What Is America, and for Whom?
thomaszimmer.substack.com
thomaszimmer.substack.com
My point being that even if America becomes all Christian and all white, then it will simply start to separate its constituents between the right type of Christian, or the right type of white. All of history has evidence precisely of this behavior because the nature which drives that behavior is still present, and it always will be in one form or another. Maybe the packaging or the politics change, but any ideology based on domination, and supremacy of itself over others will always be subject to purity contests, in-groups/out-groups, and suppressing objective analysis or discourse.
That said, America doesn’t need to be multicultural in the sense that it adheres to or incorporates ideology that goes against its core philosophy laid out by the Founding Fathers. The vision of the Founders helped create a powerful machine for regional and global supremacy, and a lot of that was dependent on the healthy function of democratic institutions.
The problem is that a lot of American democratic institutions caved in to pressures to address global challenges, and some of those challenges may have been outside of their purview, or they took an incorrect approach to address the issues. It’s impossible to save people from themselves. It’s impossible to save bad culture from undoing a nation state, unless its regime is propped up by external pressures, in some way or another.
America is currently propped up by its productivity engine from the 90s and mid-augts, which is why other countries are putting up with tariffs to do business here. The myopic vision of the Christian, white nationalist is going to create something smaller and less effective, which is worrisome because America has alienated almost everyone all over the world.
In truth, all a country has are its people, factories and bombs. America doesn’t have factories to any appreciable degree, and if it loses its people, then all the bombs in its arsenal will not reduce the cumulative prowess of other nations. Some serious reflection needs to be done on the fact that this push-pull of Red/Blue has saved this country from its worst impulses up to now. I only wish that the illegal immigration was addressed sooner, and in a more humane manner.
Why? Is a flatter, more pluralistic system of governance better? What's the reasoning behind that and, more importantly, what actual arguments can be put forth in support of your statement?
I'd love to hear the reasoned arguments in support of either of those. What's more, it would be great to hear other alternatives too.
As a general rule, folks here are fairly well educated and able to express nuanced viewpoints. Let's hear those -- not just one liners which are meant to (but don't) stand in for reasoned arguments.
Perhaps a better direction would be to identify business, technology and science drivers that would, presumably, be impacted by such different models of governance -- both positively and negatively.
Especially since the viability of the "tech" industry is quite dependent on those drivers.
The point, at least in my mind, of HN isn't just to express one's support/solidarity with a particular point of view, whether that be with knee-jerk downvotes (did you even read what I wrote?) because I'd like to see more than shallow, one-line dismissals of anything, whether it supports or rejects[0][1] whatever thesis folks perceive is being presented.
I'd much rather see actual arguments on all sides, whether I find them reprehensible or not. We're mostly adults here, so we should be able to read and understand a variety of viewpoints, when we support them or even (especially) when we adamantly oppose them.
This makes for better discussions, better discourse and a better understanding of those with whom we agree as well as those with whom we disagree -- no matter how repugnant we may find the latter's viewpoints.
So feel free to vote me down because I didn't just take a vapid one liner as a good response. Check my posting history and you'll find that I think a Christian Ethno state is a bad idea -- for a whole host of reasons -- but I submitted TFA to spark real discussion and substantive arguments, not to pat myself on the back for being so smart and enlightened.
If substantive discussion isn't what you're here for, why are you here?
The problem with devil's advocacy is that it can be a time-waster. One can play devil's advocate forever on any nontrivial issue. There is no point at which you have to concede the argument. If you suspect that the advocate isn't being sincere, many people will object to the potential time sink.
Effectively, you've proposed a game, and nobody wants to play. The downvotes indicate that others wish to avoid the potential threadjack. To put it another way: they don't believe that it can be substantive discussion, at least not in this forum.
There are reddit forums where you'll find people better qualified to present the position opposite yours.
Except I am. And I did[0]. Asking others to do so as well isn't too much to ask is it?
