I'm starting to think that the New Yorker might be the victims of a "terrorist attack" if they keep this kind of reporting up. The quote in the title is from Oliver Wendell Holmes -- that paragon of American "progressivism". However, as one reads to the end, we discover that this fine column is yet another cautionary tale on "Trumpism" rather that the wonderful "progressivism" of our day.
Cohen writes that there was widespread skepticism about eugenics among those whom Oliver Wendell Holmes once referred to as “the thick-fingered clowns we call the people,” but the opposition wasn’t large or organized enough to effectively counter the influential network behind the movement.
Naturally, the New Yorker sees no similarity between BO's calling out "the bitter clingers" nor their own allusions to Trump supporters later in the article:
The 2016 Presidential campaign has reverberated with appeals to strength and victory and virility and contempt for weakness and failure and foreigners, hitting notes of blatant ugliness that we’re not used to hearing in the public sphere. The response in some quarters has been bafflement, as though this way of speaking had materialized out of nowhere.
Perhaps some "imbeciles" have been breeding in the Red States after all?
What is hardest to forget about “Imbeciles” is the stream of grandiose invective against the supposedly unfit—the diatribes concerning “germs of dependency and delinquency” and the “world peopled by a race of degenerates and defectives.” It’s a language that combines the detachment of scientific terminology with the heat of bigoted slurs.
Yes, apparently the "bitter clingers" in fly-over America are not yet fully "imbeciles", but one doesn't need to listen to very much NPR or read much NY Times to realize that those Trump supporters are certainly not much above genetic flotsam and jetsam.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to a friend, about his pleasure in writing the Buck decision, “Sooner or later one gets a chance to say what one thinks.”
I've read enough of the left to know that they have done plenty of "studies" about how "conservative brains" are more gullible, less prone to believe in "facts", etc -- they know they are superior and their big issue is how long they have to put up with the inferior conservatives!
I'm definitely "thick fingered", and no doubt Oliver Wendell Holmes would find me to be an "imbecile". That's OK. When I was young I spent some time with young adults that worked at a nursing home who were certainly "low IQ" which was referred to at that time as "retarded".
Personally, I prefer to be identified with them than with Oliver Wendell Holmes! I like to think that Oliver or even most of the New Yorker staff would treat me rather well 1 on 1 -- let's face it, intelligence isn't everything!
Back in 2007, the "progressives" were trying out the idea that "race was a social construct" ... it didn't really exist in the real world, it was mostly created in the US to support slavery and the continued oppression of blacks. At that time, Kevin Garnett was a big B-ball star and was forced to live his life of racial oppression on $15 million a year.
The linked article would seem to say that in the case of race being a construct, the wisdom of "the latest is always most correct" ("progressivism") failed in 2007! Race is BACK! and it is more dug in that ever. In fact, it is a "core of our existence"!
When the core of our existence is brought into question, it gets emotional pretty quickly.
In this world, the greatest gift of religion (or transcendent philosophy) is that you have a core of your existence that is NOT your "race, income, health, gender, politics, intelligence, education ....".
When our reality as good and moral people feels threatened, up go the defenses and we stop listening. That “track-switching” process right there is actually a continuation and reinforcement of our privilege—whites get to walk away from the implications of race when people of color don’t have that luxury, so let’s get real about that for a second.
To be a Christian is to daily give up the idea that we are "good and moral people" and accept that we are broken and vile beggars seeking Grace. It's a perspective that makes viewpoints like the article's fall into the old song "and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim ..."
When all you have is your position of relative power in this world and there are no transcendent or sacred values, then EVERYTHING is about POWER. It's a Hobbesian world of tooth and claw (in this case intellectual / power / privilege meaning "life"), so it is (intellectually) "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The assumption is that SOMEONE's "will to power" (Nietzsche) World View will rise to the top and force all others to bow to it. "The Party" is pretty darned sure that they have that World View well in hand ... in fact, they are exceedingly smug about it.
We have only really existed in a world nearly bereft of spirit, history and philosophy since "the 1950's" -- ("Closing of the American Mind"), so today, a dogs breakfast of ideologies, grievance / minority groups of all sorts (in this case focused on race), now define the "cultural order".
In the absence of God, every person is their own "god", and quickly seeks to find some sort of group identification to replace the lost belonging once provided by religion, culture, nationality, etc. Race, gender, sexual preference, economic status, political leaning -- the list is endless and often frivolous -- "Gothic", tattooed, rides a Harley -- groups expand and they ALL seek for their group to be "the truth" and for "all other groups" to get used to their "very special" point of view as being ultimately right! "All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others!" (Orwell, Animal House)
In the case of the linked article, the fact the permeates all society is race and "white privilege", and THOU SHALT not question the pronouncements of the race industry on the matter -- thus, "science" is to be used to force your conversion to their world view!
There’s an understanding in the field that people of color may have a greater access to what it means to be white than white people, just as women have a greater understanding of what it means to be male than men—it’s a product of living as a minority. So calm yourself and try to listen, even if only because you look foolish grabbing at straws for an explanation of something much greater than your own small behaviors.
See, blacks know more about what it is to be white and women know more about males than men -- somewhat strangely, what they "know" is very negative, but never the less it is the "true facts", and obviously any white male is going to feel hideous about looking "foolish" in front of a black or a woman! (the prospect is so humiliating it provokes anxiety to write it!) You may not understand the kind of smugness that is needed to reach those sort of conclusions, but they are kind enough to include a link in the article to an example!
It is amazing how often arguments for "superiority of perspective" in a world with no standards or truth, call for a time machine. I suppose if morality, truth, reason, philosophy and history are all "power constructs", a "time machine" is as good an argument as any. But the real core argument (to the extent there even is one beyond MIGHT IS RIGHT) is this.
You were born where you were born, your skin is the color that it is, and you grew up how you did, exposed to the media and a society that you had no control over, all of which led you to being exactly who you are today.
... The myth of meritocracy gets in the way of seeing this—we all want to hold onto our story that we’re strong, smart, and deserve everything we have.
Naturally, the "story" of the authors of the article is not a "story" at all, but "settled science".
