SONS OF LIBERTY VS. NATIONAL FRONT- Jeb Kinnison
I’ve tried to concentrate on the next book, but events conspire to suck me into the current mess re Trump. Like a lot of observers, so long as he was a sideshow I could see his almost-daily newsmaking as colorful and perhaps useful in allowing others to speak more freely some of the things that needed to be spoken. By doing so he was expanding the Overton Window and giving a voice to sentiments held by large segments of the population that had been suppressed by the MSM, like nativism and the desire to see immigration laws enforced.
But he’s primarily a demagogue who tells the formerly voiceless what they want to hear and promises to defend them against the dangers the privileged “respectable” politicians want to cover up while they continue business as usual — managing the decline of the over-regulated economy and spending the tax money of citizens to bring in new dependent populations who will presumably vote to keep them in place. Having mined this vein of formerly-voiceless anger at the sale of their country to outsiders, Trump has used it to gain the lead in the Republican race despite having no apparent grasp of most policy issues and some frighteningly authoritarian instincts. He has been called a Jacksonian man on a horse, which has some resonance with Osama bin Laden’s remark: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Trump’s rise has opportunistic pols and job-seekers endorsing him as a strong horse who can take charge.
The US was founded by several different groups from diverse parts of Britain, and greatly expanded by immigration from Europe. There was no control over immigration — everyone was welcome to pay their own way here, try to survive and fit in, succeed or fail as their abilities and luck allowed. Many returned to their native lands, but most worked hard and helped to settle the land, build the railroads, and grow the cities. In the mid-1800s, just before the Civil War, large numbers of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Italy flooded Eastern cities and were seen as a threat. The Know-Nothing Party gained power in some Northern cities on a platform of controlling immigration of Catholics, who were thought to be culturally unsuited to freedom and likely to take commands from their corrupt and foreign Pope. Riots between Catholics and Know-Nothings erupted; 22 died in a riot in Louisville, Kentucky before a contested election.
Lincoln needed the support of the remaining Know-Nothings in the election of 1856, when Republicans began to pick up their support to oppose the Democrats who supported slavery. But in a private letter, he said:
I am not a Know-Nothing — that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
These nativist movements were defused by the tensions over slavery and the approaching Civil War, and the Know-Nothing Party faded after 1856. Irish took over the police forces of most Northern cities, and Democratic political machines used the Irish and Italian immigrants as a base to take over most big city governments. Over generations, these supposedly bloc-voting groups splintered, and the rough and ready disciplines of capitalist employment encouraged integration.
Immigration began to be restricted after a flood of Chinese workers to the West. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which targeted a single ethnic group by specifically limiting further Chinese immigration. In 1907, a “Gentleman’s Agreement” with the Japanese government limited visas for immigration from Japan. Restrictions on the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were imposed in 1924, and in 1932-33 immigration was shut off by FDR’s executive order. Democrat FDR coerced repatriation and deportation of between 500,000 and 2 million Mexican Americans, mostly citizens, in the Mexican Repatriation.
In 1965 the immigration law was rewritten, with tight quotas for Eastern and Western hemispheres. Separately, “family class” immigrants were favored outside of the quota system, so one immigrant could settle then sponsor others, who sponsored others, and so forth, allowing entire culturally foreign communities to immigrate over time to create enclaves — which slowed integration into American culture. While intended to be humane, family class preferences did not choose the immigrants that would be most likely to be valuable additions to the country and its economy.
In recent years, immigration has become a political third rail. One side views the US as “social worker to the world” — just as they see it as the duty of government to supply housing, food, and healthcare for poor people in the US, they see a moral duty to accept poor people from around the world, especially refugees from war-torn countries. The other side is partly motivated by the remaining nativist impulse — keep the special privileges of being a citizen for current citizens and deny outsiders work and social welfare spending to preserve these benefits for natives.
As a part-time economist, I support free trade generally, and would like to see a reformed immigration policy that takes advantage of the attractiveness of the US to recruit the best of the immigrant candidates. The current system blocks the immigrants most ready to contribute and tolerates illegals from Mexico and points south. The US loses many highly-beneficial immigrants to Canada and Australia and other countries that are less difficult about legal immigration for the high-skilled, and allows in large numbers who are unskilled and likely to be dependent on social welfare services for at least two generations. The H-1B visas enable employers to take advantage of highly skilled immigrants and use their low salaries to keep down the salaries of US citizen engineers and scientists. The system is rotten from top to bottom and badly needs a thorough reform.
It’s also important that those new immigrants accept the guiding principles of the Constitution and quickly integrate into the polity of free individuals and voluntary associations that allows the US to contain multiple religions and cultures to the benefit of all. There is nothing wrong with screening immigrant candidates for beliefs inconsistent with the principles of Americanism — specifically that no government will enact into law specific religious precepts. Thus devout Muslims who are Islamist (believe government must be Islamic and implement Sharia law) should be barred. It is not a violation of any citizen’s rights to ask all candidates for citizenship to pledge to uphold the Constitution and refrain from imposing their beliefs on others. This point of view would have been seen as mainstream as little as one generation ago, but now is considered politically incorrect by our coastal ruling class.
Donald Trump’s rise is due to the backlash from the bipartisan failure to do anything about the failure of immigration policy. His promise to build a wall and deport the millions of Mexican illegals is viewed as outrageous by the same Democrats who idolize FDR — that heroic New Deal president who started Euro-style social insurance schemes, deported as many as 2 million Mexicans (some of them legal citizens), and interned over 110,000 Japanese-origin US citizens during World War II. Trump’s suggested immigration and trade policies closely resemble FDR’s!
Trump has opened up discussion and encouraged speech from reasonable nativists, but also from formerly muzzled white supremacists and bigots of all kinds. His appeal is similar to the National Front in France: he has attracted nativists and middle and lower class people who have felt shut out by “repectable” social democratic parties. To analyze the commenters of a blog which shall go unlinked, responding to Sarah Hoyt:
[Sarah Hoyt] “Whether we were born elsewhere or here, Americans — those of us who are proud of the name — are rebels, revolutionaries, something new under the sun: a people who believe people should be equal in their right to life, the right to liberty, the right to pursue their happiness undisturbed by either inimical neighbors or oppressive “betters.””
Equality and Egalite are French Enlightenment abstractions designed to finish off the last of the Church, and to rationalize the totalitarian impulses and actions of The Mob . . . people like Sarah Hoyt.
Equality is a satanic concept and provides, in practice, the exact opposite of equity and fairness. Without ‘equality’ people like Sarah Hoyt don’t become successful, much less famous. They become instead what they merit, which isn’t much. They damn well know it, too, which is why they’re so full of vitriol — afraid of losing their vast, unearned privileges. Which they are going to lose, anyway.
Equality, like Women’s ‘liberation’, permits Sarah and her fellow traitors to crush their betters — yes, they DO have betters, and boy do they HATE HATE that — and take over nations under cover of helping the downtrodden and oppressed’. That’d Themselves and their friends, in case you’ve been asleep the past half-century.
Think you have Equality? Sistahood Sarah threatens to punch a mere male, and will not be punished if she does. Try punching Little Miss Virtue Signal and see what happens.
Liars and cowards selling their popular, self-serving lies, while patting themselves on the back for being Brave Rebels who are standing up to The Evil (non-existent) Patriarchy.
This is an interesting mix of “truthiness” and bigotry. Sarah is American by belief and choice, accused of being a “traitor” by people who think their ancestry and presence on the landmass of the US since birth make them guardians of the US nation-state. Aside from the incoherence (how can she be a traitor if she is not a member of the tribe?), the commenter attempts to other her by lumping her in with the virtue-signalling SJWs.
This commenter is sadly unAmerican in his resort to racist and sexist issue framing, completely misapplied to Sarah Hoyt. It’s unfortunate that the loud outpourings of these people, few in number but egging each other on in the fever swamps of sites like this blog-which-shall-go-unlinked, can so easily be used by progressive scribblers elsewhere to tar all dissenters from the Progressive program of thought control as racists, misogynists, and neo-Nazis (or worse!)
Which brings up a valid point these people have made: if Americanism is a bundle of individualist beliefs and attitudes, what about those with deep roots in the US, born and raised for generations there, who don’t accept those beliefs? If tolerance of difference is a watchword, then should those who don’t tolerate differences be suppressed or removed?
Our answer starts with looking at how we got to this point, where government has expanded and encroached on the private sphere of business and social organizations to the point where private action is viewed with suspicion, and a significant percentage of the population believes democracy means subjecting every action of business to the political process and regulation.
Americans were formerly known for their commitment to private charity and self-help organizations; the America of Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 teemed with churches and private social organizations and lacked the inherited privilege and concentrations of unearned wealth and power seen in Europe. But he worried that “… a despotism under a democracy could see ‘a multitude of men’, uniformly alike, equal, ‘constantly circling for petty pleasures’, unaware of fellow citizens, and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an ‘immense protective power’. Tocqueville compared a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep its citizens (children) as ‘perpetual children’, and which doesn’t break men’s wills but rather guides it, and presides over people in the same way as a shepherd looking after a ‘flock of timid animals’. He also wrote that “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
He was prescient. We have arrived at that state. Half the US population believes they are victims of the “malefactors of great wealth” demonized by FDR; FDR’s experiment in Democratic Socialism was derailed by his own nominally Democratic-controlled Congress by 1938, but enough remained of his expanded regulation of business and greatly-increased size of the Federal government to send the US down the road to permanent bureaucracy and a Deep State that constantly seeks to expand its power and resources. Eisenhower warned of the “Military-Industrial Complex,” but it’s no longer just defense contractors in league with Congress to pork-barrel spend, it’s a much larger group of special interests influencing legislation and regulation to give themselves protection from competition as well as direct access to public money. As governments have increased their control of all sectors of the economy, growth has slowed, prices have risen, and young people have found themselves in debt to an education complex which graduates them with few useful skills, then forces them to buy health insurance at higher-than-market prices to subsidize wealthier old people.
Americans are largely still believers in the principles of Americanism — live and let live, equality under the law, free enterprise, and a civil society that ideally doesn’t discriminate by color or sex. But several generations of public schools, originally introduced on a Prussian model and intended to mold a population to more uniformly accept direction as cogs in a military-industrial machine, have weakened their resistance to collectivist thought. The Wikipedia entry on the Prussian education system says:
Early 19th-century American educators were also fascinated by German educational trends. In 1818, John Griscom gave a favorable report of Prussian education. English translations were made of French philosopher Victor Cousin’s work, Report on the State of Public Education in Prussia. Calvin E. Stowe, Henry Barnard, Horace Mann, George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell all had a vigorous interest in German education. The Prussian approach was used for example in the Michigan Constitution of 1835, which fully embraced the Prussian system by introducing a range of primary schools, secondary schools, and the University of Michigan itself, all administered by the state and supported with tax-based funding. However, e.g. the concepts in the Prussian reforms of primordial education, Bildung and its close interaction of education, society and nation-building are in conflict with some aspects of American state-sceptical libertarian thinking.
In 1843, Horace Mann traveled to Germany to investigate how the educational process worked. Upon his return to the United States, he lobbied heavily to have the “Prussian model” adopted. In 1852, Mann was instrumental in the decision to adopt the Prussian education system in Massachusetts. Governor Edward Everett of Massachusetts instituted a mandatory education policy based on the system.[33] Mann persuaded his fellow modernizers, especially those in the Whig Party, to legislate tax-supported elementary public education in their states. New York state soon set up the same method in 12 different schools on a trial basis. Most northern states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for “normal schools” to train professional teachers.
Americans were especially impressed with the Prussian system when they set up normal schools to train teachers, because they admired the German emphasis on social cohesion. By the 20th century, however, the progressive education movement emphasized individuality and creativity more and opted for a less European-inspired curriculum and lower social cohesion and uniformity. The Progressives faced a major setback with the Sputnik crisis, which led again to more focus on quality education and selectiveness of the school system. The derogatory use of the term may contrast 19th-century pedagogy (see the poisonous pedagogy debate in Germany) with the introduction of new technology into classrooms during the Information Age. While Joel Rose appreciates Horace Mann’s commitment to a public education but is aiming at renewing how to deliver it, authors like Conservative Party of New York State activist John Taylor Gatto and further home-schooling activist Sheldon Richman claim that illiteracy rates in the USA were lower before compulsory schooling was introduced.
Those “normal schools” to train educators are a primary source of the substandard teachers of today, taken from the bottom third of college applicants and trained to promote “correct” social thinking. Big city schools, especially, are run for the benefit of union teachers and not the students.Parents get little or no choice in their children’s education, children get limited instruction, and disciplinary problems detract from study.
But even in the better districts, a uniform Progressive ideology has gradually been impressed on the students. The elementary teaching generation after World War II was still fairly high-quality, and many bright young women went into it as a caring career which would allow children and family interruptions. The advent of both expanded professional opportunities for women and social pressure to go after higher-paid professional careers removed many of the most-competent people from elementary school teaching, and the newer generations of teachers have been trained to promote social ideals over knowledge, with less time for Western classics, civics and history, science, and economics, and more time for environmentalism and “corrective” diversity. As a result, graduating students, while more sophisticated in some areas, lack the basic knowledge of government and history needed for American citizenship. They have been trained in Progressive ideals, including the notion that passing a new law can address every social problem.
Another import from Bismarck’s Germany: State Socialism. Bismarck set up the basic social welfare state as we know it, with state health insurance, pension, and disability programs, in the 1880s. Social Security was FDR’s similar effort to defuse the tide of full socialism in the Depression; by borrowing from the future, it could provide state support for the elderly at seemingly little cost in payroll taxes.
These efforts to protect and provide for citizens via state programs have enfeebled private efforts to save and enter mutual support agreements. Half the population now believes they are owed a good job and a living through government action. Politicians speak about “creating jobs” as if that is their proper role, interest groups unashamedly lobby for more subsidies for their particular interest from the money tree of the taxed private economy, and the common political response to high-priced and low-quality housing in the coastal cities is public housing subsidies, rent controls, and “inclusionary zoning” (the requirement to build “affordable” housing as part of every market-rate project.) All of which drive down supply and increase costs further.
Many people see what’s happened and have tried to sound the alarm. But dissension from the program has been suppressed for decades. And now we have Trump and others feeding off the anger of those who have suffered under a system which rewards the connected and wealthy at the expense of the hard-working, blue-collar citizens not enjoying privileged coastal lifestyles. Our politics has suffered from the sound of silence — the supposed racist and sexist origins of all anti-Progressive efforts, the Conventional Wisdom of the mass media which filters out anything nonmainstream, the gradual corruption of the academy by government funding and directives.
The antidote to this encroaching tribal collectivism is electing representatives willing to focus on the core function of government — defense, justice, and enforcement of contracts. Returning power to decision makers closer to the decision — state and local governments and private citizens — reduces the rewards of corruption and empowers the people to take responsibility for their own and their children’s welfare. Education should be funded by parents and local associations, not mega-school districts and Federal bureaucrats. Parental desires for their children’s upbringing should be respected.
What should not be respected is the “isms” — belief systems incompatible with the Constitutionally limited government that made the US the desirable place to live for productive people. racism, sexism, classism, etc., should never be tolerated in the action of law. Dividing up citizens by skin color and tribe and doling out affirmative action rewards to the favored may have been justified for one generation, but now create more racism and sexism than they alleviate. Islamists and other religionists who believe that government should enforce their religious laws without the consensus of other citizens should never gain a foothold in our politics.
There will always be people living in America who disagree with one or more aspects of Americanism. If they follow our laws and support themselves, the US can accommodate some number of them short of a majority. But we should seek to screen them out when they apply for immigration, and refuse to support them with welfare payments and subsidies. If they find it more comfortable to live in a country that supports their beliefs, they should move there. And we are under no obligation to associate with them, employ them, or be kind to them.
As Sam Adams said on August 1st, 1776: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
According To Hoyt 
c4c
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Now see, that comment confuses me greatly.
Let’s take it from the top:
1. How is “Equality” a Satanic concept, and how was it created by the French Revolution? Has the commenter never actually read the Declaration of Independence?
2. How on Earth could this person think that Sarah Hoyt is a totalitarian mob member?
3. When has she ever claimed to be “Standing up to the Patriarchy,” aside from occasionally mentioning how things were in 1970s Portugal?
Reds to our left, Browns to our right. What a world.
That first quotation has more projection than an entire chain of movie theaters.
Er, second. No issue with Lincoln on that one.
Oh…I had wondered. Thank you for the clarification.
Ox slow.
But steady. 😉
Ox win race?
To quote a pop philosopher, “A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest.”
I answered a Trumpet with that on FB last week…
But Sarah, Trump’s what America craves! He’s got electrolytes!
Is that why his hair looks funny?
That’s no hair…that’s a space station!
It’s a Puppet Master.
Pretty sure it’s a marmot that decided to take a nap up there.
You are a VERY bad man. 😀
Clearly, electrolytes don’t make hair grow.
That quoted comment made my head spin. Then I googled where that comment came from, and everything made sense.
Oy vey. I have nothing but respect for you, Sarah, for standing when you have both sides of the political spectrum coming at you.
Actually, it reminded me that I’m going to have a summer free from work and school (this is unprecedented in my adult life) and I’m going to need to fill it with reading. Lots of reading. This comment inspired me to buy and read a lot of your books this summer.
Let me guess, the VolksDeutsch Expatriate?
It is as though you are clairvoyant. 🙂
Since I haven’t bothered to google it (I know what site it is from) is the quote from the blogger or a commenter?
To be fair, it is from a commenter but it is in response to an interesting blog post.
The main reasons I seldom visit there are that the blogger occasionally has some interesting posts (and he can use some very twisty phrases that sound like he is saying one thing, but carefully parsed out, mean something entirely different) but those are usually linked to from somewhere else, and are rare enough that it isn’t worth bothering to check for myself. And the commenters there tend to be dull, stupid, and repetitive. Certainly not all of them, but a fairly high majority, the comment section reads about like the one from vile 770, and plain isn’t interesting reading.
I like his fiction, and rather enjoy watching SJW heads explode whenever he is brought up, but otherwise don’t really find much worth reading, there.
Thank you.
For people who say they don’t really like SJW’s, they sure like to act like SJW’s.
And note, the ILOH’s checklist was a list of things to AVOID, not things to do. “Skim Until Offended” and “Make S#!+ Up” are not okay because you’re the one doing it, ‘k.
No kidding …
I think, re: equality being a Satanic concept, that this person might’ve gotten some excerpts from “Screwtape Proposes A Toast” and read them severely wrong? Best I can do there.
Hrmm, not so much a direct analysis of that but…
Equality of opportunity, equality of treatment under the law and the result is heaven, or as close as one might get one earth.
But ensure equality of results and one gets hell, or a fearful approximation thereof.
But when have I endorsed the French revolution? Sure I use Ca Ira and aristo aristo a la lanterne, but that’s more to let the “elites” both in sf and the country know the level of anger they’re evoking.
H*ll, the book that echoes the French revolution in Darkships is still waiting a final pass for being too “rough” and it took me THREE YEARS to write. And almost broke me.
Echo? That book is drenched in la Revolution. Had I not a passing knowledge of the real thing I would have thought you mad for some of the scenes you incorporated. Instead I knew you were merely mirroring historical fact.
What I really needed was a good Musketeer and vampire story to get la revolution out of my head. Thanks for that.
You’re welcome. I’m entering changes today after the baen-book-stint and putting it on pre-order.
I think the issue is that the progs have so dominated things, especially education, that equality in a political context these days only means endorsing the French revolution (which they do…it’s their founding more or less).
Hell, even back in the late 70s/ early 80s in Wyoming (not a prog state then or now) I was taught that the only difference in philosophy between the French and American revolutions was the emphasis on brotherhood as opposed to happiness and that their concepts of liberty and equality were the same.(no one noticed that the former was liberty, equality, fraternity and the latter was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in drawing up the lesson plans). In fact, the emphasis on brotherhood was claimed to be better than happiness in some ways.