>There are reddit forums where you'll find people better qualified to present the position opposite yours.
Are there? I wouldn't know. Nor am I interested to find out.
Politics is the same as it always has been: to the victor go the spoils. There is no objective what or whom America is for.
Is a comparison of world views or a discussion of the stated goals of various groups really "culture warring?"
>Politics is the same as it always has been: to the victor go the spoils. There is no objective what or whom America is for.
So in your view, the ends justify the means? Or am I missing something?
I take a different view, that politics is "the art of the possible."
As far as the "objective" as to what or whom America is/for, that's the entire point of the discussion/division/discord/violence that's defined the political landscape of the United States since before its founding(s)[0].
If discussing differences in world view is "culture warring" and not to your liking, what's the alternative? Civil War? Terrorism? Something else? Please do elucidate -- since that's why we're here. Isn't it?
Edit: Added link.
When that comparison is a thin veil over “right wing bad”, yes.
Though, it’s pretty laughable he considers JD Vance a white Christian nationalist. Same guy with an Indian wife who wore traditional Indian garb when visiting India, wore a Kippah while touching the wailing wall, yet refused to kiss the ring of the pope.
> I take a different view, that politics is "the art of the possible."
Politics is coalition building. If enough people decide it’s for white Christian nationalists, then that’s what it is. If enough people decide it’s a diverse, secular economic zone then that’s what it is.
> If discussing differences in world view is "culture warring" and not to your liking, what's the alternative
I have issue with the authors framing - pretending there is an objective truth and then telling you what it is (without explicitly saying that) is dishonest. State your views plainly and let readers decide. I have no issues with discussion in principle.
Perhaps you might focus on the issues discussed rather than the author and their opinions?
The article certainly seems to have gotten your rhetorical "juices" flowing. So why not focus that energy on making reasoned arguments for the type of governance you think would be most appropriate for the tech industry, the US and the world?
I get it. You disagree with TFA's author. What do you agree with? What governance model do you think would serve the tech industry, the US and the world at large the best? A monarchy (with you as monarch, of course!)? Ancient Egypt style autocracy? Hoxhaism? Parliamentary system? Francoist Fascism? Anarcho-Capitalism?
1. Understanding what underpins the fairly radical changes occurring in the US can assist folks trying to add/create value in the tech space in navigating those changes;
2. On a broader plane, frank discussions of what sort of world we aspire to live in can strongly impact important business and technical decisions made. Given the aggregate impact that (some? many?) users of this site have on the tech industry landscape, it seems a good idea to look up at the horizon every so often to see where we're heading, what that means for us as individuals and as a species and what, if any, "course corrections" might be indicated.
In submitting this, I didn't expect to change anyone's mind or encourage folks to metaphorically pound on one another. Rather, I submitted this to spark curious and intelligent discussion of current events that strongly impact the tech community.
Perhaps you'll join in doing so, perhaps even without a throwaway account. I hope so.
I saw this when there were not comments yet, and by the time I had something that could be somewhat constructive, there are a few other references to deep historical roots now. Everybody's got their own interpretation and I guess I'm no different.
What can you expect when the article opens with the same legendary graphic that everybody sees every day on the back of their $2 bills? The Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Maybe it is never too late to revisit; independence from what, and for whom?
You could say that as a colony, "America" was founded by multinational corporations for the benefit of multinational corporations.
Almost no one else could afford to send ship after ship of "settlers" and return with relatively low-value cargoes long enough to remain solvent. These were mainly "indentured servants" who agreed to farm for the nobility who had been granted the land, until the servants' freedom could eventually be earned, even if such earning had not been completed during each servant's lifetime. This is the foundation of the earliest corporate behavior in North America. Basically under the same paradigm that would lead to auctioning off "passengers" (services) upon arrival, those who had not the wherewithal to pay for passage. In the long run it was probably more lucrative to obtain African passengers with no consideration for any ability to pay for passage, then auction them all off as chattel cargo upon arrival at the conclusion of their itinerary. It was already working about like that to an extent beforehand. Ships cost money and somebody's got to pay for it, multinational corporations are still not all that without quite a few ships being involved.
