While recently going through my old hard drive, in preparation for formatting it, I came across this passage from David Bentley Hart. Unfortunately, I didn't copy the URL of the article and I'm very pressed for time. I can say that his argument is like the one I made to atheist fan-boys of Sam Harris when I proposed instead of entertaining the idea of nuking "tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day" to forestall the use of what was so charmingly discussed as "the Islamic bomb" that, instead, we should give them an ultimatum of killing all of their nuclear physicists, the ones who had the capability to build nuclear weapons for them, no doubt a cost savings in lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions to one instead of that science fan-boy's final solution which would outdo "in a single day" Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. in genocidal achievement.
As I've mentioned before, the same guys who were calmly contemplating nuclear genocide were horrified and shocked at the idea of KILLING SCIENTISTS! Clearly, they think the life of one, even "Islamic" bomb-making nuclear physicist is worth tens of millions of what even Harris noted were "innocent" lives. I don't remember if, considering the then frequently made brag that scientists were almost all atheists, I proposed that we call the nuclear arsenals of the West and the old Soviet Union, China, etc. "the atheist bomb" and contemplate taking out that population along with or instead of the one that Sam Harris put on his maybe(?)kill them list. If I didn't say it then I should have.
I think I liked finding a similar point made by Hart about that current most degenerate and disgusting of academic specialties, the "ethicists" whose main preoccupation would seem to be drawing up death lists, the overlap with those of Hitler being obvious and notable. I will remind you that such people currently hold faculty positions at many eminent universities and other institutions of repute and are always, Dershowitz-like, getting themselves on chat shows and giving popular lectures on who to kill.
--------------------------------
. . . Far more intellectually honest are those — like the late, almost comically vile Joseph Fletcher of Harvard — who openly acknowledge that any earnest attempt to improve the human stock must necessarily involve some measures of legal coercion. Fletcher, of course, was infamously unabashed in castigating modern medicine for “polluting” our gene pool with inferior specimens and in rhapsodizing upon the benefits the race would reap from instituting a regime of genetic invigilation that would allow society to eliminate “idiots” and “cripples” and other genetic defectives before they could burden us with their worthless lives. It was he who famously declared that reproduction is a privilege, not a right, and suggested that perhaps mothers should be forced by the state to abort “diseased” babies if they refused to do so of their own free will. Needless to say, state-imposed sterilization struck him as a reasonable policy; and he agreed with Linus Pauling that it might be wise to consider segregating genetic inferiors into a recognizable caste, marked out by indelible brands impressed upon their brows. And, striking a few minor transhumanist chords of his own, he even advocated — in a deranged and hideous passage from his book The Ethics of Genetic Control — the creation of “chimeras or parahumans...to do dangerous or demeaning jobs” of the sort that are now “shoved off on moronic or retarded individuals” — which, apparently, was how he viewed janitors, construction workers, firefighters, miners, and persons of that ilk.*
Of course, there was always a certain oafish audacity in Fletcher’s degenerate driveling about “morons” and “defectives,” given that there is good cause to suspect, from a purely utilitarian vantage, that academic ethicists — especially those like Fletcher, who are notoriously mediocre thinkers, possessed of small culture, no discernible speculative gifts, no records of substantive philosophical achievement, and execrable prose styles — constitute perhaps the single most useless element in society. If reproduction is not a right but a social function, should any woman be allowed to bring such men into the world? And should those men be permitted, in their turn, to sire offspring? I ask this question entirely in earnest, because I think it helps to identify the one indubitable truth about all social movements towards eugenics: namely, that the values that will determine which lives are worth living, and which not, will always be the province of persons of vicious temperament. If I were asked to decide what qualities to suppress or encourage in the human species, I might first attempt to discover if there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to moral idiocy and then, if there is, to eliminate it; then there would be no more Joseph Fletchers (or Peter Singers, or Linus Paulings, or James Rachels), and I might think all is well. But, of course, the very idea is a contradiction in terms. Decisions regarding who should or should not live can, by definition, be made only by those who believe such decisions should be made; and therein lies the horror that nothing can ever exorcise from the ideology behind human bioengineering.
I will point out that if we killed all of the nuclear physicists who are capable of producing nuclear weapons, we could rid the world of the danger of nuclear annihilation. I think that would be a boon to the world whereas I can see no similar good in ridding the world of people with Down's syndrome.
* I have read some of Fletcher, I think Hart's accusation of his elitism isn't much of an exaggeration. I will note that he started out as an Episcopalian priest but became an atheist.
I will further note, in line with my recent posts, that that moral degenerate was one of those the ever fame-fucking Humanists gave their Humanist of the Year award to. They love eugenicists and those who propose genocide, such is their "humanism".
Note: We are due to have two days of storms and it is likely that we will lose electricity on my road. If I'm down, you'll know the reason.
Update: Looking for edits to be made, it occurs to me that Fletcher, Pauling and Singer all were given the Humanist Of The Year award, I'm not sure about Rachels, he may have not been famous enough for them. They love 'em famous, too.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
I will vote for whoever is nominated by the Democratic Party for President, I will vote a straight Democratic ticket in November, the country and my state will be ruled by either Democrats or Republican-fascists, to vote for anyone other than a Democrat or to not vote is to vote for Republican-fascism.
If anyone who wants to run for a Democratic nomination doesn't make that promise and insist that the members of his campaign make that promise, they are a lying fraud and a spoiler for Republican-fascists.
If anyone who wants to run for a Democratic nomination doesn't make that promise and insist that the members of his campaign make that promise, they are a lying fraud and a spoiler for Republican-fascists.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh
So the reason that the Iowa Caucus was such a total screw up was that they didn't want to be threatened with a lawsuit treat from Bernie Sanders like they were in 2016? And yet it's the Bernie Sanders guys who are inventing the rumors and raising the conspiracy theories surrounding the release of partial results - apparently something Sander's people demanded - and other such screw ups.
I know you're probably thinking that I'm beating a dead horse but if this is how big a screw up Iowa was, it's only the first of the caucuses, last time Iowa had problems, Nevada was a complete and total disaster. You're going to be hearing all kinds of news stories about how Democrats have fucked up out of the caucuses till the last one. The Bernie Bots are still whining about the ones in 2016.
And the Iowa caucus debacle was predicted, especially by those with experience with it and those running it. This Atlantic article published two days ago has some of the details of how they knew they were going into a disaster, one of their own and Bernie Sander's making.*
A crush of new Democratic voters, mobilized by a wave of anti-Trump energy, will arrive at their caucus precinct, and there will not be enough voter-registration forms.
I'll start here because anyone anticipating "a crush of voters" in the most well attended caucus is harboring a deluion, even the most well attended caucuses have a fraction of the turnout you can expect from a primary where people cast a vote on a ballot in the way of honest elections. I don't remember who it was who said it but they noted if a Third World country or a recent democracy had elections by caucus people would be calling for the UN to step in to document the corruption. There's a reason that Lewis Carroll mocked caucuses in Alice in Wonderland**.
The lines will be long, and some Iowans, many of them elderly, will shiver in the cold for hours before getting inside. The caucus itself will be pandemonium: There won’t be enough preference cards for caucus-goers to write down their favorite presidential contenders. Voters will be incensed when they learn about the new realignment rules. There will be miscounts and recounts. And at the end of the night, once all the numbers have been crunched and recrunched, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders will each claim victory.
And for anyone who is innocent of what caucuses are like because their state wisely gave them up long ago, THIS IS GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO RETAIN CAUCUSES. And I will remind you, THEY RELY ON MOST ELIGIBLE VOTERS NOT SHOWING UP. The only times I have seen actual pandemonium at our caucus was when a lot of people who had never been to one of the stupid things showed up, ususally it's people who know how stupid it's going to be and who get on with it so it will be over.
This is Sandy Dockendorff’s nightmare scenario for tonight’s caucus. The 62-year-old former nurse, who is running a caucus in the small town of Danville, laid it all out for me over coffee last week. Her worst fears are unlikely to be realized. “The party has done everything it can to make sure that’s not the case,” she said. But the caucus is extremely complex, and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate and complicated for the press to cover. The biggest fear: Democrats may not have a clear winner—a scenario that could further threaten Iowa’s imperiled first-in-the-nation position.
"The caucus is extremely complex and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate," Well, as noted, it was made more complicated even than before largely at the behest of the Sanders inner circle.
There is no way to make Caucuses "transparent" as was the demand because despite people standing and making their support for a candidate in public - as used to be done to prevent democracy in 19th century Britain and is done in dictatorships elsewhere now - the process will always be a shit-show, locally, on a state level and, through the corruption that comes with that brain-dead 19th century form, will infect the whole process. And if it doesn't, the national news media will give everyone the impression that it does BECAUSE THE PROCESS IS INHERENTLY CORRUPT.
I defended the Democratic National Committee in comments on one of The Young Turks' videos yesterday because it wasn't their fault the Iowa Democrats caved to their boy Bernie to make the process so much more absurd than it was guaranteed to be. Cenk is a friggin' liar as well as an asshole Bernie bot.
But I do blame the Democratic National Committee for going along with those states, such as my own, where, for whatever stupid reason, they retain the caucuses.
The Democratic National Committee could put an end to the quadrennial shit show by stepping in and saying that delegates chosen by caucus will not have a role in selecting the Democratic candidate for president, that only those delegates chosen by primary elections will go to the convention. That would do it. If states refused, through legislative Republican rat fucking, the Democratic Party should step in and run the kind of registered Democrats only, by-mail primary. I can guarantee you that that would get a far higher participation than the caucuses. Even in Iowa where they make such a big thing of it, in a year when Democrats should have come out in droves, they couldn't exceed their dismal participation rate in 2016.
I do blame the Democratic National Committee for allowing this to continue. I blame the Maine Democratic Party, the Iowa Democratic Party etc. for keeping this awful, anti-democratic self-inflicted damage and allowing it to continue.
* The new rules were mandated by the DNC as part of a package of changes sought by Bernie Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The changes were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive.
