A protest at UC Berkeley over a scheduled appearance by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos turned fiery and violent Wednesday night, prompting police to cancel the event and hustle the Breitbart News editor off campus. But even after the event’s cancellation, hundreds of protesters spilled off campus into the city streets, where the violence continued as they confronted drivers, engaged in fights, smashed storefront windows and set fires.
Protesters decried President Trump’s policies as much as they did the visit by Yiannopoulos, a gay conservative who has been making the rounds at college campuses across the country with his “Dangerous Faggot” talks, specializing in remarks meant to insult, offend and disgust liberals who disagree with his ideas.
More from Heat Street:
The violence began when hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrators forcefully disrupted a speaking event featuring the conservative firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos. The protests turned into full blown riots after “Antifa” rioters shot fireworks at the building in which the event was set to take place, smashing windows with police barricades and destroyed several large light fixtures. The Antifa members dressed in all black and wore gas masks and face coverings to hide their identity. These rioters led the most aggressive elements of the demonstration.
Police and campus administrators repeatedly ordered the mob to disperse, to which rioters responded with chants of “Fuck you! Fuck you!” and “Fuck Trump!”
Nice.
You will notice that last part appears to be an exact quote from Madonna at the Women’s March….
Some unpleasant ethics observations:
1. I wouldn’t cross my living room to hear Milo Yiannopoulos speak, for he is a mean and bigoted asshole of the first water. Then again, I wouldn’t go out to my deck to hear Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Bill Maher, Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee speak either. Nonetheless, a university is exactly the place for them to speak, and all of them have a right to speak. Moreover, those who are foolish enough to want to hear them have a right to hear them speak. That right is at the heart of our democracy.
This was a civil rights violation, exactly the kind that the current ACLU shows and the Obama Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division showed no interest in protecting. Needless to say—I hope—the fires and violence were also felonies.
2. This is the shape and tenor of “the resistance” that Democrats are recklessly advocating. This is the culture of anti-speech totalitarianism that progressives have been courting, from top toi bottom. (“If you support Betsy DeVos, writes a Facebook friend, let me know so I can de-friend you.” That’s your party, Democrats. Anyone who disagrees with you needs to be punished, hurt, silenced and shunned.) Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Hillary’s running mate, said Democrats must “fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box,” against the administration of President Donald Trump. See that Berkeley riot? That’s what “fighting in the streets” looks like, Democrats. Like it? Apparently.
Why should any responsible American entrust power with a party that opposes speech it disagrees with, and advocates violence in the streets as an alternative to working within the system?
3. I think CNN Jake Tapper, unlike most of his colleagues who are cheering on “the resistance”, gets it. Here, in a tweet, he highlights the hypocrisy of Berkeley, California’s mayor Jesse Arreguin( Guess which party he belongs to. Come, on guess.)
That first 8 pm tweet, at the bottom, literally means, “free speech isn’t welcome in Berkeley.” Hence the flaming riot.
4. Yiannopoulos tweeted…
“I have been evacuated from the UC Berkeley campus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building. My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. I’ll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”
His last statement is an exaggeration, but with each passing day, less and less so.
5. Of course Trump tweeted something (“fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…”):
“If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
Good tweet. There is no reason on earth why the government should support any institution that allows content-based censorship on campus. Indeed, the government is complicit in a First Amendment violation by doing so. The University of California system receives more than $2 billion in federal research funding and another $1.6 billion in federal aid for students, according to its 2015-16 budget summary. Maybe the prospect of losing some of that will lead the school to take sufficient measures to protect the rights of Milo (and Nancy, and Elizabeth, and Ann…) and the rights of students who want to hear what he has to say. Good, good tweet. (But hardly an “ultimatum,” as some media sources described it. Fake news.)
6. Hollywood writer/producer Judd Apatow tweeted..
Got that? If you support the duly elected President of the United States and the democratic process, you will be punished with violence. Apatow is the accurate reflection of Hollywood’s smug partisan enforcers.
Gee, Judd, what’s at stake? Our lives? Our savings? Our liberty? Our votes? What are you and your arrogant leftist thug friends going to do to me for giving this elected President exactly the same support that I, my father, and every one of my ancestors gave to every other elected leader of this country, and that you and your hypocritical friends would have demanded that I give President Hillary, despite her stinking corruption and that of her party?
Judd, being a sniveling coward, pulled the tweet down once someone pointed out to the award-winning writer, who presumably knows how to communicate his thoughts clearly and accurately, that he was being a biiiitt too transparent regarding his totalitarian bent and that of his community.
7. Based on CNN’s coverage of this episode this morning, reports that the White House is freezing out that network make perfect sense. CNN focused on Trump’s tweet, and, incredibly. made the story about whether ex-Breitbart alum Steve Bannon was pulling the strings, since Trump had “rushed to support” Milo Yiannopoulos! I could not believe my ears and eyes. No, Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota, you incompetent, partisan, biased, vile and dishonest hacks, the tweet, and the issue at hand, is not Yiannopoulos but violence employed to rob American citizens of their rights to free speech.
These atrocious, unethical, agenda-driven fake journalists actually represented a Presidential protest against arson and violence on an American college campus to shut down speech as a sinister demonstration of alt-right sentiments in the White House. It didn’t matter whom black-masked students censored on campus—the accurate point was that this was a violent suppression of political expression.
Nah. CNN sees it as an episode proving that Trump is under Bannon’s thumb.
CNN is a disgrace to journalism. It’s even a disgrace to the current, degraded version of journalism now practiced in the U.S.
8. The Berkeley students who think shutting down speech is the way to remain “safe” are what you would expect to be produced by the California public schools, as illustrated by the previous post.
Ethics Alarms 
Pardon my suspicion, Jack, but my first thought was this was a false flag operation to discredit the left as an opening for the Trump regime to… oh-God-who-knows-what?
I think you will recognize that, upon reflection, this is desperation and hope talking.
Wait—the entire Left’s embarrassing conduct is a false flag operation? That’s a neat trick! The false flag operations in evidence so far have all come from the left…
Jack said, “The false flag operations in evidence so far have all come from the left…”
That’s because it’s a major portion of the left that is suffering from TPSD.
”this was a false flag operation to discredit the left ”
You might be onto something. Anyone know the whereabouts of Scottie Foval And Bobbie Creamer?
Could be their embarrassing, summary dismissal, after years of faithful rat-fucking in the employ of Lefty, caused them to cross over to the dark side?
It may be of interest to note that in today’s NY Times (Glorious Revolutionary Beacon For America’s Righteous Transformation!) (heh heh) there is an article discussing the Black Bloc and the Anarchist wing and their recent activities.
I would describe the article as having an *apologetic aspect*, at least this is what I noticed. The article could be read not as condoning property destruction and such, but rather as offering a mental pathway to the understanding of the Anarchist strategy and activity, and linking it with a legitimacy to ‘normal’ left-leaning politics. You come away from the article not condemning these Anarchists (was my impression).
What I noticed is that there has been no similar *understanding* approach to descriptions of the dread Alt-Right. When there have been articles about them they are laden with fear-terms and always linked to ‘extremism’ ‘neo-fascism’ and the ‘ultra-right’ and other negative images.
But the Alt-Right (which I define as a ‘revivified Right political stance which wishes to pull away from the Progressive influence over conservatism’), despite what people (even here on this blog) think and say is gaining traction among ‘normal’ people and because it is defining solid and considerable stances and positions. I have come to see that the use of the term ‘fascist’ (for it) is quite unfair. It is simply no accurate to use that term.
