I think from a psychological perspective, much of this purported "anti-racist" BS is formally hysterical. It is dissociative. It is deeply rooted in psychological maladies which have only latched on race as an issue, and which could as easily--and of course often do--latched on gender, Trans issues, purported American Imperialism (in the…
I think from a psychological perspective, much of this purported "anti-racist" BS is formally hysterical. It is dissociative. It is deeply rooted in psychological maladies which have only latched on race as an issue, and which could as easily--and of course often do--latched on gender, Trans issues, purported American Imperialism (in the economic realm it is quite real, but not very representative of America, but rather the banks the Fed represents), and the like.
Here is the thing; you cannot think clearly if you are emotionally confused. You cannot think clearly if you NEED a reason to exist that is outside something you control.
When I look at the issue of race in this country as it exists TODAY, what I see is a whole lot of white people who desperately need racism to be real and relevant, because that is all they have. Their lives are devoid of meaning without racism, the various phobias and Global Warming.
But when you cling like that, you commit violence to facts almost as a matter of course. You bend everything into interpretations that suit your emotional needs; and of course, if people do this in groups, the process is largely invisible and seems legitimate, even though it isn't.
It's been a source of anxiety and to some extent puzzlement for some time for me observing how thoroughly our best schools have been captured by epically stupid and counter-productive ideas. Really, really stupid shit, peddled by high IQ people, who really should know better.
It's a day ending in Y, so I will note again that our root problem is poor individuation. It is people simply not growing up and maturing and learning to see the pain and promise of the world as it is, and not how they would like it to be.
"Their lives are devoid of meaning without racism, the various phobias and Global Warming.
But when you cling like that, you commit violence to facts almost as a matter of course. You bend everything into interpretations that suit your emotional needs; and of course, if people do this in groups, the process is largely invisible and seems legitimate, even though it isn't."
Thank you for this. My sister is like this & it's the most frustrating thing in the world to me. She's smart & educated and yet is 100% on board with all of this nonsense. She is all emotion all the time. Reason and reality be damned. The intensity of the virtue signaling is sort of amazing to me, but I realize the displayed performative morality is both for others and for herself.
They have taken to accusing everyone else of gaslighting—I was accused of it in this thread—but the reality is they do little else.
I am often reduced to wondering where their sense of our common humanity went. I am in bad neighborhoods and interact with low income people all the time. I am also very observant.
And everything these ignorant elitists do hurts people they never see, never talk to and dont understand, but on whose behalf they nonetheless—and with no consciousness AT ALL of the incongruity and harmfulness of it—arrogate the SOLE right to speak. I say sole thinking of the white woman whose name I can’t be bothered to remember telling Fifty Cent—who has a lot of the Black Experience under his belt—that he wasn’t black if he didnt agree with her.
Their sense of common humanity has vanished as far as I can tell. You're either in their tribe or possibly you're cowed & craven enough to go along with the nonsense even if you don't believe it, OR You're an Evil White Supremacist, Homophobe, Transphobe, Racist & Sexist. It's pretty unbelievable. Government censorship of reality-based non-woke opinions sped this along, for which I will never forgive them. Not that government actually cares about citizens anymore. I howl at the white women bossing around back men!!
I am very sure this is what the Soviet Union felt like, and many of them admit to dreaming of gulags.
It is literally hysterical people of a type we have all met who simply WILL NOT ADMIT WHEN THEY WRONG. They blame the messenger and fume at reality and wonder how they can make it go away; and of course they then realize WE CAN JUST LIE ABOUT IT AND MAKE THE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT GO AWAY.
Thats the whole game in a nutshell. Its psychotic.
They see danger everywhere but where it actually is. This is how projection—which is another word they have learned to abuse— works. You see what you are everywhere.
And I would suggest substituting Leftist for liberal. Liberalism is a good thing, but they are no longer liberal.
The way I diiferentiate them is if they are capable of rational dialogue. True Leftists are not.
Oh, yes, I totally separate leftists from liberals. My sister and that ilk are leftists. What I meant was even my normal liberal Democrat friends don’t see the danger in the leftists, and they just continue to vote for it. Just like all the moderate Dems in Congress vote for all of the horrible progressive bills without discerning that there’s a problem in their party. Projection is their go-to along with gas-lighting.
