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Mockerator |
What does "culturally dominant" mean and does that excuse teaching Marxism or radical left ideas to the exclusion of all else? To me the "if" isn't in question. We have our Marxist/socialist president. Bill Ayers is in. The Founding Fathers are out, or are at least being pushed aside. In far too many places, America isn't taught as being the beacon of liberty. We are an imperialist, racist, misogynist nation. This stuff can no longer be laughed off as Che chic. The Bill Ayers types are gaining more and more power. And their power is the power to indoctrinate and subvert. The trillions of debt being piled on right now by the Democrats is not only strangling us now, but it strangles future generations. This is a direct subversion of the principle of limited government and the individual's power to pursue happiness (when saddled in Big Brother debt, it's going to limit one's options). This goes for George Bush too, or anyone who is running up debt for tomorrow to buy political favors today. To me it's not the "if." The "if" is all too real and all too well documented. The real question is the "why." Why are people attracted to this far left stuff, especially in a nation not comprised of masses of dirt poor. In some third-world nation, one could perhaps understand how easily the dirt-poor could have their heads turned by pie-in-the-sky promises of reform and justice. But America? Every step we take toward Marxism or the far left is a step away from where we should be going. And yet people -- especially impressionable kids -- have been fed this stuff for some time now. I don't sit back and laugh and call it Che chic. I call a lie a lie. And lies have consequences. We're seeing that now.
I completely agree. And part of that is telling the truth of what some of our educators are trying to drum into people. Being for a (classically) liberal education does not have to mean rolling over and not opposing this far left Marxist/PC stuff that is being taught at the expense of everything else, let alone the truth. A traditional liberal education is meant to expand the mind, not indoctrinate into Karl Marx and the various ideas derived from Marxism. But we have some of these radicals trying to turn third graders into anti-war protesters. And these are not just isolated incidents. And the sad fact is that they've been very successful at changing people's attitudes regarding basic American ideas such as equality. Both Sowell and Horowitz have really nailed this point. That changes the entire landscape and one really needs to successfully argue First Principles before getting into specific policies, or at least argue these principles alongside the policies, which is something I hope I can impress into that Terrorist Tea Party group.
Absolutely. |
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Master Baiter |
First off, lose the idea that I'm EXCUSING anything... culturally dominant means the idea-set that is most favored or adopted by the culture at any given time. Right, it's Founding Fathers out, radicals in. I'm not disputing that. That's a current feature of the current political and cultural landscape. But it didn't happen because Marxist teachers got together and hammered these ideas into the skulls of impressionable kids in any kind of a concerted way. We often talk about the wussified, girly-man culture here. And it's really that. But it wasn't taught in school. It's maybe REINFORCED in school, because the school reflects the culture. Che chic is actually a PERFECT example of the REAL ways indoctrination happens. It's not the communist party setting out to plant operatives in schools. It starts as fashion, political correctness, hippie-dippy viva la revolucion yute culture and peer pressure, and before you know it, you have an idea that ceases to be fringe, and goes popular. I'm arguing NONE of these marxist ideas are in place now because of any kind of master plan to overthrow the founding fathers... but simply because they've infected the culture and got POPULAR. And once popular, they find expression in cultural institutions, politics, etc. Now you and me, as conservatives, can now say, shit, fuck, these ideas are way TOO popular... we're losing sight of the founding principles of America... and we'd be totally balls-on right. But it ain't the press or schools that distributed these ideas for mass consumption where they suddenly became popular. Rather, the very freedoms that we cherish ALLOWED the exchange of ideas, ALLOWED the precepts of the founding fathers to be questioned. Whether we think the questioning is right or wrong or warranted or unamerican or whatnot... the fact is, the freedom of that dialog is what's important. What makes this whole debate possible is freedom. The slippery slope with blaming schools for being indoctrination factories, is that you invite tyranny in... just a tyranny that has your ideology dominating, rather than a free exchange of ideas. FORCING schools to teach this or that, or giving equal time to opposing views, is a sort of heavy handed leftist tactic. It's exactly what I object to with the ridiculously misnamed "fairness" doctrine. It's like you seem to forget that life ISN'T fair. That the ideas of the founding fathers are something we DON'T have to continually fight for... that human nature doesn't CONSTANTLY try to erode freedom and liberty, and that the powerful don't ALWAYS try to subjugate the weak. OK, now back to the dysfunctional education system. It's not a chicken or egg scenario. Marxism in popular culture DEFINITELY came before leftist ideas found expression in the classroom. But what you say about telling the truth about what SOME of our educators are trying to drum into people is a tack that's fine by me. It's just what I don't buy is that it's a pervasive corruption of the system with a specific political agenda of indoctrination, rather than something WAY more organic. This isn't the Templars going in and saying convert or die. These are people fighting for their political views, something that's BUILT IN TO OUR CONSTITIUTION. Freedom of political speech is one of our most important freedoms. Commies have it, neo-nazis have it, socialists have it, conservatives have it. Liberal democrats, on the heels of parlaying George Bush hatred and anti-war sentiments into political power, have it. Complaining that their shit is popular is one thing. Accusing them of indoctrinating children in schools is an absurd scare tactic, worthy of... well, them! Listen, I can't friggin' STAND how popular liberal democrat con-jobs are. I want to fight them tooth and nail. I want the culture to change, I want to CHANGE the culture away from that girly, wussy, dependent dysfunctional tax-and-spend nonsense. But I'm not going to do it by painting a picture of our school system as socialist madrasas. That's unfounded, and a weak tactic. It doesn't allow the ideas of the founding fathers to stand on their own, on their own merits. It's creating a fantasy, ginned-up enemy in a vain attempt to make the conservative side more popular than it is. Meanwhile, the GOP has all kinds of ideological problems of its own. The Christian Nation baby jesus stuff is a total turnoff in a secular society. It actually erodes the separation of church and state thing that's so important in this country. A true American patriot doesn't favor christianity. A true American patriot favors FREEDOM of religion over any particular religion. It's amazing to me how you conclusion-jump to the idea that I'm somehow not opposing this far left, marxist/pc stuff. Simply by disagreeing with you on the point of coordinated indoctrination in the school system. Radicals trying to turn third graders into anti-war protesters certainly is wrong. But if public schools were really indoctrination factories, nobody could make a peep about that. That would just be the system, the accepted tyranny. But that's not the case. In fact, it's the opposite... we CAN be furious about it, and we can voice our opposition. And that school board HAS to listen. In the 60's I remember we had hippy teachers, very anti-vietnam, as well as more button down Nixon supporters. They existed side by side, and that's as it should be. Not every teacher has to be a liberal, or a conservative. But I've said it a million times, you can learn from ANYBODY. Even if what you're learning is how to stand up against somebody's firmly held belief system. I really want you to watch that movie I recommended in the movie thread. THAT'S how indoctrination works. It's personal. It's informal. Uncoordinated. Yes, there are political organized ARMS of it... which may even try and RECRUIT... but people have to embrace this stuff on their own. School isn't a brainwash facility for the left. That's not giving our yutes really ANY credit. I mean, sometimes they don't deserve any... but holy crap. They can be exposed to all KINDS of fucking ideas at school, and who's honestly arrogant enough to try and control that? OK, liberals... but they can't. Public school can't be like a madrasa. You can't isolate and tear down and indoctrinate and brainwash like they can in the third world. It's a free country here. Mostly, I'm not willing to say the left had any kind of an unfair advantage here. The indoctrination camp theory does that. I don't think the popularity of the ideas came at the expense of the founding fathers or "teaching capitalism" or anything like that. But from a simple lack of willingness of Americans to want to see and face the truth. A tendency to take the easy way out and believe lies. That is not to say that the Dark Side is more powerful, or has any special magic indoctrination powers. It doesn't. American Constitutional ideas aren't always easy to grasp and understand... and they require constant vigilance and resolve. You can't be lazy. This, right now, America in 2009, happens when you get lazy. |