With that as a working framework, that equality can only mean equality of result or it is a hollow virtue. Going around FB right now is a meme showing a mansion and a havel captioned “Explain to me again how these people the same opportunities” which is a prime example as are a lot of Bernie things (“it’s not free we understand how taxes work” by people who know they won’t be paying those taxes but figure taxes belong to everyone equally).
In that world anyone who champions equality is see as someone trying to get something without effort or talent. It isn’t correct or fair but that is how much we’ve lost the language,
Equality of RESULTS was the problem of the French revolution.
And meh on patriarchy. It has never bothered me. Yes, Portugal was a patriarchy when I grew up. It never stood in my way.
From the blog – following the quotation of the above referred to confusing comment:
…the commenter attempts to other her by lumping her in with the virtue-signalling SJWs.
Yes. They don’t know her, do they?
When Sarah refers to the words of our founding documents and they equate it to the slogans of the French Terror! {censored} ignorant {censored some more}
As I said above as early as 30 years ago I had teachers who equating the French and American Revolutions in terms of philosophy and kind of brushed over how the former ended just claiming, essentially, it was take over by wreckers who lead to Napoleon.
If that’s what you’re taught how are you to know different?
Isn’t it funny how thoe Utopian revolutions are ALWAYS taken over by “wreckers”?
Wreckers who always manage to get the masses convinced they’re the One True Voice Of The People? But don’t worry, guys, that’s not how utopianism is supposed to go. It’s supposed to end with a utopia. Says so in the name. Come on, let’s give it another go…
They have to be. They’re only utopian if the people do exactly as they’re told. If they actually think for themselves, they tend to get out of line, and utopians can’t have that. “Acting against their own self-interest” is how the “progressives” characterize it. And they seem incapable of recognizing how deeply insulting that characterization is to anything who thinks about it.
“The People Have Been Led Astray By The Evil Ones”. 😈 😈 😈 😈
Damn right…I am so tempted to start a “Kulak Pride” movement…both for the joke and seeing how many SJWs would initially embrace it.
Well, they both did have Tom Paine in common. Even he eventually realized that it would be a smart thing to get out of France.
She is locked in with virtue signalling SJW’s? PLEASE, Please take videos. They would be better than River’s big scene in Serenity.
YES! That does make for a delicious image.
Still, Spoiler alert please.
For various reasons — i,e,, *life* — The Spouse has yet to be able to watch Serenity. And now, as it has been so long, would like to re-watch all of Firefly first. I’m not complaining, only where does one find the time with so many other things demanding attention?
I may be envious. They are in for a treat. There is always something special about watching a great movie or reading a great book for the first time.
The general mindset is looking at racial and sexual roles as more genetic and the average as the whole. It may be true that the average Purple Panda has an IQ of 93.62578 but that is just an average. It does not mean that there will not be Pandas with an IQ of 110 and 85 and 140. It just means that there may be fewer rocket scientists and more ditch diggers (insert MLK street sweeper comment here). The idea behind this is saying that all PP’s have that IQ (unless its less) and that we can’t expect any of them to be useful for rocket science.
1. The issue is a question of what is observed and what is said. Equality of opportunity may be an equal concept, but today the word means equality of outcome at best. Usually its more of a ‘I like this outcome so I’ll call it equal’ and the rallying cry is very lopsided. Most of the people you see championing the mindset like that comment are those that do see themselves getting hurt by the EoO police. Seeing idiots getting promoted because it looks good on an EEOC form or because they kiss the right ass or they’ll make a stink, etc.
2. Is the standard mindset of ‘They’re not fully with us’. I admit I’d expect Sarah to punch back (from their example) but there is a societal expectation that the person that punched her shouldn’t have, regardless of their actions. It’s a function of the double standard that you see a lot around and again, the mindset comes from the us or them mentality that the world has pushed us into.
3. It’s an odd mindset, admittedly again the group over individual mindset that is basically taking the argument that she was fighting the patriarchy when she argues for A. Meritocracy in terms of just working her ass off. And B. Saying that while traditions are there as a ladder, it’s not a jail cell.
It may be true that the average Purple Panda has an IQ of 93.62578 but that is just an average.
Yes, that ‘s the arithmetic, but there IS no average Purple Panda – see:
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html
My reading of the Declaration’s “created equal” is as a repudiation of the then-current division of society into nobility, clergy, and laity. Which idea is further developed in the Constitution’s forbiddance of patents of nobility…
You have to work really hard to get from there to Griggs v Duke Power.
“In 1965 the immigration law was rewritten, with tight quotas for Eastern and Western hemispheres” is most artfully phrased. While absolutely truthy, it somehow manages to miss the designed replacement of White america with… well, anyone else. Excoriating as racists Americans concerned by these policies worked quite well for 50 years. And now it’s clearly a done deal.
Where oh where were our Louis Farrakhan, our La Raza, our Jesse Jackson? Why, they were shut down, shut up, and excluded from polite society. Sad really.
You have to work really hard to get from there to Griggs v Duke Power.
Yet we did and completed the trip over 40 years ago. Is it any surprise those under 30 have internalized the change?
“the Constitution’s forbiddance of patents of nobility…”
The Judicial system of granting prosecutorial immunity to District Attorneys looks like patents of nobility to me. Too many officials in this country have no accountability.
It is amazing given the perumbras and emenations the Constitution has it’s not a title of nobility unless you call them Duke or Count.
Grumble…now I want to re-visit Huck Finn.
Let’s not forget all the laws that have exemptions for the police, firearms laws especially.
The police are horrible racists who gun down blacks for fun — and are the only people to be trusted with guns.
“The police are horrible racists who gun down blacks for fun — and are the only people to be trusted with guns.” – Mary
Naw. The police are horrible thugs who gun down dogs for fun. They just shoot blacks for target practice so they won’t miss as badly and as often when they shoot at your dog in your back yard.
*grin*
Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “I just wanna have fun!”
Aw, crap. Now you’ve got the phrase “Thugs just wanna have fu-un” going through my head to the tune of that stupid song.
I’m gonna get you for this.
Worse, I have what Weird Al could do with this in a video running through my brain.
With or without the group who did the “Fat” video with him?
Equal before the law is my interpretation.
Our leges have galloped past the privy and closeted themselves in the garderobe. See? No privy leges here!
If 5/9 say it don’t stink, it’s all roses.
I’m not saying we hold to it. I’m saying we SHOULD be. You don’t want me to get started on los federales, do you?
Equal before the law and equal before God.
well, yes, though that’s not the business of temporal authorities. But yes.
I think their interpretation was, if we are all equal before god, then we should be equal before the law, also.
Yep, which is why it took Christian peoples to first express the idea. It was an example of working to build the heavenly kingdom on earth.
Judaism internally could see it but the division between those of Abraham and the gentiles was a stumbling block there. Most eastern faiths have a strong element of teaching proper relations between unequals so can’t do it. Islam is too committed to theocracy at the core of the faith to do it.
Which, if you think about it, explains why for progressives, Christianity is the truly evil religion. It is the only one that doesn’t allow for their inherent moral superiority to everyone else but has the gall to claim they are morally equal to conservatives.
Meanwhile, some Christian churches go out of the way to kick the tenuous superiority out from under their own followers in pursuit of humbleness. Sunday before last was the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee as we prepare for Lent. One of our deacons pointed out, at book study, that you could argue the Orthodox are the Pharisee in that parable if applying it to today (which explains why we are prohibited from fasting the week after).
It is the progressives who believe in heaven on earth, imho Christians know better. Man is not perfectable.
This captures my thoughts completely.
In 1965 the immigration law was rewritten, with tight quotas for Eastern and Western hemispheres. Separately, “family class” immigrants were favored outside of the quota system, so one immigrant could settle then sponsor others, who sponsored others, and so forth, allowing entire culturally foreign communities to immigrate over time to create enclaves — which slowed integration into American culture.
While this may have been how it played out since 1965, it might be well to remember that prior waves of immigrants frequently settled into communities together.
In the cities where immigrants first arrived there are, to this day, numerous ethnic neighborhoods. Once the neighborhoods developed subsequent waves of similar immigrants came in and joined. There are many reasons that people chose to settle in such communities. It could be relatives or other people to whom you were connected. The neighborhood markets and restaurants offered food you recognized as food. There were established places of worship – churches or synagogues. Many of these communities provided their own systems of support as you transitioned to life in the new world, particularly before the spectacular growth of the state run safety net.
Familiar climate and land conditions to home attract successful settlement. The Greeks fished off the southern New England coast and in the Chesapeake. Scandinavians survived winter in Minnesota. Basque shepherds recognized and understood Idaho. The Russian farmers knew what and how to farm in Nebraska. The Vietnamese fish the Gulf Coast.
There were cases a block of land were acquired in the new world by or for a group. Members of various religious groups, such as Hutterites, arrived in this manner. Groups of Germans were brought in to settle in Texas this way.
I don’t think that it is the settlement in ethnic enclaves that is preventing new legal immigrants from integrating. Social theories that insist that it is wrong to expect integration (even discourages integration) and a government safety net works which not only enables people not to integrate, but, instead of working as a helping hand up, ensnares and renders one dependent — these will have to be addressed if we want to see change.
IIRC, the “communities helping newcomers to adjust” is still common practice among Asian groups. (IE Koreans, etc.)
Of course, many in the Black communities get upset about those groups doing that. [Sad Smile]
My lead at work tells the story of a coworker who emigrated from Vietnam. For years after emigrating he found himself stagnant because he was still living as if he was in Vietnam. Same food. Same language. Same people. Etc. It wasn’t until he broke free that he actually started excelling and succeeding. Sometimes the comfortable is shackling.
Between the technological changes (Now the immigrant in Athens, GA can support a family in Athens Greece via money transfers and still read kids a bedtime story) and the societal changes (the only bad culture is Anglo Saxon culture, British and American particularly, white in general) there is no longer a reason to integrate into a new country. Instead of making the US a neighborhood where the kids all played outside and interacted, we’ve made it an apartment building full of either working professionals or single parents with kids gorging on TV and Games from the Motherland.
I remember back in the 70s White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) culture was denigrated by the left as the root of all that was wrong in America. We boomers wanted a bit of freedom from our parents’ polite culture of morals and manners. Unfortunately, instead of trying to loosen up a few rules, the Zeitgeist of the age was to reject anything WASP. “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” “If it feels good, DO IT!” “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll!” What an age for stupid slogans.
Well, the results of the overthrow of WASP culture speak for themselves.
Oh I understand. Was in a chatroom the other day. They were going over how collars have a meaning for the leather scene. And the suggestion was made not to wear them to meets, especially when new. And a bunch came into that saying that the traditions of the culture they are exploring were too old fashioned and backwater and they should just respect how it makes them feel. And not respectfully either.
Still a similar zeitgeist, except it even extends to countercultures. It’s The Devil’s forest of traditions.
That has ending badly all over it.
Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised that the woman who walked up and just picked up the lock end of mine to examine one day was among them. I was too flabbergasted to do anything (in that scene it would be like walking up and grabbing a woman’s breast) but…uhm…other parties decided to address her.
In general they are asking to be isolated by accident if misread. They’ll get sick of being asked who their owner is (while unowned) or treated as a bottom when they are a top. If they announce their “screw your rules” mindset…well if they want to explore by having to deal with the dregs for partners that’s their problem.
Wish I could address idiots so easily in other gatherings.
And I guess not technically BDSM not leather. But it was an easy example in my head. I tried to correct it and so did the leaders of the group (At least to the extent of ‘meet people before you push rules’), but was just startling because I can’t understand how many people have these blinders.
Another is that when I worked EMS in NH we would get the outlaw biker gangs for the big motorcycle meets and nascar race. Part of training is that you do not cut their colors unless absolutely necessary, do minimal damage, and if you can leave it in control of another of their compatriots do so. It is what they respect. It has meaning for them. Just as you shouldn’t play with communion wafers or the rest.
Too often it seems people get off on belittling traditions. Piss Christ for example. It’s just such a deep seated narcissistic need that since they see no relevance, there is none (This is one reason I am somewhat nervous about presenting on writing at a small convention this week).
Ah, biker leather. I don’t even pretend to understand their rules although I do know they share roots (as in we get a lot of traditions out of a subset of the early post-War biker world). Even today there is some overlap as when I was in Hartford I attended some things run by a group headed by a biker.
Bikers are a group I’d want to annoy with my attitude even less.
Too often it seems people get off on belittling traditions. Piss Christ for example. It’s just such a deep seated narcissistic need that since they see no relevance, there is none
I often wonder if it is a form of acting out because they have nothing sacred to them.
I think you’re on to something, Herb. If there is nothing greater than one’s self, you can spiral into an abyss pretty quickly. It doesn’t have to be a religion per se, but something you stand up for (like serving in the military, or belonging to a biker gang, or being very much in love with one’s partner/spouse and family.) If everything is scaled on you, you will end up being pretty insignificant unless you strike out and get people to give you size, so to speak, by drawing attention.
Aaannd the rest of that thought will have to come later, maybe at my blog, because the BBQ sauce is reaching that delicate point between scald and scorch. I don’t want scorch.
“Too often it seems people get off on belittling traditions. Piss Christ for example. It’s just such a deep seated narcissistic need that since they see no relevance, there is none ”
No, if they didn’t believe there was any relevance, they wouldn’t bother with belittling it.
Then it was don’t trust anyone over 35. Then silence.
My dad grew up in such a Finnish enclave. The grownups, while clearly missing some aspects of Finn life (not the Russians nor the Swedes) refused to let their kids learn to speak Finnish or grow up thinking of themselves as Finns. With the result, naturally, that Dad and his cohort learned to cuss fluently, can rattle off the names of various myths and heroes, foods, and places, like a native speaker, and can’t form a sentence in the language, and have the stories of American life native to all small-town kids from the 1940s.
My sons know exactly six words of Portuguese — in the order I say them when I burn myself.
Just the same for me. My dad was the youngest of 8 siblings, by 10 years. When he was born the family decided to “raise the baby English” (the family was PA Dutch). As a consequence he can get the gist of PA Dutch conversations but never learned to speak it. And all his kids speak English only (well, English only natively).
My grandparents decided to raise their sons monolingual — English.
My parents decided to raise me multi-lingual – speaking American. I grew up knowing words from every language in existence.
Some of them were even acceptable in polite company.
same as I did to my sons…
Ding! Ding! Ding! CACS has answered the questions correctly and is awarded one cookie!
I agree, but it would have been a much longer essay. Immigrant communities naturally cluster by origin and culture for important communal support. The difference is the artificial support now provided by “caring” governments to maintain barriers — like the former California practice of keeping Spanish-speaking children in bilingual classes for years, which really meant low competence in English was accepted. Providing welfare and services seduces the recent immigrants to avoid dealing with the host country culture. Learning to fit in and work in an Anglo environment was not required. To contrast, past immigrant clusters integrated in one or two generations. And while this process of integration is still happening with newer groups, it’s slowed by the multicult view that “authentic” native cultures are to be preserved and integration resisted.
Acculturation HURTS. People do have to be pushed to it, even if they WANT to belong.
Czech and Czech-German settlements in the San Angelo area of West Texas and around Ennis, and elsewhere. All of them ranching and farming communities. Enclaves.
And yet my uncles were 2nd generation descendents of immigrants all of whom served in WWII. One of them was an officer on the Bugara, SS-331. It wouldn’t occur to me to suggest that he wasn’t assimilated, and yet he spoke Czech fluently. (My great grandparents on that end came over in the late 1890s, as best I recall.)
But that was then. This is not then, and these are not those people.
Wall, Rowena, Veribest, Miles, and Olfen???
A lot of those folks there had kin I grew up with in the St. Lawrence area.
One of my Dad’s best friends out there was one of the Rangers who assaulted Pont Du hoc on D-Day in 1944..
This is fascinating, especially in how it captures something that has bothered me for a long time: the difference between nativism and supremacism.
You might call me something of a nativist. When I think of immigration, I think of it in terms of how it benefits (or doesn’t benefit) America’s existing citizenry. If a proposed immigrant will improve, or at least avoid bringing down, our country then there is an argument for allowing him in. On the other hand, if he will consume entitlements, fail to integrate, and otherwise become a drain on the country, there is no reason to let him in. Unlike Sarah’s detractors, however, I firmly believe our evil Space Princess was a great addition to America, and if more immigrants were like her, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
I suspect that most people wouldn’t like the results of a properly-applied litmus test. Most immigrants today probably wouldn’t pass, for the reasons mentioned in this post (unskilled labor, incompatible values, etc…). Worse, they are removing disease controls, also. HIV-positive immigrants are allowed in. Even in the Ellis Island days, lethal disease was an automatic disqualification (you don’t better your country by bringing more disease into it). The Establishment, of course, greatly desires more of this immigration in order to depress wages and create more Left-wing voters. They can be regarded as traitors to their country.
However, there is a bridge too far on this issue, too. We’re starting to see this with Trump and the sliding of the Overton window into an area where the white supremacists are coming out of the woodwork. To be fair, there are not so many of them as the media would have you believe, and they are vastly outnumbered by their more reasonable nativist counterparts, who have very legitimate concerns. But they do exist, they are a thing, and they provide a focus for Leftists to say “see, they really are Nazis!”
The biggest issue with Trump is that, while it is entirely possible he will do the things he says, and some of those things DO need to be done, getting rid of the authoritarian after the job is done is likely to be very difficult, and he is liable to do great damage elsewhere through his Leftist sympathies. Obama has set the precedent, via extensive executive orders, that would allow a man like Trump to do a great deal. The price of Trump doing these things may well be the installation of a tyrant. It’s a Devil’s Choice: the Tyrant or the slow, but steady erosion of the country through ill-advised immigration.
I understand some of the Trump voters — I really do. I can’t go there myself, but I know where the anger comes from, where the frustration comes from. However, these emotions have latched on to the wrong person. Trump will not be a savior. Indeed, I don’t know if anything or anyone can save this country, at this point. But I know for certain Trump won’t be that man. And since he can’t do it, no good can come from electing the Tyrant.
I am with you on “if they come in they have to benefit the country.” I’m not sure I qualified on paper, when I came in, not having finished a single story, yet. BUT at least I had “Master’s degree; is fluent [then] in five languages and functional in two and can do technical translation; has high IQ [ which counts for nothing really, but bureaucrats might be impressed.] Brings enough money to put down a deposit to ensure she’s not dependent on anyone until she finds work.” I.e. the Australian immigration model.
I absolutely believe the US should look out for her best interests, be in in whom we go to war to protect/protect from, or in whom we admit. Not only is the constitution not a suicide pact, but we should defend our fellow citizens and our land. (Unless our citizens are traitors, which is something else.)
Yes, this.
I’ve been trying to find an essay I remember reading (I thought it was by Bill Whittle, but I can’t seem to find it) about people who are American, but just didn’t happen to be born here. The point is that America is a creedal, not an ethnic nation. If you accept the American creed with all your being, you are notionally an American, regardless of what your passport says. If we could adopt this somehow, we could get a wealth of useful foreign-Americans to come here (and get rid of a wealth of useless native-unAmericans).
Make them go through acculturation and citizenship still. I’ve gone through and seen the transformation take place and “time served” still counts, no matter what is in your heart.
Even more than that. Make native-borns go through it too. No voting citizenship till they pass the same tests that naturalization requires.
I’d agree with this. But it might not be doable. But I’d agree with “permanent residency till you pass test” (Which is laughably easy, btw.)
The Democrats destroyed the very idea of “passing a test in order to vote” with their attempts to keep Blacks from voting. 😦
No, they just made it very difficult to implement. The idea is a pesky thing; it keeps popping up regularly. Especially whenever I can work it into a conversation. 😉
“very difficult to implement”
No, I’d say almost impossible to implement (what I meant by “destroyed”).
Thanks to the Democrat’s anti-Black voting measures, just suggesting it would be the “kiss of death” for any politician.
