I assume the title (which I love) is a play off of this.
Although nobody was planning it, the messages extant in the culture said that you had to be a rebel to be truly authentic, while to be good you had to conform to ever-more elaborate norms defined by a new class of campus deans and human-resource administrators. Every culture has its contradictions, but this was bound to bewilder people; unsurprisingly, many of them decided it was better to be real and bad than tame and good.
From Satan on, "the rebel cause" is ALWAYS alive. even if it needs to be "Rebel Without a Cause" as in the famous James Dean movie. Humans are rebels at heart -- what they are being a "rebel" against has never mattered much. You DID however have to REBEL to be "authentic" ... I mean how could a brand new human being conform to the old values of parents / school / church / etc?
So, unsurprisingly, as parents became far left wing haters of Western civilization, white people, religion, America, etc, what better way to rebel than Alt-Right? When any concept of timeless morality is abandoned
Nagle quotes Marxist critic Mark Fischer’s observation that the online Left is “driven by a priest’s desire to excommunicate and condemn, an academic-pedant’s desire to be the first to be seen to spot a mistake, and a hipster’s desire to be one of the in-crowd.” She then adds that the witch-hunting tactics that shame people into silence have the effect of creating social and economic “scarcity” in an online world where virtue is treated as currency. If everyone has value in this medium of exchange, then the only way to accrue more yourself is to burn a few friends.
Part of the human condition is that the heart of our world views are based on emotion -- how does something make us FEEL. Oh certainly, many of us have suitable intellectual, possibly even reasonable and somewhat "factual" defenses of our views, but none of those give us that special feeling in the gut when we are attacked by "the other side". A failure of our world view has eternal consequences -- for those of us that believe in eternal life, it could call it into question, and for those that don't, it might make them wonder if they TRUELY have "facts" to support what they believe to be a perfectly rational lack of belief. (one doesn't have to read that too carefully to see a problem).
At the base, we are all about BELIEF! That is what ALL our worldviews are founded on.
I find the view quoted from the left to be a remarkably accurate view of human nature; "A priests desire to condemn, an academics passion to point out errors, and a hipsters desire to be "in"" ... when all three can be combined, it is simply grand for human emotion.
Thus, Christ preaches the opposite. As Chritians, we are not allowed to judge and condemn, we are to be humble servants of others, and we are to expect to be hated and detested by the world.
It is never clear where a breakdown of tradition and culture will take tribes of people -- however human nature is a constant. Judgement, finger pointing and shallow / fragile "popularity" are a given.
I can only guess that Trevor and even the author of the column do the "breathing thing", and I further assume that their feet were on the ground .... however it seems questionable if their "heads are there to move them around" -- although I'm sure Trevor has a higher IQ than me, "measures vary".
So what does Trevor conclude?
What might a better world look like? There are a million ideas out there. We can start by changing how we understand and measure progress. As Robert Kennedy famously said, GDP “does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play . . . it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
"Understanding and measuring progress" begs many ancient metaphysical questions of "the good". For large majorities up to say "1950", "the good" was "God, Family, Vocation, Community, National Identity / Culture ..." or similar in some sort of similar order. "Vocation / money" were there, but "vocation" did not equal pure income/consumption ... it included elements of service/purpose/meaning. Books like "The Sane Society" at least give some insight into how difficult that might be.
Assuming this, they are also subject to the effects of markets -- and government, which they conveniently fail to talk about. The US economy was definitely "mixed", the BOistan economy is about as "capitalist" as a casino in Vegas. It is rigged to allow DC which our founders would have thought would be full of "servants" to be the wealthiest area in the country to win, just like "the house" in Vegas. It can't be otherwise -- if you don't MAKE, you have to TAKE -- in Vegas from your gambling patrons, in the case of government from the citizens and future citizens.
There are a set of things in the universe that "just are" -- they aren't "good or bad", they ARE! Accepting the reality of what IS can be hugely helpful, both personally and societally -- it is like having basic clue on reality. (a REALLY high bar for 18-29 year olds!)
