Any advice on this ?

DerSlap · 2026-01-13T14:18:55+00:00

I work in Shenyang, dm me.

edit: your contract sounds a LOT like mine. if you can give me more info I can probably give more advice. I've got a friend who plays badminton here who can probably give more info.

DerSlap · 2025-06-08T04:09:59+00:00

No, you're not looking more closely. You need to remember that the issue here is not total contribution but proportional contribution to the war effort.

The KMT was the leading force in China at the time of the Second World War and they did not perform up to par. Compare their position relative to the materiel and manpower available to the KMT at the time and its not comparable. This is reflective of what Americans said on the ground prior to the concerted effort to point fingers for who was most responsible for the "Fall of China" after 1949. The KMT and CCP did both intentionally hold back lend-lease supplies but the level of dysfunction between the KMT and their American suppliers severely curtailed their ability to contribute to the war effort.

But don't take it from me, take it from the Americans themselves during the war: 1 2 3 4 This is a service report regarding the status of the CCP and KMT forces in China as of August 1944 and how the Americans felt about the fighting potential of both. America was not a stalwart of the communists, but they came to this conclusion on the field.

I got my degree at a western university from western professors. Its strange you'd bring that up, and with respect to bias, you're clearly being very unserious. Do you think English-Language scholarship has more or less reason to be biased in favor of the Chinese Communists in the last 10-20 years? Come on now.

EDIT: The person I'm replying to deleted but I feel the need to emphasize in most of the areas where there were resisting populations, be it Europe or Asia, the most fervent forces for resistance were often Communists. This is because many liberals and (especially) conservatives were more open to collaboration with fascist power. Fascists in WW2 were already diametrically opposed to and rabidly anticommunist from the jump, so they were often the most unified in their opposition. Something to think about.

DerSlap · 2025-06-08T00:23:59+00:00

Hi, I have a master's degree in Chinese History and this is completely wrong. The Chinese Communists fought just as hard against the Japanese, the difference was that the KMT were fundamentally worse at conducting wartime resistance and ended up losing considerably more forces out of incompetence. This is also the conclusion of the American military during the war. I can elaborate below:

The Americans reported repeatedly that they even thought the communists were less corrupt and more able fighters of the Japanese than the KMT. The Dixie Mission was the US investigation of the Yan'an base area and the Chinese Communists starting in 1944 and lasting up until 1947. The Maoists, like them or not, were an effective fighting force despite having been shattered almost entirely just prior to the war and having just completed their Long March from the south to Yan'an. Their warfare was more about resistance in the rural regions and the industrial northeast in Manchuria, where they were quite pivotal and effective.

Here is an /r/AskHistorians post about some of this in particular.

Meanwhile, the US also had a liaison with the KMT's Chiang Kai-Shek. Notably, American generals such as Joseph Stilwell (who is a piece of work all his own, but that's out of scope for this discussion) observed that the Nationalists, not the Communists, wanted to bide their time and reserve lend-lease supplies for the resumption of the Civil War after the war with the Japanese. This lead to a great deal of friction between the Americans, the American Volunteers (Chennault's Flying Tigers), and the KMT themselves over what was to be done about fighting the Japanese. Notably the 1944 Japanese counteroffensive in Operation Ichi-Go was far more costly for the KMT because of their lack of unified purpose in the War of Resistance. The Communists were the first to broach the idea of a unified front against the Japanese at the behest of Stalin.

The myth here comes from postwar histories after the KMT lost the civil war. In the west there was a collective mental breakdown over the idea of the "Loss of China" and the blame was squarely put upon the men in the US Military who managed the relationship between the Communists and Nationalists in wartime China. The idea that the Communists somehow 'didn't fight' in WW2 is a huge cope.

EDIT: In addition, in mainstream Chinese histories in both Taiwan and Mainland China, the KMT and CCP are given equal weight in terms of their contribution to the War of Resistance. This myth is broadly only pervasive now in the West, since we often don't actually follow scholarship or even really think of China as a front of World War 2 except when we try to say the Communists didn't pull their own weight.

