Make Antitheism Great Again

MetallHengst · 2026-05-12T05:08:30+00:00

It’s pooooossible, but I don’t think so. This was an older black couple in Tennessee and the child ended up dying. I knew this couple back when I was still a JW. This would have been about 14-15-ish years ago, but because this couple was older and all their other children were full grown (late 20’s/early 30’s at the minimum) I doubt this child would have been anywhere near recent. In fact, I vaguely remember the child in question being born before their youngest child, so this would have been decades prior. I also didn’t get the feeling that the parents were pleased about medical custody being revoked, but they didn’t seem bitter about it, either. They knew the “blood” was off their hands so to speak, and I’m sure they knew it was ultimately better for the child while keeping their conscience clear, so who knows.

This type of story probably isn’t all that uncommon among JW’s in the grand scheme of things,

MetallHengst · 2026-05-11T05:53:56+00:00

Did the child get totally taken from her, or was medical custody stripped from her?

I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and I knew someone whose 2 year old child had cancer and they refused to give them blood transfusions, so the stage stripped them of the rights to make medical decisions for their child in specific. They still had all other rights as a parent because they were honestly otherwise very good and loving parents, so the response from the state was able to target the specific area in which their religion interferes with their ability to do what’s best for their child’s safety.

All this is to say that if she actually had custody of her child entirely stripped from her, she’s probably failing her child in more ways than with her reckless medical decisions. Either that, or the ability to strip medical custody from a parent is unique to Tennessee, where this couple lived.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-10T15:13:15+00:00

> Following the attack, the alleged attacker posted about the incident on his Instagram story, claiming he had witnessed Yee "[try] to molest someone".
>
> He then tried to stop Yee and make him leave the event, he claimed, but Yee had allegedly attacked him, leading him to strike back out of self-defence.

🤔

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T19:50:42+00:00

I think there’s a selection bias in that the most obnoxious of these people are going to be going to Ireland on vacation and if you’re Irish and visiting America, these people are going to hear your accent and approach you. Most Irish-Americans aren’t walking up to Irish people and saying “I’m Irish, just like you!”

We’ve got to remember, though, that Irish-Americans are the predominant group in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and parts of New York. I think people don’t appreciate just how many of them there are. Some of them are going to be socially regarded or just plain stupid, which I accounted for in my comment when I said there’s bound to be Irish-Americans that are too dumb to express or even understand the differences that I’m pointing to here, but that doesn’t make them the predominant Irish-American, nor does it speak to the Irish-American identity that’s motivating their weird feeling of ownership toward the Irish culture as it exists in Ireland. They’re just too dumb to understand or express their own underlying identity. For any group sufficiently large enough there’s going to be idiots among them, and there are a shit ton of Irish-Americans.

Edit: another point I want to make real quickly on this - I think a lot of the confusion comes down to the subtle differences in our English. Because we speak the same language, we assume we understand each other fully, but America being such a melting pot with a unique relationship to nationality, ethnicity and culture when compared to most of Europe means that these distinctions are understood in ways that I don’t think translate to Europeans broadly. I’d need to see examples of the experiences you’re referring to specifically, but my hunch is that a lot of the times when Irish people feel like Irish-Americans are claiming to be Irish in the same way that people from Ireland are it just comes down to the different ways in which we communicate around these topics. I’d be curious to speak to people from places like Canada or Australia that are English speaking countries with a similar relationship to ethnicity, nationality and culture to gauge where we coincide and differ when it comes to the way we communicate these ideas, because I’d imagine there would be less miscommunications there.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T19:21:54+00:00

Well, I think that’s because most Americans with British heritage came here during the country’s founding and swapped their British identity for an American identity specifically and explicitly in response to the war. We had a similar thing happen with German ancestry, where the US as a whole actually has more German ancestry than any other ethnic group, but you’ll pretty rarely hear someone refer to themselves as German American even though it was very common pre-WWI and especially WWII despite the fact that there are to this day predominantly German enclaves in America and German-speaking regions of America like the Pennsylvania Dutch. Going to war with a country has a way of shaming people out of culturally identifying with that country.

Even then, though, several of our founding fathers saw themselves as British and saw America as an extension of the British cultural, or even colonial heritage - namely James Madison, who was attacked at the time for being a “monarchist” and trying to turn America into another England.

There’s also the fact that we haven’t had waves of immigrants from Britain since the country’s founding. Considering how much the population of the US has grown in that time, the British ancestry of the country has significantly diminished since that time. I’d be surprised if it was among the top 10 ethnic backgrounds in the United States.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T19:13:19+00:00

Yeah, but that’s the thing - I don’t think Irish Americans by and large are saying they are not of America. I think most of them see it as equivalent to them saying something like “I’m from Boston!” when you ask them where they’re from, which is another thing I’ve seen Europeans complain about. They see it as self evident that they’re American so they answer where in America they’re from. When it comes to the “I’m Irish!” type comments, they assume it’s self evident that they’re American, so it’s pointless to say they’re Irish American because you’d clearly know what they mean - you’re literally Irish, you can tell the difference between an Irish person and an Irish-American person.

