*patriotic guitar twangles*

Fuck this bible thumpin reactionary hillbilly dork.
"But he goes after both sides!"
No, He punches down on poor people. Fuck off with that.
- The name of the song itself is a huuuuuggggge dog whistle, imo. Tells me everything I need to know about the target demographic.
  
  Dude is a full blown nazi, his YouTube channel had (possibly still has) a playlist of videos titled something like "videos to make ya think", including stuff about the dancing Israelis conspiracy theory.
  
  How is that? I'd honestly like to know. It raises my hackles, but i can't really explain why.
  "Rich men north of Richmond"... I'm not american, so maybe that's why i don't quite get it
- Who tf is this anyway?
  
  Apparently his name is Oliver Anthony.
- How do you punch down on poor people when you are living in a camper? His song is #1 on iTunes in the US/UK/Australia, #2 in Ireland and Canada. But it certainly couldn't be because it resonates truth for the masses. No, it is because he is punching down on the poor and you are so smart to have figured it out. The few negative opinions I have seen about this song have been from people it is calling out. Tool.
  
  Having something resonate with a bunch of people, and saying something true isn’t always the same thing. You can say a bunch of dumb bullshit about society that resonates with people but isn’t really true, just like how he does. You have just fallen for the grift. Get his dick out of your mouth.
  
  I’ve been thinking a lot about this song. And it is a real feeling that people have.
  But it is also just whining.
  The way he goes from talking about people without anything to eat and then talks about how someone that poor and fat shouldn’t eat a fudge round just seems to be a confused message.
  Is big government the problem? Or is it lack of corporate regulations that then allow big companies to pay people less than what they need to survive.
  Washington can do things to fix what he is talking about, but I would be shocked if he is interested in any policy that helps poor people or people drowning in student or medical debt.
  
  Fat shaming, welfare queening, both sidsing, slack jawed backwater hick bullshit. I grew up around dipshits just like him. 1, they're hypocrites that live off the system and haven't been able to see their own cock without the assistance of a mirror in 15 years but because they're white it's ok. 2, Their "color blindness" and concern trolling falls away behind closed doors. It's empty platitudes and surface level enlightened centrist garbage and nothing more. He doesn't mean a word of what he's singing and the people that "resonate" with it don't either. It's just 4 minutes of dog-whistling and right wing propaganda.
  
  he lives on 90 acres, he's living in a camper as a choice because he thinks it's fun and aesthetic. Both before and after this song came out he could afford a 5,000 sq. ft. home
  
  Aw yes because punching down never resonates with the masses. We've never elected politicians who distract from real issues by blaming poor people who don't use them bootstraps...
  
  How do you punch down on poor people when you are living in a camper?
  You can totally hate on poor people while being poor yourself. I've seen it loads of times. The mentality is "I deserve welfare, but those people don't! They're cheating the system!"
  The few negative opinions I have seen about this song have been from people it is calling out.
  Short, fat people?
  
  Living in a camper...off the grid on 90 acres of land that he owns and plans to build a farmhouse and raise livestock on. Working class my ass...
  
  Most of the lyrics are benign and he has plenty of musical talent. But the lyrics that comment on politics are just incredibly brain dead, I don't know what else to tell you. It is proposing welfare recipients as the reason for poverty, but what percentage of tax returns go to welfare? Obviously like, nothing. Additionally his own region of the country has some of the highest rates of welfare recipiency and if that was cut off does he really think that would improve anything?
  I think the reason it leaves so many people with a bad taste in their mouths is because clearly a bait and switch is being performed. The first part draws your attention to the issues the singer is experiencing in his life such as low pay, then in the middle he goes on to talk about the "Rich men North of Richmond-" which if that is in reference to DC politicians then fair enough- in addition to welfare recipients as if those two things are related. He is just running defence for the wealthy by trying to distract people from the problems downstream from general extreme wealth inequality by trying to convince us fat people buying candy is causing everyone's problems. Not to mention the humour there is in seeing someone that looks pretty severely overweight themselves calling out other fat people (much like how he is an apparent working class man going after over working class people.)
  In my opinion the purpose of the song is just to turn poor people against each other so we won't get any ideas about taxing the rich or anything like that. This is probably be reason why lovely people like Matt Walsh were early promoters of the song.
  
