Whar rattles me more than the war in Ukraine and the hegemony of China are the videos of people in Walgreens, scooping stuff off shelves, and the people in subways, attacking innocent bystanders. We have always had war and countries amassing power to threaten their neighbors. But the blatant, soulless and vile behavior of people that is unchecked by police or even people around them, let alone by the own consciences and sense of decency, just shocks me. I have no idea how to fix that.
My two cents here is, if we analyze this statement here, we realize that: from the videos of Ukraine and China, to the Walgreens, attacks on innocent bystanders, and more -- these are images that WE DON'T PHYSICALLY EXPERIENCE, but we experience them through the news and social media outlets.
The idea behind this, and there was a TedTalk on this, is that by us "experiencing reality through a screen" throws off our sense OF actual reality. Essentially, we think reality and the world is a violent one all the time, when in actually, it's a violent one, a small percentage of the time.
I'm with you on not watching the news. I've posted this before from my favorite philosopher Mark Twain who said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." In this respect nothing has changed since he wrote this.
I kind of think of news organizations as old-timey influencers. It’s a business, not a philanthropy, not so much looking for an audience as for a sponsor. And the natural progression, I fear, is that the ultimate sponsor is always the state and we end up in one of those situations like the image of the snake devouring its tail.
1000% agree! If anything, it's gotten 10x worse since he wrote that. And now with augmented reality and deep fakes down the pipeline, one can only imagine what the future will look like.
Mark Twain was a man of many talents and opinions, and he certainly had a way with words, but none of this qualifies him as a philosopher even in an amateur sense. There's no evidence he ever had an interest in logic, epistemology, metaphysics, rationalism vs. empiricism, materialism vs. idealism, or any of the other issues and subject areas that typically absorb the attention of philosophers.
'Favourite' is a comparative term, so it would be interesting to know who you're comparing Twain with. Other writers? Other people you possibly believe to be philosophers but similarly aren't? Among genuine philosophers, from Plato, Hume and Kant to Husserl, Jaspers and Quine, which ones have you read? Their contributions to intellectual history comprise a wonderful body of literature, but it isn't at all the kind of literature Twain wrote.
Great quote about newspapers--Twain had them dead to rights. If making perceptive observations were all it took to make one a philosopher, though, we'd all be philosophers.
Picasso isn't my favorite anything he was an egocentric, misogynist, communist millionaire, asshole whose paintings are gibberish, bullshit.
Charlie Russel and Winslow Homers were artists. Picasso drew garbadge. When drawing he must have been on drugs.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and philosophy is in the mind of the reader. I will not let some pseudo intellectual dictate to me what is philosophy and what isn't. "Suppose I am a congressman. Suppose I am an idiot but then I repeat myself." Mark Twain. To me that is great philosophy. It is straight forward and simple to understand. It is not in the least esoteric like St. Thomas Aquinas's rebuttal to Peter Abelard.
I live in NYC and have seen absolutely zero instances of crime, and I’m out and about all the time. I do avoid the subway at night, which is unfortunate, but other than that I feel perfectly safe here. However, I’m in Manhattan and I don’t know what’s happening in the other boroughs.
Well clearly you weren't in Union Square.... Which last I looked was in Manhattan. Moreover, I personally know of two people who were assaulted in Midtown in Midday. So you clearly live in a fantasy world. As far as the subway, it's worse at night but the skells still abound on it during the day.
A logical fallacy, there, Bruce...Appeal to authority based on an event no one other than you can corroborate.
Hosting more than19 million people in the metro NY area, the city has the potential of being the home of all sorts of strange, disgusting, illegal, and sometimes violent activities.
But, Aviel was remarking that knowledge of violent activities in other boroughs is scant and that she felt safe walking in her neighborhood.
And, I would venture to say that a strong majority of New Yorkers might feel the same,
I live in a much less crowded environment and am only "involved" in the day-to-day police activities of my community is in pulling over to let the flashing lights pass or greeting the policeman while standing in line with me at my local Dunkin' outlet.
What's going on in the next town? I haven't a clue.
Your view of Manhattan seems to comport more with the headlines than it does for the daily activities of 19.8 million people. But, of course, one needs to be cognizant of the potential that those 18.8 million represent in terms of your health and safety. Be vigilant, my friend. That's about all you can do.
My boyfriend and I were walking home and I spotted what looked like a young man on drugs and/or unstable. I was about to move us in another direction when I spotted a very elderly woman looking at the corner where the young men was standing. She look afraid; she wanted to cross the street but didn't want to get too close. I said to her, "Let's wait and see if he crosses when the light changes. Then you can cross at the next green." He did and we waited with her. She was very appreciative and David said to me, "I didn't see anything." My response was, "It comes from being a woman in this city. You have to aware of everything!"
Not sure why you felt the need to be so rude just out of the blue. The thread is about what we experience ourselves vs what we see and hear about second hand. My experience is obviously real enough to me, but I don’t make the argument that everything is fine everywhere, if that’s what you think.
Because you were using your claimed experience to refute the views of another. Sure, maybe if you never leave the Upper East Side or the West Village.....But the City has gotten dirtier, more violent and dangerous under the woke Democrats elected since Giuliani and Bloomberg erased the mistakes of Koch and Dinkins.
The number one source of our problems is the media. Then come the universities and, increasingly, the lower schools. A democracy cannot function with misinformed citizens, and we are rapidly losing our democracy.
Given the indispensability of accurate information to our judgment, legacy media's betrayal of its mission is unforgivable, and a tragedy. The lonely online voices trying their best to outflank the compromised institutions are relentlessly slandered, which shows just how deeply the moral rot has penetrated. The slanderers know exactly what they're doing and whom to target, and their tactics are bullying and thuggish. Fortunately they're also transparent: there's a reason legacy media's credibility is on life support. The bobbing and weaving they have to engage in to maintain their increasingly preposterous narratives are reducing them to cartoon versions of journalists, even in the eyes of former believers. Yet, they show no inclination to stop. With unapologetic cynicism it seems they're prepared to go right on insulting people's intelligence for as long as someone pays them to do so.
'Tis not misinformation, my friend. The brains of our kids are being stuffed with propaganda designed to allow the cognoscenti to direct public opinion on subjects that might threaten the powers of the all-knowing.
We can't have that sort of revolution, now, can we?
Hmm, well... although I generally agree with the problem of sensationalism that gets amplified as the corporate media consolidates and twitches the same, that same AP-fed monster tends to sensationalize weather events and not the inner city crime events... which have exploded.
Why in Japan can you leave you house and car unlocked without fear of theft and not here?
Why is Jason Aldene's song "Try that in a Small Town" top of the charts?
What are you actually saying here? Is this a dog-whistle saying that it’s the (pick some) coloured; non-white; non-Christian; illegally resident people who are the perps?
I disagree; many of us have physically experienced - or had a loved one physically experience - crime in a Western country. I had a phone taken from me at knife-point in Seattle. Compared to the crimes many people face, that's small potatoes. I'm sure I'm not the only person in TFP comments to have had some brush with petty crime, especially anyone who's lived or worked in a major coastal city.
The tragedies happening right now in Ukraine far exceed that in viciousness and violence, but because they're so far away, and because I can't link them to my own experiences or my own fears when going to the store, they're simply images on a screen.
Images on the screen were what catalyzed the opposition to the US's involvement in Viet Nam.
One Democratic political ad, played only once on national TV, doomed the candidacy of Barry Goldwater.
Bad lighting and not shaving before the "debate" cost Richard Nixon the presidency in 1960. (I scare quoted the word "debate" because these farcical productions are little more than extended campaign stump speeches with hair-ball gotcha questions offered up by the superbly coiffed, oh-so-biased talking heads that are pretending they have the gravitas of a Walter Cronkite.
Yip that’s about right. Watch Joe Rogan Podcast #2016 with Patrick Bet David, David explains why debates may become obsolete. I hope they do you can’t have the media especially the scrap line CNN dictate who our President should be
I don't follow this argument at all. It's true that modern technology exposes us to a wider range of information than would be available to us simply through our own direct experience. But, then, a traveling Neolithic villager's report about what was going on in the next valley performed exactly the same function in 8000 B.C. Since when was 'reality' ever reducible to what each single individual directly experiences? We'd all live in an impossibly impoverished reality if that were our sole source of information. Casting our information net as widely as possible increases rather than diminishes our chances of forming a picture of the world, and our situation in it, that's congruent with 'actual realities.'
I have been living in Manhattan for the past six months due to having major surgery and recovery from this. I last lived in Manhattan in 1990 and last worked there in 2015. The decline from then to now is real. I assure you that what is seen on videos online is staggering and the social disarray is mind boggling. On a daily walk on the mid to upper East Side there is violent crime, homelessness, feces on the sidewalks, stench of humans and of low grade pot, and many goods under lock and key at drugstores. People drive e-bikes through lights, in the wrong direction on both side streets and major avenues, and I can go on and on.
About 5 % of people ae sociopaths and another 10% are opportunistic followers. If you crack down on the sociopaths, arrest them, rough them up and jail them, order is maintained. If not, 15% of the population can create mayhem. As we saw in the BLM riots, and, most recently in Union Square in New York City. That nonsense would never have been tolerated. The cops would have put a beating on those animals and the "riot" would have evaporated. But now, NYC is in the hands of imbeciles and racists who let criminals have free rein.
I am in now way calling for any kind of police brutality. They know what they are doing and know they will never be held accountable because they never have been thanks to people like you constantly making excuses like these are just straight A students who made an oopsie.
You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. Far too many people have decided some people are too animalistic to control their urges so any punishment is cruel and inappropriate.
Wait a second. An Instagram idiot giving away free shit to teenage kids in Union Sq. and they’re called sociopaths, criminals and animals? It gets out of control, police are called in, it appears they handled it relatively orderly - and you say they should have put a beating on these kids? Rough them up? WTF. Thats bullshit.
Are you serious? Put your thinking cap on if you can find it.
That’s like saying a Taylor Swift concert out of control deserves the same response.
One of your grand kids could have been in that melee.
I realize correlation does not equal causation, but the rise of "blatant, soulless and vile behavior of people left unchecked" might be caused by the breakdown of the family unit and the forgoing of religion or any moral compass for that matter. When I see that sort of behavior I always wonder...where are the parents??? Where are the mentors of these kids? Where are the people to tell them THIS IS WRONG?
It happened in the 1990s in the post Soviet Russia. I have lived through this vile, soulless and blatant behavior. People turned into beasts. It lasted about a decade and was a product of an overall social political decay and a loss of national idea. (Collapse of the USSR, however great on the outside, was a national disaster on the inside).
Fixing it comes through new leadership, often authoritarian…
When poor people are trapped with no way out, guess what, the robin-hood affect sets in...they feel they have every right to steal from SHAREHOLDERS and the rich elite who don’t give a damn anyway
Actually Lee, the footage tells a different tale. It was a riot. Rioters should be gassed and beaten. And thrown in jail. People were assaulted. Property was damaged. Is this the kind of America you want to live in? I don't and neither do most sane Americans.
This mob was a 21st century version of Marx’s lumpenproletariat many not only had cell phones but the latest iPhone, many live in subsidized housing are fed by food stamps. The internet is the ultimate leveler a message was put out for what they feel entitled to free stuff. The bulk of the crowd were young males. We saw what happened. The police showed incredible restraint, maybe too much. There are more of these events waiting to happen.
When Daniel Penny protected the innocent passengers in the subway car he was charged with a crime. The virtue signaling from people who would have done nothing to help anyone (other than make donation to a pet cause) were the first to condemn.
I only just finished reading this interview and I'm so glad yours was the first comment. The lawlessness in the country has degraded every area of our lives and despite our attempts to find them, there is nowhere to run. Rural areas that were once havens of peace and quiet have been disrupted by squatters and meth heads. Years ago, my boyfriend and I were checking out possible homes in upstate NY. The owners (who were elderly) had a baseball bat next to one of their armchairs. It turns out there was a trailer down the road whose occupants were a bit "troublesome." Now that we're seniors, we've weighed the pros and cons and living in an urban environment might have its challenges but there is safety in numbers.
I'm glad that the subject of faith was brought up; it has been the source of light in our lives and a source of possibilities and gratitude.
"I think about how many families encourage their kids to try new things. Maybe your dad was a shoemaker, but you should go and be a doctor! I think we still have this notion of change." - This "notion of change" really equates to part of the problem; that many came to believe that being a doctor is superior to being a shoemaker. That being a stock trader is superior to being a baker. That being a software developer is superior to being an electrician. Now we have thousands of people who can write apps and not enough people who can install or repair an air conditioner in a home, and we can this progress. If saving the world from an increase of .01% in carbon equates to forcing an eight-year-old boy to dig for cobalt in a mine with a wooden shovel, then we need to re-evaluate our priorities.
This sounds like a battle from a generation ago, and not really reflective of what's happening to gen-Z. There's room in our economy for doctors, but no room for shoemakers (buy some shipped in form China), nor for very many bakers (most bread is made in factory farms). As for electricians or HVAC, those are two the most in-demand professions right now, so if they're not being respected socially, they're certainly getting respect financially. And I know many parents now are pushing their kids towards that, since it's the job most difficult to replace with AI/automation.
The bigger issue is kids taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to study art history, or philosophy, or gender, or literature, or some other academic pursuit with the only job being in academia. Even scarier than that, the #1 most desired job for kids in high school right now is "YouTuber" (maybe it's changed to TikTok). People are turning away from the productive things their parents had done and putting that energy into reductive tasks.
I agree with you that shoes are made in China now so it's not a career here. And, there are a great many kids who would have happy lives working in HVAC but since maybe Obama times there's been this message that every last kid has to go to college whether it benefits them or not.
Then, as you say, many study things that are useless or worse in college, like Gender Theory. And, yeah, so many want to be Youtube famous as their career. Maybe that will go bust?
I really like DeSantis' idea of: “reforming” the education system to “make universities, not taxpayers, responsible for the loans their students accrue” and to allow those loans to be discharged through bankruptcy “like any other loan.” https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/31/desantis-2024-education-00108961
Maybe the most useless universities and university departments would go under, the most elite with giant endowments might bring down tuition, and the colleges in the middle might support the launch of their students into the real world.
LOL. let me guess how old you are. "bread is made on factory farms" LOL. try living without your "daily bread". the word is FACTORIES.. no farming involved. but hey Gen z. what ever that is. gotta be fearful of a future that thinks bread comes from farms
I wholeheartedly agree with this post 1000%! As a millennial, we were taught to be the doctor, but no one told us about the debt, the trauma during medical school, so forth and so on. And to make matters worse, we're so specialized in one way, and see the world in this way, that we have no way to think deeply or interconnectedly. And so, I know my generation, millennials, continue to struggle to find out way.
