Young Minds, Fresh Ideas
First, the bad news:
Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges. If, for example, a large fraction of college students believe, however incorrectly, that offensive speech is unprotected by the First Amendment, that view will inform the decisions they make as they move into positions of increasing authority later in their careers.
The results [of the survey] are notable for several reasons. First, the fraction of students who view the use of violence as acceptable is extremely high. While percentages in the high teens and 20s are “low” relative to what they could be, it’s important to remember that this question is asking about the acceptability of committing violence in order to silence speech. Any number significantly above zero is concerning… A surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to act — including resorting to violence — to shut down expression they consider offensive. And a majority of students appear to want an environment that shields them from being exposed to views they might find offensive.
And in somewhat related news:
Pomona College emailed students Monday night to announce there would be no penalties imposed on Pomona students who were “present and did block access to buildings” during [Heather] Mac Donald’s speech, preventing audience members from getting into the venue or, for those few who made it in earlier, exiting.
Details of the incident, in which Ms Mac Donald had to be escorted off campus by police officers for her own safety, can be found here.
Update:
And because the above isn’t quite bad enough, here’s a video of students informing us that the masked thugs and sociopaths known as Antifa are merely trying to “educate” anyone who disagrees with them. For those who missed it, here they are randomly “educating” some young women.
Well that’s cheered me up.
Well that’s cheered me up.
It’s perhaps worth bearing in mind that a different phrasing of the questions might have elicited different responses. For instance, if the questions framed the respondee, or a speaker they favour, as the person being shouted down or threatened by a mob.
Crumbs of comfort, I know.
Well that’s cheered me up
Focus on the eventual and inevitable sweet release of death. It helps.
I’d be more concerned if any of these protestors looked remotely capable of violence outside of acting in a mob against people they know won’t fight back.
I was out with a schoolfriend a few weeks ago, he joined the paras when he was 18, did a tour of Iraq, and became a mercenary. Not a security contractor, but an out-and-out mercenary. Whereas my Royal Marine friends don’t go into details of what happened during the Afghan and Iraq wars, my friend happily gives me details of how effective he was with a Minimi and what it did to a group of people, or the effect of self-modified shotgun ammo on a car full of what I hope were bad guys. After Iraq he worked doing security for a well-known Russian billionnaire in London, now he runs his own security company. I caught up with him in Paris when he was on a gig guarding a teenage Arabian prince who was here on holiday with a load of his mates. This is someone who is big, strong, experienced and quite ready to dish out unspeakable violence should he feel the need to, or is paid to. He does the dirty work that is sometimes necessary and normal people won’t do.
Now if groups of people like him were talking about using violence on everyone else, I’d be worried. But it’s not, it’s weedy millenials. Sure, they might be able to co-opt the power of the state to do their bidding, but that would only shove a lot of people on the wrong side of the law. These protestors aren’t stupid and they make damned sure they choose their targets carefully and stay well clear of violent thugs like my mate. As he said during the London riots a few years back: “Give me a police helicopter and a thousand rounds of link and we’ll be home in time for din-dins.” He meant it, too. These students have no idea what real violence looks like. Nor do I, thankfully.
Tim Newman, the time has passed that pleasantries were dispensed with. You are quite correct that the millennial dweebs pick their prey, not unlike hyenas. They will nip and weave with their faces covered of course but will certainly cease from these tactics if blokes like your mate landed one on their glass chins. Then of course they will cry foul, aided and abetted by a compliant media and people like the mayor of Berkeley.
They will nip and weave with their faces covered of course but will certainly cease from these tactics if blokes like your mate landed one on their glass chins.
Ah, they’d give him a wide berth soon as they’d look at him. And if he clouted them and they went to court, they’d probably find some rather nasty people showing up at their parents house, perhaps holding up a dead pet. Seriously, there are some horrible people out there willing to do all manner of stuff without blinking. When people start talking about violence, they really don’t know what they’re unleashing.
Young Minds, Fresh Ideas
Quite.
Incidentally, for those who haven’t seen it, the Janice Fiamengo video on Canadian academia is worth watching in full. It’s certainly relevant.
I recall being required to pass tests on the U.S. and state constitutions in order to be able to attend high school in the early ’70s. That’s still the case, and I recall my children receiving pretty good instruction in both, but then they attended a small parochial elementary/middle school which focused on the basics and eschewed most modern educational trends. Still, the civic illiteracy in this country is indeed troubling. I doubt the center will hold much longer.