It is no secret that modern Western societies have replaced the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin and fallen man with new secular variants of human guilt. Acknowleding our capacity to sin is an essential part of Christianity, but an over-obsession on original sin has led the religion down some of its darker paths in the past (including the very ugly "blood libel" against the Jews, which has been more recently transformed into the secular "white oppression").
Given the left's fascination with critical theory and post-modern deconstruction, one might think they would have some self-awareness that these millenia-old ideas are simply being recycled into another narrative about our capacity to do evil to one another . . . . But critical theory is only for critiquing other people's ideas, apparently.
Thinking follows feeling. If your emotions are disordered, if decontextualized shame is a part of your sense of self, then your thinking will be disordered. Reasoning accurately is actually a high level emotional accomplishment.
And all emotional systems have real logic to them, just not always the logic which is proposed. People like those mentioned today who propose, in effect, that we get rid of racism by promoting racism--despite the science saying that is a bad idea--are really saying "I will feel better as a person fighting this "battle". I really regret missing out on the true Civil Rights struggle in the 50's and 60's, and even though I am personally much too timid to have taken part in that, and undergone the true physical dangers involved, I will feel much better about myself by PRETENDING that participating in kicking people while they are on the ground is somehow almost the same thing."
It's very sad, really. Or comical, depending on your day and mood.
I have a graduate degree in the Humanities from a good school, and of course am familiar with Levi-Strauss and Derrida and Ricouer and Habermas and others. What I would say is that the words have an hypnotic quality to them. They actually mean nothing, but they lull some part of the critical mind to sleep. I have often compared them to a Greek Orthodox Church, filled with the smoke of incense. They confer a feeling tone, but nothing useful or actionable. The action is reflexive, childish and nearly always harmful. But the FEELS, those are good. They are the affective aftermath of the escape from logic, which is to say adult responsibility and confusion in the face of a genuinely complex world.
I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but I fear not as much as I should be, in discussing what is actually going on in our best schools.
Very late to the game, but have to quibble with your first statement. The most efficient therapeutic modality — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — is premised on the principle that in fact thoughts precede emotions. Because the brain goes from one to the other very quickly, most people don’t realize there was a thought that gave rise to the emotion. The best way to short-circuit the emotion is to change that thought. Anyway, I’m so sorry you were forced to read all of that comparative lit nonsense. What a huge waste of your time!
I am going to answer this, not because I think anyone will read it, other than perhaps you, but because it is an interesting question.
The way I think it works--what I feel when I meditate, which I do daily--is that everything starts with Sensations. Sensations, in turn, are tied at a very primitive level with images, which often flash at subliminal speeds. That is the thought.
The images in turn trigger Thought/Feelings. I don't think you can really separate one from the other.
CBT is a useful approach, but only because loops are formed between thoughts and feelings, and if you can alter half of the loop, you affect the trajectory of the whole thing.
But to take two obvious example, the abdomen has enough nerve plexuses (?) that it amounts to the brain of a cat. That brain sends signals TO the brain. It does not just receive them. Same with the heart. The heart sends as much or more information to the brain as it receives.
This means that our thinking is highly conditioned by our bodies. This is particularly relevant to people with PTSD. You cannot fix PTSD with CBT. That fixing has to be done elsewhere, in other ways.
Well, yeah. We have a sympathetic nervous system that drives a whole host of “feelings” — like panic in adults or crying in infants — that are distinct from “emotions.” But I think the jury is out on how the SNS gets triggered when it isn’t warranted. PTSD and panic disorder are both great examples of ‘inappropriate’ SNS responses. Typically, combination therapies work best for both, so there’s some indication thoughts are involved somehow. But, I remain agnostic on the issue. Thank you for the conversation.
I also have a PhD from a top school, but in social science. We read the post-structuralist during my studies (early 1990s). I always looked at it as an interesting intellectual exercise, that was limited in its ability to deal with reality. Once you got the nomenclature down, there really wasn't much there other than there is no objective reality. Imagine my surprise that a intellectual movement claiming no objective reality has become one demanding we adhere to theirs!
I think the reality is that the U.S. government supported regional apartheid and national racial caste system and didn't become a democracy until 1965.
The United States has NEVER been a Democracy. The idea is not mentioned once in the Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation or the United States Constitution.
