Coal - AMA

Ask away.  I was inspired by thett3 primarily.  But he's a much more interesting person than I am.  After all, reliable sources confirm he is in fact a pirate. 

Pirates aren’t as bad as global warming. Zing!

What is your blueprint for a post 2020 America?

Which are you more intimidated by?

Logic, or your own ability/inability.

Thoughts on Taco Bell?

Do you believe in extraterrestrial intelligent life?

Palestine or Israel?

Russia or China?

> What is your blueprint for a post 2020 America?

I don't have a blueprint.  Just a set of ideas I'd like to see materialize.  I'd like for people to be more respectful of one another, I'd like to see the news industry done in and I'd like to see the economy start to recover so the people who lost their jobs can begin to make a recovery. 

I'm a fellow Scot; before that, France, with my Scot ancestry arriving in Boston in 1625, so, I am centuries an American.

So you're centuries old Mr Faux?....Incredible.

If you want to regard ancestry in terms of centuries, then it's fair to say we are all one and the same.

Especially if one has theistic tendencies, with all that Adam and Eve stuff.

For some reason you chose to stop, and cherry pick Scotland and France, or should I say Alba and Gaul....Aye...Was it the lure of the bagpipes and the fine dining Monsieur McFaux.

Might be some Hibernian in there too....Or Norse or Roman or any number of central and southern European influences.

Are we all pedigrees or mongrels Mr Faux?

Sometimes, like this morning, I feel centuries in the making.

I don't trace as deep as Adam & Eve, but that is a goal. WE, the members of my Faith, believe the necessity to ultimately trace our ancestry to Adam and Eve, with the intent to seal our family lines together, son & daughter to father and mother, until we reach them and can celebrate the family of God the Father, because we have a Mother there, too. Yeah, bearing billions and billions of spirit children. We all are brothers and sisters, and just need to learn to respect that and stop our quibbling over tidbits of problems.

My grandfather on my dad's side (the scottish side) had records that dated the family tree back to the 16th century in scotland.  

I spent most of my life thinking I was only scottish and German.  Turns out half the german side is from Russia.  

Hence, your interest in Russian culture, as it was pre-Lenin. I entirely agree and admire it; it was an admirable culture which could have flourished significantly enough, I believe, to reach a status of Russian becoming the next language of diplomacy after French, instead of English. The Russian revolution cancelled that well enough, and they've yet to recovery that glory.

Yeah, I have no love lost for the Soviet Union.  Though I understand, emotionally at least, why a lot of people who grew up under it, now miss it.  For many, even given the political risks, life was better from a material perspective and a cultural perspective under the Soviet Union than Russia now --- post-Stalin, at least.  And certainly under Brezhnev, for example.  Svetlana Alexievich has written extensively on this phenomenon and I think her work is very important.   

That being said, the USSR produced some of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century;  movie producers (e.g., Tarkovsky) some of the best engineers; and probably the single most important author of the 20th century, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  So credit should be given there where it's due.  And the legacy of the USSR produced brilliant films as well, such as Brother (Брат) and Brother 2 (Брат 2), and Burned by the Sun (Утомлённые солнцем).  Note, however, I reject the Soviet narrative that Stalin was just a bastardization of Lenin's ideology and, if only Stalin had been a true Bolshevik, the workers of the world would have seen the socialist revolution Marx foresaw and that Lenin shepherded in.  That is all complete fantasy.  Gulag Archipelago obviates any semblance of that narrative's truth.  

It is the entirety of Russian history, though, which interests me.  From the Kievan Rus to present.  You are correct, however, that my main cultural focuses are decidedly pre-Soviet, namely Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and their contemporaries.  Same with theology and philosophy in Russia at that time.  I agree also that Russia's cultural prestige was lost during the Bolshevik revolution and has never recovered.   There were notable soviet authors, like Gorky, but the richness and depth of what they produced is nothing compared to giants like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.  That was Russia's cultural golden age.  

Absolutely, I concur with all you said. There is something to be said of sustenance of Russian culture during the USSR, and a resurgence of it is certainly a potential now. Personally, I am disappointed by Democrats dismissing/embracing Russia. Wish they'd make up their minds. I think Russia could be formidable ally, But Dems hated Trump so much, it blinded them that they now blame Russia for everything. One get's tired of it.

