Meme Thread for Both Posting and Discussing Memes

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Would the same be true of "frontier justice" in places where the only law and government were what the people there all made for themselves?
Government backed death squads to tend to go out of control like you say... but take these people as a counterexample:
cropped-untitled.jpg


Did they proceed to go on a killing spree mowing down anyone they encountered whether they were looting or not?
There's a large difference between an actually temporary group shooting in defense of life/property vs a group of people that is organized and designed to hunt down and execute people in cold blood.
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder

What did he miss?
Well, if you wanted make sure you bounced the rubble on destroying society, you might also:
- Make there be a bunch of special-interest minority groups each demanding that everything be all about themselves
- Make the common people completely lose faith in the government
- Make as much of the population as possible unemployable
- Make human rights meaningless by refusing to prosecute crimes against ordinary people
- Make the cities uninhabitable
- Make the education system non-functional
- Make the media incite hatred
- Make the military incapable of defending the nation's territorial integrity
- Make the police incapable of maintaining law and order
- Make the water supply undrinkable
- Make the legal system completely irrational

That would do it, I think.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Solution's easy. When the time comes, join a death squad and personally execute a bunch of paedophiles and rapists. That's ample proof you're good people, and that settles the score as far as you're concerned. It's a simple matter of demonstrating what side you're one.

This is a culture war, not some silly race thing where your genetics decide your fate. What will be asked --demanded -- of you is loyalty. To be sure, times of extremes always bring excesses. I don't deny it, although I lament it. But overall? Your choices will decide your fate.

So long as we agree that this---

Drag-Queen-Story-Hour-6-1024x727.jpeg



--needs to die by fire, we'll be perfectly in accord, and no worries.

I think that a few death squads hunting down people who rape small children would be a far lesser evil than future generations being brainwashed into perversion by men dressed up as demons with what look like asparagus stalks growing out of their heads.

That’s probably how the Bolsheviks felt about butchering Nicky’s remaining loyalists as they were “cleansing” the country, or how SS members felt about purging the SA degenerates and street thugs.

They may have been targeting bad people, but that mentality of “We just need to kill these monsters here and things will return to normal if you help us, no big deal!” tends to result in terror and blood purges all around that sweep up no shortage of good people, too. Not to mention turning those carrying it out into not-so-good people themselves, as they get used to killing now for the sake of the “worker’s paradise” or “Thousand-Year Reich” later.

It’s an easy way to get just-as-bad or worse guys to cosplay as saviors and snooker you into helping them kill off their (also-bad) competition, is what I’m saying.

Sorry, guys, but I have to agree with @Abhorsen and @TheRejectionist on this one. That said, I’d say the latter’s absolutely correct to point out that more such groups will form once the next crisis period hits, whether we like it or not. 😔
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
As fine as I would be fine tossing them in prison (I have general opposition to the death penalty because I don't want to take the chance to kill an innocent unless it is blatantly obvious (caught red handed)), I doubt it will stop there. The people willing to join death squads will likely those quite fine killing all the gays/trans.
The idea that death squads would only hunt down the bad people is the lie that results in mass murder of innocents.
if there isn't anyone watching the watchmen, you got your perfect recipe for Cheka style murderbots. @Abhorsen would be proven right in a year or less... IF THERE IS A BEST CASE SCENARIO.

Unfortunatly I do see something to see happen in the future. When,how,who and where are still unknown to my knowledge.
They may have been targeting bad people, but that mentality of “We just need to kill these monsters here and things will return to normal if you help us, no big deal!” tends to result in terror and blood purges all around that sweep up no shortage of good people, too. Not to mention turning those carrying it out into not-so-good people themselves, as they get used to killing now for the sake of the “worker’s paradise” or “Thousand-Year Reich” later.

It’s an easy way to get just-as-bad or worse guys to cosplay as saviors and snooker you into helping them kill off their (also-bad) competition, is what I’m saying.