"No. It is set up as a form of democracy. Which is mentioned in those documents."
Ahhh.. No. Democracy is never once mentioned in any of those documents and only the uneducated refer to "our Democracy" while sounding like Chairman Mao during his 1957 speech on the correct handling of the contradictions of the people.
We were racist, like every human society for all of recorded history, and like many even today, particularly in Asia and Africa. Unlike pretty much every other society in human history we did something about it, because we had a founding document which said that all human beings are created equal.
Now, if a potential employer were to say that "we don't hire black people" it would be national news, and on loop for weeks.
There is no white supremacy. What there is is very bad schooling in most inner cities, a complete disintegration of the nuclear families that psychologists and sociologists well understand to be necessary for optimal individual and social well being, and in recent years calls by white people to make black neighborhoods even less safe than they were, by eliminating or curtailing policing. Homicides and overall crime are up, obviously.
I read yesterday that Oakland, which is probably the same black majority city now that it was when I lived there in the 90's, is on track to have TWENTY THOUSAND cars stolen this year. They have just over 400,000 people. That is one car in 20.
That is a REAL problem, isn't it? Oakland business owners are getting ready to go on strike.
But once you enter this fairy tale world of "white supremacy" you never need to worry your little head about either facts or people ever again. You can cite papers in support of your "ideas" even if the actual papers say the opposite. Nobody will care. That isn't the game.
The game is self importance, and obviously the American Left plays that game to win.
I'm sorry. I was told during orientation here that were a "are" currently racist against white people and/or Asians.
Well, actually America reworked it into a racial caste system and support of regional apartheid that lasted until 1965. America is currently no more/less racist than any other industrialized nation, which is where the comparison should be. So, "did something about it" is really revisionist history and a complete distortion of the present.
No, there is white supremacy/white supremacists in America. The question is to what degree that is embedded in social, economic, political structures, etc. So, it is probably fair to say that it was "systemic" until 1965. Of course, I'm sure we can all agree that societies change their values, norms, ideologies, etc. immediately once a law is passed.
Sure, there was a small cohort that talked about "defunding the police" (bad slogan). I'd guess "Reappropriating a percentage of funds to more outreach, community involvement, mental health services and deescalation training, etc." is probably too much to put on a sign.
In reality, you can miss me with all the "defund" talk. The overwhelming majority of PDs kept their same level of funding and many actually increased.
Yes. There are always papers that say the opposite and vice versa, that's how it works. So, it's a two-way street.
'Sure, there was a small cohort that talked about "defunding the police"'
You mean people like the current Vice President of the US, the current President of the US the then speaker of the House, the then Minority Whip and almost every single person in their respective parties?
Biden? Nope. He pushed a criminal justice plan for $300 million for community policing efforts, including hiring more police.
Harris: "We need to reimagine how we are achieving safety in America. To have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing, but yet there is a dire need in those cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, for resourcing job training and job creation - come on. We have to be honest about this."
Pelosi: "Defund the police, that's not the position of the Democratic Party. Community safety to protect and defend in every way is our oath of office."
So, you are full of shit.
Almost every single person in their respective parties? Bullshit.
And let me save you the time, before you start with that Tweet Harris suppossedly sent. That was fake.
Yep. It sure is a small cohort.
Major police departments were not substantially defunded and they have actually had their budgets increased.
Biden: In July of 2020 when he called for redirecting funding of the police to other things because the police have become the enemy of the people... So yep. Biden called for defunding. Yes he was pandering at the time, but that is what Democrats do.
So Harris. Absolutely. Re-imagine. Defund. Potato Patatoe.
Pelosi: On June 8 2020: We need to shuffle money around to change how policing is done but it is a local mater. At least she sees this as a local mater but she was still pushing to "shuffle money" around.
Biden was speaking about the perception of some people in communities toward police that enter communities in armored vehicles, military style engagement, etc. and that causes some people to view police as the enemy, which is 100% accurate...so nope. Lol. Nice try, liar. That's what Conservatives do.
"Re-imagine" is not "defund." Potato EV vehicle.
"Shuffle money around." That's the best you've got? Pathetic.
No major police departments were substantially defunded. They have all maintained and/or had their budgets increased.
So, I recommend you read "Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko to cleanse your mind of all the false copaganda you've swallowed hook, line and sinker.
