Jesse Taylor is pissed off about The Worst Thing You Can Say To A Person In Americam
And by “person”, I obviously mean “white guy”
Aaron Goldstein, you see, has argued that, though Trump is a buffoon, suggesting he’s race baiting is somehow out of bounds.
Yet calling Trump a racial provocateur is a sure sign of intellectual laziness and descends the depths of disingenuousness. Trump has been a prominent public figure for decades. If he bore racial animus it would showed itself long ago. As misguided as Trump was to focus his attention on Obama’s birth certificate, liberals are making the mistake of assuming that his criticism of President Obama is motivated solely by race.
Jesse Taylor is having none of that:
Nobody is saying that Donald Trump is motivated solely by race. He’s also motivated by being an overly ambitious, attention-seeking bastard, by the body of slavering lunatics that make up a significant portion of the Republican base, and by the fact that he keeps getting nuzzled behind the ears and told to do the trick over again by reporters.
But yeah, a huge part of the motivation behind Trump’s birtherism is race….
What makes me think that Trump is either directly racist or presuming racism on the part of his audience are his demands for Obama’s college records….
I’m with Jesse; I’m unable to see any plausible explanation for Trump both piling onto birtherism after Obama’s birth in Hawaii had already long since been amply attested and verified and also Making Stuff Up about how the president of the Harvard Law Review couldn’t possibly have been a good enough student to get into Columbia and Harvard on his own merits, that doesn’t involve race baiting.
For the record, I have a friend who went to high school with Obama, and, do you know what the one thing is that she remembers about him? His brains. The way he was taking, as a junior, the honors physics class that she was struggling through as a senior. But you didn’t need my friend of a friend account to know that about him; his whole record says that, whatever else you think of him, he’s one smart guy. Even if you disagree with his politics, you should be able to see that, just as even people who loathe Nixon’s politics acknowledge that the guy had brains.
And, yes, I take this kind of crap personally; if you’re convinced that Obama couldn’t possibly have made it through the Ivy League without some special affirmative action accomodation to his presumably lesser intelligence, I’m inclined to believe you’ll be thinking the same thing about my friends and family. One of my college exes graduated from Stanford and went on to Juilliard, where he was recognized as Most Outstanding Theater Student the year he graduated (and went on from there to a career few could match). If you think Obama can’t possibly have managed Columbia, Harvard, and president of the Harvard Law Review on his own merits, why shouldn’t I expect you might think the same of my ex, whom I damn well know to have earned his way? Why not the same about my college friends George, Brenda, Cyndi, Sharon, and Donna, every darn one of whom showed that he or she belonged at Stanford just as much as I did? And why not the same about my own nephews and nieces, when they venture out in the world, and sometimes, on their own merits, get into a school or get a job that a white person doesn’t get?
But the other thing I’ve realized, since Obama has become president, as I’ve watched the occasional back and forth about which attacks on him are or aren’t racist, is that I do have my own version of “the worst thing you can say,” and it isn’t “racist.”
I don’t, of course, mean that I don’t find racism an awful thing to be accused of. I do, naturally. On the occasions when someone has suggested I might be expressing some racial bias, or even some racial blind spot, I’ve felt as hurt and defensive as anyone. But the thing is, I see racism as a painful accusation in the same way in which I see “You’re cheating on your spouse” as a painful accusation. By which I mean, something that’s deeply hurtful, but not especially rare. I don’t assume that “Trump has been a prominent public figure for decades” guarantees that he’ll never come out expressing some deep prejudice I never knew he had (hello, Mel Gibson) any more than I assume that every guy who has been a prominent public figure and an apparently devoted and faithful husband actually is faithful. Obviously, I don’t want to jump to the conclusion that someone is cheating on his or her spouse, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when others suspect them about that, but not a benefit of the doubt that assumes that anyone who suspects another of cheating is obviously lying. And I do assume that, just as keeping your marriage vows involves a certain amount of conscious attention, so too does resisting our common tendency to suspicion of the Other, and the cultural messages that may lead us to put particular groups of people in that Other category. And so, even in those cases where I don’t see enough to merit someone’s charge of racism, I’m more likely to see that charge as an understandable oversensitivity than one that “descends the depths of disingenuousness.”
But there is a thing you can say about another person, that will nearly always leave me convinced that you’ve proven yourself the one not to be listened to. Something that has the same emotional resonance, for me, of “descending the depths of disingenuousness” that charges of racism seem to have for Goldstein. And that thing is the suggestion, without evidence, that someone’s somehow less of an American that you are.