Of course, what’s especially disconcerting is that the lack of constitutional knowledge will lead to rampant quartering of Redcoats in our homes in violation of the 3rd Amendment. I really don’t want the South Wales Borderers forming a square around my liquor cabinet.
Unfortunately, I do know what real violence looks like, and I think Tim is absolutely right.
Now if groups of people like him were talking about using violence on everyone else,
You do realize that mercenaries who are willing to work for Arab princes and Russian billionaires will just as easily work for a George Soros or any number of mafioso government types. Maybe not your friend but others. Depends on how well you know your friend.
And a majority of students appear to want an environment that shields them from being exposed to views they might find offensive.
Aren’t we due for an extinction level event?
A surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to act — including resorting to violence — to shut down expression they consider offensive.
So they’ll all be shouting down the hate preacher at the local mosque?
*crickets*
You do realize that mercenaries who are willing to work for Arab princes and Russian billionaires will just as easily work for a George Soros or any number of mafioso government types.
Absolutely, and they do.
Re: Mercenaries.
That
would be more reassuring if it wasn’t for the facts that
and there are
who are
If the lawmakers and lawyers (and law enforcement officials) stop believing that political violence is wrong and turn a blind eye to Right-thinking People engaging the services of horrible people to dish out unspeakable violence to those guilty of Wrongthink, we are in trouble.
we are in trouble
That.
“Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges.”
Mao, or the Khmer Rouge, used to send these people out to the fields to grow rice. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I might agree with something done by Mao or the Khmer Rouge.
Tim Newman,
As he said during the London riots a few years back: “Give me a police helicopter and a thousand rounds of link and we’ll be home in time for din-dins.” He meant it, too.
Napoleon’s “whiff of grapeshot”, eh?
Those willing to visit violence on others for so trivial a reason as a difference of opinion should not be surprised when violence in return is visited on them. Reap what you sow.
we are in trouble
What you mean “we” kimosabe ?
Note that “anti”fa and their ilk only pull off their antics where they know the chance of repercussions will be minimal to nil, note also how quickly they got shut down at Auburn University, conveniently located in a civilized state, where neither the police nor student body at large was going to put up the the idiocy of morons largely imported from Atlanta.
The Khmer Rouge used educated people as fertilizer, not as field workers.
Note that members of the GOP fear speaking out against “anti”fa and their ilk only after someone like Nancy Pelosi forgets which side she’s on, prolly due to having one of her senior-moments where the brain-stem overrode the leftist trained cerebrum, and speaks out against them. Auburn may be doing OK now, but see where Georgia Tech has gone? And have Auburn officials been taking advantage of this opportunity to present/market their university as an island of sanity or are they only reacting on the defensive? I wouldn’t know their situation but I do see where my own beloved UF has failed to speak out against this nonsense in any forceful manner. I also see where UF staff have been inching in the anti-freedom direction. Besides in forums like this, do you hear many serious calls to cut tax payer funding for rogue universities? I will concede THE Evergreen State University. I mean, I’m not totally without hope here, but I don’t see the trend reversing to any serious degree.
Doh…that should read “Note that members of the GOP fear speaking out against “anti”fa and their ilk only doing so after someone like Nancy Pelosi”
I would say that a World run by these idiots would be terrifying, but look at what’s going on now, or 30 years ago, those that would have power are almost always the worst humans on the planet.
. . . aided and abetted by a compliant media and people like the mayor of Berkeley.
????
Um. Do we congratulate you on your posturing, there?
Of course, out here in reality—and additionally in Berkeley, in my case— . . .
we are in trouble
What you mean “we” kimosabe ?
Considerably.
After all, as noted.
I was rather unsurprised to read the several media stories specifically pointing out that the AntiFirstAmendment types stayed away from the Shapiro talk in Berkeley, with specific citing of statements that the local police—Berkeley and Cal and whomever—openly stated intent to particularly seek out and have a conversation with anyone who showed up wearing a mask . . . .
So they’ll all be shouting down the hate preacher at the local mosque?
Something tells me there are complicated exemptions.
“Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges.”
And Starbucks baristas. Don’t forget the baristas. By the numbers, probably the most likely path.
Give me a police helicopter and a thousand rounds of link
Never mind the M134s, I’d be happy if the police just started deploying high-pressure firehoses.
As an amateur classicist, one of the things I find fascinating about the escalating antifa riots is how quickly both sides have improvised Roman infantry equipment, although not the tactics. I expect the first side to remember how a shield wall works is going to have a significant advantage.