Therefore, "Government" is IN the market system as well, as everything/everyone is, and obviously has to be. The government takes resources from some parts of the economy, takes a portion for themselves, and gives to others to protect and expand their interests through buying/selling goods, votes, benefits, taxes, just as all of us do. The big difference between government and the rest of the market is that it never produces anything -- it only moves resources around. It is a bit like the financial sector with no profit motive.
Before BOistan, there was a nation called the United Sates. That nation had a magical thing called LIMITED government. There were checks and balances as well as Constitutional restrictions (that nation actually followed a written constitution) on how powerful the government could become.
These restrictions were modelled after markets. When there is a huge need for a product, the price goes up and more providers start to provide that product causing the price to go down until there is a "balance" where price provides a constant indicator to the market as to how much to provide. If there were really big needs, the government could get things like "2/3 majorities" or "Constitutional Amendments", but otherwise it had to live with it's limits.
Government got rid of the limits, so it is now like the Mob entering a market. The market is STILL "a market", it is just "black / corrupt / criminal" -- like the market for drugs in prison. Let's take healthcare as an example -- first The Mob (government) decides who can play in the market through licensing, regulation, fees, taxes, etc. Then they execute "pay-offs" -- certain groups, say unions, elderly people, the poor, doctors, etc are "paid off" ... provided "protection", or "deals", with at least the tacit assumption that they will support the Mob (government). Some are provided lucrative deals -- like the Doctors. Think of them as highly paid hit men.
Sometimes other "protection rackets" rise up -- to provide "insurance" for a price. In the medical crime area we call it "insurance" (wink, wink). There is usually an uneasy peace with the various insurance providers -- the Mob (gov) would like to have ALL the action, but given proper kick-backs, cover, etc, they see it as beneficial for the "insurers" to have a piece of the action.
Mobs (gov) tend to be greedy. Where individuals formerly went to a doctor who dealt with their problem one on one with minimal mob/gov oversight, good doctors that provided good service at a good price were successful, and bad doctors found other employment.
As gov/mob increasingly entered the picture, certifications, costs of entering the profession, limits on how many doctors there could be, regulations, taxes, fees, records, kickbacks, requirements for increasingly expensive "insurance" (mobs breed mobs), etc grew without bound -- more and more players desire a piece of the action, and since the gov/mob is getting pay-offs from all of them, they encourage that generally non-productive "growth".
"The Real Problem" always comes down to human nature -- we tend to fall into believing that "someone else will solve our problems" -- and the "someone else" always becomes corrupt and creates greater problems than what they were supposedly solving. Eventually economic collapse, violence, poverty, hopelessness, etc result because the "Real Problem" is **US**!!!!!
If that wasn't bad enough, look at the people who the article is listening to -- Americans 18-29! The eternal fount of a lot of things -- wisdom definitely not being one of them!!
You will always see the "mob/government" trying to increase the set of people who support them, which will always mean things like surveying younger people, lowering voting ages and reducing any sort of restriction on voting (citizenship, ID, etc), because while there is indeed a "sucker born every day", as the suckers age, some of them learn by experience and become aware adults -- no matter how much the gov/mob works to prevent that!
One might think that even far lefties like the Red Star Trib would be against the prospects of unitary rule by having the excutive just zero out funding for the other branches of government. One might think that -- especially with Trump as POTUS, but one would be wrong.
So the SCOTUS of MN will decide if our state is ready for any king that decides to follow Gov Goofy's lead and just zero out both the legislative and judical branches.
You wonder how anyone that would support such a move has any credibility? No need to ask "left is RIGHT (as in correct, just, etc)" ... it is just a pure statement of faith if you are on the left. It's like the Resurrection for Christians ... only without any forgiveness, morals, love, and any of that sort of trash.
The left just cares about absolute power -- "justice" to them means absolute state power, because to them The State is god.