I don’t mean just the crap that’s been flung at Obama, the nonsense of disbelieving his birth certificate and the newspaper notices, because somehow it’s more plausible that his white grandparents would fly their 18-year-old daughter away from US medical care to have their first grandchild abroad, and meanwhile carefully plant newspaper notices to preserve a record for later of his being born in the US, or Huckabee’s “Mau Mau” reference (I thought better of you than that, Huckabee). I also mean something of longer standing. I mean that, when I read the transcript of the hearing at which Welch made his “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?” remark to Joe McCarthy, the reason that remark resonates is that I see McCarthy making insinuations about Fred Fisher’s loyalty as an American because of his brief youthful membership in the Lawyer’s Guild. I mean that every time I think I hear a suggestion that someone doesn’t feel about America the way we do, or that some subset of America is somehow more real America than another, the hair on the back of my neck goes up. And I mean that, if you suggest that someone else is a less loyal American than you, and you don’t damn well prove it, I’m going to permanently think less well of you, not the person you’ve accused.
I’m coming to feel that some other people are way less sensitive than I am to false suggestions that someone’s less American, or less loyally American, than the rest of us, and way more sensitive than I am to possibly false suggestions that someone bears more racial animus than most people.
Re: I’m coming to feel that some other people are way less sensitive than I am to false suggestions that someone’s less American
It was interesting to read your post. You’re certainly right that I’m ‘way less sensitive’ than you are to accusations that someone is un-American, or disloyal to the country, or whatever. I’ve been called ‘un-American’ a lot before, it didn’t particularly bother me, and it doesn’t especially bother me when I hear other people (on either the right or the left) called ‘un-American’. It’s always struck me as rather meaningless and irrelevant. Perhaps this is because I’m not especially patriotic, at least in the traditional sense, and because I’m not especially attached to ‘America’ as an abstraction.
Interesting to hear the difference in your viewpoint. I suppose I probably do have more investment in “America” as an abstraction than you do.
Incidentally, one of the posts that got me started reading Ross Douthat, and one of the reasons I like him, even though he drives a lot of my fellow feminist bloggers crazy, is a piece he wrote when he was at the Atlantic about differences between visions of patriotism on the left and right; what I admired about him was that he was able to sympathetically describe how each side had its own patriotic view, even though he himself is clearly on one side of the fence rather than the other.
I guess that some of the kind of personal aspersions that I do take very seriously (the same way that you do about patriotism) are the kind about people’s faith life on the one hand, or about their sex life on the other.
So on the one hand, I take accusations that, say, ‘X is a closet atheist, who just pretends to be religious in public’, or ‘Y pretends to be heterosexual, but in reality is gay’, or ‘Z pretends to be a virgin, but in reality she has slept with six different guys’ to be particularly damaging and beyond the pale. Partly because they both involve private acts or beliefs and thus can’t very easily be proven one way or the other. But also because our religion and our sexuality are deeply tied up with our identity, and so to say that we are lying about our faith or our sexuality is to strike at the heart of who we claim to be as a person.
So I think that the accusations that Barack Obama is a Muslim, for example, or that Nikki Haley cheated on her husband on the other, are completely beyond the pale (unless you have some extremely hard evidence to back them up).
I have to admit, the accusations that Nikki Haley had cheated on her husband left me rooting for her to win the Republican nomination. (Well, OK, I wouldn’t have rooted for her to win if I thought her policies were significantly worse than her competitors’, but as far as I could tell, they weren’t.)
My good Lynn,
One of the most effective tactics currently in play to systematically render the term “racist”, first, purely pejorative rather than descriptive and, second, ridiculously and meaninglessly pejorative as no more than a synonym for random epithets such as “poopy head”, one you use quite effectively here (“I’m with Jesse”), is to appoint “racism” (but, curiously, not “anti-Hawaiiianism”), in the absence of any overt evidence of racism, as the automatically deduced, generic counter-criticism to be chosen and utilized when anyone so criticized without any apparent rational basis happens to be of that category of human beings we – I should say, rather, you, and your colleagues in this – have now selected out as second-class, stepchild humans requiring special protection from first-class humans like you, which you and they have jointly chosen themselves (as well as, sadly, your own Joel) to be because of some racial characteristic they share different from Caucasians but not from one another. Our good Gary’s Allen West, for example, would be not only be preemptively immune from this generic counter-criticism useful against Trump, attempting to level such a charge against him would reveal the effort to be what it is, a generic, opportunistically-adhesive mud pie.
But it gets worse.
If to be “an American” or “a good American” is not to be this deduced or residual racist you have concluded Trump to be – again, Trump cannot simply be irrational; such irrational behavior on the part of a Caucasian with respect to a selectively protected, step-child, second-class-because-racially-protected human becomes by such relational definition prima facia racist – then such deduced “racist” generic counter-criticism also automatically and by definition tags unfortunates as Trump as also necessarily “un-American” or not “a good American” as well.