One thing that I do notice is that at the extremes there are people who begin to seek ways to operate outside of civic political modes. The Anarchists, for example, say that they have no faith in politics, political parties, and one gathers from democratic process. And they say they are looking for ‘radical alternatives’. I would mention, because I think it is true, that most on the newer manifestation of the Right (Alt or simply a younger generation engaging in right-leaning politics, and especially those who come out of the Left) do not ever speak about ‘radical alternatives’ of that sort (which means social revolution, chaos, overturning thr structure of things). Yet it is also true, or similarly true, that they (the Alties) have lost faith in political processes. They have just not abandoned them.
The NYTs treatment of the Anarchists is to be expected given that the Times is opting to become a sort of Propaganda Organ of the Democrat Party which seems to becoming more radical and militant as the polarities widen.
What seems curious to me is that there is no journal of opinion that has any relationship with the excluded right, aside from sources like Breitbart.
Alizia,
Thought provoking. Thanks!
I’m…. Frustrated. My feeds are filled with token “I don’t condone the violence, but….” and other, even more transparent apologia.
This situation was so predictable, despite the projection from the left that the right is full of violence, time and time again, we see examples of the left performing the violence they’re so afraid of.
Right now on Twitter, I’m arguing with someone who has said (paraphrasing, but not by much): “Sure, I’ll admit that it seems that the left commits political motivated murder more often, and they riot much more often, but where is your evidence that the left is more violent?!” (This was, by the way preceded by “Yeah, but that one guy in Quebec.”)
I don’t understand. How do you continue to believe this in 2017? After 2016, where the VAST majority of protest violence was committed by the left? Do you believe that the media is covering for the alt right? That they’re secretly beating Jews in their basement dungeons, against Pepe motifs? I mean… Who you going to believe? The words you’re saying, or your own damn eyes?
And it’s only going to get worse, at one of last months Milo speeches, a protester tried to ‘punch a Nazi’ and was shot for his troubles. Luckily no one died…. But it’s only a matter of time before someone does, and whether that’s because someone who thinks that punching Nazis is fun, and that the person they’re punching is a Nazi because they think differently than them, happens to not stop punching until the punchee is dead, or whether the next Nazi that gets punched has better muzzle control, someone is going to die.
And how deluded do you have to be, as one of these rioters, to project fascism onto Trump supporters? War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Power. Low is High. Facism is Antifas.
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism!”—Hughie Long
Which is ironic, since Hughie had some fascism in him too.
Right now on Twitter, I’m arguing with someone who has said (paraphrasing, but not by much): “Sure, I’ll admit that it seems that the left commits political motivated murder more often, and they riot much more often, but where is your evidence that the left is more violent?!” (This was, by the way preceded by “Yeah, but that one guy in Quebec.”)
In the future, feel free to use my name. I don’t mind.
You asked me if I agreed that the left had more of a violence problem than the right. I said that when it comes to violent protests, definitely. Then I said I wasn’t sure it’s still true if you account for politically motivated murders and acts of terror, using the mosque shooter in Quebec as an example. I wasn’t trying to downplay the problem of violence at lefty protests, I was just trying to answer your question honestly.
I don’t know… I don’t think I’ll ever name and shame like that… Twitter is a public platform, but I still feel like it’s a…. quasi-private(?) conversation. I give the same anonymity when I reference Facebook conversations. Maybe I’m just weird, but I feel like there’s some level of presumed privacy involved.
I realise now that you misspoke on murders (although I think you were accidentally right), and sure there are going to be instances of bad apples… But I still feel really…. really…. comfortable saying that I think politically motivated violence is a partisan problem for the left… Which makes all these “Alt-Right Violence” memes so…. dishonest. It reeks of projection.
Do you remember that article I linked you? It was written by Scott Adams about gun violence? Let’s see if I can find it….
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/146307088451/why-gun-control-cant-be-solved-in-the-usa
“On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense. If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.
But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.
That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.
So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles. And you can’t reconcile those interests, except on the margins. For example, both sides might agree that rocket launchers are a step too far. But Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”” (End Quote)
The left complaining about violence, while failing to police their own, instead electing to excuse or cheer their most extreme elements, strikes me (and I doubt I’m the only one) as: “Put down your dukes so I can punch you, Nazi!”
I don’t know… I don’t think I’ll ever name and shame like that… Twitter is a public platform, but I still feel like it’s a…. quasi-private(?) conversation. I give the same anonymity when I reference Facebook conversations. Maybe I’m just weird, but I feel like there’s some level of presumed privacy involved.
I understand and appreciate that. I’m just letting you know that I don’t mind it in the future.
I realise now that you misspoke on murders (although I think you were accidentally right),
I didn’t. I said I am willing to accept evidence that left-wingers commit more politically motivated murders, but that I had not yet seen such evidence. You read too fast and saw this as me saying “left-wingers commit more politically motivated murders.”
Do you remember that article I linked you? It was written by Scott Adams about gun violence? Let’s see if I can find it….
Dude, I’m not going to read anything by Scott Adams, any sooner than you would read something by Salon.
You should look through who I follow on Twitter, I pride myself on attempting to follow people who hold a diverse palette of opinions, it’s important, I think, to read as many opinions as possible, even in dumpster fires like Salon… Even if I almost immediately discount and discard it.
“This situation was so predictable, despite the projection from the left that the right is full of violence, time and time again, we see examples of the left performing the violence they’re so afraid of.”
Just backs my increasingly solid belief that if the Left accuses anyone of wrongful behavior, odds are they are already engaged in it and want to distract our attention or they are planning on engaging in it and want to set up a “well they did it also” rationalization…
No, not the entire left. And, no, this is not desperation and hope talking. I abhor both parties equally (but some more than others hahaha!)
I’m saying it’s possible the alt-right infiltrated the campus and, again, perhaps, helped foment this riot.
And if I’m wrong (and I’m not saying I’m right), well, no matter what, this incident is grist for the mill.
But why would you think that, FM, when “safe space” protesters have shut down Milo (and others) in campuses across the country? Occam’s Razor and all that.
“Alt Right” is a boogeyman. Replace it with “Ctrl Left” and you’re closer.
The left has always been awful at policing it’s crazies…. If the left is the ideology of ideas, the right is the ideology of pragmatism, in a lot of ways, the left relied on the right to keep their insanity in check for them. But now, it’s the current year, and the checks and balances the right put on the left started to chafe. And this necessary throttle to bad ideas is being MacGyvered off.
I think it’s much more likely that a small, extreme population that was born and bred on the left is pushing the violence, and the left doesn’t know how to answer it. They just don’t know how to say no to people that ostensibly hold positions similar to them.
“I don’t condemn the violence, but I don’t condone it”
You don’t condemn the violence? Why the fuck not? How confused do you have to be to say things like this?
“I think it’s much more likely that a small, extreme population that was born and bred on the left is pushing the violence, and the left doesn’t know how to answer it. They just don’t know how to say no to people that ostensibly hold positions similar to them.”
And I’m open to that possibility as well, HT.
Humbleness wrote: “I think it’s much more likely that a small, extreme population that was born and bred on the left is pushing the violence, and the left doesn’t know how to answer it. They just don’t know how to say no to people that ostensibly hold positions similar to them.”
This is sort of a continuation of the comments that we exchanged, Fattymoon, which touch on what sort of relationship to have, as a citizen, to the vast and the huge power-constellations that surround us and which, to put it truthfully, dominate the public sphere. If you ever get round to checking out POCLAD you might appreciate their legal and jurisprudential stance (against) the abuse of corporate personhood.
The philosophical Alt-Right (the Nouvelle Droite of Europe with intellectual roots in France) shares many concerns with the Left. That is, with vast, un-beholden, private corporate interests which are unrestrained, and which indeed cannot be legally constrained given corporate law. We live in a world where ‘vast concentrations of private capital’ can do what they deem to do and we have no right to oppose them. And certainly no political strength to do so. In this sense I think it fair to say ‘we are victims of power that are beyond our reach to control’ and in this sense we are not free.