  If you want the truth instead of the myth being pushed by the fascists who are astroturfing this guy all over social media, you can watch this video. It's long, but there's a ton of evidence in the first 10 minutes.
  https://youtu.be/3M6ZjYfp-B8
  
  Yeah, because a group of people have never rallied up for something they believed is true but isn't.......wait....

I feel like I should be happy to not recognize this person.
- Same
- You must not subscribe to Politcal Outrage Weekly

honestly I'm still shocked people are buying into Reagan's welfare queen nonsense 40+ fucking years later
- Step 1 to believing welfare queen nonsense: Be racist and imagine said queen as being black
  
  Or Hispanic or native American or an immigrant
  Immigrants aren't even eligible for EBT until they're citizens but it doesn't stop the whining from the right
- Meanwhile in the real world: White people are the ones that have historically benefited the most from welfare programs and the "Welfare Queen" made 8k$ from her scheme.

This song does such a good job with communicating the conservaive trinity:
persecution complex
mad about things they themselves voted for
mad that the other is getting something, which is obviously undeserved
- In his interviews he claims he is a centrist but takes issues with teachers turning girls into boys and boys into girls.
  
  So he's a centrist™?
- I'm ootl, what's the song?
  
  Rich men North of Richmond
  
  Rich Men North of Richmond, by Oliver Anthony

That's because a lot of Americans are under the impression that poor people are poor because they're lazy, and not because they're victims of oppression. They even cling to this absurd belief when they themselves are the victims of similar oppression. Must be lead in the water or something…
- I've lived in very poor, rural, white American places, and it's unironically all about skin color.
  White and poor? It's because the Democrats illegally steal your money with taxes, and any welfare is just you getting back less than you deserve.
  Black and poor? It's because you're bad, and any welfare is the Democrats buying your vote and supporting you destroying the country with your violence.
  
  Can confirm. There is no such thing as a "white welfare queen".
- It is basically a slightly different variations of this
- It's an outcome of puritanical Protestantism in the modern day. It's nicknamed prosperity theology. Lack of wealth is seen as a moral failure, rather than a societal one. To be wealthy is to be granted abundance by God, and to be poor is to be punished for misdeeds in the eyes of God. It's a cruel ideal that is deeply embedded into right wing American religious spaces.
  
  Ah, yes. I remember Jesus explaining this in the lecture on the mount.
- Actually it's "forever chemicals" that they're drinking https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/08/what-are-pfas-forever-chemicals-what-risk-toxicity

Image Transcription:
Picture of Oliver Anthony singing with the caption above: "When the government gives more of your tax money to corporations but you're mad someone used EBT to buy snacks"
[I am a human, if I've made a mistake please message and let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for images for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
- Good job! Thank you for doing that.

He's a Jewish conspiracy level Nazi.
- And unfortunately he's also a pretty damn good singer.
  Like my hackles were up the whole time I was listening to the song because I knew this is some sort of like Republican redneck protest song against the liberals, but at the same time I had to admit the guy can fucking sing and it was a good song.
  We really need to step up our protest song game.
  
  You need to get out there and look.
  Lots of revolutionary music being made, just not made by industry plants and boosted by bullshit
  Tho he is a good singer, the song was basic
  
  AJJ aka Andrew Jackson Jihad has been around making protest songs for awhile.
  
  Tyler Childers is the good version of this guy.
  
  Yeah that first verse about how we struggle, etc. I was very interested. Then look out for miners, not minors...oook easy dunk, we can all get behind protecting kids. Then the welfare thing. Oh it's republican talking points not a new uprising of classic country like Cash
  
  Fit For An Autopsy has been around for a while my dude. Look them up.
  
  Burnin sherman
  
  Check out David Dondero - The Filter Bubble Blues.
  