We think we have problems from the Liberals over “Voter Id Laws” now, IMO it’d be nothing compared to the “fun and games” if some politician suggested a “voter’s test”.
Any politician who suggested it would be “thrown to the wolves” by his/her closest allies.
Note, I like the idea but I can’t see it happening anytime in near future. 😦
Given the GOP thinks stopping Trump is important enough to make duck noises about racism indistinguishable from the Democrats I suspect the idea probably has a lot of appeal and the elites will burn the village to the ground to stop it.
Voter turnout is down in all the Dem primaries. The drop is significantly greater in Voter ID states. No equivalent differences for increased Rep primary turnout.
I saw an item yesterday asking the question, “Should the mentally deficient vote?” — not a serious problem in real life, though like the infirm elderly, they would usually be voting under undue influence from caregivers. It’s not unreasonable to require a simple civics test to vote, but then it can be gamed and abused. A Heinleinian franchise requirement requiring proof of service is also interesting to consider. But the self-motivating, self-selecting system is not bad. Lots of ignorant people voting, but they contribute mostly noise and are persuaded they at least had some say.
I explored “liquid democracy” in the last book, and Google has done some experiments. Voting becomes a continuous process of selection of your representative, and you can change who represents you at any time. The resistance to modern ideas is of course from those who rely on manipulation of the current system to keep their control.
The thing is, if that happens, the tests will become THE key to the franchise. Which, in the current political climate, means they’ll fall under the same sway as the school system before you can say boo. And then, probably, politically yanked about a few times more before they’re inevitably tossed in the same heap as “literacy tests”.
Let’s work cultural literacy from the supply side.
So? It’d still be better that what we have now, which is nothing.
It’s so patently corruptible that I really doubt this. Seriously, the instant the citizenship test becomes generalized, Roger Sherman and Philip Livingston are going to be vying with Abbie Hoffman and Timothy Leary for a place on the page, and then the fundamental questions of what we’re trying to accomplish start getting raised and it’ll be more a matter of John Adams versus Malcolm X, and say, just how Christian or Muslim were those gents, anyway?
Disaster in the making. Won’t help national cohesiveness a stitch.
I think you’re entirely wrong about that. If the citizenship test was corruptible in the way you seem to think, it would have been corrupted long since.
Well it has been dumbed down. A Turk I know took it last year. She was stressed going in, but laughed at how easy it was after passing it. So now she is totally for Bernie.
Oh, it is ridiculously easy. Not tendentious, but easy.
I’m not disputing that it’s easy, but are you sure that it’s been dumbed down? Do we have evidence of a more difficult version in the past?
There’s real no profit in corrupting the immigration citizen tests.
But corrupting the voting tests means that “one side” can deny the vote to the “other side”.
That’s why voting tests would be corrupted.
But if the voting test was just made the naturalization test, they’d have to corrupt both to achieve the end. And corruption the naturalization test would cause just as great or greater of an uproar, I think.
Drloss, the naturalization test is easy enough for a child. Here: https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learners/study-test There’s a link to all the test questions there.
Well-put. Our form of nationalism is about ideas. To conflate it with blood or ethnicity is to betray those ideas. The “foreign filth and contamination” impulse is atavistic and to be overcome when it appears.
Which one?
A huge number of Americans accept the “welfare, freebies, and police state” America with all their hearts, and vote for more regularly.
However, there is a bridge too far on this issue, too. We’re starting to see this with Trump and the sliding of the Overton window into an area where the white supremacists are coming out of the woodwork.
Overpressure relief values are set well above operating pressure but they are also set well below system integrity pressure for a reason.
For at least 20 years and probably closer to 35 both political parties and the media (to varying degrees) have been cranking the pressure setting on the relief valve on immigration and the welfare state higher and higher. One of the most recent examples is how much the #neverTrump forces have started using straight up progressive arguments which is undermining their credibility big time. Despite being a Cruz person and not a Trump fan there are huge swaths of the conservative punditry I have no use for after this year especially when you add in their screams of “not a conservative” despite a decade or more of “hold your nose and vote GOP or else $DEMOCRAT” activism.
But they do exist, they are a thing, and they provide a focus for Leftists to say “see, they really are Nazis!”
I heard progtards today on the radio from Spy and The New Yorker joking that if Trump gets elected they’ll share bunks in the concentration camps.
Just like they, or their predecessors, said about McCain, would about Cruz, did with every BusHilter comment, and so on.
And that they never said once when Obama tossed out during his campaign about the need for a civillian paramilitary force or all the Obama worship over eight years now. Especially funny was the remark that Trump would be a failed character test for the electorate by a person who supported the idea that voting for Obama for no other reason than he was black was a moral imparitive and voting against him proof you’re a racist.
I suspect my evaluation of Trump’s totalitarian leanings could be skewed by the huge amount of “Republican = Nazi” chicken little crap I’ve heard over 30 years. Now it is just background noise and if it ever comes descriptive I won’t hear it.
That was their choice.
Which reminds me of a point made on another site yesterday — that the increasingly-shrill insistence that racism and sexism is still a tremendous problem is designed to continue and expand the apparatus and funding for dealing with the (now mostly imaginary) problem. Like “rape culture,” it’s a pleading for attention in the face of the reality of the near-disappearance of what had been a serious issue in the past. The identitarians require devils to oppose, and if they cannot be found, they will be manufactured.
I remember one of the key realizations of growing up: no one cares about me (except my family, sometimes!) – the universe is cold, I am but a dust mote, people are rarely paying real attention to anyone but themselves, and if I am to become someone who makes a difference, it’s on me to do the work and grow myself. Akin to the observation that if you want a good marriage partner, the surest way to find one is to develop yourself into someone who will be a good partner.
Some people are sadly unable to deal with their insignificance, and need to see themselves as superior by identifying inferior people to look down on and hate. Americanism is about being responsible for your own sense of self-worth, gained through being productive and caring for yourself and your loved ones. We help others when we can; we involve ourselves in voluntary community to do good things.
Exactly. The cries of “racism!” and “sexism!” pretty much always equate to, “I’m not getting my way and I refuse to take responsibility for that, therefore it must be because someone is bigoted against me for some reason!” This is a fundamentally infantile way to view the world.
You know, it might be an interesting psychology experiment to try to channel and short out our more atavistic tribal impulses by inventing some outgroup that doesn’t exist as the only acceptable target for demonization. Have some group of people who decide that whatever else they think about the world, at least they’re not as bad as those godawful Neptunians. 😛
I suppose you could see sports as a channeling of some of those impulses in a different way.
That’s an interesting idea for a story.
It’s been done 😉
Bette Midler used ‘Kreplachia’ in her stand up routines back in the ’70s. Kreplachia is a distant country, populated only by ethnic slurs. The name is derived from the Yiddish word for rendered chicken fat.
[first time posting here – please be gentle 🙂 ]
We rarely are anything but gentle, unless you start off calling us names 😉
“the universe is cold, I am but a dust mote, people are rarely paying real attention to anyone but themselves.”
I like to put this sentiment as “No Lives Matter”. But only when I have a good pair of running shoes on .
“‘the universe is cold, I am but a dust mote, people are rarely paying real attention to anyone but themselves.’
I like to put this sentiment as ‘No Lives Matter’. But only when I have a good pair of running shoes on .” – The Nybbler
I prefer the Walter Slovotsky version: “When you think the universe doesn’t give a damn, don’t complain – it’s being as friendly as it ever gets.”
I also lean heavily to Matt Helm on occasion: “My life matters more than that of anyone who wants to take it from me.”
“Trump will not be a savior.” – Thales
That keeps being stated by people who object to Trump as if they’re countering a prevailing meme or something.
Whereas actual Trump supporters keep saying repeatedly: we don’t see Trump as a Savior. We see him as an upraised finger. (And/or other implements)
The only really prominent and nationally visible figure that’s calling anyone a Savior is Glenn Beck, and well, when I want the recommendation of the Jeff Rense demographic, I’ll contact the Mother Ship myself.
“Indeed, I don’t know if anything or anyone can save this country, at this point.” – Thales
They can’t. There is no one. There are no political solutions to the problems created by politics.
There is an “anything”, but it’s going to come through means outside the political, and it’s a long, long term process.
“But I know for certain Trump won’t be that man.” – Thales
As do I. As I stated, and for the reasons I stated.
“And since he can’t do it, no good can come from electing the Tyrant.” – Thales
Since no one is going to be a Savior, and no one can do it, then no good can come from electing anyone.
And if Nobody is elected, I say that we make him serve out his full term.
That Trump is a tyrant is presuming a fact not in evidence. That’s where you lose me.
One of the places, anyway.
are you asking us to cite the evidence on his authoritarian tendencies? do you truly not see them at all?
By all means. Feel free. I’ll be happy to fisk your citation and rebut as needed.
Hell, I might even agree with you.
I’ll point out in advance, however: in my opinion, there is a vast difference between “authoritarian tendencies” and “tyrant.” Semantics matter.
If you can’t see that, then you may not want to pick this particular hill to verbally die upon.
I see plenty.
You might also ponder on whether or not I care at this point. That ship left the dock with Obama, and was torpedoed on its way out of port.
The Patriot Acts and the TSA has also left me really not giving much of a flying rat’s ass about what a Republican might have to say on “Authoritarian tendencies.” And do note that I DO say that as someone who voted Bush against Gore, and who supported Bush during the GWB era, overall.
Take your best shot. Amuse me.
Firstly: the authoritarian measures you mentioned are not to be given a bye just because they’re the doing of previous administrations. Tyrannical laws that are still in force should not be regarded as “dated” just because the news doesn’t cover them anymore. The news doesn’t cover a lot of things worth covering, as you know.
Secondly: Obama, Bush et al did not make opposition to the separation of powers, the freedom of the press, the Geneva Conventions, the pretense of not buying politicians, et cetera, the planks in their campaign platform. A vote for Trump is basically an informed vote for tyranny, provided you’ve paid a whit of attention to what he’s saying beyond “Make America Great Again.”
Also, those who say you’re picking the wrong hill to die on invariably want you to retreat – that is, surrender a point of principle. As I can very easily see a Clinton or Trump administration ending in me physically dying on an actual hill (and Trump more easily than Clinton), no thanks.
“Also, those who say you’re picking the wrong hill to die on invariably want you to retreat… “ – YellowShapedBox
Well, yeah, you caught me there.
Except that you left out the “verbally” from the quote, which is critical here.
In my case, it’s a gentle warning that my patience is wearing thin along with my civility.
Which is really okay. I’m always up for going way out past the “Here there be monsters” sign posts and taking things to alternative levels of discourse. But Mrs. Hoyt might have issues with me on that, and I am a guest here. I try to behave, rather than aiming to misbehave.
So… a relatively easy going verbal “you might want to be careful with that axe, Eugene” to Draven, whom I’ll note never returned to post actual cites.
It’s not on a point of principle: I won’t ask someone to surrender on that.
It’s on a “just how far do you want to take this discussion, and to what levels? ‘Cause I have no verbal and rhetorical limits, reasonable or otherwise. I’ll play as far as you wanna, as hard as you wanna.”
If your principles, YellowShaped, state that you are not willing to risk a Trump, then that’s cool. Do not vote for him nor support him. I will not attempt to force you, nor will I attempt to persuade you.
My principles state otherwise, because I believe that it is a calculated risk for me. And I have already resigned myself to my hills.
I can not possibly state it any clearer than that.
“Secondly: Obama, Bush et al did not make opposition to the separation of powers, the freedom of the press, the Geneva Conventions, the pretense of not buying politicians, et cetera, the planks in their campaign platform.” – YellowShapedBox
Which planks? In what part of his platform?
I have his campaign site open right in front of me, and all of his position papers and official platform statements. Quotes? Specifics?
Or do you mean his Campaign rhetoric, rather than his actual platform and listed policy papers?
You are correct on one count, however: Obama, Bush et al did not make opposition to et al the planks of their campaign platforms.
They slid them in in the course of the practices of their administrations after they were elected, with the most surpassing smoothness. One almost didn’t feel the knife between the ribs, in Bush’s case.
One knew the knife was there, in Obama’s case, but others voted him in in spite of it.
And speaking of slipping things in, I’m not going to allow that the the pretense of not buying politicians is a bonus. Everyone knows that politicians are for sale and are bought. I much prefer the refreshing honesty of someone who cheerfully admits to closing the sales. If that embarrasses any bought politicians, they shouldn’t have gone on the market.
“A vote for Trump is basically an informed vote for tyranny,” – YellowShapedBox
Show me the code.
“… provided you’ve paid a whit of attention to what he’s saying beyond ‘Make America Great Again.'” – YellowShapedBox
I have. People keep making that statement as though they expect that if they pound on it over and over, that a Trump supporter will say, “Well, no, gee, I guess I haven’t paid attention to a word he said and have just been bamboozled by the pretty slogans. Duh huh. Oops!”
Well, yeah, I’ve been paying attention.
Somehow, us Trump supporters keep saying that we don’t trust him, we don’t trust any politician, and that we are specifically using him as a weapon and an upraised finger, and that we are willing to take the risk that he might be as bad as all of his detractors say – but he might not be. And that we are certain that all of the other choices are bidness as usual, and bidness as usual has failed, and we are not interested in playing that game no more. So an unknown quantity who is a successful businessman an not a professional politician is a risk, but it is calculated risk.
I have flat out said on this topic that, “You may be right, and I may be wrong. We shall see.”
And somehow, everyone keeps going, “Yeah but – ” and trying to tell us that what we really said is [insert whatever here].
It is honestly kinda aggravating, and I at least at a certain point get to where I flat don’t give a crap.
I’ll keep on saying what I say I mean, and ya’ll keep on hearing whatever you hear.
DILLIGAF, mate.
Is it reasonable to anticipate that Trump is as bad as he himself says he is, in the absolute-best-foot-forward stage of his career?
So… you don’t actually have specifics from his posted platform, and you don’t want to argue specific statements, just assumptions based on campaign statements without quoted specifics that we can examine in detail? (As in, to see in context whether they were serious, or joking, or a snappy respond to someone else’s attack?)
Yeah, it’s reasonable for you to anticipate that. Sure. For relative values of reasonable.
Why don’t you run with that.
If you’re actually still open to hear me out – which your last few posts have given room for doubt – here are some pretty good citations for you.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-the-military-would-not-refuse-my-orders-even-if-they-consider-them-illegal/
http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/trump-needs-a-crash-course-in-separation-of-powers/62141859/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/politics/donald-trump-police-officers-death-penalty/
http://www.infowars.com/donald-trump-says-he-can-buy-politicians-none-of-his-rivals-disagree/
You can’t call any of these flippant, or shots from the hip (which is how I’d characterize that bizarre comment about safe zones in Syria.) These are serious assertions of his political strengths.
A vote for, say, Bush Sr. might have been a vote for “no new taxes.” But an informed vote for Trump is a conscious vote for suing the dissenting press into oblivion and all the rest. And that’s a pretty serious difference. It means either he’s a tyrant, or he thinks that the mob really, really wants one and is lying his head off accordingly. (These, you’ll note, being the two options bandied about regarding whether or not Iran wants to blow up Israel. It’s not a dilemma in currency for halfway decent world leaders.)
Either way, Trump supporters are probably not your ideal crowd.
@YellowShapedBox
Huh. I wonder how far we can go here before we break this thread?
I’m open to hear you out. You did catch me at the point where I had just about given up on any further responses from this comment string, and I was going to cancel it from my “follows” tomorrow. At which point any replies would have hit the bit bin and I wouldn’t have seen them, which would not have been the same as ignoring you.
I am willing to give it a shot if you are.
Occasional snark and wisecracks aside, would you agree that in general, I’ve been pretty much on point and have addressed the issue and substance of a comment, rather than the tone or the commenter? If I have not, then my apologies. But I have tried to treat serious attempts at discussion seriously and respond to them so, albeit with a bit of humor.
I will be dead honest: I had just about written you off as being either unwilling, or unable to argue in good faith. I had not been getting the impression that you were responding in kind to my attempts to ask questions and address the topic at hand. I am not an idiot. I can and will trade banter and joking insults with good humor, and in kind, but I will not accept being treated as though I were a dim child, nor will I accept condescension.
The underlying tone of condescension that I was perceiving from you was at the point where, quite frankly, in any other venue, did I decide not to just skip past your posts, I would have forsaken the thin veneer of civility and gone into full on flame you to a crisp mode under the stated assumption that I was not willing to give you the courtesy of taking you as being capable of seriously contributing to an intelligent and civil discussion.
That I did not is solely because I know that Mrs. Hoyt does not like her comment field to become a flame war zone, and I cannot blame her. As I am a guest here, I will conduct myself under her guidelines. Up to a point.
And then when I hit that point, I will state plainly that I am there, and move on. From that point on, I will not see your posts. They will not exist for me.
Are we absolutely level on this?
This is as reasonable, clear, and plain a statement as I can possibly make on this. I have made a previous one to this effect. After this one, I will not make another, but will just move on.
Okay. Now that that’s said, let’s see what we have here.
I’ll have to look those over and see what they say. I’m also going to want to look up the actual vids of the statements and see and hear them in context, rather than the pundit and/or reporter’s assessment of them.
I think that we can both agree that, at this point, taking a news source at face value on anything is a fool’s game?
A quick catch, on the fly:
“A vote for, say, Bush Sr. might have been a vote for ‘no new taxes.'” – YellowShapedBox
Stipulated.
“But an informed vote for Trump is a conscious vote for suing the dissenting press into oblivion and all the rest. And that’s a pretty serious difference.” – YellowShapedBox
Leave the “all the rest” be for now, until I do my homework, however long that takes me.
It is a serious difference.
I am going to point out one thing on the “for suing the dissenting press” thing, and connect it in context to an earlier comment – I don’t recall if from you, or someone else in this sub discussion, but similar.
I hope that we can both agree from observation that by this point, it has become clear that the, ah… “dissenting press” itself gives very little due respect to the constitution. They actively disparage and work to undermine the 2nd Amendment, they distort or ignore the 4th, and they are demonstrably selective about protecting the 1st amendment, even: I have seen various press organs defend free speech selectively, and actively not defend separation of church and state when it suits a pet cause of theirs, like gay marriage, for instance. Do I need to submit the actual links, or can we stipulate?
IF we stipulate, then I am going to submit as a given that the adversarial press very commonly these days acts as an advocate and operative with a byline for the Democrat Party, as Glenn Reynolds likes to phrase it. (aptly, IMO) They also work actively to undercut and/or mischaracterize the Constitution that they depend on for their status as a protected institution.
Given that, should you decide to accept the stipulation, then I will submit the following premise:
At this point where the MSM and press has demonstrably decided to clearly forsake their role, and to act as a Fifth Column rather than as the Fourth Estate, then they are perilously close to willfully forfeiting their status as the Fourth Estate and the protections that are accorded to it under the First Amendment. They are no longer acting as a free press, and the unofficial fourth branch of government and guardian of the public interest.
And if they are acting demonstrably as a Fifth Column to undermine the integrity of my nation, skew our elections, undermine and destroy our institutions, advocate rather than report, and act as an overt arm of a political party –
– then why should I care to protect them from being sued as any other private institution or business for the results of their biased actions?
They are actively working to destroy my way of life and guaranteed rights, understand, while hiding behind their protection under the First Amendment in their supposed (but no longer active) role as the Fourth Estate.
If while doing that, they attack Trump, or Cruz, or Rubio, or Kasich for that matter while acting as the Media Arm of the Democrat Party, why should I lift one finger to a keyboard, much less to a gun, to defend them from having the mechanisms of the law applied to slap them across the chops and drive home a much needed reminder?
Riddle me that successfully, and we may be able to discuss other things.
In my opinion, unhumble as it might be, if you and I take the Constitution and the Bill of Rights seriously (as I believe we both do, or we would not be at this blog) both in spirit as well as letter, then we should be concerned about not just potential acts against it from Trump, but also actual acts against it from the press.
