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Do people learn from their mistakes? — 143 Comments

  1. I am not of the burn it down party, but I might watch be content to merely watch as it, depending on what “it” was, burn down.

    We have been invited to think outside the box. Self-sacrificially preserving the well-being of those whose life-ways and aims are hostile and antithetical to our own, out of some sense of civic inertia, or misplaced loyalty, may be a tactic that never gets you outside the box.

    But you know “solidarity” without exceptions, and we we we. Oui?

    Is – looking at the basic calculus – securing pajama boy’s comfort, or even his life, against the impersonal vicissitudes of existence, or possibly the assaults of third parties, worth more to you than your own freedom?

    That, is one box.

  2. Sluggish keyboard again on the edit :

    “but I might watch be content to merely watch as it”

    is

    “but I might be content to merely watch as it”

  3. By the way, Neo. This last one has nothing to do with your site. It seems as I close out windows, they keep running in the background.

    Need to get an updated browser.

  4. “I have long fought with the “burn it down” people, for example, for the simple reason that they think that once things go all to pot, voters will somehow blame the proper culprits and gravitate to their preferred side. [Neo]

    I suggest that this is not the only interpretation, though. Some in the “burn it down” crowd may also be inspired by a sense that the system is corrupt and cockroach-infested beyond repair. To burn it down can also mean to start over; to start from scratch as it were, but not necessarily with their predetermined biases in mind (although they would certainly push fro such biases if the opportunity arose).

    What is important here, to me, is not that such a reconstruction would be perfect, or even better than the present system, but that the level of frustration and disgust with the current system that motivates this charge seems to be reaching historic levels.

  5. Some useful observations from Neo …

    “Sometimes people accurately identify the problem and the cause, but can’t find a solution.

    Sometimes people accurately identify the problem and the cause and the solution, but can’t execute it.

    And sometimes people do all that, but–like the proverbial generals who are always fighting the last war …”

    Yeah … the last war. Maybe, in some cases, the premise prevents the solution.

    We may not have to burn anything down. It may well be that it will be done for us by others whatever we will or no. If so, your choice will be as to whether you wish to run there with a bucket, through yourself on the pyre, or … start planning for a different future.

  6. Or rather, they think they learn [from their mistakes], but all too often they learn the wrong thing.

    This is the linchpin of the Big Government movement:
    1) Government makes a mess of something (like healthcare) through taxes, regulation and general meddling.
    2) Media and Big Government politicians point&shriek, “OMG! Look what a mess we’ve got here!”

    3) Most people go along with their solution of even more meddling by more powerful Big Government — which makes an even bigger mess of things.

    4) Lather, rinse, repeat.

    So frustrating to watch this played out over and over and over again. Few people think, If government meddling made such a mess here, maybe we need less government involvement, not more.

  7. I’ve never understood the Burn It Down crowd. I think it shows some naivete about how most governments work.

    Our system is SO SCREWED UP that

    – Every four years, no matter what’s going on, we have an election where every citizen over the age of 18 is allowed a vote

    – And once the vote is tallied, there is a cordial and peaceful transfer of power

    – This has been going on for over 200 years. Even in the worst year of the Civil War (1864) we held a national election.

    Yes, it’s so horrible.

    Oh, they meant the politicians we elected are horrible?

    The ones WE elected?

    Maybe we should burn ourselves down.

    This is silly. Yes, we need better leaders, we need to insist upon it (which is why I’m not rewarding either of the major parties with my vote this time around). But our system works. It works like crazy – unless your village was invaded by a Junta this morning or the traffic laws were all shifted from drive on right to drive on left at the whim of the dictator, leading to lots of death (this happened in Burma). We live in Disney World compared to most of the rest of the world.

    Vote better. Have better involvement. Quit falling for knaves, fools and con-men. Fix the system. Burning it down? Do so at your own risk, because usually when something’s burned down what remains is pretty bad unless you spend a great deal of effort, treasure, sweat, tears, and sometimes blood to rebuild it.

  8. Socrates, because he listened to his inner oracle, voice, and conscience, learned from questions and answers. Everybody else… not so much.

    Along with the Founding Fathers, the number of humans who can grasp the truth independent of any help from other humans, is about 3%.

    Humans often act like Pharoah in the story about Moses escape from Egypt. They only compromise when they face a power greater than themselves. After having escalated the situation to a point where they could no longer save face. Then they tell themselves that it isn’t their heart that was weak, it was somebody else’s fault, it was somebody else’s unrighteous actions that lead to them hardening their heart. It was basically God’s fault. Some supernatural, superstitious, spirit’s fault, yea that’s the way it should be thought of.

    Then they espouse some self deceptive promises, and when their enemies are out of the public’s light, they break that promise and go out to exterminate them.

  9. “But our system works. It works like crazy — unless your village was invaded by a Junta this morning …”

    “Judicial putsch” I think one justice called it.

    ” … or the traffic laws were all shifted from drive on right to drive on left at the whim of the dictator, “

    Those are trivial examples. Try Obama Care exemptions, the individual shared responsibility mandate, the IRS scandal.

    One day you wake up, and find that for the first time in American history, you’re responsible under Federal law for underwriting the insurance costs of some goddamned drunk or drug addict’s autogenous disorder.

    ” leading to lots of death (this happened in Burma). We live in Disney World compared to most of the rest of the world.”

    It is a strange thing and a shame to consider the loss of freedom we have experienced; and how government has tied us together in such a way now, that the death of an obnoxious some [whose past obnoxiousness principally redounded only upon themselves] would actually lead to the liberation of others.

    Like I said, it is a shame.

  10. “More people would learn from their mistakes, if they weren’t so busy denying them.” Harold J. Smith

    “You can never make the same mistake twice… because the second time, it’s not a mistake… it’s a CHOICE…” unknown

    “Political ideas that have dominated the public’s mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe…” Ludwig von Mises

  11. “So frustrating to watch this played out over and over and over again. Few people think, If government meddling made such a mess here, maybe we need less government involvement, not more.”

    How will less government get the average Democrat client-class voter more of what it wants from you?

    The mess you mention, can always be temporarily carpeted over by fleecing you. Until you’ve no fleece left.

  12. There are those who say they would rather die on their feet than live on their knees. Are they “burning it down?”

  13. I guess the question in re burning or letting it burn down, is “what, exactly, are we allowing to burn?”

    The rule of law as we knew it, has already shriveled in the heat of conscious leftist programs and policies aimed at fundamental sociopolitical transformation from a natural rights polity and a regime of negative liberty, to a distributive justice and social collective aiming system.

    Of course it is not gone from the scene, and still manifests to the extent that there remain old school constitutionalism judges on the bench.

    And once they live out their terms?

    Well, has been said here before one may shrug and declare … Apré¨s moi le déluge.

    Do we mostly have common values? No. Do we by and large respect common institutions? No. Do we seek the same ends out of life, or even ends which are compatible? No. And no modern liberal, incessantly focused on they are in ceaselessly modifying and reshaping your existence, would claim that it is so. Modern liberals long ago dropped the idea compatible and parallel interests for the “balancing” of fundamentally divergent, competing, and even antithetical interests and rights.

    So, what exactly is it one wishes to preserve from the flames? And , assuming it is a matter of self-immolation largely, which arsonists from those flames?

  14. Cap’n Rusty:

    The two sentiments are not the same.