Don’t forget the baristas.
Ever seen The Unbearable Lightness of Being? In the end, IIRC the guy doing the janitorial work at the end was a bit over qualified for the job. See also, to some extent, Dr. Zhivago.
Again, somewhat related…
Philippe Lemoine, a conservative in academia, explains what’s unpleasant about being a conservative in academia:
There’s more, and Mr Lemoine touches on some themes we were poking at in the previous post. Via Ben Sixsmith.
“Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges. ”
No, they are not, they are tomorrow’s embittered failures. The attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges are in the library being quiet.
The attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges are in the library being quiet.
Oremus.
Do we congratulate you on your posturing, there?
Well, we refrain from doing so to you.
Related.
Angus Johnston, by the way, is a history lecturer at CUNY and “an advocate of student activism.”
Not so fresh.
… there is a highly nervous and highly vocal party who are busy creating a bogy; if they persist in throwing the epithet about it may begin to stick. They may one day find that there is a Fascist party which they have provoked. They will, of course, be the chief losers …
In the pen and paper role playing game Paranoia, the deranged computer in charge of everything after the Apocalypse is virulently “anticommunist” according to its own standards. Since no genuine Communism has survived, there is a secret society which is Communist, based on the writings of Groucho Marx… maybe.
The point being that being contrary to Friend Computer (or the active ‘anti’ position of the day) is easiest by being in opposition to an ill-defined opposition.
To brighten your day: https://twitter.com/YouHadOneJ0B/status/909412871532011520
Toddler and dolphin play catch.
lotocoti,
Naturally, the New Statesman and Nation dismissed Waugh’s complaint with a sniff.
Nothing has changed in 80 years, by the looks of it.
The attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators, and judges are in the library being quiet.
. . . Once upon a time I read some comment where I have no memory by this point of who or where, but someone had made some proclamation about those who are lawyers or legislators or some such being so effective and widely respected because of being the unquestioned supreme graduates of the law schools . . .
The reply was a very pointed statement amounting to Ah, No, that lot is the utter dregs of the law schools, the obvious third raters who just can’t do any better.
Of the really good law school graduates, they go and get made judges.
And of the preeminent graduates, the absolute first rank of all legal students, they become the law school professors.
Do we congratulate you on your posturing, there?
Well, we refrain from doing so to you.
Except, of course, that A) I would have to be posturing, and B) if I was, why refrain?!?!?!
Also related, new students at Reed College disrupt their own first lecture, a class on ancient Greece, with race-hustling theatre and denunciations of “white supremacy.” Having insulted staff and other students, and having spoiled the class for everyone, resulting in its abandonment, the self-satisfied ‘protestors’ want to be “given credit” for their activist “labour.”
new students at Reed College disrupt their own first lecture, a class on ancient Greece, with race-hustling theatre and denunciations of “white supremacy.”
Start expelling them and this crap will stop.
Start expelling them and this crap will stop.
Well, it’ll be interesting to see what consequences, if any, the students experience. And it holds up pretty well as an example of the default psychology of such things. There’s the casual arrogance of it all; the assumption that they know how “racist” the course will be before it even starts; the assumed superiority and regurgitated dogma; the utter disregard for everyone else, both staff and fellow students; and the expectation that they should be praised – and given class credit – for sabotaging other people’s work and other people’s learning.
It’s an illustration of how mediocrity and vanity can result in a kind of dumb malevolence.
Oh, and according to the students in this video, the masked thugs and sociopaths known as Antifa are a force for good and are merely trying to “educate” anyone who disagrees with them.
For those who missed it, here they are randomly “educating” some young women.
Also related, new students at Reed College disrupt their own first lecture,
Oh, dear.
Reed got my attention because an old friend of mine was extremely happy about his going there, and I’ve just dropped ‘im a note . . .
. . . ‘course on another hand, while he would have taken that course as well, he went into and still does physics.
Funny how it’s Napoleon who’s associated with the English phrase, while the Duke of Wellington has a French one: pour la canaille, la mitraille.
Canaille loses something when merely translated as ‘rabble’ or ‘mob’; perhaps ‘blackguards’.
Mitraille is grapeshot, but also evokes the mitrailleuse.
—
Surely a couple of AKs would be an even bigger advantage than a shield wall.
Which suggests the question isn’t one of remembering, it’s one of what they’re allowed to get away with.
And who is doing the allowing.
Crumbs of comfort, I know.