  The song on youtube does seem to have recorded much greater pipes than he actually has live in person.
- Oh that's absolutely v i l e
  And not just the highlighted one

Someone here mentioned this dude lives in a camper as somehow proof of his working class bona fides. Yeah…he lives on 90 acres of land that he wants to build a farm on and raise livestock. Doesn’t exactly scream “working class.”
Not that it matters. He could’ve written this song sitting down at the bottom of a mine at the end of his shift right before he was diagnosed with black lung and it still would’ve been a shitty racist song.
Also has anyone looked into how this shit got so popular? At least Jason Aldean is a known guy so it makes sense that song got popular, but with all the talk of industry plants this Oliver Anthony guy feels extremely sus. Especially for some nobody living off the grid somewhere in the middle of Virginia
- Absolutely a plant. Nashville has been an arm of conservative propaganda since at least 9/11.
- Yeah…he lives on 90 acres of land that he wants to build a farm on and raise livestock. Doesn’t exactly scream “working class.”
  I mean props to them for using the well documented "equating farmer (owns land) with farmer (does farm work)", it does usually trick people
  
  not only this, but I think most of the people moved by this song are middle class anyway, and they don’t view owning property as any sort of privilege. I’ve already gotten one guy going “well actually the bank technically owns it and he’s paying it off.” Like bruh, have you ever talked to an actual poor person?

I was at guitar center shopping for a nylon classical and this kid was singing that Oliver guy's one song in the acoustic room.
When he finished I told him that song is about me.
He also played wonder wall, no joke, 10 times.
- this kid is training to become every white guy at a party with a guitar
  
  Stairway to Heaven and Hotel California incoming
- Lmfao

Anyone have the numbers of social welfare spending vs corporate welfare spending for a recent year? Say 2020-2022? I can't find it.
- I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but I think the premise of this argument is rather weak.
  Money spend on social welfare, vastly improves poor people's lives. When you spend it on corporate welfare, the money tends to go into the pockets of people who are already pretty comfortable.
  This is a simplification of a multifaceted issue, but by and large I think this holds a lot more water than just comparing numbers.
  Also: There was a pandemic in the time period given, so there might be some selection bias.
  
  Means testing is something that wastes a lot of public welfare funds and is usually a tool utilized by those who want to cut programs as an example of welfares inability to work. If we got rid of means testing then corporate welfare would be shown for how truly useless it is. I'm not arguing with you or anything, just adding some more detail to the topic
- It depends on what exactly you consider social welfare and corporate welfare. There's all sorts of ways to split the data.
- Let's be more specific and find out how much public money was spent on sugarry snacks for fat people, which is his ridiculous complaint. I'll assume we're not psychopaths who are generally against a social safety net.

I legit actually like country music. Country music and punk rock. Both of them are just three chords and the truth
And man, when this song started, dude came in hot. I loved it. And then he went flying right off the rails.
- Exactly what I thought, the first verse and most of the chorus is legit working class anxiety. The rest is blaming other victims of the system, and while it references "rich men," it contains no criticism of their wealth, the reference to taxes is more the opposite.
  
  Well it kinda does criticize them, just only if they are located above a certain geographical point
- A friend sent it to me, and at first I was hopeful... then I was like 'hmm... strange choice of wording' then I was like 'oh, that was deliberate' as it started to sound more like propaganda and less like a legitimate statement.

I know this guy. I mean, not exactly this guy but pretty much.
- I can’t tell you how many people walked into my store at the height of that shit and said, “Well, I got the wuflu. It ain’t nothin’. Just a dang cold.”
  Or, “shew buddy, China bug is about to wipe me out buddy. I ain’t never been so sick in my life. cough cough cough Whatchu wearing’ ‘at democrat rag for? You can still smell a fart cain’t yuh?”

id be willing to wager a $20 he used A.I. software and tweaked it for these lyrics. everyone commenting has been skirting, what i think, to be just a new trend in bait music.
The song is bad yet just cognitive enough to cause a stir.
- Don’t forget how infectious stupid can be, especially when under pressure
  
  As it's relevant, let's remember the video Hank Green posted on TikTok discussing how "for every word expressing a negative emotion in a headline, that increased the click-through rate to that article by 2.3%" and "if they make us disgusted, outraged, frustrated, scared? Then? Then we start thinking about clicking
  It looks to reference this article from Nature:
  Robertson, C.E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K. et al. Negativity drives online news consumption. Nat Hum Behav 7, 812–822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
- Throwback to when @destineenstark gave an 8m3s discussion and analysis on TikTok spelling out how DESPITE Jason Williams swearing that all the video from "try that in a 'small' town" is all original and genuine, one thing is from Berlin, Germany, another from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, another stock image from somewhere else...

