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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
Tolerance... Diversity... Conformity...
What do these words mean in today's Western society? Yoram Hazony detects a "dogmatic utopianism" gripping the West, hostile to dissent, stifling freedom of expression, and threatening rational discourse.
"One of the most striking features of public life in contemporary America and Europe is the way that the Western nations are now afflicted by public-shaming campaigns and heresy hunts whose purpose is to stigmatize and render illegitimate one or another person or group of people, opinion or policy, that is perceived as having the ability to mount any kind of meaningful resistance to liberal doctrine.
[…]
"These increasingly insistent demands for conformity to a single universal standard in speech and religion are the predictable outcome of the transition away from the Protestant construction of the West, with its fundamental principle of national independence and self-determination.
"This principle, had, after all, mandated a diversity of constitutional and religious standpoints within the order of nation states, which entailed a toleration of profoundly divergent views:
"Catholics had to tolerate the existence of Protestant regimes, monarchists had to tolerate republican regimes, and rulers concerned with tightly regulating their subjects’ affairs had to tolerate regimes affording more extensive liberties — and in each case, the reverse was true as well. This formal grant of legitimacy to political and religious diversity among the nations then became the basis for the toleration of dissenting communities within the state as well."
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Has Western society become more tolerant over the past few decades? Or less?
A quick thought before I've finished my first cup of coffee...
ReplyDeleteWestern societies have become more tolerant of everything liberal (homosexuality, gender-identity, race including miscegenation -- to name only three areas), but less tolerant of anyone or any idea that dissents from the meme of the moment (i.e., victimology).
The West has been cleverly maneuvered into becoming TOLERANT –– even militantly SUPPORTIVE –– of Vice, Corruption, Deceit, Disloyalty, Depravity, Immorality, Dishonesty, Manipulativeness, Disobedience to and Disrespectfulness of Authority, Rudeness, Anti-Social Behavior, –– you name it –– with the correlative result that The West has now become shockingly INTOLERANT of all the VIRTUES that made it GREAT and POWERFUL.
DeleteMost countries do not teach their children that America is the greateat country on the planet. How can we be expected to reason with such backwardness?
ReplyDeleteWhy bother trying, TC? It would be like trying to "reason" with an alligator, a venomous snake about to strike, or a hungry grizzly bear headed for your campsite intending to make a tasty snack of you and your wife and children.
DeleteThere really ARE times when only an unstinting application of LETHAL FORCE could save you from a hideous fate. this is wh I remember Bernard Goetz with such admiration. He did NOT deserve to go to jail; instead he deserved a MEDAL at the very least.
Imperialists only seek to "dominate" their enemies. Totalitarians must also "destroy" them... break their will to oppose... make examples of destroying others (ala Brett Kavinaugh) to ensure future conformity.
ReplyDelete"Liberalism is the transformation of mankind into cattle." - Nietzsche
ReplyDeleteTOLERANCE?
ReplyDeleteAre you KIDDING?
Are you NUTS?
I'm so incensed at the vicious antics indulged in by the Left I can no longer listen to ANYTHING any of them might have to say. I either press the MUTE button, or else SWITCH over to the Home & Garden channel or a good old movie, Whenever one of the Leftist Thugs and Intellectual Morons turns up to face Tucker Carlson, or Laura Ingraham –– both of whom seem to have a penchant for staging scenes where everyone is so busy jumping down everyone else's throat that nothing at ALL can be heard but SHRIEKING, ROARING idiocy –– I turn OFF..
The Left has become so aggressive and blatantly disingenuous no DECENT person could POSSIBLY "tolerate" ANYTHING these vicious, disloyal, profoundly anti-Amrerican BIGOTS dish up in public discourse.
THEY have rendered themselves SO offensively incredible they don't DESERVE to be taken seriously anymore by ANY decent, right-thinking citizen.