Increasingly our developing BOistani culture is defined by people getting together based on what they hate -- Trump, racists, white people, black people, immigrants, people who want borders, gays, Christians, rural folk, city folk, etc.
Hating your "enemies" is considered a BOistani virtue -- or as BO himself intoned. "We need to reward our friends and punish our enemies" -- this has often been called "The Chicago Way", but I believe it to be "The BO Rule" ... the BOistani equivalent of the Golden Rule.
It only seems "right" that in this brave new BOistani world that couples would find shared hatreds as a great foundation for a relationship:
That's the premise of Hater, a dating app that matches you with other users based on things you both hate. The app is only about a month old, but it's amassed about 200,000 users in the US and abroad — it's the No. 1 lifestyle app in Germany right now, the company says — with plans to "take on Tinder."
Only seems fitting for a rewrite of 1 Corinthians 13:13 for the BOistani wedding vows:
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. And now these three remain: faithlessness, hopelessness and hate. But the greatest of these is hate.
In BOistan, EVERYTHING is political, ALL the time!
Thus when a white Australian woman is shot and killed after making a 911 call, everyone rushes to their own tribal conclusions -- Then, OOPS, the officer is BLACK! Somali even! Everyone re-shuffles accordingly because, well, it is ALL POLITICAL ... no "facts" exist separate from politics in BOistan. Race, privilege, gender, income, ethnicity -- BOistan is big balkanized mess of identiy politcs groups, and that is ALL that matters!
So this article casts a little doubt on my theory, but only in rumor:
I reached out to a trusted law enforcement source for any insight he might be able to offer. He responds: “My first thought was that it was accidental, but rumor has it [Officer Noor is] denying that it was a negligent discharge.” He adds: “If there aren’t some sort of mitigating circumstances, and I’m struggling to imagine what they could be, this may be the most egregious police shooting in my lifetime if not longer…But not many facts are known at this point and it’s hard to pass judgement before knowing more than what’s being leaked to the media.”
The column does a pretty good job of covering how Gov Goofy sees this one completely differently -- no passing judgement on police here vs the Castile shooting! I think we all know that the Goofus Gov's "judgement" is sadly lacking in connection to reality in any case, and unfortunately what tattered shreds of "judegment" remain can best be described as "impaired".
We are LONG past a world where officers are hired and fired because of COMPETENCE vs race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Who knows about Yanez -- the "elephant in the room" was that he is hispanic. While I never heard anyone mention that while castigating his completence, I think we all know that the "hispanic" designation didn't hurt him getting a position as an officer at all.
Likewise Noor ... would he even BE a cop if he was not Somali? I'm quite sure that it is even LESS likely to find out any factual information or even conjecture about that because it is RACIST to ask such objective questions.
BOistan operates under the requirement that "affirmative action" in ANYTHING has "positive effects" on quality of whatever it touches. That is a FACT in BOistan, and it is a FACT that demands that there never be any scrutiny or even the thought that such a thing could or should be verified.
Hey, Islamic Terrorism is NOT "Islamic"! In BOistan you have to not only believe 5 or 10 insane things each day, AND, you have to castigate other people if they step out of line and observe that the emporer is naked!
As I've tried to point out may times, the ONLY solution is LIMITED government, which means SMALLER government. "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have" (Jerry Ford).
And my corollary, "the more you have, the more true that is until you make over 2x the top tax bracket" (currently about $225K) ... once you make over that (like $450k), you highere accountants and tax lawyers and they soak you for a couple $100K a year, but allow you keep money and interest pretty much scott free from then on out.
Politicians from BOTH parties, plus the judicial branch, plus the Administrative (Deep) State, + media, + captains of industry, big time entertainers, etc have WAY more in common with each other than they do with you and I.
My preferred example is the O-lines of the Vikings and the Packers ... they are all huge guys with speed and reflexes that make any of us look like children to them. Our best bet is just to make sure we don't get between them and the dinner table.