And it’s not just Iowa that is affected by the changes. The Nevada Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22 will also report three sets of results.
** ‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.
‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.
‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.
‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to Alice.
‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.
‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
I know you're probably thinking that I'm beating a dead horse but if this is how big a screw up Iowa was, it's only the first of the caucuses, last time Iowa had problems, Nevada was a complete and total disaster. You're going to be hearing all kinds of news stories about how Democrats have fucked up out of the caucuses till the last one. The Bernie Bots are still whining about the ones in 2016.
And the Iowa caucus debacle was predicted, especially by those with experience with it and those running it. This Atlantic article published two days ago has some of the details of how they knew they were going into a disaster, one of their own and Bernie Sander's making.*
A crush of new Democratic voters, mobilized by a wave of anti-Trump energy, will arrive at their caucus precinct, and there will not be enough voter-registration forms.
I'll start here because anyone anticipating "a crush of voters" in the most well attended caucus is harboring a deluion, even the most well attended caucuses have a fraction of the turnout you can expect from a primary where people cast a vote on a ballot in the way of honest elections. I don't remember who it was who said it but they noted if a Third World country or a recent democracy had elections by caucus people would be calling for the UN to step in to document the corruption. There's a reason that Lewis Carroll mocked caucuses in Alice in Wonderland**.
The lines will be long, and some Iowans, many of them elderly, will shiver in the cold for hours before getting inside. The caucus itself will be pandemonium: There won’t be enough preference cards for caucus-goers to write down their favorite presidential contenders. Voters will be incensed when they learn about the new realignment rules. There will be miscounts and recounts. And at the end of the night, once all the numbers have been crunched and recrunched, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders will each claim victory.
And for anyone who is innocent of what caucuses are like because their state wisely gave them up long ago, THIS IS GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO RETAIN CAUCUSES. And I will remind you, THEY RELY ON MOST ELIGIBLE VOTERS NOT SHOWING UP. The only times I have seen actual pandemonium at our caucus was when a lot of people who had never been to one of the stupid things showed up, ususally it's people who know how stupid it's going to be and who get on with it so it will be over.
This is Sandy Dockendorff’s nightmare scenario for tonight’s caucus. The 62-year-old former nurse, who is running a caucus in the small town of Danville, laid it all out for me over coffee last week. Her worst fears are unlikely to be realized. “The party has done everything it can to make sure that’s not the case,” she said. But the caucus is extremely complex, and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate and complicated for the press to cover. The biggest fear: Democrats may not have a clear winner—a scenario that could further threaten Iowa’s imperiled first-in-the-nation position.
"The caucus is extremely complex and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate," Well, as noted, it was made more complicated even than before largely at the behest of the Sanders inner circle.
There is no way to make Caucuses "transparent" as was the demand because despite people standing and making their support for a candidate in public - as used to be done to prevent democracy in 19th century Britain and is done in dictatorships elsewhere now - the process will always be a shit-show, locally, on a state level and, through the corruption that comes with that brain-dead 19th century form, will infect the whole process. And if it doesn't, the national news media will give everyone the impression that it does BECAUSE THE PROCESS IS INHERENTLY CORRUPT.
I defended the Democratic National Committee in comments on one of The Young Turks' videos yesterday because it wasn't their fault the Iowa Democrats caved to their boy Bernie to make the process so much more absurd than it was guaranteed to be. Cenk is a friggin' liar as well as an asshole Bernie bot.
But I do blame the Democratic National Committee for going along with those states, such as my own, where, for whatever stupid reason, they retain the caucuses.
The Democratic National Committee could put an end to the quadrennial shit show by stepping in and saying that delegates chosen by caucus will not have a role in selecting the Democratic candidate for president, that only those delegates chosen by primary elections will go to the convention. That would do it. If states refused, through legislative Republican rat fucking, the Democratic Party should step in and run the kind of registered Democrats only, by-mail primary. I can guarantee you that that would get a far higher participation than the caucuses. Even in Iowa where they make such a big thing of it, in a year when Democrats should have come out in droves, they couldn't exceed their dismal participation rate in 2016.
I do blame the Democratic National Committee for allowing this to continue. I blame the Maine Democratic Party, the Iowa Democratic Party etc. for keeping this awful, anti-democratic self-inflicted damage and allowing it to continue.
* The new rules were mandated by the DNC as part of a package of changes sought by Bernie Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The changes were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive.
And it’s not just Iowa that is affected by the changes. The Nevada Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22 will also report three sets of results.
** ‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.
‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.
‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.
‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to Alice.
‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.
‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Give Me A Friggin' Break
I just read a Bernie Bot make one of the dumbest comments I've ever seen, he claimed that it was a certainty that Bobby Kennedy would have voted for Bernie. I would guess this ass is somewhat younger than fifty years old and would possibly have parents who weren't around when Bobby Kennedy got shot.
Bobby Kennedy was a cold warrior UNTIL he decided to jump on the bandwagon that Eugene McCarthy had driven up to then, as those idiot fatheads Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans encouraged him to as about their eighth choice, in the "Dump Johnson" movement. Their first choice had been Bobby Kennedy but he declined as did a number of others, Kennedy jumped in after he saw that it might be possible to continue the Kennedy Dynasty by forcing Johnson out. Him getting into that race was ironic in that he was part of his brother's administration which did so much to get us further entangled in the Vietnam war.
ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WAX NOSTALGIC ABOUT THAT SHOULD BE SLAPPED IN THE FACE WITH THE FACT THAT THAT IS WHAT GOT US NIXON IN 1968.
Kennedy, of course, got assassinated, Eugene McCarthy lost and began his career of campaigning against Democrats and enabling Republicans for the rest of his pretty disgusting life, Allard Lowenstein was someone I always thought was pretty dodgy, he was great pals with the fascist William F. Buckley (who eulogized him at Lowenstein's funeral), he was a good buddy of Donald Rumsfeld while they were in congress and he frequently had some pretty awful people support his political campaigns, sometimes,like Rumsfeld pulling the rug out from under him in the end.
Curtis Gans' political wisdom can be seen from one of the last articles he wrote in which he expressed his great hope for fighting the phony astro-turf Tea Party by the nice Republicans.
You should read it to see what a bunch of friggin' chumps these guys were, never, ever learning a friggin' thing.
In 1967, I conceived of and, with the late Allard Lowenstein, organized a grassroots effort that came to be called “The Dump Johnson Movement,” which intended to provide an alternative to extremism, reverse the upward trajectory of American involvement in Vietnam and remove the principle buttress of that escalation from power. When Sen. Eugene McCarthy provided national leadership for that effort by mounting a challenge in the Democratic primaries, I enlisted in his campaign. When McCarthy began his candidacy, he was unknown to 57 percent of the American citizenry. When I took the train to New Hampshire to help coordinate McCarthy’s campaign there one month before the primary, polls showed only two percent in the state supported his candidacy. The conventional wisdom was that a sitting president could not be beaten within his own party. But we succeeded in making it impossible for Johnson to seek reelection, transforming the Democratic Party’s advocacy from pro-war to anti-war, and creating a permanent majority national popular opposition to the continuation of the war.
Only a similar major grassroots effort in GOP primaries by mainstream Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now can reverse the destruction the right-wing is wreaking to party and country.
The first step on this road is to cease dignifying the far right with the word “conservative.”
The essential underpinnings of conservatism from Burke to Buckley have been a respect for the institutions of both governance and society, moderation in manner, skepticism about major and abrupt change and a concomitant rejection of extremes. True conservatives’ belief in traditional values is leavened by a tolerance for diverse views. Their support for free markets is tempered by understanding the need for constructive regulation of their excesses. They are committed to human equality and support equality of opportunity without a mandate for equality of result. Their vision of governance is by representative rather than direct democracy and, where possible, a civil approach to political dialogue and a rational approach to public policy.
Apparently, as late is 2013 he thought he could shame the Republican-fascists into being nice and accepting democracy.
Remember, those shitheads helped, in a big way, to get us Nixon as you consider that I found that comment on a Michael Brooks Bernie Bot video. Idiots, all of them.
I'd have gone into Bobby Kennedy's career of starting out working for Joe McCarthy as well as being in charge of his brother's efforts to get rid of Castro, not to mention any number of less than PC activities he was engaged in as Attorney General.
As I noted here the other day, I'm over the Kennedy mystique. Because I remember the 60s quite well.
Bobby Kennedy was a cold warrior UNTIL he decided to jump on the bandwagon that Eugene McCarthy had driven up to then, as those idiot fatheads Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans encouraged him to as about their eighth choice, in the "Dump Johnson" movement. Their first choice had been Bobby Kennedy but he declined as did a number of others, Kennedy jumped in after he saw that it might be possible to continue the Kennedy Dynasty by forcing Johnson out. Him getting into that race was ironic in that he was part of his brother's administration which did so much to get us further entangled in the Vietnam war.
ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WAX NOSTALGIC ABOUT THAT SHOULD BE SLAPPED IN THE FACE WITH THE FACT THAT THAT IS WHAT GOT US NIXON IN 1968.
Kennedy, of course, got assassinated, Eugene McCarthy lost and began his career of campaigning against Democrats and enabling Republicans for the rest of his pretty disgusting life, Allard Lowenstein was someone I always thought was pretty dodgy, he was great pals with the fascist William F. Buckley (who eulogized him at Lowenstein's funeral), he was a good buddy of Donald Rumsfeld while they were in congress and he frequently had some pretty awful people support his political campaigns, sometimes,like Rumsfeld pulling the rug out from under him in the end.
Curtis Gans' political wisdom can be seen from one of the last articles he wrote in which he expressed his great hope for fighting the phony astro-turf Tea Party by the nice Republicans.
You should read it to see what a bunch of friggin' chumps these guys were, never, ever learning a friggin' thing.