    And one does not necessarily lead to the other. It is a fallacy to think so. The “burn it down” crowd has a great many Romantics, and quite a few nihilists as well. The sentiments behind a position do not mean the position will lead to anything resembling the desired result.

  15. Think I need to take a break, as many will agree.

    Read this,

    And no modern liberal, incessantly focused on they are in ceaselessly modifying and reshaping your existence, would claim that it is so. Modern liberals long ago dropped the idea compatible and parallel interests for the “balancing” of fundamentally divergent …”

    as this

    “And no modern liberal, incessantly focused as they are on ceaselessly modifying and reshaping your existence, would claim that it is so. Modern liberals long ago dropped the idea of compatible and parallel interests, for the “balancing” of fundamentally ….

  16. The most difficult part of teaching undergrad physics majors is getting them to question everything they do. They have to learn to not trust their algebra/calculus, and to question every bit of data in the lab. Finding and correcting one’s mistakes is the essential skill.

  17. The troubling development is the electorate’s inability to self correct. We are overwhelmed with not just information overload, but distortion overload. Our media elites and political elites know better, but they mostly profit from the confusion.

    On rare events when we climb out of our caves to lodge protests en masse because a provocative viral video implies an outrage that never was. As facts are confirmed, we return to our caves and try to forget how ill-informed we were the last time we emerged. Meanwhile we do very little to improve our ability to discern fact from fiction, or hero from villain.

    Our Western civilization emerged from a coherence where all roads led to Rome. Our post-modernist caves make us unable to stop our elites at anything, those elites continue to turn us toward Venezuela. After they have looted us of all our surplus, they will turn to seed corn and other essentials. Philosophical caves bereft of effective discernment produced the outcomes seen in Caracas — it’s becoming our new Rome.

  18. In the long run, without a change of course, debt (federal, state, local, and private) will not burn it down; but rather melt it down. The best current examples are Venezuela, Greece, Puerto Rico, Illinois, and Detroit. Nearly every state and metropolis is headed for a day of reckoning. Negative interest rates are spreading across the banks of Europe, a sure sign of dire straits. In a similar manner, the push for digital currency is a warning sign.

    The weirdness of this election cycle is small change compared to what awaits us and our children and grandchildern.

  19. Obama was elected twice. Hillary is likely to succeed him. I’m not assured that the American voting populace is capable of learning enough as quickly as it needs to. They might, but the ol’ Magic 8-ball is pessimistic.

  20. Tesh Says:
    August 25th, 2016 at 8:50 pm
    Obama was elected twice. Hillary is likely to succeed him. I’m not assured that the American voting populace is capable of learning enough as quickly as it needs to. They might, but the ol’ Magic 8-ball is pessimistic.

    Geoffrey Britain Says:
    August 25th, 2016 at 4:13 pm
    “You can never make the same mistake twice… because the second time, it’s not a mistake… it’s a CHOICE…” unknown

    DNW Says:
    August 25th, 2016 at 3:39 pm
    Some useful observations from Neo …

    “Sometimes people accurately identify the problem and the cause, but can’t find a solution.

    Sometimes people accurately identify the problem and the cause and the solution, but can’t execute it.
    * * *
    And sometimes, some people are getting exactly the result they desire.

  21. The Alt Right was supposed to have burned the GOP E down. But now the GOP E is behind Trum. That’s the actual results and practicality of a “burn it down” meme. If people were serious, it would be one thing, but as usual, they are just talking the talk.

  22. Nothing will burn down quickly because too many people won’t let it, and I’m not talking about the patriots. When Adam Smith said “there’s a lot of ruin in a country,” I’m convinced that he not only meant the capital that had been built up by previous generations, but also all those people who had a vested interest in keeping the system going for their own benefit.

    Not many countries ever burn. Most smolder.

  23. I think it is simple we learn our mistakes. It is true collectively and individually. Thus, McCain, Romney, Trump makes sense as the next one “fixes” the earlier mistake. McCain wasn’t electable, Romney was too nice, and Trump wasn’t nice at all.

  24. “Burning it down? Do so at your own risk, because usually when something’s burned down what remains is pretty bad unless you spend a great deal of effort, treasure, sweat, tears, and sometimes blood to rebuild it.” – Bill

    Great point.

    The interesting thing is that most of that crowd probably never invested much in maintaining their liberty. Heck, weren’t the core of trump’s initial support identified as people who typically didn’t vote the last several elections?

    There is a twisted expectation that, somehow, little effort must be required on the rebuild. Reality would be that far more than they have ever invested would be required, just to bring us back to par – where we are today.

    If they couldn’t be bothered through to only recently, what are the chances they’d be there when needed then?

  25. Reading through the comments, what a mopey, self-defeating sentiment expressed here.

    Back to Neo’s post on optimism. Seems like much of the crowd here are ultra pessimist – glass only 10% full as nearly all is lost, and what’s left will be gone in four years or so.

    It is this kind of thinking the fuels the burn it all down crowd.

    Well, I guess there are no George Washingtons or Abraham Lincolns around here, who each faced far more dire circumstances and yet saw their way through it.

    Poppycock to those who say we cannot “survive” all this!

    They did, why shouldn’t we?

  26. You learn from your mistake if you know what the mistake was.
    You could, for example, believe that socialism works if only the right people are in charge. Venezuela, therefore, proves it. The wrong people were in charge.
    Simple.
    Therefore, elect Bernie.
    It is easier to use the scientific method–informally speaking–if you have, say, a thousand iterations closely controlled.
    But, if a cloud goes over the sun and you think it’s a bad omen and, indeed, your dog pukes in the house…it was a bad omen. Prove it wasn’t.
    In the political/social sphere, we have no experiments we can rerun whose variables are so closely controlled that a lesson can be proven. The escapes–“we’re greedy”, “they’re greedy”, “they’re racist”, “they’re shortsighted” cannot be unproven.
    To learn from a mistake implies the reason for the mistake is obvious.
    That’s not obvious.

  27. Oh, yeah. And what’s the profit in learning?
    People who have skin in the game–social class, financial, self-regard, ethnic solidarity, etc…..
    It’s illegal to hold their heads under the surface of the Truth Puddle until they acknowledge the mistake. There is, afterwards, no reason for them not to repeat it, since the profit is in the “mistake”, not the truth.
    A race-hustler and those whose selves are fed, filled, in believing him, do not make “mistakes”. And they can’t be corrected, since they’d lose so much.

  28. J would counsel courage, hope, and let’s not be victims.

    I can give you a recent example where the shoe was on the other foot. Say you’re a liberal in 1976. Nixon has resigned in disgrace. A new kind of Democrat gets elected to office. You’ve taken your country back!!

    Flash forward four years. That monster Reagan has won. You’re bereft.

    Flash forward 8 more years. GWHB has just won. You’ve lost the country, A democrat will never again be elected to the Presidency, etc (people were saying this).

    Liberals endured 12 years of Republican success at the Presidential level. I’m sure a lot of them thought the world was ending. Then look what happened.

    What we need is better leaders. Let’s go find some and vote for them. This election cycle is toast, but trust me, there will be more. Yes, even if Hillary is elected.

