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What was it that one learned through a great books curriculum? Certainly not "conservatism" in any contemporary American sense of the term. We were not taught to become American patriots, or religious pietists, or to worship what Rudyard Kipling called "the Gods of the Market Place." We were not instructed in the evils of Marxism, or the glories of capitalism, or even the superiority of Western civilization.
As I think about it, I'm not sure we were taught anything at all. What we did was read books that raised serious questions about the human condition, and which invited us to attempt to ask serious questions of our own. Education, in this sense, wasn't a "teaching" with any fixed lesson. It was an exercise in interrogation.
To listen and understand; to question and disagree; to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious; to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind — this is what I was encouraged to do by my teachers at the University of Chicago.
It's what used to be called a liberal education.
The University of Chicago showed us something else: that every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.
Bret Stephens's speech warrants a full read. It makes valuable points that we all need to hear, even on SN.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by unauthorized on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:42PM (28 children)
Oh fuck it, I have karma to burn.
Are you talking about the non-existent SJWs who didn't hound Dr Matt Taylor [knowyourmeme.com] and Dr Tim Hunt [reason.com] out their jobs over complete horseshit?
The SJWs who didn't organize a completely fabricated moral panic against against GamerGate [knowyourmeme.com]?
Are you talking about all the non-existent soft-headed college-age kids who don't get their soft heads filled with crap like "all cis people are racist" [youtube.com]?
Are you talking about the non-existent racists who think their non-European ethnic status protects them from being a racist [youtube.com]?
Or about the non-existent professors [youtube.com] who encourage this anti-liberal bs under the guise of being "liberals"?
Yeah, none of these things exist. It's all a conspiracy theory, just like that "round earth" myth. I bet they have UN boats guarding American colleges or something!
(Score: 5, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:02PM (26 children)
I see. So you dig a bunch of assorted dickheads up off the web, and then... what? Somehow these various people are all part of some grand, overarching conspiracy? These people all represent "The Left" do they? Do they have membership badges? Can I google up a bunch of neo-nazis now and label them "The Right"?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:14PM
Yes, you absolutely can. Give it a try and see if there's anything to stop you.
The question is: should you?Well, yes, you should. See the post you answered to? Modded informative even it's flawed and loaded, thus irrelevant.**
So, the final question is: will you?
(grin)
----
** bonus points if you explain why the suggested motivation is not any better.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by RS3 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:34PM (2 children)
Not attacking you (really!)- just pointing out a huge sociological phenomenon in USA, that is spreading around the world: "you're either us or them": binary thinking. Many countries have many political parties and points of view. For reasons beyond my ability to understand, USA has coalesced into a 2-party divided country.
I'm neither R nor D, and from where I sit, it's amazing to watch this fight, usually based in assumptions and false accusations. I know many Rs who in no way have anything in common with neo-nazis, but many Ds like to say that they do. I'm sure there are equal mis-associations on the other side- the Ds are the much louder group right now. Wish I could find a truly independent news source.
It's okay, I will continue to vote for whoever I feel is the best for the job, R, D, I, etc.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:53PM
This is the direct result of "post-truth" politics. Why search for compromise or middle ground when you can have EVERYTHING your way? All you need to do is construct an imaginary reality where you are completely right and the other side is completely wrong. Reinforce this reality with your echo chamber, and you need never be wrong!
For a perfect non-Trump example, see the insane levels of wishful thinking driving Brexit.
Trouble is, sooner or later the real reality catches up.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:10AM
It never came from anywhere in particular. For example, France experienced this as well in after the 1870s and leading up to the Second World War. Seems to be a common issue of democracies.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jmorris on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:34PM (9 children)
Nice strawman you have there. What you attempt to deflect as "Assorted dickheads on the Internet" is nothing of the sort, the Left's strength is the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media, Harvard and the universities from the ivy league to the local community college, the vast NGO web of International Progressives building their New World Order. While they don't have official "Progressive" badges they ARE a unified front. You guys always protest but keep getting caught collaborating. Remember Journolist? We do. We see that it didn't go away either, it doubled down and went "legit" as the Blue Checkmark Mafia on Twitter.
Only if you can show one with any sort of actual power. You can point to -ONE- possible "Nazi" at Charlotteville (which would be your instant and automatic response) but that Nazi flag still had the creases from the original package and nobody else there seems to know the guy. But for the purpose of debate, we will assume he was real. So you hold him up as a scarecrow and I ask some simple questions. What is his name? What position of authority does he hold over others?