My point is that the self declared anti-racists are self involved a holes whise work is not improving black lives in any way I can see, and which is making them worse in most ways that matter.
They have done NOTHING to improve black schools, and in some cases have closed high performing ones, as in New York.
The policy of bringing in—not allowing in, which itself is against the law—but bringing millions of unskilled people who became themselves criminals when they crossed our border illegally is creating a huge strain on all our social safety nets, and will certainly cause decreases in wages and increases in unemployment particularly in low income neighborhoods.
And as Democrat and honest Liberal Patrick Moynihan correctly predicted, left wing policies have almost completely destroyed the black family.
So all you people have left is equivocation, lies, and finger pointing intended as distraction.
Meanwhile at this moment a few dozen black kids who would have had a chance in a sane and kind society are going to die with needles in their arm today.
You do not have the high ground, and if you ever did, your claim to it died at least 30 years ago.
A few dozen black kids are going to die with needles in their arms today?
Actually, data shows that restriciting immigration actually has little effect on raising wages, especially in low income areas, as most undocumented immigrants do jobs that Americans refuse to do in the exciting field of migrant farm laborer and hotel housekeeping staff.
I absolutely have the high ground, because I don't make ranting, hyperbolic statements and falsely pretend to care about demographic groups.
Here is the thing: sincerity has hallmarks. People that are honestly trying to solve existing problems and prevent future problems interact with openness, curiosity and an obvious desire to learn.
You react with defensiveness, misdirection, redirection, patent absurdities—such as the claim that adding millions of mouths to feed will not affect our safety nets or low income neighborhoods—and a sarcasm that is plainly intended to make interacting with you are your manic delusions as unpleasant as possible.
You love yourself. I get it. You think you are on the side of everything good and noble, fighting the good fight against forces of regression and oppression.
But nothing you ever say really makes sense, and you almost always avoid dealing directly and straightforwardly with anything I say.
My conclusion? You are not interested in solving real problems. Your whole WORLD consists in language, and the solipsistic nonsense that only become possible once the actual world and people in it has been fully eliminated.
Data says undocumemted immigration does not suppress wages in low-income communities. Sorry. It only suppresses wages if people are actually competing for the same jobs. No one is competing to be a seasonal migrant farm laborer. This is why whenever laws are passed to push undocumented immigrants are pushed out (AL, Fl, etc.) no "Americans" ever come in to fill those jobs that were being "taken."
Now, the strain on social services, etc. is a wholly separate matter. Legitimate/real, but separate.
Is that straightforward and direct enough for you?
Lol. Nope. Not defensive at all.
Just know the "fake concern" rhetoric as a means to discuss pathology and I am not going to be gaslit by it.
Is that straightforward and direct enough for you?
Nope. Actually not fighting against/for anything. Just expressing my opinion, sharing factual data when needed, etc.
I was just thinking about this. If the reading itself is the process and the goal, then would it not more properly be relegated to a sort of intellectual poetry, with no pretensions to social relevance, and existing solely as an aesthetic endeavor?
Reason, and the notion of universal principle, is one of the crowning achievements of Western Civilization, and these people want to destroy both in the name of nothing. They claim they want to oppose, say, racism, but 1) they don't actually oppose racism; they just shout at specific times and places that are largely arbitrary and mob driven; 2) the very NOTION of racism being bad is WESTERN, and thus their critiques are self consuming. You won't find comprehensive critiques of bigotry and prejudice anywhere else. Africa is riddled with tribal factionalism, dehumanization, de facto racism and following violence. So is everywhere else.
All or nothing is a childish emotion. You are either all good or all bad is a stupid sentiment. And nearly all their critiques engage in nothing else. Timur was arguably a more prolific murderer than either Hitler or Stalin--he killed roughly 5% of the worlds population--but he was neither white nor Christian. Horrors are simply a feature of the human race, and reason and principle remain the best ideas in play for how to end them; which makes anyone opposing either effectively misanthropic, which of course is what we see. Joe Biden is a misanthrope, and so too are the people running him. Elitism and misanthropy are closely related.
Quillette's recent podcast with Yascha Mounk on his new book about the intellectual roots and inherent contradictions of woke/identitarian politics is a well worth listening to.