But, hey, this is life and I think we're slowly being aware to this fact. Here's a couple pieces on that for any other millennials:
I'll add another angle that fits in with your comment. Maybe your dad was a doctor, but you are interested in making shoes. Maybe your dad was a CPA, but you want to be an electrician. Both parents want to see you maintain the family "status" and push you unhappily towards the college degree. I believe we've developed an unrealistic sense of opportunity. While there's many professions to choose from today compared to a time when most were farming or doing household work, some tend to forget there has to be a need for your skillset and someone willing to pay you a living wage for that skillset.
For some reason I'm reminded of the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" 1969 sketch "Vocational Guidance Counsellor", in which chartered accountant Michael Palin goes to the counsellor (John Cleese) with unrealistic hopes of changing his career to "lion tamer".
We can see one aspect of this phenomenon gone wild is the dream of being an "influencer." Being an influencer in itself can be a wonderful and necessary goal. But sadly, that isn't the goal for so many. We are influenced to be good in fashion, in bed, in doing idiotic activities, in relishing in ignorance. Oh to be influenced in calling us to be better human beings!
Interestingly, the market place might take care of this.
Air conditioner installers, masons, plumbers etc are getting high rates for their labour precisely because there are relatively few of them. Those high rate will attract others to those trades. It’s happening already.
One of the things that we have to understand is that when we talk in context of “humans” and “wars,” it’s not the majority of us who are making these decisions. It’s the decisions of a few individuals in powerful positions that decide to move the masses towards wars and bloodshed, so we need to clarify that. Otherwise, we continually propagate this narrative that “humanity is evil.”
I’d argue that this “humanity is evil” ideology is a result of “propaganda” used on a mass level, starting with Darwin’s Evolutionary theory and “survival of the fittest” and has spawned over and over, mainly due to a lack of spirituality that early humans had. Leaders have replaced this “spirituality hole” and have used this “survival of the fittest” idea to promote an “us vs them” which drives humanity towards more war and bloodshed.
When we stop pointing at “humanity” and point it towards the “leaders and role models” in charge, then we humanity can really start to progress.
My “spirituality” involves the statement, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, along with 10 commandments that build on that one simple rule.
Now the commandments say, “Bully your neighbor to attain power” “there’s no such thing as a lie--everyone’s truth is real”, “wealth redistribution is not stealing”, “your parents are idiots, ignore them”, “worship material goods”, “say whatever you want on social media to get clicks”.
I agree, NCMaureen! I don't worry about apocalypse's, the end of the world, etc. because my hope is not based on things of this world. My hope is not in the government or what any leader in our country can do for me because that will fail every time. Thank God that, by His mercy and grace, I know Him and have Him in my life.
1000% agree! Our reality has been thrown off and we've been given a false reality! This is literally the ethos behind my substack Unorthodoxy! "Exploring the spirituality behind this physical world!" I'm literally working on an article on that right now as well if you (or anyone) might be interested:
I will say though that we have had massive UPWARD wealth redistribution since St. Ronnie of the Raygun first took over, and that was seen as fine and dandy by the mainstream. And the generation that overwhelmingly voted for him (and the Bushes, Clinton, and Trump) was like the trees that kept voting for the ax because the ax's handle was made out of wood just like them.
I agree. Most of the problem comes from the leftist Ideology of control. Divide and conquer. So few will be in charge and create division between the races. Misinformation is key. Tell a lie long enough by media or government and the masses will believe. Insert social media in the equation project to help with the lie. Everything we do will destroy the earth. Climate change is the top Hysteria pushed now. 1.5 degree will kill the earth? Really? A planet that’s 4.5 billion years old? C’mon man. Control, control control. Get more important, richer! But no one sees the evil in it?
Excellent point. We forget, at our peril, what Goering said on the subject when he was interviewed as he was awaiting trial at Nuremburg. We have to vote out the neo-cons and the saber rattlers. Sure, we need a strong defense and dedicated war fighters. But we don't need to be sticking our noses in everywhere and fighting other people's battles.
I agree. I think the neo-con interference in other countries’ politics was a reaction to WWII and its aftermath (a position that was both necessary and successful at the time)... but things have changed a LOT in the last 80 years, with a kind of globalism and development that our policy makers of that era couldn’t have imagined. New times require revisiting old ideas.
There is simply a lack of decency and morality at the core of the top elites in this country. This missing piece is not religion per se, but rather the ethical values that underpin religion yet are not exclusive to religion. While Mead describes a triad of politics, money and hedonism, I believe that the core problem is money/hedonism, and that politics is an expression of the former. The elite power uses artificial “values” to provide cover for them.
Below this power structure are the masses which are essentially in the same position. The elite use their “values” to divide this group, through the “culture wars”. The raging conflict about transgender people is the latest example of the use of identity politics tool to divide those with a common economic status.
And, technology amplifies all of this, which contributes to the sense of rage.
This is the reason why my vote goes to Vivek. Everything about his vision is the core of what’s been missing for years, and we’re getting further and further away from it. On a video where he was speaking, he had tall signs on the stage with phrases that could’ve created a yard sign to counter the current “in this house we believe”: God is real, parents determine their child’s education, there are only two genders, and on and on. He’s running on everything that’s wrong with our culture because the current status is what’s breeding the filth of society. We need hope right now. Trump, Haley, Scott, Pence, and the rest don’t come anywhere close to the hope Vivek gives me. Sure, I don’t agree with everything, but even the big donors don’t agree with their candidate! He has an eye above and beyond what the others have and the only way the economy, border, failing education of our children, crime, etc can be fixed is getting to the core problems of humanity. I have to live on hope because the alternative is just too sad.
Amen Linda. I admire his bravery to speak unapologetically for what he believes, if that means the end to affirmative action, he says it. Firing thousands of government lackeys, he’ll do it. My biggest fear is that too many Americans just aren’t up to a Vivek. Too many want to be comfy in mediocrity, free stuff, forgiven loans, it’s too hard to stand for something like American greatness.
I agree with all you said. I’ve seen many comments from democrats, republicans, two-time Trump voters, and independents who are on board with him. He’s says he’s the only republican who can win in the general election, and I tend to agree. He has so much confidence that he thinks that soon the race will be just between himself and Trump! We’ll have a better idea after this first debate, and I can’t wait for that!
When I heard Trump for the first time, I said that’s the guy we need. A fighter. He wasn’t idea but he was the only one that would fight down and dirty that we needed. Sure he was booster-is, but he was a New Yorker ( just how they are), a businessman not a politician. He saw the evil but it was greater than he thought. First thing I said he would need 1,000 lawyers to fight through the corruption of the government. We just needed him to clean house but there were too many intrenched. If he gets elected this time he’ll know what he has to fight but he won’t come out unscathed. He will be blooded but I think he will survive for 4 years. Then we can elect someone with morals and have a much better America.
Earl, my fear is our country can’t survive another Trump, or Biden Presidency. The division btw their followers, rather the WOKE Left vs everyone else, is already almost too wide to bridge. The nasty labeling, “Deplorable MAGA White Supremacists” or “House Slave” if you are Conservative Black will never bring us back to Center.
What America desperately needs is a NEW, younger President who will work to restore unity + our standing on the World Stage.
Or is it too late to stop the insanity of where we are now?
Do you honestly think the woke left won't attack Vivek as viciously - if not more than - Trump? They will call him a BIPOC turncoat. And that's the nicest thing they'll say about him. I agree that the gerontocracy has to go but that doesn't mean we have to elect someone who would be our youngest president.
100%. Trump no longer has the energy for this. This country cannot afford to have a president working part-time (like the current one, only for different reasons) due to his legal battles. It’s time to move on from this.
I fear it is too late. I think it started at the end of the Bush era and exploded with O’ Bummer when he hired all the media spouses. His communist teaching started to show pretty quickly but hiring the media put it all in a different prospective. That’s when police were the enemy. Remember Emanuel saying “don’t let a crisis go to waste”? He poked the divide of the racist with propaganda. The leftist democrats have turn just plain evil IMO.
The only thing I disagree with Vivek is he thinks Bernie Sanders is an OK guy.
Bernie Sanders is and always has been a hard core communist. Given half a chance he would drag us into the brutal, murderous morass of a vile, dictatorial, communist state.
But he hasn’t the spine yet to call out Trump, his chief obstacle, for the idiot, election liar that he is. He evades, obfuscates and never criticizes the ex President directly. He’s had ample opportunity. Why?
Because, like everyone else in this tepid GOP field, except for a select few, he’s afraid of Trump and the people who support him.
How the hell can he handle America’s interests if he’s afraid of one man?
Yeah, not a fan of politicians saying that something/someone is real when there is no evidence of it.
If parents feel they should have 100% control, then they should homeschool or set up their own school system and they can teach how Jesus rode a dinosaur all day long.
But, I predicted what all this Mom For Liberty and anti-history BS was really about long ago.
Good discourse and illustrates very clearly why neither side has the answer. The pendulum has swung to extremes. Vivek points this out clearly, admirably and boldly with sound reasoning and ideas, I like him, but at the end of the day, he’s a capitalist and adheres to that paradigm and moral code.
Participating in a public school system requires community, and community has now been removed by the new elites, who are left, and are hellbent at creating a new morality, but not through consensus. The rights are attempting to counterbalance this with a return to an old value system. How can any of this work? No one is listening, and there is certainly no community. So, what will it take to get there? Certainly none of what we’re currently doing.
Sorry. Not interested in Moms For Liberty "old value system" of removing Rosa Parks race from school lessons, trying to ban Ruby Bridges autobiography and teaching that slavery was beneficial for blacks, whitewashing Jim Crow/Segregation and very soon likely teaching that Harriet Tubman ran a travel agency.
Fortunately, other parents and school districts are starting to stand up to these bullies. You don't want little Tanner to feel "distressed" about Greenwood/Tulsa? You don't want him to read about Harvey Milk? Then homeschool them.
If Ruby Bridges was old enough to go through what she did, little Meredith is old enough to read about it. No one gave a damn about whether I was "distressed" about lessons in school.
You don't get to decide what all the other kids in the class get to read or learn about. You got a problem? Homeschool or start your Moms For Liberty school.
Right…because it’s best for administrators and teachers to hide what their kids are being taught. Deep down they also know it’s wrong. If it wasn’t, there would be know reason to hide.
No. I just don't think parents should be able to go into schools and demand that:
1. Rosa Park's race be removed from school lessons.
2. Make sure to have books that teach "both sides" of the Holocaust.
3. Teach that the Tulsa Race Masssacre wasn't about race.
4. Disrupt a reading session for kids with gay parents
5. Teach that slavery was beneficial,
Etc....etc....
This was the goal of Rufo, Moms For Liberty, etc.
1. Claim something is happening/major issue when it's not.
2. Claim you're trying to "protect the kids."
3. Get on school boards to ensure that any discussion of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. in relation to American history will be removed in K-12.
You don't want little Parker or Annabelle to feel "distressed" when learning factual history?
As typical Democrat, each one of those points is an exaggeration beyond that which is truth. You must think Harris is a hero for her emergency trip to Florida…eye roll. And if that first group is actually true, curious as to whose fault you think it is?
Lol? Whose fault is it? So....you're saying someone "instigated" MFL to get get Florida to remove Rosa Park's race from textbooks? Lol. Yeah....damn those people teaching accurate history. How dare they?!
My favorite was MFL trying to ban Ruby Bridges' autobiography because <checks notes>...there was no "redemption" in it for the white people that threatened her and showed up at the school with a child's casket, etc.
Would you like to start with some links? Let's start with this one.
Nah. I'm just glad the black GOP members who also spoke out about it got attacked. by DeSantis/GOP. LOVE IT!! Maybe they finally got their wake-up call. Tokens get spent.
I do like what Vivek is saying. But, is he the one to accomplish it - never having governed anything? I see DeSantis as being able to deliver. I could see Vivek working in his administration - if we can trust that he is not in the pocket of Soros.
Agree with this comment! Mike, I think you called out a critical piece that not a lot of people look to realize and that's the factor of HEDONISM. Don't know if you're familiar with the book "Brave New World" but it mentioned how Hedonism was a important piece to create the society that can be easily be influenced by politics. Literally what you just mentioned when you say, "The elite power uses artificial “values” to provide cover for them."
I did an analysis on "Brave New World and 1984" if you're interested. Here's Part Two of that analysis focusing specifically on the hedonistic aspect of things (and another piece on the damaging effects of technology as well):
"Expansion of college to everybody in a sense devalued the college degree rather than giving everyone the magic of what a college degree meant in 1960 when it propelled you into a place. "
That's ridiculous. Colleges devalued the college degree. In 1960, if you had a degree, it was a guarantee that you were literate. It was a guarantee that you had some motivation to learn. It was a guarantee that you had been exposed to great books and great ideas. It was a guarantee that you had developed some critical thinking skills. This is what made college graduates employable as professionals.
In 2023, a college degree is a commodity and a college student is a customer. Colleges sold their collective souls in order to get as many students as possible regardless of their motivation and ability. No matter how dumb and unmotivated you are, you can get a degree in something just by taking out enough loans, regurgitating leftist dogma, and being a robotic radical activist. Tree climbing, Lady Gaga, and the TV show South Park are all subjects of college classes. This is not because those subjects have educational value but because spending their lives in front of video screens have left students today with the attention span of fruit flies. Students don't demand an education; they demand college credit for entertainment. They demand colleges reinforce their political prejudices and tell them how perfect they are, just like mommy and daddy (or both mommies or both daddies) always did.
"Give me what I want or I'll go somewhere else." So the colleges fell all over themselves to pander to angry, intolerant brats. So now, the angry, intolerant brats have a diploma that in many cases, they can't even read. They also have thousands of dollars in debts, no real education, and no real job prospects.
So true. Time for colleges to jettison any degree that has “Studies” in the title, and any degree that could be taught at a 2 yr vo-tech institution. These include hotel management, food service management, communications, marketing, journalism, along with gender studies and all those other bullsh-- degrees. Go back to requiring philosophy, history and classics courses in any degree, including math. Of course, this requires there be professors who can teach these subjects....
Indeed, colleges themselves have made themselves increasingly unfit for purpose. That's literally their business model nowadays.
While the very first expansion of college to the non-elite masses in the 1960s and 1970s would of course have inevitably necessitated *some* degree of watering down and grade inflation, what has happened since then, especially in the past quarter century, should be laid at the feet of the colleges themselves.
Especially as colleges have become far more expensive since then, which is the opposite of expanding it to more people, even as college becomes more and more necessary to earn any semblance of a living wage nowadays. Such a racket.
We do live in a more dangerous world than at anytime. Yet I put the a lot of the reasoning on technology that allows the powerful, rich controlling, and world order people who equate money, power, and privilege to superior knowledge as a means for expansion of power to control people. They believe (worldwide elites across the globe) that they know what is best for everyone. Just do this and Sudan will be good. Remember George Clooney and the elites with the “Not on my watch “ campaign. How’s that working; oh wait; now we’re on mutilate children and increase mental illness campaign. Refuse to confront evil and it only grows stronger and mutates into eventually being multi dimensional.