Regardless, it cost a fortune for corporations of investors to build an economic system from a blank canvas, which by design could give them an inherent advantage compared to what they already had established for centuries overseas.
Those were foreign corporations mainly of the elite, not just anybody could buy in when voyages were known to be the most lucrative.
I guess all that changed when the colonies revolted, states united, and got their own domestic stock exchange.
OTOH I have guessed wrong quite a bit, maybe for the majority of regular citizens, whether of African origin or not, nothing else changed other than which continent the stock exchange is located on.
>I guess all that changed when the colonies revolted, states united, and got their own domestic stock exchange.
>OTOH I have guessed wrong quite a bit, maybe for the majority of regular citizens, whether of African origin or not, nothing else changed other than which continent the stock exchange is located on.
I think it's a bit (okay, a lot) more complex than that.
Even the plantation system of what's now the southeast and Chesapeake Bay was, at least by the mid 18th century much more than a bunch of tenant farmers sending all their goods to faceless corporations. Those colonies had already created their own elites, their own governing (albeit not very 'small d' democratic) bodies, their own ideas about how their lives and economies were run.
Much the same can be said of the colonies of the Northeast as well, although they were always much less dependent (in fact, by the end of the Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had abolished slavery[0]) on slavery which, by the mid 19th century pretty much ensure that the Union would prevail during the US Civil War due to the focus on automation and manufacturing in the northern states.
Also, the northern colonies were less beholden to the large multi-national corporations and more to the Crown and Royal Governors.
In fact, it was wealthy merchants and plantation owners whose profits were being skimmed by both the big corporations back in England as well as the Crown, who bankrolled (by lending money to the colonies/newly proclaimed states, as well as foreign governments -- notably France) the revolution.
There was also great deal of discussion around why the colonies should be independent from the crown, which convinced a significant proportion (a majority, by the end of the war?) of the population to support the independence movement.
For the slaves (well, except the ones that moved over to British lines when promised their freedom and managed to get out of Dodge before the end of the war), not much changed until after Appomattox[1].
The Reconstruction Amendments[2] (13th, 14th and 15th) and the Union occupation of the states of the failed rebellion[, ushered in a still not equaled level of African-American elected officials in the US until widespread White Supremacist violence and terrorism[3] and the disputed election of 1876[4], ended the Reconstruction era and doomed millions of Americans to second-class (if that) status for a hundred years.
I'd note that I'm glossing over a great deal as well as the history of the foundings[5] (note the plural) of the US is enormously more complex, especially WRT the industrial revolution, the expansion of the US across North America, etc., etc., etc. And later, the 19th[6] and 26th[7] Amendments,as well as the Civil Rights act of 1964[8] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965[9] further extended the political franchise.
Further movement (opposed by the same folks who opposed the above laws) legalized contraceptives and abortion as well.
In any case, there had been a slow movement toward more freedom, more liberty more widely distributed. Sadly, the inheritors of the folks who terrorized and murdered newly freed slaves in the late 19th century continued to do so for another hundred years until they were forced to stop. Since then, a concerted effort over the past 75 years or so has attempted to roll back many of these expansions of liberty, with significant progress being made over the past thirty years or so.
There's so much more, of course the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment[10], rolling back the Voting Rights Act, rampant gerrymandering and a host of other anti-democratic (small 'd') actions, big and small, with folks not being content with the will of the people, but pushing their own views on others whether they like them or not. It's pretty disgusting, in my view.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Massachu...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Appomattox_Court_Hou...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments
[3] https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/46/1/53/102853/White-Sup...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidentia...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Founding
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_...
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
Looks like it was typeset using the same fonts that B.Franklin was using at the time.
If anybody can read the Declaration of Independence, they can read 178 short pages of this:
https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/06/19/95/00001/978194...