If we are not, then we’re just playing games of “I don’t like him” and “But that’s different, dammit!” and we’re really just verbally jerking off pretending to be Constitutionalists. We’re no more and no less potential tyrants than you say Trump is. We’re aiding and abetting one actual set of unelected tyrants against an unproven one who is actually running for an office where he will have to swear an oath, vs those who have sworn none and would be visibly forsworn if they had.
And make no mistake, the press has powerto make or break even if they hold no office. They have power to shape and form opinion, and they use it freely. And they do so to date with no checks upon it.
If we can’t agree on that, then hell, I’m at the point of “just let it the hell burn. Screw it, let Trump eat ’em.”
Better a potential tyrant that advocates to protect my interests, such as they are and such as he will, than a swarm of unelected ones that I know actively are working on destroying them. Scumbag kills scumbag, no humans involved.
*shrug* That may be blunter and colder than you wanted, but it’s what I got.
*grin* Now, reasonable question. Do we want to continue this here in a dying thread for as long as Mrs. Hoyt lets us, or should we just wait and pick it up again in the next one on this same subject?
Alternately: I can post my email, and we can carry on off board at our leisure.
I promise I don’t bite unless snapped at first.
“Either way, Trump supporters are probably not your ideal crowd.”
Gotta say, that’s pushing it, but I’ll let it slide for now. Would suggest resisting the temptation to slide in that one last sly little dig to someone you know is a Trump supporter.
That’s three.
All right. Note that I still want a reasoned answer to my question on the press, if you haven’t written my off completely yet.
These are just off the cuff, and shooting from the hip: I have not listened to the debates and comments in context yet, or read the transcripts if available, and I’ll want to before giving a full response to those links. So please do not take this as definitive, all right? It’s an off the top of my head based on my understanding of a few things:
Link one, mediatite: the headline is deceptive. It’s the news site summarizing what they said Trump said. However, that’s not my main, just an observation –
I will note that they did not get a quote on this from a military officer, but from former NSA/CIA Director Michael Hayden, who is a spook. You may want to check into the Laws of Warfare, especially regarding illegitimate combatants and non state actors, and the Articles of Geneva that we are actually signatory to before making a pop off judgement on illegal orders et al. You might also want to check Tom Krautman’s articles on those subjects inclusive of the Articles and Laws. And Krautman on “international law.”
Hayden may actually be an expert on military law. I don’t know his credentials. However, on the specifics regarding terrorists, who are non state actors and illegitimate combatants (not the term I’m searching for, but it’s late and it’ll do) under the laws of war, Trump may not be on the shaky ground you think he is. It may or may not be a real “Aha!” moment.
And he may be wrong about the military generals following illegal orders. If he is not, then you have bigger problems than Trump, and we had best find that out soonest.
You do your homework, and I’ll do mine. And we’ll come back to this. Next.
Link two: tigerdroppings.
Covered in part under my question to you about the press. Answer that first, and then we’ll tackle this one. I’m not evading, but it is critical to the context of my answer.
Tabled for now, pending response to see there’s a point in following up on it.
Link three: CNN Politics, mandate the death penalty for convicted cop killers.
Trump may find out that he can’t do that. If so, then there’s not a problem, despite his want to. I’m not saying if he can or cannot, because I don’t know the laws and regs on that, all right? Again, off the cuff.
For now, worry about it when it comes up, and then only if you’re real worried about cop killers dumb enough to get caught and taken alive.
I don’t like or trust cops, and I’m not too sympathetic to cop killers, except in very specific circumstances.
*shrug* Table it for now. We’ll come back to it.
Link four. Infowars, “Donald Trump bragged Thursday night that he could buy politicians”
Engh! Double Jeopardy. Defense objects! The witness has already fielded this question, your Honor! *grin*
If politicians are for sale, then people are going to buy them. Politicians are for sale, de facto.
If it worries you, then pursue bribery charges against him and the politicians he’s bought.
Me, I take it for a given that politicians and bureaucrats are for sale, and if they’re going to peddle their wares, someone will hire them and bend them over. In a lot of states, NY, NJ, Nevada, and Illinois, for example, buying politicians is the cost of doing business.
I refuse to get bent out of shape over a politician that sticks his hand out for a bribe and gets bought. All I want to know from Trump is if he got his money’s worth and did the pol stay bought?
Struck from the record. The witness refuses to answer on the grounds that the question is irrelevant to the matter of Donald J. Trump being a potential tyrant. It’s irrelevant to the matter of Donald J. Trump being a businessman in New York.
If that makes me probably not your ideal crowd, well them’s the breaks. You probably shouldn’t hang out with me, as I am obviously a bad influence.
I think your mom warned you about guys like me. Next thing you know, you’ll be wearing leather jackets and motorhuckle boots, drinking, smoking, and going home with loose women – and tight ones, too.
Oh, as regards the remark about hanging with Trump supporters: I was advising you, as a person who digs American liberties. I debate with the aim to persuade, until it’s become patently futile. And with you, it hasn’t been.
“Firstly: the authoritarian measures you mentioned are not to be given a bye just because they’re the doing of previous administrations” – YellowShapedBox
You are going to have to point out to me where I gave them a bye.
“Tyrannical laws that are still in force should not be regarded as “dated” just because the news doesn’t cover them anymore.” – YellowShapedBox
I’m gonna bite back the first six responses. most of which are variations of “Duh,” and simply remark that I don’t recall saying that they did. In fact, I kinda recall saying that I still regard them as tyrannical overreaches of previous administrations.
“The news doesn’t cover a lot of things worth covering, as you know. – YellowShapedBox
And there’s casinos on Indian reservations too.
I know. I was shocked as well.
Talking to me as though I were an idiot is sooner or later gonna hit a zero to scorched forum weasel in 2.2 level of rebuttal.
Your argument appears to be along the lines of “Bush did it, therefore I don’t really quibble about it anymore.” It’s a sister argument to the chestnut where, say, Roe v. Wade didn’t immediately cause national collapse, so therefore it must be entirely benign and you’re silly to worry about euthanasia.
“Your argument appears to be along the lines of ‘Bush did it, therefore I don’t really quibble about it anymore.'” – YellowShapedBox
No.
But if you want to continue arguing what you hear, rather than what I type… whatever. Yeah, why don’t you go with that. It’ll make you happy, and I really don’t give a sh*t.
Your entire string of responses to Trump’s statements is precisely in that vein, no matter how you objected to Bush on the surface. Tyranny and corruption is the common way, and so Trump is Nothing New and maybe at least he’s our monster. (I leave it as an exercise for you to determine when the “at least he’s our monster” sentiment has ever ended well.)
I never intended to be patronizing. I am, however, baffled and not a little desperate that Trump is so popular, so maybe it would read the same?
Anyway, my email: vermissaherald in the vicinity of reagan dote calm. I do have a good deal to say, particularly as regards the current bureaucatic-wing media monolith and what’s best done about it. Cheers.
Okay. Given that the thread broke, I’m a little bit uncertain exactly which of my posts this one is in reply to. So I’m just going to operate on the assumption that it was my latest one, going by the reply date, and take it from there.
So with that in mind… huh?
“Your entire string of responses to Trump’s statements is precisely in that vein, no matter how you objected to Bush on the surface.” – YellowShapedBox
You’re dropping out of good faith again and evading my response and the questions I posed, and engaging in a generality, not replying to the specifics I posed.
Do you have an answer for my query to you on the media?
Have you actually read the article on that one that you linked me to, and did you read Trump’s specific statements that it quoted? (The two questions are connected, and they are connected to the potential for tyranny charge, I will assure you.)
Have you actually looked at and read in any depth at all, the Laws of War, the Articles of the Geneva Conventions including the ones that we are not signatory to, specifically in regards to Unlawful Combatants (the term I was groping for earlier and not finding.) Do you actually know what the articles of the USCMJ state regarding Illegal Orders, what constitutes one, and the military law procedures for dealing with such, and with dealing with the refusal of one? Do you know what the actual articles of the USCMJ are concerning illegal combatants in a theater of war are?
Do you have any real idea of what I’m talking about, even? (Serious question, not being catty or patronizing. It’s important, and it bears directly upon the substance of Hayden’s charge and Trump’s response.)
“Tyranny and corruption is the common way, and so Trump is Nothing New and maybe at least he’s our monster.” – YellowShapedBox
You are rephrasing to put words in my mouth that I did not type. Do not do that. Respond to my statement, not to your rephrasing of it.
You really don’t want to meet Straw Ironbear. He’s an even more rotten SOB than that horrible Mormon guy Straw Sarah and the hideous Staw Larry, I can assure you.
Argue in good faith, or do not play.
Now: I really don’t have anything to add on what I did state, re link #4.
*shrug* If a politician is going to put themselves and their services up for sale, I’m not going to fault anyone for buying them.
if you have a problem with a politician being bought, then take pains to remind your politician that accepting a bribe is illegal, and that he/she should cut that out or else face charges.
“and maybe at least he’s our monster.” – YellowShapedBox
*shrug* I am quite honestly very nearly at the point of accepting someone as my monster. He may not be your monster. If I take him home with me and feed him, I do hope that he is mine.
I will reiterate: there are no political solutions to the problems created by politics. There are no political saviors. We are at the point of buying time to transcend the political and go around it to implement solutions, if those even exist and can be implemented.
I will grab the most effective weapon I can to that end. I will not grab a .22, when the hyena at my door requires my .44 magnum with 300 grain loads.
If that weapon is a Trump shaped monster wearing an orange tribble for a hairpiece, you can damned well bet that I will pick him up, aim him, and fire him as long as I believe that he is my monster. I don’t require an attack dog to be anything except my attack dog, and to attack my enemies for me.
We are in an existential battle. And I am not nice people.
“(I leave it as an exercise for you to determine when the “at least he’s our monster” sentiment has ever ended well.)” – YellowShapedBox
When you answer my specific questions and respond directly to my actual comments rather than trying to go over my head to speak with Straw Ironbear, then I will concern myself with your exercise for the (slow) student.
I could pose exercises for the student here as well, however, I am not your teacher nor am I your dad, and it is not my task to instruct you via the Socratic method.
The only areas that I will attempt to instruct in, up to a point, is in calling out when you are violating the compact regarding argument in good faith. To wit:
I always respond directly to yours and everyone else’s specific comments and questions with quotes so that you will know exactly to what I am referring and responding. Do me the same courtesy.
Fair ’nuff?
“I never intended to be patronizing. I am, however, baffled and not a little desperate that Trump is so popular, so maybe it would read the same?” – YellowShapedBox
Fair enough.
I am quite often baffled as to how I and any Trump supporter can spell out in detail many reasons why we see him as acceptable, respond to your specific objections with points and questions of our own, only to have them ignored or evaded, and yet you and those like you are still baffled. So quite possibly, it comes across as us being testy and short of patience with you?
Trump’s popularity with so many people has been explained in detail, in many places, across a wide variety of places and forums, by Trump supporters who have no reason to lie to you when they spell out all of their various reasons.
If you are not familiar with those reasons and arguments, then either you have not been looking, you are disregarding and discounting them for whatever reasons, you are looking for reasons that you desperately want to believe rather than the ones they are giving you, or you are being disingenuous with me, or all of the above.
You are presumably an adult and a rational one, and I am not required to lead you by the hand through all of them.
Especially not when I have listed my various reasons in detail within this very comment section.
You have no excuse for being baffled.
Now, answer my specific questions, or I will go play with others who will argue in good faith, sirrah.
I repeat: I am civil, I am generally polite, but I am not civilized, and I am not nice people. Respond to the things that I have politely requested of you, repeatedly, so that we may examine them in greater detail thereafter.
Or do not.
I do not care which, and my patience with you wears thin.
Basically? If you want to buy time for non-political solutions (which, I agree, are the only real option), the last thing you want is a “wrecking ball.” If you want to contest this, go and tell me of one historical event where a) people started a mass political movement to tear their opponents down, b) their leaders had no plan or intent whatsoever on the building side of things, and c) the result was a more stable polity in which people were freer to fix things themselves – or indeed anything short of blood in the streets.
If it comes to “wrecking balls”, give me the wrecking ball with a (D) on it. At least it gives the historians less cause for confusion when it comes to lessons learned.
If you think I’ve been arguing in bad faith, it’s because it’s been really difficult for me to believe you support Trump despite not thinking he has a good side.
Yes, you do have my email right.
“I’ll point out in advance, however: in my opinion, there is a vast difference between “authoritarian tendencies” and “tyrant.””
The main difference between authoritarian tendencies and tyrant, in most cases, is one thing… power. Therefore you DON’T give someone with authoritarian tendencies, the power to BE a tyrant.
Yep, semantics matter.
Nit.
Tendencies are one thing, acting on such tendencies is something else.
A person with the tendencies could have the power to act on such tendencies but could chose to not act on such tendencies.
True, that is why I went back and added “in most cases” before I hit post. Still, I don’t think it is the way to bet, unless you have prior proof of their ability to NOT act on such tendencies.
*nod* I have a great many tendencies upon which I do not act, which is fortunate for everyone, myself included.
Ah. I now see that you already hit upon my objection, ‘Drak. I could have spared myself the typing.
“The main difference between authoritarian tendencies and tyrant, in most cases, is one thing… power.” – bearcat
No.
The main difference between authoritarian tendencies and tyrant is whether they act upon those tendencies and become a tyrant once they have the power and opportunity to do so.
So, I’ll reiterate and rephrase my question to YellowBox:
Would you care to list all of your specific instances of Trump either making tyrannical statements within a part of his listed platform papers on his site, or even a list of all of the objectionable statements he’s made during the campaign so that we can take them apart in discussion within the context where each statement was made, and see if there really is a good reason to fear that he will act upon tyrannical impulses once in office?
Throw in any from his history of running his companies, too: I’d like to see if he’s acted like an overbearing tyrant with his employees and fellow executives. I mean, beyond the reality that he’s the boss and yeah, everyone thinks their employer is a tyrant at times.
I’ll be happy to do so with you, and to take as much time as you care to hunting down stuff in detail so I can either refute or agree with you on it. (Or as much time and bandwidth as Mrs. Hoyt is willing to allow us, whichever comes first)
Note: if your answer is simply that no, you really don’t want to spend the time and effort, then no problem – I will happily accept that as a reasonable response.
But it goes two ways: if you don’t want to spend the time and effort to do so, I won’t waste my time typing responses to nonspecific statements that he’s a tyrant in the making. I’ll just ignore them and move on.
Deal?
Moral of the story: if some Internet opponents call you an SJW, and other Internet opponents call you an agent of systematic oppression, chances are you’re not actually a bigot, and very vocal about your stances to boot. Unless it’s just that you’ve recently been exiled from one of those camps’ cool-kids tables. But either way, take heart – everyone’s yelling at you because you actually have some decent principles. It’s the kind of situation that Churchill quote was made for.
*grin* Not sure I’d go that far, but – if both sides are aiming the verbal flame throwers at you, it’s usually a good sign that you should put on your flame retardant underoos.
And grab a fire extinguisher.
Conversely and speaking from experience: just because both sides are yelling at me, it doesn’t mean I’m right – it just means I’ve managed to p*ss off everyone.
Which in my case usually means “Mission accomplished,” but your mileage may differ.
On the immigration issue.
I’ve known and worked alongside a number of illegal immigrants (not lately, but English is practically a second language in portions of the Communist Republic of Washington, where I grew up) I don’t have a problem with them per se. Having family that has went to Old Mexico, NOT the tourist towns, I am cognizant of the fact that said family, one and all, claim that the ones who come up here are the smart ones. I see why the illegals want to come here, and don’t blame them for it. I view it much the same as civil disobedience.
The problem is in the failure of our government to enforce rule of law. It may sound contradictory, but we are a nation of both rebels and laws. This is why other countries don’t understand us. I don’t have a problem with civil disobedience, but you need to be prepared to pay the price. If there is no price, there is no value in the disobedience. Similarly, I can sympathize with you coming in this country illegally in order to better your life, but you better be prepared to be deported if you are caught. I don’t care if you are pulled over for speeding, or caught ‘cheating’ on your taxes; if you are an illegal there should be no questions asked, no mitigating circumstances. You should not be released until you are in another country*. As for the “undocumented workers” marches and parades… this boggles the mind. You have a bunch of criminals not only self segregating themselves, but publically admitting guilt, and you do NOTHING? If I was in charge of a city where one of these took place, I would call for all the streets to be blocked and the buses brought in. I mean this should be like shopping at Costco for ICE employees. Except that it would violate the rule of law, I would be tempted to say, don’t bother with a trail, load up the buses and don’t stop until you hit the border.
The rule of law is what defines our nation, and government officials ignoring it is corrosive, ignore it for one thing, it becomes easier to ignore it for the next. It doesn’t take long until it corrodes away all trust in the law, and from there it is short step to the crony class system that exists in most of the rest of the world.
That’s pretty much my stance on such criminals (even if the law isn’t enforced, a crime has still been committed). I do wonder if putting a few select “sanctuary cities” under martial law, and screening until the hits stop coming, wouldn’t be more effective than a general push to close the border. Just a statement that now we will be enforcing the laws on the books.
If you conscientiously, publicly practice civil disobedience. You are risking prosecution to demonstrate that a law is wrong. If you are arrested, then go to trial and state your case. Perhaps the jury will agree and acquit you through jury nullification. If convicted, well consider it a badge of honor. Your actions have a proud history in America.
If a government refuses to uphold the law, there is a big problem. Picking and choosing which laws to enforce corrupts government. All laws need to be enforced. What we have now are way too many laws imposed without any legislative oversight. So many arbitrary laws and administrative regulations exist that we are probably all breaking at least a few. We need somebody to restore the rule of law and reduce the economy strangling regulatory state.
This.
And once government starts selectively enforsing the law due to mob pressure the only rational choice is to form your own mob to skew it in ways positive to you.
Yes, it is also rational to try to end the skewing but that is self-harming in the short term. If you can’t restore the rule of law in the short term when the medium term hits you’ll rationally choose to play the game instead.
This.
IMO, this election is a referendum on whether Rule of Law will be restored (not just with respect to immigration, that aspect is just very visible in daily life) and the Republic continue, or whether we’re about to pass a bright dividing line into an Imperial age.
To my mind, both Democratic candidates actively embrace such a change. As do Trump and Kasich. Rubio is the worst of both worlds in that he won’t rock the boats necessary to restore Rule of Law, but will continue to play by Marquees of Queensbury rules. Our only real shot is Cruz. I will support his candidacy as long as it exists.
But if the Republic is truly doomed (to everything there is a season), then I will support Trump, albeit with a heavy heart. It is much better to have no Emporer, but if we are to have one, let us have one who will torment those who have brought us to this sorry state.
Pretty much…if we must be ruled by an autocratic son of a bitch I’ll work to make sure it’s the son of a bitch closest to me possible. Even if all I share with him is who he annoys.
I see your point but don’t really see this election as a line of demarcation. The constitutional republic is a vast tapestry. It has frayed in the past. In the 1860s it was nearly rent in two. It was rewoven into a slightly different whole. So many times in the last hundred years little bits at various edges have frayed. Sometimes whole sections have unraveled. This election truly is one where only one candidate sees restoration as a path forward. Will the tapestry still be recognizable after this election? I don’t know.
Perhaps you are right and the tapestry will be thrown into the waste bin of history. Myself, even if we lose in November, I feel the tapestry can always be rewoven as long as free men live. As Sarah is wont to say…
“In the end, we win. They lose.”
Perhaps you are right and the tapestry will be thrown into the waste bin of history.
You are tangentially hitting something that has been rattling in my brain due to the SJW types chanting on the wrong side of history. Recent arguments about the Confederate Flag talked about support for slavery being on the wrong side of history (and we all know the Confederate Flag is only and ever and ever about slavery). How do we know support for slavery is on the wrong side of history. History has been outlawed in the US by the Constitution only for 141 years. The US was not the last country to outlaw slavery given chattel slavery (example, non-Muslim women in ISIS territory) still exists today. If you stand up and look across the world and across recorded history slavery is the right side of history and its absence is very much still the exeption.