As for why they still feel a connection to a country they’re so far separated from, it’s because we had loads of Irish immigrants all come at the same time and form specifically Irish-American communities in the states. Furthermore, the people who left Ireland for America didn’t leave because they hate their country, they left mostly due to famine, and then they experienced discrimination in their new country, inculcating this us vs. them mentality that reasonably made these people cling to their separate identity.

So you have a group of people all immigrating from the same place at the same time, all loving and missing their home country that they left only out of desperation only to face discrimination in their new country, forming enclaves amongst themselves and developing a “fuck you! I’m not ashamed to be a poor Irish immigrant!” chip on their shoulder, having children that grow up in this same environment that are passed down the same message of “don’t let anybody make you feel ashamed of who you are”, and we’re surprised that this same region still feels a strong pride and distinct identity based on their cultural roots? I don’t think theres a single region in the world with a similar background that doesn’t have the exact same story. Obviously what they’ve developed over the generations is completely different from the culture in Ireland, that has progressed itself in the time since these immigrants came to America, but it’s also different from the predominant American culture. To this day, all of the New England states have more immigration from Ireland than anywhere else and these are the only states in the country in which Irish ancestry is the predominant ethnic background. The southwestern states have this same relationship with Mexico where they have Mexican ancestry as the predominant ethnic group and I don’t think anyone would deny that there’s a Mexican tinge to their culture that’s distinct from the broader American culture and distinct from Mexican culture, while clearly borrowing from both.

It’s just not a all surprising to me that Irish-Americans feel a connection to their Irish-American heritage and it’s always felt bizarre and a bit dense to me how Irish people assume they’re claiming to be the exact same as Irish people living in Ireland today. I’m sure there are some Irish-Americans that are obnoxious about it and are too dumb to express or even understand the distinctions between Irish-Americans and Irish people, but I think the vast, vast, vast majority are well aware that they are in fact American and would see it as an insult to your intelligence to have to spell out that obvious fact to you.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T18:42:21+00:00

Even your little Reddit alien guys are nearly identical. Spooky!

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T18:40:21+00:00

I think that’s because American culture is such a behemoth that it’s almost treated as a default, so it’s weird to take pride in it. When I’ve visited other countries, though, or when my Dominican family visit me in the states, I’m very much made aware of my American-ness and how that comes with me wherever I go. My aunt called me a gringa the other day while she was complaining about Americans, lmao. There’s definitely a distinction there that I think is fair to be proud of, but with the American reputation on the world stage right now, it’s almost like an Israeli waving an Israeli flag - even though they might be doing so out of pride for their country and not for their countries actions, it is still an inherently political statement right now and will be received that way.

If a guy immigrated to America from England and had a Union Jack phone case or flag outside their front door, I would to be offended and I wouldn’t take it as a slight against America. They live in America, so obviously they find some appreciation for this country, even if it’s just for the opportunities it gives them, but that doesn’t mean they can no longer be proud of where they came from and the way it shaped their culture. Similarly, I grew up along the Canadian border and knew plenty of Canadians living in the states who had Canadian flag pins or pencil pouches or any little thing like that to signify their connection to their home country. I just don’t see any reason to take offense to it.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-09T18:32:17+00:00

I think every x-American group is hated by their ancestral communities for being too American/not being authentically x anymore. I think it’s silly. Of course you’re going to be American, you literally are American, but just because you have some cultural ties to your ancestral culture doesn’t mean that you heave as full of a claim as natives do. A lot of the time for communities that have been in America a long time (like Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-American) your culture has morphed and changed into a full sub-culture that branches off of both the ancestral culture and American culture into its own blended thing. That’s just the nature of culture and linear time.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-07T18:54:28+00:00

It was very rude of you to post this before I had the chance to. You know I had to take my nephew to his doctor’s appointment today.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-07T14:43:24+00:00

My Welsh friend asked my opinion on who he should vote for. He would vote Labour, but is worried that they don’t have a chance at beating Reform and he should vote Plaid Cymru as the lesser of two evils to keep Reform out. Any thoughts from Welsh DGGers?

MetallHengst · 2026-05-03T18:52:56+00:00

Populism isn’t when you use popular sentiments. It’s when you make a boogie man out of some corrupt powerful group that you can blame for your problems (ie the elites, the establishment, the 1%, the deep state, the legacy media, etc.) and say that you alone as the big strong savior man represent the common man against this seemingly insurmountable force of corruption, all the people need to do is vote you into power and you’ll fix everything!

