The 11 nations, a view that perfectly explains American politics and my own ideological leanings

[End]

I just got done reading that book by Colin Woodard and, fuck, it all makes perfect sense now. To those who hate Donald Trump, look at whom his rhetoric appeals to vs. those who it most certainly would not. He may hail and embody the ideals of "New Netherlands" (i.e. New York) yet because he refuses to "virtue signal" if ya know what I mean, he forges a direct line into the sentiments of "Greater Appalachia" and its begging and often begrudging ally, the "deep south". Do remember, we chose to fuck them over and join the union. We hated both choices, and we only picked the damned Yankeedom alliance of holy roller assholes because we knew full good and well who the slavelords were talking about when they mentioned "inferior" whites (i.e. ourselves, the whites who did not own nor desire to own slaves).

Seriously, there's so much hidden History in the book that you simply didn't get in K-12 unless your parents were so hardcore whatever nation you were born into that they'd even consider relevant. I'd make it part of the required curriculum much like "The Gulag Archipelago" is in Russia. We *need* this kind of history, so that even if we disagree, we can at least understand why we disagree. How a given people can value a collective over an individual vs. how a society with a baseline culture that values the individual above all can actually get along well enough with one that does not to the point where they can set it all aside and fight for a common cause like, say, the American Revolution. The slavelords, the puritans, the crazy insane frontiersmen that I'd certainly count myself among (seriously, instant FTL is a thing, I'm going to claim a homestead on Mars and grow crops so awesome you'll all be begging me to sell em' to ya), etc. All the old hatreds melted away so that all the very different and ultimately oppositional national interests set it all aside and declared that good could and would triumph over all human failures. I can dream that can happen again, can't I?

[Jarno]

I don't believe in society anymore, it's just a false name to exploit people.

Do they teach you at school how to cook and raise children? no? well then you are not the one benefitting but somebody else is, your future boss and the government.

You are nothing more than a living harddisk to them, store info at school and retrieve it again at work so your boss (lol), can make a nice profit and the government too.

They say people who extort you and promise you security in return is called the maffia, i think it's called the government.

People think there is peace in the western world, not knowing that working to get a share from the money and recources in the world, is the same as fighting for it. A standard war is won by whoever has the strongest soldiers, an economic war is won by whoever has the strongest workers. So you work 40 hours a week, you are enlisted in the economic army but you don't even notice it.

[uncivilized]

Take me to Mars with you. The world is going to decay without new frontiers; we need some virgin territory to make our own even if it is composed of toxic, percholate laden regolith. Time to break out the aqua culture and hydroponics equipment and grow bell peppers larger than human heads.

[End]

Take me to Mars with you. The world is going to decay without new frontiers; we need some virgin territory to make our own even if it is composed of toxic, percholate laden regolith. Time to break out the aqua culture and hydroponics equipment and grow bell peppers larger than human heads.

Gladly would take you with, only a fool would refuse another hand on the field of an alien world. Also, the more I ruminate on what I learned upon reading the book I mentioned the more my own attitudes make absolutely total sense. I'm a man from "Greater Appalachia", a Scotch/Irish of decidedly more "Irish" descent (i.e. I'm Catholic, so sue me). Yet even so, I so strongly agree that everyone's experience with God ought to be their own and that I don't much care what others believe just so long as they don't try and fuck me over because I "trigger" them by my own faith conflicting with what they think I "ought" to believe.

This is why we hate the "Yankeedom" puritans so damn much. Yeah, that's a nice belief system ya got there, but your prime error is FORCING it on everyone you ever meet and socially killing anyone who resists! You don't get converts by force damnit, lead by example like Jesus himself did! His whole fucking style was to be an example. His parables (i.e. think for yourselves on this one), his life (i.e. never expect kindness, yet have faith that others are kind), his death (i.e. the power elite will always hate and kill those who stand for the commoner), etc. The kingdom will come when God wills it, and there is nothing us mere mortals can do to hasten or delay its coming. We can only be good or evil ourselves, and we really ought choose good even though evil offers up some REALLY strong incentives. I mean fuck, Satan offered Jesus the whole damn world, offered to make him head of a world government, and he told him to go fuck himself.

Few if any mere mortal humans could turn THAT down. I mean, everyone thinks that if only they ran things it'd all work out. Yeah no, it won't, you'll get to learn the hard way why such thinking has always lead to the absolute worst outcomes in any historical context. You just can't change baseline culture easily, it takes centuries, and the commitment to admit that you yourself will *never* get to see the promised land. Rather, you lay the groundwork for the eventual promised land's manifestation. Such levels of selflessness are, well, Christ-Like. Fat chance getting that level of commitment out of an average sane person.

[Sol]

USA politics is best explained by the word "gangsterism".

[End]

USA politics is best explained by the word "gangsterism".

To be fair, that fairly explains all politics ever. All governments are, at best, merely mafias with good PR. It downgrades to just a straight up mafia that no other mafia can seriously contest that has shit PR, to a hardcore shithole, to a new mafia with good PR that will devolve into chaos once again in, oh, I give it 10 generations (no really, 10 generations is the pattern, learn it already!). History is a grim arbiter and, sadly, we're currently members of said tenth generation. It sucks yes, but at least this new "internet" factor can somehow help us avoid the traditional tragedy of this proven fact. For the very first time, us common proles can communicate instantaneously. That's new.

Great civilizations ascend on hobnail boots, and fall just as they put on the silk slippers their empire enables them to produce. Luxury! The enemy of all things good, just, and holy!

[Capitalist Pig]

"Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy." - Frank Herbert in Children of Dune