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Mockerator |
In part it is indeed that. It's not the entire cause, but it's a significant part of it. Another cause, and really the primary one, is human gullibility toward this message. You may not agree with the extent that people are programmable, but there is no denying that there are quite distinct cultures around the world. People grow up in them and adopt the attitudes and morals that are just generally about. A Texas cattle rancher is lightyears from, say, Bill Ayers. And although there are some commonalities to many cultural traits (however different they may appear on the surface, such as the deep syntax that is shared by all languages, whether German or Chinese), and many are somewhat superficial traits, many cultures are so different that these people might as well have come from different planets. The task for those who believe that higher education is not about programming individuals but getting them to think is facing up to the fact that radical leftists in academia don't want people to think. They simply masquerade their indoctrination as a critiquing of the culture. They don't critique themselves. This is rank indoctrination and should be exposed as such. It is not a liberal education. It is a farce in many cases and many places. Now, granted, if we want to get down to brass tacks, it is indeed appropriate to talk about what the task of K-12 lower education should be. Marxists quite literally believe that, as it is now, its function is to stamp out little capitalists who can be exploited by those in power. In their contrary view for us, we all need to be programmed in various ways to not be dupes of capitalism but dupes of Marxism (or Progressivism, or political correctness, or however you want to term the set of beliefs that are based on false assumptions about America and the free market). They'll won't use those words, of course. They'll call it "freedom" much like the Nazis had those "Arbeit macht frei" signs over the entranceways of the concentration camps. But I'll state openly the the task of lower education is, and should be, to indeed stamp out little capitalists. It's the task of a free people to prepare people to make their own way in the world for themselves, to develop their intelligence, talents, and skills so that they can read, write, and do the basic stuff needed to support oneself. In today's economy, that less and less means learning how to milk a cow and more and more means learning how to use computers. But the goal is the same: to make a person self-sufficient. The alternative -- and it is indeed the only alternative -- is to create little statist cult-like beasties who define their lives not by their own pursuit of happiness but by the Great Glory of Mother Country, The Workers Paradise, Environmental Paradise, Perfect Fairness and Justice, or whatever the supposed overarching goal of these leftists is. But it's never about enabling the individual. It's always about convincing the individual that what is in their best interest is, what amounts to, ignoring their best interest and giving themselves over to some Exultant Cause or another. So I readily admit that lower education should be about producing little free-marketers because the only alternative is to create little Cult Cogs of the State. That necessities excluding Marxist brainwashing from the curriculum for it would not produce free people but little cult-like statist beasties. As for higher education, it is indeed good and healthy to take on much wider and esoteric goals. It's good to question societal assumptions in a deep and profound way at that level. But the rot of Marxism and Progressivism is that they are lies. They use deceit as their main tactic. They will tell you that what they teach is just a valid critique of the current system, but it is little but rank propaganda because they do not critique themselves. They are rank axe-grinders, not liberal educators. Not all of them, but far too many of them, and the ones that are wield a lot of power because, as you know, that old Stockholm Syndrome kicks in and people will all too easily belly-roll to the radical in-your-face axe-grinders. That is the power behind Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
The girly-man culture is driven by many things, but especially this idea that the aggression of boys (forthrightness, boldness, and decisiveness are all labeled as "aggression" by the feminazis) is a bad thing. And, indeed, very often this aggression is very bad. But the untold story by these PC/leftist clowns is the immense harm done to humanity by people who smile, speak softly, and wear a nice suit, whether you're talking Neville Chamberlain or now Barack Obama, although not quite all of the chickens have come home to roost for his gross appeasement tactics. But some unfortunately surely will. Again, brother Brad isn't for indoctrination but for the real and full story. We're both a desert topping and a floor wax. Some aspects of girly-man are good. It is better to work things out peacefully if at all possible. "Honor," "respect," and other such words are often just very low-brow affectations. Want respect? Well, it often takes more guts not to throw a punch. But sometimes you do indeed need to throw a punch. This lesson is one that is lost on PC weenies and girly-men. Sometimes you must stick up for what is right. There really are people out there who will simply laugh at your attempts for "dialogue."
I can't remember who said it, and I've paraphrased it before, but one guy pointed out that it should be as shocking to wear a Che shirt as it is to wear a Heimlich Himmler shirt. They were both murderous thugs.
There is no doubt that the whole process of culture is multifaceted. No one can every really control it or even predict it. Try as marketers might, they can probably only ever ride fads not create them, although many fads have been known to be created out of thin air. And the Marxist/PC/Progressive attitudes about what constitutes right and wrong are things that have been hammered into people's brains for some time now. And so it will probably always be. If not Marxism today, there will be some other demagogue demagoguing something else tomorrow. Where there is power, there will be those coming up with all kinds of crowd-pleasing rotgut messages trying to get that power. It's not all just about Marxism. But that is the current phenomenon we have to deal with now. And what we need to understand about America (and the West) is that it is different because of some very self-consciously constructed and applied ideas and methods. We don't fall out of bed knowing what we need to know about maintaining our Western systems. And when we let rot like Marxism go unopposed under the guise of "that's just the playing out of culture," and we don't teach the things we need to know about our own system, we have forfeited our freedom, our heritage, and our responsibility to carry on the ideals that underpin the very fabric of our civilization. Indeed, as you said, our very ideals allow for any and all ideas to be kicked about. This is good. What is not good is when we mistake tolerance for other points of view with surrendering to them. This is especially so when these points of view have as their aim, not a liberal education, but to undermine this tried-and-true political system.
Right now I would quite unapologetically (if I were dean of some college) fire a few Marxist asses and bring in some teachers who had as their goal a typical liberal education, and it would be one that would not be prejudiced against this country and its system from the get-go. If they want to teach Marxism, I'll I'd ask is that they tell it like it is, not glorify it and lie while bashing America at every turn. I find there to be little, if any, slippery-slope danger in just telling the truth. A very wide latitude can surely be given about such things, but one-note Marxism at the expense of freedom and free-markets is not wide latitude. It's intellectual tyranny.
