How To Stop The Alt-Right

I figured as much! No, seriously, I basically agree with what you're saying, although maybe not quite the way you put it. No one "behaves in a purely rational manner', that I agree with. We are prisoners of our perceptions, Kant made that clear centuries ago. I prefer Sanatyana's solution of "animal faith". At some point, we have to fall back on our animal instincts that there is a real world out there, and that logic, evidence experience and judgement can give us some idea about how it operates. I believe in using evidence-based reasoning to the maximum extent possible, and using intuitive risk taking or faith to fill in the gaps. If, as I think is likely, Trump and congressional Republicans proceed to try to dismantle basic hard won civil rights, environmental protection, and social programs, I expect people to wake up. Unfortunately, I think a lot of suffering will occur before this happens.

 

Quote: Progressives today believe you cannot be racist unless you're white, or sexist unless you're male. Racism is still everywhere. But it's not the type of racism you might expect. Here are some article headlines
"White men must be stopped. The very future of mankind depends on it"
"As a white man, I'm surprised more women aren't tweeting #Killallmen"
"Feminists don't hate men, but it wouldn't matter if we did"
"When whites just don't get it"
These headlines are considered acceptable by today's standards. Can you imagine what would happen if the roles were reversed? We have identity politics for everyone except white men. Other groups: blacks, gays, Muslims, women, Hispanics, etc. are not only allowed to advocate those group's interests, but they are allowed to be openly racist toward straight white men. Get rid of these bullshit double standards.


This is certainly nothing new. The difference is that it has been allowed to run amuck in our society lately by the Press. The other types of folks have successfully taken full advantage of it.
I think we'd be better off ignoring the Media's coverage of Black Lives Matter, George Soros (who funds such nonsense- he put seven figure income into the "show" in MO earlier this year.
If we start ignoring this crap, it all will no longer matter. They should all band our country together and prepare their rowdiness into combating ISIS (oh yeah, ISIL. lol).

 

The problem with your post is that you take the quote at face value instead of recognizing it as a caricature. "Progressives today believe you cannot be racist unless you're white, or sexist unless you're male." All or most progressives believe that? None I know. When Breitbart publishes outrageous headlines, it's just good ol' boys havin' some fun with those politically correct progressives. When somebody on the left does it, it's "so typical'. Show me the evidence that George Soros "put seven figure income into the "show" in MO earlier this year." What's gotten out of control is the AltRight fake news.

 

And I see you list a bitter history of university censorship. While many universities have had a bad history of prohibiting diversity and exchange of ideas, does it make it right to block anyone with an unpopular opinion from coming onto college campuses? Or academic faculty giving worse grades to students who have the contrarian viewpoints to the professors?
Does that make it right?

Colleges masquerade themselves as diversity hotbeds, so we should encourage them embrace intellectual diversity.

Not exactly. Students have the right to protest and exercise why they feel the college shouldn't host certain people. But sadly I don't think the average college student these days knows the difference between a racist and a conservative.

But when a college is faced with negative publicity by blocking speakers with contrarian viewpoints, they are usually hit with negative press and publicity. This has been proven to dissuade alumni donations and enrollment from new students.

University of Chicago made this statement to incoming students:

You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort. Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.

If I were a rich philanthropist, I'd donate to the UChicago.

Now compare that to Mizzou, who lost enrollment of 2200 students, lost millions of dollars in alumni donations. All for pandering to creating segregated safe spaces for black lives matter protestors and social justice warriors. Ironically, they had to shut down two dorms that were named Respect and Excellence, two things you lose when you pander to social justice warriors

 

It was a big mistake, admitted way too late. It didn't stop the feminist propagandists from running with the lies of rape statistics, which they continue to do so to this day. When change the definition of rape and sexual assault to include things like regret sex and unwanted looks from unattractive guys, then yeah that rape statistic would be accurate....

Not all lefties. Christina Hoff Sommers is a liberal democrat. Not all women are feminists either; polls and statistics show that 1/5th of all American women identify as feminists. No surprises there. Most women don't agree with the fringe misandric messages and lies perpetuated by modern feminists. Most women love men.

 

Looks like propaganda to me. I've known plenty of people who now make almost twice as much as their parents did when they were growing up. Just as I've known people who lost everything due to bad lifestyle choices.

Seems rather sociopathic to me to tell disadvantaged people there is no hope for them. But I guess that's what the left wants; a disadvantaged class they can exploit for votes for generations to come.

 

Okay. Here is proof of Soros spending millions toward the Ferguson, MO shenanigan. From a UK publication, so you can't say it's a bogus site in the U.S. Worse yet, it was eight figures, not seven.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2913625/Billionaire-George-Soros-spent-33MILLION-bankrolling-Ferguson-demonstrators-create-echo-chamber-drive-national-protests.html

Also, I found it humorous that you accused me of taking posts at face value. Don't we all?
I've never heard of recognizing a quote as a "caricature". I wasn't reading the comic section. Guess those "good 'ol boys in the UK felt the same way.
Perhaps you need to educate the UK press on how to do their job as well.

 

The daily mail is a bogus site in the UK lol

I dont care for ol' Soros myself, i'm tired of billionaires pulling strings from both sides of the political spectrum, but i do think its funny your only reference point for the daily mail being a reputable source is its not American.

 

I think it's funny that even though a Uk site is cited, that someone jumps on it anyway.
If I had shown a US site, it would have been critcized as an anti-liberal site. Arguing here, being conservative, is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. I'm outnumbered. School yard bs at its best! I've got to hand it to you all.
I feel like I'm on CNN. Lmao

 

Well the daily mail isnt really a serious news site. It would be like if I used US Weekly as a source. It has nothing to do with you being a conservative. conservatives outnumber liberals on HF these days anyways.