I likes the song when I saw it on Tik Tok. Now I'm getting videos for right wing politics. I just thought it sounded good. Had no idea that it would become a nazi war cry.
- Yeah, I get it. It's like conservatives who use "Born in the USA" at political rallies. Sometimes you gotta listen to the lyrics
- I just thought it sounded good
  Listen to more music. His voice is mediocre and his message is disgusting.
  You can do better.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/t-MX5P1LCuw
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  Thanks for recommendation, love finding new music.

Corporate subsidies and corporate tax evasion are always in competition for big dollar values. Not to mention unpaid wages.
Meanwhile there are POOR people getting some FOOD??!??!?

Tl;dw?
- Also has some weird nazi videos on his YouTube channel.

You’re telling me that in the year of our lord 2023, people believe that welfare alone is enough to cover housing, food, and clothing? This really ought to set anyone with a brain completely off. You know how much you get from the government on welfare? Not even 500 fucking dollars
LMFAO how brainwashed can you possibly be?

The best part is the line immediately before it. "We got hungry people on the streets" or something similar, right before complaining about food stamps.
If giving the hungry poor and homeless people free food isn't their solution to "we got hungry people on the streets" I wonder what is...
Also there's a weird as fuck line where he complains that we care too much about minors on islands (Epstein) and not enough about miners. Is that really the issue? Too much emphasis on billionaire pedophiles?

- How so?

This isn't political memes
- Memes supersede the idea of political memes and encompasses them as well
  Can I ask what made you feel the need to share your bitching and moaning about a meme you could’ve easily scrolled by with the rest of the class?
  
  There was somewhere this could be posted where Americans can meme about their politics, this isn't a "general" meme that people from outside the US would understand or care about.
  Let me know what else I can do for extra credit.

Let's conflate the prime thrust of the song with just the one line where he refers to food stamps and crucify him / not hold those sewing poverty and anxiety into society to account
- The lyrics are extremely basic and not creative in the slightest. They make gestures towards working class solidarity, but are petit bourgeois attitudes wrapped in redneck aesthetics for comfortable middle class folk. Songs like this are a dime a dozen, and I’m sure you can find another song like this, especially in country/bluegrass, without the racist undertones.
  
  Oh I don't need the song I'm just pointing out how people are providing incompetent analysis like yourself
- The prime thrust of the song is a dogwhistle about the confederacy
  
  It's a populist song it's got fuck all to do with race. Try thinking for yourself and stop being an apologist for corporatism. What you don't like is the populism because you like being lap dog to corporations so you try to conflate anything populist with racism because you saw someone else do it and you are a follower.

Definitely not defending Oliver Anthony because aside from this song, don't know donkey about him but take this for what it's worth as a die hard libertarian in the rural south who has also lived in urban areas.
I get how the song is appealing to actual working class people in the south. "Your dollar ain't shit," "overtime hours for bullshit pay," applies to a lot of living conditions here. Employers want college degrees in these areas for $12-15 an hour. Normal people that haven't went to trade school or college because they can't afford it, got pregnant, had to help with bills, etc. have very slim chances of getting one.
There are legitimately people in this area who have always been on top, that now are making 80k+ per year, who still draw food stamps and have medical cards. So yeah, if you're a normal Joe trying to be honest, it sucks dick. Because you spend 60+ hours of your week preparing to/teaching kids who are taught from birth that school is stupid and will never do anything for them, get paid $30k a year, as a good job, and your take home is less than 2000 a month. Houses start at 200k, milk is $5 a gal, gas $3.50, groceries are at an all time high because of profit margins, I get why it resonates with working class people here. If you aren't actively gaming the system (the Welfare hating as critics of the song are calling it) the way 40% of the area does, you're shit out of luck.
Again, don't know anything about the dude, but know a lot about the rural south, and they're underpaid, overworked, and the biggest victims of the government in this country because the government actively keeps a majority of them in learned helplessness and the remainder can't get ahead because with everyone having a medical card or EBT, jobs assume they don't have to pay shit.
- I don't think there's a single county in the US where someone making $80k a year qualifies for food stamps. It's indexed to the poverty rate. Do you mean WIC, maybe? That's more universal.
  Sounds like the rural South sucks ass. As someone with family from the area, I'd agree it does. They should probably stop voting for the people who want to keep them poor, desperate, dumb, and angry.
  