What I distinctly remember, if anything, is that life isn't fair and that therefore our way of life (which is a superior one to socialism and Marxism) needs to be taught and nurtured. There will always be people out to erode our freedom for their pet causes, including Marxism. We need to teach the facts about freedom and not flinch because we confuse giving a liberal, mind-expanding education with surrendering to those who would take that away, and are doing so right now. If these colleges and universities weren't in large part supported by public funds, then they could teach whatever they wanted. But to actually finance the overthrow of our system is more than stupid, and it's certainly not liberal in the original sense of the word.
What is rich is that so many see fit and find it necessary to have to first apologize for espousing views contrary to Marxism, or asking Marxism to at least make room for other, less radical, ideas. But the people pushing Marxism can push it anywhere, anytime they like, and in any manner (even to the point of excluding other ideas), and that's alright. To oppose this is thought be running with Joseph McCarthy tactics. Nice trick. A very nice trick to turn the tables like this where espousing Marxism is the very breath of liberty, while opposing it is McCarthyism or worse (while keeping in mind that Marxism itself, when in the majority, would not pay other ideas the courtesy of sharing center stage with them, and we see this playing out in colleges and universities where it is indeed in the majority). But I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. Through various means, a lot of people have bought into this concept. But I'm not one of them. The principle behind academic freedom itself is not a Marxist principle. Here are the actual words of Lenin (not John) on education (in particular, he's talking about our books and libraries):
The political, social, legal, and moral structure that allows for the teaching of Marxism (and Marxist-derived ideas) in school, even as the preferred system, is not Marxism. It's our Western ideals that secure these freedoms. We cannot possibly therefore maintain our liberal educational system by abiding by Marxist rules. And if you read the accounts of Horowitz and others, indeed, where Marxist-friendly professors predominate, other ideas are purged from the curriculum. Democracy is not a suicide pact. To stand up for the ideals that allow us the freedom of a liberal education is to sometimes put limits on those who would take this away. It's a tricky balance, but we needn't be stupid or cowardly about it. The principle of a free and open education, and free speech itself, are worth fighting for. One need not apologize for truth, freedom, and academic freedom. But too often we have oddly been put into this position of having to do so. And it is absolutely no coincidence that the cultist, totalitarian, "only me, me, me" radical and beastly ideals of Marxism have been largely responsible for implanting this idea, as hard as this may be to admit. Marxism is like a virus that has taken our quite noble and civilized belief in free thought and turned it on its head. It now demands that we equate equality, tolerance, and egalitarianism with its right to axe-grind unabated. To put limits on a system of thought that is completely at odds with freedom is said to be totalitarian. Hey, this Orwell stuff can indeed be tricky, but it's not that tricky. You can see their deceit. Only a lack of confidence in our own American values has us cowed. Of course we would not be the kind of Commie clowns who would take a textbook and cut out all references to Marxism, Lenin, the Soviet Union, etc. But that's precisely what they do from the other side, and they are gaining ground. And to deny this is to just be one of Lenin's useful idiots. What we would do as Americans is present the facts fairly, freely, with great latitude, with much discussion, and not let our ideals of free and open discourse be used against us disingenuously by Marxist thugs. |
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Master Baiter |
I like how I make my points, and then you start arguing something completely different which I agree with, as if you were countering what I said. But you're not. You're doing the Apples and Oranges thing.
First off, people CAN be programmable. I'm not saying there is no such thing as indoctrination or brainwashing or torture or Stockholm Syndrome. But you are right to bring up third world conditions as being more of where this happens. It can also happen in cultural isolation, for example cults in this country. Anywhere you can isolate a population, dehumanize them (with head shaving or forcing a routine, or whatever)... and then slowly break them down while ego stroking or offering support. Really, trust me, watch that movie "This is England." Even the military uses similar tactics to make warriors. Mental and physical distress, verbal abuse, sameness in haircuts and uniform... break down the individual and program with soldier. Administer the coup de grace by following the abuse with brotherhood and a sense of mission, purpose, and duty. You end up being able to die for your fellow soldier, who a few short weeks ago was calling you a fag and a maggot. It works. There's no denying it works, science proves to us HOW it works. It would be naïve of me to assume that there was no such creature as a master-marxist string puller super genius who knows enough human psychology to create minions and followers. But I really, really don't think every school has a cadre of these, working behind the scenes to indoctrinate young minds. Are there a few hopped up radical leftists? Even a bunch? Sure. I hate to break the news, but slightly more than half the country voted for Barack Obama. A politician with a decidedly left-wing bent. Easily as left as Teddy Kennedy. Further left than Bill Clinton. With radical associations that everyone but his staunchest apologists finds kinda uncomfortable. He tried to distance himself from the real radical stuff, with not much success. But this politician won a free election in America. Fair and square. And now boo hoo, we have to deal with what the American people chose. What I find completely and utterly useless at this point, is trying to find institutions like schools to blame for this. The left leaning in this country is simply not the result of brainwashing from a young age that worked. But rather from a CULTURE that has grown to accept or yearn for certain left-leaning ideas about government. I think we can find DOZENS of reasons WHY this is, without creating your socialist madrasas, or believing that the liberal bias in the press is anything more than a bias. First and foremost, these ideas have become politically CORRECT. Political correctness is the utter bane of conservative thinking. And it's the one thing besides affronts to baby jesus, that republicans can't seem to stand up to. It's simply too easy to become offended in this country. It's the national passtime, replacing baseball. Then, we have a society where the urban poor, the victim culture, etc. have discovered that it's easier to build a fairy-land nanny state where the government takes care of them and gives them everything they need, than going out and getting a job. These are mostly liberal democrats. And there was enough of them to win the election for Barack. If you ask any one of them, they will not say they are socialists or communists or anti-free market. You and I know they're pretty much in denial about that, but seriously, go up to one and say, hey, are you a socialist? Do you want this country to follow Marx and Lenin like they did in Russia? Only a couple of Che chic bohemian older hippy/commie types from Greenwich Village will own up to that. Everyone else: Buh-buh-buh-WHAAA? What are you talking about? No way! I'm an American! Freedom baby! But the fact is, they live in a postmodern word-association world. Socialism = Bad, but the left has simply changed the vocabulary on this. That's how they operate. That's what Political Correctness IS... vocabulary-changing. Calling bailouts stimulus, and retards mentally challenged. It's all the same. Now, PC crap spreads like wildfire. But not because there is a secret society