There is no merit. "Who you are" is semi-randomly determined by your birth, your society, etc -- there is no purpose for your life. You have no "gifts, destiny, soul". There is no "merit" in building cathedrals, serving God, writing great literature, exploring the world or even going to the Moon. Chucking spears at a passing wildebeest, putting bones in your nose and dancing around the campfire to the rhythm of drums is at least equivalent, and as they say above, in their universe "superior", since black people know more about what it is to be white than white people do.
Why is it again that people have a hard time getting along when everyone's story is supposedly equally valid? Well, because that is a bold faced lie. The game is about POWER, and he who can destroy the "stories" of what was a great culture and replace them with the "Good Facts" of multiculturalism, diversity, socialism, gender identity, "tolerance" (for people that agree with "The Party"), feminism, environmentalism, etc can gain power and eventually FORCE compliance!
Somehow, as The Party gains greater and greater power, I suspect our own home brewed "National Socialists" will find even BETTER "Scientific Training" to convince any who fail to see the brilliance of their "truth" from daring to question them. If some refuse to consider themselves "foolish", it can be important for those people to be dead so that "the truth" doesn't get "confused".
As long as a few million of us are smart enough to fail to see the 2nd Amendment as an "ideological construct of a racist white patriarchy", we ought to be fine. No matter how smug someone is, multiple rounds of .223 to head and chest tends to introduce some humility. There may not be such a thing as "merit", but there is such a thing as hitting the target.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is hated by both Muslims and the Western left wing. I think the following paragraph sums it up completely why that is for BOTH parties.
“They want everyone to get out of their way,” she says. “They fear critical thinking. Anyone in the Islamic world with intelligence who takes a minute to think will not like what they see.”
They want all opposition out of their way and they fear critical thinking. Islam, the Western left,"The Party", students on American college campuses or the liberal relative or associate you deal with. They brook no opposition -- they fear it and they DON'T WANT IT TO EXIST!
But as Ms. Hirsi Ali works to combat those challenges, she finds herself battling the stubborn, unrelenting forces that would have her censored. The efforts to tar her with the tried-and-true epithet of “Islamophobic” come both from powerful Muslim enterprises that would like to squash her like a bug and some on the left, for whom a narrative of the Muslim world as victims and the West as victimizers is precious and comfortable. They regard Ms. Hirsi Ali as trouble. She is, after all, a Muslim-born woman who personally experienced the very abuse that she criticizes. The 46-year-old is also a superb writer, a winning speaker, inarguably courageous and telegenic to boot. She is an atheist as well. For those who wish to suppress criticism of the plight of women under Islam, she is, in short, a disaster.
If the left cared at all about the rights of women, they would never take the side of Islam. If they cared for the rights of gays, they would never take the side of Islam. They "care" for neither, what they care about is the destruction of Western civilization and POWER.
” She countered: “I embrace Muslims but I reject Islamic law … because it’s totalitarian, because it’s bigoted and especially bigoted against women.” The anger she stirs on the left confounds her. “You have to ask yourself why anyone would align with proponents of Islamic law,” she says with wonder.
Ms. Hirsi Ali has no good answer to this question, and she is not the only one. “How do I get liberals to understand that we are the liberals in this debate?” television host Bill Maher asked her about the subjugation of women in Muslim communities around the world and the indulgence in violence that is taught there. Ms. Hirsi Ali is doing her best. What is terribly unclear is whether the left is prepared to listen.
Why is this answer hard for her and Bill Maher? If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck, etc, are you going to believe it if it tells you it's an elephant???? "Liberals" stole the name "liberal", they are no more liberal than a duck is an elephant. Fascists, totalitarians, Statists, zealots, fundamentalists, etc -- THOSE are all worthy names for them, and for most Muslims as well!
For the left, it isn't just science that is "settled", IT'S EVERYTHING! -- and people that don't know that are just poorly informed or too stupid to understand it.
This article is a long but AMAZING read. Not so much for what is in it but because it exists at all. It is written by a liberal for a liberal site PLEADING for the liberal intelligentsia and hangers on to try their hardest to develop the merest hint of actual empathy!
I've covered all of this ground seven ways from Sunday, but to see an actual LIBERAL realize that maybe there is more to dealing with something possibly over half of the American Electorate than dismissing them with derision and smugness is a real treat.
This, I think, is fundamental to understanding the smug style. If good politics and good beliefs are just Good Facts and good tweets — that is, if there is no ideology beyond sensible conclusions drawn from a rational assessment of the world — then there are no moral fights, only lying liars and the stupid rubes who believe them.
Much of this goes back to "What's The Matter With Kansas" -- a book that SCREAMED about how STUPID poor people were to not be voting D and still clinging to tired old ridiculous Christian values to boot! "Good Facts" are critical -- liberals are sure of nothing if it isn't that THEY have ALL the FACTS on THEIR side! The following paragraph is a rare view of what a liberal might realize if they were to be a high school educated white Christian in some hick town in flyover country.
I am suggesting that they instead wonder what it might be like to have little left but one's values; to wake up one day to find your whole moral order destroyed; to look around and see the representatives of a new order call you a stupid, hypocritical hick without bothering, even, to wonder how your corner of your poor state found itself so alienated from them in the first place. To work with people who do not share their values or their tastes, who do not live where they live or like what they like or know their Good Facts or their jokes.
It's a worthy read, but we pretty much know it already -- liberals are smarter, better educated, better people, better looking, more tasteful, kinder, gentler, more moral, more culturally advanced, well, just BETTER! They are absolutely certain of it and they are even more certain that they have every right to be SMUG about it!
The thing that I would add from my experience is the quite large number of people who don't have the education, intelligence or money to actually be solid smug liberals, but they hang their entire sense of moral goodness on their embrace of liberal morality. They LOVE gay "marriage", they HATE the NRA, Faux News, they obsess about Climate Change -- they don't know a lot about many of these issues, but it gives them a chance to feel morally superior to their "hick neighbors". Often, it is the only sad "superiority" that they have.
Here is the Trump angle (doesn't everything have that these days?) :
Here's the conclusion I draw: If Donald Trump has a chance in November, it is because the knowing will dictate our [the liberal] strategy. Unable to countenance the real causes of their collapse, they will comfort with own impotence by shouting, "Idiots !" again and again, angrier and angrier, the handmaidens of their own destruction.