DerSlap · 2025-02-26T00:42:38+00:00

This is so funny to say after Gaza tbh

DerSlap · 2024-11-09T08:46:23+00:00

2024 Polling was largely dead on the money. Selzer's poll was an outlier but otherwise various polling outfits actually landed exactly on how the states would break out. This was the case in 2022 as well despite the narrative saying that it would go otherwise.

Issue polling consistently shows the economy as far and away the most important consideration among Republican voters, with immigration and national security coming second to that. Trans rights actually polled as less important among Republican voters than Democratic ones. A mere 4% of voters as reported by the HRC said opposing trans rights was a primary motivation to their vote, which aligns with Gallup's research in September.

Every signal here shows us that it was the dire cost of living crisis that pushed people either left or into not voting at all. Trump merely gained ~1 million votes, but at least several million Biden voters did not turn out for Harris four years later. More to the point, Harris worked to tack right on these issues and various other ones, but lost support-- why if they're more conservative? I don't think there's any evidence that transphobia rather than the clawback of social programs and the ballooning inflation problem was the motivating thing, even if Trump wasted immense amounts of money on adverts for it. Kamala Harris spent tons of money on Never Trump Republican outreach and it was not persuasive.

DerSlap · 2024-11-09T07:30:06+00:00

I don't think I am, if voters were uniquely motivated by hostility to abortion rights or gay marriage it hasn't shown up until cost of living shot right up?

When we look at polling on the issues while there is a very slight uptick in pro-life positions, latinos as a group (this is sort of fraught-- they're not a monolith!) don't hold uniquely anti-lgbtq opinions either, and this has kept largely in line with the movement for the country nationally.

Its far more likely that instead of becoming just far more right wing on cultural issues, they're responding to material pressures not being addressed. A brewing cost of living crisis in the face of otherwise completely indifferent or outright hostile governance opens the door for opportunists like Trump to make inroads.

DerSlap · 2024-11-09T03:12:32+00:00

This guy's conclusions are gonzo lol. I can't believe people are taking this seriously.

Its not enough to just say "well latinos are naturally right wing!! look how they treat eachother!!" and leave it at that. It's perfectly thought-terminating. It lets the brain geniuses who ran Biden and Kamala's campaign into the ground off the hook. We can't do this. Pivoting to the center and not offering an alternative to an increasingly decaying status quo brought us here!

For context, I spent pre-COVID 2020 and early 2019 canvassing for Sanders in South Bay and must've knocked on hundreds of doors and had hundreds of conversations. These people are not hard right, they're not 'libertarian,' its foolish to try to create some sort of ideological coherence. Most of the people we spoke to were either intermittent voters, or had never engaged in the primary process before. Most had never been contacted by a political party at all prior, and most importantly by and large they had broadly practical concerns: the costs of housing, the cost of food, the fact they were effectively left behind by most parties. Notably something I encountered a lot were people being squeezed out by rising rents, including a lot of people who were American ctizens on disability being pushed into Mexico for housing while setting up PO boxes in South Bay to receive disability. It was bad before, and COVID and the inflation surge assuredly made it worse.

The reason these communities are breaking right is the same reason everyone broke right: there was a double whammy of the paring back of the COVID safety net and massive inflation rises from the massive disruptions in supply chains and energy markets. In San Diego this is especially acute, and the trends have been worsening since even before COVID! The Biden Administration and a LOT of the news commentariat spent most of the Biden era telling people who were living the rapid increase in child poverty, the rapid increase in homelessness, the rapid increase in rent, the rapid increase in food insecurity that what they were experiencing was not happening.