Here is another at least (my italics):
To explore the critical issue of the First Amendment on college campuses, during the second half of August I conducted a national survey of 1,500 current undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities.
Given that Saturday 12 August saw the violence in Charlottesville – including the murder of Heather Heyer and the attempted murder of over many more by James Alex Fields Jr – then the timing of the survey “during the second half of August” was surely overwhelmingly likely to prejudice the views of respondents to a question such as ‘Does the First Amendment protect “hate speech”?’
the utter disregard for everyone else, both staff and fellow students; and the expectation that they should be praised
Interesting exchange here on the Reedies Against Racism Tumblr page between an anonymous student who complains that “Your protests are distracting me from learning the material that I paid to come here to college to learn” and Alex Boyd of RAR.
I confess to a touch of scepticism regarding the graffiti photographed under update 11/12 from the same Tumblr page here (need to scroll down a bit to see it).
The handwriting is so remarkably similar in all photos that it suggests the work of a single individual – which hardly supports the notion that “Anti blackness, racism, antisemitism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and cultural appropriation are still rampant” at the college.
student who complains that “Your protests are distracting me from learning the material that I paid to come here to college to learn”
Absolutely, it’s utterly self-indulgent and speaks to the character, and narcissism, of the people involved. The claims of “white supremacy” and of being “oppressed” are nakedly opportunist, especially at a college that costs $65,000 a year and which indulges in pro-minority racial favouritism in its admissions. Of course such favouritism often has consequences, in that in order to make up the “diversity” numbers, colleges may have to admit students who are ill-suited for degree-level work, even by the degraded standards found in some departments.
Fortunately, ‘activism’ provides a near-perfect excuse for any personal inadequacy. If you’re not a great student, or even a competent one, you can always invoke racism or “white supremacy” – even pre-emptively – as explaining why your grades are substandard, or why you can’t spell or structure sentences properly, or even turn up on time. Whatever the personal failing is, it’s the go-to excuse, and one that many educators and academic bureaucrats are inclined to indulge, however dishonest and preposterous it may be.
From the AJ+ reportlet on Reedies Against Racism:
… protesters say the course only gives one side of the story. So they posted alternative readings, focusing on racism in ancient Greece and Rome.
One of the alternative readings is from a transcript of an Angela Davis speech on the subject of her 1969 clash with administrators at UCLA over “her affiliations with the communist party”.
The other is Benjamin Isaac’s 2004 book, The Invention of Racism in Classical Iniquity. I’m no expert on this and in any case haven’t read the book (and so am happy to be corrected by someone who is and/or who has), but the introduction of that book here does not exactly inspire confidence:
LESS THAN A CENTURY AGO nobody would write or wish to read a book about racism. Indeed nobody was aware that such a thing existed, for the word does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) of 1910. The term racialism has been around a little longer: It first appeared in print in 1907. Does this mean that racism did not exist before the twentieth century? In fact there is a consensus that it originated in the nineteenth century and has its intellectual roots in that century, although some scholars give it a somewhat longer history.
While the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) does indeed date the use of racism and racialism back to the beginning of the 20th Century, the word race used to express pretty much if not exactly the same concept is a good deal older – as the very same dictionary points out:
1572 I. B. Let. to R. C. sig. B.i The Englishe race ouerrunne and daily spoiled.
1612 R. COVERTE True Rep. Englishman 39 He is a white man and of the Race of the Tartares.
Isaacs’ introduction continues:
In this book I shall argue that early forms of racism, to be called proto-racism, were common in the Graeco-Roman world. My second point in this connection is that those early forms served as prototype for modern racism which developed in the eighteenth century.
That sounds an awful lot like … well, actually, not just sounds like, but is a key claim from Karl Popper’s 1945 The Open Society and its Enemies. And yet, surprisingly, Isaac’s book contains just a single reference to Popper – and even that is given in a footnote which itself is referring to someone criticising Popper. Again, I’m no expert, but the fact that he doesn’t mention Popper directly at all does little to inspire confidence.
What’s further aggravating is that the current system as it exists would allow for those RAR students to introduce those readings into their course assignments. In fact, unless I’ve misunderstood the purpose of higher education, those RAR students would be positively encouraged to seek out independent research on the topic – wouldn’t they?
In any event, I see absolutely no justification for their histrionics (pun intended).
Wasn’t that first lecture in this introductory course at Reed a discussion of the Epic of Gilgamesh? I guess contemplating life in ancient Mesopotamia is “Eurocentric” now.