IF President Trump is forced, because of the Persecution Mania he's had to endure, to fail in his valiant attempt to take us OFF the Collision Course on which we've been firmly fixed –– for DECADES ––, there may be no hope at all of either SURRENDERING UNCONDITIONALLY to TYRANNY, or going through fierce, bloody, utterly merciless CIVIL WAR where MILLIONS of men, women and CHILDREN will either DIE, be BLINDED, MAIMED, and plunged unto grinding POVERTY.
"Extremsm in defense of Liberty is no vice."
"Moderation in war is imbecility."
If you don't believe we are already IN a State of War with the Left, you need to have your head examined.
Who do you propose examine your head?
ReplyDeleteIf by any chance you were referring to me, TC, I have no worries in that regard because I take my orders directly from God who is, of course, infallible.
Delete¶:-)
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I merely point to the current state of phrenology and remind that the hammers and chisels to shape your head to spec are in leftist hands.
DeleteFortunately, I am old enough to have escaped that, TC. I may have been born just before Pearl Harbor –– hardly a time of peace and concord –– but it was a time when Americans knew who they were, knew what they stood for, and were –– with very few exceptions from what-was-then-called "The Lunatic Fringe" –– were patriotic and fiercely loyalty to our country.
DeleteThe adults of that era have not been called "The Greatest Generation" for nothing. They did not know that seeds of Cultural Marxism had been sown even before the FIRST World War, and had spawned a burgeoning army of moral and intellectutal degenerates, and warped spiritual TERMITES that would soon undermine the fundations of our society, and neutralize the effects of their great achievement in defeating the AXIS Powers. These nefarious forces managed to plunge us into the state of chaos, degeneracy and moral turpitude that has plagued and divided us into an increasng number of warring splinter factions since the early nineteen-SICK-sties.
Now, what-was-once "The Lunatic Fringe" has become The New Mainstream. The hideous results are what we are forced to live with today –– a country dominated by hatred rabidly tearing irself to shreds from within..
I guess I am comforted by the overwhelming majority of people who see no need to turn everything into the eschatological struggle over what color the guillotine should be.
DeleteA rather rambling and unfocused article.
ReplyDeleteWhen he quotes von Mises it would help if he provided context to determine if the quote was meant to endorse an "unconditional acceptance" of classical Lockean liberalism or something else entirely. The article rambles so that you wonder if he know.
Otherwise he harps on the usual right wing complaints, failure to define sexuality by an over a thousand year old tribal text, lack of universal support for the disastrous Iraq war and anti environmentalism among others.
There are also serious echoes of a desire for theocracy (so long as it's Judeo-Christian). Freedom. right?
As seen through a skewed duck's quack.
DeleteHis citation of Mises was a criticism of Mises' defense of classical liberalism (today interpreted as libertarianism).
And there you have it; yet another link between the philosophy associated with Islam, national socialism, and Marxism: submit or die, reinvented, of course, in 1917 and systematically implemented in small steps since the 1920s. In fact, I believe that progressive minded persons are incapable of thinking any differently than this: our way, or the gulag. The attack on the First Amendment has been not-so-cleverly disguised as an opposition to hate speech, even though hateful expression is exactly what the First Amendment seeks to protect. And, of course, we must do away with all guns so that only the government, which as we have seen is completely untrustworthy, are the only people with guns. I laugh every time one of the clowns, who receives round-the-clock protection from the secret service (armed with automatic weapons) complains about the common man having access to firearms. Thanks to idiots such as George W. Bush, we now have “secret courts” deciding who may be surveilled, writs founded on heresy and innuendo, and citizens hauled into court for being tricked into lying to the FBI. Could the left’s intentions become any clearer than this? Liberal utopianism is alive and well and one of their greatest instruments has been the deep-state.
DeleteSam H.
"... The attack on the First Amendment has been not-so-cleverly disguised as an opposition to hate speech, even though hateful expression is exactly what the First Amendment seeks to protect."
DeleteExactly right, Sam, and that is one of the reasons I so frequently indulge in colorful, overheated rhetoric deliberately calculated to "offend" leftists, because I know they have been immunized against bland sweet reasonableness.
