Democratic lawmaker criticized for tweeting names of Trump donors

So in your mind, anyone who has dark skin is political? You honestly think gang-bangers stand around spending their days wondering who to vote for? Given that only about 50% of Americans who can legally vote actually do so, do you really think your composite photo is an actual representation of voting history or political affiliation? Half the perps on your little photo are from drug related crimes - you think they told themselves they were killing rival dealers because of their political leanings?

Really?

Really?

Really?

Really?

Really?

 

Do you think it was a good idea to publish this list in such an emotionally charged atmosphere?

 

It's not your ordinary Democrat, or even your ordinary liberal. The problem is, people with 'ordinary' beliefs find it difficult to compete with those who claim to be fighting for the same cause, but are more ardent, more well-organized, have a well-rehearsed set of beliefs to justify their more extreme views, and most importantly, are in a position in which they can influence belief: journalists, teachers, college professors.

I don't know how old you are, but I remember John F Kennedy and the people who voted for him (my whole family and most of my neighbors in Houston). The closest the Democrats have to such a man now is Joe Biden (I'm not counting outliers like Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson). He just might get the nomination, but it will be the 'last Hurrah' of the old Democratic Party.

Like the Republicans, the Democrats as a party are subject to control by their most active, which usually means most extreme, members, as moderated by the views of their big donors. If you read about the takeover of the Democrats in 1972 you can see that this is not a new phenomenon.

But what we have today is a sea-change in the views of the Democrats' 'thinking classes': these people, or those who trained them, or those who trained their trainers, were molded in their fundamental world-outlook by the 60s: before the 60s, liberals believed that the US was a flawed, but basically sound democracy, with the McCarthyite period being the exception to the rule -- and look what happened to him, repudiated by the Republicans themselves. They looked forward, not without reason, to steady social progress.

Then came Vietnam. The Civil Rights movement added some extra animus to their views, but since it mainly won everything it was fighting for, I don't think it was the real cause of the deep, profound, and above all permanent alienation of the generation of liberals who grew up in that period, and who went on to become the American intellectual and semi-intellectual class: its professors and teachers and journalists. For them, America is My Lai, and their heroes are the Viet Cong and NVA.

The orthodox Hard Left beliefs of many of them were disappointed by the events of the 70s and 80s, above all by the conversion of Russia and China to capitalism, also by the victory of Third World revolutions which brought kleptocrats or Islamist fanatics to power instead of more Cubas. The election of Ronald Reagan didn't help either, and his knocking of Nicaragua off the revolutionary path. Clinton's victory was not unwelcome to them, but he was a triangulator. They got a few victories under Clinton, but not enough.

So their deep alienation remained -- in the Academy, it took the form of a turn to 'post-modernism' for a while. That seems to have died off a bit, replaced by a turn to 'identity politics', which necessarily demonizes whites. Given the Republican leanings of a lot of white workingclass people, it was easy for the Left to effectively abandon their original "Black and White, Unite and Fight" class-solidarity politics, especially since most ideological Leftists today are privileged upper-middle class secular college educated people who have nothing but scorn for their religiously-minded social inferiors who make their living installing cable instead of designing websites. So they positively exult in the idea that soon America will be a country in which the poor, oppressed, and totally virtuous Black and Browns will have the whip hand, aided by their white transgender, etc allies (living in gated communities as far away as they can get from their allies, of course).

This is not going to be reversed, and so we have to start thinking ten or twenty years ahead, and working out what to do to rescue as much of civilization as is realistically possible. If principled conservatives don't do this, then some really unpleasant people will do it for us, and we'll get the choice of living in the Peoples Republic of Virtue vs the Third Reich redivivus on American soil.

 

HOLY CRAP!!!! That's the greatest reach I've heard in days.

 

I think he killed for the reasons he stated in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting. Sorry, but you can't just make stuff up. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

 

And that's the argument, isn't. I'll ask a few simple questions: Is there a justification for violating the right's of an individual to protect the greater good, as say in drug laws? Anti-Abortion laws?, Minimum mark up laws? Minimum wage laws? Do you support government permission to broadcast, (licenses, permits, certificates), to sell lemonade? To bay another business? To demand the usage of ethanol? The EPA? The SEC? The Fed? Social Security? And on, and on, and on, until...one day the Right and Left both will support a tax on breathing in order to pay for the CO2 humans exhale.

The Right is becoming the party of Fascism and deluding themselves in believing they are the moral alternative to the Left. They aren't. Capitalism is. It's sad I know, but sometimes the truth is.

"It is generally understood that those who support the “conservatives,” expect them to uphold the system which has been camouflaged by the loose term of “the American way of life.” The moral treason of the “conservative” leaders lies in the fact that they are hiding behind that camouflage: they do not have the courage to admit that the American way of life was capitalism, that that was the politico-economic system born and established in the United States, the system which, in one brief century, achieved a level of freedom, of progress, of prosperity, of human happiness, unmatched in all the other systems and centuries combined—and that that is the system which they are now allowing to perish by silent default.

If the “conservatives” do not stand for capitalism, they stand for and are nothing; they have no goal, no direction, no political principles, no social ideals, no intellectual values, no leadership to offer anyone.

Yet capitalism is what the “conservatives” dare not advocate or defend. They are paralyzed by the profound conflict between capitalism and the moral code which dominates our culture: the morality of altruism . . . Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/conservatives.html

Conservative Judges Reject Individual Rights--Yaron Brook

 

Why? Are they ashamed of what they are supporting?

 

You lost me with being trained by the evil teachers. Seriously??