The only "Nazi" elected official you can find and even plausibly accuse of being "of the right" was David Duke's run as a Republican and the Republican Party drove him out, eventually taking the unprecedented step of printing up "Vote for the crook this time. It is important" bumper stickers when he managed to emerge as a finalist from the "jungle primary" against a soon to be imprisoned Democratic Governor. Yes they endorsed the obviously corrupt Democrat. Can you show me a counter example against one of your extremists?
Perhaps you wish to try a different approach and hold up Pepe as your example. You would try to compare an Internet meme from 4chan to the power of Hollywood's dream factory of hate?
Compare and contrast to, picking a name off almost at random, Congressman Waters? Do you denounce her idiocy and bigotry? She is an elected member of Congress of YOUR party. Support or denounce, it must be one or the other by your own book of rules. Yes it is a silly rule but my team lacks the power to make the rules so I'm left applying Alinsky's teachings to you now.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:54PM (2 children)
When Obama was president you guys complained you couldn't get anything done. Now you guys literally have control of everything and you are still complaining and blaming the left. What a diluted bunch of shits. Seriously.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @12:43AM
Are you fucking nuts? I predicted Trump wouldn't be able to take a shit without a Democratic Criminal Investigation. I said NOTHING will happen in four years because the Republicans hate him for pissing all over their little insular boy's club. The only thing that really frightened me was the thought that Hillary would have been able to accomplish ANYTHING that she wanted. Fuck! That gave me nightmares. Obama during his last years only cared about BLM appeasement and catering to trannies and rump rangers. I could not stand another four years of that shit.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:39AM
Let us keep in mind that one of the key complaints in the story about the dying art of disagreement was the inability to understand the other side. If you can't see how jmorris would be in favor of Obama not being able to get things done, then you don't understand his arguments well enough to disagree with them properly.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Yer a moron jmo! Must be some form of high functioning spectrum disorder to explain your ability to operate a keyboard.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 28 2017, @04:53PM
He's not intellectually deficient, he's evil. There is a difference. If he were stupid he'd have an excuse. As it is he's basically Steve Bannon's Mini-Me, though hopefully with better hygiene habits.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:05PM
As usual, jmo manages to type the exact opposite of truth in nearly every sentence, and somehow get modded up for it.
A quick google image search of "Nazis at charlotteville" lets me point to a hell of a lot more than that.
You want to talk about hateful media? How about Breitbart? How about the Daily Mail? How about anything at all from Rupert Murdoch? They are the ones sowing hate, mistrust and division.
No, you miss my point completely. You really think I'm trying to do the exact thing I criticised GPP for in the exact same post?
Oh well, the flag was ironed. Obviously not a Nazi. The defence rests, your honour.
MY party? not even MY fucking continental plate. Try again. No, wait, don't bother.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:23PM
the Left's strength is the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media, Harvard and the universities from the ivy league to the local community college, the vast NGO web of International Progressives building their New World Order.
Man, you or the GP really should have presented evidence of those crimes then, eh?
That would have been a really great argument!
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:27PM (1 child)
Also, since this is a thread that's supposed to be about debate:
This is called begging the question:
Compare and contrast to, picking a name off almost at random, Congressman Waters? Do you denounce her idiocy and bigotry?
It's generally frowned upon.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by jmorris on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:44PM
Eh? Mad Maxine is an idiot, insane and a bigot. Those aren't facts in dispute. The only question is whether each and every Prog here is willing to obey their own rule and ritually denounce her. Because any who do not denounce, and denounce again tomorrow or the next day, at any time and any place I demand they do it, it means they fully support her and every insane and bigoted thing she has said and are thus bad people. Those are the rules, I don't make them but I will enforce them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:15PM (10 children)
Look man I'm super liberal. That's why I have been up close and personal with the rather small but nasty illiberal left more than a few times. They exist, they actively recruit, and they stick together like a fraternity until there's some spat which will be resolved and the loser will be declared intolerant.
Breitbart does indeed manage to convince the folks living in the red states that these people exist in large numbers and their job is easy because low-end journalism is infested with these people. How do you think people can get hired and paid for writing about the "Top 10 most racist episodes of Seinfeld", not for cracked, not for buzzfeed.. but for salon.com? Not only that but people keep hiring them to write after that. Why? That should be the end of someone's career as a journalist. Who wants to read shit like that anyhow? Nobody.. people simply feel compelled to click because they love Seinfeld
Hiring from "critical theory" grads is popular because they had tons of practice finding random things to complain about turn them into reasonably presentable papers of the required length. So these folks are now giving each other hands up in their careers and are submitting lots of OP-eds so they can keep their hipster condos in williamsburg, portland, the castro.