In fact, it is also the religious right which is concerned for the same thing. See ‘The Marketing of Evil’ (https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Evil-Pseudo-Experts-Corruption-Disguised/dp/1942475217) which asks a question: How can a person of conscience allow a corporation to invade and penetrate the domain of thought and feeling, and influence people, young people, our children, to get involved in ‘evil’ activities? The book examines more closely the issue of ‘morals’ and such than it does structural capitalism. But yet it moves in a similar direction.
The anarchist movement, the Left-progressives, the revolutionaries, the socialists and the communists all seem to confront the same problem (or question), but what is that Question? It seems to be: What sort of power and control do I, as a citizen, have over my own destiny? Indeed, one can easily see that private capital has gone to a point of controlling our protoplasmic being in this world. I am not exaggerating. Private interests are in control of the science which secondarily controls the technology which can manipulate the very structures of DNA.
And *we* have no right at all to question it, think about it, and advocate to limit it.
But what is ‘the Right’? What is a ‘Conservative’? Seen in one light, at least today, the Right and a Conservative is one who really only stands up for the status quo. S/he defends the structure of things as it is, ownership as it is, the function of things as it is. My impression is that this Right is ‘a handmaiden of the Liberal Left’ which has come to dominate politics. They want, largely, the same thing, and they only disagree over details.
But the final point is that to understand the Real Left anf the Real Right one has to carefully distinguish the beliefs and understandings that drive them, and these are not at all the same. The conservative right will always trace its origins back to a religious structure-of-view, and that means to a metaphysical definition of life itself. The radical right breaks down or has broken down any such appreciation and understanding of metaphysics, and careens into a future which is absolutely determined my materialism and materialistic presuppositions.
If one really really makes the effort to see the ‘driving predicates’ in each pole or camp it helps in understanding better ‘what is going on in our present’.
I think it’s much more likely that a small, extreme population that was born and bred on the left is pushing the violence, and the left doesn’t know how to answer it. They just don’t know how to say no to people that ostensibly hold positions similar to them.
As a leftist, this seems to describe what’s I’m seeing very well.
Is this too short for Comment of the Day?
Nothing is too short for Comment of the day!
“No, not the entire left…”
I am waiting for that moderate majority to speak out against the outrages… not a peep as yet. Nothing in the MSM about how this is not how good Liberals act. Only excuses and incitement.
Agreed. However, Occam’s Razor aside, all I’m saying is that it’s a possibility. A distant possibility, perhaps, but still not completely unthinkable.
I agree then. A possibility.
One more thing, Hack and HT. In the beginning I was fascinated by Trump. Immediately following the election I was willing to give him those 100 days. But, (and I’m not referring to all the EO’s he’s signed) judging from some of his interactions with world leaders, not to mention the prayer breakfast thingie, I do believe the man has a serious mental illness. That does not bode well.
I’m not certain I’ve stated this before on ET, but I am doing everything I can to have the man removed from office. (Mike Pence I can stomach because the man appears sane.) When the weather gets warmer I’ll be hitting the streets, again. Until then, all I’ve got is the internet.
Uh, I didn’t mean to call you Hack, Jack. Where’s my emoji when I need it.
You owe me a keyboard.
Of the many permutations my name goes through, intentional or not, the ones that bother me most are “Gack,” Sack” and “Quack.” “Hack” was the name of a great baseball player who still hold the record for RBI in a season, so it doesn’t viscerally trouble me. Gotta keep hackin’ away at the bullshit.
It’s your right to do, but I won’t be beside you.
When you say ‘The prayer breakfast thingie’ do you mean his strange, egoic comments? or that he is taking a stance to give support to the religious community? When you say ‘mental illness’ in relation to that, what are you talking about?
Here is the take of the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0202/Prayer-breakfast-Why-Christian-conservatives-are-happy-with-Trump
I ask my question because, in our present, there are many many people who equate a religious belief, and they are specifically very hard on Christian belief, as being a sign of pathology. To see the world through a religious lens is a sign of mental illness therefor. This is a fantastically dangerous assertion. Because it will mean, one day or the other, that detention prisons and psychiatric hospitals, run by the state most likely, will oversee the reconditioning of people’s minds.
This all goes back to the ‘two poles’ I mentioned before (and please excuse me for injecting my own interests and concerns here. In fact I have driven numerous people a little batty here for this reason). The Conservative Right, in its origins, and at a basic point, will always be concerned for ‘religion’ (defined as an inner, imagined relationship to the structure of the Cosmos, and where *meaning* and *value* exists and is defined). Even when the form that expresses this relationship is distorted, where the ‘lens’ is not clear, nevertheless this is a fundamental relationship of man to the Cosmos. The destruction of it is very destructive (and this can be spoken about and demonstrated, IMO).
The radical Left, and radical liberalism (hyper-liberalism and hyper-progressivism) veers into an exclusively mechanistic and materialistic relationship to The Self and to the Cosmos. It sets itself up to battle religion, which it defines as a pathology, and does so in the most crude and violent terms.
Therefor, I suggest, that one can see Trump’s lending support to the religious community, and thus to the metaphysical side of the pole, as being a good and a positive thing. It has much to do with a desire to reestablish foundations (in the self). The religious life of a nation is not to be taken lightly, and America is and always has been an essentially religiously-oriented nation.
I specifically mean his “his strange, egoic comments” about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Looks like we have two, no, three things going on which concern me.
1. Trump’s mental illness (or, perhaps, his continuing weirdness). Of course I can’t offer proof that Trump is clinically mentally ill, just my observations. Nothing to do with his executive orders or who he’s nominated for his cabinet.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/
2. Are you familiar with “gaslighting?” Trump and team appear to fit the definition.
“Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/gaslighting-know-it-and-identify-it-protect-yourself
3. Trump White House Leaks: Done On Purpose Or Lack Of Loyalty?
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/03/513196740/trump-white-house-leaks-done-on-purpose-or-lack-of-loyalty
Listen to the interview. Sounds like there’s a developing, and possibly dangerous situation ongoing.
I am not in favor of removing Trump from office due to any specific policies he has implemented or plans to implement. My concern, for now, lies with the above three points.
The monumentally flaming freakin’ irony? UC/Berkeley is where the Free Speech Movement cut its teeth!
For an interesting, if damning, treatment of this, pick up a copy of “Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus” by Donald Alexander Downs, a fellow UW/Madison Badger.
Wait a minute, classist, elitist, racist, Social Engineering eugenicists Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, & Charles Van Hise were too.
Never mind.
Well, then there is this:
http://abc7news.com/news/video-trump-supporter-pepper-sprayed-at-milo-protest/1733004/
jvb
I think this line from the article contains a typo, though:
“There were plenty of sub-plots at the protest against Yiannopulos, but also against people who were protecting the suppression of free speech.”
Perhaps a Freudian Slip?
jvb
This is just the same kind of folks who, when Brown University wouldn’t cancel Ray Kelly’s speech “cancelled it for them” and the same folks who called for “some muscle” to get rid of a questioning reporter. They really don’t have much to lose now that their allies in the Democratic party are very weak, so there’s no reason for them not to take the gloves off and resort to what can only be described as brownshirt tactics.
Trump is probably the most hated President in the history of this nation, not necessarily in terms of voters, but in terms of virulence, and he is virulently hated right out of the gate. Just as he wasn’t going to pivot when he swore the oath, those who hated him weren’t going to pivot and say “we still loathe him and what he stands for, but we are going to work within the system to prevent him from advancing what he stands for too far.” If they were going to throw rocks at the police and light businesses on fire a year and a half ago, they are going to do it now, and they have had a year and a half to practice with little action by liberal governments who looked the other way.