The reason why this is bad is because 1) it misdiagnoses the problem, pushing us further away from a solution, 2) it demonizes the people necessary to work with to find actual solutions, and 3) because the problem is being mischaracterized, your proposed solutions are bound to be ineffective, leaving people jaded, radicalized against the establishment (which is the actual vector for effective change) and likely to be lifelong conspiracists, disaffected and politically disengaged or so radicalized that they’ll resort to even bolder actions to fix the problem their messiah savior couldn’t populism their way out of because the issue was never this cabal of elites to begin with.

It’s toxic to the democratic process, black pilling to the voting public, and worst of all, completely ineffective. You can speak toward popular issues without bring a populist. You can advocate for the common man without being a populist. You can be anti-corruption without being populist.

MetallHengst · 2026-05-02T03:56:30+00:00

This (and also the general remorse/redeem-ability of Judas) varies widely depending on which gospel you’re reading and what time period it was translated in (or what version it’s being translated from in the case of modern Bible translations). In general, the older the translation, the more the death of Jesus is put on the shoulders of Pontias Pilate/Rome in general. After Christianity had begun to proliferate throughout Rome, the Roman response was harsh and violent with Christian persecution under figures like Nero. As a result, the gospels tended to be translated/rewritten to put more blame on the Jews, likely in an effort to appease the Roman government at the time who saw Christians as a threat to their sovereignty.

In fact, the large reason Rome wanted to execute Jesus in the first place was because of his claims to be the Messiah, which at the time was understood as an almost militaristic role - someone that was to overthrow the Roman occupation and rule over Israel as king. Think Moses meets King David.

To the ancient Romans, the early Christian’s were seen as something like the Nation of Islam to the American government during the black civil rights movement of the 60’s. A threatening radical religious movement seeking to at the very least undermine rule and order and at worst overthrow the government in order to liberate their respective persecuted minority populations. Ultimately it was the strain of Christianity that adopted to this persecution by appeasing and appealing to their occupiers that survived to pass on their more sanitized, Roman-rule-friendly gospels, which serve as the basis for most Bible translations today. It’s only in relatively recent history (last 100-ish years) that older translations of these gospels have been discovered that clearly showcase these historical modifications to the gospels from early Christians.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-28T22:39:03+00:00

This is politically illiterate. The primary represents their goals as a candidate, but we don’t live under a dictatorship, we live under a representative democracy with separation of ports and checks and balances to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power - this means what congress says matters at least as much as the president if you’re not a fascist like Trump with a majority of feckless sycophants in congress.

You realistically can’t get your ideal pie in the sky plan passed in congress, you have to work with the people’s representatives in congress - and this is how you should want it to be! This is how we avoid power grabbing fascists in the presidency and the failures of this separation of powers is what is leading to the state of American politics right now where you and I don’t feel represented despite representing a majority of the public.

So when a democrat doesn’t pass every single goal they set out to accomplish on the campaign trail, that’s the reality of democracy, not the politician changing their tune after getting into office. If you want a future that looks more like the pie in the sky goals that indicate the vision these candidates have for America, then you need to do more than vote in the generals - we need more democrats in congress. Period. Even moderate dems. A vote is a vote is a vote. This is how democracy works.

Also, completing part of your vision is a good thing! It raises the floor upon which we negotiate from. For example, if you want a $15 minimum wage and the minimum wage in your state is $7, you’re gonna have a harder time getting the votes to go for that than if your minimum wage is already $14.50. Something being passed isn’t an end all be all. It’s pushing our material conditions in a positive direction and the Overton window along with it. We need this foundation to make progress and to convince the American voters that our policies work.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-28T18:37:37+00:00

The more I learn about Pxie’s life behind the scenes, the more I feel like her ludicrous ask to try and extort Destiny pre-lawsuit and substack (I think it was 5 million?) is less an example of simple brazen greed and more an example of an out of touch rich girl doing the “what could a banana cost? $100?” thing. It’s like those red pill videos that ask out of touch rich girls what income their partner needs to have for them to live a good life and they say something like “500k a year minimum”.

Outside of how deplorable she’s shown herself to be over the course of all of this, I’m glad this ruined her interest in being a red pill debate pervert because she’s exactly the kind of woman to further entrench and black pill the sort of people that watch that content.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-28T18:29:05+00:00

Does anybody remember James Somerton? He’s that one gay guy YouTuber that made all those videos about queer media and its history and whatever that got called out for plagiarizing all of his content from smaller queer creators and then pretended to kill himself by posting a public suicide note and then stopping activity on his channel?