Sorry, guys, but I have to agree with @Abhorsen and @TheRejectionist on this one. That said, I’d say the latter’s absolutely correct to point out that more such groups will form once the next crisis period hits, whether we like it or not.
The point here is indeed that things are going in this direction regardless of what anyone may wish. The trend is well underway, and the trajectory of events is escalating. So what may we surmise? @Abhorsen was afraid of being targeted in the back-lash. My point is that the conflict isn't necessarily "staunch conservative" versus "rabid progressive", but "enraged populist masses" versus "entrenched elite & globalist perversity".

Are those populist masses (and especially their leaders) going to be nice? I very much doubt it. Is the conflict inevitable? I don't doubt that at all. And a thing about populist movements is that they're pretty broad. So the defining distinction between "ONE OF US!" and "DIE, TRAITOR!" is loyalty. It's not your race or your sex or whether you're straight or not. It's whether you're willing to stand with 'the movement'.

So my suggestion, most especially for those who are part of a group that is often associated with "the enemy", is to leave no doubts as to your loyalty. Is this a desirable state of affairs? No. But again: that's how it's going to be. So I'm not here to sell utopias, I'm here to tell you what's a smart move.

The future is a very violent loyalty test, and failing it means death.

So don't fail.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
The point here is indeed that things are going in this direction regardless of what anyone may wish. The trend is well underway, and the trajectory of events is escalating. So what may we surmise? @Abhorsen was afraid of being targeted in the back-lash. My point is that the conflict isn't necessarily "staunch conservative" versus "rabid progressive", but "enraged populist masses" versus "entrenched elite & globalist perversity".

Are those populist masses (and especially their leaders) going to be nice? I very much doubt it. Is the conflict inevitable? I don't doubt that at all. And a thing about populist movements is that they're pretty broad. So the defining distinction between "ONE OF US!" and "DIE, TRAITOR!" is loyalty. It's not your race or your sex or whether you're straight or not. It's whether you're willing to stand with 'the movement'.

I dunno, my understanding is that such movements — no matter how broad-based or good at coalition-building they are, at first — tend to purity-spiral like crazy once they're in power.

For one, the communists prided themselves on being an international force where workers' solidarity was paramount, while racial and national distinctions ceased to matter. But did that stop Stalin from deporting "troublesome" ethnic groups, starving several million Ukrainians, or planning a purge of Soviet Jews in his last days? Nope; not even close.

Naturally, that makes me reticent to swear fealty to a populist leader who's likely to exterminate the Swiss for "teeming with globalist banker swine", as well as come for me, my family, my friends, and other insufficiently zealous populists the same way that communist regimes purged "subversives" and "counterrevolutionaries" left, right, and center — no matter how flimsy the charges or how loyal they had proven themselves to be.

After all, Stalin also had people killed by quota, so a populist leader who takes after him and likewise has thousands or tens of thousands of random citizens executed or Gulag'd — so long as it's the right number of people killed, regardless of whether they're actually guilty or not — sounds frighteningly plausible to me.

So my suggestion, most especially for those who are part of a group that is often associated with "the enemy", is to leave no doubts as to your loyalty. Is this a desirable state of affairs? No. But again: that's how it's going to be. So I'm not here to sell utopias, I'm here to tell you what's a smart move.

The future is a very violent loyalty test, and failing it means death.

So don't fail.

Per the above, most of us will probably get purged by our comrades if we chose the "winning side". So, really, it's more of a choice between being executed almost immediately (globalists) or being executed in five years' time (populists) — as well as being coerced into doing lots of killing ourselves in the meantime, as well as stare at mass graves filled with corpses that we'll be heaped into ourselves one day. That is, unless you're either blessedly lucky or a butt-kissing, murderous zealot who curries the boss's favor and whines about how the regime has "gone soft" as soon as their excesses have been phased out.

