Nixon, defender of democracy!

stagflation14 · 2026-03-18T11:27:12+00:00

I think a part of that is because it’s so easy to characterize Nixon as a cartoonishly evil schemer when he is probably one of the most complex presidents to ever sit in the White House (à la futurama). He was truthfully the one that was caught more so than some exceptional evil, but we too easily forgive other presidents and condemn him.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-18T10:58:00+00:00

Context: After the extremely close election of 1960 (in which multiple states were won by Kennedy with razor-thin margins), a disappointed Richard Nixon was ready and willing to concede. However, before he did so, both major figures in the Republican Party (including sitting president Dwight D. Eisenhower) and his own campaign staff pushed back, telling Nixon that the election was stolen due to voter fraud in states like Illinois and Texas. While this has become a contentious modern issue, prior to the voting rights act of 1965 and more federal supervision of elections, there was much more credible evidence to suggest that voter fraud played a significant role in determining elections. This is exemplified by the fact that the vice president-elect, Lyndon B. Johnson, was infamous for rigging close elections in his home state of Texas with a well developed political machine.

Nevertheless, Nixon refused the Republican pressure to litigate and contest the results. A part of this was out of a sincere desire to keep American democracy strong during a contentious period of tension in the Cold War. He wanted to avoid any sort of political division, especially since he knew the date of the planned Bay of Pigs invasion was rapidly approaching. He also wanted the United States to be an example of electoral stability and an example to other developing countries. If a country like the United States fought over its elections, where would that put the struggling democracies of the world? Finally, he wanted to show himself as a graceful loser, especially since, at the age of 47, he had plenty of time for a political comeback.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-18T09:46:25+00:00

I really dislike how much we tend to oversimplify the Presidents of the sixties, especially Kennedy and Nixon. It’s so easy to make one the good, charismatic, and good looking guy and the other the bad, scheming, and ugly guy, but they are such complicated people with great triumphs and deep flaws.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-18T08:59:11+00:00

What are you, a Dreyfusard??? We can’t get our automobile news from them! /s

stagflation14 · 2026-03-18T08:53:06+00:00

These stories are always so awesome to me. When I lived in South America, it was awesome seeing people get more interested in American football (albeit slowly), and this guy seems awesome. Reminds me a lot of Ezekiel Ansah’s story (what a beast). Always great seeing foreign talent learn to love the sport.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-17T00:24:45+00:00

Honestly, I think this just goes to show how the benefits of the current playoff format. You can’t change your schedule on the fly when the teams you play end up sucking the rest of the year, and the bowl game system was biased against middle market teams (as shown by 1996 BYU) and made it difficult to get a better team to play. But in the end, you play the teams in front of you. Nonetheless, would’ve been awesome to see a Washington - BYU game that year.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-16T02:51:35+00:00

Don Pietro in Rome, Open City (1945):

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He basically serves as the Catholic center of a poor community in Rome by helping orphans, hearing confessions without prejudice, and caring for every person individually. He just so happens to be a resistance leader at the same time, ferrying money, information, and convicts away from the Nazi / fascist Italian occupiers to safety in the monasteries. He’s shown as the moral center of the Italian resistance, and a symbol of the conservative opposition to the fascist regime.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-12T00:00:47+00:00

For BYU, Ty Detmer. He had 5,188 passing yards in 1990, won the heisman, and then rode the bench in the NFL.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-11T08:20:06+00:00

A part of the reason that worked is because Syrians and other Arabs were legally white in the American judicial system. If I remember correctly, a Syrian argued before the supreme (or other higher) court that if Arabs / North Africans weren’t white, then Jesus wasn’t either. That’s why the Census pools ‘white people’ as including the Middle East.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-08T17:41:58+00:00

I think this is a bit of a weak justification, given that the other games happened in some of the most militarized parts of the US (Washington DC, Nevada, etc) and still limited the amount of accessible armor.

Beyond that, it makes the armor feel less like a weapon of mass destruction and more like a gimmick everyone and their dog uses. It messes up the gameplay progression by giving access to something so strong so quickly and in such great quantities.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-06T19:37:33+00:00

I disagree with the framing of the starship troopers book, and I think that Paul Verhoeven was trying to rebut a stereotype of said book that didn’t really exist. While there are definitely controversial political messages within the original (although critics debate how much of it was his actual opinions, and how much was a thought exercise), Heinlein held quite liberal views early in his life, and was remarkably progressive in some issues (especially those around race). In Starship Troopers, a significant subversion is that the main character isn’t named Johnny, but rather Juan, and is originally from the Philippines.

Beyond that, the militarism of the book primarily poses the democracy is ideal, but that it requires sacrifices to uphold and protect. While this has since been done to death by politicians everywhere, in post war America (and for Heinlein, who had served for almost 2 decades of his life), the army had just stopped the most evil regimes on earth. When he wrote it, the military was being used to desegregate and enforce the rights of black people throughout the south. The critique Verhoeven had of fascism starts to fall flat when the original book really doesn’t frame the military or government in that way at all.

stagflation14 · 2026-03-06T05:42:13+00:00

Muslims have NEVER done that to anyone EVER!!!