In 1967, I conceived of and, with the late Allard Lowenstein, organized a grassroots effort that came to be called “The Dump Johnson Movement,” which intended to provide an alternative to extremism, reverse the upward trajectory of American involvement in Vietnam and remove the principle buttress of that escalation from power. When Sen. Eugene McCarthy provided national leadership for that effort by mounting a challenge in the Democratic primaries, I enlisted in his campaign. When McCarthy began his candidacy, he was unknown to 57 percent of the American citizenry. When I took the train to New Hampshire to help coordinate McCarthy’s campaign there one month before the primary, polls showed only two percent in the state supported his candidacy. The conventional wisdom was that a sitting president could not be beaten within his own party. But we succeeded in making it impossible for Johnson to seek reelection, transforming the Democratic Party’s advocacy from pro-war to anti-war, and creating a permanent majority national popular opposition to the continuation of the war.
Only a similar major grassroots effort in GOP primaries by mainstream Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now can reverse the destruction the right-wing is wreaking to party and country.
The first step on this road is to cease dignifying the far right with the word “conservative.”
The essential underpinnings of conservatism from Burke to Buckley have been a respect for the institutions of both governance and society, moderation in manner, skepticism about major and abrupt change and a concomitant rejection of extremes. True conservatives’ belief in traditional values is leavened by a tolerance for diverse views. Their support for free markets is tempered by understanding the need for constructive regulation of their excesses. They are committed to human equality and support equality of opportunity without a mandate for equality of result. Their vision of governance is by representative rather than direct democracy and, where possible, a civil approach to political dialogue and a rational approach to public policy.
Apparently, as late is 2013 he thought he could shame the Republican-fascists into being nice and accepting democracy.
Remember, those shitheads helped, in a big way, to get us Nixon as you consider that I found that comment on a Michael Brooks Bernie Bot video. Idiots, all of them.
I'd have gone into Bobby Kennedy's career of starting out working for Joe McCarthy as well as being in charge of his brother's efforts to get rid of Castro, not to mention any number of less than PC activities he was engaged in as Attorney General.
As I noted here the other day, I'm over the Kennedy mystique. Because I remember the 60s quite well.
Makoto Ozone - Times Like These
Gary Burton, vibes
Andy Scherrer, sax
Cedar Walton, piano
Peter Schmidlin, drums
The comments gave the name of the drummer, I can't find out who the bass player is.
Caucuses Are An Exercise In Privilege By Hobbyists
I went back and transcribed what is one of the best explanations of why caucuses should be banned by the Democratic Party as a means of choosing the party nominee. From Alanna Harkin's on the ground in Iowa segement from Samantha Bee's show last week.
Anybody who would struggle to get to a specific place at an inflexible time, I want them to have options. I understand why people like it, it's folksy and the idea of it is charming, to come together as a community, and we discuss who we want our next president to be. But what it ends up being is an exercise in privilege by hobbyists.
Emmanuel Smith: Disabilities advocate
I think if he had said "I understand why people imagine they like the idea of it" I could agree with the whole statement because I think anyone who has actually participated in caucuses knows that view of caucuses is fantasy, not reality.
Having participated in caucuses for many decades, the folksiness and charm wore off pretty much immediately about fifty years ago. The first thing I noted was that, honestly, every time except twice, easily fewer than 3% of the registered Democratic voters in my town caucused, a number that would honestly be a far lower percent because we stupidly have same-day party declaration in Maine and same-day registration for what should be strictly party specific events, so the entire population eligible to vote would be the more honest number.
The actual practice of persuasion and discussion is avoided because most of the time is spent on a futile attempt at explaining the ridiculous, occult and ever changing rules that the idiots of the rules committees have thought up for every cycle. That can drag on for an hour or more. Even the newbies have to have it explained and a lot of them have no idea what it's about. The people who get on rules committees are dominated by idiots who like having their own way, those are the idiots who love caucuses. Such as the Dick I'll get to in a minute.
That theoretical bull shit that is the substance of the "folksiness and charm" has never been manifested in any caucus I've ever witnessed. I have never seen more than one or two people change their minds to stand with another group than the one they started with. Usually any discussion is when some carpetbagging Greens or others start fussing over things being "fixed" even though the process is the same for everyone. The last time the Bernie Bots were the source of most of that. I still am not speaking with one guy in town who made an ass of himself in that way.
But that aside, it was the best short description of why caucuses are an abomination.
In the show Ms. Harkin went back to the idiot brains behind the Iowa caucus, Dick Bender who said with total arrogance and thinly veiled elitism to the point she cribbed from Mr. Emmanuel:
Well, I think they're an exercise by people who really care about who is going to be president of the United States.
As if people who couldn't get to a caucus, people who couldn't get into a caucus location, people who can't take hours on a week night (at least ours are on the weekend, now) who have young children and can't afford a baby-sitter, etc. don't care about who is president while old, white, affluent, mobile people for who that isn't a problem are the ones, you see who "really care". What an asshole. You really should watch it for just what a bunch of jerks the caucus enthusiasts are.
We The People have got to prevent idiots like this from having such a damaging effect on American democracy. CONSIDERING THE DISASTER THEY HAVE BEEN FOR DEMOCRATS GOING BACK FIVE DECADES, DEMOCRATS HAVE AN ESPECIALLY GOOD REASON FOR JUNKING THEM. I don't think, given the debacle that the Iowa Caucus was, last night, those who insist on retaining them are really that much different from the Republican ratfuckers who did damage to democracy in 2016, the end effect is the same. Trump is making hay out of what Richard Bender was so self-satisfied and smug about on camera last week.
Update: Yes to Dumping The Caucus No To Enhancing New Hampshires Role:
Reading the ongoing debacle in Iowa, here from Politico (not my favorite source for linking to)
If one thing was certain from Monday's debacle, Iowa had just signed its death warrant as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen said.
“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Yepsen said. “The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for ... nothing.
“I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”
Living on the Maine-NH border for most of my life, being a life-long reader of news from that state NO. New Hampshire has a better system, a primary, but no state should have the power that New Hampshire has given itself as "first in the nation". No small group of states should have that power, certainly not concentrated in one region and with such a small population which has the distinction of being almost as lily white as Maine is and much whiter than even Iowa. Here is a list of the 10 whitest states in order of increasing diversity.
Least diverse states:
West Virginia
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Montana
Kentucky
Utah
Iowa
Ohio
Wyoming
Notice anything about how they tend to vote in the general election?
The whole thing needs to be fixed, have either an election with states from various parts of the country and of diversity go first or have a national primary in which only Democrats vote, preferably by a mail-in ballot. That ballot should have a fixed form that doesn't change, though I would randomly have the names of the candidates arranged on papers, each one of them appearing first, second, third, on an equal number of ballots. If you're going to use a computer for something, use it to make the system less biased.
Anybody who would struggle to get to a specific place at an inflexible time, I want them to have options. I understand why people like it, it's folksy and the idea of it is charming, to come together as a community, and we discuss who we want our next president to be. But what it ends up being is an exercise in privilege by hobbyists.
Emmanuel Smith: Disabilities advocate
I think if he had said "I understand why people imagine they like the idea of it" I could agree with the whole statement because I think anyone who has actually participated in caucuses knows that view of caucuses is fantasy, not reality.
Having participated in caucuses for many decades, the folksiness and charm wore off pretty much immediately about fifty years ago. The first thing I noted was that, honestly, every time except twice, easily fewer than 3% of the registered Democratic voters in my town caucused, a number that would honestly be a far lower percent because we stupidly have same-day party declaration in Maine and same-day registration for what should be strictly party specific events, so the entire population eligible to vote would be the more honest number.
The actual practice of persuasion and discussion is avoided because most of the time is spent on a futile attempt at explaining the ridiculous, occult and ever changing rules that the idiots of the rules committees have thought up for every cycle. That can drag on for an hour or more. Even the newbies have to have it explained and a lot of them have no idea what it's about. The people who get on rules committees are dominated by idiots who like having their own way, those are the idiots who love caucuses. Such as the Dick I'll get to in a minute.
That theoretical bull shit that is the substance of the "folksiness and charm" has never been manifested in any caucus I've ever witnessed. I have never seen more than one or two people change their minds to stand with another group than the one they started with. Usually any discussion is when some carpetbagging Greens or others start fussing over things being "fixed" even though the process is the same for everyone. The last time the Bernie Bots were the source of most of that. I still am not speaking with one guy in town who made an ass of himself in that way.
But that aside, it was the best short description of why caucuses are an abomination.
In the show Ms. Harkin went back to the idiot brains behind the Iowa caucus, Dick Bender who said with total arrogance and thinly veiled elitism to the point she cribbed from Mr. Emmanuel:
Well, I think they're an exercise by people who really care about who is going to be president of the United States.
As if people who couldn't get to a caucus, people who couldn't get into a caucus location, people who can't take hours on a week night (at least ours are on the weekend, now) who have young children and can't afford a baby-sitter, etc. don't care about who is president while old, white, affluent, mobile people for who that isn't a problem are the ones, you see who "really care". What an asshole. You really should watch it for just what a bunch of jerks the caucus enthusiasts are.
We The People have got to prevent idiots like this from having such a damaging effect on American democracy. CONSIDERING THE DISASTER THEY HAVE BEEN FOR DEMOCRATS GOING BACK FIVE DECADES, DEMOCRATS HAVE AN ESPECIALLY GOOD REASON FOR JUNKING THEM. I don't think, given the debacle that the Iowa Caucus was, last night, those who insist on retaining them are really that much different from the Republican ratfuckers who did damage to democracy in 2016, the end effect is the same. Trump is making hay out of what Richard Bender was so self-satisfied and smug about on camera last week.
Update: Yes to Dumping The Caucus No To Enhancing New Hampshires Role:
Reading the ongoing debacle in Iowa, here from Politico (not my favorite source for linking to)
If one thing was certain from Monday's debacle, Iowa had just signed its death warrant as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen said.
“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Yepsen said. “The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for ... nothing.