The smug style resists empathy for the unknowing. It denies the possibility of a politics whereby those who do not share knowing culture, who do not like the right things or know the Good Facts or recognize the intellectual bankruptcy of their own ideas can be worked with, in spite of these differences, toward a common goal.
It is this attitude that has driven the dispossessed into the arms of a candidate who shares their fury. It is this attitude that may deliver him the White House, a "serious" threat, a threat to be mocked and called out and hated, but not to be taken seriously.
The wages of smug is Trump.
The part of the Smug style that hurts personally is the requirement for "separation". I grew up in a Fundamentalist Baptist church that encouraged Christians to "be ye separate" -- not in heart and behavior only, but actually to separate yourself from the "world churches" and people who attended them -- which was basically everyone. ONLY the little General Association of Regular Baptists had the truth -- all else was error and sin.
Smug liberals can't associate with people who have "empathy for the unknowing", or even worse can enter a discussion with the smugly superior liberal in which the liberal ends up tongue tied and sputtering. They end up tongue tied and sputtering because their entire moral value as a person is tied up in the metaphysical correctness of their liberal world view, yet, since their view is dominant in media and culture, they have no knowledge of how to defend it. Like the fundamentalists of my youth, when faced with difficult questions, they have no choice but to say "get behind me Satan!"
The Fundamentalists of my youth put a lot of their self image into being "the ones in the right", but they DID believe in a God that was far superior to even them. The modern liberal is sure that somewhere between John Stewart, the NY Times, BO and a few really smart professors SOMEWHERE it is "all known and worked out" ("settled").
When liberals have trouble defending that faith, it gets VERY uncomfortable for them -- especially since they fervently believe that what they believe is not a "belief" at all, but proven and obvious FACT! ("Good Facts") People who disagree with them MUST be either stupid or very poorly educated, and probably both. It makes it supremely embarrassing to not be EASILY winning a discussion with someone whom your entire world view depends on being as dumb as a box of rocks!
The urge to smugness is endemic to the human condition. Christ definitely came to discomfort the smug (ALL of us!) -- he was a LOT harder on the Scribes and Pharisees than he was on the immoral poor. The immoral poor knew they sinned -- the Scribes and Pharisees were very sure they didn't! (in those days / Jewish culture, they had the "Good Facts")
If Christ is in heaven and we will all be there for a lot longer than we will be here, we can enjoy earthy discussion about pretty much anything. Our worth as people is not be about our politics, our brilliance, our education or much of anything beyond God's Grace! Christian's could enjoy those discussions -- but "liberals" absolutely can't . They MUST be correct, and OBVIOUSLY / SMUGLY so!
The fact that a tiny fraction of liberals seem to understand how smug their movement has become and see it as a bad feature might be cause for hope, but I don't believe that humans can really cure their own smugness without God's Grace.
My soul weeps at the barrier that has been erected by the fundamentalist and smug secular humanist religion. It has destroyed the love of families far worse than even the divisions in the Church once did.
I'm not going to spend any time on this other than to keep track of the insanity if it becomes more widely discussed. We already know that when truth, logic, morality, law, etc are all "questionable", there are NO LIMITS!
Liberals likely feel like conservatives did when Bork was rejected, BO was elected (twice!) and a thousand other little constant things like (unbelievably) a "new" calumny of Clarence Thomas!
The difference is that conservatives have to live with disappointment constantly, liberals believe they are entitled to always have things their way!
In his op-ed, Diskant—who is a lawyer with distinguished credentials—contends that the Senate can be deemed to have waived its “advice and consent” role on a Supreme Court nomination if it “fails to act” on the nomination within a “reasonable” time—and that President Obama could therefore proceed to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court without the Senate’s ever having confirmed the Garland nomination . (Or, to be more precise, Diskant, in an apparent effort to preserve his professional credibility, claims that “it is possible to read” the Appointments Clause that way.)
Chicago is on track for 700 murders this year under BO crony Rahm Emanuel.
Chicago police stops have dropped 90 percent -- from more than 157,000 up to this point last year to roughly 21,000 so far this year. No coincidence that the city is experiencing its bloodiest start in nearly two decades. The latest data shows violence has not relented since January, with both shootings and murders sharply rising.
BO is pardoning criminals and police forces around the nation are battening down the hatches as they are hyper-scrutinized for even protecting their own lives from the rising tide of increasingly violent thugs.
"The Party" (TP-D) is pretty certain they have successfully wired the demographics this time by immigration and killing any form of voter ID, thus allowing massive vote fraud, that they will be able to prevent any rise in the "law and order voter".
Even discipline in school is now "racist", and on the mean streets, cops are far better served to just stay in their cars and let the thugs kill each other -- hoping that the collateral damage will be minimized and they can just move in after the fact and pick up the bodies.
Detroit is the model for the the "TP city" -- DC, Baltimore, St Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and Chicago are cities on the way to "The Detroit Model" -- here in Minnesota, our own N Minneapolis is a local version.
I'll take my chances in Emmetsburg Iowa, I don't need a front row seat like the liquor store owner in this little promo for the ObamaNation. (abomination)
Eventually, even a very slow nation will learn the difference between "justice" and "punishment".
The column author is pretty sure that Trump means the end of the Republican Party and current conservative movement. I found the key part of his thesis to be here ...
The nature of politics is such that campaigns must offer something of value. If you tell a guy that he needs to solve his own problems, then what does he need you for? There must be an answer to the question: what are you going to do for me? Many conservatives don't like that, feeling that the only acceptable limited government answer should be "nothing." But "nothing" will never be a winning campaign platform. There has to be something. There has to be a product with features and benefits, and it has to be better than what the competition is offering.
He seems to be starting from the "pinata model of politics" -- "what's in it for ME"? His answer to what the "future" of a conservative movement ought to be is "no racists and lots of education".
Something tells me that no matter what happens, "Conservative / Republican / Liberty / ???" or whatever the "old Republican party" becomes, or possibly what a new 3rd party is about has to be A LOT clearer than the current Republican party, which as pretty much returned to the pre-Reagan status of "Democrat lite".