I think from a psychological perspective, much of this purported "anti-racist" BS is formally hysterical. It is dissociative. It is deeply rooted in psychological maladies which have only latched on race as an issue, and which could as easily--and of course often do--latched on gender, Trans issues, purported American Imperialism (in the economic realm it is quite real, but not very representative of America, but rather the banks the Fed represents), and the like.
Here is the thing; you cannot think clearly if you are emotionally confused. You cannot think clearly if you NEED a reason to exist that is outside something you control.
When I look at the issue of race in this country as it exists TODAY, what I see is a whole lot of white people who desperately need racism to be real and relevant, because that is all they have. Their lives are devoid of meaning without racism, the various phobias and Global Warming.
But when you cling like that, you commit violence to facts almost as a matter of course. You bend everything into interpretations that suit your emotional needs; and of course, if people do this in groups, the process is largely invisible and seems legitimate, even though it isn't.
It's been a source of anxiety and to some extent puzzlement for some time for me observing how thoroughly our best schools have been captured by epically stupid and counter-productive ideas. Really, really stupid shit, peddled by high IQ people, who really should know better.
It's a day ending in Y, so I will note again that our root problem is poor individuation. It is people simply not growing up and maturing and learning to see the pain and promise of the world as it is, and not how they would like it to be.
"Their lives are devoid of meaning without racism, the various phobias and Global Warming.
But when you cling like that, you commit violence to facts almost as a matter of course. You bend everything into interpretations that suit your emotional needs; and of course, if people do this in groups, the process is largely invisible and seems legitimate, even though it isn't."
Thank you for this. My sister is like this & it's the most frustrating thing in the world to me. She's smart & educated and yet is 100% on board with all of this nonsense. She is all emotion all the time. Reason and reality be damned. The intensity of the virtue signaling is sort of amazing to me, but I realize the displayed performative morality is both for others and for herself.
They have taken to accusing everyone else of gaslighting—I was accused of it in this thread—but the reality is they do little else.
I am often reduced to wondering where their sense of our common humanity went. I am in bad neighborhoods and interact with low income people all the time. I am also very observant.
And everything these ignorant elitists do hurts people they never see, never talk to and dont understand, but on whose behalf they nonetheless—and with no consciousness AT ALL of the incongruity and harmfulness of it—arrogate the SOLE right to speak. I say sole thinking of the white woman whose name I can’t be bothered to remember telling Fifty Cent—who has a lot of the Black Experience under his belt—that he wasn’t black if he didnt agree with her.
Their sense of common humanity has vanished as far as I can tell. You're either in their tribe or possibly you're cowed & craven enough to go along with the nonsense even if you don't believe it, OR You're an Evil White Supremacist, Homophobe, Transphobe, Racist & Sexist. It's pretty unbelievable. Government censorship of reality-based non-woke opinions sped this along, for which I will never forgive them. Not that government actually cares about citizens anymore. I howl at the white women bossing around back men!!
I am very sure this is what the Soviet Union felt like, and many of them admit to dreaming of gulags.
It is literally hysterical people of a type we have all met who simply WILL NOT ADMIT WHEN THEY WRONG. They blame the messenger and fume at reality and wonder how they can make it go away; and of course they then realize WE CAN JUST LIE ABOUT IT AND MAKE THE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT GO AWAY.
Thats the whole game in a nutshell. Its psychotic.
Exactly!! That's the gameplan. My liberal friends can't see through it since they think it's their "side." They don't/won't see the danger here.
They see danger everywhere but where it actually is. This is how projection—which is another word they have learned to abuse— works. You see what you are everywhere.
And I would suggest substituting Leftist for liberal. Liberalism is a good thing, but they are no longer liberal.
The way I diiferentiate them is if they are capable of rational dialogue. True Leftists are not.
Oh, yes, I totally separate leftists from liberals. My sister and that ilk are leftists. What I meant was even my normal liberal Democrat friends don’t see the danger in the leftists, and they just continue to vote for it. Just like all the moderate Dems in Congress vote for all of the horrible progressive bills without discerning that there’s a problem in their party. Projection is their go-to along with gas-lighting.
It is no secret that modern Western societies have replaced the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin and fallen man with new secular variants of human guilt. Acknowleding our capacity to sin is an essential part of Christianity, but an over-obsession on original sin has led the religion down some of its darker paths in the past (including the very ugly "blood libel" against the Jews, which has been more recently transformed into the secular "white oppression").