“I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”
Living on the Maine-NH border for most of my life, being a life-long reader of news from that state NO. New Hampshire has a better system, a primary, but no state should have the power that New Hampshire has given itself as "first in the nation". No small group of states should have that power, certainly not concentrated in one region and with such a small population which has the distinction of being almost as lily white as Maine is and much whiter than even Iowa. Here is a list of the 10 whitest states in order of increasing diversity.
Least diverse states:
West Virginia
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Montana
Kentucky
Utah
Iowa
Ohio
Wyoming
Notice anything about how they tend to vote in the general election?
The whole thing needs to be fixed, have either an election with states from various parts of the country and of diversity go first or have a national primary in which only Democrats vote, preferably by a mail-in ballot. That ballot should have a fixed form that doesn't change, though I would randomly have the names of the candidates arranged on papers, each one of them appearing first, second, third, on an equal number of ballots. If you're going to use a computer for something, use it to make the system less biased.
The Left Won't Be Real Till We Get Shut Of The Play-Left That Will Be True Even If Bernie Sanders Is Through Some Miracle Elected
I will be tempted to look today at the Bernosphere, The Young Turks, Majority Report, etc. to see what dark conspiracies they invent to explain whatever about Iowa - I remember the ever metasticizing conspiracy invention among the Bernie Bots in 2016, they are pretty much children without any real regard for finding out what they're talking about before they replace their fantasies for reporting.
Will I? I suppose I should to see if they've learned a single thing, my guess is that they will prove they haven't.
The real left will be a left that can get elected, win control of congresses and legislatures, the federal Senate and state senates and the presidency and governorships. No other left now or in the history of "lefts" has been real. Those "lefts" which failed to do that have never been more than pipe dreams promising pie-in-the-sky while slamming other people for promising pie-in-the-sky. The difference being that a lot of those the secular-atheist-play-left slammed for what they did would, unlike that "left" give you at least a bowl of soup, some bread and maybe a place to sleep. I would love to know how often the Wobblies gave anyone pie. The play left is a total and complete fraud, the play-thing of affluent, white-collar, mostly white people, any practical work to do something for someone given up as soon as they leave college and start making money and paying off a mortgage or college loans.
Some of the worst of those go into "journalism" and some of the worst of those had to invent their own venues in podcasting or the like.
We have got to get a real left going, one which is disenchanted with Marxism, for a start, one which has the maturity to know that in the coming months, if Bernie Sanders, the carpetbagger of Vermont, gets the Democratic nomination, he has a whole life history of choices, memberships, associations, scribbling and recorded babbling for the Republican-fascists and the fascist media to put Trump back into office. You won't find that can be based on the "youth vote" it will have to come from people of maturity and it is my guess that you will find those mostly among religious liberals of some experience. I'd love to ask The Nuns on the Bus what they might think about what I just said. I'd love to hear what a group of those who run real religion based charities that serve the least among us would have to say on these issues. What Cenk and Sam, Ana and Michael have to say on it will, I can almost guarantee you, be stupid and useless for actually doing anything.
Vermont was colonized by play-lefties, I'd guess inspired by those two venerable, insufferably sanctimonious fatheads, Helen and Scott Nearing. That's how Bernie got there and that was the base of his political career. I know the type, the Nearings moved to Maine after they lived in Vermont, we have lots of them here, too. Most of them would, I doubt, be reliable volunteers for a weekly soup kitchen. I haven't ever seen many of those around here. Maybe they were but they learn something if they do instead of babble.
The prospects of Bernie Sanders winning the election is far lower than Bernie Sanders doing the typical play lefty thing, the only real presence the play-left has had in American politics, being a spoiler to put a Republican-fascist in office. The prospect of him not getting to November with another heart attack is a lot higher than him winning the election. That we are having to consider this, now, proves my point.
Will I? I suppose I should to see if they've learned a single thing, my guess is that they will prove they haven't.
The real left will be a left that can get elected, win control of congresses and legislatures, the federal Senate and state senates and the presidency and governorships. No other left now or in the history of "lefts" has been real. Those "lefts" which failed to do that have never been more than pipe dreams promising pie-in-the-sky while slamming other people for promising pie-in-the-sky. The difference being that a lot of those the secular-atheist-play-left slammed for what they did would, unlike that "left" give you at least a bowl of soup, some bread and maybe a place to sleep. I would love to know how often the Wobblies gave anyone pie. The play left is a total and complete fraud, the play-thing of affluent, white-collar, mostly white people, any practical work to do something for someone given up as soon as they leave college and start making money and paying off a mortgage or college loans.
Some of the worst of those go into "journalism" and some of the worst of those had to invent their own venues in podcasting or the like.
We have got to get a real left going, one which is disenchanted with Marxism, for a start, one which has the maturity to know that in the coming months, if Bernie Sanders, the carpetbagger of Vermont, gets the Democratic nomination, he has a whole life history of choices, memberships, associations, scribbling and recorded babbling for the Republican-fascists and the fascist media to put Trump back into office. You won't find that can be based on the "youth vote" it will have to come from people of maturity and it is my guess that you will find those mostly among religious liberals of some experience. I'd love to ask The Nuns on the Bus what they might think about what I just said. I'd love to hear what a group of those who run real religion based charities that serve the least among us would have to say on these issues. What Cenk and Sam, Ana and Michael have to say on it will, I can almost guarantee you, be stupid and useless for actually doing anything.
Vermont was colonized by play-lefties, I'd guess inspired by those two venerable, insufferably sanctimonious fatheads, Helen and Scott Nearing. That's how Bernie got there and that was the base of his political career. I know the type, the Nearings moved to Maine after they lived in Vermont, we have lots of them here, too. Most of them would, I doubt, be reliable volunteers for a weekly soup kitchen. I haven't ever seen many of those around here. Maybe they were but they learn something if they do instead of babble.
The prospects of Bernie Sanders winning the election is far lower than Bernie Sanders doing the typical play lefty thing, the only real presence the play-left has had in American politics, being a spoiler to put a Republican-fascist in office. The prospect of him not getting to November with another heart attack is a lot higher than him winning the election. That we are having to consider this, now, proves my point.
Hate Mail - You Only Fear Reading Your Opponents If You Don't Have Confidence In Your Own Argument
As a matter of fact, I have not read the Center for Science And Culture paper that found that 90% of Judge Jones decision in the Dover case was cribbed, errors and all, from papers submitted by the ACLU. I was unaware of that issue until you accused me of having read it, though I certainly will try to get around to reading it and, if the primary sources are available, the ACLU papers alleged to be cribbed, the actual statements of Michael Behe that they are accused of misrpesenting in their submissions to the court, etc. Considering what I'm about to say, I'll link to it, though I've only read the first page. I'm not afraid of it. I certainly won't be bullied by ignorant hypocritical "free speech absolutists" who want to peer pressure me into being as ignorant as they are. We are not peers, it takes mutual agreement to have that relationship, I won't be peers with people like that.
I try to read the whole record, the extent to which that's possible, before I judge whether or not something is accurate or true. If the judge in that case didn't bother to fact check the source he based 90% of his ruling on, there was a time that would shock me but I'm not shocked anymore. I think a judge who did not understand the issues presented by both sides - and I've looked enough at the work of both sides to know that's frequently not an easy thing* - any judge who would render judgement on that basis is not producing reliable justice, they are choosing a side on personal preference.
You seem to think there's something wrong with reading things for fear of that giving you mental cooties or something. I wonder if that superstitious and idiotic idea comes from the widespread faith in Dawkins' idiotic idea of memes. If that's the case, well, it doesn't surprise me that Dawkins would invent an idea fatal to intellectual academic practice and that a philosopher of Dennett's type would adopt it.
Naw, I read all kinds of things I don't agree with and things I only agree with in part and find that those old fashioned practices of testing them against their claimed sources, then checking the sources works to ward of infection by the screaming memeies. There was a time people weren't afraid of reading, I barely remember it, having grown up when TV made people so stupid and universities started credentialing stupid people so they can pretend they're smart when they're not.
I have read some of Michael Behe and find he's not as widely advertised, some idiot Biblical fundamenatlist. I take him at his word that his skepticism of neo-Drawinism came from looking at recent science because I got mine from looking at the original claims of Darwin and his early supporters.** I certainly think he's a better scientist than many of the guys you put your childlike faith in. Dawkins, Dennett, as I recall you once presented James Randi as a figure of science. And I'll bet it wasn't on the basis of fact checking and testing them. I would bet that easily 90% of all such popular understanding of science is based on copying and mimicking sources without fact checking. Whether or not he's as good a scientist as Jerry Coyne, I do't know, I do know he's not as dishonest a polemicist as Coyne is.
It's ridiculous for allegedly educated people to erect a Trumpian wall against reading what their intellectual opponents say and, if they're going to talk about what their opponents claim TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH WHAT THEIR OPPONENTS SAY. I wonder if what they actually fear is finding arguments against their preferred ideologies and the basis of their professional status that they can't refute. While there might be good reasons for someone to not participate in the degraded entertainment form of a debate with some of their opponents, those too ignorant to argue such issues, to make a blanket refusal to even read them or to try to make reading them a forbidden act is downright intellectual Nazism.
No, I have said in other contexts I refuse to think like a Nazi thinks, part of how Nazis think is being a coward in reading people who I don't agree with.
No, reading Michael Behe to see what he really said is not only harmless it's the responsible thing to do. He's not going to get anyone killed. I will point out it's part of the absurd position that the relatively obscure and remote topic of evolution, elevated way past its actual importance due to its usefulness to atheists, is in need of such protection when you, as well, are a free speech absolutist who has no problem with giving a forum and a fully paid legal representation to Nazis, fascists, Stalinists, Maoists, white supremacists, Trumpzis, and other fans of the biggest mass murderers of the 20th and, now 21st centuries. Geesh! talk about your messed up priorities. No real American style liberal would be that stupid, I don't think real liberals can be that stupid and stay liberals.
