"I’m sorry I was born white and privileged. It disgusts me. And I feel so much shame,"

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by jay runner, Aug 7, 2019.

  1. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    On the faction on the Right that deplores the American involvement in WWII.

    There has always been a faction, sometimes called the 'Old Right' or the 'Paleo Right', who have had this position. It's never been at all mainstream, not with the conservative thinking elite, and certainly not with the patriotic conservative base.

    Some of them are just eccentrics, but I suspect a lot of them don't harbor, how shall we put it, a burning hatred of Nazi-ism. Some of them are the same people who will challenge you on Auschwitz and the Holocaust, mutter about 'Jewish power' in the US, etc.

    Just as the Left does, the Right attracts a certain type of crank, often a well-read one, who enjoys being a kind of contre le courant martyr. They will also tell you that Wall Street bankers financed the Bolsheviks, and there is even one fellow -- on this forum -- who believes, on the basis of a cartoon by a Marxist cartoonist -- that they financed Karl Marx.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2019
  2. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course this is entirely true. Macaulay said that the worst thing in the world was to see the power of civilization, without its mercy. He was talking about the British in India at the time, not in general, but a particular person.

    As for Rommel, the 'Desert Fox' was revered by the British even more than by the Germans. Here is a typical example. There has been a bit of myth-making about him, which anyone interested can read about here. In Parliament, Winston Churchill was explaining the difficulties the British forces were facing in North Africa, and added that one of these difficulties was "may I say, across the havoc of war, a great general."
     
  3. Sobo

    Sobo Banned

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    Pinochet saved Chile.
     
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  4. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    You could not grow a full beard if you tried, you dont have the genes for it, true Anglo Saxons do.
     
  5. Sobo

    Sobo Banned

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    I could grow a full beared if i wanted to. But its not allowed in my job.
     
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  6. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    I think they're resisting efforts to get rid of people who have established themselves here, especially DACA types. Many are sympathetic to "family reunification" (aka "chain migration"). I think all but a wooly minority realize there have to be limits and limits mean borders.
    I think a lot of people on the left think moving a larger share of the pie to lower income groups is needed.
    Violent young black males are a product of our society, and I'd be careful amount making too many generalizations about the mentality of white students on "elite campuses." Many settle into using white privilege when it's time to look for a job.
    I don't see the radicalization on campus you do. Do you have numbers you can provide?

    Communists are no longer tied to foreign powers and have ceased to be a major concern.
    Highly anecdotal. Can you generalize based on your experience?
    The old elites haven't been able or willing to meet the needs of a middle class under threat, or of a world faced with the threat presented by climate change. It's not surprising new activists on the left and right are opposing the status quo.
     
  7. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What 'group' are you talking about?
     
  8. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    Then Chile had to save itself from Pinochet.
     
  9. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    Antifa.
     
  10. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Your pictures say you cant. It would be too patchy and scruffy.
    When you are self employed, you can do as you please.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2019
  11. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The 'Trumpites' are like Antifa? Is everyone who supports the President a 'Trumpite' ? Would the same rule apply to the Bidenites as well?
    "They" do plural and "one" guy singular. That's not much of a movement.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2019
  12. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Some Republicans have tried to put forward a compromise bill that, while not allowing chain migration, goes some way to meeting the situation of DACA people. It's just an impression, but from my knowledge of ordinary conservatives, not activists or politicians, I don't think there would be a lot of hostility to some solution that didn't take a kid who was brought here when he or she was two, raised here, and is in every sense but the legal, an American, and send them to Mexico.

    A proposal that really did close the border to illegal entry, policed employment, but did allow promiscuous chain migration. The problem is that any DACA style proposal treats people who came here or were brought here illegally, better than those who followed the rules. And despite swearing up and down that this is a one-off, it sends the message that we'll do it again. Perhaps something that required an extra-extended period of residence before gaining full citizenship might work. There has been a huge amount of demagogery about the conditions of detained illegal immigrants, but I doubt most ordinary conservatives would oppose some non-partisan investigation and proposal for humane treatment.

    The root of the problem is the atrocious conditions in El Salvador and Honduras. Although I'm constitutionally against American meddling in other countries' internal arrangements, there might be some way we could help patriotic military men in those countries, who probably don't want to see the gangs running things in their countries, to deal with the problem. Latin American militaries, with various sorts of help from the US, have a well-founded reputation for being able to literally purge their societies of elements they see as undesirable. Perhaps a solution could be found there. Amnesty International would have to look the other way though.

    It's all about 'framing'. The right sort of program -- Trump hinted at this -- which would have as its result the economic pulling up
    the American working class, would probably get a lot of support. For the 23rd time, I will say it: many social conservatives are
    economic liberals (not in the Austrian sense, but in the FDR sense).


    I don't know what you mean by 'white privilege' when looking for a job. If we're talking about elite colleges, then the white kids are at the top of the heap in terms of intellectual ability. They don't need any white privilege. They have 'class privilege'. I assume the Black kids who graduate from these colleges do get the same the same Black privilege they did when they got into these colleges, otherwise called 'Affirmative Action'.