    Conservatives don’t need to jettison their values and aims, which is what is happening with Trump. No – we need to find better leaders and better communicators. We don’t need to write off people who come from other countries, or minorities, etc. We must not write off Romney’s 47%. That is suicide. We have a great vision for the purpose of government, what it means to be a citizen, the path to a productive and satisfying life, a true vision of freedom versus the toddler-like freedom Liberals espouse. That’s what we need to be about. We need to be promoting that vision.

    Burning it down is crazy. The democrats have to be loving this. I’m sure they can’t believe their good fortune this election.

    Don’t burn it down. Carefully remove parts of the edifice that need to be jettisoned (the alt-right, Trump, etc). Rebuild, renovate, re-tool.

    Don’t be a victim.

  29. @ Bill:

    The problem is, the alt-right don’t see that they’ve done anything wrong. They will continue to not see their mistakes until their noses are rubbed in their failures.
    Like socialists, you can keep up the pretense only so long before the string of failures becomes hard to explain away.
    The entire process would be much faster if they’d show some ability for self-reflection, but so far I’d say they’ve shown less than average.

    The other poster above is correct, I think (and it has long been my opinion too): many of the Trump supporters didn’t really pay attention before recently, and they are unwilling to invest the energy either for sustained action or to educate themselves on what they don’t know.

    I would call this another case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

  30. Well, I guess there are no George Washingtons or Abraham Lincolns around here, who each faced far more dire circumstances and yet saw their way through it.

    Poppycock to those who say we cannot “survive” all this!

    They did, why shouldn’t we?”

    Why wouldn’t you survive, as long as you cooperate and obey?

    That isn’t the point.

    And the “Washintons” and “Lincolns” did it through shooting wars.

    And they, meaning the Colonials, killed people for fewer impositions than we have in some ways borne.

    Now, no doubt a St. Bartholomew’s day directed at liberals would set things off … but conservatives’ ruling that out as immoral (even though some may have been on the receiving end of such a program in Milwaukee recently) , is what has these kindly pessimists, pessimistic.

    If you cannot escape the left through geographical or political boundaries, if they recognize no interpersonal limits, if they never relent, and if they violate all the rules as a matter of course and leave law and process meaningless …

    And if you commit yourself to maintaining old standards as you try to fight back with hands tied, well then, you have reason to be pessimistic that your future holds much more than more of the same.

    Maybe we will get lucky and Putin will nuke them out. Oh wait that is wrong to hope for too.

  31. Do people learn from their mistakes?

    Having no experience with this issue, I can’t answer that. I’ve only made one mistake in my life, and that mistake was thinking I had made a mistake.

  32. No. The Pro-Choice religion is ancient and brutal. The resumption of class diversity schemes, abortion rites, and human cannibalism are evidence that development is either evolutionary (i.e. chaotic) or progressive (i.e. unqualified monotonic change).

  33. DNW:

    Are you really suggesting a massacre of liberals as a solution?

    Really?

    And are you really citing Washington and Lincoln as precedent?

    Let me advise you that that’s not the way the Revolution or the Civil War worked. Pol Pot or Stalin (in reverse, in terms of the target, but the same methods) would be the more appropriate precedent. Are they really the people in whose footsteps you wish to follow?

    That’s how I read your comment, anyway, unless there’s some strange sarcasm or irony there that I didn’t follow.

  34. Bill:

    Ever since I started hobnobbing with the right I’ve noticed an awful lot of people who give up easily and feel angry if a candidate has just one or two points of disagreement with them. It surprised me, because the left is pretty much the opposite.

    I once wrote a post about it.

  35. “If you cannot escape the left through geographical or political boundaries, if they recognize no interpersonal limits, if they never relent, and if they violate all the rules as a matter of course and leave law and process meaningless … “ – DNW

    You’ve evidently given up trying because you believe that even bothering to attempt to convince anyone of the benefit of conservative principles / policy is useless.
    .

    “Now, no doubt a St. Bartholomew’s day directed at liberals would set things off … but conservatives’ ruling that out as immoral… if you commit yourself to maintaining old standards as you try to fight back with hands tied, well then, you have reason to be pessimistic… Maybe we will get lucky and Putin will nuke them out. “

    So, you are suggesting that since we conservatives are holding on to “old standards”, thus, it morally rules out “St Bartholemew Day” tactics to combat the left, is a weakness?

    Or am I, again, wildly misinterpreting what you are saying?

    Sounds very much like a “burn it all down”, “might makes right” type of argument.
    .

    Have you ever considered that many on the left make a similar argument about the right?

    What happens when two groups give up debating, think that way about each other, and think the rules we have set up in this country are an unnecessary obstacle?
    .

    “And the “Washintons” and “Lincolns” did it through shooting wars. “

    That confuses end result with the circumstances. We are nowhere near the circumstances that they faced. A “shooting war” is hardly an inevitable outcome from where we are today.

    Continued attitude and talk of this sort on both sides will only escalate the situation.

    Refusing to engage, debate and convince those who can be, on the left, and thinking rules / principles are quaint but outdated, is just willing a “shooting war” rather than wanting to solve anything.

  36. Or am I, again, wildly misinterpreting what you are saying?”

    You are again wildly misinterpreting what I am saying.

  37. neo,

    Well said. I’ve noticed that too. Sometimes it feels like, if apocalyptic despair were people, the comment threads on this blog would be China.

  38. ” ‘And the “Washin[g]tons” and “Lincolns” did it through shooting wars. ‘

    That confuses end result with the circumstances. “

    I guess you didn’t give much thought to the actual circumstances in which your examples operated, then.

    Maybe you will want to choose other examples.

    We are nowhere near the circumstances that they faced. A “shooting war” is hardly an inevitable outcome from where we are today.

    No one other than you, by inadvertence if not intention, suggested it was.

    Continued attitude and talk of this sort on both sides will only escalate the situation.

    Yeah, the By any Means crowd will probably get more riled up if I accuse them of recognizing no boundaries or limits to their aims.

    Refusing to engage, debate and convince those who can be, on the left, and thinking rules / principles are quaint but outdated, is just willing a “shooting war” rather than wanting to solve anything.

    When you meet and identify some liberals who are just waiting to be convinced to back off on the principles of their collectivist ideology be sure and let me know.

    I don’t think that the rules and principles such as the rule of law, or personal responsibility, or the distinction between civil and political society and purposes, or the idea of natural rights are outdated; but I have been told by committed collectivists that they consider them to be, and that their program in essence is one of no limits.

    But perhaps you been dealing with a different class of collectivists, somewhat more reticent, retiring, or conflicted, than I have.

  39. neo-neocon Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    Bill:

    Ever since I started hobnobbing with the right I’ve noticed an awful lot of people who give up easily and feel angry if a candidate has just one or two points of disagreement with them. It surprised me, because the left is pretty much the opposite.”

    By Glamorous Gaia, the world has turned upside down and Neo is endorsing Trump!

  40. “Ever since I started hobnobbing with the right I’ve noticed an awful lot of people who give up easily and feel angry if a candidate has just one or two points of disagreement with them. “ – Neo

    This cycle, it is incredible how many of the “conservative” media pundits who effectively yelled “RINO!!!” in 2008 and 2012 are now all in on trump, a man well far away from the rest of the GOP on policy / philosophy – not even close, if his history is anything to go by.

    GOP enthusiasm in 2012 was greatly attenuated with their pounding of the “RINO!!” label on Romney. Their sentiment, if not literal comment, was that Romney wasn’t much different from obama, at best a “Dem-lite”. The comments on such blogs were lit up with folks who said exactly this and worse.

