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I'm right there with you about the 2nd Iraq War. But as I've gotten older I've seemingly gotten more conservative and I'm relieved to have a status quo politici

I'm right there with you about the 2nd Iraq War. But as I've gotten older I've seemingly gotten more conservative and I'm relieved to have a status quo politician running USG as the devil I know. I've grown up under the shadow of mass surveillance (Binney was 2001) and status quo mass reality distortion, and see a way around that through Free software etc (despite it being an arduous road). But I don't have much of an answer to domestic administrations paralyzing institutions, wagging the dog with nonsense like "antifa" and "stolen election", and unleashing physical troops (both federal "law enforcement" and social media fueled militias) to hunt for the witches. And ultimately it bothers me that all of the legitimate critiques of the status quo US power structure are being brought into the limelight simply to enable a different set of looters who are even more shameless.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> ultimately it bothers me that all of the legitimate critiques of the status quo US power structure are being brought into the limelight simply to enable a different set of looters who are even more shameless. Me too. It's the self-reproachment then self-cannibalising following darks periods that is tragic and painful to watch. In my own conservatism I am exasperated by iconoclasts toppling statutes and badmouthing our values as if that could put things right or undo acts of a few whose ideas were clearly wrong even at the time. Going back to the German experience, they more or less had an "intergenerational war" in the 70s. Not to over-psychologise but Tolstoy would clearly name the devouring guilt of our own crime and self-punishment. Nations that wage unjust wars are as traumatised as those they destroy, just in a different way. Again with the Russians, I can't help but think the ghosts their boys brought back from Afghanistan ate a good portion of the values they needed to keep people like Putin out of power.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> ultimately it bothers me that all of the legitimate critiques of the status quo US power structure are being brought into the limelight simply to enable a different set of looters who are even more shameless. Me too. It's the self-reproachment then self-cannibalising following darks periods that is tragic and painful to watch. In my own conservatism I am exasperated by iconoclasts toppling statutes and badmouthing our values as if that could put things right or undo acts of a few whose ideas were clearly wrong even at the time. Going back to the German experience, they more or less had an "intergenerational war" in the 70s. Not to over-psychologise but Tolstoy would clearly name the devouring guilt of our own crime and self-punishment. Nations that wage unjust wars are as traumatised as those they destroy, just in a different way. Again with the Russians, I can't help but think the ghosts their boys brought back from Afghanistan ate a good portion of the values they needed to keep people like Putin out of power.