of marxist leftists subverting schools. Once again, my thesis here is that all this PC cultural stuff happens organically, not in any kind of top-down way. The TRUE radicals. The REAL radicals, are marginalized too far to ever be able to waltz into a school or university system and take it over. No way. I'm really shocked that you seem to believe in this boogey man. Like I said, it's your equivalent of global warming hysteria that you can't seem to see beyond. But again, those radicals do exist. Ayer is one. Rev. Wright is one. And they've influenced the man that is now in the White House. But the cultural influence of leftist ideas did not emanate from them. It's much more loosey-goosey osmotic. I think a good analogy is like blaming ALL crime on the mafia. Yes, the mafia, organized crime DOES exist. It has its hooks all over the place, it infects communities and extorts... but it's not responsible for ALL crime. A kid in a candy store shoplifting did not necessarily do it because he was indoctrinated into a life of crime by a capo in his classroom. It's MAYBE possible, it's an envisionable scenario... but the truth is tougher. That kid CHOSE to break the law. Because there is a mafia, it didn't give an unfair advantage to the idea of a life of crime AT THE EXPENSE of the idea of a LAW ABIDING life. To try and get through your thick skull again: I ain't saying there's no such-a thing as a Godfather. They are out there. But the REASON a kid shoplifts isn't necessarily because of being indoctrinated by the mafia. We also need to look at proof. We need to remember the obvious, that every American on thalo.net was a PRODUCT of the American school system and I'm sure most of us have been through college. I spent years and years in academia. At what's considered the ultra-left bastion of the Ivy League. And I never saw the concerted indoctrination you believe in. Did I see rampant political correctness? Sure. Did I see Marxists? Absolutely. Unabashed ones. With clearly marxist radical points of view. What I know these guys never had, was an unfair advantage over other ideas, and I know that they didn't dare take their personal beliefs and teach them as religion at the expense of other ideas. If they tried to dismiss a challenge to their views, they'd get hauled up in front of somebody to explain themselves. I mean, remember, HALF the country doesn't buy this line of shit. Half does. You can believe there's a secret liberal network that brainwashes people, and all it does is make you sound like you've stepped into fantasy land. It's like the "vast right wing conspiracy" thing in reverse. Both of those realities are coming from a kind of zealotry rather than a healthy skepticism. And once again, I'm not saying that the education system isn't friggin' LOADED with problems. I'm not saying Political Correctness isn't thalo bane. I'm saying you can't blame it on these supposed mastermind indoctrinators. To follow up the previous analogy. It's like blaming all racism on the grand wizard of the Klan. It's like focusing all your progressive leftist frustration at Barack Obama as if he were RESPONSIBLE for the pervasiveness of those ideas... instead of just a symptom of their cultural popularity. |
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Master Baiter |
Oh Mercy, what a fuckup...
Something oddly poetic about Air Force One (actually without Barack in it, it's not technically Air Force One) causing a panic as a possible terrorist aircraft. All I could think of was how brother Rico was going to react to this one, lol. |
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THALO.net divinity |
Oh Sweet Jesus. This is an example of the type of scumbag that is occupying the White House. They thought it would be a good idea to promote his image by having propaganda photographs of Air Force One with Fighter Jets as chase planes do a low level pass of the Statue of Liberty. This is how far from their minds that this country was attacked in 2001. Gee lets have a 747 do a rooftop buzzing of NYC. The blame shifting was already in motion before those planes even touched down on the ground most likely before they even took off. |
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Master Baiter |
Unbelievable fuck up. You mean to tell me that nobody in the whole administration thought that barnstorming the statue of liberty in a 747 might raise a panic in NYC? I mean seriously, what kind of morons are out there? How quickly they forget.
This is a sign that the image makers are more important than common sense. Not to mention more important than true leadership. The safety and security of the American people came SECOND here to a photo op. I've got to call this a faux pas that dwarfs anything George W. ever did. Michael Moore should make a friggin' movie about THIS if he wants to make a politician look like a clown. |
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Mockerator |
I do think we agree about a lot of stuff. I don't wish to try to put forward anything else. But what I think we disagree about big-time is, in essence, buying into the politically correct ideas as to what constitutes academic freedom. The Marxists don't get a free run of the place, no matter how big of a fit they pitch.
Glenn Beck made an interesting point on his show this morning. Watching Barack Obama use the teleprompter for anything and everything makes you feel like you're watching something that's not real, like you're watching The Truman Show. (I'll have to rent that one again. I loved it. I'm just not sure how re-watchable it is.) Political disagreements are political disagreements. I don't at all mind having them, and it would be very scary if we all thought the same. But what we are encountering now in our culture is a cult mindset. And fascism is always the end result of that mindset. It's where you shut people up who disagree with you and even make disagreements themselves illegal. This is the rot of Progressive/Marxist political correctness and such things as speech codes. Hell, it's even implicit in these goons trying to bring down a Miss USA candidate (what an amazing babe) for a PC question asked at such an event that is, we should admit, nothing more than a beauty contest. But even this is politicized by these fascist-minded goons who wish to get everyone to pay a price for those who think differently. She gave an answer and the Nazi-like left doesn't like it so out she goes. This type of stuff is occurring more and more in society. We are quite right, as classical liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, not to use the same Gestapo tactics in shutting them up. But opposing fascism is not fascism, as much as these buggers might want to paint it this way. When there are choices to be made in society, we are right to stump for choosing the truth over rank indoctrination. No one need apologize for that.
Okay, I'm completely on board with you with that. That's a great description of the process of creating robots. Especially in military situations, it's precisely what you need. American soldiers are, of course, much more than that. There's a difference between a Nazi and an American soldier. It really does matter what you're fighting for and what you're willing to do to win. And there's a real difference between the citizens soldiers fighting for an American-style liberty and those agitating for Alinsky-style fascist socialism, which I think is an apt description. The answer isn't a lock-down of ideas. But the answer is countering those ideas and not giving them a free ride under the guise of plurality. Last time I looked, conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians aren't running around the country telling everyone to shut up or threatening people with the loss of their job or other harassment for not agreeing with them. But this is the common and ubiquitous technique of Progressives and PC types. And we should not flinch from confronting this Nazism even while doing our utmost best to hold to our principles. It's a tough balance, but it is not a virtue to belly roll in the face of these ideological thugs. And that's ultimately what any of us are doing when we don't speak up for classical liberal American values of tolerance, free speech, equanimity, and just plain sanity.
