Category Archives: Politics on the left

State of the union? Half of all Americans are anti-American

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There is an enormous difference between the two sides of American politics at the moment, and the gap is so wide that for someone such as myself, it seems impossible that anyone could with honesty take the side of the Democrats. This is the Drudge wrap up:

 

And these are the sidebar links.

 

These are the White House Excerpts of PDT’s State of the Union address. The speech starts about 15 minutes in.

  • Together, we are building a SAFE, STRONG, and PROUD America.
  • We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day’s work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.
  • Just as I promised the American People from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.
  • Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the Middle Class and small businesses.
  • Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses – many of them thousands of dollars per worker.
  • This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.
  • Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.
  • Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.
  • For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.
  • In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.
  • We have ENDED the war on American Energy – and we have ENDED the War on CLEAN COAL. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.
  • America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nation’s wealth.
  • America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year – isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?
  • I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.
  • Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families.
  • So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed.
  • As we rebuild America’s strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.
  • Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.
  • Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past Administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

Here is the full transcript.

Bringing harm to others is socialism’s primary goal

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A comment on a thread at Powerline on Liberalism is just resentment and envy sanctified where the video showed up as well. After eight years of PDT, even if the astounding success of his first year as President continues for the following seven, you will hear exactly the same. That is what this post is about:

I recall a recent twitter conversation that I engaged in. Basically it was a discussion on the outcome of a social experiment where people were given a choice between two alternative income distribution models.

The first one, choice A, had the highest level of income capped at say 100,000, had a fairly tight distribution across the quartiles, with the lowest being something like 10.

The second one, choice B, allowed for a very small number of individuals to earn 1,000,000 followed by a much wider distribution of quartiles, with the lowest being something like 100.

People were asked to choose which distribution they preferred, and I think they chose option A over option B by more than 2 to 1. This was the case even though it was clear (and perhaps emphasized) that everyone in option B had more money, with the poorest having effectively 10 times the purchasing power over option A.

While that result is astounding in and of itself, the replies on the twitter thread were even more interesting because there were so many people who offered strained and painful rationalizations as to why choice A was better. One I recall insisted that choice B was worse because the purchasing power would be reduced back to A levels since the economy would just reset to the higher levels of wealth due to inflation or something.

My comment ultimately was that all the rationalizations were just thin cover, and that the real reason for the choice was plain old envy of the top. Now I’d have to go back and find the thread to be sure, but I seem to recall the gentleman who started the thread insisting that the authors of the experiment made it clear that the 100 to 10 ratio at the bottom levels really did imply B had 10 times the buying power of A, but that it clearly didn’t matter to the outcome.

I find this result to be a fascinating insight into the irrationality of human economic/moral intuition, and how jealousy and envy play such an outsized role in shaping it.

Socialism has never done anyone any good, other than the handful of leaders who eventually climb to the top of the pyramid. But the envy that drives it will never go away, which is why the socialist impulse will also never go away. For the rest of us, what is crucial to remember is that the motivation behind the rhetoric is in no sense benevolent, but as malevolent as the human heart can be.

The Marxist takeover of our schools should make you really really worry

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My favourite Canadian website by a long long way is Small Dead Animals. You should make it a permanent rest stop as you go through your skiing the web (it does originate from Saskatchewan).

A couple of related pieces from today, both worth reading along with everything else, which you will have to link to SDA to find. But first these two, on the taking down of our education system by Marxist know-nothings. They are as ignorant as it is possible to be, entirely ideological in their thinking, with minds so filled with empty slogans and manufactured facts that they have almost no ability to understand what others are saying. Carefully considering what others have to say is the last thing any of them ever do. Indoctrination is all they know: reasoned debate never. Two examples below.

SDA regular Ken Kulak left a brilliant comment earlier that everyone should read:

There are many great comments above.
If I may add my two cents. No doubt some of you might think One Trick Kulak. While reading and listening to the material presented by Robert the thought occurred to me that I have seen this before, not literally, but on paper.

Not to brag or blow my horn, but I have close to 200 Russian history books in my library. Almost all are by recognized historians who are or were recognized authorities in their field of study. Some like Richard Pipes were advisors to governments during the cold war. I have read everyone of those books and parts of some more than once and have been used as background resource material for the four family history books I have written.

What has been happening in our universities across North America to stifle free speech and any opposing views to the entrenching of Marxism and seems to be escalating in intensity. Thank goodness there are a few brave warriors like Jordan Peterson and Lindsay Shepard and possibly others attempting to stem the flood.

However, the increasingly more open Marxist controlled events in our higher learning schools is not new. The same thing happened 100 years ago in Russia. What has and is happening in our schools has just been slower, more subtle, and thus more insidious in nature.

