Pure freakinomics argument. I think it’s incredibly stupid to put money towards art when people are literally dying from lack of food and water in this world. Obviously my argument is much more in depth, but that’s the jist of it.
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POTUS?
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After LBJ signed the Civil Rights act in 1964, the Republicans were able to take over the south, as LBJ predicted. The “Dixiecrats” had already walked out when Truman went all pro-civil rights in the '40s. A lot more went after LBJ signed that act. So, unfortunately for Democrats, they had sent their shittiest people to the Republican party, AND those that didn’t leave (not out of principle, because they were indeed racist and probably wanted to leave, but out of wanting to hold their offices) still have hung around for some time, hence Robert Byrd (and I’m sure, others). It sucks to have such a shitty party history, but we need only look forward - I only saw right wing outrage when we legalized gay marriage. And every single neo-nazi or white nationalist hate group in the nation unanimously and openly supported Trump for president. Check their endorsements for yourself, if you like. I’m aware of my party’s past, but I’m more concerned with who’s shitty now than who spent more time being shitty. The democrats win the latter, the republicans, IMO, win the former.
What’s tough is dealing with my VERY liberal family as I try to defend police officers and the average republican voter. I don’t get flamed, per se, but their nods in agreement seem hollow, and I can tell that they’re okay with all of the nonsense going on right now. I’m not, and I’m plenty vocal about it to them. It comes from them being in a liberal bubble their entire lives, and me spending 4 years in the Marines followed by a year as a Corrections Officer followed by 5 years in a trade dominated by deep red trade workers. I’ve run into too many good people whose political views I find abhorrent to believe a political belief means you’re inherently a bad person.
Who knows - if the next republican candidate is not another egomaniacal reality TV star, and the next democratic candidate is another Joe Biden (who I am just mortified to be associated with), I may have to vote cross-party, so whether I’m welcome or not, maybe I’ll see you there.
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QFT. Really good point
Yet here we are in 2020, where the Democrats continue to promote race-based policy solutions and an array of policies that, when implemented unopposed, gives us outcomes that are demonstrably disastrous for poor people of all races. Plus the policy changes. FAST. What was sensible Democrat policy 10 years ago is racist today. Last I checked, our cities are on fire and a group of open Marxists are the darlings of the media and Hollywood.
I’ve written about the importance of this as well. I don’t lay the outcomes present in our cities at the feet of liberal voters. None of the terrible outcomes are intended by the vast majority of people who vote Dem in the modern era.
It all sounds good, after all. All of the BLM virtue signalling seems to be a huge hit too. Just don’t bring up the actual BLM policy positions or suggest that you may be opposed to them in any way and nobody will call you a racist and try to get you fired from your job.
Hear that, bigots?
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It’s even worse than that. One of my secret pleasures is pro wrestling. CM Punk tweeted that another wrestler, AJ Styles was a racist. Why? It wasn’t because of something Styles posted against BLM but because he didn’t post anything in support of BLM. Silence is racist now.
I’m very cynical of BLM, the virtue signaling, and all of the talk about change. However, I know better than to voice this opinion (which is partially influenced by my cultural upbringing so it should be safe) in certain company. It would not go down well to tell my coworkers, after the inevitable discussion on these issues, “yeah well, that’s all sounds good but if I were to sum up my feelings as concisely as possible it would be to say it’s all bullshit.” But the worse thing you can do is tell someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
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So putting both public shaming and legal consequences (punishable ‘hate’ speech law and job termination complicity) into action, effectively destroys the concept of free speech.
Isn’t that the way it’s been for a long time? I don’t think this is new. You likely can’t tell your boss to go F himself and not worry about being fired because of free speech. I think public shaming for other people’s opinions is fine. I think being able to fire someone you think says silly things is fine. I don’t think putting people in jail for it is.
I’m not saying tell boss to get stuffed.
But the progression of this will be, post something on internet - unrelated to your profession and on your own time, and getting the axe.
This already happens.
Also potential employers definitely check social media when reviewing applicants.
Agree with @cyclonengineer on this. This happened and was big in the news about that google engineer. He posted some controversial stuff and got canned.
I think sticking with T-nation, and away from facebook is a good career move. I think I like that it is anonymous. The bugs lately have been hard to put up with though.