* Behe's arguments are often based in molecular biology of an extremely complex kind as are those who would refute him. While I think it's unreasonable to expect all judges to have the necessary knowledge to be able to understand those issues, any honest judge would admit they are incompetent to make such judgement. Though I'll bet few of that arrogant clique would admit to that. Which is why it should be a legal policy that there be members of higher courts who do have at least the mathematical and scientific competence to, if presented with enough supporting evidence, to render an intelligent judgement on it.
** I lost my ignorant, childlike faith in Darwinism and Darwin from reading its original articulation that had nothing to do with the issues that Behe raises. Darwin was pretty much a scientific illiterate, I doubt he could get a BS degree in biology today. Though maybe in psychology. I think it was always pretty bad science that not only relied on some bad practices, it brougth those right into the heart of what was alleged to be science. And, most of all, I think it relied on its ideological use and support of class and racial inequality for its success in history. I think all of the worst practices of the behavioral and social sciences and much of evolutionary science has its origins in Darwin bringing explanatory myth and invalid comparison into science. I mentioned recently some of the problems of his claim that human animal husbandry was at all like what happened in nature to create new species, among those was one that Darwin's contemporaries identified, human husbandry over thousands of years had not, by selection, produced new species. And there are many other problems with it. I think one was identified by Darwin's co-inventor of natural selection, A. R. Wallace in his criticism of Darwin's use of the term "natural selection" while claiming that the process was non-teleological.
That kind of thing is ubiquitous in the claims of non-teleology which I think is entirely an ideological claim of religious faith, in this case the atheists' faith against intelligent design. I have also noted that in order to do that, atheists are constantly shoving god substitutes into gaps, naturals election, probability, random chance, which really are no explanations at all.
I try to read the whole record, the extent to which that's possible, before I judge whether or not something is accurate or true. If the judge in that case didn't bother to fact check the source he based 90% of his ruling on, there was a time that would shock me but I'm not shocked anymore. I think a judge who did not understand the issues presented by both sides - and I've looked enough at the work of both sides to know that's frequently not an easy thing* - any judge who would render judgement on that basis is not producing reliable justice, they are choosing a side on personal preference.
You seem to think there's something wrong with reading things for fear of that giving you mental cooties or something. I wonder if that superstitious and idiotic idea comes from the widespread faith in Dawkins' idiotic idea of memes. If that's the case, well, it doesn't surprise me that Dawkins would invent an idea fatal to intellectual academic practice and that a philosopher of Dennett's type would adopt it.
Naw, I read all kinds of things I don't agree with and things I only agree with in part and find that those old fashioned practices of testing them against their claimed sources, then checking the sources works to ward of infection by the screaming memeies. There was a time people weren't afraid of reading, I barely remember it, having grown up when TV made people so stupid and universities started credentialing stupid people so they can pretend they're smart when they're not.
I have read some of Michael Behe and find he's not as widely advertised, some idiot Biblical fundamenatlist. I take him at his word that his skepticism of neo-Drawinism came from looking at recent science because I got mine from looking at the original claims of Darwin and his early supporters.** I certainly think he's a better scientist than many of the guys you put your childlike faith in. Dawkins, Dennett, as I recall you once presented James Randi as a figure of science. And I'll bet it wasn't on the basis of fact checking and testing them. I would bet that easily 90% of all such popular understanding of science is based on copying and mimicking sources without fact checking. Whether or not he's as good a scientist as Jerry Coyne, I do't know, I do know he's not as dishonest a polemicist as Coyne is.
It's ridiculous for allegedly educated people to erect a Trumpian wall against reading what their intellectual opponents say and, if they're going to talk about what their opponents claim TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH WHAT THEIR OPPONENTS SAY. I wonder if what they actually fear is finding arguments against their preferred ideologies and the basis of their professional status that they can't refute. While there might be good reasons for someone to not participate in the degraded entertainment form of a debate with some of their opponents, those too ignorant to argue such issues, to make a blanket refusal to even read them or to try to make reading them a forbidden act is downright intellectual Nazism.
No, I have said in other contexts I refuse to think like a Nazi thinks, part of how Nazis think is being a coward in reading people who I don't agree with.
No, reading Michael Behe to see what he really said is not only harmless it's the responsible thing to do. He's not going to get anyone killed. I will point out it's part of the absurd position that the relatively obscure and remote topic of evolution, elevated way past its actual importance due to its usefulness to atheists, is in need of such protection when you, as well, are a free speech absolutist who has no problem with giving a forum and a fully paid legal representation to Nazis, fascists, Stalinists, Maoists, white supremacists, Trumpzis, and other fans of the biggest mass murderers of the 20th and, now 21st centuries. Geesh! talk about your messed up priorities. No real American style liberal would be that stupid, I don't think real liberals can be that stupid and stay liberals.
* Behe's arguments are often based in molecular biology of an extremely complex kind as are those who would refute him. While I think it's unreasonable to expect all judges to have the necessary knowledge to be able to understand those issues, any honest judge would admit they are incompetent to make such judgement. Though I'll bet few of that arrogant clique would admit to that. Which is why it should be a legal policy that there be members of higher courts who do have at least the mathematical and scientific competence to, if presented with enough supporting evidence, to render an intelligent judgement on it.
** I lost my ignorant, childlike faith in Darwinism and Darwin from reading its original articulation that had nothing to do with the issues that Behe raises. Darwin was pretty much a scientific illiterate, I doubt he could get a BS degree in biology today. Though maybe in psychology. I think it was always pretty bad science that not only relied on some bad practices, it brougth those right into the heart of what was alleged to be science. And, most of all, I think it relied on its ideological use and support of class and racial inequality for its success in history. I think all of the worst practices of the behavioral and social sciences and much of evolutionary science has its origins in Darwin bringing explanatory myth and invalid comparison into science. I mentioned recently some of the problems of his claim that human animal husbandry was at all like what happened in nature to create new species, among those was one that Darwin's contemporaries identified, human husbandry over thousands of years had not, by selection, produced new species. And there are many other problems with it. I think one was identified by Darwin's co-inventor of natural selection, A. R. Wallace in his criticism of Darwin's use of the term "natural selection" while claiming that the process was non-teleological.
That kind of thing is ubiquitous in the claims of non-teleology which I think is entirely an ideological claim of religious faith, in this case the atheists' faith against intelligent design. I have also noted that in order to do that, atheists are constantly shoving god substitutes into gaps, naturals election, probability, random chance, which really are no explanations at all.
AN APP! - Told You So - Get Rid Of The Fucking Goddamned Caucuses
I would love to see the smug face of Richard Bender, the big brain behind the Iowa Caucus as seen on Samantha Bee's show last week. Though, I know those kinds of guys, their self-satisfaction is truth resistant, they will cherish their cleverness no matter how stupid it is demonstrated to be. The thing was, as they say, a clusterfuck for all of the most predictable reasons.
A. It's a caucus, caucuses are always anti-democratic, baroque and ALWAYS broke. I have never participated in one, observed or read about one that was run under simple, rational rules and I have never known of one that wasn't a friggin' mess.
B. They've had years and years to fix problems with the caucus and all they've done is make it worse - God knows what the rules in states who have had even more disastrous caucuses in 2016 are going to be this time.
C. The fucking idiots PUT THEIR HOPES ON AN APP?
Iowa didn't prove that they are incompetent to run a caucus last night, not to mention the absurd idea of giving a single state the status the brite-boy Bender thought was such a nifty idea, THEY PROVED THAT CAUCUSES ARE A TERRIBLE IDEA THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED C 1890.
And they also, once again, prove the idiocy of letting the internet in any form, in any way into the election process. Geeks should be for internal, off line clerical purposes, only. No communication should be done through computers unless it is through unbreakable encryption. Too many idiots have left computers computer based information in places it can be stolen to rely on them.
The actual vote should be in a primary designed to have the greatest turnout, with paper ballots marked by hand and counted at least twice, once by machine or humans, once again by humans, the ballots reviewed if there is a discrepancy but kept until they are moot due to the deaths of all involved.
The retention of caucuses is a sign that states, state parties and politicians who retain them have an insufficent devotion to honest democratic government. They should be considered discredited by their insistence on retaining anti-democratic voting systems. They should be banned from having any authority over them.
Update: Ha! As I was going back to edit this, the internet here suddenly went down.
A. It's a caucus, caucuses are always anti-democratic, baroque and ALWAYS broke. I have never participated in one, observed or read about one that was run under simple, rational rules and I have never known of one that wasn't a friggin' mess.
B. They've had years and years to fix problems with the caucus and all they've done is make it worse - God knows what the rules in states who have had even more disastrous caucuses in 2016 are going to be this time.
C. The fucking idiots PUT THEIR HOPES ON AN APP?
AN APP!
Iowa didn't prove that they are incompetent to run a caucus last night, not to mention the absurd idea of giving a single state the status the brite-boy Bender thought was such a nifty idea, THEY PROVED THAT CAUCUSES ARE A TERRIBLE IDEA THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED C 1890.
And they also, once again, prove the idiocy of letting the internet in any form, in any way into the election process. Geeks should be for internal, off line clerical purposes, only. No communication should be done through computers unless it is through unbreakable encryption. Too many idiots have left computers computer based information in places it can be stolen to rely on them.
The actual vote should be in a primary designed to have the greatest turnout, with paper ballots marked by hand and counted at least twice, once by machine or humans, once again by humans, the ballots reviewed if there is a discrepancy but kept until they are moot due to the deaths of all involved.
The retention of caucuses is a sign that states, state parties and politicians who retain them have an insufficent devotion to honest democratic government. They should be considered discredited by their insistence on retaining anti-democratic voting systems. They should be banned from having any authority over them.
Update: Ha! As I was going back to edit this, the internet here suddenly went down.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Get Bernie Sanders On The Record On This Immediately
As a confirmed hater of caucuses who has had blood pressure issues this past week, I've been trying to ignore the news from Iowa. But I'm a born political junky and that's not going to happen.