Prior to the Russian revolution there was a covert socialist/Marxist/Bolshevik presence in Russian universities. After Russia entered the Great War the agitation in the schools increased and became more overt in the late fall of 1916. When the February revolution broke out and was successful the radical left took over all the schools. Then, after the Bolshevik coup, the effort to expel any opposition by professors and students began, and by the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks took direct control of the schools.

The troika that Lindsay experienced was the standard method of operation and control in the schools and enforced by the Komsomol under the direction of the education commissary.

So, what happened in Russia in a relatively short time frame has been happening here slowly over a couple of decades and basically come out into the open only recently.

Make no mistake, after they shut up Jordan and Lindsay they will get around to shutting us up. Bill M-103 and the federal refusal to help pay for summer student help unless you tick off the box expressing obedience to full on abortion is all a part of turning up the heat on the pot with the frog in it.

Let’s hope a sufficient number of Canadians will seize the warnings that the likes of Ken and Jordan Peterson and Mark Steyn have been proffering for years. The sheeple are likely too far gone with the “Progressive” indoctrination to wake up though.

And then there’s this. I take it that “alt-right bingo” is played by these post-modernist clowns with the notion being that you get a space filled in every time one of these ridiculous notions is mentioned, you know, things like “Orwellian”, “virtue signalling”, “ideololgical agenda” and my special favourite, “classical”. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.

Yesterday Lindsay Shepherd posted a very interesting tweet:

Lindsay Shepherd@NewWorldHominin

Some literature handed out at the panel discussion I was on at @smuhalifax today. The bingo is kind of funny, but it is a SEVERE mistake for these activists to associate terms such as “critical thinking”, “viewpoint diversity”, and “open exchange of ideas” with the alt-right.

A supporter of hers published a related video.

The “Alt-Right Bingo” game the leftists in the audience were playing seems to imply that they think it is hilarious, and cause for derision, to talk about these things:

  • Critical thinking
  • Viewpoint Diversity
  • Open exchange of ideas
  • Traditional values
  • Free speech space

These people apparently grew up in Canada but clearly don’t hold anything resembling Canadian values.

And the same unfortunately also goes for Australia.

More comment on that interview

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Karen Straughan’s Take on Jordan Peterson’s Channel 4 Interview. It lasts 38 minutes but never wavered for a moment. So much to get and she gets it very well. Interesting first comment by Karen Straughan in the youtube comments:

Within ten minutes of this video going up, Channel 4 had hit me with a copyright takedown. I filed a dispute based on fair use and it’s now viewable again, but have lost my monetization privileges on this video for up to 30 days, the fuckers.

The beeb didn’t want to see their shame spread any farther, but too late for that. Good to know that the BBC is embarrassed by the interview, and so they should be.

Via Small Dead Animals

FACEBOOK RESPONSE: A mate of mine put this post up on Facebook and this is the note I just received from him:

Facebook just marked as spam my post of your post

I’m not on Facebook so I don’t know how any of it works, but the response time had to have been less than an hour. These people are evil, genuinely evil.

This is what cultural liars like to say: everything you believe is a lie that only benefits the ruling class

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The Jordan Peterson interview by Cathy Newmann continues to resonate through the right-side of the internet. I have seen a number of discussions of which this is one: Jordan B Peterson, Critical Theory, and the New Bourgeoisie. Here’s how it starts but the main point is about Cultural Marxism which I will get to after the prelims:

Earlier this week, clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson appeared on Britain’s Channel 4 in an interview with TV journalist Cathy Newman. It didn’t go well. Journalist Douglas Murray described it as “catastrophic for the interviewer”, while author Sam Harris called it a “nearly terminal case of close-mindedness”. Sociologist Nicholas Christakis perhaps described it best:

Nicholas A. Christakis@NAChristakis

This man @jordanbpeterson is preternaturally calm and composed in the face of a hostile interviewer who also had simply not thought adequately about her ideas and approach. Facts and reason are powerful allies. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/watch-cathy-newmans-catastrophic-interview-with-jordan-peterson/ …

 

So onto Critical Theory, about which we find this.

Critical Theory draws heavily on Karl Marx’s notion of ideology. Because the bourgeoisie controlled the means of production, Marx suggested, they controlled the culture. Consequently, the laws, beliefs, and morality of society reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie. And importantly, people were unaware that this was the case. In other words, capitalism created a situation where the interests of a particular group of people—those who controlled society—were made to appear to be universal truths and values, when in fact they were not.

The founders of critical theory developed this notion. By identifying the distorting effects power had on society’s beliefs and values, they believed they could achieve a more accurate picture of the world. And when people saw things as they really were, they would liberate themselves. “Theory,” they suggested, always serves the interests of certain people; traditional theory, because it is uncritical towards power, automatically serves the powerful, while critical theory, because it unmasks these interests, serves the powerless.

