.....I really do wish you would treat each of us here as individuals, not a cartoon cut out.Anyway continue on with your low IQ red-team, blue-team sports.
Red Baaaaaaaaaasaaaaad!
Such is the state of our nation.
We scream at — and past — each other when we subscribe to opposing ideologies.
The discussion goes this way....
"I'm right!" screams one commenter.
"No! I'm right!" screams the other commenter.
Sheesh.
What grade level are these exchanges? There are multiple such exchanges to almost every blog post.
Are we Americans losing the ability to think and to engage in reasoned debate?
Shortcuts are easy.
ReplyDelete"You're a rightwinger, so I'm going to attack you for what Tucker Carlson said last night!"
Boring
"You're a rightwinger, so I'm going to attack you for what Tucker Carlson said last night!"
DeleteNo, not quite. In our continued back and forth of accusing each other of kool aid guzzling, it's more of me calling you out for helping the propaganda machine promote their deceitful and self serving agenda.
In their efforts of discrediting and defunding the policing of the wealthy and powerful, you were there. When it was turning tax collections of the wealthy into a taxation on the middle class, you obliged. When they told you the veterans bill was prisoned, you sold it too (albeit forced to backtrack). 87000 jackboots to go after middle class tax payers? Sure. That Biden had mental issues and wanted to defund police (although you've seemed to have backed off those lately)? That while election deniers are nuts, something's still amiss about Biden being legitimately elected?
I could go on and on with you being a water totter for the "latest and greatest" of the week but consider my most recent comment to you pertaining to the Mar-a-Lago warrant.
Trump uses the same play book basically saying: "Okay, you know the gig, I'm the victim, We've been though this so you know. I did nothing wrong, it's a witch hunt and I'm being picked on. Got it? I'm the victim."
Tucker and team goes to work.
Obediently, you said:
"I don't like Donald Trump but I also don't like the bald-faced abuse of power, authority and institutions people in power are wielding to hound him."
I'm not attacking you for what the propaganda machine is telling you. I'm pointing out how full of shit they are and questioning your allegiance to them-even when you know they're full of shit.
Good grief!
DeleteRon is a "policeman" of the wealthy and powerful... @@
DeleteQuis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch "Ron" the cop?
DeleteLet's all embrace the 87,000 new IRS jackboots... after all, they apologized for past abuses.
DeleteBesides, when the digital dollar hits, who's going to ensure that no one is illegally sending money to the Canadian Truckers protesting forced vaccinations? Not the current IRS bureaucracy!
DeleteIt's no "abuse of power" pShaw!
DeleteBesides, we've bigger fish to fry, like the new leading cause of death since the recent pandemic. It's SUCH a "mystery".....
DeleteRonald,
DeleteHere's a pro tip. Your comments would actually carry some weight, if you could back them up with actual fact.
The one quote you pull from my comments, actually demonstrates that I do not simply lap up the propaganda, like you do.
The best thing you can do is juxtapose. Juxtaposition can be very revelatory.
DeleteFor example, serving a search warrant with probable cause established for over a year and after months and months of subpoenas is a total weaponization of law enforcement against political enemies (who knew Trump appointed his enemies to run the FBI?) but attempts to get the FCF to stop Saturday Night Live from making fun of Trump are of course legitimate law enforcement. Same with the search warrant being a "fishing expedition," but over five dozen court challenges of the 2020 Presidential election results without even the smell of a shred of evidence is not. A court ordered search of a home to retrieve classified documents is a "raid" and banana republic lawlessness, a frenzy mob of violent partisans ransacking the Capitol is just tourism.
If Trump supporters were capable of emitting intelligible noises, they would have evolved the ability by sheer volume and accident by now.
What you see is what you get.
...whiney neocons?
DeleteWeird. You don"t seem like a neocon to me.
Delete...just admiring some juxtapositioning.
Delete...whilst trying to understand what an "intelligible" noise from neocon would sound like.
DeleteMaster shapes and colors first?
DeletePlato, "Philebus" Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures.
DeleteBesides, I'd rather wish to avoid your dellrium... ;)
Delete"We've got him this time!" part LXXIV
DeleteMichael Foucault, "The Order of Things (Preface)
DeleteThis book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought — our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography — breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a “certain Chinese encyclopedia” in which it is written that “animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off” look like flies”. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.
