6258

Were answered.

6259


6260

Holy shit. 76 people on the board of directors? That’s an insane amount for the board. No wonder this is a racket.

6261

So if conservatism has become a racket, I assume he means that just about every political belief system is now fully corrupt. Conservatives were the final holdouts.

Surely there’s no other interpretation here, so I fully agree with his point! Well said.

6262

Anyway, nothing new, just think I’ll never really understand why our country is obsessed with them.

You can divide Americans in any number of way, the two most important cleavages here are the urban rural divide, and the Puritan vs other divide.

Much of the south was settled by the Scotch Irish, for example, people who grew up in an honor culture, and people who, for centuries, herded animals. Theft is always a problem for herders, your animals often graze far from home, and this necessitates constant vigilance against theft. This explains why guns are important to them. They had learned over the generations that you will lose what you can’t protect. The Welsh also fit this description.

Then you have the English settlers in the south, who either aspired to be cavaliers, or were. These people loved hunting, but were also used to fighting, it was one of their social obligations, they often came from the warrior caste, and like the Scotch Irish, they were born in an honor culture. Both groups valued personal freedom, and were skeptical of anyone who intruded into what they viewed as their affairs.

The Puritans, who have come to dominate mainstream American culture, were very different. They came to America to build a more perfect theocracy, and they built a communal society, where the needs of the group trumped everything else. Your business was the communities business, and they expected members to aggressively police each others behavior. They also viewed the state as the solution, to almost everything. Their quibble with affairs in England, was not the power or the role of the king, but that the government did not embrace their religious views.

The Glorious Revolution also has a lot to do with it. The English emerged from the war with a deep distrust of standing armies, and a belief that an armed populace was the best check against tyranny. That is why we have the 2nd amendment. It’s intended to put “weapons of war” into the hands of the people, both as a communal defense against invaders, but also as a check on the power of the state.

Centuries have passed, but we still largely think the way these people did. If cultures change, they change slowly.

6263

Tell us more, definitely not an NKVD operative @Incendiary_Lemon , about how to divide the USA culturally based on whose ancestors herded animals 300 years ago.

6264

Yes, no group in America valued personal freedom as much as … checks notecard … Southerners in the 1800’s. :P Can you think of anything else they valued?

I mean you’re not wrong that the Scotch-Irish have been to blame for basically every bad thing in America for the last 200 years. But for gun control, I’d argue that the reason it’s such a hot button issue today is not primarily due to some 300 year old cultural-philosophical tendency, but rather because it’s a useful issue for the right to fan and inflame in order to get people to vote against their own economic self interest. And so we get decades of constant propaganda on the issue. And of course there’s plenty of more direct grifting to do along the way too as the NRA articles show.

If you’d like some more hard data on gun ownership, I found these figures useful:

They confirmed what I half-remembered, that gun ownership is increasingly becoming a bi-modal thing. In the 1970’s about 50% of house holds owned a gun, while today it’s down to 30%. At the same time, the guns per capita has doubled. So you have way more guns in way fewer households. Which corresponds to the hypothesis that Fox news is driving about 30% of America into murderous insanity.

6265

In the 70’s, I would assume that we had a greater rural population, too. I suspect that, more than Fox, is driving things. The rural/urban divide is a BIG DEAL in American politics.

6266

I can’t tell for certain but i believe that much of Southern Culture stemmed from the importation of plantation culture from the Caribbean as much or more than the ethnic or religious differences. Maryland was supposed to be a haven/prison for Catholics, but Protestants moved in there anyway.

Certainly the South didn’t advocate for a 3/5 policy to ratify the Constitution because of Honor.

6267

That whole thing about the Scotch-Irish “honor culture” roots of the South seems to be popular on the right these days as in some ways justifying aspects of culture I view negatively. My view is that it is a useful partial explanation for certain aspects of Southern culture but it is not in my view an excuse.