This isn’t Kent State anymore, Jack, this is moving toward the Troubles or Operation Banner, where whole villages and towns in Northern Ireland decided that the government in Belfast wasn’t “their” government and became hostile territory for the RUC and the army, while gangsters buffed up with a sheen of “Ireland for the Irish” held sway. I don’t give a damn what anyone’s feelings on Ireland are, living with a raging guerilla war on around you sucks, and Trump is a lot more like Maggie Thatcher and later John Major than he is like David Lloyd George, who threw in the towel on the south of Ireland.
Today maybe it’s violent radicals stirring up a riot on a college campus or prisoners taking over a building and killing a CO like in Delaware (also supposedly because of Trump). Maybe it’s also someone shooting police officers from the rooftop like in Dallas or walking into a recruiting center and letting go with a pistol like in Chattanooga. I have to say there’s not really a whole lot of real estate between these acts and a larger ambush of police, involving say, three or four gunmen rather than just one, or a bombing of a police station or a Federal building. Maybe the nation’s 25 Democratic governors (and a few that are in mostly Democratic states like MD) will look the other way, but Trump won’t.
I am kinda torn at this point. I loathed Hillary and all she stands for, and I know she was roundly disliked, but I can’t see her having become a starter fire for all this kind of craziness. I also believe in the process, but I wonder what we’ll all be thinking when whole municipalities become openly hostile to the Federal authorities, when anarchist and pro-illegal gangs control huge swaths of them to the point where kids dare not play stickball in the street, when the police don’t dare go out without a tac vest and a long arm, maybe side by side with the military, and maybe you yourself take the long way home to avoid driving by the police headquarters and getting caught in something like the Loughall Ambush (the IRA’s own tactics were turned on them by the RUC and SAS and a bunch were killed, but due to the clandestine nature of the operation two ordinary workmen passing through the area were shot, one fatally).
Sound farfetched? Sure, but that is where wholesale refusal of lawful authority ends up.
I am nearly 100% certain that this will infuriate most citizens, and even some Democrats. The Times phrase was that the Democrats were hustling to keep up with the intensity of their base, and their base is in many ways anti-American. The way to take power from Trump is the same way the GOP got power from Obama: give him a chance to fail, and it he succeeds, great. I heard a Dem. Congressman today on CNN try to explain the point of delaying confirmations, and he sounded like an idiot, because it made no sense.
I really think Democrats don’t understand their own country any more. 1) American like strong leaders 2) They like America being a world leader. 3) They don’t want to be like everyone else 4) They hate sore losers 5) Most of them want to be left alone 6) They liked Obama personally, but knew he was weak 7) It has little tolerance for hypocrisy, which is what the Left’s identity politics is all about.
The Democrats are playing with a losing hand and heaping chips on the table.
Their base is more interested in helping those who are not citizens than those who are, possibly because they think those who are not citizens will make more malleable voters. That should really tell you all you need to know.
That said, those 7 truths you set forth are anathema to a party that 1) Only likes strong leaders from their side; 2) Wants America to pull back; 3) Wants America to be more like Europe; 4) Will use protest and other tactics to get what they can’t get at the ballot box, and excuse themselves because they are on the side of the angels; 5) Wants government everywhere except the bedroom; 6) worshipped Obama and went into mourning when his time was up, and 7) are completely willing to bend anything in order to win.
One other thing: government is supposed to be by practicalities first, policies second, and ideas third. The Democrats are playing toward government by passion. Passion and the power of government are a toxic mix.
‘Anti-American’, yes, Among the people furthest to the left among my friends on Facebook and in other places I frequent online it’s de rigueur to talk about how the Constitution was written to preserve the voting rights of a bunch of rich white slave owners, mock the Founding Fathers as slave owning elites who didn’t care about the common man, the ‘fact’ that most Americans are racist…which of course leads to the conclusion that America is founded on lies, and nothing special. They don’t seem to realize it, but the scorn they heap on the country, its origins and principles, is only possible because of those principles. Biting the hand that feeds them, burning the flag that protects them.
One other huge factor in all the hysteria is a complete lack of knowledge concerning basic civics, separation of powers, and other workings of government. ‘This is a coup’ ‘Trump will take over the government’ ‘This
(the immigration ban, the crazy Tweets) is gas-lighting, they’re doing things in secret, and one day we’ll wake up to a dictatorship’ ‘He’ll set the clock back 50 years on women’s rights!’…a lot of people seem to think that the President can just make decrees and they’re instant, unchallengeable law, and that democracy is almost dead. The panic since Election Day is amazing. I stay away from FB for the most part these days. I don’t think I can stand one more Martin Niemöller rewrite, any more handwringing about America dying, or any more of the endless ‘President tiny hands’ and ‘Cheetolini’ posts. This is by far the strangest post-election period I can recall.
Your scenario is one I can’t help but envision, Steve-O. Big city mayhem. Mayhem in some small towns. I recently moved from Las Cruces, NM to Garfield, NM. We live out in the sticks, so I have nothing to fear. But, even in Las Cruces, a small city (101,324 in 2013) I can envision trouble. The first two years I taught PreK we had several Muslim kids. Parents, who were attending New Mexico State University) were very supportive.
This morning’s local paper carries this story… Hundreds gather at Las Cruces mosque to protest travel ban
http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/local/2017/02/01/community-gathers-las-cruces-mosque-protest-travel-ban/97345332/
(The mosque is next door to my dentist.)
Now that’s all well and good, but I fear blowback from one or a few disgruntled RTrump supporters. I hope I’m wrong.
“Maybe the nation’s 25 Democratic governors…”
There are 16 Democrat Governors. 1 independent, and 34 Republican.
The States are by no means split between Democrats/Republicans. Even counting the independent as Democrat leaning, the Republican hold 2x the Governorships that the Democrats do.
Sorry, mixed up the 25 states where the GOP controls both the governor’s office and the legislature with the governors only.
Not trying to be pedantic, just have decided to always note this sort of thing. The media narrative of ‘most of the country agrees with the left’ relies on constantly misstating this sort of thing, instead of admitting that the Democrats are now a regional (coastal) political party.
After reading a blog post about the book Days of Rage, I’m starting to worry that we have the 70s making a comeback in a bad way. Especially when I see how the institutional lawyers are acting.
Bad tweet. The university permitted him to speak. Certain students protested — and while I disagree with them — protesting also is a form of speech. What should the University do? Round them up? Tear gas? Take names and fail them all? Tweets are never appropriate from a President, but the proper tweet would have been to encourage everyone to let people speak and not to threaten a university which is blameless.
I don’t want to attribute a lack of knowledge to you, but I don’t know how someone can be familiar with the current state of free speech on campuses and say things like that.
UC Berkeley is a public school. The administration couldn’t stop Milo from speaking if they wanted to. And I think they desperately wanted to. Do you know why I think that? Because a recent tactic for even public schools to censor speakers they don’t like very much is to lob egregious fees on the organisers under the auspices of “security costs”. And guess who lobbed a security bill at this event? Yup, UC Berkeley.
Now, you might say: “But Jeff, obviously they did need additional security, why should the school have to pay for it?” Well I’m glad you asked!
First off: And slightly tangential…. This is evidence that not only that the left is more prone to protest, but also that these protests are of a certain expected level of violence, and that the school is aware of it. I tried to find an example of a left leaning group that had security costs hoisted and I could not find them. So does the left protest more violently than the right? Are UC administrators censorious asshats? Or C: All of the above?
As to who eats the costs…. It’s funny. The speaker is exercising his right to speak on a UC campus, the protesters are exercising their rights to protest that (at least for the first five minutes before someone burs something down or punches a Nazi). By what logic do you force the speaker to pay security costs to speak, but not charge the protesters for creating the environment the security is needed for? Easier to send the bill to the speaker? So what? No. This is one of those unfortunate costs of freedom, and if you have a problem with that bill, then maybe you shouldn’t make it necessary.