We have to stop pretending these people don't exist, stop letting them wave away criticism with accusations of intolerance "look all I want is equality for X. I guess you don't and it's that simple" when they actually accused a white male of being stained with some sort of equality original sin. These people are highly destructive to the causes they use to shield themselves and crybully others.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:37PM (9 children)
Yes they exist, and so do full blown Nazis that want to exterminate others. They are small enclaves of insanity, and yes it is sad that so many "news" sites push out such garbage but on the other side is Breitbar, Daily Stormer, etc.
If conservatives don't want to be called racist nazis then they don't get to paint every liberal as a fascist that abuses the idea of tolerance. Bring up such people when it is actually relevant.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @12:51AM (8 children)
Yes they do. Right next to Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Klingons, furries, vampires and all the other LARPers. You fucking lefty loonies are seeing Nazis behind every tree. I blame Reagan for closing all those mental hospitals in the 80s and letting folks like you roam the streets and breed.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:02AM
Right, The Bad People only exist in the Other Side/are far more prevalent on Their Time than My Team. Have you ever tried not being a partisan hack?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:59AM
I am glad at least that in this thread so far everyone is properly understanding that nazis hail from the right end of the political spectrum and socialists from the left. As sad as it might sound to some, that represents big progress over the trend in recent years of conflating nazis and socialists as though they were synonymous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday September 28 2017, @08:59AM (5 children)
Help me out here chuckles: These [lmgtfy.com] people, the ones with the swastikas and the seig heils - are they hobbits or vampires? I can't tell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:50PM (4 children)
According to Wikipedia, 342,000 Americans claimed to be Wiccan/witches in 2008. They dance around campfires brandishing dangerous looking weapons casting spells. They might hex you. Aren't you afraid of them too? We have Satanists too. And lots of people with guns. REAL guns; some with a lot of them. And guys that like to dress up in Army fatigues and run around in the woods "training" for their "missions" for when the shit hits the fan.
Those "Nazis" that the left flips out about are a hand full of impotent loser trolls. The left is dutifully playing right into their game. Nobody with an ounce of brain takes them as a serious threat or a serious movement, yet I saw numerous posts on Ars where individuals were calling for summary execution of them. How do people like that manage the cognitive dissonance that it it acceptable to kill a party because they MIGHT espouse a viewpoint that it's okay to kill another party? It's insane.
And yes. Those people committing violence and calling for the deaths of people because of their (political) beliefs ARE just as bad as those committing violence and calling for the deaths of people because of their (religious) beliefs. The fact that many so-called "progressives" cannot see that is simply astonishing.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 29 2017, @08:40AM (3 children)
Except when they murder people by driving into them, which is exactly what happened shortly after those photos were taken.]
Losers? Yes. Trolls? To a certain extent. Impotent? At the moment maybe, but unlike wiccans and satanists, Nazis HAVE in the past murdered people. They celebrate and follow a philosophy that caused a world war and an act of systemic genocide, so excuse me if I'm worried that they seem to be enjoying something of a resurgence. But no, I'm not going to "flip out" as you put it, but I am going to see these people as a problem that needs to be dealt with. (or rather, as symptoms of a problem that needs to be dealt with)
I'd rather nip this problem in the bud now than have to fight another fucking world war five years down the line.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Oakenshield on Friday September 29 2017, @07:39PM (2 children)
No THEY didn't. James Fields did. A single individual. Just like NUMEROUS single crazed individuals do on all parts of the political spectrum, which is exactly my point. You fail to see that a bunch of (yes) impotent losers have every right to say whatever crazed shit (provided it's legal) that like and not be targeted for murder or singled out for legislative bans whether they happen to be Antifa, skinheads, ELF, KKK, BLM or whatever. The "progressive" left seems to think only certain groups that espouse crazy shit are worthy of outright bans. And equating "modern" Nazis with the German scourge of the 20th century is just fanciful insanity. There is not going to be another "world war" because a handful of losers march shouting "Sieg Heil" any more than because a group of anarchists smash windows, assault bystanders, and burn police cars. Leftists need to get a grip on reality.
And just FYI... The second World War was NEVER fought over the German persecution of Jews or persecution of (insert preferred protected group here) by any involved party. The war in Europe began in order to contain the German territorial expansion across Europe. In fact, the US only declared war against Germany because they declared war on us AFTER we declared war on their ally Japan. The Nazi Final Solution was conceived in January of 1942 but the war had been going on since September of 1939 and the US was involved beginning December of 1941. The holocaust was generally unknown outside of German occupied areas until late 1942. Re-imagining reasons why we fought Germany does not make them true and I fail to see why "progressives" always put forth this misguided narrative in their zeal to ban Nazis.
