TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

"Trophy Buyer"

Step 1: Imagine success. Because you have earned it, you would have a room filled with trophies, honorary degrees, mementos of great deeds, gifts from respected people who respect you, and so on.

Step 2: Imagine utopia. There would be no terrorists, spies, organized crime, or attempts to suppress wages. There would be no anti-assimilation ideology, nobody would be using identity politics to pit immigrants and natives against each other. Therefore, there would be no need for borders. Utopia-world has no borders.

In utopia there would be no NIMBYs, corrupt contractors, bureaucratic friction, overpaid middlemen, shortsighted dine-and-dash taxpayers, no environmental blockaders and general project-hostage takers. When you get on a train there would no criminals, smelly people, vandalism, nor a conductor who is on drugs. There would be nothing stopping us from building shining new bullet-trains from coast to coast, therefore we would have shining bullet trains from coast to coast.



There would be no criminals, no crazies, no emergencies beyond kittens getting stuck up trees. Police would not carry guns, they would only carry stepladders. There would be no "stop and frisk", just "stop and ask which tree the kittens are in".

Back to step one: Imagine an alternate way to get that trophy room: instead of bothering with the great deeds, why not just go to a trophy store and buy some trophies? Why not use photoshop to fake a picture of you holding important meetings with world leaders?

When you understand why that makes no sense, you'll understand why it makes no sense to just jump straight to policy that only works in utopia. We don't live in utopia, so it doesn't make sense to have no border, no real police, and no attempt to figure out why American government can't fix a freakin' pothole unless the pothole is in Afghanistan...



Yeaaaah, right. That's how much liberals were just saying Trump's Wall would cost.

Great public works, unlocked doors and disarmed police are the trophy that nations get as a reward for having a strong sense of national unity and shared purpose. The exact sort of things that identity politics - the anti-solidarity movement - is fighting against.

[Joanna Lytton-Vasey]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

There would be nothing stopping us from building shining new bullet-trains from coast to coast, therefore we would have shining bullet trains from coast to coast.

That's a terrifying map, Brother Jeb. Not only do those trains cross the soon-to-be-completed Wall to the south, they also stray not just into the Chinese city of Vancouver but also right up into the hideous, Frenchified zones in the north-east.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

That's a terrifying map, Brother Jeb.

Don't worry, it will get nimbied at the first gopher-hole.

[Joanna Lytton-Vasey]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

Don't worry, it will get nimbied at the first gopher-hole.

It'll certainly get nimbied by the beaver-loving perverts at the Canadian border. As for Mexico, the Wall will block it. I don't know why I was so fearful: I really need to Get A Grip and pay more attention to my own signature here.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

In utopia there would be no NIMBYs, corrupt contractors, bureaucratic friction, overpaid middlemen, shortsighted dine-and-dash taxpayers, no environmental blockaders and general project-hostage takers....the trophy that nations get as a reward for having a strong sense of national unity and shared purpose.

Or just for being Chinese. Here's China building a hospital in a week:

[Sally Paulson]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

Here's China building a hospital in a week

Other countries have now done the same, but in their case it’s more like they build a hospital in 4 months and a week. 1 week of building AFTER 4 months of slowly realizing that, contrary to standard operating procedure with all other serious problems, you can’t get rid of coronavirus by distracting people with identity politics for a couple of news cycles.

There’s some nice quoteable paragraphs here:

https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2020/02/statism-as-accepting-moral-extortion/

I would have quoted them but I can’t because iPads are garbage.

Edit:

While ideal theory asks, “What institutions would we have if everyone were perfectly good and just?,” non-ideal theory asks, “What institutions should we have in the real world, where many people are evil, where people will take advantage of the rules, and where people’s willingness to comply is not a given?”.

...

If everyone were just and good, then the kinds of problems the state could solve would not arise. We wouldn’t need to enforce rights because by hypothesis people would respect each other’s rights. We wouldn’t need the state to collect and redistribute income because people would voluntarily give what they should, using non-coercive coordination methods, and no one would take advantage of others’ generosity or sense of justice. Just as a perfectly just society would have no need for criminal justice courts, it would have no need for a state, period. It would be anarchic. Not Rothbard-style anarchy, with private enforcement agencies, but Mickey Mouse Clubhouse anarchy, with no enforcement mechanisms at all.

[Social Construct]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

While ideal theory asks, “What institutions would we have if everyone were perfectly good and just?,” non-ideal theory asks, “What institutions should we have in the real world, where many people are evil, where people will take advantage of the rules, and where people’s willingness to comply is not a given?”.

If this sounds too abstract, here's the Democratic Party platform for 2020:

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

Great public works, unlocked doors and disarmed police are the trophy that nations get as a reward for having a strong sense of national unity and shared purpose.

Screw the trains, did you know that Japan, the most crowded industrialized country on earth, has never had any lockdown at all? They thought they could hold the Olympics during Covid, and they might have been right.

How did they achieve that? Well, for a start, they don't burn down their own cities every time a fentinyl-addled criminal dies.