“Because a recent tactic for even public schools to censor speakers they don’t like very much is to lob egregious fees on the organisers under the auspices of “security costs””
Some colleges are starting to not even attempt to be that subtle, in trying to limit the audience of conservative speakers on campus.
From The Daily Wire:
“Nelson (The program assistant for Marquette University’s Center for Gender and Sexualities) had posted on Facebook, “I just got off the phone with one of the directors of diversity on campus. The suggestion I received and will be promoting is to go the mission week events that day, reserve a seat through eventbrite as a student (to take a seat away from someone who would actually go) and not protest the day of.”
http://www.dailywire.com/news/13101/marquette-official-reprimanded-attempt-sabotage-hank-berrien
No, the University allowed him to be censored. They have an obligation to protect invited guests and uphold free speech. Protesting is speech, protesting violently so as to block speech is not.What should they do to students who break the law and obstruct speech on campus? Find them, expel them, prosecute them. What else?
Waddya mean, “Tweets are never appropriate from a President”? Obama tweeted, he just allowed others to tweet in his name. Tweets are now part of the package. A University is responsible for the conduct of its students and the values it teaches them. They are training anti-democratic thugs and assholes.
So, you are in charge at Berkeley. What would you have done?
Control the riot and have the guy give a speech in an auditorium that anyone who wanted to attend could get into safely, even if that meant surrounding the auditorium with police or armored personnel carriers.
And if anyone attempted to shout the speaker down during his speech, have them forcibly removed from the auditorium.
Come on Sparty. You know the answer. I assume that was a rhetorical question.
I’m not being intentionally dense here Other Bill. WTF do you mean by control the riot? Tear gas, rubber bullets, what, exactly?
I abhor people shouting down speakers as well as protests of this nature. But, suppressing a protest ALSO is suppression of speech. I do agree with removal of people making a disturbance within the auditorium. That’s no different from kicking an asshole out of a movie theater for using his cellphone.
I think the better course is for universities to be clear — at the beginning of the school year — how free speech works — and that the right to free speech includes the right to be heard. That message should be repeated before every event and included in every program that is handed out. But, if students decide to protest, organize a march, etc., their right also must be protected.
Violence, of course, requires notifying the police immediately. I’m now seeing reports (I don’t know the veracity of them) that the violence was committed by non-students.
It wasn’t a protest, it was a riot. Pre-planned. Where in the constitution do we have the right to destroy property or attack people physically. Didn’t Eisenhower send federal troops into Little Rock so James Meredith could attend the University of Arkansas?
Tear gas, rubber bullets? Sure. Why not? How would you control rioters? Send out assistant professors to lecture them on free speech?
Heck yeah the violence was perpetrated by non-students. It was a riot by rioters. Free speech was not part of the deal. It was a matter of public safety.
Most likely financed by a certain Hungarian former Nazi.
Ooops. James Merideth went to, and had to be protected at, Ole Miss, not Arkansas. Arkansas involved eight or so students who needed protection.
You can’t be serious. That was a protest? That was a riot. That was people setting fires and attacking people…and setting fireworks off in buildings.
So let me get this straight: you plan on rationalizing and making excuses for this stuff until people get killed? That would seem to be the path.
You should check out my Facebook feed on this subject Jack — it’s getting ugly.
Oh-oh.
Well, the place has only 66 police officers, but I would have had them all on duty. If needs be I would turn to the Berkely PD and the Alameda County Sheriff for mutual aid. I would have the works, riot gear, flexible batons, tear gas, stinger grenades, and water cannons loaded with dye. I’d also call up the fire department and have at least five engine companies there, guarded so no one can slash their hoses. The minute things get destructive, with smashing windows or lighting fires, I drop the hammer. Anyone found later with dye on them is going to be expelled and turned over to the civil authorities for prosecution. This is a learning institution, not a revolutionary zone. People come here to learn, not riot. It’s time American higher education started turning young adults into full adults, not into toddlers.
Remember Kent State?
Oh Sparty.
Who said anything about live ammo? Frankly, I’m not even a fan of rubber bullets. Remember that girl that got shot in the eye by one outside Fenway? I think it killed her. But certainly there are safe methods to control a riot.
Wooden dowels work very well too.
What does an anti-War protest have to do with stopping an internet troll right-wing performance artist from plying his craft? If there is any parallel, he is the one protesting the status quo, and Berkeley’s thugs are the National Guard..except that Milo isn’t throwing rocks.
Man, I wish I’d thought of that response.
Taking out your conflation of protests with riots, your statement reads, very admirably, as follows:
“I abhor people shouting down speakers as well as protests of this nature. I do agree with removal of people making a disturbance within the auditorium. That’s no different from kicking an asshole out of a movie theater for using his cellphone.
I think the better course is for universities to be clear — at the beginning of the school year — how free speech works — and that the right to free speech includes the right to be heard. That message should be repeated before every event and included in every program that is handed out.
Violence, of course, requires notifying the police immediately. I’m now seeing reports (I don’t know the veracity of them) that the violence was committed by non-students.”
We’re in complete agreement. Which, strangely enough, seems to upset you.
I thought my point was clear — bringing in riot control on campus can cause even more violence.
Still not clear. Campuses are not law-free zones, and non-rioting students deserve protection too. Once the law is broken, law enforcement is required. You want students fighting students instead? Because that’s the alternative.
That’s just silly. If no one enforces the law on a college campus there might not BE one. Just how DO you propose handling violent students and agitators?
If a protest turns violent, I would call the police. But I wouldn’t turbo charge the situation by having the riot police there before it begins.
Fair enough. In Amsterdam they keep the riot police in trucks around the corner from where the protests are scheduled to be staged. I think what you’re suggesting is standard police procedure. I think a just in case call beforehand would be much more prudent and effective.
I was born that year, so no. Have I read about it, yes. It also involved an attempt to destroy property (an ROTC building already boarded up and scheduled for demolition) , assaults on firefighters doing their job (I particularly dislike that), and general anarchy for its own sake (who carries railroad flares, ice picks, and machetes to a peaceful protest?). Tactics there were heavy-handed, but both tactics and technology have come a long way since.
It’s not enough to remember history, you also need to remember the important details.
Did you feel the same way when the Obama admin threatened public universities with the (more subtly implied) loss of federal funding if they did not lower their standard of proof in adjudicating campus rape cases?
“In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague letter that urged institutions to better investigate and adjudicate cases of campus sexual assault. The letter clarified how the department interprets Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and for the past five years it has been the guiding document for colleges hoping to avoid a federal civil rights investigation into how they handle complaints of sexual violence.
…(many college presidents) say, OCR uses the letter to determine which colleges are in violation of Title IX and to threaten the federal funding of those that don’t follow every suggestion.
Some department officials have recently said there are clear “musts” and clear “shoulds” in the guidance, though colleges say the Office for Civil Rights does not seem to clearly differentiate between the two…“The department’s political leadership can say or write whatever they want, but where the rubber meets the road is where the Office for Civil Rights shows up to investigate cases on campus, and in those cases they consistently treat every single word of the guidance as an absolute mandate,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the American Council on Education. ”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/25/colleges-frustrated-lack-clarification-title-ix-guidance
I saw that parallel as well.
But why should not the Trump administration trust colleges to investigate sexual assault? Why, when those scandalous accusations against Jerry Sandusky first surfaced, Graham Spanier and company took a look and said nothing more to see here, move along now. Who was that grand jury to question their conclusions? Spanier and company know better than us!
I did see this comment in that article.
”
To all those who defend this Administration’s use of Executive Actions and Dear Colleague Letters, allowing for this type of expansion of Executive powers just gives a subsequent President, whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to yours, the same powers. I, for one, am not willing to allow that.”- JHU Trustee
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/25/colleges-frustrated-lack-clarification-title-ix-guidance#comment-2534755484
“Trump is probably the most hated President in the history of this nation”
It’s funny, the contrarian in me wanted to think of someone more hated. The closest I could think of without much digging would be Lincoln… I can’t imagine the Confederates said many nice things about him, and even people in the Union blamed him for their troubles during the war.