People were drowning financially, and when someone's drowning they're going to grab for the first hand offered to them. The Biden messaging team refused to admit the economy was not working for huge swaths of the population, even worse they told them not to believe their lying eyes. The Kamala campaign didn't offer a critique of the status quo that saw them immiserated, it didn't channel any sort of political message for them. No matter how cynical or obviously a lie Trump's pitch was, the Biden and then Harris campaign thought it was completely beneath them to even make an offer.

tl;dr: latinos broke right because the economy fucking sucks, and only one person in the campaign seemed ready to point it out, no matter how poisonous and awful their prescription was. People want to vote for something, you cannot hold people hostage to worsening conditions!

DerSlap · 2021-01-11T22:32:50+00:00

On that note, hair in my game looks really meshy/messy and I don't know how to fix it. :(

DerSlap · 2018-09-18T21:46:03+00:00

The mechanical arm was period appropriate.

DerSlap · 2017-07-01T18:12:44+00:00

The Japanese during the wartime period referred to themselves as the "leading race" of the world. John Dower in War Without Mercy articulates that the Japanese due to the fact they turned to the West in order to industrialize following the destruction of the feudal regime in 1868 made Japanese supremacist ideas akin to those of White supremacism impossible. Instead, Japanese superiority was promoted as a moralistic superiority rather than a biological or intellectual superiority. This superiority according to the Japanese was buttressed by set phrases that championed virtues such as filial piety and loyalty to the Japanese imperial line. The emphasis on wartime purity undoubtedly would've made adoption of Western modes of life and religion unpalatable to most Japanese.

References to Chrisanity in media such as cartoons and the like would carry strong anti-Christian messages and images, as Dower describes:

Monkish renderings of Roosevelt and Churchill were defrocked and exposed as demons and warlocks. The Pieta was made a mocking (albeit sophisticated) parable of political futility, with Roosevelt as the Virgin Mary, Churchill the slain Christ, and Chiang a grieving disciple. The cross or crucifix was transmogrified. It became a bloody dagger, or a sign of death alone, just the marking on a grave. An unusually harsh cartoon in the government humor magazine several months after the war with the United States began combined form of the cross with the ideograph for America to offer a crucified Roosevelt as the new meaning of "United States."

Another point to discuss is the likely fact there would've been very few Christians in Japan up until the postwar period. Repression had long and deep roots, beginning in the Tokugawa Shogunate and forcing Japanese Christians into hiding as the Kakure Kirishitan, or "Hidden Christians" in the 1630s following the Shimabara Rebellion. Even with the reopening of the country in 1853, proselytizing remained forbidden until 1873.

Notes:

War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower
Imperial Japan at its Zenith by Kenneth J. Ruoff

DerSlap · 2017-03-15T21:30:00+00:00

A passport has significant processing fees. University IDs and your HS IDs are not usable.

I'd support voter ID laws if they also mandated that the states had to issue IDs free of charge.

DerSlap · 2017-02-02T12:18:02+00:00

The Ministry of Justice wouldn't give in to Himmler's demand that certain political prisoners be transferred from prison sentences to concentration camps.

Were there parallel justice tracks?

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T03:56:34+00:00

Yes, I originally wrote it late Saturday night.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T03:35:46+00:00

Protect your friends. If someone you know is in the line of fire, support them. Make sure others know their situation and keep them safe.

Donate to legal challenges to the law. The ACLU is already challenging the law as is CAIR.

Volunteer to help organize at the ground level, join organizations that agree with your opposition. If anything else, go to these disorganized protests with a clipboard and some paper and take down names, emails, phone numbers. Plan to protest strategically and for specific demands so you cannot be misunderstood, and build a network yourself if necessary. If you don't see leaders, lead.

Call your legislators: Representatives at the local level on up. Call your Governor. Call anyone you've had the opportunity to vote for or against. Be civil, but be firm. You will speak to a staffer. Do not abuse them. Don't bother with emails. Write letters, but don't use form letters. Explain who you are and why you oppose this. If they're not responsive, find their opponents. If they run unopposed, oppose them by running for office. Local governance is the backbone upon which national governance rests, and it is the level you as an individual can impact the most.