I admit too to taking a probably sinful delight in giving bastards a dose of their own bitter-tacting, evil-smelling medicine. ]:^}>
I'm not sure I agree with your position on GuNS, however, only beause in practical terms there is no way citizens, either individually or in groups (well-organized militias? ;-), could defend themselves effectively against the arsenal of highly sophisticated, weaponry amassed by the GOVERNMENT which has militarized itself to fight against American Citizens at virtually ALL levels of government –– even LOCAL POLICE FORCES.
DeleteSo the argument there is moot –– or so I believe.
Franco, a little dog can't kill you either, but if he bares his fangs and growls when you approach, you back off.
DeleteAsk the Bundy's how useful weapons are against the government.
Granted, had Obama rolled in the 3rd ID, the Nevada and Oregon armed protests would have been crushed in 5 minutes, but an armed populace makes the government be more circumspect in their actions.
but an armed populace makes the government be more circumspect in their actions.
DeleteAmen. History has illustrated what an armed, nationalist citizenry can accomplish....even when we don't agree with their aims.
You are either prepared to fight, or to join the herd of sheep.
I understand your reasoning, Silver, and happen to be a bif fan of Cliven Bundy –– and many years ago Bernard Goetz, who shot and wounded part of circle of thugs who were about to attack him on a subway train. Goetz had been accosted and badly beaten at least twice before, so he armed himself –– ILLEGALLY –– as it just so happened, –– but he made sure he wasn't beaten and robbed this LAST time.
DeleteFrankly, I've always wished he had KILLED the God-damned bastards.
People who go around attacking others –– with no provocation –– DESERVE to DIE.
Goetz did himself –– and the City of New York a favor when he shot those thugs.
So what was the upshot of it all?
GOETZ WENT to JAIL.
If I'd been running the show at the time, I would have given Goetz a TICKER TAPE PARADE.
But please let me remind you that standing up to the government does not always work out so well as it did in the case of Cliven Bundy.
Don't forget RUBY RIDGE where GOVERNMENT thugs shot and killed several people –– including an INFANT BABY shot dead in its mother's arms.
Then there was WACO where GOVERNMENT AGENTS –– at the direction of AG Janet Reno –– were responsible for BURNING somewhere between eighty and ninety people ALIVE for daring to resist "Authority."
And of ckurse the case of Elian Gonzales where GOVERNMENT ThUGS smashed fown the dor of hs familys hourse to wrest little Elian from his family's loving, protective arms to send him back to CASTRO'S CUBA –– the place from which Elian's mother LOST HER LIFE trying to escape Communist Tyranny.
The BOVERMENt THUGS who kidnapped Elian wore threatening black combat gear, were armed to the teeth with AK47's and probably at least ne sub-machine gun. So, even IF Elian's family HAD been armed, they would have been cut to ribands and reduced to RED JELLY by the superior might of GOVERNMENT firepower.
We have EVERY reason to FEAR, DIStURSt and DESPISE our government.
Subway crime in New York dropped after Bernie Goetz defended himself, so there is that.
DeleteHow can you tell whether Marxists LOVE the poor, or just HATE/RESENT the rich?
DeleteAnswer.
Does it matter? Either way they –– as we used to say in Brooklyn –– STINK on ICE.
Delete};^)>
I haven't read your link yet, but I have always seen MARXISM as primarily a HATE-BASED INITIATIVE.
"Catholics had to tolerate the existence of Protestant regimes, monarchists had to tolerate republican regimes..." In an essay which seeks to draw our attention to Europe's Imperial history, does Harzony lose his historical perspective for a moment here? Prior to the efforts at cooperation such as United Nations and the EU (to which he seems to object), wasn't Europe pretty much constantly at war? Also, how good a record did catholic countries have until recently for tolerating protestant minorities, and vice versa?
ReplyDelete"But there did exist the possibility of negotiating special provisions to accommodate dissenting communities, ... [and] there was the option of relocating to a neighboring state" There were hardly any pogroms. :sarcastic_emoticon
"It was alleged that only the aged supported exiting the European Union, thereby disenfranchising the young"
It's simply a fact that the leave vote was heavily skewed towards the over-50s and even more heavily skewed towards those without degrees. Not that ownership of a degree is any indication that you know what the EU is, even.