In order to deconstruct something, that thing must be constructed in the first instance. Are these students, who are presumably eighteen year old college freshman, already experts in this material such that they can move directly to trashing it?
Which suggests the question isn’t one of remembering, it’s one of what they’re allowed to get away with. And who is doing the allowing.
That is a very good question.
Inured as we inevitably become to violence, I was truly shocked by the brazenness of the ‘Black Bloc’ at the recent G20 summit in Hamburg. The (rather suspiciously sanitised) reports shown on mainstream media were bad enough, but watching some of the action in real time on YouTube and LiveLeak, with what can only be described as squadrons of black-clad thugs marching unimpeded down the streets of a major European city (firebombing every vehicle in their path and destroying much other property besides) was chilling. This is inexcusable and unforgivable.
If maintaining order was beyond the police, why weren’t the Armed Forces called in? Perhaps I’m an especially bad person and out of touch with the general sentiment, but I wouldn’t have been distressed to see these thugs mown down without mercy. For a modern state that usually can’t spend enough money on micro-managing its citizens’ lives to cede power so readily raises all sorts of questions.
If you’ll permit me to be bitterly cynical for a moment, these thugs are state agents and so no power has been ceded.
(I don’t literally believe this. But it’s a nagging viewpoint that I think deserves consideration at least; and perhaps the eloquent comment section here can better help me put it to rest.)
So, wearing my three-belled Cynic’s Hat, I’m going to assert that the first priority of a modern state is its self-preservation and self-perpetuation.
(This is not a criticism of modern states; it’s just that states lacking this priority tend to vanish and be replaced by states that do have it. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.)
Relevant to the preservation of a modern state is the destruction of possible threats and competing power centers while maintaining or increasing its own power and perceived legitimacy. The kind of black bloc thugs you observe, let us call them blugs, assist in all these four. They may not be on state payroll, but they function, objectively speaking, as state agents. Blugs can smash up social network nodes the state disapproves of, and the state can wring its hands while looking like it didn’t crack down personally. Blugs can be directed at targets with a hint-hint-punch-that-nazi. The existence of blugs excuses more state power, more state oversight, supposedly because these emergency measures are needed to stop the horrible things blugs are doing and the state is the only thing that can protect you from the blugs (read: the state forbids anyone else to stop the blugs). As blugs do not pose a threat to the state, the state does not immediately stop them, but allows them to run amok until such time as the state decides its perceived legitimacy would be better served by rounding up the blugs and doing horrible things to them. Probably right after the blugs have intimidated a suitable number of targets and/or are starting to go off the reservation.
If maintaining order was beyond the police, why weren’t the Armed Forces called in?
In Hamburg, likely fear of bad press. I imagine if the Polizei and/or Army were rolled out in force there would have been ululation about the rise of the Fourth Reich sufficient to cause earthquakes.
In the US and A we have the Posse Comitatus Act which specifically prohibits the use of Federal armed forces in a direct law enforcement role, although under certain legal and regulatory guidelines they can render assistance to civilian authorities (to include the rozzers).
OTOH, a governor can roll out the National Guard, but the chances of Governor Moonbeam Brown sending in a mechanized infantry company to shut up the clowns in Berkeley are non if not zero, asymptotically approaching zero.
An interesting case that went into the gray area occurred in 1957 when Governor Orval Fabus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block a group of black children from attending a hitherto all white high school. President Eisenhower’s response was to send in the very Federal 101st Airborne to escort and protect the kids, then federalized the Arkansas National Guard taking their command and control away from the state.
OTOOH, the Insurrection act does allow Federal troops to be used for natural disasters and the like, as well as conditions of lawlessness wherein a state is unable to maintain order (e.g., LA riots). Getting back to East Berlin on the Bay, the key word is “unable”, not “unwilling”, but if “anti”fa (or similar) is deemed to be an insurrectionist group, in theory Federal troops could be used, and comedy would ensue.
@Micro
Your analysis is persuasive. “Blugs” provide the state with plausible deniability until such time as the state chooses to intervene in order to increase its power over the hoi polloi.
Let me also suggest, the state’s coddling of the “blugs” for a time dovetails with the general statist/Leftist antipathy toward self-defense. Diminishing/removing/criminalizing self-defense allows the “blugs” to run rampant with little fear of grassroots retaliation. This places the state in the position of being the guarantor of personal security, but, as courts have held in the U.S., the state has no duty to protect individual citizens. In other words, if I’m under attack and call the police, the police do not have to respond. Further, I have no cause of action against the state if the police choose to eat donuts rather than respond to my frantic call for assistance while confronting a home invasion.