Maybe “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “freedom” are on the wrong side of history. Maybe what those of us here watch and decry is just reversion to the mean.
I don’t like that thought but I can escape that it is at least a reasonable question to ask.
As Jerry Pournelle says, Despair is a sin.
Who knows maybe Sisyphus will roll that stone to the top after all.
Despair is a sin but so is blinding yourself.
Freedom, liberty, no slavery, equality before the law are historical aberations at this point in time. The facts are there.
The question is will they continue to be aberations or will 5000 years hence, among people as distant from the present as we are for the first cuniform tablets we know today, will they still be a historical aberation that raises from time to time but never in most places or for very long.
That is why I hate the phrase, the wrong side of history, not only because it is putting the cart before the horse but also because it inclines us to laziness.
I am not surrendering to the forces opposing liberty but I am also not decieving myself that historically they are stronger than those for liberty and that at this time in the land most blessed by liberty, liberty is losing not just as an ideal but as a policy. The equation of equality of outcome with equality before the law seems to be at critical mass in both the Sanders and Trump bases of support. We have the government telling us what kind of light bulbs to buy and how much water to flush with.
“Despair is a sin but so is blinding yourself.” – HerbN
*shrug* You have to look reality in the eye as clearly as you can in order to deal with it. That’s not despair: that’s realism.
Feudalism – or something akin to it – is closer to the mean that our concept of a Constitutional Republic with all that that entails. Feudalism certainly lasted longer than we have so far, and I suspect that there is something in that concept with its mutual chains of fealty and responsibility that people gravitate towards, given the chance.
Note: noticing that and acknowledging it does not mean that I plan on going out and finding a Laird to pledge my sword to.
If the existence of the Republic is against the mean, so be it. I kinda like it here, or I did up until it died in my childhood.
“Note: noticing that and acknowledging it does not mean that I plan on going out and finding a Laird to pledge my sword to.”
Agreed. But, speaking personally, I’d rather swear allegiance to the Laird than to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. At least with feudalism I can pack up and leave.
“Agreed. But, speaking personally, I’d rather swear allegiance to the Laird than to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. At least with feudalism I can pack up and leave.” – 60guilders
*shrug* I’m a sell sword at heart. How much is the Laird paying to his Threshold Dwellers?
Have sword will travel reads the card of a ‘Bear…
Well, if you’re going to go a-mercing that’s another kettle of fish entirely.
Feudalism broadly defined does seem to be the norm and one which reasserts itself fairly quickly when we fall below it, ie anarchy and failed states although in the latter we call them warlords.
The ability to sustain above the mean of feudalism does seem stronger. Not just our republic but various autocratic empires (Rome, most if not all of China’s empires, various Indian states, Europe in the early modern era up until the modern in some cases, the Ottoman’s).
*nod*
And European history shows that feudalism breaks down once the mutual chains of fealty and responsibility from top to bottom become weighted toward the top until they only go one way. And then something breaks, usually in the form of all of the Counts and Barons deciding to behead themselves a King and replace him.
Of course, we can observe that the same applies in Representative Democracy once the representatives decide they no longer have responsibility to their constituents and they can exercise power and authority without regard to what the voters want.
Case in point: the U.S. and Europe, now.
“History has been outlawed in the US by the Constitution only for 141 years.”
—
Assuming you meant “slavery”, it is still acknowledged in the Constitution. The amendment just reserves the power to create new slaves to the State.
13th amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
The states are subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government. So yeah, it’s covered.
(*ducks Sovereign Citizens*)
“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”
— Malcolm Reynolds
As for me, I’ll either die a free man, or I’ll die fighting to stay a free man.
History doesn’t have a side. Anyone telling you so is likely trying to get you to give up so they get their way.
“To my mind, both Democratic candidates actively embrace such a change. As do Trump and Kasich.” – Luke
No. I don’t see Hillary nor Kasich wanting to take us all the way over the edge into outright Imperium. I see both, Hillary especially, wanting to keep the status quo: socialist and authoritarian trappings with the appearance and and perception of an Empire, but not the substance thereof. (Because real empires take work, and conquering and holding territory and, well, Imperialism.)
I don’t think that Bernie does, either, but you could be right on him in that, and I might be persuaded. I would like to see you unpack your reasoning at some length so that I could examine it before I would agree.
Trump? No. T. Roosevelt Progressive Republicanism and American Adventurism, coupled with what today would be called economic protectionism. Adventurism in the sense of projecting American military might to protect nationalist interests, rather than to promote transnational interests.
Rubio: is a non entity, but he’s a Republican Tranzi.
Cruz… harder. Cruz is paradoxically the most anti-establishment of those in the race right now, while having a lot of strong Republican establishment credentials behind him. He’s an outsider who’s an insider.
I can easily see Cruz perpetrating a continuation of the Bush Doctrine abroad, while governing on the domestic level as a conservative.
“or whether we’re about to pass a bright dividing line into an Imperial age.” – Luke
Naw. Balkanization, eventually.
But if we lose a major city or two to an Islamicist attack, all bets are off.
“Rubio: is a non entity, but he’s a Republican Tranzi.”
I would disagree–at worst, he’s a useful idiot for them. At best, I think he has the potential to give America the space it needs to build itself back up.
Okay…. *nonplussed* You’re really gonna have to unpack that for me – the him giving America the space it needs to build itself back up part. I’m just not seeing it happen with Rubio in the oval orifice.
Actually, I’m not seeing Rubio in the Oval Office, period, no matter how hard I look. Hence the “non-entity” appraisal. I see Hillary or Bernie stomping him flat in the general.
To misquote from Stone Cold: I’ve seen the future, and he’s not in it.
Agreed. Rubio, of all candidates running, wins the “Most Likely to Learn Nothing From the Past Decades of American War” award.
I really don’t see Clinton or Sanders stomping him flat in the general.
The man has managed to represent himself as the most anti-Trump, and would be able to bill himself as the alternative to Clintonian corruption or the Sanderistas. Those unhappy with the choice would see him as the lesser of two evils, and vote for him.
As to giving America the space it needs to rebuild, I suspect he’d spend most of his time undoing Obama’s edicts and whatnot, possibly appointing Cruz to SCOTUS. Illegal immigration is the only really concerning thing about a Rubio presidency, but I think it would have the potential to alleviate most of the problematic aspects–aside from the “illegal” part of the equation, which ain’t getting fixed notime soon. However, I don’t think he’d be doing a lot of stuff, which means much less uncertainty for doing anything. Hence “giving space to rebuild”–there wouldn’t be any applications of boots to neck.
Now, unfortunately, he’s not going to be the nominee. It will be Trump or Cruz.
“However, I don’t think he’d be doing a lot of stuff, which means much less uncertainty for doing anything. Hence ‘giving space to rebuild’–there wouldn’t be any applications of boots to neck.” – 60guilders
*nod* Okay, that helps unpack that sufficiently, in conjunction with the unquoted rest. Thanks.
“Now, unfortunately, he’s not going to be the nominee. It will be Trump or Cruz.” – 60guilders
Non-entity. If he can’t beat Cruz or Trump, then he can’t beat the Clinton machine. Plus, he won’t be the nominee, so he’s irrelevant.
In case you’re wondering why I almost always quote and append the usernick to whoever’s quote I’m responding to, it’s because I made one reply once and had it show up waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy the hell down thread so far from the comment I responded to that it was nearly unintelligible in context. This at least helps people know who I’m talking at.
“Those unhappy with the choice would see him as the lesser of two evils, and vote for him.”
Which is why he would have problems beating Clinton. Note how well “the lesser of two evils” has gotten out the republican vote the last two cycles.
Rubio, however, has the indisputable virtue of not being Mitt Romney. Being asked to choose between Obama and Romney was like being asked to choose between walking pneumonia and pneumonia. Being asked to choose between Clinton and Rubio is like being asked to choose between walking pneumonia and a bad cold.
“Being asked to choose between Clinton and Rubio is like being asked to choose between walking pneumonia and a bad cold.” – bearcat
*glances sidelong at Europe*
Being asked to choose between Clinton and Rubio is like being asked to choose between walking pneumonia and an impacted Merkel.
Those unhappy with the choice would see him as the lesser of two evils, and vote for him.
4, 8, 12, 16 years ago I would buy that.
I think Trump’s success proves there is a critical mass of Republican and Republican leaning voters who this year will not play the “support a party approved lesser evil candidate” game.
It is why they were so surprised they couldn’t sell Bush and hopped over to Rubio to begin with. They don’t realize it just won’t work this year. It might not work again in 2020 or 2024 either, especially if they play games to get Rubio the nomination.
I think we’re taking at cross purpose here.
I was using the term to describe a ruler who is himself above the law, and whose word is law.
Tell me that doesn’t apply to Hillary. Or Trump. Or Kasich. Sure, they’ll give different excuses, from being the voice of “the people” to messages delivered from the almighty himself. But it’s the same shabby thing, regardless of how it’s justified.
Okay. *nod* I’ll give you that one. A certainty with Hillary, a probable with Kasich, and a maybe with Trump.
(In case you haven’t gathered, I’m with HerbN on sixteen plus years of “Soandso is HITLER! OMG!” having burned me out on the meme to the point of, “Again? Yawn. Meh. Whatever. Call me when it’s time to be fitted for my brown shirt, m’kay? And can I get one of the nifty gray uniforms, too?”)
We’ll see what we’ll see when we see it. Until then, I refuse to get worked up about it, especially when my state is going to go for the Republican nominee no matter who it is, electoral college speaking. I could write in “Mickey Mouse for Pres! Because Scrooge McDuck is a capitalist, that’s why!” and it wouldn’t matter.
So I’m jest sittin’ here watching the pretty fires start and everyone shootin’ at everybody else and havin’ a grand old time.
Popcorn? I got s’mores too. Beer? It’s non-alcoholic, but it’s all good.
The one counterbalance is that given the lower amount of low skill jobs as compared to history, there is a significant effect on wages and other concerns for the lower skilled tiers. In addition, we’re taking the Mexicans most willing to actually take risks and depleting their potential higher classes. For the illegal who comes and works hard, I respect. But for many we are nothing more than an apartment and a job.
To Mexico we are a cash cow. As of last year remitances from Mexicans, legal and illegal, because the largest inflow of cash into Mexico, pushing past the sale of oil.
Yep. Slap a 1% tax on Western Union transfers and Voila! funds for a wall.
Good thing that allergies kept me from commenting on the earlier posts – Jeb has said everything here that I was going to – and almost certainly better. Thank you, sir.
(And this is NOT a c4c – I have learned, painfully, that it is a great way to blow up your mailbox…)
Mrph. After first coffee, so here I am — West Coast time, and not a morning person.
Nice to see such thoughtful commentary. One point I’d clarify: I was looking into this further, and my offhand remark about FDR expelling Mexicans is a bit inaccurate. What actually happened is that local and state authorities started “encouraging” Mexicans to leave, with elements of harassment and inducement (like paying for transportation to Mexico.) Mexicans in Texas and LA were often citizens born in the US, but many had no papers, and unlike now there wasn’t an entire industry of government-funded advocates able to take their cases to court. Hoover appointed a Labor secretary who started Federal efforts to find Mexicans and deport them en masse regardless of citizenship, and FDR can reasonably be accused of continuing those policies — like many other counterproductive New Deal ideas, Hoover started it, and FDR continued and expanded it. Along with the treatment of Japanese Americans and the refusal to take Jewish refugees, FDR’s administration looks decent only by comparison to the truly fascist states of the era.
After moving to Southern California, I interacted with lots of illegals. Someone in the gardening crew used our address for their tax returns and the like, apparently hoping ot intercept any mail in our mailbox. The IRS is not doing much to prevent fraud in Earned Income Credits and the like, and use of other people’s SSNs and addresses is common. The lack of interest in preventing fraud in voting, ACA subsidies, disability payments, etc., is just another sign that the D machine does not mind using tax dollars to support a community intentionally prevented from further integrating. If they leave the plantation, they might not vote D… Not that it’s that conscious among most Ds, but their priority is employing more supporters of unions and government, not careful administration of the law.
Having grown up in southern California during the 50s and 60s, and living on the west coast until recently, I was familiar with the 19th and 20th-century Chinese and Japanese immigration restrictions, and WW2 internments (in Canada as well as the US), but until today had not heard about the Mexican Repatriation. And we lived in neighborhoods where we expected the abuelas to not speak English well, if at all.
And I thought current teaching of U.S. history glossed over most of the content.
One of the sub rosa reasons for criminalizing marijuana was that it was a Mexican habit. Another excuse to deport undesirables.
La Cucaracha is a song about a Mexican bandit liking his pot after all.
“It may sound contradictory, but we are a nation of both rebels and laws. This is why other countries don’t understand us.”
This. So much This there isn’t enough This in the galaxy for it. That’s even getting hard to explain to younger generations of native born Americans. It’s just something we know instinctively.
The Old Issue
From Oklahoma! by Rogers & Hammerstein:
“The Farmer and the Cowman should be Friends”
I won’t say I’m no better than anybody else,
but I’ll be danged if I ain’t just as good!
Interesting that [unnamed clown] hates Sarah and doesn’t consider her American. After reading his screed, I wonder why he hasn’t already run off the grid to barricade himself in some militia camp in the Ozarks with his three friends against all his “enemies”…
His prose is sadly lacking.
Well, since he already ran off to Italy, it’s probably too late for that. If nothing else, the wine’s better over there than in the Ozarks. Although to be fair, the Lake of the Ozarks area has some decent wineries, if he needs to stock that hypothetical Ozark mountain bunker. (Not to mention a local artisanal moonshine distiller that – I can personally attest – makes a truly excellent product. And they’re only about two miles away from where I’m typing this . . . 😛 )
The thing that strikes me – having read Vox’s latest bout of super-anglo-saxon-patriotic-expialidociousness – is that you have a guy who’s been railing, justly, about flooding the nation with immigrants who have no respect for traditional American values now attacking naturalized citizens who actually DO believe in those values . . . to the point of mocking those very same values he claims to hold so dear just for the sake of a talking point.
And here I thought he was a master of dialectic and rhetoric. *facepalm*
You know, I think I owe Marko Kloos an apology. When he turned down his Hugo nom because Vox recommended him, I thought it was a slap in the face to all the people who nominated and supported him who *weren’t* Vox. Upon further review, maybe Marko had a point. Sigh.
It’s like someone disconnected his speed governor and he is revving out of control.
The Mad Expatriate always struck me as a more articulate and extreme male version of Ann Coulter. His reaction to Kloos and Bellet jumping off the Puppy train told me he was dangerous.
This mess is convincing me that he might actually be more messed-up than N.K. Jemisin.
Him and Jemisin deserve each other.
At the end of the war, lock them in cells right across from each other?
The same cell. 😉
No, not the same cell. They might kill each other, and then would be spared the torment of having to be in the same place.
Well, maybe. I won’t speculate about the afterlife.
I prefer my solution to Al Sharpton and David Duke: lock them in a room with spiked clubs —- with a sniper waiting on the “winner”.
Like those two, the Expatriate and Jemison strike me as professional racists.
Thus spoke Nietzsche when he spoke about those who would fight monsters. He’s becoming the very thing he hates- an SJW.
That “becoming” is in the wrong tense.
“He’s becoming the very thing he hates- an SJW.” – Joe in PNG
Hmmm. I’m not sure I agree. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I don’t agree.
I can match leftists in extremism against leftism, and flat declarative scorched earth rhetoric to their verbal calumny. I can and have matched “Nazi!” accusations by stating that in my opinion, the only good Leftist is one dangling from a lamppost – and it’s just a damned shame about that waste of perfectly good rope.
That may make me someone who has fought monsters on the left for o long that I have become a monster.
it does not make me a Leftist.
Nietzsche makes for pithy quotes, but he was all too often full of crap. When the abyss gazes back into you – spit in its eye.
“When the abyss gazes back into you – spit in its eye.” — ironbear055
I like that.
The problem is Nietzsche is just a set of pithy quotes removed from their context.
Nietzsche was a damn prophet in the wilderness warning of what his generation was sowing. What we are repeating in so many places today is exactly what he foresaw. He offered his reaction to it and while I disagree with his premises (as he agreed with those of his day and I don’t) if they are true I like his solution much more than the spineless pap we have now. His would have at least resulted in people who could defend themselves and rose up and proclaimed their power based on the diacide.
Instead with have gutless wonders who use the death of god to proclaim they are entitled to be spineless.
“His would have at least resulted in people who could defend themselves and rose up and proclaimed their power based on the diacide.
Instead with have gutless wonders who use the death of god to proclaim they are entitled to be spineless.” – HerbN
Men without chests?
I’ll go along with that. Nietzsche at least had a pair, and probably a chest to go along with them.
And on that, I am off to bed to sleep the sleep of the pure of heart for a few short hours before I have to be up and about, or at least the sleep of the conscienceless monster. *grin*
G’night, all. Of g’day, or something like.
Ding ding! +4 internets to you sir.
Anyone that thinks Nietzsche is a prophet needs to read “Abolition of Man” and realize Lewis put him to shame.
Thank yew, thank yew. Two shows a night, we’re here all week. Try the fish, and don’t forget to tip your waitress.
He has become a photo negative of the SJW’s. The colors are opposite, sure, but the underlying image is the same.
As someone else pointed out, go too extreme and you start to look like your opponent. There is very little difference between the Hitlerites and the Stalinist.
It’s interesting how these people who carry on about “betters” and how certain people need to “know their place” also seem to always assume that they themselves will be on the top of their “properly ordered” society. Somehow they never envision themselves being among the lowly and humble who doff their caps and tug their forelocks as the bigwigs go by. No, it’s always those other people they despise who’ll be bowing and scraping.
I daresay that if ever the society they claim to want were to come about, they’d get a surprise, and not a happy one.
There are people who have a deep ambition to basically be hobbits. Simplicity, introspection, all that. The way of life is really quite appealing, but the ones whose means of getting others into it shade to the coercive (Lotho-ish, you might say) are really shooting themselves in the foot.
Those of us who are properly educated Americans know that we’re already on the top of a properly ordered society. We’re citizens. True, we don’t exercise all the prerogatives of that citizenship as often as we should…the “progressives” should thank us for that, and quake in their boots that we never do.
One major objection that can be raised against this “blood and soil” superiority nonsense is that you remove merit. A person in an aristocratic system (which the troll above is advocating) gains merit by mere accident of birth, whereas a person not in the special class (common family, immigrant, ect) has their ideas summarily dismissed because they are not from the proper background.
And this will inevitably lead to failure. Just look at WWI. Contrast General Haig to Generals Currie and Monash.
Starters of aristocratic lines are almost invariably ambitious, capable, doers. Their descendants too often end up self-centered A-holes who believe that they are better by birth. If they were to time travel and meet famous ancestor, said ancestor would be dismissed as boorish nouveau riche.
I’m reminded of the 13th century French Nobility heading out to fight the Turks in Eastern Europe, who spent more time matching their tents and other garments than they did with things like logistics.
And the Turks pretty much destroyed the lot.
Wow. Straw Sarah is right up there with Straw Larry in evil.
Beware the Evil Strawpeople of Doom!
;p
Those Straw Puppies are a dangerous bunch. Beware!
Incomprehensible evil. 😉
*sigh*
Interesting post, Mr. Kinnison. Parts of it are interesting, parts make my back teeth itch.
I had an extended comment, some of which was in agreement in places, some of which was disagreement/rebuttal, and some of which merely asks questions of some of your premises.
However, it contains numerous quotes of parts that I’m commenting on, and very quickly grew to the point where it’s less a comment, and damned near a blog post of its own.
I have some reservations about the robustness of WordPress and its ability to handle a blog post length essay comment. And as I really don’t want to break Mrs. Hoyt’s blog nor her comment section, I think I’ll just leave it be. I’ve been accused of gratuitous infliction of bleeding eye syndrome through bludgeoning with wall of text before, but I think I may have outdone myself this time.
