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Posted

I, myself,  think this guy is doing a bang-up job.  I would hate to see him start taking away citizenship from bad people,  as I feel like it's maybe a step too far.  

But were he to start, I would hope he would start with Rosie.  She's just not a great patriot like me. 

Ah, fuck.  Who am I kidding.  I'm so fucked

Posted
6 hours ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

Episcopal doctrine has a very weak, anemic official statement on the Eucharist, something along the lines of the hosts being “spiritually infused” if I recall 30 years back correctly.  Essentially it leaves it up to the believer as to what happens during Eucharist.  

At our best, we are mostly focused on the living our neighbors as we love ourselves. At our worst, we are mostly feeling sorry for ourselves while acting like assholes. 
In either case doctrine is more of an elective, like attendance. 

Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Chopper said:

For the record, I'm not trying to be argumentative or shitpost. I was genuinely surprised at your statement. I did a double take. I'm curious how you arrived at your conclusion as stated above. 

Sure. Economic mobility has decreased. The ladders of opportunity have been kicked over. For the lower middle and middle classes the value creation of the “American Dream” in the form of education, home equity, career advancement has been systematically repriced to carve away any real return on their investment and even things like a vacation or just a nice evening out now require financing and debt. For most people in the middle, our economy is just the “company store” to which they owe their soul.

Of course, that’s not limited to Trump’s base and their kids. But to the very limited extent that DEI efforts and the inflow of talented and hardworking immigrants represent “cheat codes,” that represents for Trump’s base unfair competition in a system that is already rigged against them. 

Of course MAGAism doesn’t offer any real solution to them other than the validation of their misdirected resentment in return for their continued indenture. That’s why I posted the Trotsky essay about the rise of national socialism- for me it ties together the support for brutality against the immigrant labor we need with the sadly now literally suicidal behavior of people in Kerr County refusing flood warning system upgrades.
The parallels here are very striking. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
8 hours ago, Macanudo said:

Why doe she look like a giant compared to him?  

Why does he always sit like he’s on a toilet taking a dump? (And yet he’s always full of shit.)

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Posted
18 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Why does he always sit like he’s on a toilet taking a dump? (And yet he’s always full of shit.)

By many accounts, he seems to be shitting uncontrollably a good deal of the time.

That's a lotta shit.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Sure. Economic mobility has decreased. The ladders of opportunity have been kicked over. For the lower middle and middle classes the value creation of the “American Dream” in the form of education, home equity, career advancement has been systematically repriced to carve away any real return on their investment and even things like a vacation or just a nice evening out now require financing and debt. For most people in the middle, our economy is just the “company store” to which they owe their soul.

Of course, that’s not limited to Trump’s base and their kids. But to the very limited extent that DEI efforts and the inflow of talented and hardworking immigrants represent “cheat codes,” that represents for Trump’s base unfair competition in a system that is already rigged against them. 

Of course MAGAism doesn’t offer any real solution to them other than the validation of their misdirected resentment in return for their continued indenture. That’s why I posted the Trotsky essay about the rise of national socialism- for me it ties together the support for brutality against the immigrant labor we need with the sadly now literally suicidal behavior of people in Kerr County refusing flood warning system upgrades.
The parallels here are very striking. 

Spot on and exactly my thoughts on the matter and damn near posted the same, only i would’ve been far less articulate and digestible. 

Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Sure. Economic mobility has decreased. The ladders of opportunity have been kicked over. For the lower middle and middle classes the value creation of the “American Dream” in the form of education, home equity, career advancement has been systematically repriced to carve away any real return on their investment and even things like a vacation or just a nice evening out now require financing and debt. For most people in the middle, our economy is just the “company store” to which they owe their soul.

Of course, that’s not limited to Trump’s base and their kids. But to the very limited extent that DEI efforts and the inflow of talented and hardworking immigrants represent “cheat codes,” that represents for Trump’s base unfair competition in a system that is already rigged against them. 

Of course MAGAism doesn’t offer any real solution to them other than the validation of their misdirected resentment in return for their continued indenture. That’s why I posted the Trotsky essay about the rise of national socialism- for me it ties together the support for brutality against the immigrant labor we need with the sadly now literally suicidal behavior of people in Kerr County refusing flood warning system upgrades.
The parallels here are very striking. 