I actually have a very similar view on poverty and serious crimes of violence. There is a strong correlation/partial causation between poverty and violence, and it in my view definitely explains certain aspects of gang culture etc., but I don’t view it as an excuse.

The fact is, Southern US culture has some fairly nasty elements (as well as some good ones), and understanding the cultural/historical roots of that is helpful, but I’m not a moral or cultural relativist.

I mean, it’s true that many Southerners have a very prickly sense of honor and are willing to use violence to redress slights, counterbalance their own sense of powerlessness, make themselves feel better by looking down on other groups and so on, but I don’t consider that a good thing. I mean it’s true but it’s also a huge part of the problem.

So when the Right trots out the whole Scotch-Irish honor culture, as a justification, I’m like “you’ve just explained why that culture has problems.” Random bonus factiod: one former friend of mine (former due to his inability to abide by a “no politics” rule while gaming/socializing) was a big right wing Limbaugh fan and was also of native Taiwanese descent and he had this whole thing about how the Scotch-Irish honor culture was very similar to native Taiwanese honor culture and how that excused various things and I was like “Uh, no.” Basically, it’s a meme on the right but I don’t it means what they think it means.

6268

Odd that neither actual Ireland nor actual England / Scotland are awash in guns or the desire to have them. Island evolution?

6269

The far right/fascists of BXP of course, want to arm British people white people

6270

I’m not even sure that the population statistics support the claims that settlement was distributed that way. Some maps here:

This just feels like another intermediate step in the Slavery->Economics->Actually, Slavery explanations for the civil war.

It is cute whenever white people try to identify an ethnic heritage though.

6271

Culture changes at a glacial pace. If it changes at all.

The Civil War, for example, was just another round of the English civil war. The same peoples, the same ideological conflicts.

6272

many Southerners have a very prickly sense of honor and are willing to use violence to redress slights

Yes, and it explains why the south is more violent.

I wouldn’t call it an excuse though. It’s simply something that is, and not something you can really change. Should you want to.

6273

but rather because it’s a useful issue for the right to fan and inflame in order to get people to vote against their own economic self interest

I will say this as delicately as I can, but can you see how patronizing that sounds?

Is it possible, in your mind, for voters to choose values over economics?

6274

I’ll say this as delicately as I can, but are you really responding to someone who posits that voters can be induced to vote their values over their interests, by asking him if he thinks voters ever vote their values over their interests? Not so clever now, is it?

6275

One of the joys of having absolutely no aspiration to politics (as an outspoken atheist, I have no prospects that way in any case) is that I never have to give a shit about whether some group or other thinks I am condescending to them.

Sometimes people vote for dumb shit for dumb reasons. In fact, arguably, most of the time. Some people have to pussyfoot around that fact, I suppose. An electorate possesses no innate, inviolable wisdom, which is why democracy is hard.

6276

Good point. I hereby retract approximately half of my hot take.

Sure, voters can choose values over economics. And they can be manipulated, lied to, and used by people who prioritize economics over values. It’s not universal but it’s not a rare phenomena. E.g. preachers at mega churches who need an extra $10 million or God will take them home. Or the various right wing grifters on GoFundMe, asking for money to build their own private walls. Or the Trump campaign. Or the NRA. And let me soften this a bit; this same tactic exists on the Democratic side of things too, e.g. people who campaign on correcting racial, sexual, and sexist injustices, and then harness that energy to further enshrine neo-liberal policies and enhance economic inequality once they are elected. Or just to make themselves rich. I don’t think it’s nearly as bad on the Left, but anywhere you have idealists you will also find a population of cynics looking to leach off them.

As a final note, I’d also say that my “manipulated and lied to by people they should be able to trust” theory is way more charitable than the other common theory, which is “they are evil and bug fuck crazy”. :D

Does anyone else want to field this one?

6277

No, because it is patently bullshit.

The Civil War was about Slavery. The English Civil War was fundamentally about religion, politics, and the interface between them.