The news that Bernie Sanders' campaign was planning on trying to game loopholes in the baroque process of the Iowa caucus (all caucuses have ridiculously baroque processes that can be gamed, it's one of the things I hate about them so much) in order to announce a premature victory hoping that those who defect from their first choice will get on the Bernie bandwagon. That reading about that in Charlie Pierce's post from yesterday comes after hearing an interview of the putrid Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief campaign manager not his wife, in which Ali Velshi repeatedly tried to get Weaver to declare the process hadn't been rigged against Bernie - the constantly made claim of the Bernie cult - and the best he could get out of that asshole comic book baron was "it's not rigged yet".
As I note in my sidebar where I weeks ago took Bernie Sanders name out of those politicians I respect, I don't hold him in any regard at all. A lot of that was due to not only the way he gamed the anti-democratic caucuses to such divisive and destructive effect in 2016 but in how I saw him and his cult led by his wife and Weaver to do the same again, this year. As I've pointed out before, the non-Democrat Bernie Sanders bragged about doing that as a non-Democrat in Vermont in 1988. The guy's a sleaze and he always has been one.
If I end up voting for him in November it will be with three clothespins on my nose. I'm hoping like hell I don't have to do that.
It's essential to get Bernie Sanders on the record AND I MEAN AS SOON AS ANY REAL DEMOCRAT GETS WITHIN QUESTION ASKING DISTANCE, THAT HE WILL SUPPORT ANY DEMOCRAT WHO WINS THE NOMINATION AND THAT HE WILL NOT RETAIN ANYONE IN HIS CAMPAIGN STAFF WHO WILL NOT SIGN A PLEDGE TO THAT EFFECT. I think it is a promise anyone for any office should be required to give and to make anyone who works on their campaign sign onto as well before they are eligible to run as a candidate for a Democratic nomination.
And while you're at it, pressure anyone in your state or in the National Democratic Party to get rid of the goddamned caucuses, open primaries, same day or even month party-declaration and in favor of the most democratic of all election methods, mail-in ballots issued by the Democratic Party to registered Democrats.
The news that Bernie Sanders' campaign was planning on trying to game loopholes in the baroque process of the Iowa caucus (all caucuses have ridiculously baroque processes that can be gamed, it's one of the things I hate about them so much) in order to announce a premature victory hoping that those who defect from their first choice will get on the Bernie bandwagon. That reading about that in Charlie Pierce's post from yesterday comes after hearing an interview of the putrid Jeff Weaver, Sanders' chief campaign manager not his wife, in which Ali Velshi repeatedly tried to get Weaver to declare the process hadn't been rigged against Bernie - the constantly made claim of the Bernie cult - and the best he could get out of that asshole comic book baron was "it's not rigged yet".
As I note in my sidebar where I weeks ago took Bernie Sanders name out of those politicians I respect, I don't hold him in any regard at all. A lot of that was due to not only the way he gamed the anti-democratic caucuses to such divisive and destructive effect in 2016 but in how I saw him and his cult led by his wife and Weaver to do the same again, this year. As I've pointed out before, the non-Democrat Bernie Sanders bragged about doing that as a non-Democrat in Vermont in 1988. The guy's a sleaze and he always has been one.
If I end up voting for him in November it will be with three clothespins on my nose. I'm hoping like hell I don't have to do that.
It's essential to get Bernie Sanders on the record AND I MEAN AS SOON AS ANY REAL DEMOCRAT GETS WITHIN QUESTION ASKING DISTANCE, THAT HE WILL SUPPORT ANY DEMOCRAT WHO WINS THE NOMINATION AND THAT HE WILL NOT RETAIN ANYONE IN HIS CAMPAIGN STAFF WHO WILL NOT SIGN A PLEDGE TO THAT EFFECT. I think it is a promise anyone for any office should be required to give and to make anyone who works on their campaign sign onto as well before they are eligible to run as a candidate for a Democratic nomination.
And while you're at it, pressure anyone in your state or in the National Democratic Party to get rid of the goddamned caucuses, open primaries, same day or even month party-declaration and in favor of the most democratic of all election methods, mail-in ballots issued by the Democratic Party to registered Democrats.
I Want To Smash A Coffee Urn On The Head Of David Greene
National Public Radio, that place of doing everything in the most stupidly clichéd way, had on the predictable Iowa coffee shop segment on its Morning Edition program just now, and if you don't think that made me feel like kicking David Greene in the pills you don't really know me.
Of course they had a bunch of idiots on who pushed the greatness of the Iowa Caucuses, of course they lied about what a great thing it was. Of course they expressed unfounded pride in the superiority of Iowans - you would do a lot better to go to one in Maine, we tend to be rather skeptical about ourselves as being better. At least that's what we like to think about ourselves.
I wish that the comedians would mock the idiotic "guys in the coffee shop" bull-shit substitute for what the news is supposed to be doing, the reporting of fact collected and judged by professional reporters. The substitute for having an overpaid hack like Greene or Inskeep or the other talking heads shove a mic under the nose of either some random ignoramus or some two-bit flack with an interest to push a POV is what makes middle-brow America so friggin' stupid.
I am going to devote myself to getting rid of the goddamned caucuses which are an anti-democratic abomination that should be relegated to the dead past, never to be revived. I am going to devote myself to removing the hegemony of Iowa and New Hampshire and, most of all, non-Democrats having any say in who the Democratic presidential candidate is through open primaries and open participation in caucuses, through same-day or even same month party declaration. The goddamned Greens are doing it again, from what I've heard in my state which retains the goddamned caucuses and same-day party declaration.
If people want to pressure the friggin' Democratic National Committee in ways that really matter, they should mount a pressure campaign to adopt rules that the results of caucuses will have no impact on the nomination of a presidential or vice presidential candidate - ONLY PRIMARY ELECTIONS BY BALLOT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A VALID MEANS OF CHOOSING THE NOMINEE. I've participated in caucuses for more than half a century, they are an abomination, I knew they were an abomination when one I attended had a grand total of eleven caucus goers whereas a primary would certainly have had hundreds of voters participate in my town. That is especially true if the Democratic Party took control of the nomination from the Republican and other ratfuckers and held a Democrats only primary with paper ballots to be marked by Democrats and sent back through the U.S. Mail, as was done to such brilliant success in Washington State - though last time Washington State had not given up the abomination of holding a caucus when they should have known better than anyone how anti-democratic that is.
Of course they had a bunch of idiots on who pushed the greatness of the Iowa Caucuses, of course they lied about what a great thing it was. Of course they expressed unfounded pride in the superiority of Iowans - you would do a lot better to go to one in Maine, we tend to be rather skeptical about ourselves as being better. At least that's what we like to think about ourselves.
I wish that the comedians would mock the idiotic "guys in the coffee shop" bull-shit substitute for what the news is supposed to be doing, the reporting of fact collected and judged by professional reporters. The substitute for having an overpaid hack like Greene or Inskeep or the other talking heads shove a mic under the nose of either some random ignoramus or some two-bit flack with an interest to push a POV is what makes middle-brow America so friggin' stupid.
I am going to devote myself to getting rid of the goddamned caucuses which are an anti-democratic abomination that should be relegated to the dead past, never to be revived. I am going to devote myself to removing the hegemony of Iowa and New Hampshire and, most of all, non-Democrats having any say in who the Democratic presidential candidate is through open primaries and open participation in caucuses, through same-day or even same month party declaration. The goddamned Greens are doing it again, from what I've heard in my state which retains the goddamned caucuses and same-day party declaration.
If people want to pressure the friggin' Democratic National Committee in ways that really matter, they should mount a pressure campaign to adopt rules that the results of caucuses will have no impact on the nomination of a presidential or vice presidential candidate - ONLY PRIMARY ELECTIONS BY BALLOT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A VALID MEANS OF CHOOSING THE NOMINEE. I've participated in caucuses for more than half a century, they are an abomination, I knew they were an abomination when one I attended had a grand total of eleven caucus goers whereas a primary would certainly have had hundreds of voters participate in my town. That is especially true if the Democratic Party took control of the nomination from the Republican and other ratfuckers and held a Democrats only primary with paper ballots to be marked by Democrats and sent back through the U.S. Mail, as was done to such brilliant success in Washington State - though last time Washington State had not given up the abomination of holding a caucus when they should have known better than anyone how anti-democratic that is.
Maybe I Should Start A Monday Morning Mop Up For These Things
In these past few days I've been answering objections raised in just some of the comments in the old Spam file which I will not post. I have repeatedly told people that if they want to object civilly, on topic, without the typical tactic of refusing to engage in the argument by trying to change the subject and, most of all by arguing through invective, I might post your comments. My not posting comments I choose not to is not, as is typically whined by the big bold "free speech absolutists" a violation of free speech, it is me exercising my right to not publish crap.
I will answer a few points before moving on.
The ACLU certainly does not hold that all expression has an equal right to be heard. Its website brags about its role in the famous Dover decision that declared that the teaching of intelligent design is an impermissible intrusion of religion in public schools while the teaching of "evolution" by which I am sure most of the ACLU lawyers* would mean conventional neo-Darwinism, is free of such religious taint. Well, that's not true. The claim of non-teleology in science is as religious a claim as intelligent design. Which might make a post I'd find writing fun. But I digress.
And I would guess that it was likely how the issue was understood by the judge who heard the case and decided, on the facts before him particular to that case, as I have read, rightly decided that that particular articulation of intelligent design was kind of dodgy. Though I think any discussion of evolution, if you are going to go into it to the extent that questions of teleology come into it which leaves out intelligent design is inevitably to put the thumb on the scale in favor of atheist ideology. And rather badly argued atheist ideology, at that.
I do not in any way think that neo-Darwinism or even the original articulation of Darwinism, or, in fact, much of science as articulated and taught, is any less associated with religious ideology in that way. In just about every articulation of it and use of it, the religious ideology of atheism is asserted. We can anticipate the day when the ACLU idiotically gets a Roberts or, the way things are going under its "free press" "dollars are speech" framing, a future Kavanaugh court declares that atheism is a religious ideology impermissibly tainting the teaching of science. Which would be about the only honest decision I'd expect such a Republican-fascist court would make, though one which would have the most unfortunate consequences stupidly not anticipated by the lawyers who gave them that opportunity. And, believe me, they would make it so the fascists could make future hay out of it.
