The cancer infecting the political Left

[pbrower2a]

(07-24-2020, 11:32 PM)Mickey123 Wrote: Of course the West is in the middle of a cultural collapse.  This is the essence of what the Unravelling is.  It's the death of the old First Turning culture, which then must be replaced with something, but there's nothing to replace it with.  A Crisis is then necessary to reform society and create a new culture.

Collapse -- or redefinition? 

First-turning culture has its weaknesses. Most obviously, most of it is insipid, and the people for whom it is made (1T culture is more anesthetic than challenging) die off. Just look at the collection of LP's available at a thrift store that were donated... very little is truly daring. The youth of our time are not interested in Patti Page, Perry Como, or Andy Williams anymore. 

Wanna try cuisine? Just try finding a Howard Johnson's restaurant. Forty years ago it was easy.  It fit 'Fifties style. It ain't the Fifties anymore. 

Quote:The last Awakening was in my mind the most intense we've seen in our history, and it's led to a unusually extreme unravelling.  What you're seeing all around us is cultural collapse, you just don't recognize it as such.  This is because you, and liberals in general, misinterpret everything going on as some sort of step in the direction of liberalism.

Were you around in any of the prior Awakening Eras? Obviously not... that is a rhetorical question. Maybe you never heard of the Burnt Over District of Upstate New York, where numerous new forms of Christianity, including the one major religion formed in America (Mormonism) heavily defined itself. 

Quote:Liberals see the Black Lives Matter movement and they think it's a liberal movement.  They think it is about standing up for black lives.  But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  It's part of the general effort going on to break society down.  The media carries out a continuous nonstop drum beat of "racism racism racism racism" all day every day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to turn people against each other.  The message is non stop, whites are racist, whites are racist, whites are racist, the problems of blacks are caused by racism, racism is the worst thing in the world, whites are racist, blacks can never get ahead, the U.S. is racist, whites are privileged, the police are racist, and so on and so on endlessly.

Until I see otherwise I am going to see its claims to be what it is as what it is... until it betrays that self-description. I see plenty of white people in Black Lives Matter demonstrations... for anti-white racism among blacks, just look to the New Black Panther Party which really fits your description (Whites are racists who intend to oppress black people... hate Whitey... hate Whitey). The New Black Panther Party isn't convincing many people.   

Without question we need effective, fair law enforcement. That means law enforcement that does not endanger the lives of suspects. George Floyd probably should have been arrested... but he should have been taken to jail safely to be booked for whatever. Such is the job of the police unless the perpetrator does something really stupid, like pulling a gun on a cop -- which typically results in the perp ending up dead. 

A hint though: white suspects can be brutalized too.  

We need cops to ensure that criminal behavior has bad consequences for the crook as for the victim. 

Quote:Meanwhile, the U.S. and other western nations are probably the least racist countries in the world, at the least racist time in modern memory.  But you would never know that to watch or read the news, as reporters scour the country looking for any misconduct by a white policeman against someone black, or any white person to have inappropriately called the police on someone black.

OK, we are less racist as a society than we used to be... although the remaining racists are really-nasty fascist pigs who often admire this man:



...the difference between the KKK and neo-Nazis is now nearly moot. 

Quote:Why would a society carry out such a self destructive and self loathing campaign as this?  None of this is in any way intended to help black people (or other racial or religious minorities), it is intended to keep them feeling angry and helpless.  Telling people that all their problems are caused by someone else, and that this group has all the power over them and is evil and destructive, all of this disempowers people - as it's intended to.

Effective police work makes life safer. Figure that people at Black Lives Matter protests often have cameras on them -- cameras intended perhaps to document police brutality. Instead one sees footage of looters. If you are a looter or rioter, then don't trust  peaceful protesters as allies. If they see a car being torched, they most likely are thinking "what about my car? Oooh -- my beloved dog Fluffy is there. Peaceful protesters are anti-violent... Black Lives Matters is not about getting soft on crime. Ask most of them what they would do if they saw a blatant crime... and they would tell you that they would call the police. 

Quote:Meanwhile, liberals mistake all of this for some legitimate attempt to help blacks and to improve society.  "Black lives matter", who could disagree with that?  Racism is bad, and police brutality is bad, and people communicating about their issues is good, it all sounds so liberal, if you aren't paying attention to the bigger picture.

Law enforcement still has a double standard when it comes to blacks. Maybe it isn't racist to find it difficult for white people to fail to see difference between black people similar in build and skin color.

Quote:To address one of the other points, you say, "the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization".   I'll repeat my statement that you, as a liberal, mistakenly believe that the conflict going on in society is between the liberal left and the authoritarian right.  Meanwhile, what's actually happening is an ever growing authoritarian left bent on destroying society, versus an authoritarian right which is just about to conclude that seizing power and arresting all their political opponents is the only way forward.  With liberals in the middle between the two, thinking they're the left.

The intellectual hollowness of Donald Trump is legendary. It is hard to imagine anyone graduating from a first-rate university and being so grossly unaware of the heritage of Western civilization that he thinks like a bad elementary-school kid. What you call the authoritarian Left includes some questionable people -- devotees of Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Hoxha, etc. -- are bad news. They are no more common than they used to be.  

Quote:The insanity you see on the right is one side of the coin, matched by the insanity of the left.

 
Extremists are often violent, cruel, and ruthless, which is good cause to distrust them. 
 

Quote:You will never move forward by defeating Trump, because we've reached a point of collapse.  There is no return to stability.  Every move by any side destabilizes the whole system further.  Attack Trump successfully, and you strengthen the left, which further strengthens the resolve of the right.  If Trump wins the election, the left will come back and attack 10 times as hard, and states may begin openly defying the federal government.  If he loses, he may likely attempt to seize power.

No -- defeat Trump and we move America closer to the political center. Maybe conservatism redefines itself to be humane, principled, and rational
so that when something goes wrong with liberal leadership we get a viable alternative.
 

Quote:I can't predict how all of this is going to turn out.  But you will never understand anything that's happening if you mistakenly think that the left is liberal, and if you fail to see the ever spreading cancer that has taken over much of leftist thinking.

Typically liberals are on the Left and conservatives are on the Right. But confusing liberals with Marxist-Leninists is about as unwise as confusing conservatives with Nazis.