 |
| Silverfiddle Rant! |
"Chris Rufo is doing something so spectacularly unconservative, he may need to update his political affiliation: he’s winning." (Abigail Shrier, Want to Save America? Don't Act Like a Conservative)
Abigail Shrier says Chris Rufo is showing conservatives how to fight:
We can all Play a Role...
Abigail Shrier says Chris Rufo is showing conservatives how to fight:
And while academics and other pedants quibble over whether “Critical Race Theory” is the right term, Rufo is out there identifying the problem, alerting the public, and sounding all available alarms.Rufo is neither a blowhard loose cannon "owning the libs" nor a milquetoast Mitt Romney trying to get on their good side. He steers a middle course "clear of the Scylla and Charybdis conservatives so often pinball against: hyper-polite fecklessness on one side of the boat and chest-thumping ignorance on the other."
How did Rufo do it? By gathering evidence and pointing out the glaring harm in clear, unapologetic (but never crass or rude) language. He speaks not to the elites, but to Americans, and he makes an intelligible argument: “Anti-Racism” is just racism in progressive clothing; it’s teaching our kids to hate themselves and each other.Conservatives have an Opportunity
Rufo engages with the culture in the straightforward manner of a gentleman soldier. He neither grovels to the intellectual class nor strains to fit his arguments into the warped mold of their lingo. And he doesn’t pick fights for their own sake.
Conservatives were handed a political gift they did not win and do not deserve—the disaster of the Left’s ascent. The activist Left’s policy agenda is widely disliked. Its positions veer between unreasonable (Defund the Police), unlivable (indulge looters, larcenists, and vandals), unsustainable (open the borders), and untenable (transwomen are women). Almost no one actually agrees with any of this.Shrier explains how to win this battle. Spoiler Alert! It won't be won by rightwing insults and pseudo-macho bombast, and it sure as hell won't be won by treating "Leftist ideologues like quirky out-of-town guests arriving for brunch," when actually, "the Woke are not zany guests. They are home-invasion robbers."
We can all Play a Role...
Speak up, respectfully, to those you disagree with, often in the form of questions. You are not going to win a direct confrontation, but if you can plant a seed of doubt in someone, or make one cogent counter-point and then let the whole issue go, you just might have planted a mighty oak
Communicate to the loudmouth pundits and politicians on "your side" who enjoy playing to the peanut gallery. Tell them you don't appreciate their clown act and that you will turn them off if they cannot learn how to argue in a way that attracts others to the cause.
Speak to those around you with clarity and charity. Keep in mind most are on the fence or afraid to commit a WrongSpeak crime. Again, you can ask questions. Rhetorical ones appealing to common sense are often more effective because they hit home but do not put people on the spot: "Can you imagine your mother referring to herself, or to her mother as a birthing person?"
I don't want to ban the woke pogroms and neo-maoists. I want to defeat them fair and square in the marketplace of ideas.
What say you?
Great advice, though in my experience....'owning the libs' and assorted clown acts are the only strategy that many seem to be able to employ. It makes them feeeel better.....
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if it's more effective to come from the grass roots or the political/pundit class.....but the Right needs to stop arguing in favor watered down Leftism....and pin the Left on answering "how in the hell is 'X' Constitutional in the first place?"
I lost hope in the GOP's ability to do this, when they couldn't muster effective defense in support of the 2A.
Purge the Trumpists miscalling themselves "conservatives" from national politics? Yes, please.
ReplyDelete...and if truth in labeling were to be applied, the so-called "Never-Trump conservatives" are really globalists mugwumps.
DeleteTrump supporters are classical liberals??? Hahahaha.....
DeleteAnd I thought the newspeak of the Left was atrocious.
+3000
Delete^^^^
DeleteThe difficulty in arguing with the "woke" is that they use their own language that even they do not understand. The words are English, but the meanings are gibberish.
ReplyDeleteMy niece, "That idea is not radical."
Me, after citing the definition of the word "radical." "That idea is radical, but that is not a bad thing. Conventional thinking will not solve the problem. We need radical thinking to reach solution."
Niece: "That definition is not what I mean by the word radical."
Me: "So, what do you mean by the word radical, then?"
Niece: "I don't know, but it isn't that."
CRT is just that a theory. How many theories are mandated to be taught in schools as fact.
ReplyDeleteCRT is a way to keep racism alive when for the majority of people it is not a factor. Does it exist, yes, is it systemic, only for politicians. There is more racism being spewed by black's than by whites and no time is given to black on black crime.
Keep people focusing on other things, like CRT, and they will not pay attention to the border, threat's from china, russia, iran and a whole host of out friendly countries.