 

My question is do you think it is a good idea to publish the names in such an emotionally charged atmosphere?

I do not. Someone can get hurt.

Do you?

 

No, I think Castro was wrong to have done it.

Nor has been a good idea to target journalists, actors and black people - but we see it every day from posters on this board and the President.

A President should simply not be singling out individuals as this one has done - look at the death threats that have come out of
his actions.

 

Public record, and what are they ashamed of. I was taught you live with your actions and decisions, not cower from them

 

I'm sorry i don't have the time to respond to all of that but I'll respond to your first question which on my view is the main one


No individual rights should not be sacrificed for the greater good. In fact thr concept of the greater good is faulty. The "greater good"
Is best preserved by self governance and the government existing to protect individual rights and to arbitrate between individuals whoes rights are in conflict.

The questions you ask are not simple at all you are just looking for simple answers so you can play gotcha.

 

I don't think I said 'evil'. Did I say 'evil'? Could you point out where I said 'evil'? If I did say that, I was quite wrong to do so. Let me repeat what I meant to say. ('Evil' ... how could I have said that? But show me where I did and I'll try to correct it immediately.)

What I said -- or wanted to say, don't know how that word 'evil' slipped in -- was that today's 'intelligentsia' -- its teachers, journalists, professors -- were trained by people whose basic -- perhaps unarticulated -- views stem from those adopted by my generation of young people who went into the 'liberal professions': they grew up on the view of America as imperialist killer. Over the years, as the various forms of Marxism that were prevalent at that time evaporated in the hot sun of reality, what these people retained was that basic attitude: the US is no good.

Now, sure, this was not 100%. Probably, if you add up all teachers and all college professors -- the ones at Harvard and Stanford and U of Wisconsin at Madison etc. lumped in with Iowa Baptist College and East Texas Teachers Training College -- not even a majority. I'm talking about the institutions that train our ruling class. And I'm not talking about professors of engineering or even of economics, but about the people teaching the squishy subjects, especially the so-called social sciences, which is what our opinion-forming intelligentsia study.

This is why at elite colleges, the Communist Angela Davis -- a 'distinguished professor of philosophy' despite having not one work of philosophy to her name -- will be an honored guest at elite colleges, whereas Charles Murray -- a real scholar, even if you don't like his conclusions -- will be physically attacked even if he manages to get an invitation.

I could give you literally hundreds more examples like this, but (1) I don't have the time, and (2) few people like perusing disconfirming evidence for their own views. When this reality is raised with most liberals/progressives, they simply say, oh, the academy is Left because it's the Left who believe in reality, and reality is Leftist, plus, your side are so stupid, and we don't hire stupid people to teach college.

I said it was Vietnam, and those pictures of napalmed children, which set in concrete the views of America for my, and subsequent, generations of professors and the like, atthough we were also shaped by the Civil Rights movement. I also said that the latter largely achieved its goals. But I was probably too hasty there -- for while the changes in the law that the Civil Rights movement wanted were changed, the condition of life for Blacks did not undergo the radical alteration that was expected.

So that had to be blamed on capitalism -- ie whites -- as well. Thus otherwise intelligent people believe, or more likely, pretend to believe, the most arrant nonsense where the race question arises.

For example, if I asked a liberal school board to teach white children that they are descended from Adam and Eve, I would be laughed out of the room. But if I -- metamorphosed into a Black person -- and asked them to teach Black children that they are descendend from Ancient Egyptians, whose science included astrology, psychokinesis, and psychoenergetics -- well, I would have my insane materials adopted right away for use by them.

Now this would not have happened before the deep change in left-liberal thinking that occurred as a result of the Vietnam War.

And although I don't think I used the word 'evil' to describe this sort of mentality on the part of liberals, I might make an exception in this particular case: not only evil, but racist, reflecting a deeply-held view that Blacks are not really capable of the rational thinking that we want to educate white children to engage in, but rather must be taught insane mysticism to bolster their pride.

 

And yet donnie keeps taking plays out of the Hitler playbook

Demonize the press
Check
Blame all our problems on a defenseless race/nationality
Check
Ignore the Constitution
Check

 

Got it. So its a secret conspiracy led by smart people who you hate and envy. And odd that all the racists identify as republican

Oops

 

Let me guess. You probably think that blacks have the same freedoms and opportunities as whites in the US, and that racism doesnt exist

 

Thank you. I agree.

Well, "target" is a loaded term (as it were). Surely you don't think journalists, actors and black people are immune from criticism simply because of their race or profession!

Why not? It seems much more reasonable than making blanket criticism. Death threats are the coin of the realm these days. Protesters suggested that Mitch McConnell should be stabbed in the heart!

 

Wait. You criticize Castro for making a list of individuals ... then you praise Trump for making a list of individuals ... and you
see not the slightest hypocrisy in your response?

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

 

No, gangbangers are told who to vote from from gang leaders who get their directions from ward healers.

Trump is criticizing politicians and other public figures who have entered the public square and made their views widely known.

Castro is fingering private citizens.

I see a difference, so their is no hypocrisy.

 

He's criticized public and private figures. You lose the debate when you lie

 

Which private figures? What are their names?

 

No, gangbangers are told who to vote from from gang leaders who get their directions from ward healers.

 

Gold star parents, military leaders, the entire intel community

Need more?

 

You sure? I was sure they were under the direction of Planned Parenthood and George Soros

 

Silly. You honestly think that gang members vote? Given that most elections have less than a 50% turn out and that millions of Americans aren't even registered, you come to the conclusion that some 20 year old gang member is politically active?

Really?