But what is it impossible to think, and what kind of impossibility are we faced with here? Each of these strange categories can be assigned a precise meaning and a demonstrable content; some of them do certainly involve fantastic entities — fabulous animals or sirens — but, precisely because it puts them into categories of their own, the Chinese encyclopedia localizes their powers of contagion; it distinguishes carefully between the very real animals (those that are frenzied or have just broken the water pitcher) and those that reside solely in the realm of imagination. The possibility of dangerous mixtures has been exorcized, heraldry and fable have been relegated to their own exalted peaks: no inconceivable amphibious maidens, no clawed wings, no disgusting, squamous epidermis, none of those polymorphous and demoniacal faces, no creatures breathing fire. The quality of monstrosity here does not affect any real body, nor does it produce modifications of any kind in the bestiary of the imagination; it does not lurk in the depths of any strange power. It would not even be present at all in this classification had it not insinuated itself into the empty space, the interstitial blanks separating all these entities from one another. It is not the “fabulous” animals that are impossible, since they are designated as such, but the narrowness of the distance separating them from (and juxtaposing them to) the stray dogs, or the animals that from a long way off look like flies. What transgresses the boundaries of all imagination, of all possible thought, is simply that alphabetical series (a, b, c, d) which links each of those categories to all the others.
Are you a Chinese encyclopediast, beamish?
DeleteCuz you've described a veritable heterotopia.
DeleteNah. I just don't find your whining to be particularly or even neoconservative at all.
DeleteBut it is whining.
You'd be the expert on neocons.
Delete...the SoJus of conservatism.
DeleteMeh. I just don't find the term "neoconservative" to be a slur, or at least the slur you think it is.
DeleteBut you see a Trotskyite where I see Jeane Kirkpatrick and Reagan's foreign policy team. You really gotta squint to find the overlap, and you seem to act like the microscopic overlap is all that exists.
What grade level are these exchanges? There are multiple such exchanges to almost every blog post.
ReplyDeleteWharton School of Business?
How candid of you to admit you take your unhinged ranting style from Donald Trump.
DeleteSF,
DeleteLOL!
TC. Your Trump impersonation is spot on! Lol 🤣
DeleteNah. His Beamish' impersonation is flattering though.
DeletePolitical debate should be much more than Team A v. Team B pablum. Too many on each side have been conditioned over time (accelerated by social media), to become witting, shallow sycophants to their party or their chosen icon.
ReplyDeleteThat debate can surely be spirited and raucous though....as it should be, when false narratives and strawmen are the currency of either side.
What I find most boring, is the 'liberal' misuse of of political labels....from actual philosophies (communist/fascist) to invented pejoratives (rhino/woke)....applied reflexively in a sad attempt to score cheap points, instead of debating the merits of a disagreement.
Yep. Agree. Thinking is hard.
DeleteWhat else would you expect. We've all become alienated from the hyper-corporate capitalism in control of our society (of control). The only area's where we still have a chance of competing against automation are in the "gig" economy, and even their the "Ap" developers have managed to steal the 'surplus'.
ReplyDeleteIt's not going to get better until the game stops being rigged (gov tax/spend) to favor "bigness".
And no, democrats do nothing for the proletariate but throw alms from their limousines (ala Eva Peron).
We've become alienated from the political hyper-reality of scandals and personalities that distract via the 24/7 "news" cycle from the real issues and policies in DC that could improve life for the vast majority of American citizens.
DeleteWhile the rest of us remain distracted, corporations use DC politicians to battle for market shares, tax breaks, and government subsidies and set-asides.
Panem et circenses
DeleteThe "alienated youth" of the 60's have passed the baton of "leadership" to the Big Tech tycoons who sell us the cheapest mirrors and lights for our scooters.
Delete..and unaccountable government bureaucrats now select winners and losers in the corporate wars whilst they direct the leaks and distraction that fuel the hyper-real 24/7 news cycle distractions.
Delete:P
Delete...whilst the rest of of lazily "dream" in the arms of the culture industry
DeleteFarmer, our friends on the left will not get it on
Deleteabuse of power until the Republicans take over everything and start using the same awesome government power to beat up, persecute, and prosecute Democrats. Unfortunately, that is what it will take for them to wake up.
To be fair, the establishment grossly abused its power against enemies on the left pre 1970s
To be fair, obviously not enough... as we see that they've now achieved dominance through entryism.
Deletebtw - have you seen Victor David Hanson's latest?
DeleteYup. Another bullseye by VDH. Unfortunately the left half of the country have their fingers in their ears and their eyes closed, shouting LALALALALALALA I'm not listening!
DeleteBTW, at first I thought this was a picture of Gen Milley
...a brother from another mother?
DeleteAnd always we blame it on everything except ourselves. "It's because the other side is bad. It's the media." Not one comment has yet or, I would venture to bet, will appear to the effect of, "Yeah, I need to quit the Twitter culture and start thinking rationally." It's why I no longer spend any time here. I just scan through a topic, see that it's the usual mud slingers, and leave.
