
SL Xpress
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Haha. This is not rambling. I don't feel like he has the judiciary firmly in his grasp. Most of the Supreme Court are not toadies, even if a couple seem like they've been willingly purchased. The overall federal judiciary is absolutely not toadies. There are plenty he has appointed that understand loyalty was part of the appointment, but plenty of others who either don't see it that way, or were appointed by someone else. It will take some time to purge federal law enforcement agencies. These are lifetime bureaucrats. This isn't their first rodeo. The military isn't going to suddenly do his bidding to enforce some kind of coup just because he's seeking like minded people to staff the highest positions. It's going to take a while and a lot of dismissals. Then there's the fact Trump is 78 years old. He's going to die relatively soon. Before that, there's a good chance he simply loses his faculties. It happens. Trump has done a lot of damage and we've collectively allowed it. I include myself in that category because while I've never voted for him and never indicated my support for him as the president, it's not like I've led some kind of popular movement to create a viable alternative. At most I've given token amounts to organizations who recognize what a danger he is. Still, all is not lost. It just feels like it could be. And that's strange enough. It's crazy to me that there's still a lot of people in my personal circle who get excited about Trump even right now. It's like a spectator sport, their side is winning, and who cares about democracy getting trammeled if it means their side is winning. It's frightening to me. I always felt like democracy is way more fragile than we realize. I've always thought that as horrible as what happened in Nazi Germany, the real problem is that authoritarian regimes can come about anywhere, and then once they do it's simply easier to be compliant than it is to fight it. But it's one thing to have that as an intellectual thought for basically all of my life. It's completely different seeing it come to fruition in front of my very eyes. By people I know and love. I just remember when people were saying this is the most important election of our lifetime prior to November, and I kept saying, if you think this election is important, wait until you see the next one.
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That's a significant danger with democracies. Tyranny of the majority, who happen to be morons. That's part of why the founding fathers purposefully made it so difficult to get anything done. It's not a bug. It's a feature. Newer democracies have all gone to parliamentary systems for that reason. Heck, when we helped institute constitutions in Germany and Japan after WWII we didn't have them emulate ours. It's too tough to get anything done. The problem is the United States became too powerful when everyone else wasn't, and so it took on aspects that the system of government wasn't ideally suited for. It worked when the Democrats and Republicans basically saw eye to eye with not a lot of difference between the two. Then Newt Gingrich got to Washington and led the Republicans to taking on a more belligerent opposition to the Democrats, basically calling out the manhood of his Republican peers for agreeing to go along with what was essentially a monopoly of legislative power for 60 years. Add in the polarizing nature of social media, the more precise gerrymandering capable with better computing power, and our instinctual need to seek out tribal affiliations by nature, along with a gradual diminishment of overall American might, and you have present day. But I'd argue any general democracy would have similar dangers. It's just always been a particular danger for the United States, mostly because we're too powerful for our own good, in some ways. If the United States was a minor country, none of this would have the importance it does right now.
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I don't know what the right way to move forward is. I do know sometimes it's best to give someone enough rope so they can hang themselves. I guess I feel like we've broken some seals that I knew as human beings we were capable of, but I hoped as Americans if we were going to do it, it would be after my lifetime. When someone has aspirations of being an authoritarian, which Trump absolutely does and the Republican Party by extension now believes the same way as an institution, regardless if individuals in that party - including me - do not believe that way, then playing dead just gets you dead. People are reactionary. We mirror the behavior of one another. We lose something if the opposition reacts in a way that diminishes the accomplishment of victory because we just end up with a replica of what was trying to be defeated. But better that in my opinion than resigning ourselves to giving up our ability to have peaceful transitions of power. To me that's what at stake here. Pretending like it isn't - which is what many members of the Democratic Party seem to be saying by their words and actions - simply cedes the field of battle to Trump and his cronies. It's like Chamberlain and Hitler to me. You pretend like things aren't so bad, and people who crave dominion will continue to seek as much dominion as they can gather.
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And playing to the masses who have never been sold on why we're involved in Ukraine in the first place. Why are we in Europe? Why do we protect Taiwan? Why do we send aid to all these foreign countries? Why do we have soldiers in Korea? Why do we have all these aircraft carriers? Why are we members of the UN? At one point it was about defending ourselves from the threat of communism and its support for worldwide revolution. But now Russia is not so bad. They have a lot of resources and frankly Putin has a lot of qualities to admire. A lot like Hitler. Strong people who are misunderstood and wrongly cast as villains. We should be more like them. We should be friends. Share some of your supply of hopium. I'm all out and desperately need a fix. Help a brother out.
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Oh, there's still more leverage to come, I'm afraid.