Besides. There are numerous places where I could see the finely honed edge of my natural sarcasm creeping in and taking over.
I’ll just not, and we can assume that I did, and leave it at that.
Let’s see… to boil it down as much as I can: while I agree with some of your premise, and with some of your your comments on immigration, I agree with few on free trade, and I disagree with your assessment of Trump and Trump’s supporters on the whole.
And while you do a great job of assessing the problem inherent in attempting to co-exist with Those Who Are Not Our Countrymen, your post breaks down at the prescription level.
The Samuel Adams quote is good. Rousing. One of the best bits of rhetorical excellence in a revolutionary period filled with such. However, that alone leaves you in the position of John Marshall regarding Andrew Jackson when the enemy scoffs and says, “Jeb Kinnison has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
Sounds like your response would have been interesting. As for disagreements, “free trade” is a lot like immigration — the devil is truly in the details, and a 4,000-page unread-but-passed bill with innumerable provisions inserted to satisfy special interests is not quite what I have in mind when I say I favor free trade. More trade over larger areas has been one of the engines of world growth when it happens, and of world depression when it’s legally blocked by, for example, Smoot-Hawley. Now do I trust the current bureaucracy to benefit all in its tailorings of the TPP? No, I don’t.
*grin* Quite probably, for a wide range of values of interesting.
And you are up for it, I can follow the link in your user nick here and email it to you as a WordPad attachment? Assuming that your blog has a “Contact me” email addy on it?
Note: at this point, my levels of GAF are just about gone. I tend to be blunt and to the point, and at times my eloquence can be biting, along with my sense of sarcasm. Don’t request my honest opinion on something like this, unless you are really certain that you want it.
You can at least be assured that I typed my response with the understanding that I am a guest at Mrs. Hoyt’s blog, and I moderated my tone accordingly to stay as best I can within the levels of reasoned and civil discourse. (Rather than as, for example, a Renderosity moderator who cut his teeth in alt.dot.rec.flames… which I have been.) I am civil, but not always polite, if you get the distinction.
My views on “Free Trade” is that we don’t have it, and that what Libertarians, a lot of libertarians, and a majority of Republicans and practically all neo-conservatives call “free trade”, isn’t.
Free Trade to me means: “We exchange goods freely in an open market, at fair market values.” It does not mean, “We purchase your goods freely, but you apply punitive tariffs to our goods and imports.” Free Trade also does not include the free movement of people and ah… “humanitarian capital”, to coin a phrase, across borders.
I’m a libertarian who doesn’t believe in free trade as it’s been defined and practiced to date. Go figger. Of course, a lot of libertarians would say that that means that I’m not one. I’m no true Scotsman, either.
I agree with a lot of your comments on immigration. I’d go a bit farther – but I’m a bit more extreme at this point – and call a complete moratorium on immigration across the board, inclusive of H1 and H1B and O-1 and student Visas and work visas et al for a period of not less than twenty years. Plus a depatriation of all current and existing illegal aliens. Then we can sit down and examine the situation and try to craft a workable immigration policy that benefits the U.S..
We can send ’em all back home with a Do-it-yourself Build an America Kit. If they like what we have here enough to want to get in, they can attempt to duplicate it over there. Fun for the whole family. Everyone can play.
It beats the Wallachian option, in regards to the Islamic immivasion, and that’s where we’re headed if we get our own version of what’s going on in Europe coupled with a couple of our own versions of Paris and the loss of a U.S. urban area or two. Trump is the moderate option.
Vlad Draculea and Arnaud Amalric are the extreme.
I’ve actually read Trump’s policy and position papers on trade, as well as on immigration and taxes et al. I find little there that I really disagree with.
Do I think that he’ll follow through 100% on all of those positions in practice?
Snort. No Trump supporter believes that. I think that if he follows through on 15-20% at best, it’ll be better than almost anyone else will do.
And if he doesn’t and turns around and shafts all of his voters?
GHWB and the Hughes Amendment. GWB and the Patriot Acts, and numerous other examples. The Republican dominated congress up to ’06, governing and spending like drunken democrats. Paul Ryan and the Omnibus bill. Ted Cruz and TPP. I could go on. Do I need to?
There’s a word for people who believe what political figures say when they’re running for office. There’s a word for critters who trust predators, too. The word is “lunch.” If Trump turns around and screws all of his supporters once in office, well, then – he’s following a fine old Republican Tradition, and he’ll be a credit to the breed.
And if he doesn’t….
I have a deep suspicion that what frightens a lot of people isn’t that Trump won’t do what he says on all of his issues – it’s that he will.
As far as dealing with Those Who Are Not Our Countrymen goes… I think that you identified the problem, but you shied away from following that train all the way down the rabbit hole. They keep demonstrating that not only can we not coexist, but that they have no interest in doing so. I haven’t yet reached the point of responding with, “Fine with me. *bang!*” but I’m getting there.
So are a lot of other folks.
My perspective is that while it looks insoluble from here, we had best figure out a reasonable solution before Bang! becomes the only viable option. Because the alt-right isn’t going away, and the unreconstructed barbarian that is me is the moderate option.
If you are up for extending the debate from here via email, heya – I’m easy. Let’s rock.
*grin* You might even get another blog post out of it.
Well, I appreciate your sense of humor. My email’s over at my blog, but it’s jebkinnison at gmail dot com. Not sure how much I can respond but I have the best intentions. 🙂
I’m not sure I want to see what a Congress does with Trump as exec. He may have the best intentions, but the lack of a sense of humility in working with the legislature doesn’t bode well — we see plenty of that with Obama. My family background makes me sympathetic to Jacksonian attitudes, but it might be better to get reforms moving with a Cruz, who has some relationships with fellow travelers — he’s widely feared because the business-as-usual types know he will be hard to control.
Grr. Firebox crashed and burned and killed my response in mid typo. Le sigh…
Okay, let’s try this again, shall we? *eyes Firefox and growls deep in chest* And we are not going to have any more of that crap, are we?
“Well, I appreciate your sense of humor.”
Okay, now I’m worried about you. My close friends sort of tolerate my sense of humor.
Be that as it may, coolness. I’ll be afk most of tomorrow, but after I clean up my typos and strip out the HTML coding that I no longer need, I’ll send it along.
“I’m not sure I want to see what a Congress does with Trump as exec. He may have the best intentions, but the lack of a sense of humility in working with the legislature doesn’t bode well — we see plenty of that with Obama.” – Jeb Kinnison
That ship left the docks with Obama, began to sink on its way out of port, and then was torpedoed. It went down with all hands, alas.
It started seriously taking on water with GWB, anyway.
*sigh* I kept trying to tell people in the GWB era that one should be careful what machinery one constructs, as your hand may not always be on the controls.
“My family background makes me sympathetic to Jacksonian attitudes, but it might be better to get reforms moving with a Cruz, who has some relationships with fellow travelers — he’s widely feared because the business-as-usual types know he will be hard to control.” – Jeb Kinnison
With my family’s military history, it would be amazing if I didn’t have Jacksonian attitudes.
And yeah. My first choice is Cruz, actually. I just think that as it stands right now, Trump is going to win.
I am not so worried about Trump as president for a lot of reasons, the biggest of which being that I don’t think he’s the next incarnation of Hitler. I also don’t think that his ego will allow him to fail badly, or to allow him to badly betray his supporters and lose face. But I could be wrong. I support him predominately because he’s better than options C and D, and he promises to move the overton window farther along in directions that I support than anyone else is doing – and he’s proven that he has the media savvy and ability to keep moving it.
And I really gotta admit, man, that after by this point having been called variously: stupid, low information, a Nazi, a Brownshirt, a White Supremacist, a White Separatist (both truly hilarious and irritating for a ‘Breed like me), a racist, a sexist, a Globalist, the Enemy of All Human Kind (I made that one up, but I’m sure its next on the list), and various other unpleasant epithets just for the crime of bad think for not being horribly, horribly appalled by this orange Trump Monster with the Orange Tribble on his head… by people who are supposedly my allies on the right…
I freely admit that I’m really, really going to enjoy bathing in the bitter tears of all of the anti-Trump people after he wins the general. *grin* Matter of fact, I’m gonna laugh my narrow Texas quarter-ass Indian ass off with every teardrop that falls from a conservative pundit’s eye.
And if Trump ushers in the First American Imperium? I think I’ll get along just fine.
Where do you think I should site my Imperial Villa? I’m leaning heavily toward Sint Maartins… I like the bill fishing there, and the island girls are sweet. Pax my Americana, baby.
Hey. I sent off all of my box tops, and I never ever got my membership card in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Maybe Trump will at least remember to send me my membership ID.
If the folks who believe we should be ‘socialist like Canada or Sweden’ would just bestir themselves to move there, we’d be set.
I’ve started considering variations on that to the “If you don’t like it, leave,” set. “No, you leave, if it’s so great there. There’s no place for me to go.”
This amuses me as once upon a time I knew a fellow on-line who resided in Canada and figured he’d be better off in Sweden and so moved. At least for a while. He discovered that the way of living just didn’t work for him – the alleged benefits of the system weren’t worth the actual costs of the system. And so he moved back to Canada.
I have a friend who lived and worked for a year in Sweden. She has interesting things to relate about her experiences. She found much to admire, but, bottom line, she does not think that so vast and varied a country as ours could (nor should) ever be like Sweden.
Huh. I really should c4c that, I guess.
Meanwhile, I’ll go back up and just settle in trading bon mots with the regulars as the mood strikes me.
One of the earliest great judges, lawyers, newspapermen, and novelists of Pittsburgh was a man whose widower lawyer father, who was a Protestant American of English ancestry, decided that he needed his kid raised to speak French like a native. So he found a French immigrant who was passing through Pittsburgh, and got him to agree to take his son all the way down the Ohio and Mississippi on a flatboat to Louisiana. He actually ended up taking the kid no farther than Missouri, where a nice family of French Catholics raised the kid. After a few years, Dad sent for him, so another bunch took him back to Pittsburgh, albeit including a couple years in Gallipolis, Ohio, with a French immigrant doctor.When he got back, he had to relearn English and simultaneously learn Latin and start learning lawyer stuff (and Protestantism). His friendship with some Irish immigrants who ran a Pittsburgh tavern was all so a big influence on him. And yet somehow he didn’t have any problem making his way.
But yeah, America is so Anglo-Saxon. Yup.
That would surprise folks in my neck of Texas. They’re descended from settlers from either Alsace or Lorraine, depending which way the flag was blowing and the armies were marching.
The ones who aren’t descended from the original Mexican settlers, that is.
Actually, guys named Bubba do have real Anglo-Saxon names. Everybody else, not so much.
I don’t know who has the right answer, in all of this, but I’m pretty sure that I can identify a.) The wrong answer, and b.) The least wrong answer. Also, who 1.) I don’t want to associate with, and who 2.) I do. So far, He Who Shall Not Be Named But Who Is An Expatriate In Italy goes into category a1, and Sarah into b2.
There is something horribly unattractive and unrealistic about the whole “Only white male Englishmen can understand and be American” thing. One, it basically means that the rest of the human race is doomed to an existence of tyranny and other ills, and that the white male Englishmen are doomed to be a minority in an overwhelming sea of said tyranny and poor governance. Not to mention, the whole historical idiocy of saying that it’s only white Englishmen who are capable of understanding and living liberty, when in fact, I’m of the mind that the majority of the white Englishmen are the damn problem…
Speaking as a Scot, the idea that the English are these paragons of inherent liberty and representative democracy strikes me as both ludicrous, and the height of hypocritical historical revisionism. From my point of view, these are the bastards we’ve been having to fight since day one, because they’re the statist pricks that have been throwing us off our patrimony and seeking dominance over us since the days of William Wallace…
Oh, yeah… The f*****g English are precisely who I think of when I want to look for examples of fair representation and democratic impulses. I think Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII is about out of his goddamn mind, to tell the truth. The urge to dominate and tell others what to do? That’s the legacy of the bloody Sassenachs, not some idealized nutjob fantasy that they’re the ones who came up with all these ideas, and are the only ones who can successfully implement them.
Frankly, I think he’d have a better case were he to try to claim that such things were the legacy of the Native American half of his heritage, supposing that he derives part of his background from the Haudenosaunee–Because, there is a hell of a lot more “reality” to the idea that we got our ideas of governance and human liberty from the Six Nations than we ever did from the damn English thugs and tyrants. I’ll simply point out that the Revolutionary War was not fought against some unidentifiable mass of European bad guys, but the bloody English Crown authorities. Who, if you carry out Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII’s reasoning, are the people we should thank for the legacy of liberty that we have. Yeah, remind me again… Who was it that was coming over here as governors, and other petty bureaucratic tyrants, again? Was it mostly the Welsh, or something?
Here’s the reality: Tyranny and subservience has been baked into the very nature of the Englishman from the beginning. Sure, there have been moments of individual liberty, but the majority of their history has been one long tugging of the cap to the laird, while the piratical bastards amongst them have cut each other’s throats for dominance, wealth, and power. What forms of “liberty” they’ve developed in English Common Law stem not from some inherent desire for such things, but because the residual Saxon, Norse, and Celtic influences have had to fight like demons just to retain a little of their historic dignity. You can see this in what England and Scotland have turned into since the majority of us left the place for greener pastures.
I really have to laugh at the majority of what he’s said about that whole concept. The very nature of the Englishman is to be a slave, or a slavemaster. Who, after all, would be the ones who brought that institution to the Americas in the first place? The English. Who sold most of Ireland into brutish slavery in the Caribbean? Yeah, the bloody Sassenach did. Who worked those poor bastards to death, to the point where most died, and left no legacy alive? The same damned Englishmen he holds out as these paragons of virtues.
Here’s what I think: We’re well rid of Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII, and his ilk. They’re a bunch of depraved wannabe thugs, who fantasize that their ancestors were somehow the ones that brought the idea of America into being. This would thus give them the right to lord things over the rest of us, and to arbitrate over what it is to be American, and what isn’t. Reality is, had they been alive in those days, the overwhelming majority of those pricks would have been Loyalists, fighting to keep the Crown in power, and maintain power over their fellows. Just like the average white peckerwood in the South did, they’d have fought to keep slavery in place, while benefiting not one whit from it themselves–Just happy to help their economic masters in power, so that they could fell superior to the poor darkies out picking cotton.
These fools bought into a narrative that has about as much accuracy as the one the progressives did. The reality is, the English are about as friendly to liberty and human dignity as any other member of the European aristocratic classes were, and you could make a hell of a case to say that the Englishman would rather be a slave or a master than most others. After all, who’s still got a Royal Family, and one from Hanover, to boot? I mean, really… The English can’t even come up with their own tyrants, they have to go to the Germans? And, Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII is seriously going to try to argue that the Englishman is nature’s natural citizen of a representative democracy?
I’d laugh at the idea, but if I start, I’ll never stop. Ever. The English, I’m afraid, are natural slaves. Look at what they turned the place into, as soon as the rest of us left, if you doubt me.
Sigh!
The Iroquois Theory has never been proven and there’s plenty of evidence that Americans rebelled because the English Parliament was ignoring the Americans’ “Rights Of Englishmen” not because of some influence from the Iroquois.
The Founders always spoke of the “good parts” of European history from which they created the American Ideals.
They didn’t talk about the ideas of those Noble Iroquois.
Oh, as for Scotts vs English, I think the only reason Scotland didn’t take over Britain is that the English “out-thought” the Scotts.
You weren’t peaceful people who just happened to cross the border to borrow your English neighbors Cattle. 😈 😈 😈 😈
Dunno about those damn’ Picts.
Do know that the gods created uisce beatha so that the Eirish wouldn’t take over the world. *wolf grin*
Who are the Scotts?
They were a bunch of Irish who left Ireland (likely kicked out) who invaded the Pictish territory of Britain very likely because the Romans and their British allies prevented them from invading Roman Britain.
Not even French could help them beat the later English. 😈
I’ve limited respect for the English. The fantasy that they’re wonderful people who first conceived of the ideals of human dignity and liberty?
Entirely a crock of shit. Don’t look at what they say, look at what they did.
Englishmen are natural Kapos. Who invented the concentration camps, again? Was that some indistinct Euro, or was it actually an English aristo, whose hireling thieves took to running the places with a gusto that I find disgusting even a hundred-plus years later.
The Englishman is either at your throat, or at your feet, tugging at his forelock as he offers up his pre-teen daughter for his aristocratic lord’s scion to rape in a knocking-house his lord is renting the whorehouse madam at an exorbitant rate, and then not maintaining. That’s the real legacy of those noblemen of nature and liberty, the English aristos that Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII so lauds.
What’s the most humorous, in all this? I think he actually believes they’d consider him one of them, and that were he transported back to those days of yore, when his vaunted forebears were running things, he’d be accepted as one of them. The reality? They’d have called him a dirty half-breed, and driven him into the wilds, the precise way they did with so many of my ancestors.
Frankly, I’ve been watching what the English have done to themselves over the last few years with great glee. I mean, can you possibly imagine a more karmic outcome, than what happened in Rotherham? I mean, to the individuals those things happened to, it is indeed horrid, but in the grand historical scheme of things, it is laughable that the English went off to India to rape, pillage, plunder, and burn a sub-continent, and now their descendents are actually importing the descendents of their victims to come to the British Isles and take their karmic revenge on the little girls of Rotherham. It is horrible, but… I have to wonder if there wasn’t some Indian little girl, raped to death by English troops during the Raj, who isn’t off somewhere laughing her afterlife off, watching what’s going on today.
I feel for the victims as individuals, but, seriously… F**k the English. They’re getting what’s due them, good and hard. Maybe they’ll learn something from it, but I doubt it.
There’s a horrible historic justice to it all, when you think about it. The English went off to pillage the world, when they had the power, and did so with great glee and gusto. Now, it’s coming home to them, and all those generations of stealing the labor, property, and land of others is coming back to haunt them, in the most direct manner imaginable. It’s only too bad that the actual perpetrators aren’t the ones suffering, but that’s the way it goes, with the ebb and flow of history.
Paul, I think you’re missing the point I’m trying to make here, which is that the legacy of the Six Nations is about as “real” for our purposes as the fantasy legacy of those English pricks Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII so lauds.
You want to pick and choose? Fine–I’m going to pick and choose the facts to prove English perfidy, power-lust, and thievery. And, frankly, I’ve actually got more evidence on my side than Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII has for his idealized legacies of liberty and justice for all. The history of the English is one long litany of horror, inflicted on their own small-folk, and on others. Their aristos are a pack of inbred, cousin-f*****g degenerates, and the majority of the rest of their people are just fine with bending their knees to them and gobbling knob, all the while rhapsodizing about the glories of being English. Screw the lot of them, I say. Natural slaves, and you can tell that by what wonderful trusties they’ve made for their masters, everywhere the British Empire took their flag.
See how that works? Frankly, I think we’re well rid of the lot of them, including Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII. There’s an ethnographic term for someone who so badly wants to be one of the “in-group” conquerors that they ape everything they do. Colloquially, we refer to white boys that want to be black gang-bangers as “wiggers”. Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII is an “English wigger”, because like the white suburban scion of the middle class trying to fit into the ghetto sub-culture, he’d never actually be accepted by the people whose group and culture he so badly wants to be an accepted part of.
Like I say elsewhere, transported to the era of their dominance, and from whence all this “wonder” he alludes to comes from, they’d laugh in his face, call him a dirty half-breed, and send him off to do their dirty work somewhere, making lying promises of future benefit and glory to he and his descendents. The historical record for that actually happening, for any of the race-traitors that they conned into doing their dirty work? Yeah… Ask around, and I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of people like my ancestors who will tell you it’s a mugs game. There is one historical truth you can take to the bank, anywhere and in any time period: Don’t trust the English.
Whether he likes it or not, he’ll never, ever be “one of them”, because he lacks the requisite pure blood, and they would consider what he does possess to be polluted. If it weren’t so laughably bizarre as a phenomenon, I’d feel empathy for him. As it is, I’m torn between laughing my ass off, and shedding tears for the poor guy. He really doesn’t grasp that he’d never, ever, not in a million f**king years, be considered one of them.