Combine that with governments being led by fundamentally weak governments and institutions run by people with little to no morals, higher beliefs, or desire to make the hard choices. Cowards banding together thinking they know better and meanwhile evil grows unchecked with no one to confront it.
Africa and the Middle East, and Asia have conflicts based on greed of the very people described above. Add in the silly liberal belief that if I weaken myself all my potential enemies will respect me and be kind. No, the same evil trends in people ensuring they want what is yours. Look at the mobs robbing and looting in our cities. Same principles. Tell them they are oppressed and we are so sorry. Please destroy society and commit crimes to help make us feel better, because we are so woke. Liberalism encourages war and our own history points that 2/3 of our wars had Democratic presidents. Dictators and evil fear strength and determination and surely not liberal politicians.
People don’t understand that feelings and good intentions mean nothing to evil people. Look at Soros, Gates, Suckenberg, and expand worldwide. Power and influence over the human race is the goal. Their belief that they know what is best for mankind makes this world more unstable than anything else. So they fund campaigns of the weak, insecure, and absolutely unqualified leadership that the entire world has. Meanwhile the evil just gains more strength and others become targets.
> if I weaken myself all my potential enemies will respect me and be kind
That's not really their philosophy; they are not looking for respect from enemies. They are looking for a way to get ahead in life, and our incentive structure right now are set up in such a way that we respect and venerate people based on either their identity or some characteristic about that person, instead of their accomplishments.
This occurs at all levels -- a single special needs child can get millions of dollars of funding, while gifted & talented programs are being shut down in public schools. A transgender athlete will be given more attention (negative and positive) while elite athletes pass by unremarked. Entrepreneurial investors will choose businesses based on diversity metrics instead of ability to attain a profit.
The gifted and talented program's are not being shutdown because they're putting the money into special education. They are being shutdown because if everyone can't be gifted and talented nobody can.
So right. There are few that have the qualities to do the right thing for the good of all. People that care about the state of the global community. If we had more of those this would be a less dangerous planet. No wonder Elon wants to get to Mars as soon as possible.
Terry, I will add that the “elite” never concern themselves about the chaos taking place among the “underprivileged = the rest of us beneath them”.
They really aren’t too concerned with open borders, rampant crime, child sex trafficking, high inflation & interest rates, jobs, healthcare, poverty, minorities, guns, lack of education, homelessness, the environment, etc., etc., etc.!
They are insulated from the chaos EXCEPT or unless it effects their power & wealth. Yes, they will talk about it ad nauseam when they need to influence the masses for votes, in order to stay in power & keep their wealth! Or, use it for threats & intimidation, so they can stay in power & keep their wealth!
Our duty is to pay whatever tax they deem necessary. Remember the money they need to stay on top. And never forget Big Brother Government is watching, so don’t step out of line for fear of persecution, ridicule, or heaven forbid you be labeled a “threat to democracy” and be shunned, shamed, or thrown in jail.
I know! I sound terribly pessimistic today, but I am beyond sick & tired of the Powerful People (politicians, & pundits) who have a voice that can be heard, yet they constantly spew hate, discontent & divisiveness!
First, it is not humans' ability to produce power that is the problem. Thinkers from Buckminster Fuller up through Elon Musk realized that the greatest driving force to eliminate poverty and misery is the availability of what Fuller called, "energy slaves" - available power equal to the labor of one person. The average American controls 5,000 of them, the average African, "approximately zero." And that is why the elites' Global War on Affordable Energy - which disproportionately affects the poorest in the world, is so immoral.
Second, I taught a course in radiological physics for several years; these goobers in D.C. have zero idea what they are playing with when they poke the Russian bear. (Hint: Atomic and hydrogen bombs turn mass to energy according to Einstein's famous equation, E = mc^2; c^2 is a Very Big Number.) The headlong drive to nuclear war is avoidable. We just have to hang those promoting it. I have plenty of climbing rope, if anybody's interested.
No offense to you personally, Bari, but I perceive your guest as out of his depth.
I'm a fan of Buckminster Fuller! Elon, not so much haha!
To me, Elon is the "richest, poorest" man in the world. Rich that his entire persona is hugely built off of a strategic propaganda campaign, which allows his name to almost attract finances and resources, but poor in the sense that there's very little tangible value being produced from his ventures. I think he just sold his house so that he could get some cash or so?
So yea, those are my thoughts on Elon lol. Here's a post on why I think SpaceX, one of his latest ventures, are doomed to fail:
If it wasn’t for Elon, we would not have the Twitter files which in my mind are a much bigger scandal than Watergate—multiple government agencies secretly colluding with mega tech companies to eliminate speech for thousands of American citizens, including prominent doctors and scientists during a pandemic. Despite legacy media, in any sentient society this is a huge scandal.
I'm kind of an Elon fan, mostly because he's so unpredictable that he causes the other billionaires, Democrats, and communists - but I repeat myself - to tremble in their boots and is constantly humiliating them on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. (TPFKAT).
The fact that he is unpredictable is extremely concerning for all of us. His starlink communication satellites are giving Ukrainians internet. That is far and away too much power for a boy/man who uses his platform to stir schoolyard fights.
Like all simplistic explanations, that one is inadequate to describe a complex, canny polymath who has mastered nearly everything he has tried. Like my Boy Jefferson, Elon Musk must be judged by the totality of his influence and accomplishments, not just his alleged shortcomings - and those accomplishments are legion.
Franklin, we are free (for now anyway) to voice our opinions + dislike anyone we take issue with.
So here’s my 2 cents worth. Up & until Elon began speaking out about Free Speech & purchased Twitter, he was one of the “Darlings of the Democrats” (just as Trump was!).
He always voted for Democratic politicians + Tesla Motors was the 1st electric automobile and the WOKE Left loved & praised him!
But just like other Democrats who dare go against the WOKE Left ideology & narrative, once Elon ventured to call “a spade a spade” and be vocal about how the Left censoring speech they didn’t like, or were offended by, that’s when the Left, once again “ate their own”
I am a great fan of Elon, and anyone who will stand up against the Woke Left insanity.
Label me a White Supremest, a Deplorable, a blah, blah, blah, you fill in the derogatory blank. I am okay with name calling & labeling (of course, I find it offensive & unnecessary) ... you have that First Amendment Right, unless or until the Left takes that away from us, too!
How are we poking Putin’s bear kingdom? He’s the one who invaded. Are we putting intercontinental nukes in Ukraine? No. Are we putting in tactical nukes? No.
Is he threatening? Yes.
Has he done anything? No.
So then the question should be asked. Why hasn’t he done what he threatened to do?
As with all things, there are multiple points of view. Another might be, "Why did the United States' CIA subvert the Ukranian election to install a reformed comedian as the puppet president?" What did they hope to gain? Why did they ignore warnings about admitting Ukraine - ON RUSSIA'S BORDER - into NATO, Russia's sworn enemy, or did they plan to do that to PROVOKE a war? Indeed, it is NOT different from 1962, except that now the US is in the wrong, trying to place a threat on Russia's doorstep instead of the other way 'round. Tell me, how would the US feel if China and Russia allied with Mexico and Canada and began putting missiles there?
Or another: How does Ukraine's possessing all the receipts for the American Alleged President's graft and corruption ("I told them they wouldn't get the billion dollars unless they fired the prosecutor, and son of a bitch, they fired him!") possibly affect American foreign policy concerning Ukraine?
Another might be: How would a nuclear-armed regime respond to an existential threat? If they are going to be annihilated anyway, why not take your enemy with you? Or maybe we'll just sterilize all of Europe as a warning. "We will never be overrun" is certainly Israel's plan; maybe Putin feels the same way.
Ukraine is None Of Our Business. Most people cannot find it on a map. We can argue about right and wrong and who is which, but I don't want my nation's rulers massaging their rescuer fantasies with my children's blood. Seems reasonable to me.
The fact that most ignorant Americans can’t find Ukraine on a map doesn’t mean it isn’t in the national security interests of the US.
We can argue till the cows come home - but in my opinion Putin did what he did because Russia deserved a puppet regime on his southern flank. And he used NATO expansion as a pretext.
Now of course, he has NATO across his entire Western flank because of his misjudgment.
I used to consider myself a liberal but now I don't know what liberal mean.
I used to think it meant toleration for diverse viewpoints, but now I see some liberals vilifying condemning and even expressing a wish for harm for those who disagree with their liberal viewpoint.
I used to think it meant charitableness and respect for human rights, but now I hear some liberals saying the meanest and most uncharitable things about people such as RFK Jr. and condemning people who want to exercise their religious or medical freedoms.
I used to think it meant open-mindedness and willingness to learn, but now I see many liberals refusing to even discuss controversial topics out of fear that they might have to hear something that diverges from their narrow perspective, and discounting data that doesn't conform to their conceptual biases.
I used to think it meant fairness and rational inquiry about difficult subjects, but now I see many liberals actually celebrating when some people are treated unfairly for not following what their liberal beliefs dictate they should do.
O liberalism! Where have you fled? You have abandoned your foundational values and embraced the mindlessness of factionalism and tribalism. When will you return, if ever?
James, you are correct to ask, “O liberalism! Where have you fled?”
My Democrat family members & friends feel the same … which is why they say, “We did not leave the Democrat Party, but the Party has abandoned us + has been hijacked by the rabid WOKE LEFT”.
"I think that’s the danger that we’re facing. In my work, I keep referring to something called the Adams Curve, where Henry Adams, over 100 years ago, had looked at the collective power of the human race." - Interesting idea. Here's another "Adams Curve" that we should at least consider as a causation of our current social and economic woes; the farther we stray from the "garden" - meaning the symbolic ideals and relationships represented by the Garden of Eden - the greater the curve bends towards violence (ultimately war) and unhappiness. We have been trying to achieve fulfillment (economic, personal, etc.) devoid of a relationship with a higher power for about 50 years now. How is that working out?
I worry that if we think things are dangerous in America now, ie crime, political corruption, a biased press, trade imbalance, a weakened military, just wait till the millions and millions of illegal immigrants crossing our open border find out America is not the land of milk and honey they thought it was.
When the income gap widens further and the handouts stop and immigrants realize they actually have to work for a living, and maybe even learn a language foreign to them, things will get much worse before they get better, if ever.
The only crime worse than allowing illegal immigrants free access to America and its wealth of opportunity, is a biased main stream press protecting one political party.
The biggest risk we face in the United States is that politics has become a religion and the possibility of a religious civil war is beginning to be significant. As a conservative, I lay most of the blame for the increasing temperature and increasing risk on the increasing tendency of the "woke" to restrict free speech, to report only those world events which support their narrative, to gaslight every political event as something other than what it is and ultimately to weaponize all the arms of government against their political enemies. I am not a particular fan of Trump but US institutions survived his Presidency in reasonable shape. I cannot say the same of the Obama and Biden Presidencies.
I sometimes think liberals have decided that they cannot afford any common sense in their reporting and analysis of the world. Instead of "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc.", they say, "if it walks like a duck, it must be a mutant elephant because it has wide feet." Is there any one out there who really believes that the Biden Family is not extremely corrupt in the classic sense of the word? You have to think that Biden runs Harding as the most corrupt President in history. By comparison, there is absolutely no indication that Trump or anyone close to him ever requested or accepted cash payments for access, policy or anything else and, by now with all the liberal sleuths out there turning over every rock, any such behavior would have been found. Does anyone really believe Hunter Biden's paintings are selling on their own merit as art?
When Trump is reelected, which, whether I like it or not, is becoming a real possibility, there has to be a better than 50/50 chance that the "woke" will attempt a coup by violence and that this coup will be resisted with violence.
The WOKE Left will never accept a Trump Presidency, again! If we thought the riots, never reported on by MSM, that took place after Trump won in 2016, OR the rioting, burning, looting was bad after the George Floyd BLM/ANTIFA / $2 Billion destruction was bad (both tolerated and downplayed by the Democrats), we can only imagine what may happen should Trump win in 2024.
Deep down I’m doubtful a Republican or Independent, or even a moderate Democrat can ever be elected, again.
I think there is a chance that a Republican or a centrist Democrat can be elected. But whether the losing party accepts the loss is questionable. Both Clinton and Trump are convinced they won their elections and, under the First Amendment, both are entitled to their opinion and to state their opinion as loudly and as often as they like.
The problem is that the NYT, WP, NBC, CBS, ABC and their satellite cable channels are likely to support the violent overthrow of a Trump election if Trump wins. "These are just normal people protesting the election. I am sure they did not mean to kill 200 people. It was a mostly peaceful protest. It was a figment of your imagination that they were wearing balaclavas and carrying assault rifles."
And, during the election, they will meddle as much and as often as they can to throw the election to the Democrat. At present they are certainly trying their hardest to ignore the myriad issues with Biden: senility, bribery, corruption, failed policies, etc.
mark it, if trump appears to have the electoral votes every technique and strategy he is accused of will be done in 2024 and harris will not certify the election
I don't think that Trump would be a great choice for the next president. I think that DeSantis is the man of the hour. I do see DeSantis maybe having young and inexperienced -in-government Vivek working in his administration. (One reason Trump got eaten for lunch in the WH is that government was new to him.) However, recent events and news coverage (including none on the Biden Crime Family) are making me feel more positive about Trump. I sure would take him for our country over any Democrat (I liked Gabbard but she's an Independent now) or Haley, Scott, or Pence. So, for the first time I can envision Trump in '24 and DeSantis in '28. And, I used to be an Independent.
I like DeSantis as President - I think he would actually get stuff done. My problem with Trump is that he is relatively ineffectual, partly because of his personality and partly because he inspires the worst in Democrats. In an ideal world, Trump would step aside, DeSantis would get elected and then pardon Trump and every other conservative targeted by the Deep State. That would get a lot of garbage off the table and allow DeSantis to focus on the many areas that need attention.
I really like your vision and agree with your assessment.
At this stage in the 2016 election it looked like Jeb Bush would be the sure GOP Primary winner. Then, Trump jumped in and then plowed everyone under during the debates. After that polls between him and Hilary were unreliable. So, I think to some degree we are all letting ourselves be run by media spin. It's too early to know what will happen. Saying that would not get any clicks. It sure would be ideal if Trump stepped aside and endorsed DeSantis - which likely won't happen but if it did I think it would happen at a more dramatic time - like during the GOP primary debate season.
Trump can't pardon himself. It would even be difficult for him to pardon those who have been targeted for supporting him. But a different Republican President could pardon all of them, including Trump, on the grounds that the weaponized DOJ essentially framed everyone associated with Trump and that the country needed to move on from the endless cycle of indictments and largely baseless prosecutions. It would be a 24-48 hour news story and that would be the end of it.
Sounds good to me. DeSantis would be excellent. He has a track record in FL. I don't think Haley, Scott, or Pence would be any good. I am not up for just any R candidate. Too many have rolled with destructive post modernist "culture war" against our society (and our daughters) - like CRT and the Gender Cult Religion.