I agree with all of what you say. But I think we must disagree about what Andreesen was trying to say. White america hasn't been blocked from access to universities. Someone may not get into their campus of choice but anyone with a heartbeat can attend a decent state university, and a white person blaming black and brown people for failing to get a job or into a career they desire is absurd.

He complains about the last 50 years! What happened 50 years ago? The Civil Rights Act. Let me grab my violin for poor Andreesen. What he's airing is white grievance racism and there's no coherent facts that support it. Andreesen himself was gifted research through the NSF while at a state university which led to his becoming wealthy. He was also anti-Trump in 2016. Now he's just another brainwashed magat with a broken brain. He also made his wealth by importing people from India to lead his company. And he does so because white people here generally don't rise to the same level/field of education. I see that as a choice, and certainly not rigging. Now over the past year due to the ai nonsense and high interest rates people are not getting corporate jobs. But that's not limited to white people. 

Edited by Chopper
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Posted
13 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The entire premise isn’t false. The premise that “most of the children of Trump’s voter base” has been “systematically cut” out of “any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America” is true.  Of course it’s not limited to Trump’s base- it’s true for most of the population, but it’s particularly true for the children of Trump’s base. 

 

Yeah, this is bullshit.  There are 19.1 million university students and even more drones in corporate America.

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Posted
12 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Well, alright. I will concede and seek further information for my own edification.

 

12 hours ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

Episcopal doctrine has a very weak, anemic official statement on the Eucharist, something along the lines of the hosts being “spiritually infused” if I recall 30 years back correctly.  Essentially it leaves it up to the believer as to what happens during Eucharist.  
 

for consubstantiation, look at the official position of historical Lutheranism.  

please don’t ask me to explain it.  I’m old and have self-inflicted dain bramage.  

Why are y'all arguing about made up bullshit in the first place?

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Posted
26 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

 

Why are y'all arguing about made up bullshit in the first place?

humblebrag re: atheism.  kinda like a crossfitter or vegan…so here’s your attention   


now…“arguing”?  youngblood, there’s no argument going on at all.  

that’s called “conversation.”

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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Sure. Economic mobility has decreased. The ladders of opportunity have been kicked over. For the lower middle and middle classes the value creation of the “American Dream” in the form of education, home equity, career advancement has been systematically repriced to carve away any real return on their investment and even things like a vacation or just a nice evening out now require financing and debt. For most people in the middle, our economy is just the “company store” to which they owe their soul.

Of course, that’s not limited to Trump’s base and their kids. But to the very limited extent that DEI efforts and the inflow of talented and hardworking immigrants represent “cheat codes,” that represents for Trump’s base unfair competition in a system that is already rigged against them. 

Of course MAGAism doesn’t offer any real solution to them other than the validation of their misdirected resentment in return for their continued indenture. That’s why I posted the Trotsky essay about the rise of national socialism- for me it ties together the support for brutality against the immigrant labor we need with the sadly now literally suicidal behavior of people in Kerr County refusing flood warning system upgrades.
The parallels here are very striking. 

I went to a high school that was 90% black. We had a few kids every year that got into Ivies. They were always top 5 in the class if not Val or Sal and had SATs north of 1500 (back when only rich kids had access to SAT prep and you had to walk uphill both ways through snow to get to school), but they probably got in over some white kids who looked better on paper. They didn’t take any spots from the kids of the rubes that routinely bitch about this shit. And the kids who did lose a spot still got in somewhere great. Wherever you go what you do with the opportunity once you get in is what counts

 

And I would bet the number of legacy kids at Ivy League schools and places like Stanford Vandy and NW who are actually not qualified to be there dwarfs the “DEI” numbers

 

Final aside the minority kids at my HS who went to prestigious schools, with the exception of a couple of true prodigies, had parents who were professionals. They got a lot of money for school that imo should have gone to lower middle class kids regardless of race. Our system has helped turn what should be class conflict into race conflict  


 

 

Edited by Sawbonz
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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Yeah, this is bullshit.  There are 19.1 million university students and even more drones in corporate America.

That’s right. But how much of that “higher education” is higher than what’s offered in a good high school? And how much do they actually need to succeed? And after they buy that education with a debt they’ll carry for decades hence, what actual “access” to opportunity in corporate America do they get beyond $1 more than it takes them to quit before they are no longer needed?

And those are the lucky ones!