Do they hate each other? Hell no ... football is THEIR JOB. They may well be traded to the same team at any time and play together. The only time their name gets called is when they screw up -- holding, false start, or getting beat so bad that their QB gets hurt. The wide receivers or some back "pre-dated" every girl they ever wanted to ask out from middle school on up. They are there to protect the QB and open holes for the guys people care about. "Joe bag O donuts!".
The linked article uses pro wrestling to make the point. The elite has been fleecing all of us even "slightly above average" Joes forever -- and they definitely want to keep doing it! Hey, we are NOT supposed to notice!
So expect a LOT more "outrage" from both "sides" -- just remember, the elite HAVE a side, in actuality, we have none at all. They could care less if their policies kill millions of the "common folk" -- they have vacations, dinner parties, entertainment, kids to move into their power structure, ...
Realize that this is the WaPo before you jump to what one wishes was a valid conclusion -- this was published in some backwater whack job women's college campus paper. Ooopsie!
Geographers Carrie Mott and Daniel Cockayne argued in a recent paper that doing so also perpetuates what they call “white heteromasculinism,” which they defined as a “system of oppression” that benefits only those who are “white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.” (Cisgendered describes people whose gender identity matches their birth sex.)
The WaPo is a bit behind on "cis" -- or as I like to say it. "People who might reproduce". NPR tends to use a term a good deal. As for the rest of the 58 odd and fluid genders, it is mainly "Hold my beer while I fail to reproduce" ... I submit it as the "Darwin Who?" award vs the plain old Darwin award for stupidly removing yourself from the gene pool.
The far left is sort of the secular equivalent of the "Shakers" who made some really nice furniture, but no kids. The Shakers had a better excuse though -- they thought Christ was coming more quickly than other people.
The left? I'm guessing they are hoping for "Sweet Meteor of Death" or something -- they can't REALLY have forgotten that reproduction is kinda required if you want your views to matter in a hundred years.
Well, this unfortunate tradgedy will likely be a learning opportunity. First, DON'T BELIEVE FIRST REPORTS!
Some random thoughts:
My prediction is that this fades from news rapidly. Doesn't really fit any narrative. She called, so it wasn't a "stop". Officer black, dead citizen white ... Huh???
What the hell went wrong seems as hard to imagine as the destroyer getting hit by the container ship a month ago. After the videos in the Yanex / Castile shooting, that was NOT the case. What went wrong there was a person high on weed blurting out "I've got a gun" and then at least appearing to go for it.
If I had to guess, it may have been an AD (Accidental Discharge) ... officer had gun out because of situation as they stopped, trying to re-holster the weapon and "somehow" it went off. If it WAS through the drivers door from the passenger seat, we will find that Noor (the officer) was left handed, his partner was one very lucky SOB and the poor lady was beyond imagination UNlucky.
Again, I'm guessing this will just dissappear, however who knows.
Good column, worth reading -- nothing I haven't covered a few thousand times. MSM heavily biased, thin skinned, ignores anything good about a conservative, piles on them with trivia and fake news. We know all that, and even though it is just one guest editorial at the WaPo before they return to their own regularly scheduled martyrdom, it is never the less refreshing.
Coverage of the president’s overseas trip and participation in the Group of 20 summit offered numerous examples, with major media outlets focused more on minutiae — Ivanka sat in the president’s chair! — than on substance, giving comparatively short shrift to his powerful remarksin Poland and the important Syrian cease-fire agreementbrokered between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And later, the wall-to-wall coverage regarding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a private Russian attorney was the definition of overkill, considering no one has brought forward any evidence to contradict the accounts of the participants that no substantive information was exchanged and there was no follow-up by anyone. But it was another opportunity to repeat “Russia, Russia, Russia,” the media’s magic words for conjuring, Beetlejuice-fashion, the genie they hope will vanquish their bogeyman.