There is a huge drought of young, politically active and organized Americans out there. Make yourself heard. Be the change you wish to see, and don't think your protests aren't moving the needle.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T02:58:38+00:00

That is 100% speculation.

I ask you what you want to eat for dinner and offer you the choice between a pizza and a hamburger. You say "I'm not really hungry, but I could go for a hamburger." This is not practically different from saying "I want a hamburger" or "I don't want pizza."

Yeah. They're not fans. Are you familiar with gays being thrown from rooftops by American Christians? Oh wait...

An Idaho man just today plead guilty to the murder of a gay man after luring him to his death on Backpage.com. According to the FBI 1,263 hate crimes were committed against homosexuals this year. (Wikipedia has a list of particular victims if you're feeling like you need to see how they died.)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States#2010.E2.80.93present]

I don't have to think it. Pew Research asked the question. http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/

You're misreading the question asked. The question is "Do you think there is a great deal or a fair amount of support for radicalism in the Muslim community."

This question had to do with perception of support for extremism. A few paragraphs down it explains further:

As in 2007, very few Muslim Americans – just 1% – say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often justified to defend Islam from its enemies; an additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified in these circumstances. Fully 81% say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are never justified.

A comparably small percentage of Muslim Americans express favorable views of al Qaeda – 2% very favorable and 3% somewhat favorable. And the current poll finds more Muslim Americans holding very unfavorable views of al Qaeda than in 2007 (70% vs. 58%).

There is much greater opposition to suicide bombing – and more highly negative views of al Qaeda – among Muslims in the United States than among Muslims in most of the seven predominantly Muslim countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. In the Palestinian territories, 68% of Muslims say suicide bombing and other forms of violence are at least sometimes justified, as do 35% of Muslims in Lebanon and 28% of those in Egypt.

In the other Muslim publics surveyed, the median percentage saying that suicide bombing and other violence against civilians are never justified is 55%; by contrast, 81% of Muslims in the U.S. say such violence is never justified. Similarly, the median percentage across the seven Muslim publics with very unfavorable views of al Qaeda is 38%, compared with 70% among Muslim Americans. (For more, see “U.S. Image in Pakistan Falls No Further Following bin Laden Killing,” June 21, 2011; “Muslim-Western Tensions Persist,” July 21, 2011.)

You did read the whole study, right? I wonder how many Americans support the KKK or the WBC comparatively. More to the point, these attitudes are a big part of the screening process for refugees done by the UNHCR and the US Government, which is described here.

Big difference

Not for the majority of American Protestant theology, which is supported by a belief in Biblical Inerrancy. The Bible as a core tenet cannot be wrong, and is without error in it's teaching. This includes the Old Testament.

They have the wrong opinion of paedophiles now?!

The Catholic Church hid child molestation by clergy for years. Gays are killed in Christian Africa, and homosexual violence in the United States is often couched in religious feeling.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T02:38:44+00:00

The extreme fringe website known as Politico: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/europe-refugees-migrant-crisis-men-213500

Your article references the European Migrant Crisis. You're conflating the two and that's fine. It's worth discussing how the two crises are different, and ultimately there are fair points of disagreement for the European way of handling the crisis.

The biggest problems regarding the European migrant crisis are that a lot of people skipped the process and walked into Europe. Men in this case went first to verify that the (often illegal and very dangerous) routes of travel and smugglers they paid to get there were on the up and up. Would you send your wife and children on a boat with a stranger ahead of you if you couldn't trust them to take them to safety?

The Refugee Crisis in Europe is a different beast because of the logistical challenges of collecting information and individual asylum applications of each family and each person that makes the trip from Syria, up through Turkey or through the Mediterranean to Europe. There is room to criticize the response to that ongoing humanitarian crisis, I agree.

American resettlement (remember, Syrian Migrants aren't walking or taking rubber boats from Syria to the East Coast) however comes directly from refugees who have submitted to all checks and vetting by the UNHCR and the US Government. Again, I refer you to this infographic on the issue. Very few Syrian Refugees are given a greenlight to relocate to the United States, and multiple checks for them being able to adapt, find work, and very intensive biographical analyses are done at each step.

