Tocky on 19/10/2025 at 22:01
Quote Posted by Kolya
dema clearly described a spiritual and social crisis of white young men. health care and infrastructure investments are not addressing the point. then again RippedPhreak asking what the Left plans to do about it, was a bit of a trick question imo. because the Left have caused this spiritual crisis. not by giving women or minorities a better chance. but by vilifying men to the point where young women think it's safer to meet a bear in the woods than a man. and by having no role to offer to young white men than to cheer on others, take a backseat, shut up and listen, believe uncritically, think about their privilege and silently suffer the payback for hundreds of years of the patriarchy.
if you're a young white man today, you may have some simple goals: job, wife, a few kids. you may not mind sharing the chores. and unlike your dad you want to spend time with your kids and communicate your feelings to your partner. but historical punishment? even if it might never amount to anything practically, it still sounds like they're prejudiced against you? and you know, whatever you might achieve, they will always attributed it to your privilege. dozens of groups will always have the moral highground on you, while they're fighting amongst themselves for the top of the victimhood pyramid. why bother?
meanwhile some crooked types on the Right go on about the good old times, when men were still MEN etc. but it really doesn't matter what they say, because all you're hearing is: they are offering you a chance to become someone on your own account. that's all you want. and the Left cannot even offer this.
This is why I can't really connect with this latest generation. I don't really understand the whine. It's harder to buy a house now and maintain a good standard of living and I think that is what it should care about. Who gets credit for my success? LOL. I don't care what other people think about that. Rich guys making it so this newer generation can't afford health care or a place to live is way more germane to existence. Oh no spiritual crisis! How about real and pertinent right now living crisis? That the right blows bears in the woods out of proportion that one woman said is typical of the right but I'm smart enough to see through that hype. It's a tactic to draw whiney men out of the woodwork and make them feel more disaffected so that they vote Republican. I get that. But why is being whiney more important than actually being able to achieve the American dream? It blows my mind.
So what am I missing? Why did young white men accept the back seat meekly instead of being smart enough to see the emerging races as oversensitive because of history and account for that in conversation and understanding? What I mean is why are we pussies? What caused that? Why can't we understand that actualities are more important than somebody slapping our backs and saying we are great? Why are we falling for the empty back slap of Republicans telling us we are so mistreated? Don't we have minds? Are we so into feelings that we will let them take away health care and housing? Republicans have never done anything except for the rich but we aren't smart enough these days to see that the hand that back slaps and tells us we are being oppressed by the poor is the one actually repressing us?
Seriously. One of you right leaners tell me why feeeeewings are more important than actualities like housing and health. I don't understand it.
Kolya on 20/10/2025 at 00:01
Nicker, you're either missing or ignoring how I said that people smirking about his death is more relevant to me than his views. Because no one should be shot for their views, regardless how fucked up they are. And no one should be happy if this happens, for obvious reasons.
Next you're sidestepping that dema described a spiritual crisis, whose origins I illustrated. Again it feels like you just go to your default argument, about all the economical advantages the Left would provide, regardless of what was said. Maybe you've had too many of these exchanges and that is why you're not listening anymore, just throwing your battle tested talking points into the ring instead. Whatever the reason, it's simulating a discussion.
I liked your thread about truth and reconciliation though.
I have no idea what lowenz is on about with this armchair psychology.
Tocky: You brought the most unqiue version of "kids these days" to the table I have ever heard. Using the allegedly whiny GenZ argument to explain the election success of the Republicans is an interesting switcheroo, considering the Left generally nurtures this behaviour and the Right pretends to be all about strong individuals making their way, not needing any support.
But I still want to address the question why "a slap on the back" is important. Of course it's much more than that, it's about a chance at social recognition and participation versus being the villain of the story from the start. Wanting your voice to be heard, to use the parlance of our times, is important to everyone and not a sign of weakness.
Man, I'm spending way too much time on these posts. It used to be easier, spitballing the first reflex aiming for maximum impact. But I guess it's better this way. Still I could be watching After the Hunt instead!
Nicker on 20/10/2025 at 03:37
Quote:
Nicker, you're either missing or ignoring how I said that people smirking about his death is more relevant to me than his views.
Oh I got that but I believe the opposite. I think the idealistic hand-wringing is a simplistic distraction. It kind of smacks of the crypto-racist retort to "black lives matter" -
"ALL lives matter". Sounds good and fair on the surface but it ignores the fact that the lives of brown people still don't hold the same value in the hearts of the empowered majority. It's cheap, cynical wordplay.