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I guess you and I have different areas of emphasis. I find you overly concerned about what you call bag games involving overpriced tweets or inflated 1 hour appearances. I'm saying who cares? The market is going to continue to grow at hockey stick levels regardless of what form it takes because that's what markets do when poorly regulated and ruled by Keynsian animal spirits. NIL is in the tulip mania phase of operation. See also mortgage notes circa 1990s-2008. The House Settlement is not going to provide the kind of regulation that will create a ceiling on NIL amounts, regardless if that's the intent or not. A systemic approach will not be possible through the court system. It will have to be legislated - by Congress - and we're a long ways away from that happening. I feel confident there will have to be some kind of serious or at least impending collapse of college athletics first. "How did you go bankrupt?" "Gradually, then suddenly." - The Sun Also Rises We're in the gradual phase right now.
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BTW, to play the whataboutism game, I never felt like Obama did enough when Russian took Crimea and took over the Donbas with proxies supplemented by the Russian military when the Ukraine government was still trying to get on its feet. I didn't feel like Biden went far enough in his support after the full on invasion. But that's not an apples to apples comparison to the sickening abandonment of Ukraine going on with this administration and the putrid cozying up to possibly the most reprehensible human being currently living on the planet.
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If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. Edit - not advocating for this position, but that's what it's turned out to be.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
So much angst over the dropoff in hitting from last year. It's good they're spreading it around to the fielding some. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Your grandfather sounds a lot like mine. That's a great memory. Thank you for sharing. -
It's fairly common. Allegedly Becton was pursued by NFL teams this past season, so he got a raise. Also, the S&C coach is the main driver of a team's culture. They spend more time with the players than anyone else. You really need the head coach and S&C guy to be on the same page. It's usually a bigger loss from a head coach's perspective than losing a position coach.
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Costa Rica would be Exhibit A for me for countries that depend on the US to ensure their national sovereignty. If worse case scenarios come through I believe I'd prefer to be living in a country with at least some kind of military. Although it's a lovely country with lovely people, for sure.
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Could be. But boy do I personally know a lot of people who are supportive of MAGA who have families and plenty of friends. It's amazing to me how I've become some kind of spokesperson for the "liberal" point of view, when I view myself as a conservative. It's just that the meaning of the word has changed. I feel like to be MAGA is to be in some kind of wondrous echo chamber where your views are never challenged. There's a series of litmus tests that must be passed, and I simply don't check enough boxes. Don't want to. I think that's the big thing for me. We no longer form social groups that could conceivably challenge our point of view. I encounter the same thing among progressive groups I'm a part of. Someone will make a statement as if it's fact - whether MAGA or progressive - and are shocked that someone would challenge them on it. They're just so used to being around others where points that in fact have legitimate opposing points of view are simply viewed as something akin to heresy.
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Yes. But Americans have still always been isolationists. I'd say another way to be isolationist as a society is to have a sense of security, whether true or false. The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the fact that no real existential threat has ever emerged from this hemisphere gives Americans a pseudo luxury to be isolationists that other cultures don't have. Americans in general are also grossly ignorant about geography. Which ties into the lack of understanding about history and the isolationism. Heck, forget history. How about current events? How many people do you know personally who are aware the leader of Mexico is a woman? Can they state her name? How many world leaders can the average American name? Putin. Maybe Trudeau? After that I bet it gets pretty iffy. What are the hotspots in the world? I'm sure people can identify Ukraine, but what about the South China Sea? The Indian/Chinese border? Several spots in Africa? If I ever bring any of these topics up in conversation with the people I'm around on a daily basis their eyes would glaze over, and they'd wonder why I even pay attention. Heck, a lot of the messaging I've received recently is don't pay attention to the news. It's all negative. Focus on the positive. "Put on your oxygen mask first." I've often thought motivational workshops are the tyrant's best friend. Honestly it wouldn't be that big of a deal if the US were a minor player in world affairs. Go be your isolationist self and let the big boys take care of world affairs. But after WWII that wasn't possible. So we had a dichotomy where the leaders of both parties agreed to engage in world affairs, oftentimes in ways that went against the desire of the average American. Now we're seeing a retrenchment, that quite frankly more closely mirrors what the average American wants. Which is shortsighted and wrongheaded, but that's democracy for you. It's crazy we were able to be as interventionist as we were for the last 80 years with an American public that really never wanted it. Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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I guess once again I'd say populist movements are always filled with lies. They're a means to power. There is nothing unusual in this case. What's unusual is that one of the dominant parties allowed this to pass - many Republicans even encouraged the takeover in many ways - and then the voters voted for it. That hasn't happened before.
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Populist movements are always dystopias from my point of view. Whether on the right or the left they prey on our fears, inherent sense of superiority, relishing in victimhood, and an intense desire to seek reprisal for perceived wrongs. Plenty of populist movements sacked the oligarchs and then moved into the farmhouse themselves. "Everyone is equal. We're just a little equaler." This one is putting the oligarchs in control, while systematically dismantling any ability to provide checks and balances to power. But they had to appeal to enough voters in the first place. They did that through a campaign of populism.