Well done: a two-fer.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
render the term “racist”, first, purely pejorative rather than descriptive and, second, ridiculously and meaninglessly pejorative as no more than a synonym for random epithets such as “poopy head”
I don’t think this is true. “Fascist” is frequently used as pure pejorative rather than descriptive; “racist” has a specific meaning.
generic counter-criticism to be chosen and utilized when anyone so criticized without any apparent rational basis
No, only when the criticism both lacks rational basis and just happens to correspond with known racial stereotypes. If Trump irrationally suggested Obama was greedy, I wouldn’t assume racism, because “greedy” isn’t part of the stereotype that I’ve seen racists apply to black men. Likewise, the larger the number of stereotypes a person uses that draw from a customary pool, the more I’m inclined to see racial animus.
have now selected out as second-class, stepchild humans requiring special protection
I have no clue where you’re getting this.
as well as, sadly, your own Joel
Or how my own Joel came to be part of this particular argument.
If to be “an American” or “a good American” is not to be this deduced or residual racist
Oh, “American” includes people all the way along the spectrum of racial prejudice.
I don’t think this is true.
My good Lynn,
What you think is irrelevant to the structure of the proposition. If Trump made directly racist actions or remarks, he was being racist. But he didn’t. You supplied it only as an arbitrary reason to explain otherwise irrational statements made against someone you have pre-elected as a perpetual victim class, black people, even if in this case the representative of the victim class to be protected is the President of the United States. You have made the President of the United States, as well as your own Joel, into less-than-fully human spotted owls requiring extra-rational class protection, subordinating them to your class in the process. Obama and Joel cannot merely be the recipients of irrational statements, they must also – even in the absence of any evidence for it – be designated as “victims” of racism, to be clutched protectively to your breasts, tucked beneath your skirts, or placed protectively behind you to shield them from this special harm others are either immune to or otherwise pay no attention to as such.
Unless “good American” includes “racists” like Trump, Trump is not a “good American” – you have driven him from that better class to which you, as a non-”racist” “good American” belong.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
“Loyal American” definitely includes people who say things that are racially divisive. For instance, Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, would appear to both be a loyal American (a veteran who has offered significant service to the community) and someone who has said things that are racially divisive.
I consider both Mitt Romney and Pat Buchanan to be loyal Americans, but Pat Buchanan has said things that suggest to me that he is prejudiced against Jews, while I haven’t seen any reason to believe that Romney is any more prejudiced than the next person (Democrat or Republican).
My own Joel wasn’t referenced in this post at all. I think you may be confusing my description of my ex boy friend, who is black, with my husband, who is white. Not that it would make a difference if it were my ex who was white and my husband who was black, just explaining my confusion when you brought up Joel.
If God-damn-America cult-leader is not disloyal to America – then who is then disloyal to America? It’s like saying – KKK did a lot for white community, their members fought for America – therefore they are not racist.
who is then disloyal to America?
Julius Rosenberg, for one example. To the best of my knowledge, it has since his death been confirmed that he did in fact convey classified information to the Soviet Union.
“God damn America” from Jeremiah Wright strikes me as similar to Pat Robertson’s occasional pronouncements that such and such a disaster is divine punishment; they’re both preachers invoking God’s judgment on the aspects of their country of which they disapprove.
But then, we got german officers who tried to kill Hitler. And I am sure there were germans who spied for Allies. And there were Russians who gave information to the Brits and Americans during Cold War.
Should we assume all of these people were disloyal to their countries?
Surely Rosenberg was a communist spy, and there were plenty of communists in US who supported Stalin (hence we got McCarthy and others who tried to protect America) – but even those people thought they were doing the best they could for the country.
Of course, on the other side, it’s completely non-sensical to claim that any doubt about Obama’s academic record is necessarily result of one’s racism. It’s no more racist to ask Obama to open his records, that it was to ask Bush to open his. O-ops, I forgot, Bush opened his records and Obama did not – I guess this means Obama is a genius, and Bush is an idiot.
Of course, on the other side, it’s completely non-sensical to claim that any doubt about Obama’s academic record is necessarily result of one’s racism.
It’s the timing. As soon as he released the long form, Trump started calling for his grades, referring to them as a big issue. Initially I just shook my head at his comments; I couldn’t figure out any logical reason he would be questioning how Obama got into Harvard. It doesn’t make any sense unless he’s race baiting.
Re: If God-damn-America cult-leader is not disloyal to America – then who is then disloyal to America?
A loyalty oath to America (which, by the way, only soldiers and certain other government workers are required to perform, not the average citizen) requires that you defend it against foreign and domestic enemies, not that you defend it against divine judgment. John Brown called down divine judgment on America for the evils of slavery, and the Old Testament prophets did the same with respect to Israel, so Reverend Wright was acting in a long and very honourable tradition.