As such, I'm tempted to say the best move in the game is just not to play and form your own Free State Project or whatever as that "small, but principled and sane" third faction that keeps to itself and stays off the big guys' radar as much as possible. Not an option for everyone, unfortunately, though seeing as "Augustus" won't be available until a generation or two after the initial shit-fight, that's probably your best bet.
 
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Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
Taking Stalin as the paradigm example makes sense for Communism, but not so much for other movements. Stalin was less the revolutionary, than the guy who had to clean up the mess after them. (And largely, they were the mess)

Rightwing dictatorships tend in practice to be less mass-murdery than Leftwing ones. For one thing, the Right aren't the ones wanting to push all the society into some new ideological mold. Rather, they are there to stop that.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Taking Stalin as the paradigm example makes sense for Communism, but not so much for other movements. Stalin was less the revolutionary, than the guy who had to clean up the mess after them. (And largely, they were the mess)

Rightwing dictatorships tend in practice to be less mass-murdery than Leftwing ones. For one thing, the Right aren't the ones wanting to push all the society into some new ideological mold. Rather, they are there to stop that.

As Skallagrim said, we're probably not looking at a conventionally thuggish, but otherwise vanilla right-wing regime seizing power and putting things back the way they were.

I'd be more tempted to agree with you if ACW II broke out tomorrow and the MAGA Republicans won in a few short years, but considering how most people would rather sit on their hands and wait things out than duck and cover as a bombing raid levels their house, that means they'll have to live under an insufferable social order run by degenerate, out-of-touch elites for decades longer, becoming angrier and angrier all the while — until one day, for no reason at all, Hitler gets elected again.

So, while I don't expect the world to go to Hell tomorrow, I'm much more worried about "true fanatics" co-opting a correspondingly angrier, more murderous populist opposition when it's finally their time to shine. They may not be communists — in fact, Neo-Bolsheviks will probably be some of the first to get crucified once they're in power — but the same underlying principle of underlying impatience, resentment, and opportunity for aspiring mass-murderers to commandeer the movement and turn it into something way worse applies here, too. That won't end well at all, I fear. :(
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
I dunno, my understanding is that such movements — no matter how broad-based or good at coalition-building they are, at first — tend to purity-spiral like crazy once they're in power.

For one, the communists prided themselves on being an international force where workers' solidarity was paramount, while racial and national distinctions ceased to matter. But did that stop Stalin from deporting "troublesome" ethnic groups, starving several million Ukrainians, or planning a purge of Soviet Jews in his last days? Nope; not even close.

Naturally, that makes me reticent to swear fealty to a populist leader who's likely to exterminate the Swiss for "teeming with globalist banker swine", as well as come for me, my family, my friends, and other insufficiently zealous populists the same way that communist regimes purged "subversives" and "counterrevolutionaries" left, right, and center — no matter how flimsy the charges or how loyal they had proven themselves to be.

After all, Stalin also had people killed by quota, so a populist leader who takes after him and likewise has thousands or tens of thousands of random citizens executed or Gulag'd — so long as it's the right number of people killed, regardless of whether they're actually guilty or not — sounds frighteningly plausible to me.



Per the above, most of us will probably get purged by our comrades if we chose the "winning side". So, really, it's more of a choice between being executed almost immediately (globalists) or being executed in five years' time (populists) — as well as being coerced into doing lots of killing ourselves in the meantime, as well as stare at mass graves filled with corpses that we'll be heaped into ourselves one day. That is, unless you're either blessedly lucky or a butt-kissing, murderous zealot who curries the boss's favor and whines about how the regime has "gone soft" as soon as their excesses have been phased out.