  Am from rural south and this sounds like bullshit. I'm in a state that "thanks God for Mississippi" and if you make $35k+ here you're not getting much if any in the way of government assistance. But this commenter is a self proclaimed librarian so... Also how is this government victimizing them when they're essentially shopping at the company store? The rich are the ones gaming the tax system and handing that burden to the folks subject to "middle class welfare".
  
  Idk under $100k in Marin and SF is considered low income.
  
  View: "if you aren't actively gaming the system" in my post.
  People here intentionally adopt or have children, stay with their spouse for 20+ years while never married, all with the intention of getting multi-thousand dollar tax returns and keeping EBT. The wife doesn't need to work, her husband makes enough to support them. So she has three or more children. Then she's a single mother with no income, as far as the state is concerned, so she gets EBT/Medical Cards, etc.
  I know individuals who make between 50k-80k who draw between 700-1300 in food stamps a month because of these arrangements. It's everywhere.
- I’m curious where that 40% number comes from. Do you have a source?
  Also, while I agree that the feds don’t do enough, the state and city governments are worse, constantly misusing or outright stealing the money the feds do give them. And to that I say it’s the state/city and voters fault for not educating themselves and voting appropriately. I say all this as someone who currently lives in a rural south town. The people are apathetic and the elected leaders take advantage of that. The corruption is astounding.
- What's the relevance of "obese" and "300 pounds" people specifically eating gov't fudge when no reference was made to them making $80k or otherwise not being poor?
  He is actually just stereotypically misrepresenting the social safety net as being government fudge for fat people. It's fucking stupid. Don't let this be the icon of libertarianism.
  
  If you don't see a problem with:
  30-50% of the south being on food stamps and 40% of the south being obese, idk what to tell you man that's just maths.
  There is a large percentage of people on food stamps who are healthy, able bodied adults who actively choose to not work and or abuse the safety net. & those people still end up making enough to be obese making those decisions while making the system bogged down to the point where some actually disabled people, with their legs blown off or who cannot process information on the same level because they are mentally deficit, cannot get their disability or someone to take care of them.
  Obesity is not a disability. It's either a symptom or a decision.

Thanks for the heads up. That is a good song?

Songs are not often literal. When he sings about the "obese" i think he means "the wealthy" and not literally fat people.
- He literally says if you're 5'3" and 300 lbs and eating fudge. Specifically referring to an obese person on welfare. Nothing hidden here.

It's pretty funny that the expectation on any man who picks up a guitar these days is not that he has a decent voice to go with, it's that his political ideology is "correct" and cohesive and that he makes sure to convey the entire thing in a 4 minute song.
The people getting their knickers in twist over this song are lost.
- No one would give a shit if he wasn't doing racist dogwhistles
  
  Why is it always race? I understand the welfare queen myth, but nothing about that song made me reflect on skin color.
  Maybe it's just you.
- “Why don’t people want to listen to my racist song?”
  Also the song sucks
  
  Number 1 on Apple Music US and Global top 100 charts, but yeah - your opinion is the correct one, it's everyone else that is wrong.
- I don't think that's what this is about. I don't have that kind of expectation of musicians. But if a musician chooses to sing about being a chud i think they should get dunked on
  
  What is a chud?
- Dude, no one is above getting mocked. Stop it with the butthurt lol
- His political ideology is 100% the point of the song. It's the only thing he's singing about.
  You're acting like he did an instrumental song and people ridiculed him for past behavior instead. No. He's complaining that poor fat people eating government fudge is ruining his life lol. He's a fucking moron.

You could be mad at both.... why is this a black and white issue? EBT abuse is real.
I have seen people literally sell the milk they get from EBT that was intended to be used for their baby. They bragged about being able to get the new iphone with it. I have seen homeless who buy bottled water on SNAP only to dump and resell the bottles so they could get cash for their addictions. Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
Edit: so many hexbears. I dont care to respond to Kremlin bots.
- Idk man, just seems like small potatoes, and rare. Everyone has to eat and I find it doubtful that the skinny EBT amounts will fund an addict's lifestyle significantly if the food is resold on the secondary market.
  