He’d be better off going to Japan, and trying the same thing. At least there, they’ll never lie to him by telling him he’s “one of them”, and then screw him and his descendents over at every opportunity, while simultaneously laughing at them behind their backs. The Japanese have the decency to at least be up front with their Burakumin, and admit to them that they never were human, and never can be…
While I don’t disagree with your assessment of large swathes of English history, particularly the aristocracy (especially in the later periods), there is the crucial questions: Who, overall, was any better at being decent human beings?
The Irish… of course.
You’re getting the point I’m trying to make…
Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII wants so very badly to be a member of this idealized in-group of his, and he’s ascribed all these wonderful, unique qualities to them.
Shift the viewpoint, and those same people are a bunch of degenerates I can’t understand anyone wanting to claim the legacy of.
I’ve been reading over on his site, since he made the first posts mentioning Sarah. At first, I thought “OK, there’s got to be some punch line to this… He’s got to be setting the stage for some point he’s about to make, and I’m just not seeing what he’s doing…”.
I’ve now reluctantly concluded that he really is that delusional, and really does believe what he’s been saying for the last few weeks. Which is, in the end, a really sad thing, because if there is anyone who’d be getting the shittiest end of the stick, were the things he has been saying were true, and were those people still making the decisions about who are “real Americans” and so forth… It would be him, his kids, and, likely, a lot of the rest of his followers.
Although, there’s a good set of historical precedents. Look at all the “true Roman” native Britons, who were so thoroughly screwed over when the Roman Empire decided to cut their losses and leave the place. The most vociferous and rabid adoptees of the culture, the half-breeds, and all the rest of the “race traitors” that adopt the ways of the “more advanced” culture are always the ones who get screwed over first, abandoned, and then really and truly well-f****d over by what comes after the Empire withdraws its hand. That’s been true everywhere, and everywhen, and it is really sad to see the betrayal in the eyes of the betrayed, as they realize they were never really “one of them”, and the evacuation ships aren’t coming back for them. Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII will likely find himself left, high and dry, adrift in what’s left of Europe, should the axe fall during his lifetime. He should be considering himself one of the, what did he call us, the “Consensual Americans”, because he’s never, ever going to be “one of them”. As far as those fine people are concerned, he’s a half-breed, and always will be, no matter how hard he wants to be one of the “cool kids”.
Kinda sad to watch, because the polity he feels he’s one of? It only really exists in his imagination. He’s like the white kid who has grown up listening to rap, and who so thoroughly identifies with the rappers that he thinks he’s really black, when the reality is, he’s not, and never will be. Whether he ever recognizes that fact or not, Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII is a member of the “consensual Americans”, and he’s never, ever going to be anything else. If he winds up settling in some isolated Italian valley, he and his kids are always going to be “the Americans”, and that may last for a few dozen generations. Christ on a crutch… My stepdad grew up in a valley in Slovenia, one that his family lived in since some time in the 1400s. The families that were there before his family showed up? They still refer to my step-dad’s folk as “those Styrians…”.
No, both you and “that person” are wrong.
He’s wrong because Americans from the beginning have been more than “just English”.
The New York colony was founded by the Netherlands and there remained New Yorkers who’s ancestors came from there.
Pennsylvania colony had a large population of Americans from “Germany”, the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch.
Paul Revere was one of many Americans who’s ancestors fled from France to practice their Protestant Christianity.
There were Scottish-Irish who were became Americans.
Of course, there were plenty of other groups who came to America after our revolution and because they accepted the American Ideals, they became Americans.
That person is wrong because at the heart of his argument is racism.
To him being of the Proper Race appears to be more important than the shared American Ideals.
Now, there’s more history to support the idea that the basis of the American Ideals come from English Ideals than from the Six Nations.
It sounds to me like you have such a “hard on” toward the English that you want to believe that “nothing good can come from England”.
It does appear that Britain has lost many of the English Ideals that became part of the American Ideals.
But IMO your “rant against the English” is just as wrong as “that person’s” silliness about “America Only For The English”.
Paul, you’re missing that I’m making the counter-point to the one he is.
I don’t actually “feel” that way about the English, because that would mean I’d have to be a self-hating, self-destructive dipshit–I’m probably at least as English as I am anything else, which would also include African, Dutch, German, French, Scot, Irish, and about any other ethnic group that spent a drunken evening in a European port.
I dunno… Maybe I should have put up flags, and had a guy walking in front of me swinging a lantern and crying out “Satirical point! Satirical point!”.
Yes, you should have put up “Sarcasm” warnings. [Frown]
Of course good things can come from England.I own every episode of the Benny Hill Show.
But the English don’t like to admit that Benny Hill exists. 😈
Their culture is dead.
I mean… no. This is just flat-out wrong. I don’t know where our so-and-so is going with it – probably, indeed, somewhere racial – but England has been a tremendous boon to the world in a way that no other world power ever has been. Their compassion for their imperial subjects was patronizing as all git-out, but they’re unique in that they had compassion to begin with. Not even the folks with that vaunted Roman citizenship could say the same. Their ex-colonies are still considerably better places to live than the neighbors. They took Magna Carta seriously through a grim march of Tudors and Stuarts, and in doing so wound up with several rough drafts of the Declaration of Independence and one of the two revolutions in world history not to stink to high heaven (and ours was the other.) It was the Land Where The Yew Tree Grows, and through all those centuries of inbred aristo backstabbery, it never, ultimately, lost the thread. (But the societal dementia it’s going through now seems to be doing the job.)
“…England has been a tremendous boon to the world in a way that no other world power ever has been…”
England has been as much a blight upon the world as it has been boon. Everything you say is true, but the fact remains that, sadly, everything I say is equally true. England is, I’m afraid, the nation-state equivalent of a serial rapist, while at the same time, having been a sugar-daddy.
And, oh, wouldn’t the Irish love to hear that “boon” bullshit. in 1641, there were roughly 1,400,000 Irish men and women living on their island. By 1652, the population was closer to 600,000. In the intervening 11 years, those 800,000 “missing” Irishmen and women were hauled off to the colonies for destructive labor in Caribbean sugar cane fields, murdered, or otherwise “expended”, as the lovely and uniquely British accounting term had it. There were Irish slaves all over the British colonial possessions in the Caribbean, and the only thing that even made bringing in African ones a “thing” was that the British came to realize a.) they were running out of Irish, and b.) they’d need to change their policies towards the slaves, ‘cos those darkies actually cost money, and had to be replaced. The Irish? Well, they could just be killed off, because stripping Ireland of the Irish was just a beneficial side-effect. It isn’t a joke, either–You go back and look, and you’ll see that the Irish that they killed off by working them to death on those plantations were valued a lot lower than the African slaves the British brought in later.
Something about the Irish visceral hatred for the English that I didn’t understand was this history prior to the “Great Potato Famine”, which was bad enough in and of itself. You go looking into this earlier holocaust, and it becomes something much easier to understand. Those Irish victims were so thoroughly gotten rid of that there aren’t even many signs of their having existed–Nobody remembers them, at all, because they left no descendents…
Think about that, for a moment. Those Caribbean islands that were home to all those sugar cane plantations are peopled mostly by the descendents of the slaves the English brought in to replace the Irish, who they’d more-or-less killed off through destructive labor practices. 800,000 Irish men, women, and children, simply gone as effectively as if they were Jewish victims of the Holocaust who’d vanished into the camps. And, it was all done on a retail-level scale, one or two at a time, by English overseers and plantation owners. The scale of the thing, from a “percentage of population” view easily rivals, and in some ways, dwarfs the Holocaust. The Nazis managed to kill off around 6 million of the 9 1/2 million Jews that lived in Europe in 1933, while the English killed 800,000 or more Irishmen out of 1,400,000.
An irony? When this was going on, an Irish slave was selling for about 5 pounds. An African slave would cost you 50, and there those who advocated bringing in more Africans on humanitarian grounds, in that the plantation owners were less likely to casually kill an expensive slave than a cheap one…
Some try to argue that those Irish were merely deported to the New World, and weren’t killed. Some survivors existed, but for evidence that they survived and managed to make a contribution to the gene pool in those areas…? You’re going to be hard-pressed to even find memories of those people ever having existed, let alone signs of their bloodlines surviving. They simply vanish from history. Some few escaped, but to where? The American mainland, where they were equally abused? Ann Glover managed to survive Barbados, where her husband was murdered because he refused to renounce Catholicism. She herself managed to make it to the mainland, where she found work as a housekeeper. In Salem, Massachusetts, where her life ended during the Witch Trials. See, they demanded she recite the Lord’s Prayer, and could only do so in Gaelic, so… Witch. They hung her.
The English have made great contributions to the world, but that barely makes a down payment on the bill they’re due for everything else they did. I haven’t even mentioned “minor little details” like their activities in India and China. Or, have we forgotten the Opium Wars, or all the misery they caused in the sub-continent?
Tot up all the harm, all the dead, and balance that out with the good. The English, were such a thing to exist, are still deeply in debt to the world Karma Bank, and will be for centuries to come. In a lot of ways, those that idolize the English as these paragons of virtue are like people lauding a serial killer/slaver because he ran into a burning building to drag some of his victims out when the place caught on fire late in his life. Yeah, it’s nice that he did that, but the admirers are forgetting that a.) he likely did it only to save his investment, and that b.) there are still an awful lot of other bodies buried in that basement of his…
Double Sigh!
Kirk, Sarcasm works best in small doses. In large doses, especially when people don’t know its sarcasm, it gets very annoying.
Listening to your sarcasm, I can’t help but hear the SJWs who whine about White Males and hear the Liberal-tards who whine about the evils of Western Civilization.
On the other hand, it would be very interesting for you to post your sarcasm over on “that guy” place. If you do, please let us know the response. [Very Very Big Evil Grin]
Screenshots!
If I had more time, and thought it would do any good, I would do it in a heartbeat. But, the sad fact is that the old story about the pig and the mud is pertinent in this situation. At the end of the day, about the only thing I’d accomplish is getting really, really muddy, and the pig would still be unable to sing a note…
Yeah, I know. And honestly, I don’t want to fight with them. I think whatever they do in their little cage is none of my business. I simply don’t care. Though they do sometimes make me giggle.
Yes, hold onto the high ground. How many years has he been ranting at Scalzi? Sheesh! Some people just can’t let go. A bulldog, he is.
Sarah, turns out I don’t need to bother; the work has been done for me. Someone scraped my initial comment, and he wrote an entire post in response… Yeesh, the comments…
You’re obviously getting someone’s attention, over in that world–They’re paying attention to even third-rate comments to posts you didn’t even write!
Who knew I was a white knight? I’ve always felt I was more like an utter bastard, because I’m going to call everyone on their bullshit, no matter who they are.
I guess I ought to feel complimented, but it’s fairly obvious that a.) he’s very much like the SJW types he rails against constantly, and instead of responding in the same venue where the comment is made, he will only do it after he takes it home to his own turf, and that b.) he’s obviously sensitive on the issue, because otherwise…? Why pay attention? Were I not making a point that bothers him, he’d laugh at my “not getting it”, and move on. Hell, he wouldn’t even be here watching from the shadows, were that the case…
Sadly, I used to think he was making subtle points, and was worth paying some attention to. Now, I’m developing the thesis that he’s got many of the same pathologies going as the SJW types, and it is just expressed differently.
Like most of the ilk, it’s a familiar thing for me to see. I grew up with a bunch of expat former Yugoslavs, who’d rail and rail about the “evils of America…”, but, yet… Who didn’t dare go home to Yugoslavia “…because, reasons…”. The expat is often displaying a pathology of self-hatred, and is unable to “fit in” at home not because of problems there, but because they have internal issues of their own, and chose to deal with them by cutting themselves off from their home culture, while at the same time, idolizing it to a degree that is truly mind-numbing to contemplate…
Oh, yeah… They do things so much better, in the “Old country”… And, that’s why your father, uncles, and a couple of brothers were put up against the wall, by Tito, for being Chetniks? And, why you’re a staunch anti-American, despite the fact that you were given a home here, and the opportunity to make a life for yourself, and even become wealthy? Come again?
Ted Beale is displaying the same self-hating pathology, and I dare say that he’s never going to be truly happy, anywhere. In a few years, he’ll be hating where he is, and finding flaw everywhere around him in the immediate vicinity to him, only to move somewhere else where the same progressive syndrome will take place. Sad to see, but that’s what I’m getting from the demonstrated behavior. Poor bastard is never going to find a home, because he’s incapable of making one for himself in his own mind. He’s built this entire edifice of being a “Man Without a Country” in his own mind, you see. Hale’s character, at least was being held prisoner by the US government for crimes committed. Ted Beale has exiled himself inside his own mind, and of his own volition.
He pontificated once that a propositional nation was a delusional concept. One of his apparent rules is to never back down. Just enough people follow both blogs that he feels he must comment. Unfortunately for him, commenters here can actually carry on a rational debate. He finds it hard to score points and few here bother to go to his site to refute him because he is not worth the effort. This bothers him even more.
We just let him rant to keep his Vile Faceless Minions amused.
Yeah. Mostly I honestly don’t care. I have a dozen pressing problems, a hundred non-pressing ones right now. He’s way below that and isn’t so much a problem as “I don’t care.”
The really amusing thing to me is to witness the apparently self-unaware juxtaposition he makes between what the SJW types are always doing to him–Selectively quoting what he writes, never confronting him directly, and rolling things up into a little ball like a dung beetle and returning with it to their dens to say bad things about him and his ideas…
And, that is precisely what he just did with my comment. I don’t even think he’s aware of what he did, either–He literally just aped the same bullshit techniques of passive-aggressive ball-lessness of the SJW that he is always going on and on about, and apparently doesn’t even recognize it while he’s doing it. Awe-inspiringly pathological…
Of course, perhaps that’s why he understands them so well–He’s really one of them, underneath it all.
Ted Beale and the SJW types are really just two expressions of the same damn problems in our culture, two sides to the same coin. I wish we could just bag them up like so many Kilkenny cats, and ship them off to their own little realm, leaving the rest of us in peace.
Paul, I’m not being sarcastic with that one. I was trying (badly) for a Swiftian parody earlier, but here… I’m totally serious.
The English just as much “right bastards” as they are “visionary libertarians”, and if you’re going to laud them for the one, you damn sure better be showing the other side of that particular coin.
I’ve got ancestors who financed a fair chunk of the Abolition movement from their perch in Boston. Fairly, I should be proud of those people. However, huge ‘effing comma, they got to that perch on the backs of those that they quite literally sold into slavery in the Caribbean, because you go back a few generations to take a look at precisely where that money they put into the Abolitionist movement came from, and surprise, surprise… Buying slaves in Africa, taking them to the Caribbean, and selling them there, where an awful lot wound up dying. Oh, and there were some Irish sold there by them, as well…
So, yeah… You wanna laud the English for their contributions to civilization with all those wonderful ideas about Common Law, and the rights of Englishmen? Fine–I’ll let you do that. That stuff is admirable, it truly is. But, at the same damn time, you’d best be showing the rest of your cards, which has to include the fact that Cromwell did to the Irish what Hitler only tried for, with the Jews. It’s actually a bit more horrible to think about, because Hitler had to put this whole impersonal network of moral and emotional cut-outs into place, before he could get the Germans to do the dirty work for him. Cromwell? The depopulation of Ireland was all done at the retail scale, by individuals acting in concert. On their own, without some massive edifice of bureaucracy to serve as an excuse. They had to look their victims in the eyes, as they loaded them on ships for transportation, or denied them the food they needed to survive, or threw them off their land to starve in the streets… In a way, it’s almost worse than what the Germans did in the Holocaust.
Once upon a time, I knew none of this. Made a casual remark to an Irish Catholic priest once about Cromwell, not realizing the actual scale of the thing… In return, I got a bitter education from that priest in the actual reality of it all, and what made it worse was the matter-of-fact, emotionally dead way he related it. Seems he’d spent a bunch of time as a young man, trying to trace the outlines of the Irish diaspora. See, the thinking in Ireland is (or, was…) that most of those transported Irishmen from the 1640 era were out there, somewhere, kinda like the stray puppy your daddy told you was out “living at that farm…”. The real deal? They’re gone, mostly. You can’t find a trace of them in the gene pool on those Caribbean islands they were hauled off to, and only a tiny fraction can be found in the records or the genes as having managed to escape. The documented horror that he did manage to find played a large role in his eventually finding his vocation as a Catholic priest, and it wasn’t until I spoke with him and then went to confirm what I’d heard in the records I could find through our base library. I really couldn’t find anywhere he’d either exaggerated or lied, which was horrifying.
See, what started that whole conversation was me mentioning that some of my ancestors had “gone over” to Ireland in the time of Cromwell, and done their thing for England. And, while there were no doubt some honest men among them, what they were a part of makes that whole thing sound like someone proudly proclaiming that their Granddad was an SS-mann, and had fought in the East. The only difference between the two is the fact that more time has passed, and that most of the victims of Cromwell never managed to get what happened to them “onto the record” in the public mind.
So, yeah… You wanna tell the tale of English wonder? You best be telling the tale of English horror, right along with it. That’s the only honest way to do it, and the really disturbing thing is to realize just how many of the “great figures” we laud these days had a role in events on both sides of the coin. You want to talk trash about the development of the idea of the Rights of Englishmen, you’d best be remembering to mention the fact that there wasn’t a hell of a lot of regard for the “Rights of Irishmen” around that time to even live, let alone take part in a civil society of their own.
The English weren’t Perfect?
So what, Humans aren’t Perfect so IMO you should get off your Hobby Horse.
The bastards were the greatest imperialists in the history of the world. They were absolutely great at utilizing the fruits of Scottish engineering genius. Their ex-colonies are generally more successful than other nations.
They aren’t rat bastards. They are legitimate rats with fine pedigrees. To bad that they were taught to be ashamed of themsevles
Humans are always both. It’s how you use it. Something I’m dealing with in one of the current books.
Paul, if people would cease with the perspectiveless encomiums, I’d never need to mount the damn thing…
All I’m saying is that both sides of the coin need to be shown, and remembered. The wealth that enabled the Royal Navy to hunt down slavers in the 1800s? That wealth came from robbing a whole bunch of other people, in the preceding two or three centuries. And, it came from ongoing operations of theft on a continental scale in India and China. I really love that at the same period of time the English are wanting to take credit for eradicating a good deal of the African slave trade, they were engaged in building a monopoly on salt in India and forcing the Chinese to take opium as trade goods for manufactured products and tea…
Uhmm… Wait, what? That’s kind of like John Wayne Gacy wanting it put into the record at his sentencing that he did a lot of pro bono clown work, too… Not just killing a bunch of teenage boys… He had a good side, too, ya know…
I’m careful to mention the preceding generations of my ancestors that made their money selling slaves, every time I mention the Abolitionists in the family tree. Anything else would be dishonest, and the same principle applies here. You want credit for the good? Well, you’d better take the hit for the bad, as well–Because anything less than total honesty and balance does a disservice to the saints, and the victims of the sinners. My Abolitionist ancestors only look good by way of contrast to what went before, and the turn of change that went on between those generations is awe-inspiring. To ignore the base and ignoble antecedents is to discount the magnitude of the change undergone to get to the point where those “noble men” did what they did.
Of course, we’d have all been a hell of a lot better off, had those lazy bastard ancestors before them decided to do their own dirty work, and pick their own damn cotton and boil their own cane. The whole thing is a travesty, even if there is a perverse balance between generations. Just as I wouldn’t be a slave, I also wouldn’t be a slavemaster or Kapo. Either role is equally pernicious to the human spirit.
Kirk, I’m hearing more of your “Bash The English” than I’m hearing “perspectiveless encomiums”.
It Is Getting Old.
A good deal of what I’m replying to isn’t in this thread, but in the general flag-waving “Wow, look at what great things the English did…” that you get out of things like Ted Beale’s writing. I’m out of whack in this thread, but in general terms…? Not so much.