First of all, The Democrat Party, "The Party" (TP) is EASY to define:
Socialist / Fascist economic policy.
FREE STUFF!!!! Medicine, education, food, drugs, housing, abortions, birth control, cell phones ... keep thinking, TP will try to give it to you!
Leveling -- no matter what somebody does, or doesn't do, "outcome" ought to be basically the same.
NO RESPONSIBILITY! ... to work, stay married, take care of your kids, take care of your parents, etc. Don't want to have a baby? KILL IT!
NO traditional MORALS! 58 genders and LOTS of "preferences". If you want to live life leading with your sex organs, this is your party! Drugs? No issue! Telling the "truth"? No such thing other than what TP says it is! Theft? TP takes from who they want, keeps what they want and gives the rest to who they want. Lawlessness is as close to "virtue" as they come.
Anti-Christian. Muslim is great. Wiccan? Far out! Whatever -- just keep quiet on that "Jesus stuff"!
Anti-American. TP would rather be part of Europe. America was bad -- sexist, racist, imperialist. That is why TP killed it and are very happy they did! BOistan is NOT America!
Anti-White. Since the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, the TP has been replacing white people with browns and blacks. They are pretty much done -- and in 10-20 years this is a non-white country. White people -- TP hopes the door whacks your ass on the way out!
COMPLETE LOYALTY TO TP!! No unapproved speech. Certainly no guns, TP is "giving" (stealing and transferring) you everything to make you "happy" -- so BE HAPPY and SHUT UP about anything political except praise for TP. Got it??? I
Here is my cut at a start of what a new party needs to stand for:
Philosophically rooted in the value of Transcendent Principles, No specific Federal Church, but certainly States are allowed to have churches that support the agreed and understood Transcendent Principles. (See "Ideas Have Consequences") (Islam is not one of those religions) Religion and Philosophy are the roots of the nation -- politics and science are servants of the eternal order.
Capitalism and decentralized markets are the basis of economic policy.
Individualized education that seeks to bring out the unique gifts of each individual while insuring that all that are able have a deep understanding of religion, philosophy, rhetoric, language, history and classical literature and the arts. None may take part in any aspect of governance unless they can pass rigorous standards in the history, meaning and imperatives of culture and civilization.
All elements of society must guard against the twin perils of education on one hand becoming indoctrination with no room for innovation, and on the other, becoming a value free stew of disordered and undifferentiated data.
Wisdom is the beginning and the end of education.
Local and State Rights -- See Switzerland. Federal government handles national defense and referees interstate commerce. "City States" are the rule. Thousands of laboratories of what works and what does not, with the freedom to fail, and fail badly being one of the values held in greatest esteem.
Family, Church and Community are the recognized and cherished building blocks of society.
Excellence in service to God, Family, Church and Community is the objective of every citizen.
Inheritance is important and encouraged
Both the past and the future are more important than today. Family history, Church History, Community History are all items of sacred reverence.
The trinity of Family, Church and Community is the rock upon which the individual can boldly risk much in gaining their unique mission for a meaningful life.
Well, a raw start. At some point I believe it is critical that at least some have some idea of "where to go from here" once the present state of TP fully fails. Perhaps it will be in a seceded new nation from Texas to the Canadian border -- perhaps the heartland of Canada may join with Alaska to have a great nation from Alaska, Northwest Territories to the Gulf of Mexico abandoning the east and west coasts to live with their chosen depravity.
I like to dream dreams of a hopeful future. It's Spring, just past Easter ... it is so easy to abandon hope as we look at the mess that TP has wrought, but we need to keep Faith, Hope, Love and Truth alive in our hearts and minds!
No, it isn't April Fools! It is St Paddies Day, Trump has not won the Republican nomination, nor stood for election, but WaPo is thinking ahead to invalidating the election, using the Electoral College!
Trump hasn’t won yet. But it is increasingly likely that we will reach precisely the kind of scenario that the founders worried about — divisive political discourse threatens to thrust a dangerous candidate into office who appears inclined to govern more like a monarch than a president. Opportunities remain for cooler heads to prevail in our presidential election. And state legislatures should consider doing so this year.
NEVER TRUST A LIBERAL! They directly state that they recognize no truth, only power, and they prove it constantly!
We currently have a divisive political demagogue who ignores the Constitution in office and WaPo LOVES IT! Clearly we already HAVE only FAKE LAW! The same people who constantly espouse all manner of democracy -- in polls, in elections, in EVERYTHING, suddenly want to use the Electoral College to invalidate an election! These are the same people that demand that voting not even require so much as an ID!
When you give up truth you give up consistency and then you can never be trusted under any circumstance. We already knew this, but this is yet another example that makes it crystal clear!
This post is a discussion of primarily how one of the shards of the false narrative of modern liberal/progressive dogma is created and cemented into the popular culture.
Michelle Goldberg noted in Slate how absurd the former Secretary of State's comments were, given that the Reagan administration publicly laughed at the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Nancy Reagan did little to sway her husband, Goldberg said.
President Reagan’s first speech on the subject wasn’t until May 31, 1987. By then, more than twenty-five thousand people, the majority of them gay men, had died in the United States.
First of all, the idea of "the Reagan administration laughing at AIDs" is a completely fabricated part of the lefty false narrative covered here, but if you follow the MSM, it is GOSPEL, and "apostates", or even those that "speak well of the dead" as in Hildebeasts case, have to recant immediately!
In the left wing narrative, the deaths of gays from AIDs are like "martyrs for the cause", somewhat like young blacks killed by police. Their political value as "wedges" is huge, and as the take-down of Hildebeast shows us, there will be NO DISSENT! One might think that letting the current presidential candidate slide on comments at a FUNERAL 30 years after the fact might be OK, but one would be WRONG!
For we poor humans, it is ALL about the narrative, and the left has an extremely firm grasp of that! They make the Baptist Fundamentalists of my youth look "loose" by comparison.
Racism -- (Google) The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
Edward O. Wilson, "The Meaning of Human Intelligence", p30 and 31,
"A second overpowering human behavior is the overpowering instinctual urge to belong to groups." ... "A persons membership in his group--his tribe--is a large part of his identity. It also confers on him some degree or other of a sense of superiority".