It’s no coincidence that the bulk of these incidents occur in places which have Progressive/Left governments.
@Farnsworth
Accurate primer on U.S. law. Take a pickled egg out of petty cash.
From a couple of weeks ago:
Douglas Murray, here.
the stage of pushing faeces through someone’s letter box
Again with the faeces. Most children outgrow fascination with their own shit at about age 3. The “ring the doorbell and run, leaving a flaming bag of dogshit on the stoop” stunt is more typical of immature schoolboys. I think this speaks to the emotional maturity of the “Antifa” cretins.
Sorry kiddos, infantile ≠ “transgressive”.
I think this speaks to the emotional maturity of the “Antifa” cretins.
They do seem to be people who were, shall we say, damaged in transit.
Above: Your moral superior.
Though I think the larger problem is the reaction to their thuggery and attempts to intimidate – or rather, the inadequacy of reaction. There will always be thugs, sociopaths and delinquent misfits, and there will always be excuses and activities that attract them in high concentrations. The problem, I think, is that these nasty little creatures are, for the most part, not being met, and met promptly, with suitable or sufficient pushback. Instead, we see excuses and open encouragement by older, more statusful people who are scarcely less delinquent. Many of whom are left in charge of educating teenagers.
David:
I’ve seen opinion polls that show that between 55-60% of Americans have a positive view of Bernie Sanders (a Socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union), 60-65% have a positive view of Michelle Obama (a more radical and less articulate version of her husband), and I’ve also seen polls that show that about 40% of white Americans have a positive view of Black Lives Matter, which is basically a militant Marxist black nationalist group. As if that’s not enough, kids in American schools (from Kindergarten to University) believe the United States invented slavery. What we are witnessing is the total transformation of American society, and it’s scary as hell.
kids in American schools (from Kindergarten to University) believe the United States invented slavery.
A point touched on previously in the last item here and subsequent comments. And which suggests that it’s unwise for a society to allow the left to gain a chokehold on the education of its children.
Ace had a piece yesterday regarding the creeping politicalization of everything in favor of the left. Thought it very good (link below). Specifically this part
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/371653.php
Ran across this “joke” from a friend. In the context above, I found the background rather…interesting…
It is all about balance, you know.
OTOH, a governor can roll out the National Guard, but the chances of Governor Moonbeam Brown sending in a mechanized infantry company to shut up the clowns in Berkeley are non if not zero, asymptotically approaching zero.
Correct, because we know that Brown doesn’t need to do anything from the state level, that would be unneccesarily repeating what’s already been done at the local level.
With the Shapiro talk and circumstances being the natural extension from what was seen and done before, the campus and civic level quite successfully emphasized that there would be open and free speech—yes, politically free more than financially, but that is a point . . .
I was not aware George Soros hired mercenaries. Or that someone espousing the ideas of Karl Popper would be innately more awful than an Arab prince or Russian billionaire.
I’ve seen opinion polls that show that between 55-60% of Americans have a positive view of Bernie Sanders (a Socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union), 60-65% have a positive view of Michelle Obama (a more radical and less articulate version of her husband), and I’ve also seen polls that show that about 40% of white Americans have a positive view of Black Lives Matter, which is basically a militant Marxist black nationalist group.
Erm??? Hang on a moment while some numbers get looked at . . . .
So, noting that there is indeed the faith focused right wing, Etc—Daesh and their ilk being excellent handy examples of the right wing going out the window internationally, where in the US there has been the recent eruption of articles noting a white christian minority.
Over on the equally extreme left wing are the identity focused Karl Marx variety splittists in the bars and the Adolf Hitler variety lunatics in the streets, along with other identity focused varieties.
In between we have Trump and have had Obama, on the US senior legislative level we have Pelosi and have Feinstein and thus very much in between and quite separate from the right and left wing liberal extremes we have the Conservatives, the ones focusing on getting stuff done . . .
Now of those numbers . . . .
I’ve seen opinion polls that show that between 55-60% of Americans have a positive view of Bernie Sanders (a Socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union), . . . Actually, never mind mind the label for Sanders that all sorts of sides and directions keep waving about, Sanders is proven Conservative, quite rather than left wing.
. . . 60-65% have a positive view of Michelle Obama (a more radical and less articulate version of her husband), . . . Granting that the main focus has been more on President Obama more than first lady Obama, again, quite Conservative.