Something will have to be done about Admiral First Female Levine with an R president in office. Like, perhaps a trial and execution.
To summarize for anyone not up to date about our Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary, the Admiral, he uses his position to promote the experimental drugging and mutilation of children, teens and young adults as "care" under the term Gender Identity. This is a different matter from what a few middle aged men might do. https://www.dailywire.com/news/transgender-hhs-official-gender-affirming-care-will-be-normalized
Gender Identity was coined by a Doctor John Money who experimented on and abused a pair of teen boys who each committed suicide as adults - I believe in their 30s.
The Admiral does this in the face of mounting evidence that such "care" harms rather than helps. Studies showing it helps kids have been shown to be faulty and promoted by activists and people who make bank in the field. Europe has reversed course. So, Levine promotes harm from high position with full knowledge that it is harm. Guilty. Let us not be distracted from the evils of the current administration with the constantly trumped up Trump stuff. I really don't see anyone but DeSantis being an effective next president but I will vote for Trump if it's the option we have. I recommend Dr. Grossman's new book "Lost in Trans Nation".
" I think of liberalism as the idea of compromise, of toleration, of an openness to allow everyone to go through life making their own choices. Liberalism is like the ivy, but it needs a tree. If it’s going to get anywhere, it needs a tree".
I now see liberalism as anything BUT compromise and toleration. If you don't think like they do, they'll burn, loot and destroy businesses and personal property to try to make their point.
Liberalism isn't like an "ivy", it's more like a cancer and something needs to stop it from metastasizing (if it's not already too late).
There's a difference between classical Liberalism and the current iteration of Liberalism. The first paragraph is an example of classical Liberalism and the second and third paragraph is the current brand. The same thing has happened with Conservatism. There is Conservatism, Republicanism and Magaism. Each one descending in morality. Then, when people toss around the word "woke" without knowing it's meaning, it muddies the waters.
Saying you know the difference without providing a definition has no validity. As for "woke" and WOKE" that is an exercise in futility. I've never read anywhere that someone has used the word "woke" that indicates they know what it means.
Please excuse me, Herr! I’m just one of those “deplorable, uneducated, women” who should stay in the kitchen baking cookies. How dare I comment on a platform I, too, pay to be on. I hate it when my ignorance overtakes me😉
BTW, if my not providing YOU a definition has no validity, I would suggest, sir, that says more about you than me.
Are you one of those "deplorable, uneducated women" by choice, or a victim of circumstances beyond your control? You may suggest anything you like, nevertheless, you still haven't cited a definition of "woke." Are you afraid of being aware, and, if so. what are you afraid of being aware of? Or do you just like to deflect and stir the pot?
Phil, you are so right! And it is why SO MANY Democrats are fleeing the Party. Those Democrats will tell you they joined the “Walk Away Movement” not because they left the Party, but because the Part left them! Democrats once were the Party of acceptance & tolerance, believing in “live & let live”. Now that Party has been hijacked by the WOKE Left, spewing hate, insults, intolerance & intimidation.
"race relations, 60 yrs after the civil rights movement & passing of anti-discrimination laws, the wealth gap between black& white households is greater than ever. The social problems in the inner city are worse than ever. Whether you’re a liberal or a conservative, you can look at the last 60 years of racial policy & see that it didn’t achieve what people said it was going to."
very true. Much due to encouraging fatherless households by giving out $$ only to single mothers. Race Relations worsened even More under Obama. Race relations were getting better in the Clinton/Bush yrs but worsened under Obama. Likely because he constantly inflamed racial tensions by saying garbage on TV about "police targeting blacks" etc. And of course, race relations are drastically dramatically worsening now with CRT, "anti-racism", DEI & all the garbage. Their goal is to worsen race relations. So they can get elected into office. Because most POC are socially conservative & would vote GOP. But Dems constantly say "All GOP is "racist" which is obviously false. But gets them the votes from POC.
I just finished reading The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. The endless war between Sparta and
Athens weakened both city states allowing for a third Hedgemon to emerge, i.e., Alexander. Athens lost its democracy to oligarchs who wanted to continue the war when the people wanted the war to end. Goodness, this sounds a bit like today with our oligarchs making "more informed decision" than we the mere masses. Something about those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
I enjoy reading Mead's articles in the WSJ. As a history lover, the world is driven by significant figures who shape the world for good or ill. When the USSR fell apart, those who dreamed about democracy thought it would spread worldwide. The Bush Freedom agenda built upon that, but anyone who read a history book should have been dubious. For any society to work, there needs to be cohesion around a particular set of principles and beliefs, and those two things must remain salient. As Mead points out, we are living through the rise of technology, the decline of religion, and what, I would add, the God complex by Western leaders.
The God complex are leaders who think through good policy that they can shape the world the way they want. Their plans will work, and we will all live happily ever after, but the biggest flaw is people. People who like to take drugs, lie, cheat, and steal in the individual sphere, and those who lust for power and control on a grand scale. (Xi and Putin)
In the end, where I am pessimistic, we do not have great people on the horizon anywhere in the West. Biden and Trump are both third-rate actors. When the wheels come off the spending blowout of the past 50 years, we will need a great leader to help get us out of it, but sadly if there are none, a descent into darkness will be ahead of us.
If you want a portrait of a scary so-called leader, read the Samuels interview of Obama biographer David Garrows. It’s in Tablet. Downright chilling if he got it right.
I just finished reading that piece which was excellent and downright scary. The world was fooled by Obama and I sincerely believe that his lack of action destroyed Syria to elevate Iran.
"In the end, where I am pessimistic, we do not have great people on the horizon anywhere in the West. Biden and Trump are both third-rate actors. When the wheels come off the spending blowout of the past 50 years, we will need a great leader to help get us out of it, but sadly if there are none, a descent into darkness will be ahead of us."
People have been saying that,...well forever.
"I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate, We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune -- in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety."
John Adams
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I have my problems with Donald Trump...BUT maybe the times call for third-rate actor. You might want to look up what some people wrote about (say) George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill.
“Sometimes it pays to know an anti-social, paramilitary paranoid survivalist with more guns than any same person would have, is just the man for the job"
Spoken about Burt Gummer (Tremors)
"You know Grady, some people think I'm overprepared, paranoid, maybe even a little crazy. But they never met any Pre-Cambrian lifeforms did they?"
My thoughts exactly. We need a fighter- down & dirty! He knows now what he has to fight and is still willing to do the job but he will only have 4 years. I say give him the chance. If we can keep the evil leftist busy.
I'm Neutral (Really I am) a question on policy what they want, What is the difference between (say) Donald Trump and Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy? From what can tell Nothing. Style a lot but in policy (which is what Care About) not really much.
Our problem is the others candidates don’t have the poll numbers. I like DeSantis, his heart is in the right place and I think being in the military he does love this country where the leftist democrats don’t . Their only focus is control the masses. Forget the truth, try everything just to win. Winning is everything.
To some degree I think we are all letting ourselves be run by media spin. It's too early to know what will happen but saying that would not get any clicks. At this stage in the 2016 election it looked like Jeb Bush would be the sure GOP Primary winner. Trump jumped in and later plowed the others under during the debates. After that polls between him and Hilary were unreliable. She was a sure winner!
As Robert Helms stated elsewhere - in an ideal world Trump would step aside and endorse DeSantis. It is unlikely to happen but if it did I think it would happen at a more dramatic time - like during the GOP primary debate season. Doing it now would only bring joy to the Deep State and Democrat machine that is so excited to prosecute him every other week. (Wouldn't it be nice if interest existed in the Biden family influence peddling scandal? Like, he is the president NOW.) Anyhow, after recent events and lack of accountability regarding the Bidens and RussiaGate and all, I would certainly vote for Trump if he is the GOP candidate even if he is not my first choice.
You are so right about the worlds leadership vacuum. There no longer exists leaders with vision and empathy so we are left with the weak and incompetent who put power before country.
We still needed Washington, Jefferson, Madison and those of that generation to tell us about the evils of concentrated power and the need to have a Federalist system. What you preach is a political movement that has to be led by someone as others just are feeling their way into the hands of those evid demigods. Thanks for your post!
I am not preaching merely suggesting. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison et al- and those who succeeded them had to come together in their opposition to hierarchical monarchy and created a new form of governance by the people for the people. They didn’t stay on for life and become demigods. We have long strayed and come full circle, so perhaps we are at an evolutionary moment once again. (PS your thanks are appreciated but feels condescending in its finality and ends the opportunity for discussion, something the founding fathers didn’t do).
My apoligies if I cam off as condescending, I always thank those you leave good posts. The only problem is that we collectively keep voting for people who are in their 80's and that is becasue in the end, people like getting things and not having to pay for them. I will go back to the point that there needs to be a leader to break the cycle and I sadly don't see any.
Sorry for my sensitivity and appreciate your thanks and replies. Yes, I agree, and that’s the point. Our early leaders didn’t stay on. They showed the way and crafted governance (not government) so that we can continue on, but we seem to have circled back to the very thing they were trying to alleviate- elite rule by monarchs. Searching for the answer in one person or a few from only one side is in direct opposition from the original intent. We need to govern ourselves the way it was set out. We cannot elect leadership in the corruption of the current system because the system has been hijacked to reverse it by our present elites acting like monarchists.
Indeed, perhaps becoming less vertical and more horizontal is actually a blessing in disguise.
Top-down hierarchical governments inevitably lead to demagogues who think they are demigods. Especially when they are selected by the Electoral College against the will of We the People (Hayes, Harrison, Bush II, and of course Trump).
I guess I see it a different way with Trump. I saw a fighter with morals although not ideal but at least a fighter. Someone we needed at the time but had no knowledge how corrupt it really was. Maybe a second chance to clean house?
How many people in government have morals? It's funny when people say he has no morals, like it's the first time we've ever had a immoral president. These people are more like fatburgs, once they get into the sewer line they are a bitch to clear out.
This is exactly the conversation we should be having. The founding fathers established the electoral college, as they believed at the use of electors would give the country a representative president, while avoiding a corruptible national election. This needs to be re-examined and refined. Obviously. As our elections have indeed become corrupted. The national vote very much as well.
Indeed. And there was also a much darker reason for the Electoral College as well: to protect the low-population (or rather, low white population) southern slave states from being outvoted by the northern states. In other words, to protect slavery.
I don’t see that. I thought the purpose was to prevent smaller states from being out-voted by larger states, most large states being in the south, so the reverse of your argument would be true.
The southern states were often larger in terms of *total* population, despite being rural. BUT their WHITE populations (i.e. the only people allowed to vote back then) were kinda skimpy in many if not most of such states, and often outnumbered by slaves. So their voting populations were underpopulated and thus at risk for being outvoted, and felt they needed to compensate for that. That was the Anti-Federalist side of the compromise, while the Federalists (especially Hamilton) were often elitists who didn't trust the hoi polloi to vote the right way. Ergo, their compromise resulted in the EC. And the rest is history.
Whar rattles me more than the war in Ukraine and the hegemony of China are the videos of people in Walgreens, scooping stuff off shelves, and the people in subways, attacking innocent bystanders. We have always had war and countries amassing power to threaten their neighbors. But the blatant, soulless and vile behavior of people that is unchecked by police or even people around them, let alone by the own consciences and sense of decency, just shocks me. I have no idea how to fix that.
My two cents here is, if we analyze this statement here, we realize that: from the videos of Ukraine and China, to the Walgreens, attacks on innocent bystanders, and more -- these are images that WE DON'T PHYSICALLY EXPERIENCE, but we experience them through the news and social media outlets.
The idea behind this, and there was a TedTalk on this, is that by us "experiencing reality through a screen" throws off our sense OF actual reality. Essentially, we think reality and the world is a violent one all the time, when in actually, it's a violent one, a small percentage of the time.
Here's some more info if interested:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/4-reasons-to-stop-watching-news-and
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/our-ocularcentric-society
I'm with you on not watching the news. I've posted this before from my favorite philosopher Mark Twain who said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." In this respect nothing has changed since he wrote this.
Ah, LPC - you had me at “Mark Twain”…
I kind of think of news organizations as old-timey influencers. It’s a business, not a philanthropy, not so much looking for an audience as for a sponsor. And the natural progression, I fear, is that the ultimate sponsor is always the state and we end up in one of those situations like the image of the snake devouring its tail.
I need more corn flakes, this morning, I guess…
1000% agree! If anything, it's gotten 10x worse since he wrote that. And now with augmented reality and deep fakes down the pipeline, one can only imagine what the future will look like.
Mark Twain was a man of many talents and opinions, and he certainly had a way with words, but none of this qualifies him as a philosopher even in an amateur sense. There's no evidence he ever had an interest in logic, epistemology, metaphysics, rationalism vs. empiricism, materialism vs. idealism, or any of the other issues and subject areas that typically absorb the attention of philosophers.
'Favourite' is a comparative term, so it would be interesting to know who you're comparing Twain with. Other writers? Other people you possibly believe to be philosophers but similarly aren't? Among genuine philosophers, from Plato, Hume and Kant to Husserl, Jaspers and Quine, which ones have you read? Their contributions to intellectual history comprise a wonderful body of literature, but it isn't at all the kind of literature Twain wrote.
Great quote about newspapers--Twain had them dead to rights. If making perceptive observations were all it took to make one a philosopher, though, we'd all be philosophers.
I suppose next you are going to tell me is that Yogi Berra isn't"t a philosopher either.
Do you always take things so literally?
At least literally enough to make comparisons meaningful. What could it possibly mean to say Picasso was your favourite ball player?
Picasso isn't my favorite anything he was an egocentric, misogynist, communist millionaire, asshole whose paintings are gibberish, bullshit.
Charlie Russel and Winslow Homers were artists. Picasso drew garbadge. When drawing he must have been on drugs.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and philosophy is in the mind of the reader. I will not let some pseudo intellectual dictate to me what is philosophy and what isn't. "Suppose I am a congressman. Suppose I am an idiot but then I repeat myself." Mark Twain. To me that is great philosophy. It is straight forward and simple to understand. It is not in the least esoteric like St. Thomas Aquinas's rebuttal to Peter Abelard.
Well Frank, I do occasionally have to visit NYC, and crimes have occurred uncomfortably close to where my family lives. So it’s very real to me.
..."but the blatant, soulless and vile behavior of people" ...
Hey NC, google yesterday's Union Square riot.
I've watched people stealing things in front of me and my kids plenty the last couple of years. It was a rare occurrence even 5 years ago.
I live in NYC and have seen absolutely zero instances of crime, and I’m out and about all the time. I do avoid the subway at night, which is unfortunate, but other than that I feel perfectly safe here. However, I’m in Manhattan and I don’t know what’s happening in the other boroughs.
Well clearly you weren't in Union Square.... Which last I looked was in Manhattan. Moreover, I personally know of two people who were assaulted in Midtown in Midday. So you clearly live in a fantasy world. As far as the subway, it's worse at night but the skells still abound on it during the day.