The text following this gives scientific backing to these statements, but I suspect we are all humans here, we know them to be true in our very souls. A little later, we find:
".... people prefer to be with others who look like them, speak the same dialect, and hold the same beliefs."
Wilson of course knows he is on dangerous ground and attempts to couch his obviously true statements because he knows that the dominant culture thinks like the linked article. I really like this quote from early in "Meaning of Human Intelligence" :
"When Carl Sagan won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1978, I dismissed it as a minor achievement for a scientist, scarcely worth listing. When I won the same prize the following year, it wondrously became a major literary award of which scientists should take special note."
A marvelous and HONEST statement of human nature! We love ourselves and we love our group -- either we were created that way or we became that way because it was adaptive. Either way, that is who we are for at least many tens and hundreds of thousands of years to come -- assuming we can survive.
The one modification easy to make to the definition is the "all" -- it is of course "most", and the fact that our natural feeling is that our group is superior can be intellectually and spiritually tempered. It will still exist in our hearts, because it is our wiring, but with the help of God it can be channeled as can the other parts of our fallen nature.
We could re-write the racist definition as "Blacks believing that all blacks are superior and therefore black lives matter more than others". It is totally clear that many current blacks are racist and extremely proud to be so, which I'd argue is the main reason that many whites are responding in kind in a world that has long left behind the unifying factor of Christian belief. Both blacks and whites are human, and barring belief and practice of a religion that specifies improved behavior, they behave accordingly.
The essence of the column above is our old friend the inversion. The "liberal" ideology/religion defines "minority" to be "good" (even when they become the majority), and "traditional majority" (ie. white) to be "evil". This is directly in opposition to human nature, which "just is". Christianity seeks to IMPROVE on fallen human nature, not invert it. "Love your neighbor AS YOURSELF" doesn't say "learn to hate yourself, then your neighbor will seem better". It seeks to properly channel our fallen state back to God.
The purpose of leftism is to DESTROY the natural order. Taking the natural inclination of people to love themselves (see previous Pulitzer prize) and to love their family, religion, race, ethnicity, tradition, etc and to INVERT it so that large groups are to be accepted in the new group/religion ("liberalism" / TP) by declaring their self-loathing for the natural order previously listed (self, family, etc). In order to be part of the "The Party"(TP-D), they are required to tell a lie against their very nature -- "Black Lives Matter -- but white lives do not!".
It is sad that such people as the author of the article never find me to interview -- the picture at the head of the article looks exactly like so many liberals that I have calmly explained my thoughts to. It is clear that their "tolerance" is extremely limited.
So, my off the cuff answer to "Why am I a proud white person"? The question from the article that is supposed to "drive me insane".
I believe that pride is natural but dangerous, I prefer to consider myself a BLESSED White Christian, but in the spirit of the question.
Christendom, Western civilization, the Constitution, Newtonian Physics, Albert Einstein, Edmund Burke, Winston Churchill, flight, the Moon Landing, electricity, clean water and sanitation, Scotch, Bourbon and the Green Bay Packers.
With the modifications above, I am a "proud racist" -- as a fallen human, as is the author of the article. They seek to deny their very nature and declare that they are no longer human. I seek to accept my fallen condition and become more like Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit.
As we watch the rest of 2016, we have a ringside seat for human nature and we can all see if it is redeemed by "liberalism" or if it could use some more of the help of God.
Anyone that cares already knows what BO thinks about "traditions", "honor", "respect" and all that "stupid stuff". Whatever he "says" -- and how could ANYONE care what the incontinent gasbag "says" any more, need only to look at his ACTIONS to realize the truth of what I've been saying since 2008.
He wrote it in his book for goodness sakes!!!!!!
The reaction to BO is precisely TRUMP! Will Trump fix anything? Most likely not -- in fact, he will most likely make it worse, but once once people are completely angry, they "just want revenge". Maybe stupid, maybe destructive, maybe even terminal, but after a certain point, it just doesn't matter.
As I've wrote more than a few times, "Let It Burn" being one that springs to mind, after a certain point, one needs to accept the inevitable!
BO doesn't give a RATS ASS for "civility", "decency", "statesmanship", or "being president" -- he is and always has been in it to "destroy the colonial powers" -- and pick up as much as he can for himself while he is doing it.
The saddest part is that we live in an area of N America where well over 50% of the population doesn't care enough to know, and if they DID fully know, their biggest concern would still align with BO pretty well -- What's in it for them!!!
As the left drives the nation deeper and deeper into the abyss, even THEY miss the combatants of times past, in this case, George W Bush, Eisenhower can amazingly, even the embodiment of evil, Karl Rove!
As the ever excreble EJ Dionne puts it here:
"I had a twinge of nostalgia watching George W. Bush campaign for his little brother in South Carolina Monday night."
Ah yes, "civility". Prior to W, no president had been treated as badly as longly by the MSM. Dionne now finds Trump calling people "liars" to be unseemly -- when W was in office it was the daily harangue from all points left!
But mostly, W’s cameo in the 2016 campaign served as a reminder that, not too long ago, conservative politics wasn’t so beastly. Bush, wading into the manure pile that is the 2016 Republican primary fight, was pleasant, civil and decent.
Being on the left means having no memory, because consistency is something that must be avoided at all costs. Pretty much any conservative of a decade or so ago seems worthy of praise at the latest level of constant cultural decline -- it's just that the left looks at it as "progress" day to day, except when they look across today's isle.
LBJ begets Nixon. Carter seemed like the worst things could become on the left, but then there is BO, who shows every sign of giving us Trump.
As we tumble down the abyss, even the lefties realize that things are getting worse -- but they can't see it in their own candidates, and find lawlessness, scandal, rank partisanship, etc from their own to be "refreshing" -- as long as it is the "conservative" ox that is gored.
At this late stage of decline, the funhouse mirrors start to even make the proprietors of the carnival, those of TP to feel a bit nauseous at times. Good preparation for that stale urine smell in the hallways of the grey cinder blocks of socialism. A strong stomach is required to stand in line with a hangover waiting for whatever the all powerful state has available today -- toilet paper? rot gut alcohol? maybe some stale bread or even some nether cut of meat.
In 10 years, we will certainly miss Trump. It's like any state moving moving toward socialism.