I don’t see Reverend Wright as being, in any way, disloyal to America (and the UCC is hardly a cult, it’s the same denomination that the Pilgrims belonged to). Nor do I see him as a hateful bigot like the KKK- honestly, could there be a sillier comparison?
I think you may be confusing my description of my ex boy friend, who is black, with my husband, who is white.
My good Lynn,
Yes, I was entirely mistaken. I was distinctly, and distinctly incorrectly, under the impression your husband was black, hence my attempt to personalize the patronization implicit in pre-selecting entire classes of humans as victims-to-be and and pre-sheltering them from non-existent attacks.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
“Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, would appear to both be a loyal American (a veteran who has offered significant service to the community) and someone who has said things that are racially divisive.” (lgazissax)
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What’s that word they use for people who can’t/won’t hold others to the same standards they hold those they consider “of their station” to, again?
Oh yeah, “paternalism.”
There’s a delicious irony in seeing a self-professed liberal, seemingly someone who believes in some degree of “political correctness,” engaging in such rank paternalism.
Jeremiah Wright is every bit as much a “racist” or bigot as is Tom Metzger (of the Aryan Nation) is….and that’s not “opinion,” it’s a fact.
In my view, paternalism is even more insidiously vile than outright revulsion….as the paternalistic person reviles, but hides it behind a mask of pity and faked concern.
Perhaps the best way I’ve heard it put was by a former associate (Pete) who often said, “Blacks ain’t company come over for dinner, they’re part of the family…if a thing is wrong for us to do or say, it’s just as wrong for them.” Pete was generally a man of few words and furious, often senseless action/violence, but that one statement shows he had a strong philosophical side to him as well.
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And HMS is correct in asserting that, “What you think is irrelevant to the structure of the proposition. If Trump made directly racist actions or remarks, he was being racist. But he didn’t…”
Trump is a universally insensitive man.
Moreover, he doesn’t HAVE to be “sensitive.” He’s wealthy enough to be above such conventions….those are for people who need to please and get along well with others.
If a person is universally insensitive we cannot look at any one particular insensitivity (ie. racial insensitivity”) as “racist”….because it’s NOT. It’s no more “insensitive” than his customary and general demeanor.
People who sell, package, deliver or otherwise engage in rank commercial pursuits (that’s 99% of us) HAVE TO be at least be “sensitive” enough to get by in engaging others in “happy commerce”…or intercourse.
Trump is a developer who has mastered using the economic distress of others to his advantage in forging wildly imbalanced “deals” in his favor.
Trump is famous for his “art of the deal,” like his purportedly offering a seller $7 million for a mansion worth $12 million…and when the seller returned months later to begrudgingly accept that offer, only to have Trump tell them that that offer had expired and then dropped the offer to slightly over $4 million…and getting that property for about a third of its original worth is legendary.
A LOT of people (a/k/a “suckers”) wouldn’t have the heart to take so full advantage of another person’s distress and that is only one of Trump’s wealth-building virtues. Such “deal-making” is not nearly as easy as some make it look. As the great investor Franklin Pierce Padgett once put it, “To look into another man’s eyes and utterly destroy him solely for your own gain….is not an easy thing to do.”
Yes, there are some self-righteous folks who see that kind of vulturism as “evil” or “destructive,” when in fact, it’s neither. It I*S a form of human evolution at work….the strong and heartless weeding out the weak and timid.
Indeed, you have to have a good degree of insensitivity to pull that sort of thing off and Donald Trump has it. And NOT NEEDING to be sensitive to others is what has probably allowed him to forge so many personally profitable deals. Trump has a lot of incredible personal traits…many of those of my favorite investor – Victor Niederhoffer.
So now Trump’s treating Barack Obama as insensitively as he treats any business rival….so what?
Barack Obama shredded Hillary, didn’t he?
He can fight back for himself.
He certainly doesn’t need any lily-livered, but well-intentioned cheerleaders looking to “run interference” for him, by deriding insensitive detractors as “racists.” If anything, that sort of paternalism only harms Barack Obama.
Thankfully for Obama, the Jesse Taylor’s and those who “are with him,” don’t reflect on Barack Obama! They merely slime political correctness and cultural sensitivity by their championing those.
I can live with that….and I’m certain Obama can too. What I like about both these guys is that there’s absolutely NOTHING even remotely “decent” or “sensitive” about either of them.
Re: Jeremiah Wright is every bit as much a “racist” or bigot
Wrong. Saying ‘God D*mn America” may be many things, but it can’t possibly be racist. Americans are not a Race.
“Wrong. Saying ‘God D*mn America” may be many things, but it can’t possibly be racist. Americans are not a Race.” (Hector)
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That comment (“God Damn America!”) ISN’T “racist,” it’s merely ANTI-AMERICAN.