You know how this stuff works. It doesn't have to be any kind of plan where people sit in some smoke-filled room and plot. The cryin' shame of all this is that it has been happening right in front of our noses and we've all ignored it for too long. Instead of confronting it (and paying sometimes a heavy price for doing so, which is how these rotgut ideas spread), we have found various supposedly noble reasons for giving these goons a pass. When they teach (as they do) that white guilt is a real thing, this is a racist notion. No, I don't care how many black people this upsets. White guilt is a thoroughly mythical and racist notion. The idea that America is an imperialist country is the biggest crock of shit going. But it's the current myth of these types. It's filling the textbooks and the curriculum. It's certainly a notion supported in the media. We fought with our allies against Communism and fascism and won, at a terrible price. America is the beacon of liberty, and yet the Progressive notion (one that Obama clearly shares) is that we are the greatest danger of all, that we need to go around the world and apologize for ourselves. This is a myth. This is raising politics to a delusional religion. And too many of us have not looked it in the eye and called a spade a spade. We have not stood up for America and instead have found clever ways to make excuses for these people. Again, although it's been blasted into our heads time and again that confronting the left makes us McCarthyistic goons, this is a lie. This is a very convenient lie. Hell, if we actually *did* adopt the techniques of the left, we'd run these guys out on a rail in no time at all, and still probably wouldn't muss a hair on their head. The real difficult balance is confronting these ideas in a way that doesn't just use their Gestapo-like tactics. But part of the difficultly is that these guys will lie about anything and everything with little or no sense of shame. They'll call a press conference and accuse those who oppose them of being fascists because they dare to oppose them. This is what we're dealing with, and whether the temper tantrum comes from a child or adult, it is no easier to deal with. But in neither case should we back down or we are just feeding the shark. And that shark just keeps getting hungrier and hungrier every time it's fed. It's never sated. That's the nature of cults. Give them a taste of their goon-based power, and they'll just want more.
Unlike many on the right, I'm not going around saying that this is actually a right-center nation. Nope. A right-center nation would never have voted for an obvious Marxist-socialist fool like Obama. But a foolish, uninformed people fashioned by decades of this Progressive rot would. And did.
No boo hoos. None of my schtick is about boo hooing. My schtick is about understanding the difference between our American ideals as understood by the founders (and by most of the country until about 1920 or so), and Progressivism. Again, Brother Jonah's book "Liberal Fascism" is an excellent primer. This stuff didn't happen yesterday. This rot has been going on for some time. The job of modern patriots is to understand our heritage, understand what worked and why it worked, and understand Progressivism and the many false assumptions (and just outright myths) it is based on. It would probably also help to understand why people are drawn to it, but the fact is that people will always be drawn to cult-like things. But we did create this country. These ideas can reach people because they did before.
That's where you're completely wrong, and ignoring the indoctrination of yutes in colleges by Progressive and Marxist axe-grinders is not the solution. It's just ignoring a very real and large part of the problem. If our colleges are basically teaching a brand of politics and social theory that is anti-American, anti-freedom, and anti-free-speech, this has an effect, and I think it's a big one, and for some reason you don't want to face up to this. Yes, there are indeed dozens of other reasons. But Marxist college professors grinding their rot into the yute of today is not just one small reason among dozens. It's one of the top three, at the very least.
One of the other top three is certainly the creeping nanny state that is arguably somewhat politically neutral in essence. Both George Bush and Nancy Pelosi have expanded the state. The state has been expanding since George Washington. There is not a democracy on earth that isn't constantly growing, regulating, and increasing its reach. The growth of government would appear to be something that is a separate phenomenon from party, although some parties, of course, stump for it much more than others. The dependency and entitlement-mindedness that big government (of any party) produces is a phenomenon that the Democrats having understood and run with. They did not produce it on their own (although FDR and Johnson, and now Obama, certainly played large parts). But they have ramped it up. Same with Marxism. Progressives didn't invent our human affinity for having too much heaven on our minds, for class warfare, for blame-shifting, for prevaricating, for language-smooshing, and other Orwellian and cult-like stuff. But they have made a successful political movement out of it. But you're the one who believes in free will more than I do, and yet you keep putting things down to "culture" as if we had little or no choice in the matter. And here I'm the one stumping for not being so fatalistic and for being proactive and to not accept blindly the ocean of PC and Progressive ideas we now find ourselves in, including the fact of the heavy Marxist/socialist/Progressive influence in academia to the expense of not just good old American founding fathers ideals, but sometimes any other ideals at all. They have a hegemony in many places and too often it is because people like you, with their hearts in the right place, have been unwilling to admit the free choices involved in creating any kind of academic curriculum. It does absolutely no good to just sit back and see academia running amok in Marxist theory and saying that's just a product of the culture. No, it's the product of a lot of people choosing to teach this stuff and not other stuff.
Let's be realistic here and not fall into that trap of just laughing all this stuff off. Remember, several members of The United States Congress just flew down to Cuba and had glowing reports for Castro and his Communist way of life. They thought it was something the United States should emulate. As absurd as it is (and I agree that it is), the left really does revere this sort of stuff. It is indeed laughable, and it is a credit to the sanity of people to think that, of course, this is all just Che chic and nobody really believes it. But they do. Read some more Lenin. You will hear the voice of Nancy Pelosi in that stuff. It's eery.
Yep, I guess there is no such thing as free will. It all just happens "organically." We have no choice in the matter. None of this stuff is about decisions people have made, whether in the media or academia, about what the truth is. Granted, there are leaders and there are followers, and for many of the followers, they do indeed just seem to pick up this stuff organically. But there are also leaders stumping for ideas who are not cows but are leaders making self-conscious choices. If we sit back and see this all as some kind of organic process (although part of it surely is), we miss the most obvious thing and that is that unless we lead for Founding Father principles, none of this stuff will end up in the organic soup. |
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Master Baiter |
NOW we're getting somewhere. With that I totally agree. But it's a question of battling and changing that mindset. And it's not about creating fake opponents and villains... it's about looking the REAL evil in the face. And the real evil right now is IN the culture. IN that mindset. Ah, finally, dawn breaks over Marblehead. The crying' shame is indeed the cryin' shame. But you don't fight that, by creating those smoke filled rooms. That's just compounding the whole reality distortion with ANOTHER reality distortion. It's demonizing the demonizers, and I think it's really the job of the truth-tellers and skeptics of this world to not fall into those traps. I mean Christ, there's enough REAL evidence for how some of these cons work, to dismantle them with a few fucking SENTENCES. I'm not for giving these leftists more power and credit than they deserve. OK, if some wide-eyed granola armhair teacher got her kids to write anti-war protest letters, fine. It's fucking America. But that's EASILY countered. And like I said, all it would take is little Jimmy saying his Daddy is fighting for freedom over there, and he would rather write a letter THANKING the soldiers. Boom. That teacher's thunder would be stolen in a HEARTBEAT. That's actually the GREAT thing about the whole leftist cultural morass... basically, it's all counterintuitive and a con that's easily blown. It doesn't take much effort to see that Obama is the teleprompter king. A faux pas like the jumbo jet buzzing the NY skyline is EASY to pipe up and make a stink about. Because it bespeaks a WRONGNESS OF INTENT. To follow that: Oh, absolutely it is. It's not only a racist notion, it's a noxious and unamerican racist notion. It causes more racial disharmony and cultural victimization than it EVER raises up the disadvantaged or disenfranchised. Why? Because true to form, the left tries to palm off VOCABULARY and lip service as real change or effort. Which it's not. Because they take the easy way... it's easy to combat that. You can blow apart white guilt with a few examples. The evidence is there. You can expose white guilt types as racists by asking them maybe three questions. One of which is something like, what have you REALLY ever done to work towards civil rights or racial equality, beyond feeling guilty and talking about it? The answer would be something like, uh, well, I gave a black guy change in the subway once! Whoop de do. That's the left right there. A small verbal or insignificant gesture makes them think they're Martin Luther King. When in REALITY, what they did was perpetuate a problem like panhandling. You know how I feel about all the talk that's under the heading "empowerment"... it's ANOTHER case where the word is the total fucking OPPOSITE of what the reality is. And that is, STEALING your countryman's power, by placing yourself on a promontory far above him or her. That's evil. And yet it comes in the guise of do-gooding. If liberal democrats really could step back and see the EVIL they cause, the heartbreak and soul-sucking shit they bring about... BY THEIR ARROGANCE and superior attitudes and phoniness... they'd be more than white guilty. Shame on them. They should be human RIGHTS guilty. Because what they are doing, is eroding human rights. They're making power grabs. They're gaming the constitution. All in the NAME of some bullshit that sounds like equality, when it's anything but.