 

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Not propaganda at all. French economist Professor Thomas Piketty documents it thoroughly in his 700 page tome Capital in the Twenty-first Century. He shows that the rate of capital return in industrial countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that wealth inequality is real and growing, and that this will exacerbate wealth inequality in the future. Also, instead of all the tax cuts going to the "wealth creators' (more accurately wealth exporters) who supposedly will make us all rich through trickle down economics, the wealth is rapidly being passed on to their kids and gradn kids. The entrepreneurial generation is dying out. Of course there are exceptions, but the trend is toward income stagnation in the lower and middle echelons, while the rich get richer. I don't think its sociopathic to say that. It's just honest.

 

The Daily Mail is the pioneer of fake news- UK's National Enquirer. It's a notorious far right tabloid whose fake news and hate campaigns against minorities make it special. It 's been leading the charge to discredit climate change with false or misleading articles.http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/12/30/climate-change-misinformer-of-the-year-the-dail/197340 Its false story about a Burmese soldier tazing a toddler caused an international uproar. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/08/a-british-tabloid-stumbles-into-burmas-battle-over-fake-news/?utm_term=.2013a4b465d5This continues a decades old tradition for the paper. In the 30s, its proprietor, Lord Rothmore, was buddies with Hitler and Mussolini and the paper made its mark in history in 1924 by publishing the Zinoviev letter, a fake document purporting to show that British Communists were planning a takeover. (See, they were even doing it back then) The phony letter , published four days before the British election, resulted in the defeat of the Labour Party and earned the paper the nickname "Forgers Gazette".
https://thinkprogress.org/rosegate-becomes-dailymailgate-error-riddled-articles-and-false-statements-destroy-daily-mails-3191a122139c#.svy7kppic
http://realorsatire.com/dailymail-co-uk/
http://uinterview.com/news/george-clooney-condemns-daily-mail-for-false-reporting-british-tabloid-removes-article-in-question/

 

They kicked me out and threatened to sue me if I tried to rejoin. While I doubt such a thing is even possible, I wonder how many people they successfully stifle with this bully tactic. I visit through a proxy now and only comment on the really blatant crap they sling. The Daily Mail is run by a bunch of crybabies with royal backing swilling tea in their cushy digs near Hyde Park and Kensington. If left to real market forces they would have folded long ago.

 

I have never read Kant or Sanatyana, but as far as trusting our animal instincts, I don't think "the beast" as it has been put is really all that bad. Animals aren't cruel. Lions kill swiftly and gracefully, for instance, without prejudice. Only creatures capable of rational thought are cruel and prejudiced. I would be hard pressed to accept that any person, based on instinct alone, feels the need to oppress other individual groups as a matter of personal survival. No, their suspicions and rational paranoia cause that.

If we operated more on instinct, apart from the swath of humanity that have personality disorders, I believe we would protect each other against those that want to persecute us. Because where others' survival is endangered our own personal survival is endangered as well.

There comes a point where instinct and reason are unified. But, unfortunately, when it gets to that point, it's usually too late. The lion has you in its grasp, and you fight for dear life. History should be enough to teach us by now what happens when people acquire too much power, and reason should dictate that we take a stand right now. I think people have learned that lesson, and I think where history teaches dictators that people are easy to control, history has taught the masses that those in power cannot be trusted. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and I really think people are going to stand up to Trump. And not only Trump and the Republicans, but the Democrats as well, who aren't true progressives at all anymore -- who are also totally in the pocket of big business. Largely due to Bernie Sanders, progressives have seen a glimpse of a brighter future, and it's just too bright to allow these greedy egotists trample it under their feet for no good reason other than their personal glory.

I hope we have learned that lesson and that not too much suffering will occur before we utilize the power that we have and force the tyrants to obey. Any time we want, we can shut the whole show down. Unfortunately, a lot of people are under the impression that Trump himself, despite all evidence, is going to be a shock to the system somehow. The only way I can legitimately see this happening is that he, through his ineptitude, will expose completely that the emperor has no clothes. The whole system is bound to appear entirely ridiculous if this man, of all men, is "the most powerful man in the world."

People think he's going to be some kind of Adolf Hitler or Mussolini, but I think our culture's psyche has simply evolved past that possibility. Even the mainstream "state" media isn't going to go turncoat and take the silly things this man will inevitably say and do seriously. Hitler and Mussolini weren't bumbling fools (though there were people at the time who could see them for the fools that they were.) Trump is a bumbling fool. He's not a master populist like Hitler. The only reason he has attained a mass following, in my opinion, is precisely because people want to make light of things. His followers are having a good time with making a mockery of it all. I think it actually has very little to do with the alt-right and their neo-fascist dreams. Although much of the alt-right would claim they aren't fascists at all, and really more align with what I am saying, that Trump is a tribute to simply fucking things up, for better or worse, out of sheer ridiculousness.

On the other hand, being the most powerful man in the world and being a bumbling idiot can also be very dangerous on the world's stage, and hopefully Trump will not inadvertently lead us into a larger war. Given that Trump is our leader, I think it would be ultimately very unclear as to who are the good guys in such a war, and, again, hopefully the American people will be able to use our power to force Trump into alignment with our reason and avoid such conflicts.

 

Given the rapid progress the North Koreans are making with their nuclear and missile programs, I'm worried that Trumps' first crisis will be a confrontation with Kim Jong un, two demented schoolyard bullies facing off on the global playground!

 

Would you tell your child they cannot achieve their wildest dreams because a French economist says it's unlikely?