Of course that is NOT why I correctly referred to Wright as being the equivalent of Tom Metzger (which he is).
I have a litany of his other race-based quotes….I’m all too familiar with them.
I’ll let you look those up for yourself….or find a reason to say that Wright is not what I claim.
Yes, there are some self-righteous folks who see that kind of vulturism as “evil” or “destructive,” when in fact, it’s neither. It I*S a form of human evolution at work….the strong and heartless weeding out the weak and timid.
Normally I try to avoid Godwinning, but this is just begging for it.
“My program for educating youth is hard. Weakness must be hammered away. In my castles of the Teutonic Order a youth will grow up before which the world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth. Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes…..That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication…That is how I will create the New Order.”
That sounds right in line with your ideas of evolution. The originator of that quote, however, didn’t prove himself the victor. I think you’re wrong about the direction human evolution is trending. The heartless are on the way out. People like Trump only continue to exist because the rest of us tolerate them. That may not continue forever. They’re the ones who are trembling–hence their flailing and grasping at any straw to maintain privileges that can’t be justified by their usefulness to society. Of course, no one can say right now whether you’re right about the future or I am. But, as my father used to say, “I’m a historian. I can wait.” I’m not a historian, but I do take the long view.
Donald Trump is a developer and as such he’s helped build the world that others merely dwell in.
Speculators do much the same thing and serve much the same purpose. Speculators and speculative markets assure that when demand for commodities goes UP their costs rise….both tamping down excessive demand and transferring money FROM the less savvy populace and TO the more savvy speculators.
When demand slackens, those same speculators infuse more money into the system and allow demand to increase, thereby balancing out the system.
I learned more from my “Uncle” (actually, my mother’s cousin, an Italian Jew, who was a fixture on the NYMEX before its move into the Chicago Mercantile Exchange) than I did in six years of College and post-graduate education.
It is NOT easy or natural to press your advantage or “do to the other guy before he gets a chance to do it to you,” BUT that’s, as they say, “the way of the world”….and it’s always gonna be that way.
Early on I couldn’t understand my “Uncle’s” admonitions about it “sometimes being more important to destroy a rival (even when that rival is a trusted “friend”) then it is to make money yourself,” but he was and remains right on that.
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But NONE of that addresses the crux of my response to your error, “Since Trump is ruthlessly insensitive in all his dealings we have no basis on which to claim that any given insensitivity on his part (ie. “racial insensitivity”) is especially egregious….or in this case, “racist.”
Trump’s an excellent businessman and a piss poor politician.
He has no chance of being the GOP standard-bearer. The 2012 GOP standard-bearer will be determined by the “Tea Party bloaks.”
Donald Trump doesn’t resonate with that group.
His observations and callousness toward convention and political correctness are amusing…..that’s something that would be nice to see catch on.
There’s entirely TOO MUCH “hyper-sensitivity” and “tolerance for mediocrity today.” We NEED someone who’ll tell the mediocre among us, “You’re FIRED!”
“People like Trump only continue to exist because the rest of us tolerate them. That may not continue forever. They’re the ones who are trembling–hence their flailing and grasping at any straw to maintain privileges that can’t be justified by their usefulness to society.”
So, Trump should be very happy that you allow him to exist – instead of killing him. Well, that sounds like something the guy you quoted would say. In fact, there is little difference between how Shickelgruber viewed the Jews and how the left views the “capitalists”. And there is a good reason for this similarity – after all, the class-warfare ideas of Karl Marx grew from rather crude ideas about evil Jewish conspiracy.
“….there is little difference between how Shickelgruber viewed the Jews and how the left views the “capitalists”. And there is a good reason for this similarity – after all, the class-warfare ideas of Karl Marx grew from rather crude ideas about evil Jewish conspiracy.” (H-A)
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Absolutely! Ironically enough, the very reason that Hitler targeted the Jews was because they were, “incorrigible capitalists.”
And they were! Germany’s Jews were the backbone of the German merchant class.
Nietzsche’s ideas, though bastardized and abused by socialists everywhere (Stalin, Hitler, mao, etc.) , were intended to be much more compatible with freedom and liberty than with socialism or central planning.
Nietzsche DID believe in the evolution of mankind through the eradication of charity (“coddling and perpetuating failure and misery”), but he never advocated any social-engineering or state intervention on behalf of such goals, as none would be needed.
Ultimately, socialists (wittingly or not) wind up amplifying the very worst aspects of mankind via a compulsory charity that is as impractical in its application as it is unsupported by logic.
For those curious as to how the writings of Nietzsche, who at one point despised so many of his 19th German co-nationalists as decadents so thoroughly he often tried to pass himself off as Polish, made their inexplicable way into National Socialism, see Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche.
