Let's not and say we did. Anyone caught in my grasp is gonna get crushed anyway. I'm a better lifter than I am a writer or commenter anyway.

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Having been one of the original seven that was here Day One, I think that sounds about right. Long time ago.

On “The Ballad of Gregory Rigano

It's effective when stacked with DNP.

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