George Clooney

She corrected it. You have a point assuming you’re lambasting her for being too generous to conservatives in response to her hatred of centrist Dems.

I’d be shocked if she pulls the R lever since she’s a social democrat.

Liz Bruenig is an admirable person, and I agree with many of her political views in general. Unfortunately, her latest article was pretty disheartening to read because it is succinctly gloomy. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/american-kids-no-rights-culture-war-roe/629791/

Your last sentence is spot on regarding devoted Christian men. Very few will ever admit it even online, but they’re terrified of any one of their sons being gay.

I think JD Vance has been a regular viewer of his at some point. That’d be unsurprising considering Vance is a fascist.

Sure, but that’s true of the majority of topics discussed at any given moment. Again, I should have added “who commentate on these issues” after general public.

Yes. I should have clarified that I meant American Catholics. It’s important for everyone to understand that it’s largely just liberal Western democracies who are opposed to China. I think many already understand this and are disappointed by it, but I still see lots of hubris from Western journalists/the general public who can’t believe that non-Western nations don’t really care about human rights abuses in China.

Old article, but I’d love to see the reactions of trad Catholics after reading this. https://catholicherald.co.uk/china-is-the-best-implementer-of-catholic-social-doctrine-says-vatican-bishop/

Yes, China indeed views its rise and hopeful global hegemony as payback for the century of humiliation. Thankfully for us, they simply were never meant to be true leaders.

Xi is rolling back liberalization because he knows that'll doom the CCP's long term legitimacy. Just let the demographic chaos play out and watch it crumble. It won't happen any time soon, but just be patient.

Peter Zeihan goes into more depth on their possible fracture due to social strife from a widely imbalanced M:F gender ratio (I believe it's 118:100 in their <40 demographic). The Chinese are militantly loyal to local authority but generally distrustful of federal authority, and they've been this way for centuries. Because of this, their current unified run is something of a miracle. They're far more socially complex and pro-democratic in private than western media would ever portray. Jiang Shigong is one of their primary thought leaders who knows this and thus is trying to bolster the state through codifying moral transformation into CCP ideals. He is an avid scholar of people such as Deleuze, Nietzsche, Foucault, Marx, and Carl Schmitt (gulp). He knows that the state's current authority is only as strong as its constant economic improvement, so he wants China to continue to reject harmful outside forces. Chinese citizens expect to be better off than their parents, and this has been easy in recent times due to Mao's abhorrent economic policies followed by Deng Xiaoping's successful reforms. Funnily enough, he generally dislikes Deng because he believes China was becoming too submissive to the West under his influence.

Anyone interested in better understanding Xi Jinping Thought/Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ought to read Jiang Shigong. I believe China is destined to fracture in our lifetimes, and it's important to read the words of some of their thought leaders to sense their inner fear.

I think Devin Leary at NC State will be a better pro than Bryce and Stroud.

It’s unfortunate that so many people like Hitler have grasped onto the Übermensch as their personal salvation. The whole point of the Übermensch is that it is a likely unattainable goal for humanity to escape nihilism borne of the rejection (or death) of God. Like the passage says, people like Hitler loathe their weaknesses and believe that exerting power over others will remedy them. It’s unfortunate that Nietzsche’s sister was an early Nazi sympathizer and helped to warp so many of his words into a sick ideology.

This one is on my reading list, and I'll probably start it in about a month. For books as long as this one, I always force myself to meet a daily page requirement even if it hits a lull.

That was one of the required texts in a lit class I took in college, and I generally enjoyed it as well. It's tragic to read about the deaths of so many (such as Robert Mapplethorpe) in the LGBT community from the AIDS epidemic.

Have you ever read The Antichrist by Nietzsche?

To be fair, I don’t hang out with many conservative guys nor are there many outspoken ones in my extended family, so I don’t have a wide-ranging view of their thoughts in recent times. That being said, I don’t wish to shame conservative men or women even if they adhere to strict moral absolutism derived from the Church. I find the timid steadfastness of many liberals to be off putting as well, but that’s a conversation for elsewhere.

I suppose you and I run in very different circles then, or perhaps we just perceive common complaints in very different manners. I don’t place strict values on degrees in a consequential manner even though our culture does, and that’s fine. Regardless of what one chooses to study, I think more people ought to read the works of various ideologies/thought from Nietzsche to Hume to Marx to Burke and beyond.

It’s not a critique but rather an observation. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think a certain proportion of any population seeks meaning and enlightenment through an organization/ideology with dogmatic ideas. They aren’t wrong for doing so, and I don’t blame those who have rejected the Catholic Church in particular (I am one of them). However, I would never cast judgment upon those who find meaning from their church as long as they fully respect others’ civil liberties.

I don’t support forgiving all student loan debt since that’d clearly be regressive, and I know of very few people even asking for that unless they hold that view in private. I simply think there’s a positive downstream effect from low-cost programs within the fields Sack derided in public institutions. The same is true of STEM majors, but I think everyone agrees with that already. Also, every conservative guy I’ve ever known has either publicly or privately bashed liberal arts majors even if said LA major has never begged for anything.

I believe proper funding of those programs benefits the rest of us more so than the degree-earners in question. It’s unfortunate that certain fields such as gender studies (which really shouldn’t be an undergraduate major) are currently steeped in dogma, but that’s to be expected when a certain proportion of the population seeks religion while rejecting the churches in which they were raised.

Those degrees may be worthless for many, but they still need to be properly funded and maintained so that we don’t further devolve into a nation of philistines.

The book by Sam Harris? That's unsurprising, considering he's a complete charlatan. It's hilarious how he considers himself to be a philosopher since he merely obtained his BA in philosophy. He's also an Islamophobe, yet he'll dance around that accusation like a bitch any time someone accuses him of such. He and the majority of his fellow New Atheists are just dogmatists on the opposite pole of the religions they despise so much. He is everything wrong with the charlatan intellectual class in America today.

DeSantis will likely be the next president. Unfortunately for Ron, his short stature (5'9") will likely be a legitimate hurdle to overcome. Perhaps that's why he's often so angry.