  When it comes to government waste? It's not nothing, but I think you're right, it is technically small potatoes. But it isn't rare, I've heard 2 very credible firsthand accounts. The result of one I've actually witnessed, repeatedly.
  So idk exactly how that SNAP/EBT stuff works, but it's just a certain amount loaded up on a card. I thought it was $200, and $200 went a hell of a lot further in 2017. My friend had a deal worked out with his neighbor, he'd "purchase" that $200 SNAP/EBT card for $100. They'd take that to the store & eat really, really well! 😂
  We justified playing into it because if we didn't buy it, they'd just sell it to somebody else. So why not us? Why shouldn't we get the food? But yeah those neighbors wanted $100 CASH more than a $200 card to buy food. Is this behavior rare?...probably not as rare as you think. But definitely not common, and small potatoes.
- "Yeah, rich people take orders of magnitudes more money from society in order to reinvest it in very concretely destroying society further, but did you consider that someone who was over-prescribed opiods as part of a deliberate campaign by the Sacklers also take up money coping with the addiction they ended up with?"
  Fuck off. There are important societal benefits to welfare, while corporate bailouts and the like are a cancer intended only to give the rich more money.
- I have seen homeless who buy bottled water on SNAP only to dump and resell the bottles so they could get cash for their addictions.
  If you're going to lie, why make up the most nonsensical lie imaginable?
  
  Surely it's a bit, LMAO. How is that something that could even be witnessed? Where is the open air empt water bottle market even located? :data-laughing:
  
  I've seen this first hand a good few times - believe me or not because I don't want to be too specific about my experience. You've got to be super desperate to pour out a 40 count of bottled water for $2-4, but people with nothing else but SNAP/EBT/etc funds will do it.
  It's sad and wasteful, but it's also such a marginal thing compared to the Sacklers making the opium wars look like a prank that I don't see how it can even brought up in the same conversation - except as deflection.
  
  They saw a captioned video on the TikTok and actually believed it
- No you haven't.
  
  No but I have seen homeless people picking up other's littered recycling and taking it to the grocery store for the pennies deposit and that's basically the same thing
- Yeah man, I live in a fucking nice apartment and make enough money that I can sit on my ass listening to racist fake bluegrass and posting on obscure Internet forums, my entire life rests upon a literal mountain of human suffering that I am blessed never to have to come into contact with. But you know what I’m really mad about? A homeless dude making $3.
  Post hog liberal
- Ah yes someone selling a few dollars of milk is definitely the same as a corporation stealing millions. Ah yes. These two are the same.
  
  Wonder what the milk to iPhone exchange rate is these days
- If you are more angry against some poor people addicted to opioids than you are against the billionaire oligarchs who made their money off of addicting millions of people to opioids... you might have a severe case of myopia.
- “The homeless people were on the streets making welfare fraud and I saw one of the welfare frauds and the welfare fraud looked at me.”
- Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
  Scale. The amount that the capitalists steal from you is orders of magnitude larger than whatever infinitesimal amount of tax dollars (well, more accurately, cents) you lose because an unhoused person used a loophole to buy drugs. Personally I can't even imagine being angry at the two people you mentioned. Nor is there a realistic way to prevent those things that wouldn't punish the 99% of people who just use EBT to buy food like its intended.
  (I also really don't care if people find a way to use EBT money to buy something else in general. Like I can't think of a single reason to be bothered by that. And I life off EBT and only ever use it the "correct" way.)
- Why would i not be mad at that just as I am at how corporate bailouts didnt help anyone except the top .01% of society?
  You could start by having the tiniest bit of class consciousness instead of being a fucking serf.
- wow, I can't believe someone would commit moral failures such as buying an iphone. the absolute outrage.
  sounds like people shouldn't be impoverished. that's the conclusion you should be drawing, not this moral crusader thing of looking down your nose at impoverished people. If poor people are doing things you find distasteful, why not focus your energy on the people who create and spread poverty in the first place? and no, that's not poor people. It's the capitalists and their servants in the state