I hate that comparison…. Trump isn’t standing on ideals even close to as lofty as Lincoln was… But sometimes judgements can be made on you by looking at the kind of people that see you as an enemy.
Both Bushes’ popularity sagged, although only Dad’s sagged enough to lose him reelection. Truman’s popularity sagged at the end of his second term. Hoover was loathed once the Great Depression hit, and of course he got the blame. Wilson was disliked enough that Harding ran on “a return to normalcy.” Andrew Johnson was impeached and never quite washed the stink off. Franklin Pierce was sneered at as a drunk. Martin van Buren was a one-termer. John Adams was roundly disliked and a one-termer. That said, all of these men at least got a chance.
However, as you say, the only other president I can think of who was hated right out of the gate was Lincoln, who had been told point blank that South Carolina was going to secede if he was elected, and who had to travel to Washington for his inauguration in secret and surrounded by bodyguards, including the first female detective in the US.
We are witnessing something unique in the United States with regard to individual rights, especially freedom of speech, that I believe is unprecedented is our history as a nation.
Take a moment out of your life and drag the timeline slider in the movie below to 40:00 and watch to 43:00 and listen closely. If you need to know how they got to that point then drag the timeline scroll bar to the beginning and watch the entire 45 minutes.
Now you might want to ask me why did I posted this? Because I’m seeing otherwise rationally thinking peaceful friends completely flush their ethics and dive straight into the hive mind of morally bankruptcy. I am seeing and hearing the foundation building blocks of illogical and unethical rationalizations being assembled that will strip our rights from us that could very well end with the destruction of the Constitution; all we need now is a corner stone event to be placed at the base of the wall and the throngs of morally bankrupt individuals will descend to rapidly start the beginning of the end.
It’s not the Trump’s and the overtly provocative speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos in the world that will take down our society, these kinds of people have been around since the beginning of the USA, it’s the society wide ethical flush and complete morally bankrupt reactions to these people and events that will destroy us.
Pay particular attention to what is said between 40:50 to 42:10.
I think I’m becoming numb to this, which is bad. I expect universities to censor speech they find offensive. i expect CNN and other media outlets to try the “Yes, but look over there!” defense of free speech violations by the left. I expect leftist politicians to either stay silent or engage in shiny object defenses of rioters.
My question is, will somebody actually act to stop it? Trump, a man I loathe and would never vote for, may be our last line of defense.
Ironic, tragic, and in a way, terrifying. Perhaps a violent civil insurrection is inevitable.
I doubt any of the people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas and back packs and wielding tire irons were UC Berkeley students. They looked older than college aged kids. I think they’re those Anonymous people. It’s also preposterous to call people so attired and acting “protestors.” They’re rioters and felons. I guess the term “outside agitators” will be back in vogue soon after a hiatus of forty plus years.
It’s funny that Antifa claims that they are “anti-fascists activists” when they are acting exactly like brown shirted Nazis in pre-WW2 Germany. Some of this can be blamed on cowardly UCB administrators as well as the lefto mayor of the city. Besides withholding Federal Funds, Trump could send the 101st Airborne or a similar unit to Berkeley as Eisenhower did in the 1960s to protect black students in a desegregated high school.
Whoops it was 1957 when Eisenhower sent the 101st airborne to Little Rock: http://www.politico.com/story/2007/09/eisenhower-was-key-desegregation-figure-005885
The chancellor at Berkeley is an old college-era friend of mine. I note both he and I tweeted about the irony of Mario Savio at Berkeley.
Kind of reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
ARRGH!!! I’m e-mailing you!
Then there’s this: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-leadership-and-decency-gap-at-uc-berkeley/
From the above article:
So who is to blame? The rioters, of course, but as then-gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan remarked in 1966, “There has been a leadership gap and a morality and decency gap at the University of California at Berkeley.”
The blame for the riots really falls on Nicholas Dirks, the chancellor of the university, and Janet Napolitano, the University of California system’s president. They have totally abdicated their role as facilitators of the original “safe space”—an orderly, safe, and well-functioning learning environment. Instead, the campus police are forced to tweet warnings such as, “If on campus, stay indoors and away from windows.”
Cowering in fear is not conducive to the free and full pursuit of knowledge.
Dirks and Napolitano have created the circumstances where the heckler’s-cum-rioter’s veto is sacrosanct. If you are violent and unhinged enough, university officials will cave.
So long as they remain in charge, maybe the motto should be altered to read: Fiat Tenebris, or “Let There Be Darkness.”
I looked up this fellow, by I do not understand what you mean by ‘the irony of Mario Savio’. What is the irony?
AT, presumably the irony is that the free speech movement was begun at Berkeley by Mario Savio in the 1960s and now that same university is at the forefront of the effort to silence speech.
I see….
There is a documentary I found which has images of him giving a famous speech. The whole documentary is available on YouTube (the means by which I understand the Sixties…) Here is a sample:
What I notice, despite the fact that some ideas were involved, is the intense emotionality of it all. Even that girl singer: it is (mostly) all drippy sentimentalism.
You are right, AT. Drippy sentimentalism summarizes most of the ’60s “student unrest.” Indicting myself among others, it was motivated primarily by a reluctance to have to go to a country in southeast Asia and get killed. It’s easy to be anti-war when you’re draft age and in favor of free love when you’re young and horny. In retrospect, most of the era is an embarrassment.
I just watched this whole documentary. I have watched quite a few of them and I am always left with a conflicted feeling. When I studied the Sixties, one of the first books I read was ‘The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalism’ by James Farrell (https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Sixties-Radicalism-American-Radicals/dp/0415913861). It got me going in my present direction in numerous ways, especially because he says that the Sixties originated in religious sentiment. It wasn’t until much later that I read Harold Bloom ‘The American Religion’ and got to be interested in the ‘Second Great Awakening’ and Cane Ridge. But whenever I watch the various Sixties documentaries and see all the hippy youth in their Dionysian festivals, but which also seem to be patterned on Christian revival meetings, I cannot help but see the Sixties as so basically American. The Sixties (seen in that way) is not an aberration but a continuation of some kind of essential vision that *lives in the people*.
The question becomes: How can one mentally and spiritually defeat such an overpowering and essentially a religious vision? What I mean is hard to put in words. My view is that the Sixties is essentially an expression of Christian values, that is, the social values of the Catholic church (Seven themes of Catholic social teaching): 1) Life and dignity of the human person (from which ‘Personalism’ and Peter Maurin came), 2) Call to family, community and participation, 3) Rights and Responsibilities, 4) Option for the poor and the vulnerable, 5) The dignity of work and the rights of workers, 6) Solidarity, 7) Care for God’s creation.
I venture to say that if you take these Catholic values and elevate them to societal values, that it is through those values themselves that you will not remake and rejuvenate society, but basically bring about its destruction. What began in the late 50s and then became a set of ideological predicates in the Sixties has worked to undermine the power-system of the US. The US cannot be the US (a vast and powerful neo-empire) while at the same time being or becoming that society dedicated to humanistic values. That is why, I think, one of the choices of the Hippies was to withdraw from participation in The System. As in ‘to go back to the land’ or to abandon politics and the problem and conflicts of power for the internal life.
What I find intensely weird, and very confusing, is that now, today, and with Trump, there seems only to be a continuation of the basic political and social conflicts. And the same separation into opposed poles. Within this environment, therefor, Conservative reaction seems to think like and act like George Wallace. But no one, except some hard core, can really *believe* in the values of reaction because, in the end, the values of Progressivism and the basic religious vision, is just too powerful. The *heart* then wants to follow the *higher prompt* but if you really take that to its final point you will end up dismantling the Empire.