"These angry pronouncements were then followed by the demand that the British public’s preference be repealed" To whatever extent the remarkably narrow referendum result was a product of the dishonest campaigns that preceded it, I am uncomfortable that we should be bound by it. I like democracy, but I'd have to be fanatical about it to insist that 51.9% should be able to write a blank cheque and destabilise Northern Ireland without any further consultation.
"Any such dissent is held to be vulgar and ignorant, if not evidence of a fascistic mindset." I wouldn't say "any" dissent. "Some" dissent is. Some policies are fascist, after all. In the case of Brexit, not all Leavers are fascist but most fascists are Leavers.
"[America's] refusal to permit the International Criminal Court to try its soldiers, its unwillingness to sign international treaties designed to protect the environment, its war in Iraq" are all policies a Liberal would find odious in their own right, so I don't see that they are evidence of intolerance per se.
"Christianity and Judaism, ... whose free exercise has usually been protected or at least tolerated by Western national governments."
Again, you'd have to cherry-pick history quite carefully to support that point. Not trying to nit-pick, but counter-examples are so glaringly obvious it makes it hard to take him seriously.
"We have seen attempts, especially in Europe, to ban such Jewish practices as circumcision and kosher slaughter" Slovenia bans ritual slaughter, and most countries require stunning. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be upset that more countries don't have laxer standards here. And if FGM is such a big deal (as it absolutely should be), how can we hold male circumcision beyond scrutiny? Iceland might be going ahead with a ban in the near future; I thought this essay was in defense of Nations with diverse laws? Can't circumcision-desiring Icelandic Jews simply relocate to a neighbouring state?
I'm not sure what I've just read beyond a list of examples of liberals rejecting and campaigning against illiberal policies, but that doesn't require explanation.
I don't find America's refusal to allow ICC any jurisdiction as "odious in its' own right". But then, I'm a classical liberal, not an idiot. And that's the point. Your little moral peccadillos (ala FGM) are unimportant to me. I respect "tradition", up to the point at which "tradition" is overthrown.
DeletePascal, "Pensees"
Doubtless there are natural laws; but good reason once corrupted has corrupted all. Nihil amplius nostrum est; quod nostrum dicimus, artis est. 40 Ex senatus—consultis et plebiscitis crimina exercentur. 41 Ut olim vitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus. 42
The result of this confusion is that one affirms the essence of justice to be the authority of the legislator; another, the interest of the sovereign; another, present custom, and this is the most sure. Nothing, according to reason alone, is just itself; all changes with time. Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted. It is the mystical foundation of its authority; whoever carries it back to first principles destroys it. Nothing is so faulty as those laws which correct faults. He who obeys them because they are just obeys a justice which is imaginary and not the essence of law; it is quite self-contained, it is law and nothing more. He who will examine its motive will find it so feeble and so trifling that, if he be not accustomed to contemplate the wonders of human imagination, he will marvel that one century has gained for it so much pomp and reverence. The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice. We must, it is said, get back to the natural and fundamental laws of the State, which an unjust custom has abolished. It is a game certain to result in the loss of all; nothing will be just on the balance. Yet people readily lend their ear to such arguments. They shake off the yoke as soon as they recognise it; and the great profit by their ruin and by that of these curious investigators of accepted customs. But from a contrary mistake men sometimes think they can justly do everything which is not without an example. That is why the wisest of legislators said that it was necessary to deceive men for their own good; and another, a good politician, Cum veritatem qua liberetur ignoret, expedit quod fallatur. 43 We must not see the fact of usurpation; law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable. We must make it regarded as authoritative, eternal, and conceal its origin, if we do not wish that it should soon come to an end.295.
40 Cicero, De finibus, V. 21. "There is no longer anything which is ours; what I call ours is conventional."
41 Seneca, Epistles, xcv. "It is by virtue of senatus-consultes and plebiscites that one commits crimes."
42 Tacitus, Annals, iii.
25. "Once we suffered from our vices; today we suffer from our laws."