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While the Republican Party is a cult of personality right now, there are people other than Trump who openly don't give a shit about any other country outside our borders. That was Vance's great lesson from his overseas deployments. Why are we over here? I don't care about any of these people. I don't care about Ukraine. Who gives a fuck what happens to them? Frankly, that has been the American mindset since our founding. But after WWII we found ourselves as the most powerful country on Earth. I'd argue the most powerful country in human existence vis a vis the rest of the world. The leaders of both countries forged a bipartisan foreign policy that required all kinds of entanglements that the American people didn't understand and never really discussed. When it became a point of contention, it was always in favor of withdrawing from whatever conflict or involvement the US was up to. The one exception immediately following 9/11. But mostly it was foreign policy conducted without ever really asking the American people what they wanted. Because what they really want is to be left alone and not have any foreign entanglements. Not that that's possible or realistic, but when you're in complete ignorance, you're able to feel like that's the way to go. The populist movement Trump is leading has leaned on Americans' intrinsic desire for isolationism. It was always a good call politically. Frankly, the ending of foreign aid of all types is going to play well back at home. One of the chief strengths of the US historically from a political perspective was our ability to defuse and isolate populist elements from obtaining power. I think of Williams Jennings Bryan, George Wallace, even Ross Perot. But Trump has succeeded where they failed. IMO we're in an era where populist movements are the only movements that will succeed. From either party.
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Wut? There are plenty of times when the more powerful country capitulates. Mostly because the more powerful country decides it's not worth the effort to keep going. It's hardly worth the exercise there are so many documented instances of the more powerful country giving up their objectives. To be blunt, I think any country that is depending on US security assurances for their sovereignty should rethink things. Even if somehow in the future Trump goes away, the dynamics that created him getting to power in the first place haven't. Since WWII the elites in this country have seen the US foreign policy role as that of being the leader of the free world, with all the benefits that go along with it. Now isolationism is triumphant. There are no guarantees even if new leaders emerge in the future that try to restore whatever Trump and his allies are tearing down, that we won't go back to this mindset again in the future. And saying it's because of Russia's nuclear arsenal is a joke. This isn't a strategic or tactical maneuver. This is political. The truth is Trump and his allies are more aligned with Russia and their outlook than they are European nations. Trump wants to emulate Russia. Not punish them.
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The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
SL Xpress replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
Not just the impeachment. How about not allowing a vote for an empty supreme court justice seat to come before a vote, for a year? I mean, there's a list, but those are the two I'd start with. -
I don't understand your numbers. Regardless, it's a big amount. Where's the 15-20m to buy out a coach coming from? What assistant has that kind of buyout? How many of the assistants currently on staff have a guaranteed contract, and for how long? I don't know the answer. But I'd be shocked if it's all of them. Sure, 10m to pay for the next staff. But the current staff is already getting paid some amount. That seems like a wash to me. I'd think the total amount is closer to $40m, paid out in installments, to get rid of the current staff. Then the salary of the next head coach would be less than what Venables is getting paid on his extension. It's still a lot of money for an athletic department that has some pretty big gut checks in the new college football environment, so I'm not trying to be dismissive of the difficulty of firing him.
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Alabama "will do whatever it takes" but if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. They need a new coach, though. Venables ain't it. And if you don't have the right coach it doesn't matter what resources you surround him with. They pulled the trigger too quickly with the extension they gave him, but at that time they thought he was the answer. I still think if they go 6-6/7-5 this year they figure out a way to fire him and hire another up and coming assistant from somewhere and hope they land another moonshot the way they did with Stoops.
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Apparently $34.9m after the end of 2025. That's not Jimbo money, but it's not cheap. The key thing is it's not a lump sum, so I don't think there's any question they could afford it. I didn't do a lot of research. Just a quick google search. But the articles I came across whining about UT's schedule compared to the Sooners were awesome.
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The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
SL Xpress replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
Who are y'all? I'm one person. Name a dictator who has been voted out. A dictator who holds power for two years and then is voted out of power is not a dictator. We still have the voting system until that's completely superseded. Not saying it won't be, but it hasn't been, yet. Not to mention his mortality. The dude is 78. And he still has to make his play with the judicial system. He either has to use some kind of mechanism to purge the federal judges who are appointed for life or he has to ignore their rulings. We'll see how that goes. -
OU never hires coaches who have been a head coach. They've hired two since WWII and both of them lasted one year. All the rest of their head coaches were previously assistants.
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The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
SL Xpress replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
That's what I'm scared of. It doesn't have to be 90% GOP. 55% is enough. The filibuster in the Senate is on its last legs, so won't need the 60 votes there. Weaponize the FBI to investigate any Democratic candidates that win close elections.
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