57 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Final aside the minority kids at my HS who went to prestigious schools, with the exception of a couple of true prodigies, had parents who were professionals. They got a lot of money for school that imo should have gone to lower middle class kids regardless of race. Our system has helped turn what should be class conflict into race conflict  


PREACH! And to me it is *extremely* important to remember (in the context of this thread) that the Democratic Party since the 1990’s has done many things in all kinds of areas that ultimately inhibit economic mobility and reinforce class barriers rather than working powerfully to demolish them. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
15 hours ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

please don’t ask me to explain it.  I’m old and have self-inflicted dain bramage.  

this oddly checks out.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

Spot on and exactly my thoughts on the matter and damn near posted the same, only i would’ve been far less articulate and digestible. 

Perhaps you could translate it into coonass 

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Posted
7 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That’s right. But how much of that “higher education” is higher than what’s offered in a good high school? And how much do they actually need to succeed? And after they buy that education with a debt they’ll carry for decades hence, what actual “access” to opportunity in corporate America do they get beyond $1 more than it takes them to quit before they are no longer needed?

All of it is higher than what's offered in a good high school. 

Posted
9 hours ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

All of it is higher than what's offered in a good high school. 

Completely disagree. Most of what families purchase from American Universities is practically useless, or at best anti-climactic, compared to the education delivered at the best and most rigorous public high schools, let alone elite, selective private schools.

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Posted
On 7/11/2025 at 10:59 AM, Pancho said:

 

 

 

I want to punch him in the face and balls so fucking bad

If you live through to the end of this bout with fascism you'll get your shot to do so. That 2011 Ghadafi scene might wind up playing out in the US with some of the more well-known traitors I think.

Posted
7 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Completely disagree. Most of what families purchase from American Universities is practically useless, or at best anti-climactic, compared to the education delivered at the best and most rigorous public high schools, let alone elite, selective private schools.

That's nonsense. You get connections at the best high schools and universities that are worth more than education, but the quality of the actual education itself isn't that much better. Donald Trump is a Wharton graduate and he can barely read.

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

That's nonsense. You get connections at the best high schools and universities that are worth more than education, but the quality of the actual education itself isn't that much better. Donald Trump is a Wharton graduate and he can barely read.

Yeah, the value of a university education doesn't necessarily lie in the education itself and that has always been true.

But the ability of a university education to be a "cheat code" to a better life is probably lower than its ever been.  I think there are a few areas where it's difficult to impossible to auto-didact (engineering for example) where the degree retains most of its value.

Also, affirmative action or not, more non-white non-males are competing for education and jobs.  And even in good ol boy fields like commercial real estate, good ol boys are being pushed out in favor of the objectively more competitive.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
4 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

If you live through to the end of this bout with fascism you'll get your shot to do so. That 2011 Ghadafi scene might wind up playing out in the US with some of the more well-known traitors I think.

Deserved or no, highly unlikely. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is probably the most that can be hoped for, and even that's probably not in the cards. Americans, sometimes for better, often for worse, are a forgiving people who (as you know as well as anyone) tend neither to look to the past nor to learn any lessons from it. 

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Posted
13 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

That's nonsense. You get connections at the best high schools and universities that are worth more than education, but the quality of the actual education itself isn't that much better. Donald Trump is a Wharton graduate and he can barely read.

Weird it’s like you agreed with me completely without knowing it. 

Posted
7 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Completely disagree. Most of what families purchase from American Universities is practically useless, or at best anti-climactic, compared to the education delivered at the best and most rigorous public high schools, let alone elite, selective private schools.

Maybe true.  But a lot people like me didn't go to a public school they would consider rigorous, and I got a ton out of my college education.  I also went to UT, which was dirt cheap in the 1990's, and I doubt that education would've been any better if I went to a private school or an out-of-state school and paid significantly more.

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Posted
Just now, South Austin said:

Maybe true.  But a lot people like me didn't go to a public school they would consider rigorous, and I got a ton out of my college education.  I also went to UT, which was dirt cheap in the 1990's, and I doubt that education would've been any better if I went to a private school or an out-of-state school and paid significantly more.

Things have gotten pretty objectively worse since the 90s.  For white guys, anyway.  And more competitive for everyone.

Posted
10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, the value of a university education doesn't necessarily lie in the education itself and that has always been true.