A logical fallacy, there, Bruce...Appeal to authority based on an event no one other than you can corroborate.
Hosting more than19 million people in the metro NY area, the city has the potential of being the home of all sorts of strange, disgusting, illegal, and sometimes violent activities.
But, Aviel was remarking that knowledge of violent activities in other boroughs is scant and that she felt safe walking in her neighborhood.
And, I would venture to say that a strong majority of New Yorkers might feel the same,
I live in a much less crowded environment and am only "involved" in the day-to-day police activities of my community is in pulling over to let the flashing lights pass or greeting the policeman while standing in line with me at my local Dunkin' outlet.
What's going on in the next town? I haven't a clue.
Your view of Manhattan seems to comport more with the headlines than it does for the daily activities of 19.8 million people. But, of course, one needs to be cognizant of the potential that those 18.8 million represent in terms of your health and safety. Be vigilant, my friend. That's about all you can do.
My boyfriend and I were walking home and I spotted what looked like a young man on drugs and/or unstable. I was about to move us in another direction when I spotted a very elderly woman looking at the corner where the young men was standing. She look afraid; she wanted to cross the street but didn't want to get too close. I said to her, "Let's wait and see if he crosses when the light changes. Then you can cross at the next green." He did and we waited with her. She was very appreciative and David said to me, "I didn't see anything." My response was, "It comes from being a woman in this city. You have to aware of everything!"
Nice try.
I live and work there.
Now run along.
Not sure why you felt the need to be so rude just out of the blue. The thread is about what we experience ourselves vs what we see and hear about second hand. My experience is obviously real enough to me, but I don’t make the argument that everything is fine everywhere, if that’s what you think.
Have a good day, sir.
Because you were using your claimed experience to refute the views of another. Sure, maybe if you never leave the Upper East Side or the West Village.....But the City has gotten dirtier, more violent and dangerous under the woke Democrats elected since Giuliani and Bloomberg erased the mistakes of Koch and Dinkins.
The number one source of our problems is the media. Then come the universities and, increasingly, the lower schools. A democracy cannot function with misinformed citizens, and we are rapidly losing our democracy.
Given the indispensability of accurate information to our judgment, legacy media's betrayal of its mission is unforgivable, and a tragedy. The lonely online voices trying their best to outflank the compromised institutions are relentlessly slandered, which shows just how deeply the moral rot has penetrated. The slanderers know exactly what they're doing and whom to target, and their tactics are bullying and thuggish. Fortunately they're also transparent: there's a reason legacy media's credibility is on life support. The bobbing and weaving they have to engage in to maintain their increasingly preposterous narratives are reducing them to cartoon versions of journalists, even in the eyes of former believers. Yet, they show no inclination to stop. With unapologetic cynicism it seems they're prepared to go right on insulting people's intelligence for as long as someone pays them to do so.
This morning I read this about the journalism school at the University of Texas:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/george-soros-funds-race-centered-journalism-at-ut-austin/
'Tis not misinformation, my friend. The brains of our kids are being stuffed with propaganda designed to allow the cognoscenti to direct public opinion on subjects that might threaten the powers of the all-knowing.
We can't have that sort of revolution, now, can we?
Hmm, well... although I generally agree with the problem of sensationalism that gets amplified as the corporate media consolidates and twitches the same, that same AP-fed monster tends to sensationalize weather events and not the inner city crime events... which have exploded.
Why in Japan can you leave you house and car unlocked without fear of theft and not here?
Why is Jason Aldene's song "Try that in a Small Town" top of the charts?
Because Japan doesn't have a diverse population like the US
Bingo. But you cannot say that as it is racist and xenophobic.
What are you actually saying here? Is this a dog-whistle saying that it’s the (pick some) coloured; non-white; non-Christian; illegally resident people who are the perps?
I disagree; many of us have physically experienced - or had a loved one physically experience - crime in a Western country. I had a phone taken from me at knife-point in Seattle. Compared to the crimes many people face, that's small potatoes. I'm sure I'm not the only person in TFP comments to have had some brush with petty crime, especially anyone who's lived or worked in a major coastal city.
The tragedies happening right now in Ukraine far exceed that in viciousness and violence, but because they're so far away, and because I can't link them to my own experiences or my own fears when going to the store, they're simply images on a screen.
Images on the screen were what catalyzed the opposition to the US's involvement in Viet Nam.
One Democratic political ad, played only once on national TV, doomed the candidacy of Barry Goldwater.
Bad lighting and not shaving before the "debate" cost Richard Nixon the presidency in 1960. (I scare quoted the word "debate" because these farcical productions are little more than extended campaign stump speeches with hair-ball gotcha questions offered up by the superbly coiffed, oh-so-biased talking heads that are pretending they have the gravitas of a Walter Cronkite.
Yip that’s about right. Watch Joe Rogan Podcast #2016 with Patrick Bet David, David explains why debates may become obsolete. I hope they do you can’t have the media especially the scrap line CNN dictate who our President should be
I don't disagree but Nixon's flop sweat also helped Kennedy a lot. Most folks who only listed to the debate on the radio thought Nixon won.
I don't follow this argument at all. It's true that modern technology exposes us to a wider range of information than would be available to us simply through our own direct experience. But, then, a traveling Neolithic villager's report about what was going on in the next valley performed exactly the same function in 8000 B.C. Since when was 'reality' ever reducible to what each single individual directly experiences? We'd all live in an impossibly impoverished reality if that were our sole source of information. Casting our information net as widely as possible increases rather than diminishes our chances of forming a picture of the world, and our situation in it, that's congruent with 'actual realities.'
Unless it happens to you or in front of you
I have been living in Manhattan for the past six months due to having major surgery and recovery from this. I last lived in Manhattan in 1990 and last worked there in 2015. The decline from then to now is real. I assure you that what is seen on videos online is staggering and the social disarray is mind boggling. On a daily walk on the mid to upper East Side there is violent crime, homelessness, feces on the sidewalks, stench of humans and of low grade pot, and many goods under lock and key at drugstores. People drive e-bikes through lights, in the wrong direction on both side streets and major avenues, and I can go on and on.
About 5 % of people ae sociopaths and another 10% are opportunistic followers. If you crack down on the sociopaths, arrest them, rough them up and jail them, order is maintained. If not, 15% of the population can create mayhem. As we saw in the BLM riots, and, most recently in Union Square in New York City. That nonsense would never have been tolerated. The cops would have put a beating on those animals and the "riot" would have evaporated. But now, NYC is in the hands of imbeciles and racists who let criminals have free rein.
👍🏻Yip correct.
No. He is NOT correct.
Kids were in that crowd. They should not be beaten up - just taken to jail for processing and then bail if they did anything.
Those aren’t children. Just stop.
I am in now way calling for any kind of police brutality. They know what they are doing and know they will never be held accountable because they never have been thanks to people like you constantly making excuses like these are just straight A students who made an oopsie.
You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. Far too many people have decided some people are too animalistic to control their urges so any punishment is cruel and inappropriate.
Being arrested is being held accountable - or so I’ve thought. But beat them up as well as some suggest?
Okay. If you say so.
Maybe we should just shoot them all and be done with it.
Wait a second. An Instagram idiot giving away free shit to teenage kids in Union Sq. and they’re called sociopaths, criminals and animals? It gets out of control, police are called in, it appears they handled it relatively orderly - and you say they should have put a beating on these kids? Rough them up? WTF. Thats bullshit.
Are you serious? Put your thinking cap on if you can find it.
That’s like saying a Taylor Swift concert out of control deserves the same response.
One of your grand kids could have been in that melee.
You’re lost.
I realize correlation does not equal causation, but the rise of "blatant, soulless and vile behavior of people left unchecked" might be caused by the breakdown of the family unit and the forgoing of religion or any moral compass for that matter. When I see that sort of behavior I always wonder...where are the parents??? Where are the mentors of these kids? Where are the people to tell them THIS IS WRONG?
Kitty Genovese - 1964. Queens, NY. She was raped and murdered as bystanders and passersby did not intervene.
The behaviour you are describing, NC - has been a part of modern human culture for a very, very long time.
You might be interested in this:
https://nypost.com/2014/02/16/book-reveals-real-story-behind-the-kitty-genovese-murder/
Thanks for the link. Good read. Media overreach, at least. And the fact remains, be it eight or 38 - people did not want to get involved.
NYC at time didn’t have a 911 reporting system. This greatly effected response time. The NYT did what it does best creates fake news.
NCMaureen - I completely agree - well said...
It happened in the 1990s in the post Soviet Russia. I have lived through this vile, soulless and blatant behavior. People turned into beasts. It lasted about a decade and was a product of an overall social political decay and a loss of national idea. (Collapse of the USSR, however great on the outside, was a national disaster on the inside).
Fixing it comes through new leadership, often authoritarian…
When poor people are trapped with no way out, guess what, the robin-hood affect sets in...they feel they have every right to steal from SHAREHOLDERS and the rich elite who don’t give a damn anyway
Bullshit.
The rioters in Union Square all had cell phones and plenty to eat. Courtesy of the working class.
You just insulted a woke snowflake. You insensitive brute!
Actually, Lonesome - Bruce is insensitive.
He’s equating kids looking for free merch with animals and criminals and to be treated as such and beaten up. That is simply wrong.
Actually Lee, the footage tells a different tale. It was a riot. Rioters should be gassed and beaten. And thrown in jail. People were assaulted. Property was damaged. Is this the kind of America you want to live in? I don't and neither do most sane Americans.
This mob was a 21st century version of Marx’s lumpenproletariat many not only had cell phones but the latest iPhone, many live in subsidized housing are fed by food stamps. The internet is the ultimate leveler a message was put out for what they feel entitled to free stuff. The bulk of the crowd were young males. We saw what happened. The police showed incredible restraint, maybe too much. There are more of these events waiting to happen.
I agree.
Okay boys. So if Trump is convicted and the thousands come out to protest and it gets out of hand - they should be gassed and beaten?
Think on that.
Courtesy of their parents.
Chicago. 1968. Democratic convention. Those kids had plenty to eat too.
And they got fucking clobbered.
Just?
And it's deteriorated into this state so rapidly
When Daniel Penny protected the innocent passengers in the subway car he was charged with a crime. The virtue signaling from people who would have done nothing to help anyone (other than make donation to a pet cause) were the first to condemn.
I only just finished reading this interview and I'm so glad yours was the first comment. The lawlessness in the country has degraded every area of our lives and despite our attempts to find them, there is nowhere to run. Rural areas that were once havens of peace and quiet have been disrupted by squatters and meth heads. Years ago, my boyfriend and I were checking out possible homes in upstate NY. The owners (who were elderly) had a baseball bat next to one of their armchairs. It turns out there was a trailer down the road whose occupants were a bit "troublesome." Now that we're seniors, we've weighed the pros and cons and living in an urban environment might have its challenges but there is safety in numbers.
I'm glad that the subject of faith was brought up; it has been the source of light in our lives and a source of possibilities and gratitude.
"I think about how many families encourage their kids to try new things. Maybe your dad was a shoemaker, but you should go and be a doctor! I think we still have this notion of change." - This "notion of change" really equates to part of the problem; that many came to believe that being a doctor is superior to being a shoemaker. That being a stock trader is superior to being a baker. That being a software developer is superior to being an electrician. Now we have thousands of people who can write apps and not enough people who can install or repair an air conditioner in a home, and we can this progress. If saving the world from an increase of .01% in carbon equates to forcing an eight-year-old boy to dig for cobalt in a mine with a wooden shovel, then we need to re-evaluate our priorities.
(apologies if this comes off as rude)
This sounds like a battle from a generation ago, and not really reflective of what's happening to gen-Z. There's room in our economy for doctors, but no room for shoemakers (buy some shipped in form China), nor for very many bakers (most bread is made in factory farms). As for electricians or HVAC, those are two the most in-demand professions right now, so if they're not being respected socially, they're certainly getting respect financially. And I know many parents now are pushing their kids towards that, since it's the job most difficult to replace with AI/automation.
The bigger issue is kids taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to study art history, or philosophy, or gender, or literature, or some other academic pursuit with the only job being in academia. Even scarier than that, the #1 most desired job for kids in high school right now is "YouTuber" (maybe it's changed to TikTok). People are turning away from the productive things their parents had done and putting that energy into reductive tasks.
I agree with you that shoes are made in China now so it's not a career here. And, there are a great many kids who would have happy lives working in HVAC but since maybe Obama times there's been this message that every last kid has to go to college whether it benefits them or not.
I think that we ought to bring back Vocational Training in high school so that kids see it as an option. This goes for fancy as well as not fancy areas. Many children of physicians are not going to be doctors, and look how these kids were not helped either: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/report-not-one-8th-grader-at-lebron-james-i-promise-school-has-passed-state-math-test-in-3-years/ar-AA1ePGS2 They should still have English and Math and the option for college some day if that makes sense for them...
Then, as you say, many study things that are useless or worse in college, like Gender Theory. And, yeah, so many want to be Youtube famous as their career. Maybe that will go bust?
I really like DeSantis' idea of: “reforming” the education system to “make universities, not taxpayers, responsible for the loans their students accrue” and to allow those loans to be discharged through bankruptcy “like any other loan.” https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/31/desantis-2024-education-00108961
Maybe the most useless universities and university departments would go under, the most elite with giant endowments might bring down tuition, and the colleges in the middle might support the launch of their students into the real world.
LOL. let me guess how old you are. "bread is made on factory farms" LOL. try living without your "daily bread". the word is FACTORIES.. no farming involved. but hey Gen z. what ever that is. gotta be fearful of a future that thinks bread comes from farms
I wholeheartedly agree with this post 1000%! As a millennial, we were taught to be the doctor, but no one told us about the debt, the trauma during medical school, so forth and so on. And to make matters worse, we're so specialized in one way, and see the world in this way, that we have no way to think deeply or interconnectedly. And so, I know my generation, millennials, continue to struggle to find out way.
But, hey, this is life and I think we're slowly being aware to this fact. Here's a couple pieces on that for any other millennials:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/how-millennials-were-setup-to-fail
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-millennials-hate-adulting
I'll add another angle that fits in with your comment. Maybe your dad was a doctor, but you are interested in making shoes. Maybe your dad was a CPA, but you want to be an electrician. Both parents want to see you maintain the family "status" and push you unhappily towards the college degree. I believe we've developed an unrealistic sense of opportunity. While there's many professions to choose from today compared to a time when most were farming or doing household work, some tend to forget there has to be a need for your skillset and someone willing to pay you a living wage for that skillset.
For some reason I'm reminded of the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" 1969 sketch "Vocational Guidance Counsellor", in which chartered accountant Michael Palin goes to the counsellor (John Cleese) with unrealistic hopes of changing his career to "lion tamer".