Sure nobody should be murdered for anything, especially their
views. But Kirk wasn't murdered
for his views, he was murdered
by his views. That's not just a rhetorical difference.
He built his considerable wealth on the justification of violence as a tool for personal expression. Guns are more important than children. Murder is the acceptable price of freedom. And the other irony you may also not be aware of - his killer shot him because Kirk was not far enough to the right for his killer's tastes.
As for the spiritual crisis in white males, IMO that is manufactured from the culture of blame, grievance and victimhood which is MAGA's bread and butter. Nobody is preventing them from finding self awareness. Nobody is oppressing them. They are the most privileged minority in the USA. What the fuck is their problem, precisely? Because "spiritual" is doing a lot of meaningless lifting in that complaint.
Quote:
Seriously. One of you right leaners tell me why feeeeewings are more important than actualities like housing and health. I don't understand it.
MAGA and the right seem to have become the snowflakes they accused the rest of us being. "Facts don't care about your feelings", as Ben Shapiro said. Except that Ben is notoriously short on real facts in his rants and when facts hurt the feelings of his people, the left is being uncaring brutes.
Every MAGA accusation is a confession.
demagogue on 20/10/2025 at 05:35
It's a spiritual crisis like the late 19th Century was a spiritual crisis because of massive urbanization and the shift of European & US economies from agricultural to industrial economies, and the consequent loss of community, economic security, and sense of purpose, which was addressed by total rehauls of public education, local services, industrial and labor policy, and new forms of community building (scouting, urban reform, the invention of "holidays" and "public/recreational spaces", not as old as you thought they were huh?, changes in religious organization, etc., etc.)
Now the sources of today's crisis have to do with the transition from industrial to a service economy, economic insecurity again, in particular job insecurity (more work is irregular & not on a career track), people starting families later & later if at all, lowering house ownership, and maybe worst of all, social media has been really weaponized against our youth, wiith these tech companies malignantly commodifying the attention economy with all kinds of hostile cognitive hooks that are literally rewiring our kid's brains in damaging ways; not having regular in-person social contact with their peers or patience to read or think about anything without some AI crutch, etc., etc. Saying "Millennials & Zoomers are just being lazy, selfish entitled brats that need to stop whining, get off their asses, and get to work like we did" is being pretty blind to reality, to say the least.
Ok RP asked me for some reason what libs & the Democrats are supposed to do about the situation.
I don't have time to write an essay now. Edit: Or I guess I do.
A few points...
- I've only ever worked for Republicans (a party which doesn't exist anymore). So I don't know why I'm being asked. Ask them.
- To begin with, government is the last institution you want involved with spiritual guidance. This is supposed to be a Conservative mainstay. The self immolation of American Conservatism under Trumpism is pathetic all around, but the fact they want the federal gov't of all things to be their conduit to God now is absurdist theatre of the highest form. FFS the federal gov't is sending troops to control US cities and these NRA types are crying out spank me again Daddy. Charlton Heston wept. (I wanna make a "cold dead hands" gag here, but I'm not seeing it. I'm sure somebody can come up with one.)
- The thing about rolling back the separation of Church & State (which if Charlie Kirk stands for anything, it's pushing that agenda), the concern isn't only that that's terrible for policy making, in that you're going to put morons into positions of authority that are going to make terrible policy that gets people killed--that's a given. But what the people pushing it don't seem to get is that it's also awful for spiritual growth. I don't want the federal gov't making decisions or flyers about how to build people's relationship with God, or whatever the equivalent is for a meaningful life from all kinds of other perspectives. Those are the last people I would want to trust with that. People should be meeting with other attuned people locally and building meaningful relationships and life in community. Sometimes I hear in Kirk's language something like he's opening the door to that new style of community building, but he always seems to fall back on really a short sighted vision -- if only we take back control of the gov't, of business, of media, of our public spaces... It all seems to come back to ressentiment... It's the libs, women with glasses and pink hair, the trans and gays and blacks that are leading our youth astray and into spiritual rot, or whatever. If that's your starting point, you're not going to build any constructive spiritual revival worth the name. You gotta build a movement, and attract people to it, not tear down other movements because you fear what you don't understand...
- Anyway, all that said, what the gov't is supposed to do is give people financial and personal security... Keep us from being invaded, keep grocery and fuel and housing and medical costs low, incentivize job growth, but not only that, the kind of jobs that are regular, well-paid, career-track, good insurance and retirement, etc. And then it should just get out of the way and let communities do their thing. It shouldn't be in the business of dictating values. Case in point, Charlie Kirk's memorial was getting shamelessly co-opted by sleezebag opportunists that couldn't give two shits about the actual spiritual crisis young people are facing; they so transparently just looked like they wanted to ride his wave to secure more power for themselves and at best humiliate what they perceive as the source of the forces against them, Trump above all but really the lot of them (Charlie's wife was the only one that looked like she was there for the right reasons). Pathetic.