After the MSM tells you for months that the sun doesn't rise in the east, it is at least refreshing when they have a guest stop by and give one editorial column letting us know that that yes, even though their biases and emotions won't let them recognize it these days, it is STILL rising in the east, and all their reporting of fake news (which will continue) actually is fake, and they have no choice but to keep reporting the fake news.
It is like the old guy whose wife keeps asking him how she looks in that dress and he responds "great honey!". Unlike my 90 year old father reported about someone at the nursing home he was at, that "Like pretty much everyone our age, the clothes look better on the hanger than when we are wearing them".
For much of the left, fake news is really all they can possibly handle at this point! Just like an elderly person whose clothes would look better on the hanger, the MSM just can't accept that Trump is having a good deal of success!
Even if their stories would look better if they just reported from the hanger of reality vs the fetid imagination between their ears.
A shady lawyer from a foreign power offers a political campaign potenentially treasonous dirt on the opposition candidate. There is PLENTY of evidence to suspect that such hard evidence might be avaiable -- 20% of the US Urainium reserves transferred to Russia in a pay for play $50 million dollar deal -- all that is needed is solid lock her up and throw away the key proof. Her husband with a totally known history of womanizing having visiited Russia, laughed with Putin on deals unknown -- not hard at all to imagine all sorts of documentation on blackmail known that could embarrass the assumed future madame president.
Are we supposed to have forgotten Slick Willie and "Donor Maintainence" events in '96? As covered in this article:
Do they remember Chung — he was the one who in the pre-farecard era said the Clinton White House was like a subway because you had to put in a coin to open the gate — testified before the House of Representatives that the head of Chinese military intelligence told him: "We like your president very much. We hope to see him re-elected. I'll give you 300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to your president and the Democratic Party."
We could waste a lot of time on "facts", but why bother? Everyone that cared in the least knew that the White House was completely for sale in the Clinton years, and at least half the country cared not at all -- ho hum, it's our guy.
My colleague Jonah Goldberg has given perhaps the best one-sentence advice for conservatives in these troubling times: “Trust nothing, defend nothing.” We don’t know the truth. We don’t know the extent of the Trump team’s misdeeds. We do, however, know enough to reject the administration’s spin. Donald Jr.’s meeting was, in fact, a “big deal,” and Americans who aren’t troubled are Americans who need to check whether their tribalism has trumped their good sense.
Got that? National Review has gotten the "good sense" to have very little to say about a Republican party that swore they would repeal BOcare if they got the House, then swore they would repeal it if they got the Senate, then FAILED TO EVEN PASS SOMETHING FOR BO TO VETO! Then essentially fought Trump tooth and nail, and STILL can't repeal it!
Were NR even remotely "conservative" or "small government" rather than just being ELITIST, they would be embarrassed, as every other real conservative / small government person is. ABSOLUTELY we don't want to trust NR, and why the hell would one defend them? The idea of politics is to have "your side win" -- obviously NR's "side" -- Hillary, failed to win, and they are still in a tiff.
Justice Gorsuch ALONE is such a huge accomplishment for Trump compared to what we would have got with Hillary that anyone remotely conservaitve is willing to do a lot of "defense". One doesn't have to "trust" anyone to defend your obvious self interest.
The other question is "Whose Russians are these "???? There is "Natasha" circled with with "Boris" near her during a foreign affairs meeting in DC 8 days after Trump Tower. Both of these fine Russians were involved in the "Trump Dossier" caper where the ex-British spook worked with Russians to "leak" a tawdry tale involving hookers urinating -- something a little hard to buy about germaphobe Trump. Orbis, and Fusion GPS were involved, and both Boris and Natasha have connections with Fusion GPS.
But never mind -- clearly "The Party" (TP-D), the Deep State and nearly all the media including erstwhile supposedly "conservative" outlets like NR hate Trump. He is not the status quo, and ALL those groups, which at this point it is clearly obvious also included the bulk of the Republican Party, have been riding the same gravy train, and they DON'T want it to stop! In fact, they are REALLY worried about what happens to them if it stops.