Let's say that a liberal *could* find those policies inherently odious, rather than "would".
DeleteI don't know how the word "peccadillos" applies to anything I wrote. Can you clarify?
...kosher slaughter, circumcision, FGM, animal stunning, environmental regulations...
DeleteDo you really believe that the guarantor of all your liberal freedoms, the USA, should be bound by your so-called 'European' standards (environmental, war starting, war tribunals)? Europe hasn't had any wars because we would crush you if tried starting them.
"Do you really believe that the guarantor of all your liberal freedoms, the USA, should be bound by your so-called 'European' standards (environmental, war starting, war tribunals)?"
DeleteIdeally, yes.
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
DeletePoo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO! ad infinitum
On the origin of law (in violence)...
Delete. . . the advent of Law entails a kind of ‘disalienation’: in so far as the Other itself appears submitted to the ‘absolute condition’ of Law, the subject is no more at the mercy of the Other’s whim, its desire is no more totally alienated in the Other’s desire. . . In contrast to the ‘post-structuralist’ notion of a law checking, canalizing, alienating, oppressing ‘Oedipianizing’ some previous ‘flux of desire,’ Law is here conceived as an agency of ‘disalienation’ and ‘liberation’: it opens our access to desire by enabling us to disengage ourselves from the rule of the Other’s whim.
- Slavoj Zizek, "For They Know Not What They Do"
America is Europe's SuperEgo. We're NOT your Ego Ideal.
But, there is a twist. The liberating aspect of law is both a “symptom” and implicated in yet another set of arbitrary, punishing demands, those of the superego. First, the image of the omnipotent Other to whose whim one is subject is a fantasy. It is a way for the subject to avoid acknowledging that its desire can’t be satisfied, to avoid facing the fact that the Other doesn’t have the ability to give it what it wants. In Hobbes' state of nature, it simply is not the case that one could have everything one desired were it not for the rights of others. As Hobbes acknowledges, desire is itself always in motion, ceaseless, beyond satisfaction. Law intervenes, then, as “a way for the subject to avoid the impasse constitutive of desire by transforming the inherent impossibility of its satisfaction into prohibition: as if desire would be possible to fulfil if it were not for the prohibition impeding its free reign.” The sovereign (for Hobbes) guarantees desire not simply by restraining others but by commanding restraint in general. Law lets the subject think it could get what it wants were it not for law’s prohibition. So, here law lets the subject avoid the impossible Real of its desire. Our attachment to law, then, is a symptom in that it is a way for us to secure our desire (that is to say, the space for it, not the object of it) by avoiding confrontation with the impossibility of fulfilling it.- Jodi Dean, "Zizek on Law"
Wherever there is Law, there is also SuperEgo. You can't escape it. Not even in a Democracy. America's SuperEgo is no longer a single political party. It's the Civil Service (Deep State).
DeleteThe formula of the Party-State, as the defining feature of twentieth-century Communism, thus needs to be complicated: there is always a gap between Party and State, corresponding to the gap between the Ego-Ideal (symbolic Law) and the Superego, for the Party remains the half-hidden obscene shadow which redoubles the State structure. There is here no distance, its organization embodying a fundamental distrust of the State organs and mechanisms, as if they need to be continually kept in check. A true twentieth-century-style Communist never fully accepts the State: there always has to be a vigilant agency outside of State control, with the power to intervene in the State's business.
- Slavoj Zizek, "Living in the End Times"
The Deep State/Civil Service is the "socialist's" SuperEgo (provided there's no Socialist Party behind it). They will always distort the Law to serve their own interest.
DeleteThere were few internecine wars during Rome's dominance of the Mediterranean region either. Was that because of Rome's just and moral policies? Or was it because they were the biggest elephant in the room?
ReplyDeleteAre you implying, Thersites, that "Might Makes Right," or that it merely DOMINATES?
DeleteYou tell me, Franco...
Delete...Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil...
for THINE is the Kingdom, and the POWER, and the Glory forever
In God's case, He makes Right but doesn't Dominate.