Your claim is just stupid. I could just as easily say I'd rather nip the Antifa problem in the bud now rather than fight a civil war against anarchists five years down the line. My statement is just exactly as absurd and farcical as yours. You Chicken Littles don't seem to understand that there is no general grassroots support for the movement and there is none forthcoming. The best response is not to feed the trolls. Arrest and prosecute the ones that commit crimes. Ignore the rest. The problem will go away on its own. Feeding the trolls only creates more and bigger trolls.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:07AM (1 child)
You see, that's just it. I start off arguing that a bunch of crazy dickheads on the internets don't represent the entire left, and throw nazis==The Right out as an off-hand "how would you like it" example, and now I'm accused of all the shit I was originally arguing against. It's almost as though some people have to paint their own worst qualities onto their opponents because they don't actually have any arguments of their own. I shouldn't even bother following up this idiotic derailment but what the hell, we're here now and I've had a few so what the fuck.
A single individual following a philosophy shared by an increasing number of others. A horrific philosophy that was thought long dead and consigned to history because we foolishly believed that as long as we tried to keep that history alive, no human being would be able look back on 1930s/ 40s Germany and think "Hell yeah, that's a great idea, let's do that." Except no, we were wrong. All it takes is a decade or two of blaming all our problems on immigrants and foreigners and we're right back at the start again. And apparently remembering the mistakes of the past and warning against them now counts as fascism because "wah wah I can't even make unsubstantiated complaints about all the dirty poles / mexicans steelin mah jerb without being called a racist". I'm not claiming to be Nostradamus here but some things are just obvious. You sow hate, you get hate. You create an environment that allows bigotry to flourish and guess what, you get bigotry. And if I sound pissed off, it's because I am. For years, we (ie The Left) have been saying "hey, let's not demonise Muslims. Let's treat them all as individuals, and try to keep in mind that the awful actions of a few extremists don't represent the whole. Let's jail the crazy criminal ones and build solidarity with the rest. And while we're at it, let's not demonise immigrants. Let's look at the good that immigration can bring to a country, and look elsewhere for the causes of our stock market crashes, outsourcing, unemployment, homelessness, declining public spending and crime. Maybe look over there, at that smug twat in the $40million yacht." But no. The right wing press, the right wing politicians, the right wing assholes masquerading as left wing politicians have gone ahead anyway and demonised Muslims, demonised immigrants, deliberately conflated the two because it suited their own agenda, placed all the world's evils on the shoulders of people who have quite enough shit to deal with without having to try to defend themselves against that kind of vile propaganda and oh, hey, big surprise, after a decade or two we see a resurgence of nazism, racism, hate crimes. And now they have the gall to try to flip it over, pin it back on us by saying we weren't tolerant enough of their intolerance. I have to read 15 years of "All Muslims are child-raping Sharia Jihadis" and then I get my fucking wrist slapped for daring to suggest that Nazis, ie people who explicitly and deliberately respect and emulate Hitler's third Reich, are dangerous assholes? Trying to make US out as the ones that want to lump people together and label them with all this boohoo "identity politics" shit. Well fuck you. All I'm hearing are excuses.
You think this won't grow? You think Trump and Brexit haven't emboldened Nazis and legitimised hate? Open your fucking eyes. 15 years ago I was standing in the street protesting about military aggression in the middle east. It will lead to ruin, we said. It will lead to needless death and destruction and poverty and debt and even more terrorism we said. And the right laughed at us, and said "no, no, you are naive and weak and you refuse to simply accept that an entire segment of humanity, all located geographically in a few specific but distant countries for your bombing convenience, is irredeemably evil". And guess what? The war solved nothing. It made things worse, JUST LIKE WE SAID IT WOULD. And now when I argue about military intervention in the middle east, I don't have a solution. Just like in North Korea, we are painted into a corner, into a problem with no satisfactory solution, and those same condescending pricks sneer at me for not having a clear path forward, for not having anything more than I TOLD YOU SO. So they just push on with more bombs and more troops and more ironic "religion of peace" macros and more fucking hate because yeah, that'll sure work this time round won't it? I have a solution, don't go to fucking war 15 fucking years ago, that's my fucking solution.