ReplyDeleteYou sound excessively grouchy. Yes, we have some boiler plate spewers here, but I think we also have many thoughtful commenters.
DeleteYou should see the boilerplate spam bot crap we delete.
This is an excessively nasty time to blog. The runup to every election, midterm or otherwise, is nasty, but this runup is hideous. It's only going to get worse!
DeleteIs it going to be worse than contesting the legitimate election results with nuisance lawsuits, attempted faking of slates of electors, and incited mob violence and feckless calls for civil war from the losing side?
DeleteFrom where I'm sitting as a voter in the last 34 years of election cycles we've gone from rejecting candidates that claim their opponent will make your grandmother eat dog food to rejecting candidates who fantasize about gearing up with armor and machine guns to kick in doors and bag and tag members of their own political party. Thankfully it remains an unrealized horror what such self-refuting barbarian candidates would have done to their opponent's families; we already know what they did to their own.
Garbage in, garbage out. The filter of the civic-minded voter is clogged, but still barely functioning. Hopefully it will continue to function until people stop waking up and choosing violence and immaturity.
Makes ya wanna put on a gas mask.... ;)
DeleteTC, I agree. That political ad was horrible, and the man given his background should have known better. Glad he lost the primary.
DeleteIndeed. But, disturbingly, he placed in a higher rung in the race than he should have in a spread of candidates, even with a Trump-pardoned idiot that actually did brandish a real AR-15 at real people in real life being the last place biggest loser. There's at least some faith in the primary election system to derive here in America's allegedly most right-wing conservative state.
DeleteRepublican garbage tier candidates are going to lose badly to Democrats in Senate races across the country this November.
...but here in Missouri, that trainwreck won't happen.
DeleteIt remains to be seen how the Trumpenproletariat will come to terms with this entirely predictable loss. Either the Republican Party will purge itself of this filth, or the American people will.
DeleteAOW asked... "Are we Americans losing the ability to think and to engage in reasoned debate?"
ReplyDeleteI doubt we've lost that ability. But I do think we've decided to not use that ability.
Perhaps out of frustration, anger, despair or a host of reasons. Your post reminds me of Silver's a while back on Charity and Empathy.
I think as it regards ppl being called, or feeling like "cardboard cut outs", we all need, myself included, to take a step back and not impute bad motives on ppl with whom we disagree.
At least as a first step.
Do the coastal elites even think us "capable" of debate?
Deletefrom VDH's latest essay re: "cardboard cutouts"
So, the problem was one of both geography and class. Half the country looked to Asia and Europe for profits and indeed cultural “diversity,” while the other half stuck with tradition, values, and custom—as they became poorer.
The elite found in the truly poor—neglecting their old union-member, blue-collar Democratic base—an outlet for their guilt, noblesse oblige, condescension at a safe distance, call it what you will. The poor if kept distant were fetishized, while the middle class was demonized for lacking the taste of the professional classes, and romance of the far distant underclass.
Second, race became increasingly divorced from class—a phenomenon largely birthed by guilty, wealthy, white elites and privileged, diverse professionals. For the white bicoastal elite, it became a mark of their progressive fides to champion woke racialism that empowered the non-white of their own affluent class, while projecting their own discomfort with and fears of the nonwhite poor onto the middle class as supposed “racists,” despite the latter’s more frequently living among, marrying within, and associating with the “other.”
The net result was more privilege for the elite and wealthy nonwhites, more neglect of the inner-city needy, and more disdain for the supposedly illiberal clingers, dregs, deplorables, chumps, and irredeemables.
The results of these contortions were surreal. The twentysomething who coded a video game that went viral globally became a master of the universe, while the brilliant carpenter or electrical contractor was seen as hopelessly trapped in a world of muscular stasis. Oprah and LeBron James were victims. So were the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, Ilhan Omar, and the Obamas, while the struggling Ohio truck driver, the sergeant on the frontline in Afghanistan, and Indiana plant worker became their oppressors. Or so the progressive bicoastal elite instructed us.
Joe asked... "Do the coastal elites even think us "capable" of debate?"
DeleteSome do, I imagine some don't. Just like some of those "us" people don't consider the coastal elites capable of debate.
I live and travel in both worlds. From the far left to the far right. Never Trumpers to Trump is the best president ever and everywhere, at least politically, in between. From teetotalers to booze makers.
I've never met anyone incapable of debate and reasoned discussion. Just people who choose not to live that way.
But then I don't hang with the Lebrons, Maddows, Oprahs, Carlsons, Dobbs or Ingraham crowds either.