    Of course, once Romney won the nomination, these pundits changed tune to support him, but that was a bit too little, too late to bring back that enthusiasm. Those comments carried through the election.

    Yep, that worked out great. Their labels / sentiments were so spot on!

    People give these “pundits” greater credit / importance than they deserve. But, no doubt, they will retain their acolytes despite all these observations – e.g. “Caller”:

    “Rush, you have been in my life over 25 years, and I could start crying but yes, man, thank you for everything that you have taught me — I mean, all my life. This three hours that I spend at work when I listen to you is the only time of day that life makes sense”
    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/08/25/trump_converts_the_gop_to_amnesty

  41. Speaking for myself, I have learned far more from my mistakes than from my successes. Because I’m an entrepreneur, if I fail, I know what I did wrong. If I succeed, it might just be luck.

    Yeah, I’m hard to live with.

  42. neo-neocon Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    DNW:

    Are you really suggesting a massacre of liberals as a solution?

    Really?

    No. Of course not. I did not and I do not. Did I not say that it was ruled out by conservative adherence to the very principles which leftists themselves – say, the By Any Means Necessary crowd – reject?

    “And are you really citing Washington and Lincoln as precedent?”

    No, I am not. Maq brought them up.

    I am arguing that they were a poor choice for Maq to cite, as their cited performance was under circumstances which were precisely those which the conservative seeks to avoid being dragged into.

    Let me advise you that that’s not the way the Revolution or the Civil War worked. Pol Pot or Stalin (in reverse, in terms of the target, but the same methods) would be the more appropriate precedent. Are they really the people in whose footsteps you wish to follow?

    I don’t intend to follow any revolutionary. In fact a revolution in the basic predicate of our association and our rights as individuals is what I reject.

    Any fool emotionalist who wants to plant the Gadsden flag in an open field, and then defy Obama to drop napalm on him, is likely to get just what the rest of us anticipate he will get.

    That’s how I read your comment, anyway,

    You probably read it that way because you have many emotional ties to liberal persons; and as such, even the mention of a behavior in reference to them and which conservatives reject out of hand, (whatever the potential consequences to the conservatives themselves) was probably alarming enough to cause you to read into it what was not there.

    … unless there’s some strange sarcasm or irony there that I didn’t follow.

    The sarcasm was in this line: “Maybe we will get lucky and Putin will nuke them out. Oh wait that is wrong to hope for too.”

    The rest was straight description of the logical dead end, which you had described and elaborated upon earlier.

  43. “You are again wildly misinterpreting what I am saying.” – DNW

    I see Neo made a similar interpretation. That you won’t explain yourself in light of those two observations – enough said.

    This is where the question of limiting principle comes in. St Batholemew’s Day is worthy of consideration?

    You don’t have to bother addressing that question on limiting principle, as it seems you’ve answered it.

    “I guess you didn’t give much thought to the actual circumstances in which your examples operated”

    Let’s see – no democratic representation, a king whose decrees the colonies are subject to, and troops to do his bidding.

    I’m sure your dystopian world view makes it seem like our world is just like theirs.

  44. You have to be all in for Trump, even holding your nose because of the alternative.

  45. DNW:

    Well, I certainly do have plenty of liberal friends and family, but I also thought your comment was quite unclear as to intent.

    Plus, as a long-time blogger, I’ve encountered a few commenters who seem to be advocating that sort of thing for real, so I try to be alert about what’s going on here.

  46. DNW:

    Would that one or two points of disagreement were all that separated my point of view from Trump.

    Would that three or four points of disagreement were all.

    No, it’s many more points, his personal history of cons, his lies and untrustworthiness, so many things that I’ve written about in the last year, way too numerous to mention or list.

    Again, I’m assuming you’re joking, but to me it’s not a point of humor. I don’t find the subject humorous because it is so sad, and the gap between my objections to Trump and the objections of people to Romney in 2012 is so very very very wide. And Trump supporters keep acting like they’re not.

    See this.

  47. neo-neocon Says:

    August 26th, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    DNW:

    Well, I certainly do have plenty of liberal friends and family, but I also thought your comment was quite unclear as to intent.

    Plus, as a long-time blogger, I’ve encountered a few commenters who seem to be advocating that sort of thing for real, so I try to be alert about what’s going on here.

    I’m surprised – though given your emotional connections, maybe not so much – that with the superabundance of material and repetitive statements at that I have left here (to be as graciously understated regarding myself as possible LOL), there could be any misunderstanding.

    But lest there is, let me make a statement for the record, using an illustration.

    My general position on uncongenial and antipathetic others, is to let nature take its course, i.e., to let them reap what they sow.

    And, if political enemies with antithetical value systems and hostile life-ways who would abolish our historically enjoyed freedoms for their material advantage, but who nonetheless have some formal political connection to one, run afoul of third parties who are doing them harm, to let it work itself out if at all possible.

    Hence the sarcastic wisecrack about Putin’s nukes.

    Artificial, narrowed, and personified scenario: Pajama boy, i.e., the contented ideological tool of the progressive “recognize no natural limits in law” crowd, is in turn attacked by thugs on the street; thugs who recognize no one elses’ natural rights to personal integrity and boundaries when it comes to satisfying their own urges, either. Just like him then; only on another level of sophistication

    Conservatives GB or Parker or Cornhead, recognizing a “fellow” human – regardless of what that fellow human says about being a fellow, and not counting the cost, nor calculating the fallout of “saving Satan from his own snares”, intervene.

    DNW, however, taking pajama boy at his word as to his leftist principles and anthropology, does, albeit with some reluctance and a certain amount of difficult emotional discipline, overcome, we hope, the inertial forces of habit and sympathy, and allows the chickens to come home to roost in pajama boy’s hair.

    It is about, as Bill says, a matter of principle. And justice.

    I try to do progressives the honor of taking their anthropological principles seriously enough, to at least apply them to them when dealing with them.

    Seems like a reasonable and just principle to me.

  48. “Again, I’m assuming you’re joking …”

    Yes I was joking. I neither swear by Glamorous Gaia, nor believe that you are implying an endorsement of Trump.

    And I don’t hope that the Russians nuke Manhattan, or that Hillary collapses on stage and is replaced by Louis Farrakhan, or that Michael Moore finds a way to reach round and wipe his own ass without a telescoping claw-arm.

  49. DNW:

    I will also assume you are not now nor have you ever been a member of the Communist Party. 🙂

    See, I put that smiley-face there just to make sure everyone knows it was a joke. My sense of humor is not what it used to be pre-Obama/Trump/Clinton.

  50. DNW:

    Reading your comment at 3:12 PM, I realize your scenario is artificial, but I still find fault with your decision.

    I wonder: are you religious? Forgive me if you’ve spoken about this and I don’t remember your position, but most religions would argue against your decision. You are positing not behavior in a hot war, but behavior to a stranger on the street, one you don’t even know, and you are offering a hypothetical where you walk by as he is attacked and even possibly killed rather than trying to save him. And you do this just because he’s a liberal?

    I assume your hypothetical also involves a refusal to call 911 and summon police? Or would you do that? I certainly wouldn’t try to be a hero, myself, and physically save someone. It’s not my forte; I can be more useful by calling 911, and I would do that.