Right on, man. Right on. It is a fucking bottomless maw. And Political Correctness, being the most effective squelching tactic there is, keeps people from giving it a crack on the snout. PC is emotional and verbal blackmail. It's extortion. Look at how hard it is to combat. If you don't believe me, try using a politically INCORRECT term in polite company, rather than the PC-approved vocabulary. You'll get clucks and tsks and outright hostility. Because once again, the offense against words is running cover for actually doing anything. These people feel like they're fighting racism if they can get people to BOW to their vocabulary... they get all aglow if you say "african american" rather than black. As if they just MLK'd you. When all it REALLY was, was that they won a battle of wills... and they got you to kneel to their magic word-powers. This is why I think politically incorrect people (like us) are heroes. They shock people back to reality. They show that the damage to your fellow man is NOT in any way related to what you call them behind their backs. But what you DO as a citizen and a human being. Sorry, but being a white upper middle-class couple with dual pony tails, going to a meeting and eating expensive sushi and listening to Enya while you click your tongue at the plight of the black man, is not doing anything but painting you as a white supremacist. Seriously. To me, those kind of hippy dippy activist idiots are no better than skinheads, it's just that they show their racism with phony do-goodery and peace and love instead of anger and violence. But it's the same beast. It's just passive aggression rather than aggression. Signing your name to a petition is not doing anything. Doing things FOR people is nice, but even that is not always solving problems. For example, feeding somebody will get them through the day, but you're not helping them feed themselves. And if you promise them food EVERY day, and support them, all you're doing is creating dependence rather than independence. Sometimes, it's like giving a junkie heroin, because you don't want to see them suffer withdrawl. Your charity helps them over one hump, but the act is evil because you are contributing to the real problem, which is the addiction. And yet, helping somebody get OFF smack, is a full time job. Helping somebody kick booze or crack... helping them get marketable skills so they can get a job... all that crap is only going to work if the person WANTS to contribute to their own destiny and improving their own life. There will NEVER, ever, ever be a shortage of broken, empty, hollow people who NEED. And I mean need EVERYTHING. Who seem totally incapable of lifting even a little finger towards the end of their own salvation. They'll certainly APPRECIATE your charity. They'll eat food you give them, wear clothes you donate. Accept skills you try to install in them. But you have done nothing whatsoever to attack the cancer that's caused them to give up and FEEL WORTHLESS. You're alleviating symptoms rather than curing disease. To see it another way, you are actually causing HARM, perpetuating dependence. Now maybe you can't find the magic that CREATES independence. But it's probably more about working and free markets and making your own way than it is about believing you are a victim by fools who NEED you to believe that. Now, the way the left works, is that they take our natural inclination toward this kind of COMPASSION. At the true and generous spirit of the people who want to help... and they twist and convert it for their own personal power gains. That's pure concentrated evil right there, boys. No doubt about it. That's the con. That's how these guys can get away with doing HARM... they simply CALL it compassion. And like I just said, they will never, ever, ever run out of fodder. There will always be a broken and battered victim class, because human nature has that give-up thing going on. But thankfully, it also has that "can-do" "pull myself up by the bootstraps" thing too. If they could figure out how to unleash it, with a pill or something, it would be great. But right now, the only way to unleash it, is for a person, the individual, to CHOOSE it. And then just fucking not give up. To fight, fight, fight, take a pounding and keep getting up, brushing yourself off, and keep working at it. The American dream is there, but it's not served up on a silver platter. The stuff they serve on the silver platters of this world is poison. Soul-destroying poison. And there's a catch. Your obedience. The great thing about the Conservative philosophy is that the ONE thing they can boast, is that they know poison from foie gras. And they know the poison is related to big government. They know they can't cure everyone, and they know that if they hope to help ANYONE, I mean really help them and not feed into any dysfunction, it's not going to be through government. Government can't even help all the people who REALLY need help, like the elderly with no one, the really sick, the orphans, the veterans crippled by war. To also ask them to support people who but for some psychological block in their heads, could be supporting themselves, ain't right. And yet these exact people are what fuels the leftist tide. The whole thing seems mentally defective, because that's who it's designed to cater to. That it's HALF, more than half of our nation now... is really scary. |
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Mockerator |
This is the complete, unadulterated truth. Yeah, image-crafting is a part of life. You put on airs to run your business and attract clients. You dress up and act a certain way to attract chicks. This stuff is a big, undeniable part of life. But, Jesus, the only place you see image-crafting to this extent is among people who see life as nothing but a process of manipulating people. And that's what we've got. |
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Mockerator |
These are the kinds of events that David Horowitz documents in his various books and articles. This is liberal fascism on campus. It's common and becoming more so.