We can see one aspect of this phenomenon gone wild is the dream of being an "influencer." Being an influencer in itself can be a wonderful and necessary goal. But sadly, that isn't the goal for so many. We are influenced to be good in fashion, in bed, in doing idiotic activities, in relishing in ignorance. Oh to be influenced in calling us to be better human beings!
can you really influence anyone to be good in bed?
I honestly don't know--but there are plenty of people who think they can!
Interestingly, the market place might take care of this.
Air conditioner installers, masons, plumbers etc are getting high rates for their labour precisely because there are relatively few of them. Those high rate will attract others to those trades. It’s happening already.
I am stealing this hope you don't mind
One of the things that we have to understand is that when we talk in context of “humans” and “wars,” it’s not the majority of us who are making these decisions. It’s the decisions of a few individuals in powerful positions that decide to move the masses towards wars and bloodshed, so we need to clarify that. Otherwise, we continually propagate this narrative that “humanity is evil.”
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/who-are-the-bad-guys
I’d argue that this “humanity is evil” ideology is a result of “propaganda” used on a mass level, starting with Darwin’s Evolutionary theory and “survival of the fittest” and has spawned over and over, mainly due to a lack of spirituality that early humans had. Leaders have replaced this “spirituality hole” and have used this “survival of the fittest” idea to promote an “us vs them” which drives humanity towards more war and bloodshed.
When we stop pointing at “humanity” and point it towards the “leaders and role models” in charge, then we humanity can really start to progress.
My “spirituality” involves the statement, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, along with 10 commandments that build on that one simple rule.
Now the commandments say, “Bully your neighbor to attain power” “there’s no such thing as a lie--everyone’s truth is real”, “wealth redistribution is not stealing”, “your parents are idiots, ignore them”, “worship material goods”, “say whatever you want on social media to get clicks”.
I agree, NCMaureen! I don't worry about apocalypse's, the end of the world, etc. because my hope is not based on things of this world. My hope is not in the government or what any leader in our country can do for me because that will fail every time. Thank God that, by His mercy and grace, I know Him and have Him in my life.
Yesterday we read about woke US citizens who hate the US as a brutal police state. Watch this video. A speech by a young woman who bucks the woke lie:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=julie+hartman+harvard&mid=FA748C0E839F18F748EBFA748C0E839F18F748EB&ajaxhist=0
Compro and his left wing pals will hate the video and the young woman who gave the speech.
1000% agree! Our reality has been thrown off and we've been given a false reality! This is literally the ethos behind my substack Unorthodoxy! "Exploring the spirituality behind this physical world!" I'm literally working on an article on that right now as well if you (or anyone) might be interested:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-spiritual-perspective-of-reality
I will say though that we have had massive UPWARD wealth redistribution since St. Ronnie of the Raygun first took over, and that was seen as fine and dandy by the mainstream. And the generation that overwhelmingly voted for him (and the Bushes, Clinton, and Trump) was like the trees that kept voting for the ax because the ax's handle was made out of wood just like them.
"My spirituality involves the statememt, "Love your neighbor as yourself," along with 10 commandments that build on that one rule."
-LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree. Most of the problem comes from the leftist Ideology of control. Divide and conquer. So few will be in charge and create division between the races. Misinformation is key. Tell a lie long enough by media or government and the masses will believe. Insert social media in the equation project to help with the lie. Everything we do will destroy the earth. Climate change is the top Hysteria pushed now. 1.5 degree will kill the earth? Really? A planet that’s 4.5 billion years old? C’mon man. Control, control control. Get more important, richer! But no one sees the evil in it?
To say nothing of the hubris it takes to think that mankind is
A) wholly responsible for climate change, and
B) that we alone can fix it. In 12 years, no less.
Agreed! If hubris from the elites was manna, we could feed the world for years on what they are producing.
How dare you!!!
😂😂
Excellent point. We forget, at our peril, what Goering said on the subject when he was interviewed as he was awaiting trial at Nuremburg. We have to vote out the neo-cons and the saber rattlers. Sure, we need a strong defense and dedicated war fighters. But we don't need to be sticking our noses in everywhere and fighting other people's battles.
I agree. I think the neo-con interference in other countries’ politics was a reaction to WWII and its aftermath (a position that was both necessary and successful at the time)... but things have changed a LOT in the last 80 years, with a kind of globalism and development that our policy makers of that era couldn’t have imagined. New times require revisiting old ideas.
There is simply a lack of decency and morality at the core of the top elites in this country. This missing piece is not religion per se, but rather the ethical values that underpin religion yet are not exclusive to religion. While Mead describes a triad of politics, money and hedonism, I believe that the core problem is money/hedonism, and that politics is an expression of the former. The elite power uses artificial “values” to provide cover for them.
Below this power structure are the masses which are essentially in the same position. The elite use their “values” to divide this group, through the “culture wars”. The raging conflict about transgender people is the latest example of the use of identity politics tool to divide those with a common economic status.
And, technology amplifies all of this, which contributes to the sense of rage.
This is the reason why my vote goes to Vivek. Everything about his vision is the core of what’s been missing for years, and we’re getting further and further away from it. On a video where he was speaking, he had tall signs on the stage with phrases that could’ve created a yard sign to counter the current “in this house we believe”: God is real, parents determine their child’s education, there are only two genders, and on and on. He’s running on everything that’s wrong with our culture because the current status is what’s breeding the filth of society. We need hope right now. Trump, Haley, Scott, Pence, and the rest don’t come anywhere close to the hope Vivek gives me. Sure, I don’t agree with everything, but even the big donors don’t agree with their candidate! He has an eye above and beyond what the others have and the only way the economy, border, failing education of our children, crime, etc can be fixed is getting to the core problems of humanity. I have to live on hope because the alternative is just too sad.
Amen Linda. I admire his bravery to speak unapologetically for what he believes, if that means the end to affirmative action, he says it. Firing thousands of government lackeys, he’ll do it. My biggest fear is that too many Americans just aren’t up to a Vivek. Too many want to be comfy in mediocrity, free stuff, forgiven loans, it’s too hard to stand for something like American greatness.
I agree with all you said. I’ve seen many comments from democrats, republicans, two-time Trump voters, and independents who are on board with him. He’s says he’s the only republican who can win in the general election, and I tend to agree. He has so much confidence that he thinks that soon the race will be just between himself and Trump! We’ll have a better idea after this first debate, and I can’t wait for that!
When I heard Trump for the first time, I said that’s the guy we need. A fighter. He wasn’t idea but he was the only one that would fight down and dirty that we needed. Sure he was booster-is, but he was a New Yorker ( just how they are), a businessman not a politician. He saw the evil but it was greater than he thought. First thing I said he would need 1,000 lawyers to fight through the corruption of the government. We just needed him to clean house but there were too many intrenched. If he gets elected this time he’ll know what he has to fight but he won’t come out unscathed. He will be blooded but I think he will survive for 4 years. Then we can elect someone with morals and have a much better America.
Earl, my fear is our country can’t survive another Trump, or Biden Presidency. The division btw their followers, rather the WOKE Left vs everyone else, is already almost too wide to bridge. The nasty labeling, “Deplorable MAGA White Supremacists” or “House Slave” if you are Conservative Black will never bring us back to Center.
What America desperately needs is a NEW, younger President who will work to restore unity + our standing on the World Stage.
Or is it too late to stop the insanity of where we are now?
Do you honestly think the woke left won't attack Vivek as viciously - if not more than - Trump? They will call him a BIPOC turncoat. And that's the nicest thing they'll say about him. I agree that the gerontocracy has to go but that doesn't mean we have to elect someone who would be our youngest president.
100%. Trump no longer has the energy for this. This country cannot afford to have a president working part-time (like the current one, only for different reasons) due to his legal battles. It’s time to move on from this.
I fear it is too late. I think it started at the end of the Bush era and exploded with O’ Bummer when he hired all the media spouses. His communist teaching started to show pretty quickly but hiring the media put it all in a different prospective. That’s when police were the enemy. Remember Emanuel saying “don’t let a crisis go to waste”? He poked the divide of the racist with propaganda. The leftist democrats have turn just plain evil IMO.
I like this: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/desantis-unveils-economic-plan-aim-to-ease-process-for-discharging-student-loans-through-bankruptcy/ar-AA1eB2cl
Vivek has great ideas - but what has he delivered v. DeSantis in FL?
Of course, I would vote for him if he is the R candidate. I cannot say the same for Haley, Scott, Pence...
Sorry. 0% chance of winning the nomination.
I bet you said that about Trump in 2016.
Actually, exact opposite. I 100% thought Trump could win. Especially after seeing how enraged many Americans got on election night with Obama.
Plus after the Access Hollywood tape caused 0% drop in his MAGA group, anything is possible.
Actually, Trump revealed the GOP base, white evangelicals, etc. to be who they have been since 1965, who I've always said they were.
So, I'm just glad their fake pearl clutching and faux offense can be dropped now.
Vivek will NOT be the choice for MAGA and you know why.
I am also 1000% behind Vivek and talk about him to anyone willing to listen! Already have gotten a handful of people on the Vivek train.
I just want us to win!
The only thing I disagree with Vivek is he thinks Bernie Sanders is an OK guy.
Bernie Sanders is and always has been a hard core communist. Given half a chance he would drag us into the brutal, murderous morass of a vile, dictatorial, communist state.
What is there to like about that?
Bernie reminds me of what Marion Barry said of Jesse Jackson.
When he said that he had a lock on the DC mayor’s office, even coming out of jail, he was asked about Jesse Jackson’s interest in running.
Barry snorted and said, “Jesse don’t wanna run nothin’ but his mouth.”
How true!
Yeah. Yeah. Vivek. Vivek.
But he hasn’t the spine yet to call out Trump, his chief obstacle, for the idiot, election liar that he is. He evades, obfuscates and never criticizes the ex President directly. He’s had ample opportunity. Why?
Because, like everyone else in this tepid GOP field, except for a select few, he’s afraid of Trump and the people who support him.
How the hell can he handle America’s interests if he’s afraid of one man?
Yeah, not a fan of politicians saying that something/someone is real when there is no evidence of it.
If parents feel they should have 100% control, then they should homeschool or set up their own school system and they can teach how Jesus rode a dinosaur all day long.
But, I predicted what all this Mom For Liberty and anti-history BS was really about long ago.
Good discourse and illustrates very clearly why neither side has the answer. The pendulum has swung to extremes. Vivek points this out clearly, admirably and boldly with sound reasoning and ideas, I like him, but at the end of the day, he’s a capitalist and adheres to that paradigm and moral code.
Participating in a public school system requires community, and community has now been removed by the new elites, who are left, and are hellbent at creating a new morality, but not through consensus. The rights are attempting to counterbalance this with a return to an old value system. How can any of this work? No one is listening, and there is certainly no community. So, what will it take to get there? Certainly none of what we’re currently doing.
Sorry. Not interested in Moms For Liberty "old value system" of removing Rosa Parks race from school lessons, trying to ban Ruby Bridges autobiography and teaching that slavery was beneficial for blacks, whitewashing Jim Crow/Segregation and very soon likely teaching that Harriet Tubman ran a travel agency.
Fortunately, other parents and school districts are starting to stand up to these bullies. You don't want little Tanner to feel "distressed" about Greenwood/Tulsa? You don't want him to read about Harvey Milk? Then homeschool them.
If Ruby Bridges was old enough to go through what she did, little Meredith is old enough to read about it. No one gave a damn about whether I was "distressed" about lessons in school.
You don't get to decide what all the other kids in the class get to read or learn about. You got a problem? Homeschool or start your Moms For Liberty school.
Right…because it’s best for administrators and teachers to hide what their kids are being taught. Deep down they also know it’s wrong. If it wasn’t, there would be know reason to hide.
No. I just don't think parents should be able to go into schools and demand that:
1. Rosa Park's race be removed from school lessons.
2. Make sure to have books that teach "both sides" of the Holocaust.
3. Teach that the Tulsa Race Masssacre wasn't about race.
4. Disrupt a reading session for kids with gay parents
5. Teach that slavery was beneficial,
Etc....etc....
This was the goal of Rufo, Moms For Liberty, etc.
1. Claim something is happening/major issue when it's not.
2. Claim you're trying to "protect the kids."
3. Get on school boards to ensure that any discussion of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. in relation to American history will be removed in K-12.
You don't want little Parker or Annabelle to feel "distressed" when learning factual history?
Then take them out and homeschool them.
As typical Democrat, each one of those points is an exaggeration beyond that which is truth. You must think Harris is a hero for her emergency trip to Florida…eye roll. And if that first group is actually true, curious as to whose fault you think it is?
Here's another one....
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/05/moms-for-liberty-goes-ballistic-on-librarian-for-planned-reading-of-book-about-girl-with-two-dads/
You want to keep going?
Nope. Each one of those things is factual.
Lol? Whose fault is it? So....you're saying someone "instigated" MFL to get get Florida to remove Rosa Park's race from textbooks? Lol. Yeah....damn those people teaching accurate history. How dare they?!
My favorite was MFL trying to ban Ruby Bridges' autobiography because <checks notes>...there was no "redemption" in it for the white people that threatened her and showed up at the school with a child's casket, etc.
Would you like to start with some links? Let's start with this one.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3905312-florida-textbook-altered-to-remove-references-to-rosa-parkss-race-report/
Nah. I'm just glad the black GOP members who also spoke out about it got attacked. by DeSantis/GOP. LOVE IT!! Maybe they finally got their wake-up call. Tokens get spent.
I do like what Vivek is saying. But, is he the one to accomplish it - never having governed anything? I see DeSantis as being able to deliver. I could see Vivek working in his administration - if we can trust that he is not in the pocket of Soros.
Agree with this comment! Mike, I think you called out a critical piece that not a lot of people look to realize and that's the factor of HEDONISM. Don't know if you're familiar with the book "Brave New World" but it mentioned how Hedonism was a important piece to create the society that can be easily be influenced by politics. Literally what you just mentioned when you say, "The elite power uses artificial “values” to provide cover for them."
I did an analysis on "Brave New World and 1984" if you're interested. Here's Part Two of that analysis focusing specifically on the hedonistic aspect of things (and another piece on the damaging effects of technology as well):
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-brave-new-world-of-1984-part-205
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/our-ocularcentric-society
"Expansion of college to everybody in a sense devalued the college degree rather than giving everyone the magic of what a college degree meant in 1960 when it propelled you into a place. "
That's ridiculous. Colleges devalued the college degree. In 1960, if you had a degree, it was a guarantee that you were literate. It was a guarantee that you had some motivation to learn. It was a guarantee that you had been exposed to great books and great ideas. It was a guarantee that you had developed some critical thinking skills. This is what made college graduates employable as professionals.