Given the left's fascination with critical theory and post-modern deconstruction, one might think they would have some self-awareness that these millenia-old ideas are simply being recycled into another narrative about our capacity to do evil to one another . . . . But critical theory is only for critiquing other people's ideas, apparently.
Thinking follows feeling. If your emotions are disordered, if decontextualized shame is a part of your sense of self, then your thinking will be disordered. Reasoning accurately is actually a high level emotional accomplishment.
And all emotional systems have real logic to them, just not always the logic which is proposed. People like those mentioned today who propose, in effect, that we get rid of racism by promoting racism--despite the science saying that is a bad idea--are really saying "I will feel better as a person fighting this "battle". I really regret missing out on the true Civil Rights struggle in the 50's and 60's, and even though I am personally much too timid to have taken part in that, and undergone the true physical dangers involved, I will feel much better about myself by PRETENDING that participating in kicking people while they are on the ground is somehow almost the same thing."
It's very sad, really. Or comical, depending on your day and mood.
I have a graduate degree in the Humanities from a good school, and of course am familiar with Levi-Strauss and Derrida and Ricouer and Habermas and others. What I would say is that the words have an hypnotic quality to them. They actually mean nothing, but they lull some part of the critical mind to sleep. I have often compared them to a Greek Orthodox Church, filled with the smoke of incense. They confer a feeling tone, but nothing useful or actionable. The action is reflexive, childish and nearly always harmful. But the FEELS, those are good. They are the affective aftermath of the escape from logic, which is to say adult responsibility and confusion in the face of a genuinely complex world.
I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but I fear not as much as I should be, in discussing what is actually going on in our best schools.
Very late to the game, but have to quibble with your first statement. The most efficient therapeutic modality — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — is premised on the principle that in fact thoughts precede emotions. Because the brain goes from one to the other very quickly, most people don’t realize there was a thought that gave rise to the emotion. The best way to short-circuit the emotion is to change that thought. Anyway, I’m so sorry you were forced to read all of that comparative lit nonsense. What a huge waste of your time!
I am going to answer this, not because I think anyone will read it, other than perhaps you, but because it is an interesting question.
The way I think it works--what I feel when I meditate, which I do daily--is that everything starts with Sensations. Sensations, in turn, are tied at a very primitive level with images, which often flash at subliminal speeds. That is the thought.
The images in turn trigger Thought/Feelings. I don't think you can really separate one from the other.
CBT is a useful approach, but only because loops are formed between thoughts and feelings, and if you can alter half of the loop, you affect the trajectory of the whole thing.
But to take two obvious example, the abdomen has enough nerve plexuses (?) that it amounts to the brain of a cat. That brain sends signals TO the brain. It does not just receive them. Same with the heart. The heart sends as much or more information to the brain as it receives.
This means that our thinking is highly conditioned by our bodies. This is particularly relevant to people with PTSD. You cannot fix PTSD with CBT. That fixing has to be done elsewhere, in other ways.
My two cents.
Well, yeah. We have a sympathetic nervous system that drives a whole host of “feelings” — like panic in adults or crying in infants — that are distinct from “emotions.” But I think the jury is out on how the SNS gets triggered when it isn’t warranted. PTSD and panic disorder are both great examples of ‘inappropriate’ SNS responses. Typically, combination therapies work best for both, so there’s some indication thoughts are involved somehow. But, I remain agnostic on the issue. Thank you for the conversation.
I also have a PhD from a top school, but in social science. We read the post-structuralist during my studies (early 1990s). I always looked at it as an interesting intellectual exercise, that was limited in its ability to deal with reality. Once you got the nomenclature down, there really wasn't much there other than there is no objective reality. Imagine my surprise that a intellectual movement claiming no objective reality has become one demanding we adhere to theirs!
I think the reality is that the U.S. government supported regional apartheid and national racial caste system and didn't become a democracy until 1965.
The United States has NEVER been a Democracy. The idea is not mentioned once in the Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation or the United States Constitution.
No. It is set up as a form of democracy. Which is mentioned in those documents. Sorry. Just like a Honda and Ford are types of cars.
So...let's not get started with this stupid talking point, that suddenly sprang up after Trump's loss.
"No. It is set up as a form of democracy. Which is mentioned in those documents."