    The reason I’m harping on this is that more and more these days I hear expressions of bloodthirstiness towards liberals. To me, it is a steeply slippery slope that ends with a Pol Pot situation. I am quite serious.

  51. Neo-neocon Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    DNW:

    Reading your comment at 3:12 PM, I realize your scenario is artificial, but I still find fault with your decision.

    I wonder: are you religious? Forgive me if you’ve spoken about this and I don’t remember your position, but most religions would argue against your decision.

    Yes, they probably would seem to disapprove; but on what actual argument? Once you answer that, and then compare the anthropology presumed therein, with the hardened and internalized anthropology possessed by modern no-limit liberals and progressives, of the at least by moderately self-aware or ideological kind, you will have your answer.

    You are positing not behavior in a hot war, but behavior to a stranger on the street,

    What I am positing, is refraining from behavior in certain defined circumstances and scenarios. In the same manner one might say, any progressive moral consequentialist might do, and say that he will do, as a result of his own utilitarian moral theory.

    one you don’t even know, and you are offering a hypothetical where you walk by as he is attacked and even possibly killed rather than trying to save him. And you do this just because he’s a liberal?

    Well, per the scenario, I know who he is, and what he is about, and the consequences of intervening in his “fate” as one might call it. “Liberal” here is not just some term, it implies certain ethical and anthropological stances on his part which justify as he sees it, the life-appropriations he seeks to level against others through the agency of politics.

    That is a modern liberal, right? Using the state to uninhibitedly redistribute personal life energies and efforts in order to form … “a more perfect union”, i.e., a satisfying to them, managed collective, of which you function as a social element.

    I assume your hypothetical also involves a refusal to call 911 and summon police? Or would you do that? I certainly wouldn’t try to be a hero, myself, and physically save someone. It’s not my forte; I can be more useful by calling 911, and I would do that.

    If I did not know who they were, I would obviously default toward helping; or have so far. In fact I believe I have told the drearily funny (if there is such a thing) story of rescuing some ungrateful drug addled morons from a car flipped over in a ditch. Lesson learned, as they say.

    The reason I’m harping on this is that more and more these days I hear expressions of bloodthirstiness towards liberals.

    I don’t think that studied or principled indifference, or skepticism in granting them moral peer status during unavoidable social dealings, equates to bloodthirstiness. What was that Lenin said about giddy short-sighted capitalists selling Marxists the rope that …

    The same goes for offering social support, when you come down to it. I hope that lesson has been learned too.

    I suppose if you wish to discuss just how our moral senses have in this society grown to be so radically divergent as to be at loggerheads, or if you wished to argue for a Kantian ethics, as opposed to a liberal consequentialist ethic, or a conservative virtue ethics, it might make for an interesting thread.

    To me, it is a steeply slippery slope that ends with a Pol Pot situation. I am quite serious.

    “Attention must be paid!” I think it was Rollo May who said it, or quoted it approvingly. We must be unconditionally involved in the lives of others I think he must have meant, and to fill what John Rawls said was their need for the esteem of other men.

    But “The social-contract is not a suicide pact”, said another, and in my estimation more prudent man.

    Please reread this, which I quote from another of my own comments above:

    “I try to do progressives the honor of taking their anthropological principles seriously enough, to at least apply them to them when dealing with them.

    Seems like a reasonable and just principle to me.”

    You never know, they might learn something from it.

  52. “The reason I’m harping on this is that more and more these days I hear expressions of bloodthirstiness towards liberals. ”

    Well, maybe all those years of being called gap-toothed Neanderthals, and bitter gun and Bible clingers who deserved to be evolved out of their property and existence by an enlightened progressive government, finally got to them. LOL

  53. “are you religious? Forgive me ”

    My daughter, given your humble and contrite heart, how could I do otherwise?

    You are forgiven.

  54. DNW:

    Most liberals do not have anywhere near the sort of well-thought-out set of policy stances and beliefs that you posit. And unless you’ve spoken at length with each and every one, you wouldn’t have a clue what they really believe, so how would you know who to extend yourself for if attacked on the street?

    What’s more, where would you draw the line? Most people wouldn’t save Hitler, but at what point does one decide to save or not to save?

    Lastly, “pajama boy” is not a person, he’s a visual symbol used in an ad for Obamacare. That you think you know anything about the character is bizarre.

  55. One aspect of politics I really don’t like is the tribalism, the “us and them”.

    When we begin thinking of others as “hard-left” or “extreme right” (how many of those are there anyway?) as opposed to “human being”, we’re losing part of our own humanity.

    So, pajama-boy is in an alley after having been mugged. He’s bleeding, calling for help. We ignore him because he’s one of “them” and “getting the natural consequences of his beliefs”?

    I don’t want to go there, though I am sure I fall into tribalism at times. The One who will one day actually and really make things right spoke against this (albeit very natural human attitude): http://www.esvbible.org/Luke%2010%3A25-37/

  56. Neo wrote @3:51pm:

    “The reason I’m harping on this is that more and more these days I hear expressions of bloodthirstiness towards liberals. To me, it is a steeply slippery slope that ends with a Pol Pot situation. I am quite serious.”

    It goes back to your opener, Neo: a mind is a difficult thing to change. Which is why it must be a downer to be a “therapist”. Positive results are infrequent, and not durable.

    As it happens, liberals have exactly the same bloodthirsty view of us. We have the guns; they have the military. There is a civil war in our future, and as Whittaker Chambers observed to his wife when he/they discovered God and turned from atheistic communism to conservatism, “We are joining the losing side.”

  57. Neo:

    Regarding DNW positions, however misunderstood by other readers, is similar to positions taken by some Palestinians towards the Jews in Israel.

    In news this week there was the story of the Palestinian who stopped and provided life saving treatment and emotional comfort to children in an overturned car whose parents had just been murdered by other Palestinians. This humane individual (Palestinian) lost his job and faces retribution because he helped the “other.”

    One of the first steps on the road to mass murder is to strip the victims of their humanity. DNW seems to like macabre “humor.”

  58. Frog

    There is 0% chance that a significant number of people and/or states will declare war on the Federal government and enter into a shooting war.

    Unrest? Yes. We already have that. Domestic terrorism? Again, yes. Civil war?

    No.

  59. There is 0% chance that a significant number of people and/or states will declare war on the Federal government and enter into a shooting war.

    That’s exactly why there will be a war. When one side, such as the slave lords in 1855, thought that their enemies would be too weak or cowardly to ever fight a war to its fullest, that is when people escalate and use violence to get what they want. As nothing but violence deters them.

    The Left will not stop its advance, so long as it believes their enemies are too weak to hold evil at bay. Same for Islam as well. Organizations of humans like that, continue to conquer until stopped. It’s almost their reason for existence. They are a virus, designed by humans, to destroy human Western civilization. And nothing Western civilization can produce, has countered that virus.

    As someone who predicted Civil War 2 to be inevitable in the US from 2007 onwards, this is nothing new to me. People have had nearly a decade to prove me wrong, but as with 1830 in the US, people failed to stop the civil war. Often times because they believed that one side wouldn’t fight a civil war, which is actually what causes factional wars to begin with. Somebody underestimates their foe and goes too far. Ft Sum.