Clinton Cash for the whole time from when they took office in '92 up through '16? Not an issue for anyone in the elite, including the Republican Party. BO using the IRS to attack conservative organizations like the Tea Party? Didn't bother any of the elite including the Republcian Party -- hell, they hated the Tea Party worse than the Democrats anyway!
We could waste a lot more time here, but there is ONE LEADERSHIP really -- the elite. It encompasses TP, The Republican Party, media (largely "both sides" as the NR article shows), business, education, etc ... and then there is the anti-elite -- TRUMP. How was the whole "Trump Dossier" funded? This from here:
According to a Vanity Fair article, Fusion GPS was first funded by an anti-Trump Republican donor, but, after Trump’s nomination, Fusion and Steele were paid by Democratic donors whose identity remains secret. Writes Satter: “Perhaps the time has come to expand the investigation into Russia’s meddling to include Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as well.”
The elite are nothing if not "bi-partisan", it is ALL about THEM, and Democrat or Republican are labels they are happy to wear in the service of themselves. Is Trump any different? Who knows -- he may just be doing the bidding of the elite for his own gain as well -- however it certainly LOOKS like all sides are against him.
Does ANYONE anywhere think that ANY political campaign would refuse to LISTEN to potential dirt on the opposition candidate, no matter what the source? I can't believe that anyone including NR actually believes that -- they just feel that they have to STOP TRUMP, so they fake like this is somehow "unusual" or "wrong".
"The Party" (TP-D) controlled, and in some cases funded (NPR) media often sheds huge tears over "loss of trust in government". They hate to see the sheep not have tons of trust in their increasingly lavishly paid, gold class benefited plus wined and dined at public expense bureaucrat "shepherds" just because the bureaucrats whose salaries they pay call them "deplorables" and fail to do their jobs.
As Reynolds puts it:
Politicians have a short-term focus, seldom looking past the next election. But for those of us with a longer view, this is a serious problem. As The Atlantic recently noted, trust in government is collapsing around the world. The reason for this, I’m afraid, is that government isn’t trustworthy. We used to try to do better in the United States, but lately the powers that be seem to be rubbing our noses in their untrustworthiness and their ability to avoid the consequences. This, I predict, will not end well.
This is anything but a new problem. OT era rulers in Egypt in Babylon had lots of problems with their feckless beauracracy and often ended up choosing advisors from the Jews ( Joeseph, Daniel, etc). The reason that Rome lasted so long is that they effectively worshiped the Greeks, who were the philosophic parents of the idea that "this is NOT all there is" ... eg. there is a dimension beyond our dimension in which perfection is reality, and what we see is a mere projection ... "shadows on the wall of the cave".
The job of the true "elite" -- the priest, philosopher, royalty, upper class, etc, was to see this transcendent dimension and use it to rule with true justice. As with most things, Christ said it best in Matt 20:26 "Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant."
Without transcendence, it is all POWER, which in this context means POLITICS. The linked is not very long and Reynolds is an excellent writer ... it's a sad litany if you care about competent government, here is a teaser:
The FBI had interviewed Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, after being warned by the Russian government that he was a threat, but still did nothing. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured as a result. The FBI also investigated in advance but failed to prevent mass killings by Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and Arkansas shooter Carlos Bledsoe.
Politico took Rubio to task for tweeting verses out of Proverbs because it was allegedly the "most Republican part of the Bible", since it asserts that good character and hard work are more likely to bring riches than wickedness and sloth.
The article is pretty funny, though I suppose not for Democrats -- I have to admit that I'm always impressed with a Democrat that knows a Bible verse beyond Matt 7:1 "Judge not lest ye be judged".