As such, I'm tempted to say the best move in the game is just not to play and form your own Free State Project or whatever as that "small, but principled and sane" third faction that keeps to itself and stays off the big guys' radar as much as possible. Not an option for everyone, unfortunately, though seeing as "Augustus" won't be available until a generation or two after the initial shit-fight, that's probably your best bet.
Taking Stalin as the paradigm example makes sense for Communism, but not so much for other movements. Stalin was less the revolutionary, than the guy who had to clean up the mess after them. (And largely, they were the mess)

Rightwing dictatorships tend in practice to be less mass-murdery than Leftwing ones. For one thing, the Right aren't the ones wanting to push all the society into some new ideological mold. Rather, they are there to stop that.
As Skallagrim said, we're probably not looking at a conventionally thuggish, but otherwise vanilla right-wing regime seizing power and putting things back the way they were.

I'd be more tempted to agree with you if ACW II broke out tomorrow and the MAGA Republicans won in a few short years, but considering how most people would rather sit on their hands and wait things out than duck and cover as a bombing raid levels their house, that means they'll have to live under an insufferable social order run by degenerate, out-of-touch elites for decades longer, becoming angrier and angrier all the while — until one day, for no reason at all, Hitler gets elected again.

So, while I don't expect the world to go to Hell tomorrow, I'm much more worried about "true fanatics" co-opting a correspondingly angrier, more murderous populist opposition when it's finally their time to shine. They may not be communists — in fact, Neo-Bolsheviks will probably be some of the first to get crucified once they're in power — but the same underlying principle of underlying impatience, resentment, and opportunity for aspiring mass-murderers to commandeer the movement and turn it into something way worse applies here, too. That won't end well at all, I fear. :(
Well, it's certainly true that the populist movement isn't conventionally right-wing. The anti-establishment, kill-the-plutocrats bent of the movement is evident. As I've said before: the political heirs of (the supporters of) Donald Trump and the political heirs of (the supporters of) Bernie Sanders will be members of the same party. And conversely, you have the Clintons and Romneys of this world forming a single bloc on the other side.

And it will all be violent and unpleasant. And in the end, the populists will win, although victory will be hard-fought. Will that be a "right-wing" victory? I wouldn't call it that. Funny thing, I just came across this old vid from the Onion:




Meant as a joke, so probably fitting for this thread. (And I'll try to stop de-railing after this post!) But here's a question: is that tirade there the battle cry for a communist uprising? Well, maybe. But it also fits as a call to a MAGA uprising, doesn't it? I don't think the Populists are left-wing, but they present a solution to the same problems that fuel communism, too. (Because that's the thing with actual communist revolutions: the solutions are shit, but the problems are often very real, and grievances legitimate.)

I fear that I am only giving @Abhorsen more reasons not to like the Populist movement. But again: the question isn't whether it's good or bad. The question is what you do in the context of its inevitable emergence and eventual triumph.

Personally, I can afford to wait it out and look on. I'm not big on public executions, but you know what? When the Martin Shkrelis of this world get their eyes gauged out and the Klaus Schwabs of this world get sentenced to the pyre... I won't feel very sad about it.

That's the bottom line, really. For a good long while now, a bunch of idiots, lunatics, perverts and plain old evil fuckers have been screwing up the world. They set the stage for an inferno, and now they're playing with matches. The outcome is utterly predictable. The coming world-fire will be terrible-- but one hopes that for all its terror, it might in the end be something of a cleansing fire.

And to allude briefly to a famous song:

That fire? We're not the ones who lit it.