Somebody asks, "How are you doing?" ... Oh, pretty good. Worse than last year, but better than I'll be next year!
"Robert Barnes" will not get the kind of media attention that "Trayvon Martin", "Michael Brown", or even "Jamar Clark" (Jamar is the guy shot by police in N Minneapolis a month ago, for some reason there seems to be less focus on his name).
Robert Barnes was a homeless alcoholic. A 10 year old black boy decided to tell his mother that "Barnes had hit him" (he hadn't ), so the woman got two of her friends and some kids and went down and beat the guy to death with a broken leg from some furniture and a hammer.
Why not? Barnes was certainly a LOT less innocent than a 25 week gestation baby! The NY Times talks about the terrible restriction in woman's rights imposed by 26 states on 190 million people that don't allow such babies to be murdered. 9 wonderful states allow the murder of babies as long as they are still in the womb. What basis is it again that people with little ability are supposed to use as a way to measure things like the value of a life? The ladies didn't try to sell Barnes' body parts, so in some respects they actually were quite "moral" in modern cultural terms.
So we are a nation that has decided that some human lives do not matter at all. The State even uses our tax dollars to subsidize the murder of some, so their blood is on all our hands. If anyone in the US thinks they have no sins to confess before they take communion, they can reflect on that for a bit. How exactly DOES one make a distinction as to which lives matter and which do not?
Like the lives of thousands of young black men who kill each other every year, Robert Barnes death simply DOES NOT FIT THE THE PARTY NARRATIVE. There is no easy way for The Party (TP-D) to gain political power by talking about this death, in the same way as the deaths of roughly 6K young black men who murder each other each year don't fit the narrative needed to in increase TP power.
To understand The Party, **ALL** that needs to be understood is their thirst for POWER. Once you realize that they are 100% dedicated to the amassing of political power to a centralized "elite" by ANY AND ALL MEANS, they are very easy to understand, and they in fact ARE consistent!
Public Radio and based on FB posts from liberals, "The Party" (TP-D) spent some time this past week on the horrors of the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling and "Big Money" on politics. Most horribly of all, "coordination". In CA they passed a new law that makes "political coordination" a "crime" in which if you are charged, the burden of proof is on YOU to "prove you are innocent".
The regulation effectively shifts the burden of proof in cases of suspected coordination from the government to the candidate or outside spending committee.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article39362607.html#storylink=cpy
Naturally, NPR was all in favor of this "marvelous idea" -- with nary a concern that it violates one of the most basic principles of justice -- "the presumption of innocence"! The NPR assumption is that since the vast majority of the government bureaucracy and legal system is all left leaning, the constant coordination of all types that TP operates with will continue, and they will be able to jail conservatives trying to achieve a tiny fraction of the total coordination that TP uses every day!
Certainly a VERY "good idea" for TP! (it happens to break one of most basic of human rights, but TP!)
The linked NYTs article is just a TINY example of MSM / TP coordination. In an interview with NYT, BO declared:
In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments.
This came out this past Thursday, but the NY Times quickly realized that this didn't really look that good for their guy BO, so the linked article shows the litany of changes they went through to get "on message". Nice to have our nations supposed "paper of record" daily coordinating activity with TP don't ya think?
The original headline of the column that included the embarrassing quote was:
“Obama Visiting National Counterterrorism Center.”
By the time they had removed the offending quote and went through a few revisions, the headline read:
“Assailed by G.O.P., Obama Defends His Response To Terror Attacks.”
At least when you are member of TP, you are NEVER "assailed by the New York Times"!! ... In fact, articles and even headlines are tuned to put you in the best light possible and any opposition in the worst light possible! BO erroneously thought that he needed to "watch more cable tv", when "in fact" (as reported by the NYtimes), it was all the fault of the GOP all along!
If you have an R next to your name, having to raise money from outside groups is a "crime" for which you are GUILTY until you "prove yourself innocent" -- and we all know that proving a negative is a lot of fun. ( please PROVE you are NOT a space alien!)
We already know that "consistency is not an issue", but one might think that with the frequency that the left cites the "UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights", they MIGHT find it interesting that they suddenly find it an excellent idea to apply the exact INVERSE of article 11 to their "political enemies"!
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
The US is a supposed signer to these accords -- no word yet on the likelihood that NPR and CA are going to be prosecuted under the UN for violation of "basic human rights" ... oh wait, we can only assume that a conservative is like "fetus" just not really human, basically "deplorable" ... and we know what that means!
An interesting discussion of similarities between the embrace of Communism in the past and the developing comity between the left and ISIS.
Islamic terrorism is excused on the same grounds that Communist terror was excused; as a response to our imperialistic foreign policy, as the outcry of the oppressed and an attempt to secure equality. Some atrocities are dismissed as myths, worries over terrorism are written off as fearmongering and terrorists are transformed into victims who were singled out by paranoid politicians for their political beliefs.
The left is using the same exact playbook on Islamic terrorism as it did on Communism.
America was founded as a Center RIGHT Republic (Left being control, right being chaos) -- The Left continuously grows the centralized power of government until that power is TOTAL (thus "Totalitarian"). The "faith" of the left is that once complete centralized control is achieved, "utopia" is sure to result. The objective is POWER, the means are completely unimportant, and as has been seen around the world again and again they often include the killing of huge numbers of people, torture, oppression, imprisonment, etc -- ALL methods are permissible (even REQUIRED) in the creation of "heaven on earth".
Obama and Hillary contend that ISIS cannot be defeated militarily. And if it cannot be defeated militarily, the only options are Cold War containment or diplomatic outreach. It’s not too hard to imagine the arguments that will be made for the latter at the expense of the former. They were the same arguments that were made and are still being made by the left for engagement with Communist terror regimes.
ISIS has not done anything that the Soviet Union did not do. Its ideology is thoroughly different, but both were built on swamps of atrocity, mass murder, mass rape, ethnic cleansing and raw butchery. If the left could serve the Soviet Union, who is to say that it won’t learn to love the Islamic State?