It is, of course, an elaboration of the obvious to observe that it is hardly uncommon for a subsequent promoter, Elisabeth with Nietzsche, Paul with Jesus (see, e.g., Maccoby) &c, &c, &c throughout history, to put his own imprimatur on the works of a preceding thinker and, absent sufficient careful forensic scholarship to peel back such editing and re-authorship, make it his own.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
Indeed, it’s hard on a philosopher to take the rap for posthumous vulgarizations of his work. Poor Nietzsche! Already blamed for Ayn Rand and Hitler, he must be rolling in his grave at supersonic velocity to think he must now see Donald Trump extolled as the harbinger of the Uebermenschlichkeit to come.
It certainly IS very common that most philosophers are “interpreted” over and over again, sometimes with good effect, other times with bad.
It’s almost as ironic that Nietzsche (who despised even voluntary charity) would be championed and linked to a socialist dictator, as it is for the philosopher Jesus, who consorted with tax collectors (middle men of that day who profiteered off the Roman tax levies) to be linked to Marxism!
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Nietzsche’s philosophy, including his calling charity “the curse of Christ,” is stark and as hard to like as its author’s personality was said to be, BUT it is raw and honest and it does make the case for letting all people interact freely in all aspect, “letting the chips fall where they may,” without sentiment, without pity and without what we today would call “decency.”
But he had the courage to ask, “What good is decency if it’s effect is ultimately dysgenic….that is, if it results in the perpetuation of human failures (“losers”), with their petty, yet all-encompassing miseries, their self-destructiveness and their disdain for work and productivity?”
How can virtue be it’s own reward, if its ultimate effect is to eradicate virtue itself by stacking the deck in favor of the unvirtuous – the petty, the superstitious and the non-productive?
Tch tch, H-A. Who spoke of killing Trump? Possibly you’ve lived with thugs too long, and it has corrupted your mind. Here’s what I meant: Trump exists, as a phenomenon, because other people think they’ll profit by dealing with him. Their desire for wealth impels them to take him seriously. If everyone stopped wanting what he has to offer–casinos and really bad TV shows, for instance–he would no longer be important. He would probably continue to live as Donald Trump, the human being, but “Trump” as a personage would vanish.
Sigaliris,
It would be nice, and certainly a good thing, if we as a society decided not to continue to tolerate people like Trump, and decided that we wanted a world in which people like him couldn’t exist. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. The kind of greed and immorality that men like Mr. Trump represnts appeals to something deeply rooted in American culture and in late-capitalist civilisation. That’s not going to change short of a revolution, and the complete transformation of our economy, our culture, and our worldview. It will probably take the collpase of the American economy, caused by natural resource shortages, before we realize that Mr. Trump’s antisocial ideology of greed was genuinely evil, and that we should have stopped tolerating people like him while we still had the chance.
“It would be nice, and certainly a good thing, if we as a society decided not to continue to tolerate people like Trump, and decided that we wanted a world in which people like him couldn’t exist.” (Hector)
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That is a naive view born of superstition.
Trump and others like him may not be “nice people,” but they serve a purpose.
The fact that you and other co-superstitionists don’t understand that purpose is largely irrelevant.
For many years I repossessed cars with a guy who lifeguarded with me over the summers when I was in HS.
There were guys I grew up with who found our way of “earning a living” distasteful. Some even thought it was “oppressing the people for ‘the man’!”
What a bunch of dolts!
Few benefited more from the work Pete and I did than they.
For if it weren’t for guys like us who took back the things others refused to pay for, banks wouldn’t loan to working people at all, or if they did, they’d charge a premium virtually equivalent to a mobster’s “vig.”
I’ve long given up on trying to figure out why so many people insist on wallowing in depravity, stupidity and the misery that begets.
“No, only when the criticism both lacks rational basis and just happens to correspond with known racial stereotypes.”
Given that Obama refuses to show his SAT and LSAT scores as well as his grades – there is nothing IRRATIONAL to suggest that he probably under-performed. Given that blacks are given preferential treatment, and that Obama had good political connections at the time he applied to Harvard, there is nothing IRRATIONAL in suspecting that Obama got into Harvard not solely based on his grades and scores.
These are all rational arguments. You failed to provide any counter-arguments, which makes you irrational.
P.S. Is it a merely stereotype that blacks need lower SAT and LSAT scores and grades to get into good universities than whites and asians – or it is a fact?
Actually, I did offer the counterargument of having a friend who knew how Obama performed in high school, but I’ll grant that friend of a friend counterarguments are weak.
