I voted for Trump while pinching my nose shut. He was the better of the two evils, and his policies were certainly better for our country. Look at what a mess we are in now.
The problem with the postmodernist obsession with power differentials is the assumption that they are central as a tool, rather than that they are a symptom of a bad system. Their zero-sum-game idea is to shift power around to whatever they want (which turns out to generally be themselves), rather than to advocate for a system where each individual has self-sovereignty. In other words, the problem is the very existence of this system that allows or facilitates coercive power over others, NOT that such a system should be shifted to be used in the way that the person thinking decides is best. We should not give more power to black people, or women, or homosexuals: We should protect the power of each individual over their own life; strip away the (coercive) power of others over them.
Trying to understand why the opposite party thinks or that is a good thing. What if you have changed your mind and used to think like them, and thus, for a large part, already know what they think how they think? I am an ex-leftist and I really know what crosses most of leftists' minds - and to be honest, I have no time for that.
Many of us, though too few, want to care for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors if needed, and we want to do it ourselves. We don't need or want politicians to confiscate the product of our labor and enterprise to buy votes for themselves. From whom do they buy votes? They buy votes from the recipients of their generosity, from the bureaucrats they hire to administer it, and from those who don't do charitable work but can avoid guilt because "we" are doing good, even if it's with other people's resources.
McWhorter is mistaken in deciding God is what he imagined men meant by God, a projection of themselves and selves he considers himself obviously better than, more "modern" than. Jesus said "God is Spirit." The scriptures repeatedly declare that Spirit saying "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." Taoists say "no thought, no feeling.' McWhorter moves in a very narrow realm yet feels he has to push out the eternal. He thinks he knows. I took the challenge to know the truth and find freedom. I know now not to care at all what he believes. It was a long long road and I am almost out of here.
Wow, what an impressive individual John is, I love listening to him. That story of what his mom told him when he asked about the difference between college-educated vs those who dont go to college is such an indictment on current college students and grads. Shared with kindness, of course, but an indictment nonetheless. The perspective and well-roundedness that a college education should offer society is sadly no more. In fact, I am seeing less tolerance and openness in college students than in others who havent gone to college. It’s frankly a cancer in society right now, not an edifying source for our youth and future.
Wow. Okay, I plead gulity, guilty, guility when it comes to Loury, Owens, and Thomas. Less so with Sowell but, yes, I have assumed ulterior motives. Without even *thinking* about it. And that's the problem. John McWhorter has a rare condition. He's hate-impaired. Sadly, I used to think I was too.
In Albion's Seed, David Hackett-Fischer traces the histories of competing concepts of freedom in the US. books.google.com/books?id=eq5oAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Hazony doesn't acknowledge that certain global problems, such as wmd proliferation and mega terrorism may require globe spanning power to control. To return to his Tolkien doctrine, its explicit that the reemergence of sauron is inly possible because of the decline and inward focus of the good powers. His concept of relatively small poses (Belgium, anyone?) combining by choice occasionally without strong us presence and leadership doesn't convince me
The divide is actually pretty simple. There are the people who got screwed economically by globalization which shipped all of our manufacturing power to China and, in the process, destroyed the American Dream for over a hundred million working class Americans. And then, there are the people who benefitted greatly financially be deliberately throwing those hundred million working class Americans under the bus, and the professional class who supported them. The disenfranchised working class turned into MAGAs. The elite class who benefitted from globalization are the anti-Trumps. A caveat to all this is the 1% love Trump while publicly stating they hate him. Why? Trump and the MAGAs get their support because Trump lowers their taxes, tears down all rules that interfere with their money making, will never allow any of their wealth to be shared with the rabble (especially his base, ironically enough) and will let them privatize everything turning them from billionaires into trillionaires. While the MAGAs recognize the puppets, the members of the Democrats and old style conservative Republicans, as their enemy and want Trump to get retribution against them and to drain the swamp of them (he's already drained the old style conservative Republicans), the MAGAs can't seem to get their heads around the fact that the puppet masters (rich white men) are really their enemies. In their small minds rich white men are to be revered regardless.
Could I send a message to ever single public speaking venue, especially those in universities: You can cut out the introduction speaker. None of us want to hear them. We don't know who they are and what they're saying. Just cut it out. ESPECIALLY on university campuses it's ALWAYS just some unbearable school administrator stroking their own ego.
Well, he's doing what gets him paid. Playing the POC that drills down on this boogeyman of "the Left" while hand waving any issues that the Right has. He gives them a pass in any and all situations to make conservatives feel like they are themselves the victim of something. Rinse repeat...
JM - Great in most areas but suffers from the hubris many intelligent people suffer from: assuming "science" has all the answers. Ironically, that faith in "science" has reached a level that can only be called religious.
We BETTER be able to talk across the divide, because as a classical liberal, so-called "conservatives" get it half right and so-called "liberals" get it half right.
"The personal is the political" is cult-like brainwashing phraseology. The personal is definitionally private and the political is definitionally public; so it's a barely veiled version of saying "The private is public" and belongs with phrases such as "black is white" and "up is down".