- Okay but we also have this problem of social media rewiring kids' brains. I know public schools are trying to address this with phone bans and the like, which seems like a positive thing, but not really getting to the root of the issue. Tech companies should also be better regulated according to good empirical data, so the agencies that regulate them need to be independent, so money shouldn't be allowed to have as much influence on policy making as it has (i.e., Citizens United should be overturned).
- But aside from all of that, probably the most important things that should be happening should be outside the gov't. There should be a social movement to rebuild in-person social contact, community building, mentorship, things like that, things like scouting and religious reform and the transformation of recreation and community building 100 years ago were doing, but obviously reset to today's context. That's the direction I wish this energy built up by Charlie Kirk & co. were directed towards, since it's got the popularity and engagement and organization to do something big with. I don't think politicizing all of that energy and directing it towards federalizing spirituality or disempowering "out" groups is going to do anything useful for the actual task at hand.
Anyway, that's a thumbnail view of the way I see where we are right now.
I think something useful could actually be made out of this movement that Charlie Kirk has built up, once you dig underneath some of the dumb and unfortunate rhetoric around it, but it's not going to go anywhere constructive being directed towards resentment and humiliating others and led by shameless political opportunists, I think.
Edit: Also nice to see you around Kolya. You picked a hell of a time & topic to jump into. Let the record show, while I don't agree with Kolya on everything, I've been a lot more sympathetic ear than most of you louses.
lowenz on 20/10/2025 at 05:47
Quote Posted by Kolya
Because no one should be shot for their views
They're NOT "views" nor "personal opionions", they're weaponized arguments intended to divide society on purpose. Why are you so disingenous about these kind of people?
No one kills anyone for simple "opinions", but there are not "opinions" here.
As I've sais it's a cultural war carried by the equivalent of young spartans of the Krypteia, that's their model for "future leaders" like Kirk.
But sometimes, in return, someone transposes the cultural war in a real homicide.
demagogue on 20/10/2025 at 16:24
Oh maybe there's something else I have to explain that I didn't earlier. I did bring up the topic that there's a spiritual crisis among young white men. So I maybe need to clarify why we should bother focusing on them at all. I did that because the topic is Charlie Kirk & his movement is built on the foundation of a spiritual crisis among young white men, and one has to pay attention to them because they're organizing and a real political force.
In my own actual opinion, I think the crisis is happening to all young people, and they're in it together, if they'd step back and see it that way. And I think a lot of material factors are at the root ... to do with the stuff I talked about above, job insecurity, low wages, they're not meeting people face to face, still less people from other backgrounds, not building relationships or feeling secure enough to have families, get a house, etc. Then on top of all that society is just changing, people are terminally online and their whole world is this grand ironic memeosphere. Then the crisis comes out of that, feelings of being lost in society, no prospects, hopeless, no sense of purpose or community, etc.
Anyway, it's a general problem across the whole generation. I just specified young white men because they're the ones most relevant to the movement here. It just turns out what I think will help all demographics will help them as well, so to my mind the solution is the same across the board. Everything I said above. But I can see that that's not how they see it, since they're banking on resentment of other groups and tearing them down as the way forward, which in my view is ass-backwards. To take one example, if you want lower food and housing prices, gutting more than half of the US agricultural and construction labor force is just pouring gas on the fire, and you're not building community with your actual neighbors. Etc.
heywood on 20/10/2025 at 16:28
Quote Posted by lowenz
They're NOT "views" nor "personal opionions", they're weaponized arguments intended to divide society on purpose. Why are you so disingenous about these kind of people?
No one kills anyone for simple "opinions", but there are not "opinions" here.
As I've sais it's a cultural war carried by the equivalent of young spartans of the Krypteia, that's their model for "future leaders" like Kirk.
But sometimes, in return, someone transposes the cultural war in a real homicide.
You're both talking nonsense
Tocky on 20/10/2025 at 17:54
Here is a cold dead hands for you dema- You can take my hardon for Trump when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Quote Posted by Kolya
Tocky: You brought the most unqiue version of "kids these days" to the table I have ever heard. Using the allegedly whiny GenZ argument to explain the election success of the Republicans is an interesting switcheroo, considering the Left generally nurtures this behaviour and the Right pretends to be all about strong individuals making their way, not needing any support.