The more significant point, to me, is that in my experience, no one gets into an Ivy League or equivalent school without significantly above average SAT scores, LSAT scores, grades, and general intelligence and motivation. That includes black people. The SAT scores, LSAT scores, and IQ of the average black student at my own alma mater, Stanford, are all high.
“Actually, I did offer the counterargument of having a friend who knew how Obama performed in high school, but I’ll grant that friend of a friend counterarguments are weak.”
Agreed, it’s a rather weak argument…
“The more significant point, to me, is that in my experience, no one gets into an Ivy League or equivalent school without significantly above average SAT scores, LSAT scores, grades, and general intelligence and motivation.”
I am an engineer. What you said here is of little value to me…
1. “my experience” – means nothing. Are you saying you personally checked SAT, LSAT scores, grades, and intelligence of ALL students in all Ivy League schools for all times – and you ready to provide empirical evidence?
2. President Bush was also a graduate of Ivy League schools. Do you consider him to be significantly above average in intelligence? More importantly, is Obama smarter than Bush? Let’s examine their SAT scores, shall we?
3. Finally – what does the term “significantly” mean? Does it mean any Ivy League graduate has SAT in the top 1% of the population? Top 5%? Top 10%? The terms you use may mean anything.
“That includes black people. The SAT scores, LSAT scores, and IQ of the average black student at my own alma mater, Stanford, are all high.”
1.Again, “high” is a subjective term. How high is high?
2.Did you personally check all the SAT and LSAT scores of all “average” black students? Can you show them? How do you distinguish an “average” black student from a slacker black student? And how do you know whether Obama was an average or a slacker in Columbia? And how do you know that his SAT was higher than Bush’s SAT?
I believe that Bush is probably significantly above average in intelligence (despite the fact that he had an alumni advantage in getting into the Ivy League). Observers have estimated his IQ as being in the top 10% of the population distribution, and that estimate sounds plausible to me. I don’t think he’s as smart as Nixon was, but then, most Presidents (let alone most people) aren’t (unfortunately, Nixon had other disadvantages).
Average SAT score in the population as a whole is approximately 1,538 points (520 in Math, 510 in Writing, and 508 in Critical Reading). (Source:
SAT scores of incoming Stanford freshmen in 2010, for comparison: http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html
Dumb people, whatever their race, don’t get into top schools.
Obama also had same advantage – his father was a student at Harvard.
I have little doubt that Obama is easily smarter than 50% of the population – but that’s really nothing much. If you can believe it, about 50% of the population is smarter than the other 50% of the population.
If I have to guess, I would say that Obama is probably in the top 10-15% – not more than that. Nothing truly amazing. And in order to get into Harvard, his LSAT was probably too low, and his Columbia grades were not enough – so he needed some political pull, and surely his race helped him too.
That’s my conclusions based on his off-the cuff remarks, his policies, his record and his decision to keep the grades and scores secret. A white man with no political connections – and Obama’s grades would most likely not admitted to Harvard.
Am I a racist to say so? Or is it un-American?
“Oh, “American” includes people all the way along the spectrum of racial prejudice.”
What does it mean to be “anti-American”? For example, some liberals claim that cutting handouts to the poor and elderly is anti-American. Do you feel outraged by this claim, or you agree with it?
I disagree with that claim. Cutting the social safety net for the poor and elderly may be the act of a patriotic American who believes that the cuts are necessary for long term fiscal soundness. This is the case even if said patriotic American believes in cuts that I personally believe to be unwise and harmful.
So, any liberal who claims that cutting welfare, Social Security and/or Medicare is anti-american or un-American – is as bad as McCarthy?
More like equivalent to conservative who describe liberals as anti-American or un-American when they oppose whatever war a Republican President may propose (though the case gets more tangled when it’s a Democratic President leading us into war).
Part of what’s special about McCarthy is the way he used past connections that had since been disavowed and connections with other people to disparage people as un-American. So a liberal equivalent would have to apply similar tainting by association (I’m sure you can find examples – I don’t consider it a tactic confined to the right).
“Part of what’s special about McCarthy is the way he used past connections that had since been disavowed and connections with other people to disparage people as un-American.”
I would like to know of one example when someone disavowed his connection to the communist group (not privately, mind you, since no one hears you) – and McCarthy still disparaged them for being un-American. And why is this any worse than claiming “cutting welfare is unAmerican”? In what way McCarthy’s claim that a lawyer who belonged to a communist front was a communist – is worse than Obama’s claims that cutting welfare is unAmerican.
BTW, McCarthy did not say that Fisher was unAmerican – he only pointed out that he belonged to an organization that was a communist front. I don’t understand why that upsets you so much – given that this accusation is correct.
Re: BTW, McCarthy did not say that Fisher was unAmerican –
The committee that he headed was named ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’.