Appes and Oranges and all that.
Delete"Caesar" (GOVERNMENT) is external and material.
GOD is internal and spiritual.
Faith in GOD may have a positive effect on the ATTITUDES we hold toward "CAESAR," but faith in GOD transforms US –– as INDIVIDUALS ––; it does not transform the machinery of government.
"To whatever extent the remarkably narrow referendum result was a product of the dishonest campaigns that preceded it, I am uncomfortable that we should be bound by it. I like democracy, but I'd have to be fanatical about it to insist that 51.9% should be able to write a blank cheque and destabilise Northern Ireland without any further consultation."
ReplyDeleteAnd there you have in a nutshell the mentality that pretty well defines the Left today.
When the results of a duly held election displeases them, they FIRST decry the validity of the process that led to the public's decision, and DENOUNCE it as "DISHONEST." They THEN proceed wth self-righteous arrogance to do everything in their power –– no matter how manipulative, unprincipled, disingenuous, malevolent, disorderly, or even violent, it may become –– to UNDERMINE and OVERTURN the results.
That they are capable today of performing this brand of calumny soberly and with a straight face only serves to reflect and underscore the fashion in which these young "whippersnappers" have been systematically MIS-educated –– i.e. BRAINWASHED –– by the septic ethos of Cultural Marxism which long ago took over the universities and then the other branches of Education in the West.
"They" of curse will mock me and anyone else who makes this claim, because MOCKERY, SARCASM, RIDICULE, colossal EFFRONTERY and militant INTRANSIGENCE are the most powerful weapons they possess in the arsenal they use to defame, damage, defeat and ultimately DESTROY the Protestant Christian, Capitalist culture that made The West –– particularly Great Britain and the United States of America –– the great wonderfully successful thing it once was not so very long ago.
Try never to forget the Second World War was fought to defeat National SOCIALISM. No matter what the “SCHOLARS” (all of them Cultural Marxists at heart) try to tell you, FASCISM, MARXISM and SOCIALISM are essentially SYNONYMOUS.
"And there you have in a nutshell the mentality that pretty well defines the Left today."
DeleteAs in not insane.
Do you think a single popular vote should be allowed to take your country to the brink of bankruptcy and disrupt a fragile peace on one of your borders, without even allowing the populace to reconsider when the costs have become clear?
"When the results of a duly held election displeases them, they FIRST decry the validity of the process that led to the public's decision, and DENOUNCE it as "DISHONEST.""
1) The mechanics of the vote, count etc. are not in question.
2) Are you claiming that the campaigns were honest? Even Farage, the day after the vote, admitted that some claims made by the Leave campaign were unfortunate.
3) The remain campaign was also deceitful.
4) I was complaining about this prior to polling day, so it's not just sour grapes. Maybe I'm romantic, but I cherish the concept of Democracy as an earnest gathering of the will of the People. This undignified no-holds-barred bun-fight for votes falls woefully short of this ideal.
What's violent or unprincipled about a second vote? Whatever's wrong with the idea, it can't be a deficit of democracy. By what principle should we be denied the opportunity to scrutinise the Brexit deal?
""They" of curse[sic] will mock me"
Nope, but I note that you trying to dismiss me by applying ad hominem, straw man and the nostalgia fallacy etc. You should try mocking me, it'd be more fun.
Bowing to screams of "DO OVER!" sets a dangerous, corrosive precedent.
DeleteOver 50% of Britain's people observed that the European economic system no longer aided or protected them. You only want a second vote so that you can include millions more immigrants in your "Remain" numbers. Talk about deceit...
DeleteIf a second referendum sets the precedent that expensive decisions be subject to a confirmation once the costs are revealed, I disagree that it is dangerous or corrosive.
DeleteA second referendum would be open to the same population as the first: British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, plus some British expats. The only difference would be the population who came of age or died since last June.
I have no dog in the Brexit melee. It does point up why I hate direct democracy, plebiscites and ballot initiatives.
DeleteWe have them every election year here in Colorado and I hate them. The For and Against campaigns all avoid plain language and traffick in trite banalities and obfuscation.