But I still want to address the question why "a slap on the back" is important. Of course it's much more than that, it's about a chance at social recognition and participation versus being the villain of the story from the start. Wanting your voice to be heard, to use the parlance of our times, is important to everyone and not a sign of weakness.
Allegedly whiney? Please. It's the ones who have it best who are doing the whining. The fact is I do see that they think the darkies are going to win and displace them at the top of the food chain. I do understand that they see white women choosing to procreate with black guys as a personal affront. The right doesn't always directly express that but sometimes they do. I know it's what they use to appeal to incels. And yeah, I think that is weak. If you want to point out that whitey did in fact take over the world and put in place a system that utilized all cultures whether for good and bad then fine. But now we go weak? Now we need social recognition and participation trophies?
Look, I know I'm an old man yelling at the clouds, but it wasn't this way once upon a time. I do agree that the internet has allowed the right to manipulate the narrative. They made you think that the left nurtures weak behavior. They pick out some weak people on the left crying about losing to what amounts to monsters on the right and say that is what the left is. You admitted that is what you think. They sold that to you. It's a surprise for you to see me stand up and say that no, that is weak. Are you getting it now? Even falling for that narrative is weak. That isn't the left. And being kind to those in harder positions than ourselves is also not weak. It's hard to be these days. Harder than being scared darky is going to take over for sure.
But to imply that now the left needs to coddle the whiney right because they need social recognition they are so weak is mind blowing. They are the ones constantly lashing out at us. Now we have to baby them? No. Stand on your feet like men. Accept your past. If you want to point out all the good whitey has done and the lies told by those on the left then fine. But accept the truth too. History is never one sided. For godsake they are changing text books in Texas because they can't accept reality. Participation? Stand on your feet and participate. Tell the good of your people. But accept the bad too. Don't hide that. And don't let anyone tell you that you are the only ones with bad in their past. THAT is the main lie on the left. Tell that. Be a man. We really ARE much the same. We really DO all have bad in history, minorities and all.
Now should any of that take precedence over being able to discern the BS politicians say over what they actually do? NO. Republicans constantly show they are only for the rich. They constantly cut programs for the working poor while cutting taxes on the rich which adds to the debt. Trillions even. How about listening to THAT instead of thinking a voice that understands nothing because it fears a darky takeover should be thought of as not a weakness. It IS a weakness. It blinds them to what the rich are doing to them which is one hell of a lot more pertinent. This being weak on the right is hurting us all. I won't coddle that.
demagogue on 20/10/2025 at 17:58
Come on, you gotta give us more than that.
Edit: Lol, ninja'd. That was to heywood.
I don't even know if it's nonsense because you think it's communist or Christian or fascist propaganda or because it's not communist, Christian, or fascist enough for your taste.
But do you at least admit that young people are feeling unmoored because they don't have secure jobs and family prospects and are looking towards some kind of religious revival & leveraging that to take back control of institutions from liberal bias and corruption (gov't, business, media, etc.) that Charlie Kirk was talking about as the thing that's gonna give them purpose in life? That was at least my starting point. Is that not what Charlie Kirk was standing for?
Edit: It just occurred to me, esp. looking at my post time, that "both" might not include me but talking to lowenz & Kolya too. Well... Possibly ignore this if it was. It is interesting to me when non-North-Americans talk about US politics (I think Canadians also still basically know the score), even when I agree with their gist, there's still something lost somewhat in translation.
enid on 20/10/2025 at 19:58
Quote Posted by lowenz
Before even speaking to him.....it's really not how forgiveness (christian too) works, show apart.
These people are living in a self-perpetuating show.
I have been practicing Orthodox Christianity for over 19 years, and I can tell you this is how forgiveness works.
It's not condoning the murder of your husband.
It's not holding onto the mistakes of others.
It's not saying that what you did was okay or even downplay the whole incident
It's not saying "I forgive you" just to be on the front page of the news
Forgiveness is moving on and asking what do I do next? And how am I going to move forward and make progress?
What happened to Charlie was awful, regardless of how many mistakes he has made, how he approached political subjects or even if the roles were reversed, it wouldn't even matter because the shooter would be the one at fault for shooting an unarmed man surrounded by innocent bystanders, regardless of whatever politics we are talking about or we invent.
People keep talking left this, right that. Or Trump or Biden.
They keep assigning labels to things that might or might not mean something all for what? To prove talking points?
I am not a perfect human being, just like anyone on this Earth. Hell, all of you and the ones outside this thread are a hundred times better than me in several areas.
But let me ask you this hypothetical:
IF Charlie came back from the dead somehow, Do you think he would forgive his killer?
That's all I ask. And thank you.