You'd think the lawyers of the ACLU would be aware enough the results of their obsession with bringing issues to the court so they can declare on their "Constitutionality." For most of the past forty years, it's a game for suckers unless you want the kind of stuff that the likes of the Rehnquist and Roberts courts hand down. I have to conclude that as those horrible decisions don't much impact on the personal lives of those lawyers that they're not really much bothered by their role in bringing those down from those corrupted courts.
But I digress. The ACLU certainly does not think that even all religious ideas have equal rights to be articulated, there are ideas they reflexively act to suppress. Those to-be-suppressed ideas aren't those harmful to equality and democracy, they are those which imply the reality of God, especially those which are associated with Christianity, which are to be kept out of the public square and even in the ineffective articulation of them in the relatively powerless forum of public schools - look at how badly Christianity took in the Republicans like Kavenaugh and others who went to parochial schools, those who went to "Christian" law schools.
I would bet that the ACLU, self-advertised champions of academic freedom, would weigh in against a teacher who, in some high school class, expressed skepticism of Darwinism, of natural selection and who pointed out the fact that it inevitably leads to promotion of eugenics, they would be against the academic freedom of a teacher who got in hot water with atheist parents or a group of atheists who raised the money to sue to suppress their freedom to teach mere skepticism of Darwinism and the historical truth that it leads to eugenics and genocide, as advocated by Darwin and a number of those in his close circle. Eugenics has, inevitably, the same goal as genocide, to cut groups of people out of the human future. It shares the same goal as the Nazis whose ability to propagate their promotion of that the ACLU champions.
But that's a hypothetical. I'm talking about their promotion of ideas being propagated, as they proudly and self-righteously point out, Nazism and the ideology of the KKK, which are to be protected when they are spouted where they can do the most harm, in that most dangerous of miseducational forums, broadcast, cable and internet media. TV, movies, pop songs, internet social-media are, terrible as it is to admit, the most powerful educational force in real life, the public schools struggle as much against them as they do the bad behavior that they encourage and the distraction they cause.
If you want egalitarian democracy, equality, equal justice under the law, economic justice, not to mention a sustainable environment instead of environmental mass suicide, you cannot favor allowing the present regime that has benefitted the propagation of the opponents of all of those absolute necessities of a decent common life. The ACLU is their best friend, they are like an ambulance crew who cheer on idiots playing chicken so they can pick up the survivors and bring them to the hospital. Liberals who support them are as big a bunch of chumps as liberals who support NPR. No, that's not true, they're bigger chumps. I was one of both kinds, well, I'm not anymore.
I will answer a few points before moving on.
The ACLU certainly does not hold that all expression has an equal right to be heard. Its website brags about its role in the famous Dover decision that declared that the teaching of intelligent design is an impermissible intrusion of religion in public schools while the teaching of "evolution" by which I am sure most of the ACLU lawyers* would mean conventional neo-Darwinism, is free of such religious taint. Well, that's not true. The claim of non-teleology in science is as religious a claim as intelligent design. Which might make a post I'd find writing fun. But I digress.
And I would guess that it was likely how the issue was understood by the judge who heard the case and decided, on the facts before him particular to that case, as I have read, rightly decided that that particular articulation of intelligent design was kind of dodgy. Though I think any discussion of evolution, if you are going to go into it to the extent that questions of teleology come into it which leaves out intelligent design is inevitably to put the thumb on the scale in favor of atheist ideology. And rather badly argued atheist ideology, at that.
I do not in any way think that neo-Darwinism or even the original articulation of Darwinism, or, in fact, much of science as articulated and taught, is any less associated with religious ideology in that way. In just about every articulation of it and use of it, the religious ideology of atheism is asserted. We can anticipate the day when the ACLU idiotically gets a Roberts or, the way things are going under its "free press" "dollars are speech" framing, a future Kavanaugh court declares that atheism is a religious ideology impermissibly tainting the teaching of science. Which would be about the only honest decision I'd expect such a Republican-fascist court would make, though one which would have the most unfortunate consequences stupidly not anticipated by the lawyers who gave them that opportunity. And, believe me, they would make it so the fascists could make future hay out of it.
You'd think the lawyers of the ACLU would be aware enough the results of their obsession with bringing issues to the court so they can declare on their "Constitutionality." For most of the past forty years, it's a game for suckers unless you want the kind of stuff that the likes of the Rehnquist and Roberts courts hand down. I have to conclude that as those horrible decisions don't much impact on the personal lives of those lawyers that they're not really much bothered by their role in bringing those down from those corrupted courts.
But I digress. The ACLU certainly does not think that even all religious ideas have equal rights to be articulated, there are ideas they reflexively act to suppress. Those to-be-suppressed ideas aren't those harmful to equality and democracy, they are those which imply the reality of God, especially those which are associated with Christianity, which are to be kept out of the public square and even in the ineffective articulation of them in the relatively powerless forum of public schools - look at how badly Christianity took in the Republicans like Kavenaugh and others who went to parochial schools, those who went to "Christian" law schools.
I would bet that the ACLU, self-advertised champions of academic freedom, would weigh in against a teacher who, in some high school class, expressed skepticism of Darwinism, of natural selection and who pointed out the fact that it inevitably leads to promotion of eugenics, they would be against the academic freedom of a teacher who got in hot water with atheist parents or a group of atheists who raised the money to sue to suppress their freedom to teach mere skepticism of Darwinism and the historical truth that it leads to eugenics and genocide, as advocated by Darwin and a number of those in his close circle. Eugenics has, inevitably, the same goal as genocide, to cut groups of people out of the human future. It shares the same goal as the Nazis whose ability to propagate their promotion of that the ACLU champions.
But that's a hypothetical. I'm talking about their promotion of ideas being propagated, as they proudly and self-righteously point out, Nazism and the ideology of the KKK, which are to be protected when they are spouted where they can do the most harm, in that most dangerous of miseducational forums, broadcast, cable and internet media. TV, movies, pop songs, internet social-media are, terrible as it is to admit, the most powerful educational force in real life, the public schools struggle as much against them as they do the bad behavior that they encourage and the distraction they cause.
If you want egalitarian democracy, equality, equal justice under the law, economic justice, not to mention a sustainable environment instead of environmental mass suicide, you cannot favor allowing the present regime that has benefitted the propagation of the opponents of all of those absolute necessities of a decent common life. The ACLU is their best friend, they are like an ambulance crew who cheer on idiots playing chicken so they can pick up the survivors and bring them to the hospital. Liberals who support them are as big a bunch of chumps as liberals who support NPR. No, that's not true, they're bigger chumps. I was one of both kinds, well, I'm not anymore.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
No, Free Speech Absolutism Is Not A Moral Position, It Is Moral Abnegation With Self Satisfied Preening
There is certainly no rational reason for anyone who believes that egalitarian democracy is the best -no, make that only legitimate - system of government to lift a finger to support the ability of its enemies to make progress toward overthrowing or defeating it.
Anyone who really, truly believes in equal rights, in the common good, in economic justice would have to value those enough to deny the enemies of those any chance of winning and over throwing them. Otherwise, their claims to support those are PR window-dressing.
The kind of "objective" "impartial" "leveling of the playing field" "liberalism" of the ACLU, Common Cause, etc. betrays the truth that those who would empower, to any extent, the enemies of equality, the common good, economic justice, environmental sustainability, etc. are the tools of the enemies of the good. They can pose as "principled" promoters of fairness but that is a pseudo-moral scruple that ignores the substance of what they enable by enabling, to any extent, the enemies of the good. Any "fairness" you spend on fascists is wasted, any "niceness" you extend to Nazis is not nice, and there are alliterative illustrations of the same kind that could be made about enabling Stalinists or Maoists but as they have absolutely no prospect of gaining power in the United States or, really, anywhere much, these days, that's a waste of time. Nazis, fascists, white supremacists, they already have the upper hand in the United States and they are increasingly gaining it in Europe.
There is nothing "fair" about enabling fascists' ability to lie, cheat, gull, sway by appeals to the weaknesses, ignorance, moral defects of people into putting fascists into power. Even when such idiot "liberals" who supported that cretinous campaign were pressed appealed to the belief that such "unpopular" groups, such as fascists, Nazis, Klansmen, etc. would never gain power, would never be able to put their hateful programs into effect . WHICH, AS A STAND MADE BY AFFLUENT WHITE PEOPLE, LARGELY FROM THE NORTH, IGNORED THAT EVEN AS THE ACLU TYPES CLAIMED THAT THAT MUCH IF NOT MOST OF THE COUNTRY DID, IN FACT, LIVE UNDER SUCH DOMINATION BY THAT ILK.
No, the moral position to take is to do whatever you can to thwart them. To deny them a platform from which to do again what they did for decades and centuries, establishing dangerous habits of thought that create the conditions for them to sway people by appealing to their worst proclivities.
Only idiot, wealthy, white, mostly men but some women, as well, could be stupid enough to believe that what was the reality for Black Americans, for Native Americans, for Latinos, for Poor People, etc. would never happen here because it was alien to their own, affluent, experience. And you can say the same thing for the members of the media, especially in the upper reaches of "journalism". You could find many minorty members who bought into that nonsense, for whatever reason they did, their own experience should have told them otherwise.
No, it not only can happen here, it has happened here for most of our history. That is history as it really was, not in the lies that we were told in our sanitized school textbooks, certainly not in the even blgger lies peddled by Hollywood and the theater and historical novels. That real history is what the "level playing field" that the Constitution of 1787 promoted, and it was certainly not so in any way. The cost in blood to make what progress against it as has been made since, the "liberals" of that ilk have pissed away, is a terrible price to think will have to be repaid so they can preen in their superior free-speechyness, supported with donations from porn merchants and mass media barons and other such fans of "free speech" in the ACLU style.