The exact sort of things that identity politics - the anti-solidarity movement - is fighting against.

At the time I wrote this, I meant "arguing against", rather than shooting cops and burning cities, but either way, I feel like a prophet.

contrary to standard operating procedure with all other serious problems, you can’t get rid of coronavirus by distracting people with identity politics for a couple of news cycles.

LOL, that prediction didn't age well.

Though, in a week or two let's check infection rates in democrat-run cities and check just to be sure.

While ideal theory asks, “What institutions would we have if everyone were perfectly good and just?,” non-ideal theory asks, “What institutions should we have in the real world, where many people are evil, where people will take advantage of the rules, and where people’s willingness to comply is not a given?”.

If this sounds too abstract, here's the de facto Democratic Party platform that's being written behind the back of Sleepy Joe Biden:

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

Re: TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

I'm always suspicious of lists that have exactly 10 bullet points.

It feels like copyright infringement or something that makes me really mad. If you have 10 rules then you need to do the hard work and write a book with more than 2000 pages to show you really mean it.

I won't just accept any old 10 rules.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

Why blacks are still angry after 50 years of democrat mayors, democrat governors, and democrat activists doing their thing. Democrat "activism" is mostly just trophy buying:

It's easy to measure how people of a race are doing economically or in terms of health. But it's harder to measure how they're doing socially. That is, what is their position in society? Given current events on the topic of racial bias this is a topical question.

There are a number of well known ways we measure group social standing. We can look at representation in government, depictions in media, access to elite institutions, or ability to achieve valued careers. The higher a group's social standing the more you'll see of them in these areas.

Representation of blacks in film for example ought to demonstrate the existence of a significant black moviegoing block, which is a distinctly middle-class activity. It also should demonstrate the ability of blacks to break into the socially upper-class world of hollywood. A black actor getting a major part in a big film does nothing for the average black person, but it could be evidence of that person's position in society improving. Or rather it would be, except...

I think progressives have lost sight of the fact that these are meant to be measures not outcomes in-and-of themselves. And so they've gamed the metrics. Black representation in movies is high... but it's mandated by white studio heads and directors with a diversity quota to meet. And the audience for these is mostly progressive whites rather than actually embettered blacks. The same pattern repeats in academia and other areas we measure. The campaigns are "more blacks in X" not "better social standing for blacks so that they're able to pursue X."

And I think black people realize this. They can tell it's all fake....

[Dr. Anthony J. Toole]

Re: TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

And I think black people realize this. They can tell it's all fake....

I think the blacks, as well as the liberals, get triggered when we call them out for being a single uniform entity. Yes, I know they think they are all "individuals" but deep down we True Christians know they are just like us - a pure block vote that will march in lock-step when the right words are spoken. Did someone say *COUGHarmed insurrectionCOUGH*? Sorry I thought you said something.

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

In utopia there would be no NIMBYs, corrupt contractors, bureaucratic friction, overpaid middlemen, shortsighted dine-and-dash taxpayers, no environmental blockaders and general project-hostage takers....the trophy that nations get as a reward for having a strong sense of national unity and shared purpose.

[MitzaLizalor]

Re: TROPHY BUYERS: how liberals play at utopia without actually solving any problems

How long has the education system been shock blasting wisdom? Corrupting the ability to form ideas and think in a clear and precise manner? Annihilating any hope of distinguishing falsehood from reality?

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Maybe the French and the Japanese can make 300MPH trains by competing with one another (showing off) but where is God in those nations? By taking as the starting point "empiricism" or using instruments to make "observations" what do they hope to gain? A voting block rejecting God as the foundation of wisdom? Sure, you can make a bundle selling textbooks to reinforce lies being taught as truth. But that's not all. After a generation there'll be reinforcement in the home and attempts to apply that ruined thinking in a real world where causes always produce their effects regardless of the nonsense you've swallowed.

I Samuel 12:6-7 And Samuel said unto the people, It is the LORD that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD of all the righteous acts of the LORD, which he did to you and to your fathers.

Empiricists do not start with God. They start by taking in information through the senses: eyesight, say. They dig something up, look at it, compare it to other things, design instruments to look closer or farther away or measure things that can't be seen at all (magnetic fields, maybe) and form conclusions subject to revision if or when more data come in. Their conclusions disagree with Samuel in just about every respect. Disagree because they didn't start with God.

How many of these fools are there now? Eighty million? No decisions they make can build anything but ruin. Substituting falsehoods for truth, reasoning away from what God has revealed, even claiming that nothing involving Moses and Aaron was righteous, if they ever existed, and that everything God commanded in their journey was an atrocity! Two utterly divorced realities, incapable of cooperation, built up and reinforced now across several generations. Europe and East Asia may have trains. But what happens next? What is the price?

HELL FOREVER

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Re: The Demagogues Dictionary! New political terms! Get buzzy with new buzzwords!

Don't worry, it will get nimbied at the first gopher-hole.

your spaceplane doesn't use organic arugula for fuel so it has to stay grounded until we've solved obesity, sexual dimorphism, and the continental drift crisis!"