Theme: Agency

—“The mistake was having you lead that rally, you yourself has said that you’re not a leader, we needed a leader there leading, someone who would have called out those who made that hand gesture and someone who would have realized immediately that handing over a mic to BLM would have alienated a quarter of your following, no one can blame you for doing the best you could in that time, we needed a leader, not a philosopher.”—by Josh Burda

Thank you. The problem is finding one OR leaving control of the environment to security, and using every man possible (which might be better that a single leader. My instinct is that’s more succesful than putting up a heroic leader who will be crushed.)

PURITY, AND IT”S RIGHT VS RIGHT

by Jennifer Dean

Purity doesn’t negate agency, or loyalty, it reinforces both. It simply narrows the focus.

Thinking again of the old churches here in the South, they periodically had some sort of conflict or feud and then part of the congregation would leave and form a new church. They are small congregations but mostly still very traditional and conservative.

The larger congregations who didn’t feud and purge the membership often enough are generally the ones who have leaned more to the left as time went on.

Packs vs. Herds.

It’s hard to get populism or unity on the right. Trump pulled it off, but the common complaints now are mostly related to purity of association, having questionable people around him now or in the past, not draining the swamp enough or purging the ranks. Then there is a segment of Trump supporters who are so staunchly loyal they won’t brook with the slightest criticism of him (much less anything like “ending the presidency” and I know people who are willing to start a war if that is challenged.)

So one form of purity means something like, what are the principles you live by and who do you associate with based on those principles. And the other form of purity is something more like, either you are with us or against us. And those are pretty much the same dynamics happening here with P.

So I think the right overall, including the normie middle that leans right, is reorganizing around purity by association with at least two very different measures, possibly more than two but those are the main two I have identified.

It essentially comes down to a question of loyalty to people, vs loyalty to principles, and how to bring the two into harmony so we can try to do both. And I have a sense that the next few years will hold some major conflict around that.

Now for me personally I tend to hold principles a bit higher except where family or very close friends are concerned. I hold certain values that are fundamental to how I live my life, and I’m willing to lose friends over it if it comes to that. And I don’t take threats to those values lightly. I take them as a literal threat to my life the same as a physical threat.

Then I see people who along with threatening my values, make literal threats against lives, potentially my own life or my own kin. These same people usually demand loyalty with the threat of death and make little to no attempts to negotiate or understand my perspective. I am usually pretty even-tempered about these things, I can even be quite friendly with people I consider threatening, but normie world does not work that way. They will lose their shit quick if they register a threat.

I no longer believe any of this is really about the left vs. right. This is the right vs. right and the left only got out of control because the right is not cooperating with itself.

To sum it up all I can really say is if you want something you have to be able to negotiate and make a deal that pretty well satisfies all parties.

Talk of winning at all costs is not negotiation, it’s just terror.

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( CD: Fascinating )