How often do we hear today that "Fighting/resisting ISIS is the worst thing we can do! They use it as a recruiting tool!" ... translation, they MUST be accommodated, we have no other choice! The refrain is exactly the same as that heard about the USSR up through the Reagan administration, when any attempts at showing strength were "playing into the hard-liners hands and going to get us all blown up!". "Better Red than Dead!"
Of course when the USSR fell, while the left tried to be as quiet as they good be as they sobbed and cried alligator tears, they attempted to calmly confuse us "oh, we KNEW this was going to happen all along! Reagan and the warmongers just slowed it down" ! (sob, sob, please pass a Kleenex, my cat just died! ....)
Another thing I had never heard of, the Overton Window:
... the “Overton Window.” Developed by the late Joseph Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the “window” refers to the range of acceptable political discourse on any given topic. As the Mackinac Center explains, “the ‘window’ of politically acceptable options is primarily defined not by what politicians prefer, but rather by what they believe they can support and still win re-election.” The key to shifting policy lies not so much in changing politicians but in changing the terms of the debate. In other words, “The window shifts to include different policy options not when ideas change among politicians, but when ideas change in the society that elects them.”
The column is a good one, it points out how well the left, with control of the media, the arts, the university and the government bureaucracies federal and state has been able to RAPIDLY move the window in areas like abortion, restricting Christianity, gay "marriage", nationalized healthcare and transgender. Eg.
The Overton Window moved even faster on transgender rights. Ten years ago the notion that a man with emotional problems and breast implants could be named “Woman of the Year” was unthinkable. Now, in some quarters it’s just as unthinkable to refer to Bruce Jenner — Bruce Jenner! — as a man.
Right now, they are pushing the window on gun confiscation, but along comes Trump and gives it a mighty shove in the direction of restricting immigration of Muslims.
While many of Trump’s actual proposals are misguided, nonsensical, or untenable, by smashing the window, he’s begun the process of freeing the American people from the artificial and destructive constraints of Left-defined discourse.
Well said! What has counted as "debate" in this country since at least the '60s and to some degree ever since Woodrow Wilson has been a discussion of "just how far left are we going on THIS issue". The very THOUGHT of say, reducing the size of government, or (gasp!) unravelling parts of the "Great Society" directly responsible for the yearly 5-6K violent deaths of young black men have been "radical, reactionary, unthinkable". I mean, why would you reconsider programs just because they result in 50-60K untimely violent deaths over each decade??
the Left’s very success at defining the terms of discourse meant that the price of civility and unity was all too often an acceptance of liberal norms and manners. It meant swallowing liberal pieties and confining your discourse to Left-approved terms. In other words, it often meant surrender.
Surrender is FAR too high a price for "civility". While I am now, and I'm sure very few others were aware of the Overton Window concept, it shows one benefit of Trump. We MUST get out of having the left completely declare the shape of the battlefield and ever more consistently the terms of conservative surrender if there is to be ANY hope of recovering America, and indeed of "Making it great again".
I remain convinced that Trump is the WRONG fighter, but he IS a fighter -- and he HAS changed the terms of the battle. Without "outlandish positions" being declared on the right, there is no hope at all that some of those positions can slowly seep into the consciousness of the public and people running for office and eventually have a chance.
It's definitely time for our national "window" to be a LOT less open on the left and a lot MORE open on the right! 'via Blog this'
While I'm going to treat the tale in the linked article as completely true, I would much prefer that before the Red Star prints such a thing they would have at least found the security guard mentioned for corroboration. As you will see, the "story" is just a BIT too pat for someone that has any shred of independent thought. That said, let's take it as gospel.
The charge is that "some angry guy" demanded to know if the "attorney and director of the Advocates for Human Rights Refugee and Immigrant Program" was a refugee, at a Vikings game. Nothing physical, just a question, but this attorney and director "felt threatened", got security involved, got an apology that he felt was not sincere enough, demanded the interlocutor be ejected and the Vikings failed to comply.
Asking if the attorney was a "refugee" is supposed to be clear and reprehensible "hate speech". Not "rude", not "bad manners" ...
I was raised with "Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you", and "If you can't stand up for yourself, nobody else is going to". We don't live in that civilization today, but what IS the "civilization" we have wrought?
I remember the time in my adult life when I came the closest to being intimidated. An old candidate for Congress from our district, Mary Reider had 20-30 union folks marching in a circle in front of the entrance to the Kahler chanting and blocking people like me heading in to see Newt Gingrich speak. The more intelligent people were going around to another exit. Something in my nature compelled me to stride into the group -- which, probably since I'm slightly above average size (though clearly not intelligence) completely stopped and let me pass with a just few shouted nasty words.
Did they have a right to block the entrance? Were the words that they hurled at me "hate speech"? -- we know the answer. "Hate speech" and "proper intimidation" are declared by "The Party" (D).
I'm reminded of Churchill, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without effect". Walking through demonstrators is tame by comparison, but I'm sure the feeling is related.
So how does tattling to the teacher or the security guard make one feel? I suppose it depends on the results that your tattling provides, but I can't imagine it makes one EVER feel "secure or good", because AT BEST you are in hopes that the watchful eye of the State in some form or another is ALWAYS going to be there to protect you.
It is a huge difference in worldview. Like the liberal woman's rape defense -- pee or soil yourself in hopes that the attacker will be turned off and leave you alone, vs the conservative woman's defense -- pull out your .45 and let the attacker pee or soil himself while he hopes you let him live.
But the "liberal" mind never stops at just making THEIR choice, they want to make YOUR choice as well! Gun control is just one example.
But what scared me the most was the silence surrounding me. As I looked around, I didn’t know who was an ally or an enemy. In those hushed whispers, I felt like I was alone, unsafe and surrounded. It was the type of silence that emboldens a man to play inquisitor.
I hate to tell him, but the real world is ALWAYS that way, at least until you make your play.
So we live in a society where males are feminized and individual responsibility is transferred to the State, while anyone that "gets involved" is very likely to be sued by lawyers just like the one complaining. He wants people to stand up and get involved, yet he apparently feels no personal backbone to simply say "none of your damned business"! <insert favorite emphasis here ... a*hole, d*head, would all be "appropriate">
The problem with the "liberal" world view is that the only way it can come close to being any sort of reality is "1984" -- EVERY action of EVERYONE is completely scripted and "Big Brother" ALWAYS has the video of EVERY incident so that those that fail to comply COMPLETELY with liberal dogma will be punished, and those who do comply will be rewarded. The State tells you exactly what to do, and you WILL do it!