“*SEDITIOUSLY and CONTRARY TO PUBLIC PEACE…*” "The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98 “The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion.” Charles Pinckney, Constitutional Convention, 1787 "If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548 “As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." George Washington “Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.” George Washington - letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792 STEDFAST church Pastor: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L61723RQpb8.htmlsi=bOHnJF5JCITJRNwn All Scripture Baptist Church Pastor: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AIwuhBA6WQo.htmlsi=7X4EqyzwBBg8T6yu Arizonan Pastor Steven Anderson: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AIwuhBA6WQo.htmlsi=7X4EqyzwBBg8T6yu Pure Words Baptist Church Pastor: www.metroweekly.com/2023/02/preacher-asks-god-to-kill-gay-people-in-slow-painful-death/ Sure Foundation Baptist Church Pastor: Spokane pastor's anti-trans speech condemned by religious leaders after going viral | The Spokesman-Review: www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/may/25/spokane-pastors-anti-trans-condemned-by-religious-/ Shield of Faith Baptist Church Pastor: Local Pastor calls for LGBTQ people to be 'put to death’: www.kivitv.com/news/bpd-local-pastor-calling-for-lgbtq-people-to-be-put-to-death-is-not-hate-speech-under-idaho-law New Hope Baptist Church Pastor Curtis Knapp: “‘If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.’ Oh, so you're saying we should go out and start killing them? No, I'm saying the government should. They won't, but they should.” Providence Road Baptist Church Pastor doesn’t understand where gay people come from: “Build a great, big, large fence, 150 or 100 mile long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified till they can't get out. Feed 'em. And you know what? In a few years they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce.” Mississippi state Rep. Andy Gipson, who is reportedly a minister at an undisclosed Baptist church, made a recent post on Facebook invoking Leviticus 20:13, a passage from the Bible that allegedly requires the death of LGBT people: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." In the ensuing uproar Gipson refused to apologize, saying he has overwhelming support: "To be clear, I want the world to know that I do not, cannot, and will not apologize for the inspired truth of God's Word."
Jefferson's expanded view on poverty: “I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.” Thomas Jefferson “I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality... Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses... The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist had he intended man for a social animal without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule." --Thomas Jefferson to T. Law, 1814. * It is a duty certainly to give our sparings to those who want; but to see also that they are faithfully distributed and duly apportioned to the respective wants of those receivers." --Thomas Jefferson to Megear, 1823. * "The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812. The Obligation to Provide Asylum: "Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution, indeed, has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?" --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:338 "America is now, I think, the only country of tranquility and should be the asylum of all those who wish to avoid the scenes which have crushed our friends in [other lands]." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Church, 1793. FE 6:289 "It [has] been the wise policy of these states to extend the protection of their laws to all those who should settle among them of whatever nation or religion they might be and to admit them to a participation of the benefits of civil and religious freedom, and... the benevolence of this practice as well as its salutary effects [has] rendered it worthy of being continued in future times." --Thomas Jefferson: Proclamation, 1781. Papers 4:505
Mcwhorter only talked about one side of the divide. As if it’s only a problem on the left. No criticism of the right. The intolerance on the right by maga, gop is worse. How can he be taken seriously.
There are black ppl who are grifters just like there are white ppl who are grifters. Grifters come in every race, ethnicity, color, religion, political persuasion. Candace Owens is a grifter. She says what her white right wing audience wants to hear. Political grifters are opportunists. They don’t care what their kids think. They can be embarrassed but they can’t be shamed. When asked about his legacy Rudy Giuliani said fk my legacy.
The way the algorithm works really exacerbates what's already an issue, by shielding the person from just different (never mind opposing) views, even from the same source. For example, I see people, who I know are on the woke side, share a quote from John Cleese, about the use of the word "snowflake" (which was once almost exclusively used by the right to demean people on the Left for being overly sensitive, but which was since replaced by the word "woke" used by both sides and even Cleese himself, who has become actively anti-woke), and the people still sharing said quote from him are unaware of his current views on wokeness, so the same people who adore him, one minute, will quickly turn on him, disappointed, but also say it's not surprising because he's a sad case of an old, privileged white male, all the usual "rhetoric" by the woke Left, to dismiss views, without any effort to debate and understand. And so the algorithm separates the content it present people with so effectively that they're unaware of the same person's other views, until someone...like me...points it out for them. I probably miss stuff the algorithm doesn't shove in front of me, too.
Can you give an example of conservatives ALSO refuse to make "any effort to debate and understand". If we're ever gong to get out of this divisive spiral, BOTH liberal/progressives (the actual Left in the U.S. is TINY) and conservatives must do some self-examination and listening to one another
@@user-cz5lj2vx1f Actually, conservatives have been the ones who used to refuse any effort to debate and understand the other side, on a number of different issues, ranging from religion to gay rights, to climate change, and general acceptance of science...etc. simply because of their religious faith and or because they believed the slant/propaganda of their own news, rather than objective reporting/evidence. A decade ago, they were still the easiest example of people guilty of such behavior, of plugging their ears and going la la la la, and listening only to their own side, but now...the democrats, progressives, liberals (same same same, no matter how much they want to say they're not - yes the 'woke' left IS a minority, and yet it still hijacks conversations and the steering wheel of its side - same thing on the right) they have become guilty of the same behavior, alarmingly fast, refusing to even acknowledge that they may be multiple angles to an issue, to a truth, focusing only on a particular positive side, and refusing to admit to the existence of the negative aspects or vice-versa.
I enjoy listening to John and reading his books! Unfortunately, he is too firmly rooted in the world of academia which is only a small part of the real world.