DeleteI have a feeling that the people you mentioned feel "very smart" and believe they already know all that they need to know. People without humility or self-doubts are people who can't be reasoned with.
DeleteLet me add something from David French, Bronze Star vet, JAG Lawyer, Christian commentator and former writer for National Review. I think it fits this discussion.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the current desire for anger in our political dialogue, since the majority of both major US political parties identify as Christians, French asks...
"How many times have we heard the claim that the “old rules” of civility and decency are simply inadequate for the times? That’s a core argument of the new right, for example. We tried decency, they say, and it didn’t work. Now is the time to punch back.
Yet that mindset is utterly antithetical to the Christian moral ethic. You’re not kind until kindness doesn’t work. You’re to be kind even through the most brutal acts of repression and in the face of complete political defeat.
In the face of the moral complexity and difficulty of the true Christian moral call, we’ve created a hierarchy of values. It’s not that we absolutely reject kindness or humility or decency. It’s not that we’re going to condemn the fruit of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—it’s just that they’re “secondary values.”
I wonder if he's accurate.
In the political arena, or in any debate setting, you can fight back quite forcefully, while still being polite about it. That is in important distinction
DeleteAre you familiar with Game Theory and the strategy commonly known as Tit-for-Tat? Perhaps you should model your Christian values against a player using Tit-for-Tat and then report back on the results.
Deletebtw - There is room for 'caritas' in a tit-for-tat exchange. But that 'caritas' only applies to players capable of displaying caritas themselves.
Deletebtw - You might wish to brush up on Nietzsche's 2nd Essay in his "Genealogy of Morals" on the historical development of men capable of keeping their word or Joseph de Maistre's "St. Petersburg Letter" on function of the Executioner in a "Catholic" society.... for there will never be heaven (utopia) on Earth.
DeleteThat's why for millenia, stable civil relations largely involved offsetting and countering power with power.
Delete:)
DeleteJoe stated... "Are you familiar with Game Theory and the strategy commonly known as Tit-for-Tat? Perhaps you should model your Christian values against a player using Tit-for-Tat and then report back on the results."
DeleteThe result shouldn't matter.
People hold and live Christian values not for the results in whatever series of game or "tit for tat" theories.
And therein lies the problem French brings forth in his article today.
Many people of faith today have essentially abandoned their Christian values and as such their faith when secular things didn't quite work out.
He contrasts the fungibility of many people claiming Christ today with the witness of many during the Civil Rights Era who strove to remain peaceful and respectful even as they were endured beatings, lynchings, firehoses and arrests.
Those people he writes, strove to live the life Micah calls us to live, no matter the consequences.
I have no gain theory for that, or the cross.
The result would be "Christianity" and Christian values.
DeleteMost "sane" people do not desire martyrdom. They are easily converted to Janissaries as the tactics of non-violence are only effective against societies with like empathy.
I am most definitely not a Christian.
And for the record, many members of the Civil Rights movement (or Gandhi's Indian Liberation Movement, for that matter) weren't Christians either. The "losers" in these liberation struggles were. Like Rome's "Constantine" (ala "Fall of Rome").
Joe, just for you:
DeleteKinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys
This should really spin up the stick up the ass progs who lurk here... ;-)
"Every Jew a .32"
DeleteDon't blame me. I am a member of the Hebrew National Space Laser Program
Context isn't a progs forte, sf. And I'm not sure what the HNSLP is, but I did work on some prototype Arrow radar seeker for IAI back in the early 90's. That was one hot bird.
DeleteHNSLF is my own portmanteau, based on Hebrew National franks
DeleteYou haven't seen this? Jewish Space Laser Program
Don't mess with Moses
Mazel Tough. They do have some brilliant engineers and scientists.
DeleteIndeed. And people who blame things on Jews, ascribe nefarious motives and actions to them, our bottom feeding scum bucket slime.
DeleteAre you familiar with Game Theory and the strategy commonly known as Tit-for-Tat? Perhaps you should model your Christian values against a player using Tit-for-Tat and then report back on the results.
DeleteI think it was the renowned pugilist Michael Tyson who once said "Everyone has a game plan until they're punched in the mouth."
Maximum brutality tends to turn bed sheets into surrender flags.
Another adage and counterpoint probably adapted from Sun Tzu... There is no one more lethal than someone that doesn't want to fight.
I hope the Penguin loses.
ReplyDeleteCan Anyone tell us why they support Progressives over sanity?
ReplyDeleteLebron James wants to know why America dosn’t have the “Back” of Brittney Griner in Russia!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it’s because we don’t have her back because she hates America!