    Of course young black males are a product of our society. All of us are a product of our society. including young neo-Nazis. The question is, just how has society shaped their culture and values. Do we have the equivalent of young Jews in 1910, facing plenty of prejudice, or young Japanese in 1946? Is it the case that a young Black man who works hard at school, strives to succeed, gets as much eduacation as he can, avoids the gangs and drugs ... does that young man face serious discrimination when it comes time to find a job? Why is it the case that he will have a better chance of getting hired if he pretends he's a West Indian immigrant? [Can't source that last question, but I think it's widely believed. Black West Indians do better than native Blacks on all measures of economic success, although this may be a case of self-selection, ie an immigrant success story rather than a Black success story, but I don't see how that undermines the facts that we have two groups, both Black, both subject to white racial prejudice -- and one group does better than the other. Why?.]

    I'm sure I've mentioned the phenomenon of 'acting white', whereby a young Black in a mixed educational environment is seen as a race-traitor and pulled down by the other Blacks. How the hell do you fight that? (One answer might be selective, well-staffed, all-Black schools. But it would be heresy to propose it.)

    No numbers, and not sure how these would be collected, but tons of anecdotes. I doubt you read the same things I do, so you may have missed the incidents at various colleges. More significant to me have been the responses of various liberal academics, effectively justifying them. Not all liberal academics by any means, but enough to make me see a trend. The argument goes like this: if the German anti-fascists had resisted the German fascists more effectively in the time before Hitler took power -- when they were a weak small group -- they could have stopped them. Conservatives are the equivalent of fascists. Therefore ... There is also the idea that no one should have to hear anything that makes him/her/it uncomfortable -- the campus as 'safe space'.

    Jonathan Haidt, a principled liberal, has written a whole book about this. Also: Google Campus Anti-Fascist Network and you can find the elaborated rationalisation for campus violence. It's not 'radicalization' that I'm objecting too -- all young people are radical, until they get some real life experience (ask me how I know). It's the move toward a totalitarian approach to free speech. One of the most radical people in the 20th Century was the Polish communist Rosa Luxemburg, and I will buy 100% into her famous statement, "Freedom is always and everywhere freedom for the one who thinks differently." That's my kind of radical.

    For those who believe that people organized into groups, highly dedicated, who want to turn their country into Stalin's Russia or Mao's China are not a concern ... well, the more fool they.

    I'm a big reader, and try to follow the Popperian dictum of always seeking disconfirming evidence for my beliefs. Of course data are not the plural of anecdote, as the social scientists tell us, and I don't have meticulously-collected data for my views on this question. I've only occasionally looked in on forums dominated by young liberals, and it's always the same. If systematic data exists I would be happy to access it. (That might make a good PhD thesis, come to think of it -- the data is permanently saved on the internet. It's not likely to be one your typical sociologist would like to know about, however.)

    Like you, I have to synthesize my own personal experience, and the results of more systematic studies. One criterion for a belief is when your observation about one area, matches your observation about another. Inspect a platoon and note that it's poorly turned out, weapons are dirty, attitude is poor ... well, that's just one platoon. Inspect two or three more and find something similar ... and you start worrying. Check other things like officers' efficiency reports, court martial frequencies ... and if all or most of the evidence points in the direction of a general deterioration in standards, you had better believe it. Old Russian saying: first time, accident. Second time, coincidence. Third time ... law of nature.

    So true. If I had the money, I would put together a description of the complacency of the Old Regime in France in the years before the revolution, and the same for the Russian Czar, and circulate it among our millionaires and billionaires. In both cases there were loyal supporters of the regime screaming warnings but they were ignored. I guess ignoring the warnings did make for some exciting history later for us to read about.
     
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  13. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    No, but these particular Trumpites are enthusiastic supporters.
    Nah. Biden doesn't attract mindless supporters.
     
  14. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Freedom of choice is great! Too bad for the Germans.
     
  15. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your 'Trumpites' don't seem to be a very well organized bunch. So far you've said there was one but didn't mention a name.
    Yeah, he's got the support of the leftist intelligentsia sewn up.
     
  16. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, no, no, no, no! You cannot say that!!!


    judge.jpg
    Fifty days in the cooler!

    You must be more Politically Correct!

    African-American.jpg
    Don't let it happen again!!!
     
  17. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you Friseur? No, not 'Friesian'.
     
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  18. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

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    2 Thessalonians 2:11 Context

    8And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
    -------------------------------
    I'm not a christian but there's that...
     
  19. Sobo

    Sobo Banned

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    I work as a police officer. We have rules to look disciplined and not like a Neandertaler.
     
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  20. philosophical

    philosophical Well-Known Member

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    I don't know why there is talk of wars on this thread, all it does is remind old people like me that the poorest country in the world, North Vietnam, won a war against the richest country in the world, America.
    Suggests to me that existence on this earth is about more than money.
     
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  21. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yep. Me too.
    That's right.
     
  22. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    The democrat party stabbed the south vietnamese in the back and gave the war away to the communists
     
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  23. philosophical

    philosophical Well-Known Member

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    Is that the reason American lost that war?
     
  24. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    The US military won the war

    But the democrsts on congress gave the victory away
     
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  25. Thingamabob

    Thingamabob Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You have no idea what you are talking about. It was Saigon and Washington that took the American taxpayers to the cleaners with that make-believe story about two separate countries. Hanoi had nothing to do with it. Vietnam is one country and always has been.
     
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