Like I said somewhere along the line, here… I’m descended from about as many of those “noble Englishmen” as Beale probably is, and judging from the family genealogy I know, I probably have a far better claim to being one of his lauded “true Americans” than he does. If the research my great-grandaunts did was accurate, the number of ancestors who signed the Declaration of Independence is in the low double digits. I’d have limited problem signing up for the DAR, in other words.
But… That isn’t the whole story, and a lot of those folks weren’t nature’s noblemen, the way Ted Beale would have it. Some of them certainly aspired to it, but… C’mon, now: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both owned slaves. And, apparently, were able to somehow able to make that work in their own heads with the same high aspirational ideals that led to the Revolution and all that followed.
The problem with all this is in the balance of presentation and appreciation. I can, at the same time, hold my (convolutedly) ancestor George Washington in both contempt, for owning slaves, and honor, because he turned down being made King of the Americas. You can’t do justice to the memory of these people, our history, or what they all aspired to, without doing that. You have to remember it all, not just the nice parts.
An example? How about John Newton, the man who wrote “Amazing Grace”? Now, here’s a man where if you remember only the good things about his life, what he did with it doesn’t appear to be that big a deal. It is only by way of contrasting his early life in the slave trade with his later life that the full magnitude of his conversion and achievement becomes a such a marvelous thing to contemplate. Yet, if you were to cover up and ignore the early years of his debauched, slave-trading life, you’re left with merely a decent man who did and said very obvious things, things that he really shouldn’t get that much credit for.
That is the point I’m trying to get across, in the larger sense. And, not very coherently, I’ll admit. You can’t measure the heights achieved by the English, without also acknowledging the depths to which they sunk, and sometimes at the same time and in the same men. Which is a point worth remembering every time we start setting some politician or other public figure up on a pedestal. There are few saints out there, and all of us are inherently flawed and capable of great depravity. Why, I myself have been known to do horrible things, like freethinking… 😉
Or, as Solzehnitsyn wrote:
“I credited myself with unselfish dedication. But meanwhile I
had been thoroughly prepared to be an executioner. And if I had
gotten into an NKVD school under Yezhov, maybe I would have
matured just in time for Beria.
So let the reader who expects this book to be a political expose
slam its covers shut right now.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people
somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were neces-
sary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of
every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his
own heart?
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place;
sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and some-
times it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One
and the same human being is, at various ages, under various cir-
cumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close
to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t
change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.
Socrates taught us: Know thyself!
Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those
who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all
only because of the way things worked out that they were the
executioners and we weren’t.
From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb.
And correspondingly, from evil to good.”
Thank you, Kirk, because what you’ve written has given me a new and deeper perspective on these words.
Taking the virtues and sins of your ancestors as your own is one thing that Americans are well shot of. Even if you’re not American, you’re really better off if you knock that off on your own part, never mind saddling poor Wilberforce with it.
We weren’t borrowing, and they weren’t their cattle. 🙂
Is that the theory that goes “if they couldn’t stop us from taking their stuff, then it wasn’t really their stuff”? 👿 👿 👿 👿
Yep. 🙂
Of course you also have the Massai theory, that all cattle belong to them, so they can’t steal cattle from anyone else, so no one else can actually own cattle.
I believe in Massai-energy conversion.
If cattle actually “belonged” to anyone, you wouldn’t need fences and I wouldn’t have had an avocation training herding dogs.
English cattle only belong to the English as long as there’s no Scots on their side of the border just like Comanche horses and women only “belong” to the Comanche as long as there’s no Aniwunyiya visiting the Lana Estancia. *snicker*
Benjamin Franklin visited the Iroquois as part of a Colonial delegation. All he wrote about it was a comment on their profligate drunkenness.
[blink] I’d never heard of this theory. However, I did hear about how the Iroquois had a habit of genocide against rival tribes (once they had enough slaves, anyway)…. and how there weren’t any “plains Indians” until the losers in this adventure fled the gentler lands in the east trying to avoid becoming the Iroquois’ next victims. I heard this from my professional mentor, who was an Ojibwa chief, who heard it from his grandmother — who heard it from her grandparents, who’d survived fleeing from the Iroquois. My mentor was not inclined to make shit up, and was quite candid about his own people’s faults, so I’m inclined to take his story as factual.
Google up the search terms “Six nations contribution to American democracy”, and you’ll get leads to a bunch of information from which you can form your own conclusions. Me, I don’t know how much we can formally attribute to the various Indian tribes, but I can tell you this much: There was at least something to the idea.
A considerable number of indentured servants and other Europeans took periodic refuge with the various tribes. While there, they got exposed to a very different culture, and outlook on life. You can read accounts of how influential that was for many of them, and complaints from their masters about them taking off to live with the natives. Even if it was just a set of experiences that showed many of these men that there was a different path than the virtually caste-ridden class system in the European cultures they came over here with? Then we can safely say that there was at least some influence made by the Indian cultures on American democracy. How much? That’s the big question, isn’t it?
I wasn’t alive, back then. From my reading, I have formed the opinion that there is likely something to this theory, but I don’t know how much “there” is actually there. It would be interesting to really research things, and determine something definitive, but unless I win the Lotto and manage to answer all the other historical questions I’d love to spend time digging up, I don’t think I’ll get to it.
East? East of the Iroquois was Ocean, not plains.
“[blink] I’d never heard of this theory. However, I did hear about how the Iroquois had a habit of genocide against rival tribes (once they had enough slaves, anyway)….”
Yes.
While I’m not sure about the Plains Indian bit, there’s an old proverb (that I can’t manage to remember the T’salagi for) to the effect that “Where the men of the Aniwunyiya choose to go, other Nations move or die.”
Up until the arrival of the Europeans threw all that on its head, anyway.
And we were just one of the peoples of the Iroquoian nations. The other Iroquoians were similar. The areas where the Cherokee settled in the East used to belong to the Athapascan tribes, the Choctaw among them, prior to Aniwunyiya settlement. There’s still a lot of Cherokee/Choctaw rivalry that stems from the off again and on again warfare that went on between them up into the 1700s and early 1800s.
I’ve shocked and appalled a few of the new agey “Native Americans were all peaceful peoples who lived in harmony with nature blah blah” types by observing deadpan that if the Aniwuyiya had had industry, manufacturing, gunpowder, horses, and rifles by 1400, Europe would be a part of the Iroquoian Confederacy speaking T’Salagi today.
I think that Phillip Jose Farmer wrote a novel around that concept, but I can’t recall the title offhand.
(And yes, Mrs. Hoyt, I *did* get some sleep finally before getting up to do my afk stuff.)
I suspect a lot of husband’s Amerindian blood (on dad’s side, which we didn’t know about until FIL mentioned it in passing) is Iroquois just from the location. It explains one of the puzzling things about my husband. He is one of the mildest, nicest men you’ll meet. Until you push him past the point where he decides he’s done and he’s going to destroy you. Then all reason and sensible thought turns off, and he uses his considerable brains ONLY in pursuit of his goal. He’s smart enough he stops in time, but it also kept him alive as a bespectacled, small, skinny math geek in public schools.
I remember reading somewhere about Iroquois warriors doing that when going to battle, and (what I read was a neurological treatise) its having a physical basis.
His other Amerindian ancestry (and the greater part of it) would be from West Virginia.
Anyway, that was one of the funny things about that comment Jeb pinged. While I’m more shield maiden than wife by disposition, and while I consider myself any man’s equal under the law, I married the only man I was comfortable promising to obey. And he neither abuses his privilege, nor, frankly, uses it lightly. The one time he gave me an incontrovertible order that I couldn’t lawyer myself out of, it saved my life. If I hadn’t made that promise and taken it seriously, I’d not be here today. However, it entailed choosing carefully. If I’d sworn to obey any of my exes, I’d have broken it within a year.
“I remember reading somewhere about Iroquois warriors doing that when going to battle, and (what I read was a neurological treatise) its having a physical basis.
His other Amerindian ancestry (and the greater part of it) would be from West Virginia.” – Mrs. Hoyt
*nod* That plus the paragraph above that… entirely possibly. I’ve never heard that about it having a physical basis, but I haven’t researched it either.
West Virginia would possibly be one of the Iroquoian branches, or possibly an Athapascan tribe. Could go either way… you’d have to gene test for blood quantum.
*shrug* It fits. I have had… a bit of a reputation online in places for going from dead stop directly to nuclear option in 2.2 seconds and then escalating in a flame war environment, but that’s just play. Online ain’t real, and it ain’t serious.
In real life, I’m pretty easy going. Up to the point where the eyes narrow, the voice goes soft and slow, and the Texas drawl comes out. At that point, I’ve already decided to destroy you – I’m just calculating whether it takes a shotgun or high explosives, and if it’s worth the legal hassles. After that, it’s just a series of calculations as to whether it’s worth it and how to go about it, or to just shrug and walk around.
I’m not sure that it’s strictly an Iroquoian thing though. I’ve noticed the same trait in my Czech uncles and cousins. Loud? We’re arguing and having fun. The voice goes soft and cold? ‘Ware the minefields.
“They were a bunch of Irish who left Ireland (likely kicked out) who invaded the Pictish territory of Britain very likely because the Romans and their British allies prevented them from invading Roman Britain.” – ‘Drak
Heh. And then some of my ancestors on the Bairns side of the family went back to Ireland as Scots mercenaries and got paid off in land, and became Irish again. *grin*
Life is just filled with wondrous absurdity at times, innit?
Chuckle Chuckle
Yep, whatever “race/tribe/people” you want to talk about are very likely “mutts” with members who were descended from other groups (likely some groups that the descendants don’t want to talk about). 👿
Hey now, pardner. We’re kinda proud of the hoss thieves and moonshiners in my fambly, even if some of them were Scots.
At least we don’t have any *shudder* Welsh.
Smile when you say that partner. 😉
I got English, Welsh and Pennsylvania Dutch (German) blood.
Don’t know if there are any Scotts in my family tree.
“Smile when you say that partner. 😉
I got English, Welsh and Pennsylvania Dutch (German) blood.” – ‘Drak
And I’m sure that that ewe was just awful grateful for the help over that fence, too.
*whistles innocently*
You know that in Scotland the legal term for polygamous is “shepherd”? 😎
TTTO Scotland the Brave
“I’m feeling frisky Mother,
Bring me some whisky Mother,
And clone me a sheep for I’m lonely tonight.
And while you’re at it Mother,
clone yourself for my brother.
England’s forever but Scotland’s depraved!”
There are several more verses….
This opportunity cannot be ignored. Thus:
Son, to a real PA Dutchman, they’re all English. 😀
This should start at 4:00.
They SAY the Irish are according to some genetic research are descended from people from the Iberian peninsula.
*sniff* We discount those people as just being jealous because they weren’t descended from the Tuatha du Dannan.
😛
Well wild geese do travel.
Am I going to have to declare fracticide arguments among Great-British island natives a closed topic?
On another note, read P. F. Chisholm’s Robert Carey mysteries for an hilarious view of the Scottish border in Elizabethan times.
Not as far as I’m concerned. 🙂
Welll… you could just point out that we’re not in the argument room, we’re in the getting hit in the head training room.
*ducks*
*goes on as if that carp hadn’t narrowly missed his head* It’s far far too late for that, anyway. We’ve been fratriciding from well before we discovered that beating up the Angles and the Saxons made for an acceptable diversion in between bouts of painting ourselves blue and beating each other up.
As far as the other stuff, meh. I’ll start being concerned for the rights of Englishmen when England begins to.
“I’ll start being concerned for the rights of Englishmen when England begins to.”
I’ll second that. Wellll, maybe I’ll become concerned then, but probably not.
Our federal government (and it’s political class) is now the functional equivalent of an addict. It’s behaviors are too ingrained and intractable to be altered by traditional means. Like a meth addict, it must hit bottom before there is any hope of real change or remediation.
Wishing upon a star is enabling to an addict, and just delays the inevitable. Yes, Trump is a catastrophe, by even if he only accidentally triggers the collapse to the bottom, it is this bitter medicine that will start the rebound.
The myth of collapse and rebound is a narrative thing. It is not how the world really works.
Yep, just like the myth that an addict has to hit bottom, before they can get better. Nope, if they hit bottom, they are dead and can’t get better. If they start to come back up any time before they are dead, they never reached the bottom.
Ahhhh… as a recovering alcoholic and addict, it’s your personal bottom you have to hit. As low as you personally can go before either recovery or death become viable options. (The “This can’t go on” point.)
Otherwise, your analogy works, except for where it doesn’t.
yes, but a lot of people don’t have a personal bottom. And a lot of civilizations don’t, either. OBVIOUSLY. Eyes Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Remember that for people, death is also a viable option. Their personal bottom may merely be below that.
yes. I understand this.
AND NOW GO TO BED. According to Hoyt is addictive, but geesh!
Good Night.
Eep! Yes, mom. *grins and runs*
That, plus while some do turn around at a point that’s very bad before death, a lot of them never do. Possibly a majority.
*nod*
In AA and NA, we are forced to admit and accept that some never do and never shall, no matter how much we would have it otherwise. And to hope that at some point, they find it within them to turn it around before death.
I don’t know if that works for civilizations or not.
I expect that in the case of civilizations like Venezuela and Zimbabwe, the best that I can do is hope that they can, and keep a wary eye upon them so that they don’t drag us down with them – which is also a hazard for those of us in recovery who have done Twelfth Step work.
And on that, I really am going to bed for awhile before my bedtime passes my wake up time. *grin* Good night.
*walks off muttering: must quit checking my email. Must quit checking my email. Must quit… *
Now you know how Cassandra felt.
This is where an Article V convention for proposing constitutional amendments comes in. It would be, or could be, (in effect) an intervention, forcing the federal government into actions that it would never take on its own initiative.
Hmm….
Equality, like Women’s ‘liberation’, permits Sarah and her fellow traitors to crush their betters — yes, they DO have betters, and boy do they HATE HATE that
Why do I get the feeling that their real problem is that Sarah and others don’t acknowledge them as superior? Boy, I bet they really, *ahem*, HATE HATE that. 😉
Portugal when I grew up never had women’s liberation. It still really doesn’t in the American sense. I never met any betters of mine. Yeah, I’ve met some who were smarter, or stronger, but none that could stop me from doing what I really wanted to do. Sometimes it just meant working insanely hard.
Story
Englishman to ranch-hand: Is your master available?
Ranch-hand to Englishman: The Bastard hasn’t been born.
😈 😈 😈 😈
The other rejoinder: Only after you die, if you’ve accepted Him.
“Oh, as regards the remark about hanging with Trump supporters: I was advising you, as a person who digs American liberties.” – YellowShapedBox
Thanks. I appreciate it. I am, however, old enough to hang out with the guys in leather jackets that my mom warned me about. *grin* I am the guy that my mom warned me about.
“I debate with the aim to persuade, until it’s become patently futile. And with you, it hasn’t been.” – YellowShapedBox
*shrug* Thanks.
And, le *sigh* We broke the thread up there. Pick it up down here and start a new one?
Okay: email: “in the vicinity of” = @ sign? (dote calm, I caught) (from “Anyway, my email: vermissaherald in the vicinity of reagan dote calm.”)
I’m going to point out something that I’ve mentioned before, but it was in discussion with others and you may not have caught it:
1) I am a Trump supporter, yes. (I think we’re on the same page there.)
2) I am a dedicated non-voter. I am a non-voter from principle: I do not steal nor do I murder, and I do not vote for the same reasons – if I will not steal nor murder by my own hand, I will not vote a proxy to do it for me. And I wish to rob or kill, I will damned well do it myself, not farm it out to someone else.
Therefore, I am not going to pull a lever for Trump this fall.
3) Even if I were a voter, I live in a state that had been Red going all the way back to the late 60s. Oklahoma will go Red in November again, I am 99.9% certain, and deliver its electoral votes to the (R)-candidate no matter who that is, Trump, Cruz, Kasich, whatever. I could write in Cthulhu for Pres and it would not shift the electoral outcome one iota.
So, with that in mind, I will mildly and with some amusement, point out that you are wasting a lot of time and effort on persuading someone with whom your efforts will bear no fruit even if I come around to your point of view. *grin*
I have no dog in this hunt. I am not going to vote for Trump regardless of my supporting him.
I have also stated directly to you: I do not care whether you support Trump or not. I am not advocating for him. If you feel that you cannot support Trump for whatever reasons, then do. not. vote. for. him.
So yeah, I am kind of picking a nit with the concept that your attempting to persuade in my case really is a bit futile. I have nothing to sell, and I am not shopping.
But I’m happy to discuss almost anything with anyone from an academic standpoint, as long as they argue from and with good intent. *shrug*
One exception: I don’t argue gun control or really anything with Leftists of any stripe – I don’t care to waste my time in futile endeavors.
___________
So… continue here, or take it to email and out of forum?
I am going to go up and respond to the post that hit my c4c, that had the email info.
I got a bit lost with the thread breaking, and I’m not 100% which of my comments from when that’s in response to. So if my reply seems disjointed or jarring in context, that’s why.
@YellowShapedBox
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2016/03/07/sons-of-liberty-vs-national-front-jeb-kinnison/#comment-353337
– Down here: we broke the thread again, and there was no [Reply] link up there that I saw.
“If it comes to “wrecking balls”, give me the wrecking ball with a (D) on it.” – YellowShapedBox
The only thing that needs to be done with anything with a (D) on it involves a rope and a lamppost, and we’re in that awkward stage where it’s too late to work within the system, but not yet time to shoot the bastards.
“If you think I’ve been arguing in bad faith, it’s… “ – YellowShapedBox
… Because you are arguing in bad faith.
“it’s been really difficult for me to believe you support Trump” – YellowShapedBox
I don’t care what it is difficult for you to believe. Your not being able to wrap your mind around something is not my problem, it is yours.
“despite not thinking he has a good side.” – YellowShapedBox
You are putting your words in my keyboard again, and I am done with that. I did not tolerate it before, and I do not tolerate it now. I did not say that I do not think he has a good side.
Show me the quote where I did. Talk is cheap, whiskey costs money: put up or shut up.
_____________________
No. On second thought, don’t bother.
If I think that you’ve been arguing in bad faith, it is because you are demonstrably arguing in bad faith.
Once again, you did not address any of the questions that I asked you, nor even make an attempt to, you placed words in my keyboard that I did not type, you addressed a strawman of your own phrasing to respond to, and you apparently have not actually read anything that I’ve actually typed.
You argue like a forum weasel. You pretend to be unable to comprehend plain English when it is clearly typed at you. You make statements that you are unwilling to defend, you tergiversate around requests to answer questions on the dubious examples that you do bother posting, you shift goal posts back and forth to hide behind, you create strawmen to address rather than addressing the actual comments of the person you are discussing with, you engage in iodla specus while perpetuating in if-by-whiskey argumentum, you engage in wisdom of repugnance while remaining oblivious to the concept that it is not wisdom and that repugnance is in the eye of the beholder, you use passive aggressive bullsh*t wording to attempt to pretend that you didn’t do or say or did do what the other person saw you blatantly doing, saying, or not doing, so it must be their fault for misunderstanding you, and if I am not mistaken, you practice definist fallacies without then washing your hands before returning to table.
I have watched you over the course of this entire thread, doing these things repeatedly, and I understand you perfectly.
You apparently are either unwilling to, or unable to, or simply unaware of what the phrase “argue in good faith” means, and you demonstrably do not practice the craft. You have used up all of the time and goodwill that I am willing to spend.
And I am tired of it and I am done with you.
“Yes, you do have my email right.” – YellowShapedBox
Don’t bother checking your inbox, ma’am. I shan’t darken it.
All I can say, for those still watching, is that this fellow has the severely wrong end of the stick. Maybe I do too, by his reaction. Anyway, I’ll let readers be the judge.
…Then again, the whole “literally put Democrats to death” bit probably means we’re debating at skew lines no matter how well we understand one another. Shouldn’t agonize too hard, I guess.