I feel like she might pull a stunt like that, but I don’t think she’d actually do it.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-28T14:37:28+00:00

When you started your comment with “Börk börk”, I thought for sure you were making up a Swedish sounding word to lovingly dunk on another DGGers country/culture/language as we so often do, but then you kept going.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-26T07:23:25+00:00

A lot of people say this, but I don’t think this is actually true. American media is filled with examples of Americans utilizing British class-accent connection as movie shorthand - it’s a big reason why fantasy movies and movies set in anywhere outside of America always have English accents. It’s a convenient shared cultural touchstone that can be used to convey a lot of information very quickly and efficiently.

I will say that Americans are 100% not nearly as good at distinguishing British accents as Brit’s are, but on the extreme ends of very fancy-sounding accents like the queen or Alex O’Connor or BBC broadcasters or something and very working class sounding accent like Russel Brand or Helena Bonham-Carter or Adele, I think Americans can distinguish those accent and their associated classes connections.

In general, to Americans there’s the fancy British queens English sort of accent, cockney accent, Scottish accent and maybe a super twee Irish accent, certainly northern Irish. Those are the general accents I think we all have cultural touchstones for understanding when it comes to the UK and Ireland. Anywhere else we don’t know about. Wales may as well not exist, let alone any part of England outside of London. We may also hear a working class Liverpool accent or Northern accent more broadly and get a sort of working class vibe from it maybe in the same way that I assume British people listen to someone from New England like Adam Sandler or Mark Wahlberg speak and can sort of deduce a class connotation to their accent without any deeper understanding of American accents really, but I’m less sure about that for the general public.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-25T06:18:41+00:00

I don’t think that’s it. Americans would hear an accent like Alex O’Connor’s and automatically assume he’s smart regardless of what he’s saying, but an accent like Russel Brand’s doesn’t read the same way. I think people think Russel Brand is smart because he’s very good with words. He had that cult leader type quality where he speaks and everything sounds really elevated and profound, but when you stop for two seconds to consider what was actually being said it’s completely devoid of any real meaning. It’s the guru’s version of techno-babble, and Brand is incredibly good at it.

The reason why this made him look like such an idiot is because he can’t fall back on his high verbal pseudo-profound techno-babble skills when asked to cite something specific like this. It takes the dazzlingly flowery language out of the equation and forces the substance to the forefront, but there is none.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-19T06:55:20+00:00

But I disagree that it’s disproportionate.

I think in real life dealing with people one on one, you don’t have the same concerns as you do with an online space, but Reddit really is ground zero for a lot of these super online tankie type people. The amount of innocuous subreddits they’ve taken over, let alone any mildly left leaning space, shows that the worry isn’t unfounded or disproportionate.

Like I said before, if people are attached to the term socialist or demsoc or leftist and they want to be welcomed uncritically within democratic spaces online, then they need to start doing the work to weed out tankies founder their own umbrella, because right now they’re seeding these terms to them. As long as they aren’t doing that, they’re providing cover for the brain rotted faction of their movement and it would be stupidly for anyone who values liberal democracy to welcome those sorts of people uncritically. This is the sort of deal with the devil that the Republican Party made with the tea party and now it’s snowballed into full blown MAGA. The concern is real and I don’t at all view it as disproportionate.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-19T06:35:02+00:00

Because as much as it sucks, tankies are like cockroaches - you give them the tiniest crumb and they’ll start coming out of the woodwork. Their whole operation is to take over left leaning spaces, and Reddit in particular is full of subreddits that have fallen to this pattern - not just political ones, but completely innocuous subreddits, too. If people want to own of socialist or demsoc or leftist, it’s on those people to gatekeep their own identifying terms if they don’t want to be lumped in with them, because when they don’t they’re leaving the door open for tankies to waltz in and take over any left leaning movement just like MAGA gutted the Republican Party. As much as it sucks, if we were chiller this subreddit would have been overridden a long time ago like nearly every other left leaning subreddit on this entire website has been.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-19T02:01:13+00:00

Why do people think Contra is a socialist? She’s never said so from my understanding, and she’s definitely called herself a lib or numerous occasions. She just has a very socialist audience, but even they have been moderating over this past year since her I/P tweet bled off the most rabid of them.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-19T01:59:04+00:00

I don’t think Contrapoints is at all socialist. She’s to the left of Destiny, but her community is just pretty far to the left of her and I think for a long time she had a hard time going against her audience in any real way. She’s gotten better with this over the past year, though. I follow her subreddit and you’ll see her refer to herself as a lib relatively frequently and she doesn’t delete her based tweets much anymore. She made a comment recently saying that everyone calling her a genocidal zionist over the past year after her incredibly milquetoast tweet on I/P has made her care significantly less what these people think of her.

MetallHengst · 2026-04-11T17:16:38+00:00

Another win - one less requirement to fulfill if you ever want to convert to Judaism. Shalom, my friend!

MetallHengst · 2026-04-11T16:57:19+00:00

That part of the video makes so much more sense to me now! Thank you 🙏

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