  60. My surmise and analysis of the Confederacy’s goal is to use the secession to unseat the Radical Republicans, and ensure Northern Democrats get back into power. Northern Democrats were sympathetic to the slave lords or their money. Once that occurred, because the North would be too cowardly full of abolitionists, then the South could be readmitted to the Union, this time with pro slavery concessions.

    That didn’t happen the way they thought it would.

  61. “Lastly, “pajama boy” is not a person, he’s a visual symbol used in an ad for Obamacare. That you think you know anything about the character is bizarre. “

    The very point of using pajama-boy is precisely that he is a symbol of a smug cosseted progressive who represents smug cosseted overstepping progressivism.

    Did you think I was talking about the actor? Jeez.

  62. DNW – you aren’t really listening to what anyone is saying to you. But it was a real question – if the actor who played pajama boy (and is a liberal in real-life, in case you’ve never heard that) was being mugged . . .? You walk right by because it’s the natural result of his ideology and he needs to take his medicine?

    Treating the people you are having a conversation with like they are idiots and not really trying to understand what they are asking you is a really bad debate style and just generates heat.

    Y: “As someone who predicted Civil War 2 to be inevitable in the US from 2007 onwards, this is nothing new to me. People have had nearly a decade to prove me wrong, but as with 1830 in the US, people failed to stop the civil war.”

    What civil war? How have people failed to prove you wrong about something you predicted that hasn’t happened (and will never happen).

    There is 0% chance of a shooting civil war, for lots of reasons. First off, no one (and I don’t care how many guns you own) could win against the US military.

    Secondly, the US MILITARY IS NOT GOING TO START SHOOTING CITIZENS IN THE INTEREST OF THE LEFTIST MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS. A whole lot of the US military ground forces, etc are not liberal. I think polls would show a majority are conservative.

    And even the ones who are liberal don’t fall into the very, very small percentage of Americans who are hard left Marxists willing to overturn the civil order – even if half the commenters on this blog talk about liberals as if they are ALL hard-left Marxists.

  63. “When we begin thinking of others as “hard-left” or “extreme right” (how many of those are there anyway?) as opposed to “human being”, we’re losing part of our own humanity.”

    ” … losing part of our own humanity.”

    I was about to start off this comment with a little sputtering blasphemy, or a redneck Sheeee-it, as a means of expressing my stupefaction at reading a remark like that.

    I was then going to suggest the writer get out his fiddle and start sawing away at Kumbaya.

    Instead, after taking 3 seconds, and having collected myself I will do something more to the point.

    I will ask the author: Has he ever formally studied Marxism? Does he have any idea of what I am referring to when I refer to the anthropology of the left? Does he know what nominalism is, and does he understand the ethical implications for that understanding of universal terms and obligations and moral restraints?

    Because what I am referring to has nothing to do with some ideal that our author likes to nurse close to his breast. I am referring to the way the internalized philosophies of progressivism affect our liberties by removing the inhibitions our “fellows” feel, as they reconceptualize both their own and our own lives, and begin to actually remodel human existence through programs of politically directed management and control.

    Now, it is possible that having encountered so many philosophically savvy commenters here, many of whom saw leftism from the inside and understand the predicates of the worldview, that virtually everyone would know or have come to grasp these leftist principles of interpretation and understand their worldview, and how it shapes what they fundamentally are as they conceive of both the terms fundamental and human-being.

    And, I assumed that if they were puzzled by some line of reasoning – or even a joke – that did not to their mind seem to follow from its assumptions, that they would in fact check the premise by referring to the terms used, and by say reading Marx on the “essence” of man, or Rorty, on the status of human values, and thereby gain some idea of what it is they are expressing shock and chagrin at.

    You know, people: if you have not studied under a Marxist, or you cannot remember what it was that Margaret Mead was said to have taught from your college anthropology classes, or you don’t know who Rorty is, or the difference between nominalism and realism, and the entailment for ethics and “human nature” and class membership implied therein, then all you have to do in this modern age of the Internet, is to type the terms in and read a little.

    Then if you still want to sing Kumbaya, go right ahead.

  64. The authority speaks. He knows all, except humanity and compassion? So shut up and listen. There, the condensed version of DNW. /s and not /s

  65. Bill Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 10:49 am

    DNW — you aren’t really listening to what anyone is saying to you. But it was a real question — if the actor who played pajama boy (and is a liberal in real-life, in case you’ve never heard that) was being mugged . . .? You walk right by because it’s the natural result of his ideology and he needs to take his medicine?

    If you liked that one, you will really like the one I just put up.

    Now let’s address your question, in somewhat different terms.

    It is not a question of medicine. It is a question of redounding negative effects, or of good deeds gone wrong because applied to the wrong category i.e., predators – which is what I am saying ideologically informed progressives and their clients are whether they revel in it, or merely graze contentedly on the booty.

    Thus, you insinuate a moral duty, or seem to, that you have not demonstrated. You express amazement that “pajama-boy” is considered morally other. Yet, it is clear that those who use the state to coerce others into underwriting their autogenous disorders, are in fact, other.

    You make vague religious allusions as many do, but you do not come right out and say how in some objective sense the foggy spiritual allusions you insinuate are applicable are rationally binding.

    Reminds me of a progressive I got into a discussion with who started babbling on about Buddha, and Jesus and so forth. I asked him if he, personally, was declaring as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and was asserting that the doctrines he was implying were Christ’s were Divine pronouncements. If so he was invited to state what he thought were the objective mandates and to defend them on clearly stated grounds.

    He … declined.

    If you wish to declare yourself a disciple of Jesus and argue that I have a duty to Pajama-boy because Jesus (or any other Divine authority) said so, and then explore the predicates of that systems of obligations, then do so.

    But before we begin let’s agree to sidestep, as I am sure you would want to, the line of “Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad Great Sages same same!” BS, eh?

    And wow, we have not even gotten to the matter of the indefensible characterization that studied indifference equates to the abattoir.

  66. ” OM Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 11:09 am

    The authority speaks. He knows all, except humanity and compassion? So shut up and listen. There, the condensed version of DNW. /s and not /s”

    Instead of reacting emotionally, why not construct an argument?

    Tell me what I owe you, for example, and why …

  67. OM Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 9:45 pm

    Neo:

    Regarding DNW positions, however misunderstood by other readers, is similar to positions taken by some Palestinians towards the Jews in Israel.

    In news this week there was the story of the Palestinian who stopped and provided life saving treatment and emotional comfort to children in an overturned car whose parents had just been murdered by other Palestinians.

    Other Palestinians than the good Samaritan, or other Palestinians like those in the car?

    “This humane individual (Palestinian) lost his job and faces retribution because he helped the “other.”

    You can help whoever you want. Get a can and stand collecting outside a supermarket. But don’t start telling me that we have to act together for the greater good, while purposely neglecting to mention that the definition of the general welfare merely implies your emotional comfort, and that it does not distributively and equally apply.

    Reciprocity is the basis of natural law arguments. And the impossibility of realizing reciprocity distributively in a system of free association, along with the concomitant intellectual rejection of complementarity, is why in the Kumbayaist idea of a fair and compassionate system, someone is always being gamed.

    One of the first steps on the road to mass murder is to strip the victims of their humanity.

    No one can strip them of their taxonomic classification, if in fact you hold those classifications to be real. Do you? and if so on what grounds?

    DNW seems to like macabre “humor.”