Ahhh.. No. Democracy is never once mentioned in any of those documents and only the uneducated refer to "our Democracy" while sounding like Chairman Mao during his 1957 speech on the correct handling of the contradictions of the people.
We were racist, like every human society for all of recorded history, and like many even today, particularly in Asia and Africa. Unlike pretty much every other society in human history we did something about it, because we had a founding document which said that all human beings are created equal.
Now, if a potential employer were to say that "we don't hire black people" it would be national news, and on loop for weeks.
There is no white supremacy. What there is is very bad schooling in most inner cities, a complete disintegration of the nuclear families that psychologists and sociologists well understand to be necessary for optimal individual and social well being, and in recent years calls by white people to make black neighborhoods even less safe than they were, by eliminating or curtailing policing. Homicides and overall crime are up, obviously.
I read yesterday that Oakland, which is probably the same black majority city now that it was when I lived there in the 90's, is on track to have TWENTY THOUSAND cars stolen this year. They have just over 400,000 people. That is one car in 20.
That is a REAL problem, isn't it? Oakland business owners are getting ready to go on strike.
But once you enter this fairy tale world of "white supremacy" you never need to worry your little head about either facts or people ever again. You can cite papers in support of your "ideas" even if the actual papers say the opposite. Nobody will care. That isn't the game.
The game is self importance, and obviously the American Left plays that game to win.
"Were?"
I'm sorry. I was told during orientation here that were a "are" currently racist against white people and/or Asians.
Well, actually America reworked it into a racial caste system and support of regional apartheid that lasted until 1965. America is currently no more/less racist than any other industrialized nation, which is where the comparison should be. So, "did something about it" is really revisionist history and a complete distortion of the present.
No, there is white supremacy/white supremacists in America. The question is to what degree that is embedded in social, economic, political structures, etc. So, it is probably fair to say that it was "systemic" until 1965. Of course, I'm sure we can all agree that societies change their values, norms, ideologies, etc. immediately once a law is passed.
Sure, there was a small cohort that talked about "defunding the police" (bad slogan). I'd guess "Reappropriating a percentage of funds to more outreach, community involvement, mental health services and deescalation training, etc." is probably too much to put on a sign.
In reality, you can miss me with all the "defund" talk. The overwhelming majority of PDs kept their same level of funding and many actually increased.
Yes. There are always papers that say the opposite and vice versa, that's how it works. So, it's a two-way street.
'Sure, there was a small cohort that talked about "defunding the police"'
You mean people like the current Vice President of the US, the current President of the US the then speaker of the House, the then Minority Whip and almost every single person in their respective parties?
Is that a small cohort?
Biden? Nope. He pushed a criminal justice plan for $300 million for community policing efforts, including hiring more police.
Harris: "We need to reimagine how we are achieving safety in America. To have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing, but yet there is a dire need in those cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, for resourcing job training and job creation - come on. We have to be honest about this."
Pelosi: "Defund the police, that's not the position of the Democratic Party. Community safety to protect and defend in every way is our oath of office."
So, you are full of shit.
Almost every single person in their respective parties? Bullshit.
And let me save you the time, before you start with that Tweet Harris suppossedly sent. That was fake.
Yep. It sure is a small cohort.
Major police departments were not substantially defunded and they have actually had their budgets increased.
Fact. Deal with it.
Biden: In July of 2020 when he called for redirecting funding of the police to other things because the police have become the enemy of the people... So yep. Biden called for defunding. Yes he was pandering at the time, but that is what Democrats do.
So Harris. Absolutely. Re-imagine. Defund. Potato Patatoe.
Pelosi: On June 8 2020: We need to shuffle money around to change how policing is done but it is a local mater. At least she sees this as a local mater but she was still pushing to "shuffle money" around.
Biden was speaking about the perception of some people in communities toward police that enter communities in armored vehicles, military style engagement, etc. and that causes some people to view police as the enemy, which is 100% accurate...so nope. Lol. Nice try, liar. That's what Conservatives do.
"Re-imagine" is not "defund." Potato EV vehicle.
"Shuffle money around." That's the best you've got? Pathetic.
No major police departments were substantially defunded. They have all maintained and/or had their budgets increased.
So, I recommend you read "Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko to cleanse your mind of all the false copaganda you've swallowed hook, line and sinker.