That’s the point - most schools and most programs and in most places doesn’t do the other stuff and the educational product is useless. It’s just a sad, low grade imitation of the least valuable parts of attending elite universities, because the most valuable part can’t be imitated. 
One of the central failures of the progressive movement was to put their efforts not into ensuring that public high schools produced workforce ready graduates, but rather into making it easier for working and middle class people kids with no particular academic interests to go six figures in the hole so someone could tell them to read Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

 

Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Maybe true.  But a lot people like me didn't go to a public school they would consider rigorous, and I got a ton out of my college education.  I also went to UT, which was dirt cheap in the 1990's, and I doubt that education would've been any better if I went to a private school or an out-of-state school and paid significantly more.

UT is an elite institution and was then too. Surprised I have to remind people, here of all places. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
Just now, InkaUtexas said:

Those years sucked. 

My senior year was okay.  Ten wins, last SWC champions, a win at aggy, the first year of Ricky's record-breaking career, my first trip to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl.  But it was still Mackovic'd with an unacceptable tie against a shitty OU team after a huge lead at halftime, and a flat performance in the loss to Virginia Tech.  

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Posted
17 minutes ago, South Austin said:

My senior year was okay.  Ten wins, last SWC champions, a win at aggy, the first year of Ricky's record-breaking career, my first trip to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl.  But it was still Mackovic'd with an unacceptable tie against a shitty OU team after a huge lead at halftime, and a flat performance in the loss to Virginia Tech.  

JB had a lot to do with the losses that season and the next, with some stupefying ints.  

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Posted
34 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That’s the point - most schools and most programs and in most places doesn’t do the other stuff and the educational product is useless. It’s just a sad, low grade imitation of the least valuable parts of attending elite universities, because the most valuable part can’t be imitated. 
One of the central failures of the progressive movement was to put their efforts not into ensuring that public high schools produced workforce ready graduates, but rather into making it easier for working and middle class people kids with no particular academic interests to go six figures in the hole so someone could tell them to read Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

 

Hmmm.  Well I was contemplating this.

It seems that the nature of things is that most of us probably made better grades than our parents in more rigorous curricula in hs and college than our parents.

Yet, our ability to live a better life than our parents hasn't necessarily risen concomitantly.  Like, I make more money than my parents did, in inflation-adjusted dollars , but my mom was stay-at-home and they purposely moved to an "elite" school district.  Things I'm not sure I could or would do today and that are objectively harder than they were in 1963.

A lot of that is just the result of equity, sans affirmative action.  "Regular" white people got opportunities previously reserved for "elite" white people.    And then that opportunity started spreading further.  White women started doing things previously reserved for white men.  And then other "minorities," with a boost from the Civil Rights Act, and yes, affirmative action.

That's progress, but is it "progressive" or just sort of the natural order of things absent a cultural and economic revanchism like we're currently experiencing.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

A lot of that is just the result of equity, sans affirmative action.  "Regular" white people got opportunities previously reserved for "elite" white people.    And then that opportunity started spreading further.  White women started doing things previously reserved for white men.  And then other "minorities," with a boost from the Civil Rights Act, and yes, affirmative action.

That's progress, but is it "progressive" or just sort of the natural order of things absent a cultural and economic revanchism like we're currently experiencing.

This.  While the full story is complicated, parts of it are pretty simple.

Society as a whole had a great increase in opportunity post-WWII.  For around 30 years, almost all of that expanded opportunity was provided to white males (women weren't in play, minorities were kept as second-class at best).  So, relatively mediocre white dude could get a college degree and get a job that provided a path to a good life, even prosperity.

Then, the economic opportunity stagnated and even contracted some.  AND.....mediocre white guys had competition for those good jobs.  Smart, well-educated women jumped in the pool.  Smart, well-educated minorities jumped in the pool.

Used to be, there were 100,000 good jobs out there, and 95,000 went to white dudes.

Now, there are 90,000 good jobs out there, and 40,000 go to women, and 20,000 go to minorities.....leaving 30,000 jobs for white dudes (yeah, the numbers are totally made up to illustrate the point).  These numbers aren't exact proportions, the point is that a pool of good jobs and prosperity that used to be 95% for white dudes is now a much smaller percentage for white dudes.  And.....having lost a historical advantage that was NEVER rightly theirs to begin with (sorry, it wasn't exactly fair to have largely frozen black men out of the professional world for over a fucking century after we ended slavery)....white dudes are PISSED.  They want it all back.  And, if they can't have it....better to destroy it, so nobody else can have it.

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Posted
36 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It seems that the nature of things is that most of us probably made better grades than our parents in more rigorous curricula in hs and college than our parents.