(But to be fair, I for one am no longer trying to fight it, either. They deserve what's coming. Maybe we all do.)
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Well, it's certainly true that the populist movement isn't conventionally right-wing. The anti-establishment, kill-the-plutocrats bent of the movement is evident. As I've said before: the political heirs of (the supporters of) Donald Trump and the political heirs of (the supporters of) Bernie Sanders will be members of the same party.
No they won't? Literally the only thing they agree on is casting down the shitlib elitists. But their hypothetical party being in power implies that this has already happened, and they vehemently disagree on what is the right way forward from there.
And conversely, you have the Clintons and Romneys of this world forming a single bloc on the other side.
In that case they would have no block. They have no support base in the democratic sense of being even close to winning any election. Their whole political strategy is based on being the moderate, mainstream, establishment approved versions of the thing Sanders and Trump respectively promise and then delivering a small segment of that, plus a lot of elitist policies and pork snuck behind it.
If they can't convincingly mimic the more defensible and popular political ideas, they have nothing, and allying too closely will ruin their ability to fool their audience effectively. they need to make up their mind on which political ideology they are pretending to be behind, as even if they are completely apolitical technocrat party of power, good luck selling that, they need to keep up a charade that they are something else, and they have to make up their mind on which something else they supposedly are.
Which they might do, and we already see the signs, with Bushes, Romneys and the like drifting towards the progressive ideals in their statements.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
I've discussed this matter with you before, @Marduk, and you didn't present sensible arguments then, either. I'm not going down the road where you've forgotten all previous conversations and want me to repeat myself again.

No they won't?
Meanwhile, I note you haven't yet cured whatever defect causes you to rely on the Reddit-typical unwarranted use of interrogative tone. Cut back on the soy, man. It's bad for you.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
I've discussed this matter with you before, @Marduk, and you didn't present sensible arguments then, either. I'm not going down the road where you've forgotten all previous conversations and want me to repeat myself again.


Meanwhile, I note you haven't yet cured whatever defect causes you to rely on the Reddit-typical unwarranted use of interrogative tone. Cut back on the soy, man. It's bad for you.
Imagine telling others to cut back on the soy while simping for Berniebro socialists.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
Imagine telling others to cut back on the soy while simping for Berniebro socialists.
You have the Reddit-speak down pat. Now turn on your brain, and consider that quite a lot of Bernie voters switched to Trump in the general, rather than voting for Clinton. And then consider how Romney and his ilk drove a dagger in Trump's back and all but explicitly backed Clinton.

Really. Instead of (as you do so often) trying to one-up others in some online discussion, look up what's actually going on. It's not hard to see.

Alexa, play Fanfare for the Common Man!



(And yes, that was composed in a spirit of ideas then seen as left-wing... which happen to be ideas that were also central to Trump's 2016 campaign. Weird how that plays out. Almost like the steelworkers who voted 'red' back in the day were betrayed and discarded, so they now vote 'red' in quite a different manner.)
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Well, it's certainly true that the populist movement isn't conventionally right-wing. The anti-establishment, kill-the-plutocrats bent of the movement is evident. As I've said before: the political heirs of (the supporters of) Donald Trump and the political heirs of (the supporters of) Bernie Sanders will be members of the same party.

No they won't? Literally the only thing they agree on is casting down the shitlib elitists. But their hypothetical party being in power implies that this has already happened, and they vehemently disagree on what is the right way forward from there.

*Looks at Hitler purging the SA and Strasser brothers.*

Yeah, something tells me you can expect a similar conflict between different wings of the victorious populist faction, too. I know I already cited the Night of the Long Knives, but I can't stress enough how unity based on hatred makes for a fragile alliance, at best.

The future populist leader either ordering a blood purge of "dissident elements" as Hitler did, or succeeding where Röhm failed by launching a successful coup against his more "moderate" superiors? Either of those could very ensue, I think, so I wouldn't bet on whatever coalition the populists build remaining stable for long — without some "much-needed cleansing of our ranks" to get rid of old rivals and keep everyone else in line.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
unity based on hatred makes for a fragile alliance, at best.
I know it's you, Kreia. You can drop the act.


some "much-needed cleansing of our ranks" to keep everyone in line.
FEAR WILL KEEP THEM IN LINE--!

Oh. Wait. No, still Star Wars, I'm afraid.


I've reached my quotum of serious responses for the day, I'm afraid. And this is still the meme thread, so I'm stopping my derail, as promised. :cool: (But otherwise: what you posted encapsulates the tragedy of the human condition, doesn't it? There are no final victories. It's always from one disaster to the next. Best thing to do is keep on grinning.)
 