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Mockerator |
I swear, I must be Thomas Sowell's bastard son (and would be quite proud of that heritage). When he said the following in his latest article, I thought I was looking at my own writing:
Maybe Thomas has been browsing thalo.net. He could do worse. |
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Mockerator |
More narcissism. But first a caveat: I do not in the least think it is a bad thing for each generation to want to do a little better than the one before it. This idea of "cure America of its sense of economic privilege" that you'll read in the quote below is straight out of the Marxist/Progressive hate-America playbook. We shouldn't fall for that. Our way of life is the template for the way out of poverty and anarchy for poor third-world countries. The direction of true progress is not letting go of our expectations that things will get better. What we need to let go of is our expectations that things will automatically get better merely if we ball up our fists and cry like a bunch of babies because everything under the sun isn't free. You have to earnnnnnnn progress, as John Houseman might say. That said, there's a lot of truth in the following statement from this article:
I think there is narcissism galore out there, including in our idiot president (truly....everyone keeps calling him intelligent, but if you can only make your way in this world by reading off a teleprompter, how smart can you be?) But I will not mindlessly bash self-esteem or confidence in the sense of using self-esteem or confidence as a stand-in for the idea of improvement and expecting more out of life. The alternative to improvement is a very pessimistic and awful vision. It's the vision given by the environ-mentalists who are constantly telling us we are living beyond our means and, I guess, that we should take up the low-impact way of life of the Sudanese and all live in grass huts. This idea that low-tech lifestyles means lower-impact on the environment is another pernicious leftist myth, of course, another in a long line of leftist myths. The reality is that low-technology is a big polluter. High technology and high civilization is the answer to living in great numbers (or low numbers) comfortably and with relatively low levels of pollution. I doubt it will happen since nobody listens to Brother Brad, but it's a very bad thing if this idiotic idea grabs hold in the culture that it's a good thing to do with less and a bad thing to expect more, that to want more is merely self-esteem-run-wild. This plays right into the hands of the socialists who can gain great mileage from this idea of doing with less because their form of government can only ever bring shortages and degradation anyway. It is good to want more out of life and you are a Red Commie Bastard (or at the very least a useful idiot) if you go around espousing the virtues of being dirt poor like those in Somalia. Our way of life has taken broadside after broadside from the whacko left. It's time to set the record straight. Our hi-tech way of life is the answer for ourselves and this planet. Taxing us into oblivion and squelching innovation with such voodoo economic policies as "cap-and-trade" is about the stupidest thing we could do. The ethic of wanting and expecting less is a proposition for losers and socialists, although both are basically one and the same. The narcissism of today is expecting things without having to work for it. I doubt our indulgence in superficial things regarding our appearance and status has every been much lower than it is today. And perhaps narcissism really isn't the right word. "Cry-babyism" I think fits better. We're a bunch of big spoiled babies who expect everything to be handed to us on a silver platter. That's not technically narcissism. That's the entitlement-mentality or princess-and-the-pea-ism. But I don't think it's narcissism. Whatever the case may be, look for the left to use this idea of doing with less to political advantage as they continue chip away at our mental health with their bogus ideas, practices, and methods. The cure for what ails us is to vote these assholes out of office and then get on with our own lives not expecting Washington DC to have every answer. How long can it be until Thomas Sowell uses "asshole" in one of his articles? I'll be watching and waiting. |
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Mockerator |
A great turn of phrase from a very good summing-up article.
Obama's Kindness to the Cruel by Victor Sharpe
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Mockerator |
A very interesting take on the school choice question:
Demand, Not Supply Drives Educational Achievement by Robert Weissberg
That, and the rest of the article, don't paint of pretty picture. Even when free tutoring was offered by the "No Child Left Behind" program, few accepted it. There would not appear to be, as Weissberg says, a great demand for a better education. I guess my one critique of his analysis is that as soon as you allow competition into the system, you'll get innovation. And that could be attractive to parents, for school itself is different from just tutoring. Those who reject extra schooling might not reject good schooling to begin with if given a choice. And if many parents are apathetic, it may be because trying to change anything in state-run schools is like beating your head against the wall. |
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Mockerator |
Here's a follow-up article on the fascist liberal mob at North Carolina.
How to Silence an Unruly Mob of Campus Radicals by Jay Schalin
That's what's known as "criminalizing political disagreements." We see that now as our idiot president and his administration prepare to go after the lawyers who gave legal opinions regarding waterboarding and such. It's not enough for these fascists to simply win an election and institute their own policies. And note, I do not use the word "fascist" as a throw-away word. What else could you call such behavior? |
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THALO.net divinity |
I don't know if you noticed but the most beautiful thing about that whole video was at the end. There was an old couple filmed leaving the room were the meeting had been taking place. At the very end you can see them go right through all the morons holding the banner and chanting.
Those old people parted them like the Red Sea. |
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Master Baiter |
Amazing.
Oh my sweet mercy do I hate squelching. I had the tricorn on, I had the musket ram-rodded and ready... I buckled up my shoes. I unfurled my "Don't Tread On Me" flag. Rat bastards. Come get some. |
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Mockerator |
Imagine Brother Brad standing up at the next Terrorist Tea Party meeting and saying this (keep in mind my earlier comments about the previous Terrorist Tea Party which I thought was way too bureaucratic and top-down):
Democracy is not a multi-level marketing program where the aim is to rope in as many people in as you can, building an organization for the sake of the organization and the organizers. As fun as it can be to run a big, exciting adult version of a kid's clubhouse, American self-government is about more than just increasing the size of your mailing list. It's about ideas and increasing the understanding and relevance of these ideas. And then I walk out while saying something like "I'll be at thalo.net if you want to talk ideas." I'm not sure if I'm going to attend the next Terrorist Tea Party meeting. I feel I can accomplish more by reading a bit of Sowell, Horowitz, or Goldberg than by getting involved in a group which I think is much too namby-pamby. "But, Brad, you have to start somewhere. Must everything be held to a liberal-like standard of perfection? How are you any better than these Progressives flakes who, as the saying goes, make perfect the enemy of good?" Good question, Inner Conscience. Perhaps for some people, sitting on hard metal chairs for an hour and a half and listening to how somebody has plans to increase the polling capabilities of their organization's web site is the way to go. But I'm having trouble with that. I'm also having trouble with the extreme namby-pambyness of it. However the culture got to be the way that it is, it has enfeebled the conservative cause -- but only if we buy into that left's way of thinking. I find that people typically worry more about being polite than right. I find the subtext of nearly every statement to be a defensive "don't get me wrong." It's as if people are being held hostage. But by being namby pamby, instead of confident and bold, they're playing directly into the hands of what Jonah Goldberg calls "friendly fascism." Playing namby pamby is accepting the ground rules and presuppositions of the left. The left may scream and rage as they like, but conservatives must remain on their best of behavior in order to dodge accusations of being racists, like you saw from those whacko protesters at North Carolina. Screw that. It's time to come out from under our combined political Stockholm Syndrome and stop sucking up to our captors. I guess I'd include the above in that speech as well. But I think it would tend to ping off the skulls of the organizers. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should step up and say the above, or at least write them. But I haven't heard back regarding my earlier comments so I think I'm dealing with an organization that basically is built on McCainism, not Founding Fatherism. |
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Mockerator |
I think I'm going to eventually read Michael Medved's The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortion About Our Nation. It's not like I don't know what some of those lies are. But to do just what you say, to battle the existing cultural mindset, is going to take a very good familiarity with the lies. One needs to know the lies and the truth. You have to know what the other side is holding as presuppositions. The other side generally isn't going to come out and tell you what those presuppositions are, at least not in so many words. (In many cases they don't know. They've just been mindlessly absorbed like so many cows eating the grass.) But these presuppositions color the way they think. Some actually do come out and say what they are. In that sense, Bill Ayers is an honest fellow. But most don't. You have to deal with the aftermath of the lies. And thus it's very very easy to do little but argue past one another. One review (or perhaps it is an excerpt) of Medved's book says:
Medved is a practicing Jew, but he even buys into this "Christian nation" thing. You can't swing a dead cat in the conservative book club world without hearing this. But if the Founders had intended this to be a Christian nation, wouldn't Jesus' name been in the Constitution somewhere? But most of his myth-busting is spot-on.