The column shows where "Hate Speech" starts to become thought control. One person decided to ask a question that the column author decided went beyond "rude or inappropriate", but he felt ZERO responsibility to personally stand up for his rights. HOWEVER, he believes that people otherwise conditioned by thousands of cues in their daily environment to "let the proper authorities handle it" ought to somehow "step in" when the "confrontation" had never even risen to the level of "words were exchanged".
The attorney failed to cross-examine -- but it is "society's fault".
The very people intent on producing a society of absolute sheep are now incensed when the sheep behave as sheep -- and they apparently actually believe (or at least claim to) that is possible to achieve their "utopia" without levels of State control and surveillance that so far have only been imagined in fictional books.
A people who can't stand on their own feet will eventually kneel before people that can.
America, Land of the Politically Correct and home of the kneelers.
As we now have an actual admitted socialist out on the campaign trail (Bernie Sanders ... BS, appropriate initials!)
The linked article is a worthy read. I'm reminded of people who have detailed plans for what they will do "when they win the lottery". The American Left is like those people -- they believe that they are building a Scandinavian future right here -- with millions of brown people constantly streaming across the border from the south right in the midst of their imagined "progress". I agree with the following paragraph, although it isn't OCCASIONALLY -- it is common.
The Left occasionally indulges in bouts of romantic exoticism — its pin-ups have included Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Mao Zedong; we might even count Benito Mussolini, “that admirable Italian gentleman” who would not have been counted sufficiently white to join Franklin Roosevelt’s country club — but the welfare states that progressives dream about are the whitest ones: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. The significance of this never quite seems to occur to progressives. When it is suggested that the central-planning, welfare-statist policies that they favor are bound to produce results familiar to the unhappy residents of, e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia — privation, chaos, repression, political violence — American progressives reliably reply: “No, no, we don’t want that kind of socialism. We want socialism like they have it in Finland.”
Translation: “We want white socialism, not brown socialism!”
While our US socialists like BO, BS, Hilly, etc like to talk about "diversity", what they mean is "Everyone must think exactly alike". When your political and world view are based on fantasy, fiction and a total lack of consistency, it seems totally reasonable to postulate a nation where a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse population will cheer in wild unity like those beaming throngs of National Socialist Germans once did, or at least quietly and efficiently comply like the throngs of Finns, Swedes, Danes, etc today. A not very close look at any of those adoring masses of socialist utopia would give pause to any but those who hold to the radically inconsistent and fabulist creed of modern american liberalism.
Socialism and welfare-statism, like nationalism and racism, are based on appeals to solidarity — solidarity that is enforced at gunpoint, if necessary. That appeal is more than a decent-hearted concern for the downtrodden or the broad public good. It is, rather, an exclusionary solidarity, a superstitious notion that understands “body politic” not as a mere figure of speech but as a substantive description of the state and the people as a unitary organism, the health of which is of such paramount importance that individual rights — property, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of association — must be curtailed or eliminated when they are perceived to be insalubrious.
No doubt in the minds of the fabulists, the idea that "successful socialism" is ethnically homogeneous is racist -- pay no attention to past or existing examples! Indeed, paying no attention to reality and calling your opponents nasty names is one of the chief cornerstones of the left.
The idea that different groups of people -- even different religions! might think and behave differently can be BOTH celebrated on one hand, and discounted on the other once all need for even minimums of logical consistency are abandoned -- and so it is for the modern american liberal!
The left of the nation was shocked on the 20/20 interview last week when Bruce Jenner came out as a .... GASP! Republican!
This article mentions that "ONLY" 21% of LGBT (and who knows what other letters we ought add to that soon!) are Republican.
First of all, effeminate men, gay men, cross dressing men, all of the same in reverse for women are old news. Deviancy is nothing new for mankind. That is no surprise, or really of any interest to conservatives. "There nothing new under the sun". It is very hard to be a sexual deviant these days (like what DO you need to do to actually be a "deviant"?) , but it is certainly EASY to be a thought deviant -- just come out as Republican!
The left is ALL about "diversity" or even just deviancy based on race, sex, "gender" (when they admit it exists), acting out, profanity, "art", etc. What they are AGAINST -- and they show their colors here, is diversity of THOUGHT! Animals have sex organs, animals have different coloration, animals have violent or non-violent interactions. What they DON'T have is THOUGHT -- the left is OK with but ONE kind of thought, left wing thought. Any other kind is "shocking, radical, regressive, racist, reactionary, etc" -- BAD. That the left can't stand is any thought that is not in lock step with their dogma!
So they accidentally show their true colors when they get surprised. The right will tell you that they disprove of your actions on occasion, but they are actually FAR less inclined to try to control what you THINK than the left. You may well get AIDs or a host of other sexually transmitted diseases if you engage in gay sex, but you get no disease by being attracted to the same sex. It is action that matters -- it is in the same approach as "guns don't kill, people do" -- it isn't the inanimate object or even the impulse that does harm (or in some cases good) -- it is the ACTION.
The left likes to outlaw objects, suppress speech in the case of Conservative or Christian ideas, or in some cases simply shame you into at least giving lip service to their point of view. For someone like Bruce Jenner to not follow their dogma, or AT LEAST give it lip service on TV just really pisses them off!
"Only 21%"? Of GLBT? What percentage of the population is LGBT? Kinsey tried to make it out to be 10% -- it looks like the real total is more like < 5% and could be quite a bit less than that.
So well under 10% of Blacks identify as Republican -- more like 5%, or maybe about the same as the total GLBT population relative to the general population.
What does this mean? Possibly nothing -- there may well be no causality here at all, only correlation, statistics are like that.
The left has more work to do in order to get the GLBT population where it "should be" relative to political party? One would assume they believe that the WHOLE population ought to be there at the 95%+ D -- no diversity of thought at all.
It is certainly the mark of a civilization WAY past it's prime when something as trivial as an aging male sports star deciding to "go woman" gets any level of interest at all. It looks though that we are FAR down the road to where being a Republican is the last remaining taboo.