"The activist Left’s policy agenda is widely disliked. Its positions veer between unreasonable (Defund the Police), unlivable (indulge looters, larcenists, and vandals), unsustainable (open the borders), and untenable (transwomen are women)"
ReplyDeleteThis is the meat IMO, and my immediate question is, what do these superficially unattractive positions really mean? Eg. I don't think "defund the police" means what it sounds like it means* -- I whole heartedly agree that it's a remarkably silly slogan!
*I'm sure you can find anarchists who genuinely want to withdraw all funding from policing, but you can find people who believe anything.
It's not incumbent on the Right to clarify the statement's meaning... only to subject it to the intense ridicule it deserves until the Left does so.
DeleteI'm "done" giving them a benefit of the doubt that they deny to "white supremacists" (aka "everyone who disagrees with them").
DeleteBlacks come in two flavors, integrationists and separatists. Michelle Obama's graduate thesis was a justification for black separatism. That's why she responded so ridiculously to the Iowa Caucus results. The separatists are not allowed to say what they really mean. It's political suicide to argue for "segregation".
DeleteAt least Malcom X was "forward" thinking. His X stood for something new, not a "return to Africa", but an escape from the binary of race...
Delete...it allowed him to participate in a new human "universality".
Delete...and a place "Identity politics" will never willingly go.
DeleteIt's not incumbent on anyone to clarify anything, but the current polarization of politics and culture satisfies approximately no-one. Do you want to advance beyond it or not? (extra credit: who does benefit from such extreme polarization?)
DeleteJez,
DeleteExcellent question. Who benefits?
Political parties and their operatives who get paid million$ for campaign propaganda and attack ads.
The Infotainment Media Complex. Outrage fuels their business model.
Who loses? We the People
Ratings = revenue
DeleteAll you can do is boycott products that support them with advertisements. Apparently the balding, erectile dysfunctional, irritably emboweled demographic is pretty loyal to Tucker Carlson.
@ Jez,
DeleteIt's not incumbent upon anyone to clarify anything... and THAT get's us beyond the current status quo politics? Wow, who knew? I would though someone would have to do something.
ps - I never realized that BLM was a right wing conspiracy to serve up red meat to the base.
DeleteNever confuse straw for red meat.
Delete...unless you enjoy a good roll in the hay. ;)
DeleteActually, I was wrong when I said it isn't incumbent on anyone to clarify anything. It is incumbent on the media: a functioning press would investigate these ideas and explain them clearly, but that job is not being done and FJ's reluctance to do it himself is quite reasonable.
Delete@SF:"Political parties and their operatives who get paid million$ for campaign propaganda and attack ads."
I see a handful of people making half-way decent money out of running those campaigns; doesn't seem like enough. There's probably more money in rock'n'roll (and we all know how dead the music industry is).
"The Infotainment Media Complex. Outrage fuels their business model."
This might be a tail big enough to wag the dog. But I still feel like even the media complex is a tool of a yet more powerful group who share an interest in undermining discourse and politics.
"Defund the police" typically means funding mental health and social services instead. Whatever the merits of that position, it isn't helping the Right to not actually know their opposition's position or worse, rely on some schmuck like Tucker Carlson to inform them of it.
ReplyDeleteActually, you'd be hard-pressed to find a "defund the police" advocate that isn't talking about boosting mental health and social services. At least they aren't trying to raise taxes to fund all three.
DeleteWhy not change their slogan to "Do good!" That would have a more descriptive and inclusive agenda that actually match the demand.
DeleteHow many multi-million dollar wrongful death lawsuit settlements makes that happen? If "qualified immunity" means they have money to burn on rotten cops...
Delete... it's probably a more reasonable solution than expanding qualified immunity to authorize citizens to execute police officers if they fear their civil rights will be violated. 😉
DeleteW/O qualified immunity, would YOU or AY sane individual join the police force?
DeleteCities can buy liability insurance at much cheaper rates than individual cops can.
DeleteEven corporate scumbags like Jeff Bezos get personal immunity from damage suits against Amazon.
DeleteSo the actuary pools suggest there's a high probability that a cop will screw up? Hmmm.
DeleteYou're going to show us the criminals that enjoy getting arrested? 🙄
DeleteNope, just making the point that the criminals will now have every reason in the world to play the race card lottery suing cops for fat payoffs after every arrest.
DeleteEliminating qualified immunity creates a moral hazard easily exploited by criminals of colour (which is the vast majorty of criminals).
Deletebtw - Salt Lake City has now decreed "racism" a "public health emergency". Sounds like they need to defund the police.
Delete:P
Delete"criminals of colour ... is the vast majorty of criminals"
DeleteCongratulations, you have succeeded in goading me into accusing you of either supremacism or innumeracy... I'll let you choose which you want to self-identify as. ;)
Seems to me there's been more than a few lawsuit settlements despite "qualified immunity" anyway. The only way to get a bad cop off the force is if their actions costs the city money...
