Portland protests Aug. 17: What you need to know

Hmm... let's get some more American flags in there.
USA International Mathematical Olympiad team last year.


We beat the Russians into second place and the Chinese into third. Not a white kid in our team, but a lot of proud Americans. Who says we're against diversity?

 

What I find surprising is that these people have absolutely no sense of self-awareness. They actually think that this sort of thing is a witty riposte.
Now when you think, this is what our universities are turning out -- the social science and humanities departments anyway -- you want the taxes that paid for their Pell Grants back. Amazon will give you your money back if the product doesn't work, why not the Federal Government?

 

As @Fred C Dobbs said, unfortunately it's not like a rational argument. Of course we should be better at presenting our case, but how many Americans actually could sit through a debate lasting more than a few minutes? Or would read even one book? At the Lincoln-Douglas debates, each speaker spoke for an hour if he went first, then the other would then speak for an hour and a half, then the first could rebutt for 30 minutes.

That's three hours of intense intellectual combat. (See the Wiki entry for the Lincoln-Douglas debates to see all the complex issues they debated -- don't let a Lefty see what Lincoln thought about racial equality, though! The OathKeepers will have to guard that famous statue in Washington. Or you can read the transcripts of every one (there were seven) right here. )

Ordinary Americans, mainly farmers, stood for three hours to listen to these debates.

Things have changed! You can see the intellectual level of the Left right here -- a few honorable exceptions for sure, but by and large, the ones incapable of doing anything but saying 'racist-racist-racist' are truly representative of the Left today. And the ones here are probably the ones most interested in politics!!!

We have to reach the broad middle, and our own side, in other ways. Sharp, to-the-point YouTube videos, bumper stickers, rallies, etc. This is an art that has long been mastered.

But it's the content of the message that is critical. You're not going to reverse demographics, and most of what we have to say, actually, is the equivalent of "Don't Put Beans Down Your Ears". I mean, if you really have to make arguments that Michael Brown was not a martyr, or that girls are different from boys ... or that putting a transgender in command of a Marine rifle platoon and also making sure that a few of those Marines are nubile young women ... might not increase their fighting effectiveness ... you've lost already. We're not up against bad ideas, we're up against the very concept of rational thought itself.

So we're not going to bring the Old America back. But we may be able to take a piece of it away.

 

LOL.. You just won't give up huh? Riddle, where do you find endless identity differentiation and entitlement? Clearly not within the GOP, because why should we? We're all equal already. The only folks who don 't know and accept that are democrats these days. it's why, still, you find a welcoming environment across the spectrum of democrats to isolate, identify, and diversity catalog. It's like y'all still think you must inventory your slaves or something...

 

The principle behind modern American conservatism that the GOP embodies much more than the Democratic Party does these days is not to bring ALL of Old America back. Some of it we have evolved out of and moved past as we should have done. The trick is to reject what was not good about Old America while retaining the values and principles that made the United States of America the truly exceptional and amazing nation that it is.

Groups like Proud Boys are probably going about it in less than constructive ways but I think they might have the core principle at the center of what they are all about. I honestly haven't studied much about them, but just glanced over their website. Groups like ANTIFA, while I am pretty sure are made up mostly of thugs and hoodlums who love to rumble and riot and vandalize and terrorize and make trouble, has at its heart a hatred of all things America and Americans and would destroy it all if they could.

 

I agree with both of you, and I would add that one of the GOP's biggest problems is its inability to think and talk big. Democrats don't have this problem. Republicans have a tendency to get bogged down in policy and procedural minutiae that nobody cares about. To some extent, Trump is an exception. When he says "America will never be a socialist country", that's an example of thinking and talking big, and doing so in a plain, concise, digestible manner that is going to stick in people's heads. In our day and age when we're being bombarded with information and the news media deals entirely in soundbites, you have to be able to communicate like this. I also think you have to give your audience credit for being intelligent and letting them fill in the gaps themselves. I don't need a multifaceted dissertation about why America should never be a socialist country - I know all the human, economic and historical reasons why it shouldn't - I just need to hear my representatives make that commitment. I'd like to hear Republicans talk more about individual freedom and big government and we need to hold their feet to the fire on these things.