All theory is political, they said, and by choosing critical theory over traditional theory one chooses to challenge the status quo, in accordance with Marx’s famous statement: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

 

And it is the central point of virtually all modern university thought which Peterson represents the movement away from.

The identity of the group providing the intellectual foundation for both critical theory and the social justice movement are mostly white middle-and-upper-class intellectuals from the political left in advanced Western economies. It may be more illuminating to see this group’s interests as the driving force of societal change, rather than those of the ever-changing group of the powerless. In effect, the intellectuals of the political left are creating the type of society they personally want to live in. ‘The powerless’ are temporary allies on this journey.

Not only are they temporary allies, but they are unwilling allies as well. Brexit and the election of PDT are two examples of which many more are likely to follow.

Democrats the party of failure

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The Democrats are the party of failure. When they are not causing such failures themselves their dearest hope is that others will be even worse. They are socialists to the core and therefore have nothing positive to contribute. Their only hope is to create enough mendicants to vote them in, and if there aren’t enough native-born Americans to do the job, to bring in welfare-hungry immigrants to make up the numbers. For Democrats, the worst imaginable outcome for them is that PDT should succeed, which actually means that he is successful in managing the American economy and the foreign mess that has been left for him to fix. In other words, they are worried that he will improve the lives of Americans. With nothing positive to contribute themselves, they live on the misery they do so much to cause and do nothing to repair.

Why don’t you Google it?

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What comes up first if you google Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites. You might even pair this with this: James Damore sues Google, alleging intolerance of white male conservatives.

Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets …

dailycaller.com/…/googles-new-fact-check-feature-almost-exclusively-targets-conserv…

 

Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites. Photo of Eric Lieberman. Eric Lieberman · Tech and Law Reporter. 12:04 PM 01/09/2018. Pinterest. Reddit. LinkedIn. WhatsApp. Share. TOP …

TO WHICH MAY NOW BE ADDED THIS:

 

The left will not tolerate dissent even in private

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You think the left is open to debate? Then read this. A fascinating story: Coming Out As A Republican To My Democrat Family Went Worse Than Coming Out Gay. Lots to read and you should read it all, but let me select this to give you some idea of what you will find.

When, in my adulthood, the liberal policy agenda became problematic for me, I found myself at a loss. I began to raise questions with my family and friends, and met resistance. It was not because my concerns were particularly inappropriate; I was just not supposed to be questioning at all.

One could disagree with nuances, but not the judgment of the (then) president, or the party. Period. The irony of this apparent intolerance for diversity of thought by the party claiming to champion the rights of groups underserved by the status quo was not lost on me.

For the first time in my progressive life, standing up for the values that I most strongly espouse—truth, morality, self-reliance, boundaries, tolerance, and a healthy dose of Jewish skepticism—was damaging my reputation and character. When I publicly opposed my dad’s support of the Iran deal, I was admonished. I had few friends with whom I could have a civil political conversation: one stopped all communication with me for two weeks because Trump won the presidency.

The left expects everyone to behave like a dumb terminal, with the views of the main processor the only views permitted. But it is possible to escape so we must keep attacking their views before we find ourselves overrun and submerged.

How do you deal with people who know all the answers before they hear the questions?

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This is the most significant political problem of our time. The left are on the left because of a will to believe, but have virtually never had a political success other than by taking the reins of power which they quite often do, and not always peacefully either. They have imposed their will time and again because they often temporarily have the numbers, but are removed as soon as possible – which is often not very soon at all – since their beliefs create neither wealth nor freedom.

The outcome has been that no one on the left is any longer willing to debate since they have run out of arguments because virtually everything they say and do has a proven history of failure. And so the question has become, is it worth trying to convince people on the left who never listen to what anyone else says? Is it worth trying to show how markets work better than government direction, for example, or that there is no evidence of the existence of global warming? How do you deal with people who think that Barack Obama was worth electing president, or now even Oprah for heaven’s sake? It is the greatest problem of our day, and may yet lead to the collapse of our Western way of life. Anyway, I came across the brief schematic that I think sums up quite a bit.

Conservative, AKA Normal People = facts, analysis ——-> conclusion.

Liberals AKA Walking Nerve Endings = feelings, conclusion ——> rationalization

They are not “stupid” in the normal sense, political idiots though they are. They cannot learn from history because they do not want to, because history continuously demonstrates the dangers and vacuity of their ideas. If anyone ever works out how to get past the barricades they put up to protect their political prejudices from examination, they will save the world from a good deal of grief. In the meantime, we have to find ways to barricade ourselves from the destruction they cause whenever they achieve political control. There is always another Venezuela just around the corner if these people cannot be made to see how things really are, and that next Venezuela might be right where you happen to live right now.