Morphic Tide

Well-known member
2: Most evidence points towards "porn addition" being downstream from the social structure problems, like fentanyl abuse is
3: The problem is uprooting the social contract, religion is just the European norm of backing that in an inter-state fashion
4: Dietary problems aren't any kind of direct toxicity, but rather difficulty avoiding malnutrition without excessive calories
6: Politicians have always been rich, and most "Return to Tradition" types are looking at systems that did much more of it

Do agree with the general sentiment, just feel it's too overtly Paleocon about it and thus misses very important details, giving secondary or even tertiary issues and universals of civilization as causes in the same breath as directly attacking some of the few genuinely universal functions of society.

Also, "Christianity" as sole moral arbiter was done for in the 1700s. Nothing you can do will revive it from the shitshows responsible for the US's model of Freedom of Religion, unless you think you can memory hole Protestantism ever existing and somehow prevent a new Martin Luthor from publicizing your choice of central church being a shit.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
I know it's you, Kreia. You can drop the act.

Well, yeah; pretty naked reference that I made very deliberately. :sneaky:

FEAR WILL KEEP THEM IN LINE--!

Oh. Wait. No, still Star Wars, I'm afraid.

This time, the reference was unintentional. As I said, I was more referring to Hitler gutting the SA and other left-wing elements of the party (who, in all honesty, might as well be called "National Communists") as soon as they outlived their usefulness as a precedent for why I'd expect much more purging and purity-spiraling than you do.

But yeah, guess we've banged on enough about this in a thread centered around memes. So, before the mods can action me, I'll drop it and take it elsewhere, if you'd still like to discuss it.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I think this is relevant to the inevitable revolution/purge discussion.


TL;DR
A successful ruler must have the support of "Key" supporters who hold the levers of power, such as the military, media, and financial power.

The poor do not hold a key and can be ignored, any treasure distributed to them or projects to support them is treasure a rival can promise to give to keyholders if they help overthrow you.

The fewer key holders there are, the easier they are to keep under control and the more stable the government is. For this reason, any successful revolution tends to be followed by a purge.

It then goes over how democracy differs from dictatorships, but ultimately still follows those three rules just using bought-off voting blocs as keyholders.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
You have the Reddit-speak down pat. Now turn on your brain, and consider that quite a lot of Bernie voters switched to Trump in the general, rather than voting for Clinton. And then consider how Romney and his ilk drove a dagger in Trump's back and all but explicitly backed Clinton.

Really. Instead of (as you do so often) trying to one-up others in some online discussion, look up what's actually going on. It's not hard to see.
And how does the case of some Bernie supporters deciding that they hate the elitists slightly more than they hate the conservatives counter anything i just wrote?
As for Romney:
Kizinger is not much better:
Find an anti-Trump Republican, and chances are you can also catch him virtue signalling to the ideological left.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
And how does the case of some Bernie supporters deciding that they have the elitists slightly more than they hate the conservatives counter anything i just wrote?
It underpins the thesis that the most acute divide is between the masses and the elite. Which is what I wrote.


As for Romney:
Kizinger is not much better:
Find an anti-Trump Republican, and chances are you can also catch him virtue signalling to the ideological left.
That also underpins exactly what I wrote.


Seriously, @Marduk -- and I mean this genuinely: I have no idea what your goal here is. You regularly post absurd retorts that mostly just confirm the points that you're ostensibly arguing against. You seem to do this in a sort of haste to always counter anything said by anyone with whom you disagree on some point. This leads you to a discussion where you have to "prove" something, and your responses then become less and less coherent. You seem to argue just to argue, and you do it very poorly.

Frankly, I'm asking you to stop babbling at me. I already dropped the subject because (while incredibly interesting) I admit it's a derail. Talking about it with you is pointless in any case, because experience hath shewn that you neither respond with or to reason. I'm not interested in discussing this or any matter with you at the moment.
 

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