I say put an end to all of it and make the legislative body take an up or down vote. That is why we elect them.
It won't matter in 100 years anyway. Demographics and current trends point to Turkey as the strong man of Europe.
My view exactly, give or take that final paragraph. Interesting though, would you consider writing an article about Turkey?
DeleteTurkey doesn't interest me that much. I make that observation bases on birth rates (Turkey's has fallen, but still exceeds anywhere in Western Europe), and unlike Western European nations, Turkey proudly proclaims who they are, what they believe, and their government displays a brazenness no longer seen by nations to their north.
DeleteTRANSLATION into simple, bsic English:
Delete"I like democracy, but ONLY when it supports MY point of view and codifies MY peculiar notions as to how things OUGHT to be run. Otherwise, democracy is BUNCOMBE."
It's a lot like saying, "I respect the Rule of Law, BUT reserve the right to wrest the judge bodily from the bench, trounce him, and precipitate a insurrection, if HIS decision turns out to be at odds with MY feeling about what the verdict SHOULD have been."
Great God Almighty! And people wonder why Conservative-Libertarians so vehemently despise the Left!
Your vehemence in particular rests on misunderstanding. You habitually misread your opponents. Ordinarily this could be corrected, but since you are proud of your mis-reading there is no hope for you.
DeleteDid Niestzche, who I believe, wrote primarily in the nineteenth-century, use the term "liberal" in the sense we tend to use it today –– i.e. "liberal," through persistent misuse today, really means "crypto-Marxist," doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI think, because of the way the Left has persisted in MISAPPROPRIATING established terminology and MISUSING it for its own devious purposes, we ought to ABANDON the use of "liberal" in reference to anythng left of center, and RECLAIM it as our OWN.
Former Vice President Joe Biden even beat Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” comment during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign dinner yesterday calling President Trump’s supporters “the “Dregs of Society.”
ReplyDeleteThat really worked out well for Hillary, didn't it. So I guess that Drunken Crazy Uncle Joe the Groper... tried calling Americans names like that as well.
Only I think that he was a little confused in his drunken condition and that he really meant that comment “Dregs of society” as a perfect description of the Obama bin Biden voters: and all their welfare queens, food stamp collectors, drug users, HIV carriers, the hoodlums that burn down their own neighborhoods, Illegal immigrants, and other Liberal criminals.
Nope. Liberal means "classical liberal" to Nietzsche. Every systems has drawbacks. Even ours.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the village of the "motley cow" (Zarathustra).
You ask "Has Western society become more tolerant over the past few decades? Or less?"
ReplyDeleteWe were far more tolerant before Obama, and that's a curiosity I'd like addressed some day because it's well worth the work; truth always is. The Left calls the Right fascist but then disallows any thinking other than theirs in nasty, dishonorable, uncivil protest, etc. Much less tolerant now.
I shouldn't have to, but allow me to add "shortly before Obama..." With a media which has become more intolerant to any other than their thinking is beyond dangerous to our country.
DeleteZ,
DeleteYes, we were far more tolerant before BHO’s 8 years. **sigh**
AOW, RIGHT? I totally believe that's true...FAR more tolerant. But, while I'm not a big supporter of Trump's rhetoric, I know with certainty that the constant hate toward Obama NEVER EVER existed anywhere like it has for Trump. Watch CNN for 3 minutes today. HURRICANE or HATE TRUMP. Nothing else... Oh, we DID hate Obama, we hated so much, but anything like THIS TODAY? No way.
DeleteIt's like when Tony Snow died and HuffPost CRASHED in celebration that a relatively young man with a young family had finally died of colon cancer. Not many know the site crashed from the huge number of revelers commenting.
The Left will win, AOW..it's nastier, it's uglier, it speaks louder, and its politicians are wildcats while the idiot Republicans are mostly sitting on their hands afraid of the damning media and not getting reelected..........
sorry for the 'novel'...this Kavanaugh accusation thing and the Left hypocrisy and even the ramping up of hate (who knew that was possible?) has really got to me, I have to admit.