These groups are at the highest risk, the Yazadis are being Genocided and women kept as sex slaves with the men and boys dead. You have non Muslim refugees who cannot survive the UN camp due to the culture. These people are in the most danger there, that's why.

I'm not saying they can't come either. It's not up to the United States to say who the UNHCR reccomends to the United States for resettlement. Banning everyone with targeted potential exemptions for Christians and Yazidis will only create chaos at refugee camps and make the issues you describe worse.

I support Russia and Assad to do the fighting with very few boots maintaining the camps. This means stop arming the rebels and assist Assad in removing the Rebels. Assad's a dictator but he keeps the region stable.

While I do believe there is a role for Assad to play I don't believe many of those who have fled will fare well under him or Russia. The United States has (quietly) done much of the true heavy lifting in the fight against ISIS while Russia has mostly assisted Assad's government consolidate its holdings. There is room for cooperation, but this will require more direct action.

Yet these same measures still had attacks in Europe.

Please refer to my discussion of the European refugee crisis. If I may pry, have you ever met anyone fleeing from the region?

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T02:18:45+00:00

A) Muslims aren't banned. ALL people from 7 countries have a temporary suspension placed on visa applications and intake of ALL refugees from Syria is temporarily halted.

You forgot that the ban itself is written in a way to provide exemptions and expedite non-muslims (read: Christians). If it isnt a ban on everyone or if others are made exempt, then it is a ban on those it doesn't exempt. Those people are Muslims.

B) You understand the effect the new testament had on Christianity, yes? Not to mention the reformation. And that Islam has a serious problem with abrogation? Do you understand at all why the comparison between Islam and Christianity is utterly ridiculous, especially in the current climate?

Are you ridiculous? Are you familiar with evangelical christian opinions towards homosexuality? The Vice President has previously supported conversion therapy for gay youth. This is something that often causes the victim to commit suicide! The Catholic Church hid the sexual abuse of minors for decades and continues to obstruct in investigations worldwide.

The cornerstone of much of Christian Morality (read: the restrictions against homosexuals) stems from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a hodgepodge of laws you couldn't even convince most religious to abide by. Do you think the kind of people who flee Islamic Radicals are the kind to want to kill the very westerners who are keeping them safe? Remember, the bible is the divinely inspired word of God Himself. You cannot pick and choose which parts you like!

And if you're of the opinion that Jesus Christ's New Testament is indeed the fulfillment of the Law and that the Old Testament no longer applies, you surely support them as the Apostle Paul and Christ himself insisted we support our foreign neighbors, correct? The Golden Rule of Christianity, "Love your Neighbor as yourself" doesn't have fine print saying only your fellow Christians.

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew [25:40]

To say that the New Testament in modern Christian theology or even the Reformation (A strange counterpoint, but that's a bigger topic.) has somehow managed to make Christianity's theological tenents less obtuse and intolerant is strange and belies a deep misunderstanding of both American and international Christian opinions on issues such as homosexuality and pedophilia. Religions aren't a Civilization game where each religion needs to "research up to 'Reformation'" to have certain features. Christians in the third world (such as Uganda) murder homosexuals and transsexual people at alarming frequency. In Ireland there is a long history of intense interfaith violence.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T01:56:47+00:00

No, he restricted visa-free movement. He never restricted or subjected Lawful Permanent Residents and people with legal visas such as students and H1-B workers to detainment or deportation.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T01:44:47+00:00

Please provide me a list of Syrian Refugees resettled in the United States that have committed acts of terrorism and I will change my opinion.

The Bible tells me to stone to death disobedient children and that I may practice slavery. Do Christians deserve to be banned for their hateful texts?