Naturally, they usually use that verse in their judgement of what they see as someone elses judgement, however it IS still actually in the Bible. If they read more of it, I have faith that God would show them the light. Complete verses are good too ... Slick Willie quoted Prov 29:18 in his inauguration, "Where there is no vision, the people perish", but neglected to quote the second part of the verse ... "but he who keeps the law, happy is he". I wonder why?
I find the most Republican verse in the Bible to be Ecclesiastes 10:2 "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Anyone with a passing knowlege of the founding knows that Hamilton was totally against democracy. So why do the current "Democrats" love him? Well, it isn't very surprising to readers of this blog, because we know that "The Party" (TP-D) is about POWER, no matter by what means it is achieved. "Democracy" is great as long as it gives your side power -- when it doesn't, it is bad!
Good article if you need a refresher on reality. See if the closing paragraph sounds like any political party you are familiar with:
Set in contrast to the actual life and career of its subject, the play Hamilton is a feat of political alchemy - as is the stunningly successful marketing campaign surrounding it. But our generation’s version of Hamilton adulation isn’t all that different from the version that took hold in the 1920s: it’s designed to subvert democracy by helping the professional class to associate the rise of finance with the greatness of America, instead of seeing in that financial infrastructure the seeds of a dangerous authoritarian tradition.
The title is the famous assessment by Lord Ismay of Britain as to the purpose of NATO after WWII. Churchill and Ismay understood that "peoples" tend to have a character. (Churchill called them "races" as in the English race, the German race, etc)
In Ismay’s time, such aggression was different from lesser Fascist movements in Italy and Spain, largely because of the central geographic position of a unified young German nation-state, its sizable population, its national wealth, and what we reluctantly in today’s politically correct landscape might call “German character.” That stereotype originates from the time of Caesar and Tacitus: the ability of the German people to create economic, military, and cultural influence well beyond what one might expect from the actual size of even an impressive German population or geography. And such dynamism is often expressed by eyeing neighbors’ spiritual or concrete territory.
In science, if a "stereotype", like "temperatuire getting warmer" holds from say 1865 to like 2K (150 years), it tends to be called "a fact". Since the "stereotype has held since the time of Tacitus (100 AD), or basically 2000 thousand years ... ???
Recent Pew international polls reveal that Germany of all the countries of the European Union is by far the most anti-American, with scarcely 52 percent expressing a positive appraisal of the United States — well before Donald Trump ran for office. Media polls show that the German press ran the most negative appraisals of Trump of all global news (98 percent of all coverage was critical). A fair summary of current German views of the United States would be not much different from the stereotypes of the 1930s: undisciplined, prone to wild swings in policy, a bastardized and commercialized culture of poorly informed and highly indebted consumers.
Germany has tended to have a pretty low opinion of the US for ages. I tend to generally agree with their opinion of current Americans, the big question is if push comes to shove, will that opinion be wrong 3 our of 3 times, or only 2 out of three since the WWI and WWII opinions fell on hard times relative to military prowess.
No one quite knows the strange driving force behind Angela Merkel’s demand that the European Union open its borders to millions of mostly young men from the war-torn Middle East and the chaotic lands of North Africa. Cynics might suggest that a shrinking Germany wants young, cheap manual laborers. Post-war guilt may play a role as Germany’s cure for its past becomes nearly as obsessive as the behavior that led to the disease in the first place.
I think the developed world elite is of the opinion that Islam will fall to western decadence just as Christianity largely has -- they assume that those young male imports will indeed be cheap manual laborers, and they will suffer along in stagnation -- as have blacks in the US and increasingly the abandoned red state lower class whites. Maybe.
Could also be that they are look at the US miltary being currently 40% minority with the percentage rising, remember that a lot of Germany's WWII army was conscripted from conqured countries, and dream of a largely Muslim force under the command of "real Germans".
As the column closes we are reminded that those who fail to study history often get to repeat it.
He would warn about what happens when NATO withers on the vine: Russian is a bit in, America is somewhat out, and Germany more up than down — as Ismay feared when he helped offer the remedy of NATO at its creation.