In 2023, a college degree is a commodity and a college student is a customer. Colleges sold their collective souls in order to get as many students as possible regardless of their motivation and ability. No matter how dumb and unmotivated you are, you can get a degree in something just by taking out enough loans, regurgitating leftist dogma, and being a robotic radical activist. Tree climbing, Lady Gaga, and the TV show South Park are all subjects of college classes. This is not because those subjects have educational value but because spending their lives in front of video screens have left students today with the attention span of fruit flies. Students don't demand an education; they demand college credit for entertainment. They demand colleges reinforce their political prejudices and tell them how perfect they are, just like mommy and daddy (or both mommies or both daddies) always did.
"Give me what I want or I'll go somewhere else." So the colleges fell all over themselves to pander to angry, intolerant brats. So now, the angry, intolerant brats have a diploma that in many cases, they can't even read. They also have thousands of dollars in debts, no real education, and no real job prospects.
So true. Time for colleges to jettison any degree that has “Studies” in the title, and any degree that could be taught at a 2 yr vo-tech institution. These include hotel management, food service management, communications, marketing, journalism, along with gender studies and all those other bullsh-- degrees. Go back to requiring philosophy, history and classics courses in any degree, including math. Of course, this requires there be professors who can teach these subjects....
The degree is devalued, yes. But not merely by universities but instead by the very students public schools have produced. And even private schools.
A student graduating from high school in 1960 is roughly equivalent in knowledge to an Ivy league university graduate today.
The entire school system is at fault.
Indeed, colleges themselves have made themselves increasingly unfit for purpose. That's literally their business model nowadays.
While the very first expansion of college to the non-elite masses in the 1960s and 1970s would of course have inevitably necessitated *some* degree of watering down and grade inflation, what has happened since then, especially in the past quarter century, should be laid at the feet of the colleges themselves.
Especially as colleges have become far more expensive since then, which is the opposite of expanding it to more people, even as college becomes more and more necessary to earn any semblance of a living wage nowadays. Such a racket.
We do live in a more dangerous world than at anytime. Yet I put the a lot of the reasoning on technology that allows the powerful, rich controlling, and world order people who equate money, power, and privilege to superior knowledge as a means for expansion of power to control people. They believe (worldwide elites across the globe) that they know what is best for everyone. Just do this and Sudan will be good. Remember George Clooney and the elites with the “Not on my watch “ campaign. How’s that working; oh wait; now we’re on mutilate children and increase mental illness campaign. Refuse to confront evil and it only grows stronger and mutates into eventually being multi dimensional.
Combine that with governments being led by fundamentally weak governments and institutions run by people with little to no morals, higher beliefs, or desire to make the hard choices. Cowards banding together thinking they know better and meanwhile evil grows unchecked with no one to confront it.
Africa and the Middle East, and Asia have conflicts based on greed of the very people described above. Add in the silly liberal belief that if I weaken myself all my potential enemies will respect me and be kind. No, the same evil trends in people ensuring they want what is yours. Look at the mobs robbing and looting in our cities. Same principles. Tell them they are oppressed and we are so sorry. Please destroy society and commit crimes to help make us feel better, because we are so woke. Liberalism encourages war and our own history points that 2/3 of our wars had Democratic presidents. Dictators and evil fear strength and determination and surely not liberal politicians.
People don’t understand that feelings and good intentions mean nothing to evil people. Look at Soros, Gates, Suckenberg, and expand worldwide. Power and influence over the human race is the goal. Their belief that they know what is best for mankind makes this world more unstable than anything else. So they fund campaigns of the weak, insecure, and absolutely unqualified leadership that the entire world has. Meanwhile the evil just gains more strength and others become targets.
> if I weaken myself all my potential enemies will respect me and be kind
That's not really their philosophy; they are not looking for respect from enemies. They are looking for a way to get ahead in life, and our incentive structure right now are set up in such a way that we respect and venerate people based on either their identity or some characteristic about that person, instead of their accomplishments.
This occurs at all levels -- a single special needs child can get millions of dollars of funding, while gifted & talented programs are being shut down in public schools. A transgender athlete will be given more attention (negative and positive) while elite athletes pass by unremarked. Entrepreneurial investors will choose businesses based on diversity metrics instead of ability to attain a profit.
The gifted and talented program's are not being shutdown because they're putting the money into special education. They are being shutdown because if everyone can't be gifted and talented nobody can.
So right. There are few that have the qualities to do the right thing for the good of all. People that care about the state of the global community. If we had more of those this would be a less dangerous planet. No wonder Elon wants to get to Mars as soon as possible.
Terry, I will add that the “elite” never concern themselves about the chaos taking place among the “underprivileged = the rest of us beneath them”.
They really aren’t too concerned with open borders, rampant crime, child sex trafficking, high inflation & interest rates, jobs, healthcare, poverty, minorities, guns, lack of education, homelessness, the environment, etc., etc., etc.!
They are insulated from the chaos EXCEPT or unless it effects their power & wealth. Yes, they will talk about it ad nauseam when they need to influence the masses for votes, in order to stay in power & keep their wealth! Or, use it for threats & intimidation, so they can stay in power & keep their wealth!
Our duty is to pay whatever tax they deem necessary. Remember the money they need to stay on top. And never forget Big Brother Government is watching, so don’t step out of line for fear of persecution, ridicule, or heaven forbid you be labeled a “threat to democracy” and be shunned, shamed, or thrown in jail.
I know! I sound terribly pessimistic today, but I am beyond sick & tired of the Powerful People (politicians, & pundits) who have a voice that can be heard, yet they constantly spew hate, discontent & divisiveness!
First, it is not humans' ability to produce power that is the problem. Thinkers from Buckminster Fuller up through Elon Musk realized that the greatest driving force to eliminate poverty and misery is the availability of what Fuller called, "energy slaves" - available power equal to the labor of one person. The average American controls 5,000 of them, the average African, "approximately zero." And that is why the elites' Global War on Affordable Energy - which disproportionately affects the poorest in the world, is so immoral.
Second, I taught a course in radiological physics for several years; these goobers in D.C. have zero idea what they are playing with when they poke the Russian bear. (Hint: Atomic and hydrogen bombs turn mass to energy according to Einstein's famous equation, E = mc^2; c^2 is a Very Big Number.) The headlong drive to nuclear war is avoidable. We just have to hang those promoting it. I have plenty of climbing rope, if anybody's interested.
No offense to you personally, Bari, but I perceive your guest as out of his depth.
We need a remake of Dr Strangelove, with Victoria Nuland in the starring role.
Peter Sellers is my favorite actor of all time, with Slim Pickens close behind.
“precious bodily fluids…”
OMG that film is so packed with irony, it’s one I never tire of rewatching
Yes, "Dr Strangelove" was brilliant. One of my favorite quotes: "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!".
to protect freedom we need to curtail freedom and jail opponents. a speech like in the war room would be a nice touch
I'm a fan of Buckminster Fuller! Elon, not so much haha!
To me, Elon is the "richest, poorest" man in the world. Rich that his entire persona is hugely built off of a strategic propaganda campaign, which allows his name to almost attract finances and resources, but poor in the sense that there's very little tangible value being produced from his ventures. I think he just sold his house so that he could get some cash or so?
So yea, those are my thoughts on Elon lol. Here's a post on why I think SpaceX, one of his latest ventures, are doomed to fail:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-great-spacex-deception
If it wasn’t for Elon, we would not have the Twitter files which in my mind are a much bigger scandal than Watergate—multiple government agencies secretly colluding with mega tech companies to eliminate speech for thousands of American citizens, including prominent doctors and scientists during a pandemic. Despite legacy media, in any sentient society this is a huge scandal.
I'm kind of an Elon fan, mostly because he's so unpredictable that he causes the other billionaires, Democrats, and communists - but I repeat myself - to tremble in their boots and is constantly humiliating them on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. (TPFKAT).
The fact that he is unpredictable is extremely concerning for all of us. His starlink communication satellites are giving Ukrainians internet. That is far and away too much power for a boy/man who uses his platform to stir schoolyard fights.
Like all simplistic explanations, that one is inadequate to describe a complex, canny polymath who has mastered nearly everything he has tried. Like my Boy Jefferson, Elon Musk must be judged by the totality of his influence and accomplishments, not just his alleged shortcomings - and those accomplishments are legion.
Yes, he is a polymath, and yet, still, he is trying to exert political influence/power with his creations
I just ran across this on X:
"If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill.
No limit.
Please let us know."
Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
How can you not love this guy?
So am I. So are we all.
Franklin, we are free (for now anyway) to voice our opinions + dislike anyone we take issue with.
So here’s my 2 cents worth. Up & until Elon began speaking out about Free Speech & purchased Twitter, he was one of the “Darlings of the Democrats” (just as Trump was!).
He always voted for Democratic politicians + Tesla Motors was the 1st electric automobile and the WOKE Left loved & praised him!
But just like other Democrats who dare go against the WOKE Left ideology & narrative, once Elon ventured to call “a spade a spade” and be vocal about how the Left censoring speech they didn’t like, or were offended by, that’s when the Left, once again “ate their own”
I am a great fan of Elon, and anyone who will stand up against the Woke Left insanity.
Label me a White Supremest, a Deplorable, a blah, blah, blah, you fill in the derogatory blank. I am okay with name calling & labeling (of course, I find it offensive & unnecessary) ... you have that First Amendment Right, unless or until the Left takes that away from us, too!
How are we poking Putin’s bear kingdom? He’s the one who invaded. Are we putting intercontinental nukes in Ukraine? No. Are we putting in tactical nukes? No.
Is he threatening? Yes.
Has he done anything? No.
So then the question should be asked. Why hasn’t he done what he threatened to do?
Because he is afraid of our response.
How is this different from 1962?
As with all things, there are multiple points of view. Another might be, "Why did the United States' CIA subvert the Ukranian election to install a reformed comedian as the puppet president?" What did they hope to gain? Why did they ignore warnings about admitting Ukraine - ON RUSSIA'S BORDER - into NATO, Russia's sworn enemy, or did they plan to do that to PROVOKE a war? Indeed, it is NOT different from 1962, except that now the US is in the wrong, trying to place a threat on Russia's doorstep instead of the other way 'round. Tell me, how would the US feel if China and Russia allied with Mexico and Canada and began putting missiles there?
Or another: How does Ukraine's possessing all the receipts for the American Alleged President's graft and corruption ("I told them they wouldn't get the billion dollars unless they fired the prosecutor, and son of a bitch, they fired him!") possibly affect American foreign policy concerning Ukraine?
Another might be: How would a nuclear-armed regime respond to an existential threat? If they are going to be annihilated anyway, why not take your enemy with you? Or maybe we'll just sterilize all of Europe as a warning. "We will never be overrun" is certainly Israel's plan; maybe Putin feels the same way.
Ukraine is None Of Our Business. Most people cannot find it on a map. We can argue about right and wrong and who is which, but I don't want my nation's rulers massaging their rescuer fantasies with my children's blood. Seems reasonable to me.
The fact that most ignorant Americans can’t find Ukraine on a map doesn’t mean it isn’t in the national security interests of the US.
We can argue till the cows come home - but in my opinion Putin did what he did because Russia deserved a puppet regime on his southern flank. And he used NATO expansion as a pretext.
Now of course, he has NATO across his entire Western flank because of his misjudgment.
But I respect your opinion.
I used to consider myself a liberal but now I don't know what liberal mean.
I used to think it meant toleration for diverse viewpoints, but now I see some liberals vilifying condemning and even expressing a wish for harm for those who disagree with their liberal viewpoint.
I used to think it meant charitableness and respect for human rights, but now I hear some liberals saying the meanest and most uncharitable things about people such as RFK Jr. and condemning people who want to exercise their religious or medical freedoms.
I used to think it meant open-mindedness and willingness to learn, but now I see many liberals refusing to even discuss controversial topics out of fear that they might have to hear something that diverges from their narrow perspective, and discounting data that doesn't conform to their conceptual biases.
I used to think it meant fairness and rational inquiry about difficult subjects, but now I see many liberals actually celebrating when some people are treated unfairly for not following what their liberal beliefs dictate they should do.
O liberalism! Where have you fled? You have abandoned your foundational values and embraced the mindlessness of factionalism and tribalism. When will you return, if ever?
James, you are correct to ask, “O liberalism! Where have you fled?”
My Democrat family members & friends feel the same … which is why they say, “We did not leave the Democrat Party, but the Party has abandoned us + has been hijacked by the rabid WOKE LEFT”.
"I think that’s the danger that we’re facing. In my work, I keep referring to something called the Adams Curve, where Henry Adams, over 100 years ago, had looked at the collective power of the human race." - Interesting idea. Here's another "Adams Curve" that we should at least consider as a causation of our current social and economic woes; the farther we stray from the "garden" - meaning the symbolic ideals and relationships represented by the Garden of Eden - the greater the curve bends towards violence (ultimately war) and unhappiness. We have been trying to achieve fulfillment (economic, personal, etc.) devoid of a relationship with a higher power for about 50 years now. How is that working out?
Very much agree. Excellent analogy, thank you.
I find his analysis somewhat shallow.
Perhaps just too brief.
I worry that if we think things are dangerous in America now, ie crime, political corruption, a biased press, trade imbalance, a weakened military, just wait till the millions and millions of illegal immigrants crossing our open border find out America is not the land of milk and honey they thought it was.
When the income gap widens further and the handouts stop and immigrants realize they actually have to work for a living, and maybe even learn a language foreign to them, things will get much worse before they get better, if ever.
The only crime worse than allowing illegal immigrants free access to America and its wealth of opportunity, is a biased main stream press protecting one political party.
This!
The biggest risk we face in the United States is that politics has become a religion and the possibility of a religious civil war is beginning to be significant. As a conservative, I lay most of the blame for the increasing temperature and increasing risk on the increasing tendency of the "woke" to restrict free speech, to report only those world events which support their narrative, to gaslight every political event as something other than what it is and ultimately to weaponize all the arms of government against their political enemies. I am not a particular fan of Trump but US institutions survived his Presidency in reasonable shape. I cannot say the same of the Obama and Biden Presidencies.
I sometimes think liberals have decided that they cannot afford any common sense in their reporting and analysis of the world. Instead of "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc.", they say, "if it walks like a duck, it must be a mutant elephant because it has wide feet." Is there any one out there who really believes that the Biden Family is not extremely corrupt in the classic sense of the word? You have to think that Biden runs Harding as the most corrupt President in history. By comparison, there is absolutely no indication that Trump or anyone close to him ever requested or accepted cash payments for access, policy or anything else and, by now with all the liberal sleuths out there turning over every rock, any such behavior would have been found. Does anyone really believe Hunter Biden's paintings are selling on their own merit as art?
When Trump is reelected, which, whether I like it or not, is becoming a real possibility, there has to be a better than 50/50 chance that the "woke" will attempt a coup by violence and that this coup will be resisted with violence.
Well said, Robert, and I totally agree!
The WOKE Left will never accept a Trump Presidency, again! If we thought the riots, never reported on by MSM, that took place after Trump won in 2016, OR the rioting, burning, looting was bad after the George Floyd BLM/ANTIFA / $2 Billion destruction was bad (both tolerated and downplayed by the Democrats), we can only imagine what may happen should Trump win in 2024.