    What else can you do but laugh, when people smear their emotions over a keyboard and then invite you to look at their “arguments”?

  68. I’d like to think I’m the sort of person who learns from mistakes — I was once a hard-core San Francisco progressive — but I’m not sure what I was supposed to learn from 2012.

    The GOP autopsy paper which recommended all-out mea culpa outreach to hispanics and minorities didn’t sound right.

    It seems a lot of people decided the lesson was not to back a nice guy Republican who speaks carefully.

    I would be happy if Romney ran this year instead of 2012.

    I’m not sure what I’m learning in 2016 beyond we are in more trouble than I realized.

  69. DNW,

    Yes, I’m a follower of Jesus. I didn’t intend to come across as vague when I referred to the parable of the good samaritan. All of us, regardless of our political party, are created in the image of God and have value. We are more than our ideologies. I’ll take Jesus’ word on that above the political blowhards we’re plagued with.

    You have, of course, the right to “other” other people. But don’t kid yourself about the logical conclusions. Pol Pot’s hordes leading their educated victims to the killing fields held similar thoughts.

    Not saying you’re Pol Pot or have hopes of violence, although you’ve certainly alluded to or joked about these things, then acted surprised when we took you seriously.

    I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I can’t agree with or go with you on that journey. It doesn’t end well.

  70. DNW:

    A lot of emotional ranting from you lately. Use the internet to learn about the incident in Israel, or just continue to rant.

  71. “Tell me what I owe you, for example, and why …”

    You owe me zip, nadad, nothing, with all due respect. /jk

  72. Bill Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 10:49 am

    DNW — you aren’t really listening to what anyone is saying to you. But it was a real question …

    Let me show you something Bill.

    See what I did above? It is called quoting. You know why I do that? To illustrate the text I have read and am responding to.

    Now let’s see what was just immediately above the accusation you made.

    I quote Neo as saying:

    DNW Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 10:33 am

    “Lastly, “pajama boy” is not a person, he’s a visual symbol used in an ad for Obamacare. That you think you know anything about the character is bizarre. “

    and then I respond:

    “The very point of using pajama-boy is precisely that he is a symbol of a smug cosseted progressive who represents smug cosseted overstepping progressivism.”

    So Bill, Neo says to me that pajama-boy is not a person.

    And I then after quoting Neo, I respond to Neo that that was they very reason I used him: because he was a symbol of smug, appropriative, transgressive progressivism and not a real person.

    And then in the next comment you say, I am not reading or responding to what was said.

    Please … who is not reading in this case?

  73. OM Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    “Tell me what I owe you, for example, and why …”

    You owe me zip, nadad, nothing, with all due respect. /jk

    Then, with all due respect, you have no moral complaints when that is what you get.

    One pseudo-problem dissolved away, eh?

  74. DNW:

    For moral guidance and nuance I don’t think of you as an authority. Clear on that point?

  75. “Not saying you’re Pol Pot or have hopes of violence, although you’ve certainly alluded to or joked about these things, then acted surprised when we took you seriously.”

    Not sure where you are trying to position the slider, but let’s stop you right there, and be perfectly clear here.

    I have never threatened, implied, insinuated or even joked about my directing violence against anyone. Got it?

    Any violence referred to here, and there is plenty in the news and mentioned here, comes from other sources. And if, say for example, jihadists and Marxists engage in a rat fight and drag each other down to Hell, it is not my violence, but theirs.

    So Bill, let’s get that straightened out right now. Just so there is no potential for a misunderstanding to be propagated, don’t you know …

  76. OM Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 12:11 pm

    DNW:

    For moral guidance and nuance I don’t think of you as an authority. Clear on that point?”

    I’m not interested in giving you moral guidance. I’m interested in any interpersonal claim structure you assume under the rubric of morality, and how it is deployed, and the limits it recognizes, if any.

    Since you have acknowledged in a paradigmatic case, that I owe you nothing in the way of any moral obligation, and therefore that any and all of potential claims emanating from that direction would be – on your own stipulation – baseless; then, we have settled one order of hash and are done.

    Congratulations all round.

  77. DNW

    Blah, blah, blah, pedantic blather.

    “I’m interested in any interpersonal claim structure you assume….”

    You have to “assume” a lot to defend your positions. What an educated maroon (spelling intentional).

  78. Bill Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 11:51 am

    DNW,

    Yes, I’m a follower of Jesus. I didn’t intend to come across as vague when I referred to the parable of the good samaritan. All of us, regardless of our political party, are created in the image of God and have value. We are more than our ideologies. I’ll take Jesus’ word on that above the political blowhards we’re plagued with.

    Well here’s the problem you face, and the problem faced by people who take you for an ally.

    The left doesn’t care about your religious faith, they question your grounds for relying on it, and they assume, perhaps with good reason, that you or those like you, are incapable of making a rationally persuasive case as to why the teachings of Jesus Christ are compelling much less mandatory.

    When many of those saying similar things to you, if unlike you in actual fact, are challenged in the public arena, and are dragged beyond the initial statement of certain platitudes, to the point wherein they would be forced to defend their bases to others, they instead retreat to fideism and pietism and references to subjective feelings and so forth.

    They have not done one thing to establish an objective moral mandate on any basis. They are reduced to uttering and re-uttering, in ever more plaintive and defensive tones their “beliefs”.

    Now as an ostensible Christian, you are probably familiar with Paul, and not only with his comments on faith, but on man’s natural light. If you took the latter as seriously as the former, and studied on the matter, you might even argue the principles of the case rather than just reiterate the conclusions.

    If you are arguing all men are morally one, just on the declarations of scripture itself – insofar as they might predominate over goats and lambs divisions – you are going to have a hard time persuading anyone other than yourself, or another Christian.

    Or maybe more could be done https://calvinistinternational.com/2013/05/22/an-exegetical-case-for-natural-law-the-christian-scriptures/

    You have, of course, the right to “other” other people. But don’t kid yourself about the logical conclusions. Pol Pot’s hordes leading their educated victims to the killing fields held similar thoughts.

    You have already been “othered” by the left, long ago, and are just too blinded or deliberately and defensively obtuse to see or acknowledge it.

    You are in effect then, making emotional identification the sine qua non of a common humanity. Under that scenario, the reality lasts just as long as the mood.

    Unless that is, you have an affirmative argument in favor of the proposition, instead of a supposed warning about the negative consequences of not embracing what has not yet been demonstrated as more than a subjective projection and may well be an illusion, rather than an objective perception.

  79. OM Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 12:25 pm

    DNW

    Blah, blah, blah, pedantic blather.

    “I’m interested in any interpersonal claim structure you assume….”

    You have to “assume” a lot to defend your positions. What an educated maroon (spelling intentional).”

    You agreed that you had no claims.

    We are done.

    You should be happy.

  80. Bill:
    Bill:

    “You have already been “othered” by the left, long ago, and are just too blinded or deliberately and defensively obtuse to see or acknowledge it.”

    DNW jumps onto the “blindness” theme. Don’t agree with him (or her or ? ) so therefor you areinsensate or stupid, or both. That’s a winning argument. /s

    And also referring to Paul, questioning your faith as an “ostensible Christian.” I’ll have to look that sect up on the internet./s

  81. OM Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    Bill:
    Bill:

    “You have already been “othered” by the left, long ago, and are just too blinded or deliberately and defensively obtuse to see or acknowledge it.”