 

I can't find a thing to argue with you about here. I agree whole heartedly that the Republicans are much too much policy wonks and, while most do understand the big picture, they ignore it in their rhetoric.

President Trump is really no Republican, no partisan of any kind. And he is no ideologue which frustrates some on the right and drives the left crazy. He is a 'what is the problem' and 'let's fix it' kind of guy and doesn't really consider party or ideology beyond that. Which is why I think as imperfect as he is, he is maybe perfect for this time and place in American history.

 

Taking pictures and writing words ABOUT that mob.... bad move... I'm sure he realizes it now... but hindsight is 20/20

 

Yeah, reporting on fascists like antifa usually resorts in them being violent.

I guess we should just do what they say or we deserve what we get.

Nice to see blaming the victim hasn't gone out of style by the left.

 

But racists are not victims!

Webster Definition of ANTIFA: A group that labels anyone racist in order to justify violence against them

 

Yes... start doing that....

 

Definitely need an unmasking rule. I also favor designating Antifa as a domestic terror group.
The last riot was so boing it was barely covered by the media.

 

Were you hoping it was a bigger riot, so it would get more media coverage??

Of course you were... Let's not kid ourselves...

Quite Riot.... Dibs on Band Name...

 

I get your point, but if he's not "white", that middle boy could certainly "pass" in most neighborhoods...

 

I was. I really wanted to see some Antifa get their butts kicked. Most of them were hiding in the bushes though.

 

Better luck next time...

But the point is you are talking about Antifa, instead of whatever tripe the right was purportedly there to rally for....

Winning!

 

Does your interpretation of "diverse" mean "all other colors except white"?

 

Yes, I wondered about him too. But check out the names of the team ... I think he's the 'Reserve' and his name doesn't appear in the team's names. I probably should check further ... sort of a mystery. Here's the full set of names:
The 2018 U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team is: Adam Ardeishar, Andrew Gu, Vincent Huang, James Lin, Michael Ren, and Mihir Singhal.
Ardehishar is Indian, Ren is Chinese (I mean their genomes are, they are Americans)...Six names, seven photographs, and I think our lonely Caucasian is the Reserve (in case a team member gets sick ... as I recall).

 

I guess we'll just have to hurt your feelings.

Feel free to try and force compliance though.

 

I don't think AntiFa are thugs and hoodlums, except in the way they behave. I would say that it's a universal law, that the thug/criminal element is always a tool of the existing authorities, starting at least with Napoleon III's mobilization of the Parisian lumpenproletariat in support of his coup against the Second Republic and demonstrated most recently in Hong Kong. The exception is when there is a racial divide, and the lumpens are of one race and the dominant authorities of another: the Black Panthers were largely based on this layer.

I would like to see a study of the social composition of AntiFa. Modern capitalism is so productive that young people can live on practically no money, with welfare if they can get it, casual jobs, shoplifting, drug dealing, especially if they come together and share rent and food. I saw this a lot in the Bay Area in the early 70s. But it would be good to see an actual systematic investigation.

 

I'll go with the dictionary definition... I find that's the best way to go in most circumstances..

Diverse = showing a great deal of variety; very different.

 

So by using your logic, we have yet to have a Black president (going off the dictionary definition of black)

 

The Federal Government needs to pass a Federal Law banning anyone from wearing a mask during a demonstration/riot. Make it a Class D Felony to do so, the masks will come off quick when they start dragging folks away with a soon to have Felony on their record.

 

A lot of the best people do, (cough cough). At least three of the founding members of the National Review editorial board were former Marxists.

If you're a serious Marxist, you learn to take ideas seriously. You learn the importance of organization, and join one.

You have to read a ton of stuff. You find yourself leading Study Groups on the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the Minneapolis General Strike of 1934... You are in an organization which teaches self-abnegation, discipline, subordination of your immediate desires to a higher purpose.

Sort of like the old conservative virtues, come to think of it.

 

Well, I use a dictionary of English words, not a Stephen Miller Racist Dictionary (Ask for it by name!)