So to get back on topic you don't like me complaining about Charlotteville Nazis? Fine. Get in your god damned time machine, go back and pre-emptively vasectomise Dick Cheney's Dad, Rupert Murdoch's Dad, whatever sorry species of mollusc it was that sired Nigel Farage and all the rest of them. Go back and track down the fuckers stirring up racial animosity back in the early aughts just to steal taxes or sell weapons or hide their own crimes or win votes and choke them all on their own fucking selfishness. Then you can tell me not to complain. And if you say that's not possible, if the world REALLY MUST have hate and bigotry in it, at least have the fucking balls to own it. Don't sit there and try to paint your own deficiencies onto the very people who've been fighting it for decades. Fuck you again.
And now I've got that off my chest here's some targetted, post rant rebuttals. Then bed:
Stop putting your filthy words in my mouth. Quote me advocating those things, or apologise.
Yeah, European here, you don't need to remind me about the US showing up late. Thanks anyway.
Yes, yes. Again, congratulations for countering a point I never made and top marks educating us all in something we already knew. What you fail to acknowledge is that the German territorial expansion was directly driven by / fuelled by their sordid beliefs, which in their minds placed them above all other races and nations, and therefore gave them the right to conquer whoever they damn well pleased. You think modern Nazis wouldn't feel perfectly legitimised to nuke Israel or conquer & subjugate the middle east if they had the power to do so?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:31AM
Wow. That's a lot of misguided anger there. You might want to see your therapist about your persecution complex too. I didn't accuse you of anything except by calling you a Chicken Little. I stand by that. If you wish to identify as one of the leftists I called out. Well... You have to pretty much own up to the behaviors that I described.
Ah, yes. It all makes sense now. Europeans as a whole don't seem to put much value in the freedoms we enjoy. We hold our right to free speech over here as sacred. We also enjoy the rights of freedom of association and to petition our government (by marching if needs be) to redress grievances. I, for one, have no eagerness to surrender those rights to placate the perpetually aggrieved.
Maybe you stay awake at night searching for Nazis under your bed, but over here they are pretty much a joke. The KKK was a big thing Stateside for quite some time, but even they are are a bunch of impotent losers these days. When they show up, they are always outnumbered 20 to 1. There is no support. The Nazis are even less of a threat. Without the chimp-out that the left throws, there would be none remaining at all. The US media works hard to sensationalize everything over here for those all important ratings and the left is always looking for an excuse to be offended. They play right into the extremist outliers' hands.
You may not have made that point directly, but you seem to have your panties all in a wad worried about fighting another world war against Nazis. I seriously doubt that there are many European territorial expansionist tendencies in the modern Nazi movement (if you can even call it that). Germans seem to ride pretty roughshod on anything resembling a resurgence. Most of the leftist rants I see are directed at Nazi "hate speech." I can't tell you how many times I have read "That's why my father/uncle/grandfather fought a war against the Nazis." I just assumed that most left leaning folks were woefully uneducated as to the actual reason the allies went to war against Germany and hate speech or persecution isn't it.
Duh! That has been the case with EVERY empire ever. Did the British invade/conquer India, the Americas, the Carribean, Australia and other huge parts of the world because they were trying to appropriate their culture? Did the Spanish conquer South America for the luls? Did the Romans conquer most of Europe and the Middle East because they were sensitive and felt inferior? And "sordid beliefs"? Are we the thought police now?
I wish I could offer more to respond to your post, but it was mostly a rambling, incoherent mess that didn't have anything to do with this thread.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by unauthorized on Thursday September 28 2017, @10:46AM
Then I proved that SJWs are real and tangible thing and not some made-up Breitbart conspiracy.
No, they are part of an authoritarian radical ideology which is not any better.
No, these people are the cancer which is eating the left from the inside.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:30PM
but... as a left wing/liberal guy, I see the people in your examples to be a problem, not part of my ideology.
Those people are what I would call right wing. In fact I associate any extreme adherence to a special behavior with right wing. That doesn't make it republican -- that makes it right-wing.
the extreme far left is supposed to be anarchy, not authorative control, where you must adhere to a specific belief. Somewhat before that is social/communal behaviors.
you could say that the democratic party right now is in a state of anarchy. they have numerous disjointed specific beliefs related to identity politics, but what white group of disaffected white guys don't? the difference is, because they are not part of the majority race, they arent welcome as republicans because most republicans care not for Those People.
but those people's beliefs themselves seem to fall to the extreme right although the people harboring those beliefs wouldn't call themselves republicans and thus wouldn't be associating with those types of people--clearly with much in common, they despise one another, despite everyone having a similarity to wishing the other offending groups would just go away.
there are few tolerant types left in politics.