I agree with both of you guys, putting legal ramifications like jail, fines, and inability to use free speech as a legal defense steps it up to a new level.
The next, even more self absorbed president will be building re education camps when it becomes against the law to say he sucks.
I think it’s terrible. The idea that you should be shamed for an opinion is childish. In a free country with an educated and mature populace, people should be allowed to express opinions and ideas without fear. It’s not about wrong ideas or bad ideas being the reason for shame as those ideas stand or fall on their own; it’s about different ideas that people cannot challenge intelligently getting sidestepped to instead attack the person. It’s coercion to avoid debate by people lacking in maturity, education, physical and emotional strength and intelligence. We are allowing the least able among us to dictate the narrative, create culture, define morality and shape society. A society cannot advance if people are afraid of being wrong because then, they won’t try and be right. We’ve been down this road before, from Henry VIII and Thomas More to the Catholic Church and heretics, Savonarola and the bonfire of the vanities, the Inquisition, Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, McCarthy. A fear based society cannot function. I doubt most of these woke cancel culture children even know any of those people and things I mentioned beyond Stalin.
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If this was about Bob getting shit-canned from a job for acting like an asshole on his free time I wouldn’t be too concerned.
This is the American Red Guard shaping up right before our eyes.
I should have used better words. I think its fine for someone to say they think you are an idiot based on your opinion. Fine being not punishable by law. They will likely have a rebuttal coming back to them anyways.
Well we need to quantify fear. I don’t think they should be jailed, or anything similar. But if the fear is being called an idiot, then maybe don’t mention that you think the earth is flat, or that this oil will cure cancer or something else idiotic.
Personally, I try my best to stay away from personal attacks and other forms of fallacious reasoning. I am not perfect though.
I also agree with your point about being open to debate. I try to be, and have changed positions on numerous topics.
I’ve heard this term frequently lately. Can you explain exactly what you mean by it?
One possible way that “defunding” police can be implemented: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/15/wake-calls-defund-police-albuquerque-creates-an-alternative-department/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
The fear is being labelled a racist or something and losing your job for not repeating the party line word for word without any questioning.
I had to take a class and one of the things we covered was white privilege. We saw a video and the example of white privilege was a young white man, dressed like a preppy (no stereotypes there), who didn’t have to earn anything he got. I asked the professor, “is that suposed to be me because that is not most white men.” The professor admitted that not all white men are wealthy or come from wealthy families but some do. But the party line is if you are white, especially a white male, you all get lumped together as privileged. You can deny it on here or in certain company, but in academia it is not a theory or a way to look at things but a fact that you cannot deny. It’s heresy to question it.
The Red Guard were Maoist Revolutionaries in 1960’s China. They share many characteristics with the fringes of our far left that seem to be coalescing under the very popular BLM banner.
The similarities seem quite obvious to me. Both are rooted in Marxist thought. Both groups are composed of mostly young people with a deep, deep sense of righteousness that doesn’t leave much room for disagreement. Disagreeing with the Red Guards, like BLM, isn’t merely an expression of differing policy ideas. It was proof that you were a bad person who needed to be dealt with.
They made it their business to rid China of “The Four Olds”. Old customs, old habits, old traditions, old ideas.This was in the larger context of the Cultural Revolution, when it wouldn’t have been a very good idea to go around spreading ideas like Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman.
This is quite sinister in my opinion because we’re getting straight-up Marxism packaged under a concept that’s almost universally supported in the USA right now, which is that black lives matter. Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, are open Marxists.
It seems self-evident to me that one can oppose BLM policy goals without being racist at all. Indeed the policy goals themselves are racist, unless you choose to apply a Marxist definition of racism. This is not a conversation that’s really possible right now, not without running a huge risk of being called racist and having a mob of sorts come after you. Maybe that’s an online outrage mob, maybe that’s your sister-in-law making sure you don’t see your nieces.
The real irony is that if we were, in fact, a deeply racist nation with a deeply racist police force, being called “racist” wouldn’t be a big deal at all. It is precisely because society has rejected racism so thoroughly that the accusations carry as much consequence as they do.
This fear of being called racist and the very real consequences one can face are shaping everything in front of us right now.
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Or you can do what Camden did: have the county take over, more than double the number of police and increase spending. There was a reduction of crime however. Imagine that happening, with twice as many cops.