Deep down I’m doubtful a Republican or Independent, or even a moderate Democrat can ever be elected, again.
I think there is a chance that a Republican or a centrist Democrat can be elected. But whether the losing party accepts the loss is questionable. Both Clinton and Trump are convinced they won their elections and, under the First Amendment, both are entitled to their opinion and to state their opinion as loudly and as often as they like.
The problem is that the NYT, WP, NBC, CBS, ABC and their satellite cable channels are likely to support the violent overthrow of a Trump election if Trump wins. "These are just normal people protesting the election. I am sure they did not mean to kill 200 people. It was a mostly peaceful protest. It was a figment of your imagination that they were wearing balaclavas and carrying assault rifles."
And, during the election, they will meddle as much and as often as they can to throw the election to the Democrat. At present they are certainly trying their hardest to ignore the myriad issues with Biden: senility, bribery, corruption, failed policies, etc.
Well said, Robert!
Agree. But, we should never accept it.
mark it, if trump appears to have the electoral votes every technique and strategy he is accused of will be done in 2024 and harris will not certify the election
I don't think that Trump would be a great choice for the next president. I think that DeSantis is the man of the hour. I do see DeSantis maybe having young and inexperienced -in-government Vivek working in his administration. (One reason Trump got eaten for lunch in the WH is that government was new to him.) However, recent events and news coverage (including none on the Biden Crime Family) are making me feel more positive about Trump. I sure would take him for our country over any Democrat (I liked Gabbard but she's an Independent now) or Haley, Scott, or Pence. So, for the first time I can envision Trump in '24 and DeSantis in '28. And, I used to be an Independent.
I like DeSantis as President - I think he would actually get stuff done. My problem with Trump is that he is relatively ineffectual, partly because of his personality and partly because he inspires the worst in Democrats. In an ideal world, Trump would step aside, DeSantis would get elected and then pardon Trump and every other conservative targeted by the Deep State. That would get a lot of garbage off the table and allow DeSantis to focus on the many areas that need attention.
I really like your vision and agree with your assessment.
At this stage in the 2016 election it looked like Jeb Bush would be the sure GOP Primary winner. Then, Trump jumped in and then plowed everyone under during the debates. After that polls between him and Hilary were unreliable. So, I think to some degree we are all letting ourselves be run by media spin. It's too early to know what will happen. Saying that would not get any clicks. It sure would be ideal if Trump stepped aside and endorsed DeSantis - which likely won't happen but if it did I think it would happen at a more dramatic time - like during the GOP primary debate season.
Trump can't pardon himself. It would even be difficult for him to pardon those who have been targeted for supporting him. But a different Republican President could pardon all of them, including Trump, on the grounds that the weaponized DOJ essentially framed everyone associated with Trump and that the country needed to move on from the endless cycle of indictments and largely baseless prosecutions. It would be a 24-48 hour news story and that would be the end of it.
Sounds good to me. DeSantis would be excellent. He has a track record in FL. I don't think Haley, Scott, or Pence would be any good. I am not up for just any R candidate. Too many have rolled with destructive post modernist "culture war" against our society (and our daughters) - like CRT and the Gender Cult Religion.
Something will have to be done about Admiral First Female Levine with an R president in office. Like, perhaps a trial and execution.
To summarize for anyone not up to date about our Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary, the Admiral, he uses his position to promote the experimental drugging and mutilation of children, teens and young adults as "care" under the term Gender Identity. This is a different matter from what a few middle aged men might do. https://www.dailywire.com/news/transgender-hhs-official-gender-affirming-care-will-be-normalized
Gender Identity was coined by a Doctor John Money who experimented on and abused a pair of teen boys who each committed suicide as adults - I believe in their 30s.
The Admiral does this in the face of mounting evidence that such "care" harms rather than helps. Studies showing it helps kids have been shown to be faulty and promoted by activists and people who make bank in the field. Europe has reversed course. So, Levine promotes harm from high position with full knowledge that it is harm. Guilty. Let us not be distracted from the evils of the current administration with the constantly trumped up Trump stuff. I really don't see anyone but DeSantis being an effective next president but I will vote for Trump if it's the option we have. I recommend Dr. Grossman's new book "Lost in Trans Nation".
" I think of liberalism as the idea of compromise, of toleration, of an openness to allow everyone to go through life making their own choices. Liberalism is like the ivy, but it needs a tree. If it’s going to get anywhere, it needs a tree".
I now see liberalism as anything BUT compromise and toleration. If you don't think like they do, they'll burn, loot and destroy businesses and personal property to try to make their point.
Liberalism isn't like an "ivy", it's more like a cancer and something needs to stop it from metastasizing (if it's not already too late).
There's a difference between classical Liberalism and the current iteration of Liberalism. The first paragraph is an example of classical Liberalism and the second and third paragraph is the current brand. The same thing has happened with Conservatism. There is Conservatism, Republicanism and Magaism. Each one descending in morality. Then, when people toss around the word "woke" without knowing it's meaning, it muddies the waters.
Herr, there is “woke” and there is “WOKE” and we definitely know the difference,
Saying you know the difference without providing a definition has no validity. As for "woke" and WOKE" that is an exercise in futility. I've never read anywhere that someone has used the word "woke" that indicates they know what it means.
Please excuse me, Herr! I’m just one of those “deplorable, uneducated, women” who should stay in the kitchen baking cookies. How dare I comment on a platform I, too, pay to be on. I hate it when my ignorance overtakes me😉
BTW, if my not providing YOU a definition has no validity, I would suggest, sir, that says more about you than me.
Just saying!
Are you one of those "deplorable, uneducated women" by choice, or a victim of circumstances beyond your control? You may suggest anything you like, nevertheless, you still haven't cited a definition of "woke." Are you afraid of being aware, and, if so. what are you afraid of being aware of? Or do you just like to deflect and stir the pot?
That’s not liberalism, that’s just critical theory and Marxism. Leftism and liberalism are not the same thing.
Phil, you are so right! And it is why SO MANY Democrats are fleeing the Party. Those Democrats will tell you they joined the “Walk Away Movement” not because they left the Party, but because the Part left them! Democrats once were the Party of acceptance & tolerance, believing in “live & let live”. Now that Party has been hijacked by the WOKE Left, spewing hate, insults, intolerance & intimidation.
It's more akin to kudzu.
"race relations, 60 yrs after the civil rights movement & passing of anti-discrimination laws, the wealth gap between black& white households is greater than ever. The social problems in the inner city are worse than ever. Whether you’re a liberal or a conservative, you can look at the last 60 years of racial policy & see that it didn’t achieve what people said it was going to."
very true. Much due to encouraging fatherless households by giving out $$ only to single mothers. Race Relations worsened even More under Obama. Race relations were getting better in the Clinton/Bush yrs but worsened under Obama. Likely because he constantly inflamed racial tensions by saying garbage on TV about "police targeting blacks" etc. And of course, race relations are drastically dramatically worsening now with CRT, "anti-racism", DEI & all the garbage. Their goal is to worsen race relations. So they can get elected into office. Because most POC are socially conservative & would vote GOP. But Dems constantly say "All GOP is "racist" which is obviously false. But gets them the votes from POC.
POC?
Colored People?
lol
I just finished reading The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. The endless war between Sparta and
Athens weakened both city states allowing for a third Hedgemon to emerge, i.e., Alexander. Athens lost its democracy to oligarchs who wanted to continue the war when the people wanted the war to end. Goodness, this sounds a bit like today with our oligarchs making "more informed decision" than we the mere masses. Something about those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
I enjoy reading Mead's articles in the WSJ. As a history lover, the world is driven by significant figures who shape the world for good or ill. When the USSR fell apart, those who dreamed about democracy thought it would spread worldwide. The Bush Freedom agenda built upon that, but anyone who read a history book should have been dubious. For any society to work, there needs to be cohesion around a particular set of principles and beliefs, and those two things must remain salient. As Mead points out, we are living through the rise of technology, the decline of religion, and what, I would add, the God complex by Western leaders.
The God complex are leaders who think through good policy that they can shape the world the way they want. Their plans will work, and we will all live happily ever after, but the biggest flaw is people. People who like to take drugs, lie, cheat, and steal in the individual sphere, and those who lust for power and control on a grand scale. (Xi and Putin)
In the end, where I am pessimistic, we do not have great people on the horizon anywhere in the West. Biden and Trump are both third-rate actors. When the wheels come off the spending blowout of the past 50 years, we will need a great leader to help get us out of it, but sadly if there are none, a descent into darkness will be ahead of us.
If you want a portrait of a scary so-called leader, read the Samuels interview of Obama biographer David Garrows. It’s in Tablet. Downright chilling if he got it right.
I just finished reading that piece which was excellent and downright scary. The world was fooled by Obama and I sincerely believe that his lack of action destroyed Syria to elevate Iran.
i read that , he was a grifter who pulled it off.
"In the end, where I am pessimistic, we do not have great people on the horizon anywhere in the West. Biden and Trump are both third-rate actors. When the wheels come off the spending blowout of the past 50 years, we will need a great leader to help get us out of it, but sadly if there are none, a descent into darkness will be ahead of us."
People have been saying that,...well forever.
"I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate, We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune -- in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety."
John Adams
________________________________________________
I have my problems with Donald Trump...BUT maybe the times call for third-rate actor. You might want to look up what some people wrote about (say) George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill.
“Sometimes it pays to know an anti-social, paramilitary paranoid survivalist with more guns than any same person would have, is just the man for the job"
Spoken about Burt Gummer (Tremors)
"You know Grady, some people think I'm overprepared, paranoid, maybe even a little crazy. But they never met any Pre-Cambrian lifeforms did they?"
Tremors 2: Aftershocks 1996
My thoughts exactly. We need a fighter- down & dirty! He knows now what he has to fight and is still willing to do the job but he will only have 4 years. I say give him the chance. If we can keep the evil leftist busy.
I'm Neutral (Really I am) a question on policy what they want, What is the difference between (say) Donald Trump and Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy? From what can tell Nothing. Style a lot but in policy (which is what Care About) not really much.
To me the main difference is that DeSantis has demonstrated proof of ability to deliver in FL.
Our problem is the others candidates don’t have the poll numbers. I like DeSantis, his heart is in the right place and I think being in the military he does love this country where the leftist democrats don’t . Their only focus is control the masses. Forget the truth, try everything just to win. Winning is everything.
Yup
To some degree I think we are all letting ourselves be run by media spin. It's too early to know what will happen but saying that would not get any clicks. At this stage in the 2016 election it looked like Jeb Bush would be the sure GOP Primary winner. Trump jumped in and later plowed the others under during the debates. After that polls between him and Hilary were unreliable. She was a sure winner!
As Robert Helms stated elsewhere - in an ideal world Trump would step aside and endorse DeSantis. It is unlikely to happen but if it did I think it would happen at a more dramatic time - like during the GOP primary debate season. Doing it now would only bring joy to the Deep State and Democrat machine that is so excited to prosecute him every other week. (Wouldn't it be nice if interest existed in the Biden family influence peddling scandal? Like, he is the president NOW.) Anyhow, after recent events and lack of accountability regarding the Bidens and RussiaGate and all, I would certainly vote for Trump if he is the GOP candidate even if he is not my first choice.
You are so right about the worlds leadership vacuum. There no longer exists leaders with vision and empathy so we are left with the weak and incompetent who put power before country.
Perhaps the leadership vacuum is a an evolution. Away from hierarchical top down form of governance that concentrates power and creates evil demigods.
We still needed Washington, Jefferson, Madison and those of that generation to tell us about the evils of concentrated power and the need to have a Federalist system. What you preach is a political movement that has to be led by someone as others just are feeling their way into the hands of those evid demigods. Thanks for your post!
I am not preaching merely suggesting. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison et al- and those who succeeded them had to come together in their opposition to hierarchical monarchy and created a new form of governance by the people for the people. They didn’t stay on for life and become demigods. We have long strayed and come full circle, so perhaps we are at an evolutionary moment once again. (PS your thanks are appreciated but feels condescending in its finality and ends the opportunity for discussion, something the founding fathers didn’t do).
My apoligies if I cam off as condescending, I always thank those you leave good posts. The only problem is that we collectively keep voting for people who are in their 80's and that is becasue in the end, people like getting things and not having to pay for them. I will go back to the point that there needs to be a leader to break the cycle and I sadly don't see any.
Sorry for my sensitivity and appreciate your thanks and replies. Yes, I agree, and that’s the point. Our early leaders didn’t stay on. They showed the way and crafted governance (not government) so that we can continue on, but we seem to have circled back to the very thing they were trying to alleviate- elite rule by monarchs. Searching for the answer in one person or a few from only one side is in direct opposition from the original intent. We need to govern ourselves the way it was set out. We cannot elect leadership in the corruption of the current system because the system has been hijacked to reverse it by our present elites acting like monarchists.
Yes, Albert! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over & over while expecting a different result.
The same politicians get re-elected & stay in power (+ get filthy rich!). I suppose we have the best politicians money can buy.
Indeed, perhaps becoming less vertical and more horizontal is actually a blessing in disguise.
Top-down hierarchical governments inevitably lead to demagogues who think they are demigods. Especially when they are selected by the Electoral College against the will of We the People (Hayes, Harrison, Bush II, and of course Trump).
I guess I see it a different way with Trump. I saw a fighter with morals although not ideal but at least a fighter. Someone we needed at the time but had no knowledge how corrupt it really was. Maybe a second chance to clean house?
Trump truly has the morals of a sewer rat though. Which is an insult to actual seer rats, lol. Just saying.
How many people in government have morals? It's funny when people say he has no morals, like it's the first time we've ever had a immoral president. These people are more like fatburgs, once they get into the sewer line they are a bitch to clear out.
Fair enough. But he really takes the cake!
This is exactly the conversation we should be having. The founding fathers established the electoral college, as they believed at the use of electors would give the country a representative president, while avoiding a corruptible national election. This needs to be re-examined and refined. Obviously. As our elections have indeed become corrupted. The national vote very much as well.
Indeed. And there was also a much darker reason for the Electoral College as well: to protect the low-population (or rather, low white population) southern slave states from being outvoted by the northern states. In other words, to protect slavery.
I don’t see that. I thought the purpose was to prevent smaller states from being out-voted by larger states, most large states being in the south, so the reverse of your argument would be true.
The southern states were often larger in terms of *total* population, despite being rural. BUT their WHITE populations (i.e. the only people allowed to vote back then) were kinda skimpy in many if not most of such states, and often outnumbered by slaves. So their voting populations were underpopulated and thus at risk for being outvoted, and felt they needed to compensate for that. That was the Anti-Federalist side of the compromise, while the Federalists (especially Hamilton) were often elitists who didn't trust the hoi polloi to vote the right way. Ergo, their compromise resulted in the EC. And the rest is history.