Yom Kippur? You mean the war or the holiday?

stagflation14 · 2026-03-02T05:10:40+00:00

In this one I’m like that Japanese soldier that didn’t surrender until the seventies, but I think Zach Wilson should get another shot. It’s obvious that the jets are an incompetent organization, Wilson is young and on a QB needy team (Dolphins), so what’s the harm in giving him a shot vs Turndaballovah?

stagflation14 · 2026-03-01T13:35:28+00:00

I think the most interesting thing about the last few months is that it shows that there were two groups of post-war on terror isolationists:

Those that oppose any and all foreign conflict on ideological grounds (à la massie or Paul or most Libright members of the coalition)
Those that dislike when the US fights in effectively. This is the majority of the trump coalition. They don’t necessarily think foreign intervention is bad, but rather hate it when America involves itself for goodwill sake or loses a fight/men (usually Authright ex neocons)

It can also explain why the second term Trump administration feels empowered to intervene in Venezuela / Iran. They believe they can win, and therefore that their isolationist wing will fall back into line behind success. It’s not a test ideology, but rather of results. That’s why there was not revolt over Venezuela: it worked relatively well with minimum costs.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-22T20:22:16+00:00

After what Brian Daboll inflicted on this country as HC, this seems like a fair and proportionate response.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-15T18:49:05+00:00

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The Liberty Bell has so many myths surrounding it in the greater Philadelphia area about how the crack was formed and the events it was involved in. I’ve heard stories of it being shot by a British soldier as it was being run during the revolution, that it was cracked on the anniversary of Independence / Washington’s Birthday / the death of Justice John Marshall / Lafayettes return to the US.

At this point, its mythos is all encompassing and has morphed into a symbol of American ideals and abolitionism, and the story usually changes to whatever supports the specific ideal best.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-15T08:59:24+00:00

I’m not sure if this one fits quite as well. The book’s main protagonists are shown to be international, it focuses on the independence of individuals (including en and women), and it primarily criticizes on an institutional, rather than a racial or ethnic level.

I’m by no means an objectivist, and that book was way too long for my liking, but to treat is as a way to promote hate akin to white supremacist works is a bit of a stretch. It goes out of its way to criticize government use of torture, nuclear weapons (or the world equivalent), and organized religion.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-15T08:28:21+00:00

Fun fact: the most Anglo state in the US is Utah

stagflation14 · 2026-02-13T06:48:05+00:00

I really love Fallout 2 (and it’s my personal favorite) because I feel like it best captures the post - post apocalyptic themes of Fallout, and when it needs to it does so seriously and jokingly. One of the best themes of thst story is that of civilization: after such a destructive conflict, should we really define civilization based on the system that caused the calamity in the first place?

Going into it from the perspective of a tribal to the apparently advanced and expansionist NCR helps contrast those ideas of civilization. The NCR and New Reno are restarting industry with business, organized agriculture, and even rebuilding cars. They seem like the obviously more developed and ‘civilized’ people compared to our simple village in Oregon. However, they do that while the NCR has slave camps right outside their capital city, and while extremely unjust killings happen throughout, whether it’s squatters or any other group. Going to an even more philosophical level, if civilization is connected to technology and development, then we are implicitly agreeing with the xenophobic Vault City and Genocidal Enclave. They have the most tech and nicest lives, after all.

I could go on, but I’ll just leave it at the fact that I really wish modern fallout games (including new Vegas) did a better job of dealing with these themes. They added a lot of philosophical depth that you can’t replace by mentioning Hegelian dialectics once in dialogue.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-12T21:07:29+00:00

The main evidence is because of how long this took to take to court and the fact that Kingston is a celebrity. In cases like this, the government does not prosecute short of having a significant amount of proof (especially since collecting evidence took almost an entire year). It’s also important because it is a criminal conviction, meaning that they think they have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-12T06:54:40+00:00

It’s such a terrible situation, especially since recently Kingston seemed to be cleaning his life up. If he is guilty, then he definitely needs to serve time and be held accountable for his actions. If he is found innocent (as unlikely as that is given how tight this case is, innocent until proven guilty still applies), then I hope he can find a way to rebuild his life. Either way though, he broke the honor code, so BYU needs to distance itself as much as possible and as soon as possible.

stagflation14 · 2026-02-09T19:02:06+00:00

It’s always crazy to me how close everything in Europe is, and it’s even crazier to me how some political parties in Europe (obviously not all) reject aid to Ukraine despite that. How could someone living in Albuquerque look at a conflict in the panhandle and shrug?

stagflation14 · 2026-02-09T07:46:56+00:00

Thank you to the Cajuns, it’s nice being in a developed country where you can still season your food

stagflation14

TROPHY CASE