Interesting. Are you sure that SENATOR McCarthy was the head of a HOUSE committee? It’s highly unusual, to say the least.
P.S. Which is why you to read Ann Coulter, she corrects a lot of common mistakes that liberals make.
Touche. :)
I actually don’t believe that the National Lawyer’s Guild was a Communist front organization. It was, and it, a distinctly left of center group (whose members I’ve sometimes found constructive and sometimes annoying), and it was affiliated with an international group that some considered to be a Communist front (but that I’m not convinced the National Lawyer’s Guild would have seen as a Communist front, when making the affiliation). So what we have is a lawyer who had briefly belonged to a leftist organization and had since left that organization to become an active Republican.
One of the things that happened during the McCarthy Era (and this spread widely – in fairness I have to say that it wasn’t just specific to McCarthy) was that certain leftists became suspect who had never been Communist. My great-uncle was one of these; he was a Fabian socialist (and held what I now consider to be economic views excessively optimistic about the value of government planning and regulation), but no Communist, and he suddenly started not passing background checks and never getting an explanation of why.
“What makes me think that Trump is either directly racist or presuming racism on the part of his audience are his demands for Obama’s college records…. ”
What’s racist about demanding to know Obama’s college records? Only deeply dishonest people would scream: “You have to trust my word, and no, I won’t show you my university records because you need to trust me – and if you don’t trust me, you are racist”.
” if you’re convinced that Obama couldn’t possibly have made it through the Ivy League without some special affirmative action accomodation to his presumably lesser intelligence, I’m inclined to believe you’ll be thinking the same thing about my friends and family.”
Given that Obama steadfastely refuses to show his grades, his SAT and LSAT scores – yes, I believe the only reason he got into Harcard is due to his race and his political connection. I don’t see why I should spend a minute thinking about your friends and your family – I have no knowledge of them – which means I cannot speculate whether they made it on their own or not.
” I mean that every time I think I hear a suggestion that someone doesn’t feel about America the way we do, or that some subset of America is somehow more real America than another, the hair on the back of my neck goes up. And I mean that, if you suggest that someone else is a less loyal American than you, and you don’t damn well prove it, I’m going to permanently think less well of you, not the person you’ve accused.”
Welch, acting as a prosecutor spent 2 hours demanding that McCarthy’s associated name all the communists in the US government. In the end, McCarthy stood up and named one – Fisher, a man who was a member of a communist front group. Surely we all understand that McCarthy’s claim was far more factual than 99% of the claims that NYT and liberals make about conservatives. Why it caused Welch to start whining is also well-understood – liberals in general hate it when people stood up to them.
In general – you think less of someone if people armed with empirical evidence call someone a communist. Apparently, you are A-okay with calling someone a racist if he only asks Obama to do what Bush did – release his university records.
Just like Welch, you are ready to dish it out, but you start whining when conservatives fight back.
P.S. Did your hair stood up when CBS used forged documents to claim that Bush did not serve honorably in the National Guard? I bet you were okay with that, right?
“But you didn’t need my friend of a friend account to know that about him; his whole record says that, whatever else you think of him, he’s one smart guy. Even if you disagree with his politics, you should be able to see that, just as even people who loathe Nixon’s politics acknowledge that the guy had brains.”
He may be sneaky, but he surely is not a “smart guy” – nothing in his record says that he is actually smart (as defined by an engineer like me). If you think differently – please quote his record. As I understand this smart cooky never held a day-job, never had to prove in real life his smartness, and his education records are sealed. And yes, when he speaks without a teleprompter, he makes claims so stupid – it buggles the mind (take for example his claim that Obamacare would cut insurance premiums by 3000%).
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What does it mean to be “anti-American”?
Someone like the Rosenbergs, Jonathan Pollard, et al, who spied for foreign powers.
Elected representatives like Emmanuel, Cantor, et al who put allegience to a foreign power above any allegience to the US. Those representatives who take money from these foreign powers and vote for the foreign power’s interests over the interests of the US.
Parasitic organizations such as Goldman Sachs who loot the economy and provide nothing of value.
Re: Elected representatives like Emmanuel, Cantor, et al who put allegience to a foreign power above any allegience to the US
I don’t believe that Rahm Emanuel or Eric Cantor owe allegiance to any foreign powers. They owe an unpleasant amount of allegiance to rich people in America, as opposed to poor people, but that isn’t illegal, though it may be immoral.
If you’re implying that Jewish representative are hacks for the Israeli government, then that’s a classic stereotype of anti-semitism. In point of fact, liberal Jews are probably less pro-Israel than many evangelical Christian pastors.
[...] recent colloquy between Lynn Gazis-Sax & Hyphenated American in the combox of this post (see here, here, here, here, and here) got me wondering about the intelligence of our current chief [...]