Anyone who really, truly believes in equal rights, in the common good, in economic justice would have to value those enough to deny the enemies of those any chance of winning and over throwing them. Otherwise, their claims to support those are PR window-dressing.
The kind of "objective" "impartial" "leveling of the playing field" "liberalism" of the ACLU, Common Cause, etc. betrays the truth that those who would empower, to any extent, the enemies of equality, the common good, economic justice, environmental sustainability, etc. are the tools of the enemies of the good. They can pose as "principled" promoters of fairness but that is a pseudo-moral scruple that ignores the substance of what they enable by enabling, to any extent, the enemies of the good. Any "fairness" you spend on fascists is wasted, any "niceness" you extend to Nazis is not nice, and there are alliterative illustrations of the same kind that could be made about enabling Stalinists or Maoists but as they have absolutely no prospect of gaining power in the United States or, really, anywhere much, these days, that's a waste of time. Nazis, fascists, white supremacists, they already have the upper hand in the United States and they are increasingly gaining it in Europe.
There is nothing "fair" about enabling fascists' ability to lie, cheat, gull, sway by appeals to the weaknesses, ignorance, moral defects of people into putting fascists into power. Even when such idiot "liberals" who supported that cretinous campaign were pressed appealed to the belief that such "unpopular" groups, such as fascists, Nazis, Klansmen, etc. would never gain power, would never be able to put their hateful programs into effect . WHICH, AS A STAND MADE BY AFFLUENT WHITE PEOPLE, LARGELY FROM THE NORTH, IGNORED THAT EVEN AS THE ACLU TYPES CLAIMED THAT THAT MUCH IF NOT MOST OF THE COUNTRY DID, IN FACT, LIVE UNDER SUCH DOMINATION BY THAT ILK.
No, the moral position to take is to do whatever you can to thwart them. To deny them a platform from which to do again what they did for decades and centuries, establishing dangerous habits of thought that create the conditions for them to sway people by appealing to their worst proclivities.
Only idiot, wealthy, white, mostly men but some women, as well, could be stupid enough to believe that what was the reality for Black Americans, for Native Americans, for Latinos, for Poor People, etc. would never happen here because it was alien to their own, affluent, experience. And you can say the same thing for the members of the media, especially in the upper reaches of "journalism". You could find many minorty members who bought into that nonsense, for whatever reason they did, their own experience should have told them otherwise.
No, it not only can happen here, it has happened here for most of our history. That is history as it really was, not in the lies that we were told in our sanitized school textbooks, certainly not in the even blgger lies peddled by Hollywood and the theater and historical novels. That real history is what the "level playing field" that the Constitution of 1787 promoted, and it was certainly not so in any way. The cost in blood to make what progress against it as has been made since, the "liberals" of that ilk have pissed away, is a terrible price to think will have to be repaid so they can preen in their superior free-speechyness, supported with donations from porn merchants and mass media barons and other such fans of "free speech" in the ACLU style.
Wish I Had A Dollar For Every Time A Big Bold Free Speech Absolutist Told Me To Shut Up On This
I think it was the erudite and estimable Maya Wiley who in the cable TV discussions of whether or not the Chief "Justice" John Roberts would step in to break a tie on whether or not to give the fixed-trail of Donald Trump a patina of legitimacy of having witnesses and hearing new evidence noted that Roberts' predicted refusal to break a tie was not the non-choice that a former Department of Justice lawyer said Roberts would make "on principle" but refusing to take that long-precidented action in the trial would, itself be a choice with a very definite and known result.
I think that that is a good example of how a choice to refuse to make a choice is not made out of "principle" it is made for the purpose of producing a knowable end. Either an end relevant to the issues of such a choice, in this case whether or not to force the "jurors" in the case to hear what appears to be even more conclusive evidence that Trump broke the law, that he did so for his own corrupt personal gain and that he did so to rig the 2020 election in the way that was congenial to the Republican majority of the "jurors". The other, rather stupidly presented as more idealistic ends were Roberts maintaining a pose of his own above-it impartiality and to protect the reputation of the Supreme Court and the judiciary in general. Of course it wouldn't possibly [snigger] have anything to do with Roberts being a Republican political hack, a member of the same ideological gang that has made ratfucking a Constitutionally protected right, the one who opened the door that Trump, the Mercers, Putin walked through to rig the 2016 election.
The levels of hypocrisy dressed up for a costume ball of "principle" of "integrity" of "objectivity" on display in the legal-Republican-political world are breathtaking to behold. I have in the past criticized calling what goes on in this "Kabuki" theater but if that has any relevance, it does in the likes of Roberts who has trained to perform that role and was chosen to practice that level of hypocritical pursuit of personal advantage and ideologically perferrered aims being sought while pretending he's merely being impartial. He's a more skilled faker of that than Sandra Day O'Connor was, though she was certainly good enough for the media to play their part in maintaining the suspension of reason that should lead to disbelief in the spectacle being presented.
And it's not only a performance in the admittedly Republican world, it has become the favorite play all across the field.
It's the same game that the ACLU plays in its promotion of the same ends while pretending to not know that that's exactly what they are doing. After a half a century of being able to see the results of their pursuit of "civil liberties" in which they win exactly the same rights for billionaires and their dollars to speak that they do for those with no money, you would have to be a lot stupider than the average or above average graduate of even a mid-level law school could be to ignore what that has produced. And I really do mean that the ACLU won that speech right for those dollars held in such large amounts by billionaires and in such modest quantities by the poor, the destitute, the discriminated against, they supported one of the worst in that line of decisions I castigate so often, Buckley v Valeo, in which they sided with the fascist James Buckley over the attempt to get money out of our elections. I'm tempted to link to the long line of double-speaking justification for the great association that has suckered liberals into funding its sandbagging of traditional American liberalism, of egalitarian democracy issued by Ira Glasser,a former Executive Director but I'm not linking to it. It is a load of post-facto bullshit justification for what it has done, with eyes wide open, against warnings of what their bringing such cases to increasingly corrupt Republican-fascist, Federalist Society hack dominated Supreme Courts, that you can find it yourself.
I have mentioned recently the fact that it was largely NOT the lawyers and lawmen working in or formerly associated with the Department of Justice and the FBI who, in the hour of peril, stepped forward against orders in order to expose the lawlessness of Trump, his staff, the Attorney General, it was those who live in actual life, on the front lines of diplomacy in dangerous places, it was patriotic soldiers who had seen combat who confirmed what the whistle blower revealed. The rot in the legal profession and in that world doesn't infect everyone but it is certainly at pandemic levels, I would say it's even more common among the media. It's certainly obvious in the "liberal" icon, the ACLU.
The ACLU can go screw themselves for a change, they've screwed the rest of us long enough.
I think that that is a good example of how a choice to refuse to make a choice is not made out of "principle" it is made for the purpose of producing a knowable end. Either an end relevant to the issues of such a choice, in this case whether or not to force the "jurors" in the case to hear what appears to be even more conclusive evidence that Trump broke the law, that he did so for his own corrupt personal gain and that he did so to rig the 2020 election in the way that was congenial to the Republican majority of the "jurors". The other, rather stupidly presented as more idealistic ends were Roberts maintaining a pose of his own above-it impartiality and to protect the reputation of the Supreme Court and the judiciary in general. Of course it wouldn't possibly [snigger] have anything to do with Roberts being a Republican political hack, a member of the same ideological gang that has made ratfucking a Constitutionally protected right, the one who opened the door that Trump, the Mercers, Putin walked through to rig the 2016 election.
The levels of hypocrisy dressed up for a costume ball of "principle" of "integrity" of "objectivity" on display in the legal-Republican-political world are breathtaking to behold. I have in the past criticized calling what goes on in this "Kabuki" theater but if that has any relevance, it does in the likes of Roberts who has trained to perform that role and was chosen to practice that level of hypocritical pursuit of personal advantage and ideologically perferrered aims being sought while pretending he's merely being impartial. He's a more skilled faker of that than Sandra Day O'Connor was, though she was certainly good enough for the media to play their part in maintaining the suspension of reason that should lead to disbelief in the spectacle being presented.
And it's not only a performance in the admittedly Republican world, it has become the favorite play all across the field.
It's the same game that the ACLU plays in its promotion of the same ends while pretending to not know that that's exactly what they are doing. After a half a century of being able to see the results of their pursuit of "civil liberties" in which they win exactly the same rights for billionaires and their dollars to speak that they do for those with no money, you would have to be a lot stupider than the average or above average graduate of even a mid-level law school could be to ignore what that has produced. And I really do mean that the ACLU won that speech right for those dollars held in such large amounts by billionaires and in such modest quantities by the poor, the destitute, the discriminated against, they supported one of the worst in that line of decisions I castigate so often, Buckley v Valeo, in which they sided with the fascist James Buckley over the attempt to get money out of our elections. I'm tempted to link to the long line of double-speaking justification for the great association that has suckered liberals into funding its sandbagging of traditional American liberalism, of egalitarian democracy issued by Ira Glasser,a former Executive Director but I'm not linking to it. It is a load of post-facto bullshit justification for what it has done, with eyes wide open, against warnings of what their bringing such cases to increasingly corrupt Republican-fascist, Federalist Society hack dominated Supreme Courts, that you can find it yourself.
I have mentioned recently the fact that it was largely NOT the lawyers and lawmen working in or formerly associated with the Department of Justice and the FBI who, in the hour of peril, stepped forward against orders in order to expose the lawlessness of Trump, his staff, the Attorney General, it was those who live in actual life, on the front lines of diplomacy in dangerous places, it was patriotic soldiers who had seen combat who confirmed what the whistle blower revealed. The rot in the legal profession and in that world doesn't infect everyone but it is certainly at pandemic levels, I would say it's even more common among the media. It's certainly obvious in the "liberal" icon, the ACLU.
The ACLU can go screw themselves for a change, they've screwed the rest of us long enough.
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