DeleteAnd it's ALL about ABORTION. So sad....Gotta KILL THOSE BABIES, right?
I have to disagree, Z. You know I divide the world into threes. Those that are with me, those that are against me, and those that wonder why cottage cheese has an expiration date. That last 3rd is who we're fighting to convince, and they're the ones that will run over the vagina hats blocking traffic. God bless 'em.
DeleteZ,
DeleteI don't know that the Left will win, but I do know that this is accurate and has been ongoing for a decade:
the idiot Republicans are mostly sitting on their hands afraid of the damning media and not getting reelected.
"Throw themselves in with the Reds"
DeleteHardly. More like throw themselves into the great game .
One of the greatest tragedies in post colonial Africa was the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the resulting slaughter by American installed dictators in Congo.
Long live the great game and the slaughter it has generated.
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
DeletePoo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO!
Poo poo pa DOO poo POOP a doo DOO DOO! ad infinitum
An elegant reasoned reply.
DeleteDucky, Sure... Look at the wonders Mugabe and Chavez did for their countries...
DeleteReally? And the Marxist installed Dictators [Mugabe, Machel, Lungu, and Sankara to name a few], led to peace and justice?
DeleteSurely you can't believe your own tripe?
Both of you can do better. The subject was Congo and you apparently embrace your homeboys Mobutu and Kabila. They oversaw the slaughter of millions, a larger slaughter than any you cite.
DeleteBut the larger question is the great game and the constant need to be aware of the drift toward authoritarianism on the left or fascism on the right. Your embrace of Trump (Silverfiddle at least) indicates you may be wearing blinders. Of course pure libertarians are always walking the line in danger of falling into fascism.
Silverfiddle brings up Chavez which raises the question of the vacillation between authoritarianism and fascism in South America but maybe another time when you aren't stuffed on your own tripe
Here's a BRILLIANTLY reasoned reply to you, Canardo, and it's far more thoughtful, well-reasoned and erudite than you DESERVE:
DeleteThere you sit broken-hearted
Trying to think, but can't get started.
'Twill be so sad the day you find
You were born without a mind.
I see, the subject was only the Congo....yet you reference the great game. A game played as well by Marxists.
DeleteYou clearly can't do better than that.....
And by the way Saint Nelson Mandela WAS a Marxist who committed VIOLENT ACTS before he was incarcerated for 99 years –– or whatever the hell it was.
DeleteApparently, Victimization in the post-WWII world automatatically confers SAINTHOOD on the victim or victims.
CI, I was clearly responding to FreeThinke's contention that Marxism was responsible for all Africa's problems and offered the example of a reactionary force in Congo which resulted in slaughter that dwarfs Marxist pogroms in Africa.
DeleteYou need to familiarize yourself with the word clearly.
DeleteYou've been doing it wrong.
Well "classical liberal" is GOOD, in't it? –– so what was the beef?
ReplyDeleteSome people just abhor the very thought that being happy and contented is even faintly possible. That Nietzsche was one of those people I have little doubt –– and amazingly enough, he wasn't even JEWISH.
Are you mentally ill?
ReplyDeleteTo not be cognizant of the pitfalls inherent in your dominant belief system would not be wise.
ReplyDelete:P
ReplyDeleteThomas Gray of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard fame disagrees, Joe.
ReplyDeleteHe said:
If ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
Certainly not. I'm merely one of the cleverest fellows 'twill ever be your good fortune to know, so I gotta crow.
ReplyDeleteI sing of myself with unrestraind joy, and celebrate my rare and magnificent talents with relish and gusto.
You sit in misery facing cthe wall
While I sing, dance and play
Skipping through the Great Hall.
You fret and stew
While I always do
Something constructive, ingenious and bright.
While you sulk and glower in endless night.
];^}> ];^}> ];^}> ];^}> ];^}> ];^}> ];^}>
ReplyDeleteA Devil a day
Keeps Sanity at bay.
Consider the Aquinas' writings on virtue, and the emphasis he places on prudence.
ReplyDelete