I have a hard time seeing Russia, under the current political leadership, ever allying with the United States.  State-directed media do nothing but blame America for all of Russia's problems in particular and the world's problems in general.   Putin's nationalist, nativist rhetoric is specifically calculated to uniting the Russian people behind him by uniting them against the United States.  It's the cornerstone of his political standing.  

And our strategic interests are directly in conflict in the Middle East, Africa and South America.  Russia is increasingly making inroads in all of those places.  To say nothing of China, whose pipeline deal with Russia should have sent shockwaves down the Hillary Clinton state department.  She was only focused on ginning up war in Syria (which would have meant war with Russia) but was otherwise asleep at the wheel. 

In 10-20 years though, when Putin is dead and Russia is led by a Millennial, I think things will change for the better.  Old prejudices will die hard, but when the Soviet Union and Cold War fade from living memory, then a mutually beneficial relationship can take hold.  And by then, our strategic interests will be in less conflict, because the arctic will be navigable year round and Russia's geopolitical role will be profoundly greater.  

Exactly

Though I regard the Biblical Adam and Eve as an analogy.

I apparently have a Roman nose and the origins of my surname are Germanic, so in terms of selective ancestry, you can refer to me as Herr Zedicus.

Though I have never felt the need to research my ancestry, but  it would  fun to do one of those DNA tests to determine my biogeographical ancestry.

Do you identify as a right-wing pragmatist, is that the correct way to sum up your position?

Do you feel your sexuality (which I presume is still homosexual) has caused you issues both with family and with your personal political outlook, religion etc?

In a world without media, how does a populace stay reliably, regularly informed of important events of any kind?

> What’s the REAL story about what happened to DDO? 

Sorry, that's classified.  

I am, indeed, gay.  And that probably has influenced much of my political outlook.  For example, my over-arching issue is the size and scope of the government.  I want the smallest, least intrusive, least regulated and most minimally powerful government as can be achieved without the society breaking down.  

I am acutely skeptical of, in particular, anyone who wants to use the power of the government to regulate anyone else's life; due in no small part to how many so-called "moral majority" types (read: a dark, pernicious aspect of right-wing movement conservatism that came about under Reagan) used the power of government to legislate morality in all kinds of terrible ways.  Whether criminalizing homosexuality, criminalizing gay sex of any kind, the idiotic and failed drug wars, moral panic around pornography and even rock music. 

But then the Democrats, in no small part thanks to Biden, picked up where the Reagan-Republican type neocons left off in the 90s.  Joe Biden, for example, tried to ban violent video games (and believe it or not, there are still people who advocate for such stupidity), passed incomprehensibly stupid crime bills, restricted gun ownership rights, passed the stupidest laws relative to pornography that have yet to be seen in the developed world (most of which were struck down by the Supreme Court, thankfully) and have tried (unsuccessfully, again thanks to the Supreme Court) to vitiate the 4th amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. 

Since the beginning of his time in political office, Joe Biden has unidimensionally argued for expanding the size and scope of the federal government in response to any "crisis" no matter how trivial, inconsequential or even imagined (see generally, like every moral panic ever).  In fact, I would challenge anyone to find a single elected democrat whose answer to anything was different from "make the government bigger."  It's vile, authoritarian insanity that has gone far to far for far too long. 

And it is not even as if it's made people's lives better.  Just the opposite, in fact.  With each legislative session, the country's progression into a calcified, authoritarian bureaucracy governed by know-nothing technocrats at the federal level who write the rules to suit their real constituents' (read: donors) interests expands without reprieve.   The people's liberty has been consistently sacrificed on the alter of fear, with no end in sight.  It's not even as if there is a crisis that's going to waste .... they'll make up their own crisis and scare everyone to death about it with real or imagined threats and blatant, unapologetic yet consistently hyperbolic misinformation. 

Left wing hacks like Jake Tapper attack Fox News for doing this.  But in reality, CNN is by far the worst offender.   It turns out that the country that elected Barack Obama twice is populated exclusively with hate-filled bigots such that anyone who has any non-majority identity claim cannot leave their home without fear of violence from "right wing terrorists" who, according to CNN, incited an insurrection on January 6th, 2021.

Of course, we need a 9/11 style commission to investigate that ... but congressional democrats can't even be bothered to acknowledge that TWO TIMES IN THE PAST 30 DAYS there have been cyber-attacks against American critical infrastructure; once on a natural gas pipeline that served the entire south east and second in Tulsa, Oklahoma which has been practically unreported by the media.   