‘k, given the rather established political reality, those numbers could indeed make sense. Conflating 55% to 65% being in favor of the noted Conservatives, that would indeed leave an opposing ~20% or so on the left wing and ~20% or so on the right wing.
. . . and I’ve also seen polls that show that about 40% of white Americans have a positive view of Black Lives Matter, which is basically a militant Marxist black nationalist group.
Hmmm. Well, with the first two number sets, you state Americans. Not pigeon toed Americans, not purple Americans, not pickyourlabel Americans, just Americans, across the board. And then you shift to counting white Americans, where tossing the Obamas into the first two rather underlines that color keeps being rather irrelevant . . . So this is a totally new and separate set of data. From there, of this quite different observation, the 40% number states that, as you put it, and I’ve also seen polls that show that about 60% of white Americans have a negative view of Black Lives Matter,
And then finally; As if that’s not enough, kids in American schools (from Kindergarten to University) believe the United States invented slavery.
Um. Kids is rather a range there . . . Kids in Kindergarten are also known for believing in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. Of . . . kids in American schools . . , take 9,900 of same that prefer apples to oranges, and mix into ’em 100 that prefer oranges to apples, and As if that’s not enough, kids in American schools (from Kindergarten to University) prefer oranges to apples.
So I have a question. Regarding: What we are witnessing is the total transformation of American society, and it’s scary as hell. . . .
Can you tell us what that transformation is, how it is taking place, and why you find anything of it to be alarming?
Of the examples you’ve stated, the children reference is irrelevant, and with the political references, at absolute worst, what you are stating is: Yes, welcome to America, this is what we do, have been doing rather well for a couple of centuries, and expect to keep doing rather well . . .
Happily there is a glimmer of hope- colleges that allow this sort of stuff are losing out financially:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/jason-newman-colleges-pay-price-pandering-pc-mob/
Hal:
Bernie Sanders is a conservative?
Can anyone else decode the other nonsense in Hal’s post?
“Or that someone espousing the ideas of Karl Popper would be innately more awful than an Arab prince or Russian billionaire.”
–from a comment above
To be honest, Soros naming his foundation The Open Society Foundation (after Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies”) is a bit like Antifa describing themselves as anti-fascist, while being the most fascist group in the West.
I was not aware George Soros hired mercenaries.
Well, like he’s gonna tell you. He is rumored, and call me crazy but rumors are as good as MSM news these days, to be the money behind moving Atifa and BLM’s around the country. Also note, I did say a George Soros, not necessarily the George Soros. I was responding to Tim Newman’s more general comfort that there exist these tough young men who are not snowflakes. I think it is rather presumptuous that the greater mass of them will side against the leftists, be they leftist snowflakes or not. The problem at its base is not physical, but political. If the political critical mass manipulates the laws and culture as they have continued to do up to today, if the police (polite society’s mercenaries) continue to stand down in the face of antifas and such, a handful of Tim’s friends are not going to make a difference. This rot has infiltrated into our military. If you talk to the average young veteran, a significant number, perhaps even a majority, are copacetic with much leftism.
Can anyone else decode the other nonsense in Hal’s post?
I usually wait for someone else to sift that stuff out. All started to look like word salad to me a couple months ago.
Your protests are distracting me from learning the material that I paid to come here to college to learn
I have a modest proposal. The instructors should announce that any class session interrupted by these little shits will be cancelled and not made up. Any material in that session’s syllabus will, however, remain on the midterms and final exams and no consideration will be given for missed classes whatsoever.
Then sit back and watch the engineering and physics students discourage these kinds of antics.
Surely a couple of AKs would be an even bigger advantage than a shield wall.
My point is that both sides have become rather clever about sneaking raw materials through the police cordons that can be hastily repurposed into short spears and tower shields. I think we can presume that even the police aren’t going to allow antifa to brazenly carry firearms into one of these imbroglios.
Should one side or the other decide to get in a little drilling in basic shield wall and maneuver tactics, they’re going to roll over their opponents without having to fire a shot.
“A point touched on previously in the last item here and subsequent comments. And which suggests that it’s unwise for a society to allow the left to gain a chokehold on the education of its children.”
-a reply from David
Yes, I remember reading about it here. I would guess that if you asked kids in Swedish schools (or anywhere else in the Western world) those same questions you’d get the same answers as the American kids gave. And I do mean kids (BOTH in universities and kindergartens). The only difference between universities and kindergartens is the age of the kinder. Those who need Play-Doh, colouring books and puppies when a “mean” conservative comes to speak at their university are NOT adults.
which suggests that it’s unwise for a society to allow the left to gain a chokehold on the education of its children
That.