Who's for creating a smoke-filled room? I'm for getting all this out in the open and coming at it forthrightly from the heights of a soapbox.
Yes, let's then easily counter it with the truth. And although it's a fine scenario when some third-grader bucks the propaganda coming from their Progressive/Marxist teacher, that's a lot to ask of an eight-year-old. It shouldn't be incumbent on them to be the adults because the adults are too afraid or too confused to stand up for what is right. What we need are adults, not just children, to stand up and write that heartfelt letter that runs counter to Progressive delusions. We need to look these people in the eye and not blink.
LOL. That's it in a nutshell. One of the things that Brother Jonah really nails about Progressives (and Communists, fascists, and socialists as well) is how all-important symbols are to them. For a conservative, at least theoretically, it's doesn't matter that you have all the bleeding-heart intentions in the world if it doesn't lead to actual improvement. (And this is why the flag burning issue is such a sell-out of conservative principles.) To Progressives, symbology is everything and is far more important than actual results. They love their symbols, icons, posters, and slogans. At times it would seem they would have nothing and be nothing without them. For them, the loftiness of their visions is encapsulated in their symbols. Theirs is a larger cause; one that cannot be judged by the usual standards. Besides, for the leftist vision to be realized, a great deal of tearing down of existing structures will have to be done, and this will always lead to short-term pain. This idea of short-term pain is one of the top three delusions of the left. It helps to keep them deluded. It helps them to remain disconnected from logic and cause-and-effect (as well as from them being judged by their actual results). And it feeds their high-minded and often grandiose over-estimation of their own exalted sense of righteousness and infallibility. And with this mindset, actual hard data is boring, while grand symbols of the Utopia-to-come fire the imagination and give at least mental substance to their visions. And the left is addicted to visions, not the nuts-and-bolts reality of actually plowing rows, tightening bolts, and constructing a better world. They have too much heaven on their minds, an affliction that is no better when played out in a theocracy rather than a statist cult.
LOL. Yes. And if I were to open a Liberal Deprogramming business (I think there are people out there who specialize in deprogramming Moonies and other cultists, for example), it would consist of getting the victims to say the following things, as hard as it would be for them to do so: 1) America is a good country 2) White people are not guilty just because they are white 3) "People of color" are not good people just because they are not white people 4) Women are different from men There would then be a short break in the deprogramming session as I applied a handkerchief to my bloody nose. That last one caused quite a reaction in the subject. And then we would continue: 5) Quotas are inherently racist 6) Enforcing the laws of this country equally and without prejudice to race or sex is not a secret means to institute white male favoritism Another break is needed, for the subject just stabbed a pen into my arm and I'm bleeding profusely. Back in a moment...okay. A few more points: 7) The Constitution is not a "living document" any more than the legal contract you may sign with your mortgage company is a "living document." And that's a good thing or else they might decide that you don't own your house anymore. 8) America is the beacon for freedom in the world, not an oppressor. 9) Joseph Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Che, Hitler, and Pol Pot were all evil leftists. Excuse me for a moment while I bandage my shin. Okay... 10) Appeasing dictators and other thugs is not a sign that you are so enlightened, so good, and so gosh-darnit likable that you can see farther than those Troglodyte warmongering conservatives. It means you're a rube and a useful idiot. That's probably all they -- or I -- could take for this first session.
Another good example of symbolism over substance. It's also another example of the powerful propensity of humans to rationalize and delude themselves. Instead of standing up to someone and saying "Hey, I thought MLK said it was the content of our character that counted, not our skin color?" They will instead do a cowardly belly-roll, take the path of least resistance, and simply go along to get along. And they call this "good." But it's ultimately cowardly. And if it's not cowardly, it is at the very least Scientologist-like.
I agree. The actual result of Democratic liberal policies since the initial civil rights movement has been to decrease the living standard of the black man. (And the gains that have been made have been largely the result of a rising middle class due to freedom and the free market -- a middle class that both Barack Obama and Pastor Wright sneer at). What you have going on is just a modern version of the arrogant white man lording over the black man. That he can get the black man to believe that he has his best interests in mind is indeed a tragedy. And black people need to come out from under the umbrella of white liberal condescending paternity and start rejecting the myths of both stupid white liberal people and sycophantic radical black leaders such as Jesse Jackson. But so long as they don't, and so long as lazy, self-exultant liberal white people can feel good about doing little more than spreading their liberal myths, both parties will stay in what amounts to a different kind of plantation. The actual gains for black people come when schools are improved, when the streets are safe, when there is a vibrant job market (which is helped by lower taxes and a smaller government), when dependency-inducing programs such as welfare are eliminated, when attitudes such as "getting an education is acting white" are replaced with a healthy realization that working hard and becoming educated are universal attributes independent of race, and not least of all when they have children *in* wedlock, as statistics overwhelmingly support. But stupid white liberal people are either too stupid, too cowardly, or too desirous to maintain their political power over black people to deal with these facts.
This is a good outline of a conservative, classical liberal, or libertarian attitude toward what is true compassion instead of weak-white-guilt condescending compassion. If you want to help people then help them help themselves. Don't hook them on your do-gooder-ism. Don't make them dependent on you or government rather than themselves. This message is lost on most liberals.
Yes, that is the con. That is the harm. And many stupid white liberals are too infused with the liberal myths to see things any other way.
It's truly absurd that anyone should actually have to bother to make this case, but we do. It's been so ingrained in too many people that if life presents challenges that this therefore means somebody somewhere has fucked up. Liberals make it extremely easy and advantageous for people to blame-shift instead of just pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps which is ultimately the only thing that works.
LOL. Well, that's pure Reaganism right there. Could have come out of Ronnie's mouth. Orwell would surely agree as well. That is, in a nutshell, what the division between left and right is all about.
I do believe that most help that really helps does not come through government. Public schools are government, and they certainly help people. But we should remember why public schools help people. They help people because they are educating them. And by educating people, we are making them self-sufficient (that is, when we're not indoctrinating them into Marxism). But most other government programs, with a few exceptions, simply aid in making people dependent. Conservatism is not about never pooling our resources to do together what the individual could not and should not do for him or herself. The individual should not have to build a Federal highway system, for example. But this idea of pooling resources and doing what the individual cannot do for himself is perverted when you have the liberal conception of people that we are all helpless morons who need rescuing. And with this prejudice in effect, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy as liberal policies do little but dumb-down things and produce dependency. And this may work wonders for gaining and holding power. But stupid white liberal people have to eventually honestly ask themselves if these policies are really helping. The few honest ones will say "no." |
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