But then there is another, and even stranger, possible eventuality: If the State itself absorbs into itself this ‘Spirit of the Sixties’, and it the State (and Nation) maintains its material power-base, its economic bases, its military potency, then that same expansive State will morph into just exactly what we are really witnessing right now. An absurdly conflicted political and economic situation with a mock Hyper Progressive political class installed at the governmental level which seems to involve itself in its own mission of bringing just such a form of government to the whole world. Because just in the same way that we now are overpowered with imagery, sentiment, movie, novel, even poem to *feel* the Spirit of the Sixties as inevitable, and that there is no alternative to its forward movement, the very same process is occurring through our influence everywhere that it penetrates.
The millions and millions who are now clamoring against Trump-as Demon incarnate, are essentially responding to and carrying forward the same Sixties sentiments. But it is more than just sentiment and more than just idea. It is the sense that it is all inevitable. The only word I have is to describe it as ‘metaphysical’. People understand these things to be part-and-parcel of the Cosmos and the motion of history is toward this and toward nothing else.
Figure me out that one please and let me know how to properly orient myself!
‘The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Religion)
AT, you’re much more rigorous than I am. I was called an “intellectual slob” by my high school philosophy teacher. (One out of two ain’t bad.) I will suggest that the tenets of Christianity you quote above are really very Marxist. That wasn’t the Catholic church I grew up in in the ’50s and ’60s. It is the Church of the current Pope, however, whom I consider a Marxist.
My personal observation is that as the U.S. has become less religious, government has been allowed to fill the void. Charity is out in churches. “Social Justice” is in. Government is now deemed to be the deliverer of Social Justice. Redistribution is the government’s sole task. The Government has become the church. It’s terribly screwed up. Churches should be concerned about saving souls. Governments should be concerned about providing a level playing field. Governments can’t save souls and Churches shouldn’t be imposing their desired social order on unwilling taxpayers. It all started with the post WWII European intellectuals’ and their deconstruction and post modernist clap trap which is just Marxism dressed up in Authentic Frontier Gibberish.
And almost anything Harold Bloom has to say (other than his affection for Henry James, which I think is misplaced) is worth heeding. Same goes for one of his former students, Camille Paglia.
Ah, for some reason I had not quite had it clear in my mind. According to what you’re saying the Church, with its Social Doctrine, came onto the scene with Vatican 2?
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
I tried to find some documents that gave a sense of the Church’s social doctrine prior to Vatican 2 but came up with nothing.
My observation is that it is Christianity itself which is Marxist! I mean, the 7 points of social doctrine do seem to encapsulate the essence of Christianity. If Christianity is not that, what is it?
In America it is essentially various religious figures, not the least of who was MLK, and need I mention the Northern religious zealots, of which Abe Lincoln was one, that pushed the North into the Civil War.
But this is really my point all over again: There is no way to reverse any of this because it is this, at the most deep level, that lives in people, and it is what they want. It has been set in motion and there is nothing that can turn it back.
Further: the Right has no comprehensive program that it can articulate. It can only ask for restraint but it is essentially captured by the same vision.
Thoughts?
If you go to washingtonpost.com today, there isn’t anything about yesterday’s rioting. Even given the Post’s editorial bent, it strikes me as very odd that such a high profile story cannot be found on the equivalent of its electronic front page. It is possible to do a search and find their coverage on the story, but again, nothing about the story where a visitor to the site would easily find it. Is this an Orwellian way of burying a story?
You know, I noticed that on Google: as of this morning, none of the mainstream media stalwarts on the left had it.
It’s a busy day here today, and I have not had the opportunity to read the previous comments, so maybe, hopefully, someone else mentioned this already. Anarchists are NOT Democrats. Blaming Democrats as a whole for the crap that went down at Berkley is disingenuous. I would not be surprised if the anarchist group(s) were not goaded or baited into it in order to make “the Left” and Democrats look bad.
Aside from that, I would wonder at the motives and timing for a speech by someone with Milo’s views and affiliations with Breitbart at a liberal college like Berkley. I do think this quite possibly was engineered to cause bad press for the Dems. And strengthen support for Trump and the policies they are pushing through. It smells a bit of Bannon.
On my FB feed yesterday someone posted a meme showing DT mocking the disabled reporter with the caption “It should have ended right here!” I tend to agree, but regardless, I scanned the comments and this was the first one:
“yes but it wasn’t…God saw fit that he is the best to straighten out our country…. Cindy…you have to own up to what Obama did to our country, and I don’t know why you support a man that lied to all Americans…..Michael/Michelle…..is not even a woman, how about we start there with that fraud? The list goes on and on….The invasion of Muslims in our country….are you not even concerned about it? ….Quit blaming Trump…he had nothing to do with it.”
Maybe most of you don’t get stuff like this, but it scares the heck out of me.
“I am so pleased with President Trump 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 barely in office and already working on all the campaign projects we voted for. Bless America!!! Trump can get the job done because he has the strength of the Lord to help him. I don’t know about you but every story in the Bible where man or woman submits to God, ends well. Those of you fighting Trump are fighting God and you cannot fight God. Praise our God and pray for President Trump.”
The lunatic fringe is getting wider everyday and our enemies certainly must be enjoying watching us implode.
“Anarchists are NOT Democrats. Blaming Democrats as a whole for the crap that went down at Berkley is disingenuous. I would not be surprised if the anarchist group(s) were not goaded or baited into it in order to make “the Left” and Democrats look bad.”
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, maybe it’s just a duck. I don’t know how much video you’ve watched regarding this, but my impression is that even if you want to draw a line between these groups, there were a whole lot of people there, I’m talking hundreds, maybe thousands and none of them were protesting the people throwing the rocks, a lot of them were cheering and acting like those asshats were doing exactly what they wanted to do. You’re the second person to call this a false flag… And I think that just amazingly unlikely, it reads like some kind of sick conspiracy theory fanfiction… It’s… Possible… I suppose, but even if it were; Is it really a false flag campaign if the flagged community joins in?
“Aside from that, I would wonder at the motives and timing for a speech by someone with Milo’s views and affiliations with Breitbart at a liberal college like Berkley. I do think this quite possibly was engineered to cause bad press for the Dems. And strengthen support for Trump and the policies they are pushing through. It smells a bit of Bannon.”
And your story smells a little insane. You wonder at the timing? Why? Milo’s venues are known sometimes more than a year in advance. It was in place before Trump was even president. This is why I’m calling it a tin-hat theory, these guys would have to have superpowers to do what you’re attributing to them.
“Anarchists are NOT Democrats.”
True. But Democrats are behaving like anarchists. How can you deny that? Who is setting up cities where the law is defied/ Who is trying to overturn the election? Who is, as I heard one Democrats admit,trying to block efforts of Trump to staff his administration? Who is swearing “resistance”? What party has a member of its national ticket telling people to fight in the streets. Who is boycotting ceremonies and committee meetings and votes.
Res ipsa loquitur, my friend. If Democrats are not now anarchists, I’d like to see some conduct indicating it. Focus your indignation on your disgraceful party, not the messenger who calls it out on its outrageous behavior.
Lisa Weber said, “Anarchists are NOT Democrats. Blaming Democrats as a whole for the crap that went down at Berkley is disingenuous.”
I think your argument is intellectually dishonest Lisa. These anarchists are out there supporting “Liberal/Progressive” ideology with their words and actions and democrats are doing nothing to stop it, they just let it happen and then sit back denying it’s Democrats with that “ends justify the means” sneer on their faces. Aren’t all Democrats responsible for their own like they say all Republicans are responsible for some of the wackos on their side. Double standards really anger me.