It's sickening.  Though if given the choice between people in the two parties, despite the fact that someone like Mike Lee is a crazy right-wing Mormon, I would prefer someone like him over Biden 10/10 times.  Literally the most vile, incompetent and corrupt Republican (who, at the moment, is probably Donald Trump) would be less horrible than what shit the Biden Administration has been based on any objective review of the facts in play.  

Other than Tulsi Gabbard, I cannot think of a single democrat in power that doesn't make me at least mildly nauseated to think about. 

> In a world without media, how does a populace stay reliably, regularly informed of important events of any kind?

You mean broadcast media?  Thankfully we're moving in that direction.  CNN has lower ratings than many channels on YouTube.  NBC is  dying empire.  I'd be shocked if CNN still exists at the end of Biden's presidency.  No one is watching them.  No one wants to watch them.  Literally no one gives a shit what any of their so called reporters have to say about anything, and their primetime lineup is comprised of ideologically-driven hacks who make such figures as Bill O'Reilly and Lawrence O'Donnell look moderate.  

At least O'Reilly and O'Donnell are honest about who they are and where they were coming from.  Cuomo is a disgrace to the profession.  

If the GOP can totally shed the old cultural issues it has lost on (like gay marriage) and focus on the new social issues, that I think are much stronger positions, like opposing wokeness and giving kids unregulated hormone therapy, and can move just slightly to the left on economics it will be the dominant party...but idk if that will happen.  It's annoying because the GOP doesn't have to go full DSA, but if voters could believe that there was no chance they would cut social security and medicare and they would stop obsessing over tax cuts that would probably be enough

Please all three answer this article with your take on it if you want. I'll only post this once to avoid spam, link to my post here with the orange number in the top right (right click it and copy link address) if you want.

I am not that pro-trans that I'd support this athlete's medal, I will say this now and officially. To me that is a direct interference between feminism and trans-rights and I will side with feminism there out of fairness and bigger picture issue.

I have always seen gay marriage less a cultural issue than a "how much control do we give the government over people's lives" issue.   I also think it is the culturally conservative position.  Marriage, itself, is a conservative institution by definition.

Though I agree it's also an old cultural issue; just not a cultural issue, first.  The problem is that conservatives failed to see what else was on the horizon.  They thought it was legalizing incest, child rape or some such nonsense.  But in reality, it was gender and the very idea that sex and gender share the same sole biological basis.  So, having lost the culture war they picked they are in a far worse position to draw a line in the sand where it actually NEEDS to be drawn.  

The counter-argument is, of course, well if they didn't fight we'd still be here in the same place and maybe would have gotten here faster.  The reason I disagree with that opinion is because the institution of marriage itself --- while it certainly would have changed --- would have remained an institution.  This gender stuff, on the other hand, erodes marriage's institutional foundation.  

That article details a case study in the beginning of the end of women's sports.  

Others are encouraged to ask away.  The better your question, the more likely I am to write a detailed response --- although the fact that I might not write a detailed response doesn't mean I thought your question was bad.

RM's question on the trans athlete, for example, was a fine question.  It just required only one sentence to answer. 

Suggested topics include:

Politics, including everything from first principles, to competing values to specific policies. 

Books, including both fiction and non-fiction; pulp fiction and mass market thriller novels to hard-hitting Russian literature.

Advice, although it's entirely possible I may start asking you questions if I need more information from you in order to understand your situation.

Hobbies, including everything from YouTube, to first-person-shooter type videogames (ideally on consoles). 

Culture, whether your own or a different one. 

Etc. 

like Coal said, I think women's sports are a great thing, and I don't want to see them go away 

For me yes, I don’t think there is a meaningful distinction between sex and gender. But if someone who I think is clearly a man/woman wants to identify the other way Ill call them whatever they like even if I privately disagree. My big, BIG problem with all of this is with children 

I will also use pronouns that make a person happy but I think the focus should be that sports are split by sex, not gender.

This weightlifter spent 30+ years building muscle and growing as a well-fed bulky man, a male. He/she then takes some oestrogen and we have to play the fucking fool that the bulk of muscle and bone density just disappears because now after her male (at the time) body had developed she does that.

what does your ideal economic system look like?