In high school? Oh, hell no. High school education has generally declined in rigor and relevance for decades. The majority of our parents generation were adequately prepared for most entry level roles needed in the workforce when they left high school. Most high school graduates today aren’t ready for that, or even the attenuated and irrelevant educational experience of today’s mainstream college classroom and spend the first 3 semesters or so in dressed up remedial classes. 
 

41 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

A lot of that is just the result of equity, sans affirmative action.  "Regular" white people got opportunities previously reserved for "elite" white people

I disagree. I think what regular people, white and otherwise, got was sort of a pale imitation of those opportunities, purpose built to put them six figures in the hole and chain them to the wheel at 22.
Meanwhile, the actual opportunity ladders for regular people were knocked down and broken up. 
 

 

59 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

my mom was stay-at-home and they purposely moved to an "elite" school district.  Things I'm not sure I could or would do today and that are objectively harder than they were in 1963.

A vital progressive movement would correctly understand that as a declining middle class standard of living. In the last 50 years the number of dual income houses has roughly doubled but their inflation adjusted income has stayed roughly the same, even while their debt increased radically and the cost of education exploded. But because progressivism is a dead ideology intellectually dominated by privileged navel gazers and bullshit artists, Democrats are genuinely confused about why they are losing the working and middle class. 
 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

UT is an elite institution and was then too.

Hahaha. No. Not unless your definition of “elite” is really, really generous. In the 90s, UT was full of above average to good students. It was a safety school for the top students, who generally went to OOS private schools or Rice. 

Even today, UT is elite only on a single, flawed dimension. Its SAT average is far lower than the truly elite schools. 

I got a great education at UT. But it was not remotely “elite” among US universities at the time.

Edited by BrickHorn
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Posted
1 minute ago, BrickHorn said:

Hahaha. No. Not unless your definition of “elite” is really, really generous. In the 90s, UT was full of above average to good students. It was a safety school for the top students, who generally went to OOS private schools or Rice. 

That last part is false. It’s a mathematical impossibility that most of the top Texas kids went elsewhere. It’s also demonstrably false based on the prominence of UT alumni. 
What is true is that UT once had room for above average and good students, but does not anymore because of population growth. 
Nevetheless UT the institution is and was elite. Really silly to pretend otherwise.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That last part is false. It’s a mathematical impossibility that most of the top Texas kids went elsewhere. It’s also demonstrably false based on the prominence of UT alumni. 
What is true is that UT once had room for above average and good students, but does not anymore because of population growth. 
Nevetheless UT the institution is and was elite. Really silly to pretend otherwise.

Well, hmm.  UT was most assuredly not selective in the 80s and 90s.  "Room for above average and good students" pretty much excludes elitism.  I suppose that depends on the definition of elite, but most of them include highly selective and the current eliteness is a product of the selectiveness imposed by "top __%."

But I think its outcomes, particularly in certain fields, were elite.

Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That last part is false. It’s a mathematical impossibility that most of the top Texas kids went elsewhere.

You’re hiding your metrics. What do you consider “elite” or “top,” on a percentile basis? 

I went to UT in the 90s and I believe I was the highest ranking student in my very large high school class to do so. I was somewhere between top 3-5%. The kids ahead of me went to places like Rice, Duke, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, etc. Most of my high school friends who ended up at Texas were well below that range. 

UT had some ridiculous sliding scale for admissions back then, too. I remember that based on my SAT score (which was good, but not Ivy League good), I could get in with something like a C average. 

Here’s another data point: in the 1990s, UT had generous merit scholarship programs. For example, National Merit Finalists received full tuition scholarships. This was done to attract top students who otherwise would go elsewhere. Elite schools do not offer NM scholarships, because they don’t have to. 

Don’t fall into the same trap as suburban nitwits do, convincing themselves they’re on the same team as billionaires because they leased the top of the line F150 and bought a bass boat on a 30-year note. UT provided a great education and attracted some very good students, for a variety of reasons. But it was not remotely “elite” in the 1990s and in many ways still isn’t.

Edited by BrickHorn
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Posted
5 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

UT had some ridiculous sliding scale for admissions back then, too.

I found an example from the middle of the decade. Check this shit out. If you were Top 25% in your HS class, you only needed a 1050 SAT to get PRIORITY admission. Top 50%? No worries: score a measly 1150 or higher.

Those are not even remotely elite admissions criteria. 

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