Hal has a very idiosyncratic view of the word “Conservative”, which he uses to denote non-partisanship and feeling superior to both sides.
“Focus on the eventual and inevitable sweet release of death. It helps.”
Optimistic nihilism works for me.
I guess we white folks had better give up trying to not be RAYYYCISTS…
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/09/19/activist-seminar-white-people-racist-always-will/
I guess we white folks had better give up trying to not be RAYYYCISTS…
I see that, in what must be a triumph of hope over expectation, she displays her PayPal details.
Seriously, without the benefit of a severe education, would this person achieve anything other than an entry-level, minimum-wage job?
would this person achieve anything other than an entry-level, minimum-wage job?
Well, she achieved getting published in WearYourVoiceMag.com…
Well, she achieved getting published …
Sorry, champ, I should have further qualified my question by adding ‘in a sane universe’.
Hal has a very idiosyncratic view of the word “Conservative”, which he uses to denote non-partisanship and feeling superior to both sides.
Um, details?—do explain yer feelz bit that you’re feeling there, or so . . .
The very intriguing part is watching the two groups of people that you acknowledge there: One group is those of us who see and remain quite comfortable with politics being that wide spectrum from right wing liberal to conservative holding the center and then to left wing liberal—or vice versa, to taste. The other group of people is those who are somehow trapped into seeing only a binary left/right—and who then keep mumbling about the horrors of the other side.
Another analogy that’s popped into mind recently is that of The Stage, that place where all the work gets done, which is flanked by the right wing box seating and the left wing box seating. I’m not certain how large each set of box seating is, but the established fact is that the mere box seating is not the stage, and that the actual players go to and are on the stage.
As far as being known as the right wing liberals vs the left wing liberals vs the conservatives that both flank, for both sets of liberals there is that incessant demand of My agenda is superior because I say it is superior and I don’t have to explain and I have to have it all now!!!!!!!!! Very liberal, that, right wing or left, with no concept of consequence or how to get anything done except scream and point at the other box seating.
By contrast, with the actors on the stage, everything has to get looked at, everything has to get assessed, solutions to issues are proposed and discussed, in detail, all that conservative stuff that separate the conservatives from the ideologues and thus note the conservatives as, well, the Conservatives, instead of being some fictitious “other side” . . .
In the US, Sanders/Obama/Trump/Pelosi/Feinstein are the conservatives on the stage. Especially as the last year of headlines have shown, and continue to show, those stuck in the box seats keep getting very frustrated when doing the idiosyncratic binary math.—I am in my box seating with a value of zero, and everyone else is in that other box seating with a value of one. Sanders/Obama/Trump/Pelosi/Feinstein are outside of my box seating and therefore—and at that point the binary only mechanism seizes, because of course the conservatives are on the stage instead of being in the other box seating, the Conservatives are being watched from both the left and right wing box seating instead of being part of either.
A number of years ago there was a US military careers discussion program—some bit of very good Googlemancy will turn it up—where very bored career military were reminded that there are a lot of options available for career military. As I recall, the program was reported to have gone well, albeit with a rather surreal bit of summarizing by binary only staff claiming that This guy says if we’re bored, we need to go to the other side, and here in the military we call that treason!!!!
For those who successfully took part in the program, they were reminded that when in the US military infantry, there is the the US military artillery. When in the US military artillery, there is the the US military airborne. When in the US military airborne, there is the the US military logistics. When in the US military logistics, there is the the US military intelligence.
Etc.
In just that list alone, all of that list being only US military, that is five different variations, and that was just a random selection of the one US military, of the one US military spectrum. Just like there being the political spectrum, rather than then attempt to only see left/right
In the UK political spectrum, to attempt to ignore the reality of the stage flanked by box seats is even more impossible, because in the UK the conservatives are even The Conservatives, where Conservative Prime Minister May and Conservative Foreign Minister Johnson even have their own titles.—Albeit, not to be confused for Titles, for that see Lords, The House Of. In the UK political spectrum, with the Conservatives being the conservatives and vice versa, on one side is the right wing box seating that is called UKIP, and that lot, and then over on the other side is the left wing box seating that is called Labour, and that lot.
Soooo, all in all, when watching the rather idiosyncratic claim that there can be only right or left, seeing the attempts to ignore the permanent and ongoing and existent reality of the spectrum of left/conservative/right is a bit fascinating and quite puzzling.
Stop digging, @Hal.