How many of these anarchists have you seen inciting riot and destroying property during the “Republican/Conservative” protests across the country protesting things that are considered “Liberal/Progressive” ideology?
Democrats went out of their way to called Donald Trump and anyone that supported him a fascist, a racist, and equated Trump to Hitler because some white supremacist supported Trump. So tell me Lisa, why is it fine for Democrats to plaster a faux label on Trump and any Trump supporter and continue to meme that faux meme until pigs fly and it somehow wrong for Democrats to be labeled anarchists for their actual words and their physical actions.
Either the many can be blamed for the actions of the few or not; which is it gonna be?
I was wondering if you had heard Tim Kaines comment about fighting in the street and planned to comment.
That statement is far more disqualifying than any Trump statement.
Really? “Fight in the street” is a pretty common protest term; I’ve never taken it as meaning actual violence.
We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!
And that will forever be the context of that phrase.
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to prove. Politicians evoke that kind of language all the time. In context, Kaine is clearly not calling for actual violence.
Pop quiz! Which rationalization is this?
“Politicians evoke that kind of language all the time.”
Fair. My statement was insufficient. What I meant was, “Politicians evoke that kind of language all the time, and it doesn’t incite violence, because most rational people understand the word ‘fight’ to have multiple meanings, and ‘fight in the streets’ is understood to mean ‘protest,’ so the language itself actually isn’t problematic at all.”
In comments on a previous post you noted, if I understood you correctly, that a speaker needed to be aware of the historic antecedents of his remarks and said in terms of Mr. Trump’s use of the phrase “America First” that, “Using this phrase is at best bad optics borne out of historical ignorance, and at worst an intentional dogwhistle.” In your very articulate reply to me you talked about the phrase conjuring up certain associations to “. . . anyone who knows how it has been used historically”, I have to agree with you on that point. I think to anyone who is historically literate about the era of WW II, the only thing “fight in the streets” can conjure up is Churchill’s speech.
So I have to ask, is Tim Kaine suffering from historical ignorance or was that a dogwhistle?
Churchhill’s statement was a positive one, though, no? There was nothing positive about the “America First” group.
In addition to being morally wrong, protests like this are just…idiotically bad tactics. How do they not know by now that every time they do something like this, Milo gains more power and influence?
If I were still a college student and Milo was going to speak at my school, here’s what I’d do:
Submit an open letter to college Republicans and campus leftists to the school newspaper asking them to rescind their invitation. Explain why Milo is not a speaker who has anything valuable to say to a college educated audience, and suggest other conservative speakers who do. Point out the brightest lights in the conservative movement and explain why they would all be better speakers than Milo.
In the same letter, implore students upset by the invitation not to protest, as it will only draw more attention to Milo and make the College Republicans look like victims. Let them be the ones to look silly by not rescinding the invitation. Tell everyone else to just…not go. If College Republicans want to be spoken to by an abusive moron, let them, but don’t involve anyone else. Let them look bad.
How hard is this? How sad is it that no one involved in organizing these protests can think of it?
Idiotically bad tactics is exactly right. Of course, that’s a non-ethical consideration.
Boy what a euphemism “idiotically bad tactics” is! Thug “protestors” committing arson and assaulting women is not “idiotically bad tactics”: It’s criminal behavior.
It’s both, Wayne, and you don’t know what a euphemism is. I already said it’s morally wrong, and the fact that it’s illegal goes without saying; I was focusing on a different aspect that no one had yet talked about.
As a side note, were women assaulted? I hadn’t heard that.
Somewhat unbelievable recommendation you make, Chris. I mean that in the sense that Leftist activism began and continues in the tradition of the assertion “No Free Speech for Fascists!” (or racists, or homophobics, or climate change deniers, and on and on and on).
Your entire position, Chris, though you do not see or understand it, is to Destroy intellectuality and intellectual pursuit. You will essentially end up destroying intellect. I am not inventing this and this is not an exaggeration.
You say:
“Explain why Milo is not a speaker who has anything valuable to say to a college educated audience, and suggest other conservative speakers who do. Point out the brightest lights in the conservative movement and explain why they would all be better speakers than Milo.”
But he DOES have many valuable things to say to a ‘college educated audience’! except not in a Maoist political environment where, like with you, the parameters of acceptable thought have been defined by a Commissar Class (to which, ideologically, you pretty clearly align yourself).
You cannot see how outrageous are your own statements! You cannot see where they tend.
And then you will define to the Opposition what are the ‘good’ and ‘correct’ Conservatives they should bring on? Good Heavens, Chris!
Here’s an opposite view, Alizia. I’m not saying I agree, just seems like another valid viewpoint.
Feminism is Cancer: Why You Shouldn’t Go
May 24, 2016 at 5:00 am by Benji Lampel
http://dailynexus.com/2016-05-24/feminism-is-cancer-why-you-shouldnt-go/
That is a great article, fattymoon, and exactly the type of response I was suggesting.
Milo doesn’t represent “intellectuality” or intellectual pursuits, Alizia, and you only believe he does because you are an imbecile.
I believe in free speech for fascists. I also believe in using my free speech to convince others to not give fascists a platform. If they are not convinced, then I have no right to stop fascists from speaking, and leftists who believe otherwise are morons.
Milo doesn’t represent “intellectuality” or intellectual pursuits, Alizia, and you only believe he does because you are an imbecile.
This is a curious statement and one worthy of study. A good deal to work with here.
First, he is invited always by Republican groups of various sorts who are students in various disciplines and they seek him to come because they are interested in his ideas. No one would speak of Milo as a typical academic-intellectual, and yet he is certainly a man with a developed line of thought.
But it is more simple to say that it is not you, Chris, who decides who is ‘an intellectual’ or ‘sufficiently intellectual’ to fulfill the role of a college-visiting speaker. Milo, though I am not myself very interested in his discourse as I see it as sensationalist (he is Alt-Lite and not Alt-Right), is definitely working in the idea-realm, and he is confronting (in the idea-realm) many half-baked ideas that many college-educated persons are entertaining in their ‘idea-realm’.
Sadly, and I have verified this myself, as have many others, the intellectual level at many colleges is pretty low. However, Milo does speak at these venues, and he does speak in a challenging way, to that audience.
Now, the next element in your unreasonable assertions is 1) that you think I am influenced or moved by his discourse when, in fact, I am not particularly so. I prefer to go to other sources and more difficult ones. Yet it is true that Milo does not come out of a vacuum. He too comes from or through his sources, and those sources tie-back to philosophers and political theorists and sociologists. Additionally, he is said to be a ‘practicing Catholic’ but I am not sure how true that is. (He is a Jew only because he has a Jewish relative).
Although he opted not to continue in his university studies, he did study English literature, and that would certainly put a person within the sphere of Letters. Many intellectuals of note had just a few years, if that, of university in any case. It is fairly obvious that he is quite bright — whatever that ultimately mean I am uncertain — and though he may be wasting his talents as he veers toward sensationalism and the spectacle, it is not possible to say that his ideas are non-intellectual.
What he does say though is controversial and that is why he is disliked. About his own sexuality (homosexuality as aberration he has said at times). About feminism, etc. I would imagine that you dismiss him because he has such ideas and you simply do not like those ideas.
Now, the ‘imbecile’ comment. (An interesting word! Mid 16th century (as an adjective in the sense ‘physically weak’): via French from Latin imbecillus, literally ‘without a supporting staff,’ from in- (expressing negation) + baculum ‘stick, staff.’ The current sense dates from the early 19th century.)
You can make this sort of comment, and actually believe what you say, because you have been granted special powers of discrimination that others cannot equal. What I notice in you is your self-assumed role of Judge. You can judge everyone and everything, and you seem to feel that your judgments are solid and defensible. But this would be my point: they are not. And the reason they are not is because they are not reasoned, they are felt.