My point is that the self declared anti-racists are self involved a holes whise work is not improving black lives in any way I can see, and which is making them worse in most ways that matter.
They have done NOTHING to improve black schools, and in some cases have closed high performing ones, as in New York.
The policy of bringing in—not allowing in, which itself is against the law—but bringing millions of unskilled people who became themselves criminals when they crossed our border illegally is creating a huge strain on all our social safety nets, and will certainly cause decreases in wages and increases in unemployment particularly in low income neighborhoods.
And as Democrat and honest Liberal Patrick Moynihan correctly predicted, left wing policies have almost completely destroyed the black family.
So all you people have left is equivocation, lies, and finger pointing intended as distraction.
Meanwhile at this moment a few dozen black kids who would have had a chance in a sane and kind society are going to die with needles in their arm today.
You do not have the high ground, and if you ever did, your claim to it died at least 30 years ago.
Uh...how did you get to illegal immigration?
A few dozen black kids are going to die with needles in their arms today?
Actually, data shows that restriciting immigration actually has little effect on raising wages, especially in low income areas, as most undocumented immigrants do jobs that Americans refuse to do in the exciting field of migrant farm laborer and hotel housekeeping staff.
I absolutely have the high ground, because I don't make ranting, hyperbolic statements and falsely pretend to care about demographic groups.
Here is the thing: sincerity has hallmarks. People that are honestly trying to solve existing problems and prevent future problems interact with openness, curiosity and an obvious desire to learn.
You react with defensiveness, misdirection, redirection, patent absurdities—such as the claim that adding millions of mouths to feed will not affect our safety nets or low income neighborhoods—and a sarcasm that is plainly intended to make interacting with you are your manic delusions as unpleasant as possible.
You love yourself. I get it. You think you are on the side of everything good and noble, fighting the good fight against forces of regression and oppression.
But nothing you ever say really makes sense, and you almost always avoid dealing directly and straightforwardly with anything I say.
My conclusion? You are not interested in solving real problems. Your whole WORLD consists in language, and the solipsistic nonsense that only become possible once the actual world and people in it has been fully eliminated.
Data says undocumemted immigration does not suppress wages in low-income communities. Sorry. It only suppresses wages if people are actually competing for the same jobs. No one is competing to be a seasonal migrant farm laborer. This is why whenever laws are passed to push undocumented immigrants are pushed out (AL, Fl, etc.) no "Americans" ever come in to fill those jobs that were being "taken."
Now, the strain on social services, etc. is a wholly separate matter. Legitimate/real, but separate.
Is that straightforward and direct enough for you?
Lol. Nope. Not defensive at all.
Just know the "fake concern" rhetoric as a means to discuss pathology and I am not going to be gaslit by it.
Is that straightforward and direct enough for you?
Nope. Actually not fighting against/for anything. Just expressing my opinion, sharing factual data when needed, etc.
I was just thinking about this. If the reading itself is the process and the goal, then would it not more properly be relegated to a sort of intellectual poetry, with no pretensions to social relevance, and existing solely as an aesthetic endeavor?
Reason, and the notion of universal principle, is one of the crowning achievements of Western Civilization, and these people want to destroy both in the name of nothing. They claim they want to oppose, say, racism, but 1) they don't actually oppose racism; they just shout at specific times and places that are largely arbitrary and mob driven; 2) the very NOTION of racism being bad is WESTERN, and thus their critiques are self consuming. You won't find comprehensive critiques of bigotry and prejudice anywhere else. Africa is riddled with tribal factionalism, dehumanization, de facto racism and following violence. So is everywhere else.
All or nothing is a childish emotion. You are either all good or all bad is a stupid sentiment. And nearly all their critiques engage in nothing else. Timur was arguably a more prolific murderer than either Hitler or Stalin--he killed roughly 5% of the worlds population--but he was neither white nor Christian. Horrors are simply a feature of the human race, and reason and principle remain the best ideas in play for how to end them; which makes anyone opposing either effectively misanthropic, which of course is what we see. Joe Biden is a misanthrope, and so too are the people running him. Elitism and misanthropy are closely related.
Quillette's recent podcast with Yascha Mounk on his new book about the intellectual roots and inherent contradictions of woke/identitarian politics is a well worth listening to.