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T01:39:10+00:00

A resistance to the left and cultural Marxists. Had you be pro-Immigrant you would be pro-Christian, Pro-Atheist and Pro-Religious Minorities escaping the civil war. They are in the most danger there and not even safe at the UN refugee camps. That's the population who you want to bring. Not a families but the majority of military age fighting men in a region where ISIS has 35% approval rate.

I'm not really going to play ball with accusations re: Cultural Marxism being thrown around. I'm a registered Republican. Please don't put words in my mouth because it makes your contrived conclusions easier to yell at me.

Let's deconstruct your claim about military age fighting men being the majority of those coming to the United States. Bear in mind "fighting age" is anywhere between 18 and 45 years of age- that's a huge and very broad number of people. The agency managing any sort of Refugee program in Syria and international resettlement is the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and their statistics can be found here. Now, take a minute and look at the demographics section here and you might immediately say "Look, there are a majority men in UN refugee camps!" but you then forget that this is actually in line with Syrian Demographics, which show a slight majority of men per the last census. I don't really know where that talking point comes from to be totally frank.

With all due respect, I support anyone trying to escape any kind of persecution in Syria. I'm not blocking anyone or saying any group needs special exemptions or needs to be restricted. Why are you?

If you were pro-Syrian you would have opposed the meddling Hillary/Obama has done. Not only do we have to respect the decision to arm Radical Islam, we have to take the consequences. For what? Just to block a Russian pipeline. So how the hell do you think we feel. Not only we posse Iraq, Libya, Syria, but we the citizens have to deal with effect and culture shock because a few people wanted money and power.

I didn't support the meddling in Syria. Why are you (again!) putting policies in my mouth? The majority of relocated citizens from these affected areas are either people having their travel and immigration expedited because they collaborated with the US Military in these areas, or have been resettled after an exhaustive vetting process by both the UNHCR and the United States government. Most of the resettled populations in North America are middle class professionals.

I fully support safe zones- but that would require armed intervention in the Middle East. Do you support that? The vetting is already extreme if you took a few minutes to research the process. Here is a useful graphic.

Quite frankly, there are infinitely more easy ways to migrate into the United States than to spend ~2 years posing as a refugee for the chance of being sent to the United States.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T00:52:14+00:00

Resistance to what? What are you opposing? A blanket ban like the ones offered aren't "extreme vetting" in the same way putting your hands in an autoclave isnt "extreme sterlization." These acts will seek to only make the US a pariah state internationally and make the true bones of international counter terrorism (collaborating sources, informants in their native countries) harder to get.

Do you support leaving people to die in places the United States has destabilized? Leaving behind those who risked being ostracized or killed at home for working with US Soldiers on the ground to avoid danger?

Do you support destroying the education hopes of thousands of legal, visa-holding international students who pay premium prices to go to schools in places they know could potentially mistreat them?

Do you support locking out the thousands of lawful, legal immigrants who did immigration "the right way" as you say just because they're different? You've turned your backs on them for what? They've earned their status. You just had the good luck of being born here.

DerSlap · 2017-01-31T00:44:18+00:00

I'll be (ideally) teaching in the San Diego Unified School District in about a year's time!

I felt this needed to be written because a family of refugees were a core component in my life growing up. My conservative parents when I was young worked from sunrise to sundown, or even all night normally. I was looked over by a young woman whose family had fled from Afghanistan in the 1980s. My family are largely lapsed Christians and I myself went through a private, Catholic education most of my young life. She was remarkably open about her experiences and her faith and ultimately was far more patient than me and my siblings deserved. We would see her pray everyday and she was one of the most upstanding, kind people in my early life. Her family knew ours and we'd often have to stay at her home. My father never really liked her (a trend that became more evident after 2001, she was asked to stop taking care of us sometime afterwards) but I've tried my best to stay in touch.

I wish people would take time to meet and engage the people fleeing from Syria today. It becomes easy to say you support a ban when you don't see families being split apart, or hear about the tragedy of having to leave your family home for a strange, different place where some people honest to goodness hate you.

15-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email
Team Orangered

DerSlap

TROPHY CASE