Delete...so cut off the money supply and incentivize better cops.
...because invariably, most cops that wind up costing taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements have a history of behaviors on the job that should have gotten them fired long before they finally were
DeleteRe: Salt Lake City... It's only been 48 years since Mormons decided black people were human beings...
DeleteNot innumeracy, and not supremacy, as it is unrelated to criminality.
Delete;). Perhaps you need to read Charles Murray's latest book, "Two Truths About Race in America"
Delete:)
DeleteNone of this gets you to a "vast majority". Your choice now is to torture the statistics or admit your overreach. Guess which one I'd respect you more for!
DeleteIn politics 51% is a landslide.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSo overall, you're right. I should have used the term "overwhelming majority" and not "vast majority".
DeleteVast majority - means almost all or something like 90% or more, but less than unanimous.
Overwhelming majority - means well beyond any hope of finding enough who are swayable to take the opposite case or something like 75% or more
Large majority - means an unquestionable number such that there's no point in demanding a recount or something like 60%
Small majority - means a comfortable margin, but not enough to take for granted or something like 53%
Bare majority - means you just barely cracked 50.1% and if this were an election and your opponent demanded a recount, you are probably toast, or 50.1% or more
Hey ducky, totally unrelated, we watched the movie Black Orpheus, and the wife and I and our daughter were all stunned. What a beautiful and stunning movie. What is your opinion?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got a chance to see it.
DeleteI especially like the soundtrack. It's to bad the film isn't better known.
Ha! I went out and bought Vince Guaraldi's "impressions" after watching the movie. First five songs are the best part of it. Cast Your Fate to the Wind is touching and poignant.
DeleteI too am surprised this movie is not more well known. I think I found out about it in one of those "Unknown classics you must see" articles.
I hope you are well and have recovered.
Btw, I know giraldi's album was not the soundtrack. I do remember the soundtrack, very percussive and many places, and just featuring really good Brazilian music of that era
DeleteAnother telling of the Orpheus myth you might enjoy is Cocteau's, 'Orpheus'.
DeleteMakes you wonder why Maria Cesares made so few films,
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.
DeleteBetween 50-67% of Americans of European descent before 1776 arrived as indentured servants. Why shouldn't they be afforded the prospect of leading normal lives?
ReplyDeleteWhat proportion of those indentures were involuntary?
ReplyDeleteThe total number of European immigrants to all 13 colonies before 1775 was 500,000–550,000; of these, 55,000 were involuntary prisoners. Of the 450,000 or so European arrivals who came voluntarily, Tomlins estimates that 48% were indentured.
ReplyDelete10%
...of the total, but 20% of all indentures.
ReplyDeleteSome of my forebears were indentured. One of them was the surveyor of the first published map of Jamestown Colony.
ReplyDeleteIndentured servitude wasn't abolished until 1917.
ReplyDeleteExcept for those that sign up for truck driving school 😉
ReplyDeleteor sign articles on merchant ships...
ReplyDeletePerhaps your ancestor was one of these, beamish...
Indentured servitude in the Americas was first used by the Virginia Company in the early seventeenth century as a method for collateralizing the debt finance for transporting people to its newfound British colonies.
Before the rise of indentured servitude, a large demand for labor existed in the colonies to help build settlements, farm crops and serve as tradesmen, but many laborers in Europe could not afford the transatlantic crossing, which could cost roughly half a worker's annual wage.[4]
European financial institutions could not easily lend to the workers since there was no effective way to enforce a loan from across the Atlantic, rendering labor immobile via the Atlantic because of capital market imperfections.[4]
To address this imperfection, the Virginia Company would allow laborers to borrow against their future earnings at the Virginia Company for a fixed number of years in order to raise sufficient capital to pay for their voyage. Evidence shows this practice was in use by 1609, only two years after the founding of the Virginia Company's original Jamestown settlement.[29] However, this practice created a financial risk for the Virginia Company. If workers died or refused to work, the investment would be lost.[29]
By 1620, the Virginia Company switched to selling contracts of "one hundred servants to be disposed among the old Planters" as soon as the servants reached the colonies.[30] This minimized risk on its investment to the 2–3 months of transatlantic voyage. As the system gained in popularity, individual farmers and tradesmen would eventually begin investing in indentured servants as well.[31]
...and so we have the Origins of "capitalism"...
ReplyDeleteaka - risk transference.
ReplyDeleteAnd the rebellion that ended "only landowners may vote"
ReplyDelete...which in turn fomented race-based slavery...
ReplyDeleteDescendants of my indentured ancestors went south and west into the frontiers setting up trading posts that in turn became department stores by the early 20th century....
ReplyDeleteThere were a few wars in-between that disrupted their budding agricultural operations tho...
ReplyDelete