    DNW jumps onto the “blindness” theme. Don’t agree with him (or her or ? ) so therefor you areinsensate or stupid, or both. That’s a winning argument. /s

    And also referring to Paul, questioning your faith as an “ostensible Christian.” I’ll have to look that sect up on the internet./s

    I thought your hash was settled, and you were now content.

    But here you are here again, trying to stir up more trouble, with this:

    ” questioning your faith as an “ostensible Christian.” I’ll have to look that sect up on the internet./s”

    No need to bestir yourself OM. Here is the definition for you. Note the primary. It is based on the ostensive act, just what Bill in fact performed:

    “Full Definition of ostensible

    1 : intended for display : open to view

    2 : being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real “

    Do I need to look up “ostensive” for you, too?

    And you squawk that others are “maroons”? What is your malfunction, OM? You got what you wanted and said you deserved, which was “zip, nadad, [and] nothing”

    And still you are peevishly attempting to create scandal? Doesn’t make your moral standard look very good, does it.

  82. DNW:

    You don’t seem understand sarcasm, it could be a gap in your legal education. Give me a brief on it pro bono.

  83. DNW:

    Actually, “pajama boy” was used as a symbol of young people today who don’t have health insurance and need to buy it. And yes, he’s obviously lived a protected life—he doesn’t appear to be a ditch-digger or street person, for example, and he’s presented as youthful and a bit naive.

    We don’t know how old he is, except he’s past puberty. We don’t know what he does or what he thinks, or even what his politics are. He never discusses politics in the ads. The ads are meant to get young people to think about getting insurance, or to get their parents to start talking to them and nagging them to get insurance. Young people—right or left or in-between, politically—are notorious for not buying health insurance and not even thinking about buying it. Since the success or even survival of Obamacare depends on young healthy people buying it, that’s why the push in these ads.

    The rest is your projection and the projection of most of the right. The minute the ad was launched, pajama boy was described by the right as a cosseted liberal, a neutered sexless brat. He’s certainly not the Marlboro Man, of course, but I don’t see him as having a political opinion. You and others are free to imagine what his opinions are, of course. You wrote:

    The very point of using pajama-boy is precisely that he is a symbol of a smug cosseted progressive who represents smug cosseted overstepping progressivism.”

    No, no, and no. That’s what you see, and what YOU are thinking that “the very point” of using him as a symbol is (you’re not the only one; as I said, it was a big meme on the right). That’s not what I see in pajama boy. I think the ad campaign was a lousy one, by the way, but the idea was to represent a young adult typical in today’s society on both left and right and in-between who feels immune from needing to buy or think about health insurance. If that’s “cosseted,” then nearly every young adult today in America is cosseted. Which a great many certainly are. Also immature—many young adults delay adulthood and all its responsibilities to a certain extent, compared with earlier generations. But these things transcend politics, and are certainly not confined to “progressives.”

  84. DNW:

    Also, in my earlier comments I wrote of pajama boy as a character and as a symbol, so it’s also odd that you would wonder whether I thought you were talking about the pajama boy actor. I had already made it clear I was talking about him as character and symbol.

  85. ” The minute the ad was launched, pajama boy was described by the right as a cosseted liberal, a neutered sexless brat.

    “You wear pajamas”
    “You drink hot chocolate”
    Let’s talk.
    “barakobama.com”

    Nahh … can’t be meant to be emblematic of young liberal males.

    He’s certainly not the Marlboro Man, of course, but I don’t see him as having a political opinion. You and others are free to imagine what his opinions are, of course. You wrote:

    The very point of using pajama-boy is precisely that he is a symbol of a smug cosseted progressive who represents smug cosseted overstepping progressivism.”

    No, no, and no. That’s what you see, and what YOU thinkg “the very point” of using him as a symbol is. That’s not what I see “the point” of the ad. I think the ad campaign was a lousy one, by the way, but the point was to represent a young adult typical in today’s society on both left and right and in-between who feels immune from needing to buy or think about health insurance. If that’s “cosseted,” then nearly every young adult today in America is cosseted. Which a great many certainly are. Also immature–many young adults delay adulthood and all its responsibilities to a certain extent, compared with earlier generations. But these things transcend politics, and are certainly not confined to “progressives.”

    So, you say he was not a person. I say that is why I used him, because “he” the image was emblematic, or symbolic.

    You say, that he is no Marlboro man, but that there is no sure evidence he was intended as a symbol of a cossetted progressive; but you note the right immediately took it that way and by ridicule made the image a symbol of it.

    So … we agree we don’t know who the actor is, and are not referring to him. And we agree that pajama-boy is not a person, but a symbol. And we know he is no Marlborman, and that he is a skinny pajama wearing cocoa drinking fellow who is invited to barakobama dot com, to “talk”. And while Barak Obama did not say “O come all ye smug and cossetted progressives yearning to partake of the waters” that is what this not-real person became a symbol of.

    So what is the problem, again?

  86. How have people failed to prove you wrong about something you predicted that hasn’t happened (and will never happen).

    Are you under the impression that a nation or a civilization will never fall, after reaching the peak? That civil factional conflict will never occur? Human history begs to differ. In fact, common sense begs to differ, since what goes up must ultimately come down.

    If you believe it will never happen, that is because you have not seen the true face of war and destruction. There are specific triggers for a civil war, and rather than stopping them, the US has ignored them or failed to stop them. You do not see the triggers any more than most people can see a war coming before it happens.

    Alternatively, the idea that America or where ever you live, Bill, is so special that it makes you all immune to human nature, is foolish beyond the tale of tragedies. Whatever makes people think America is exceptional, doesn’t make America immune to evil, thus civil war is inevitable. Every empire and nation has them. You are no exception to that, irregardless of what era you think you’re living in here.

    Secondly, the US MILITARY IS NOT GOING TO START SHOOTING CITIZENS IN THE INTEREST OF THE LEFTIST MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS. A whole lot of the US military ground forces, etc are not liberal. I think polls would show a majority are conservative

    That’s irrelevant. Civil wars are started between competing factions, not between the military and the civilians. It’s not as if the US military isn’t divided between patriots and commissars from Leftists like Hussein. Because you do not see wars for what they truly are, you do not see the heart of humans for what they truly are, so you cannot perceive the factions already at each other’s throats.

  87. DNW:

    Speaking of smug, there is something about your answers to people here—not just to me—that carry a pretty strong whiff of smugness.

    You also seem to make a lot of assumptions.

    I’m not going to keep going with this because I don’t get the impression you’re really taking in what people are saying. But I’ll try this one last time—

    I spoke of pajama boy as a character and a symbol. You also had done so prior to that; that’s why I was referring to him. We disagree on what he is a symbol of. That you and a lot of people on the right saw him as a symbol of a particular thing does not mean he was intended by the ad-makers to be a symbol of that thing, or that most viewers saw him that way. It means that you and a certain percentage of the right saw him that way.

    In addition, when you used him in these blog comments as a symbol of the type of person you would not assist if he was being attacked in the street by thugs, people criticized you in several ways. One of them that I mentioned was that he is a character rather than a person you know much about—in other words, as with most people in the world who might be attacked in the street as you were walking by, you know little about him, really. Everything else you think about him—or about such a hypothetical person-in-the-street whom you don’t really know at all well, but about whom you imagine a great deal—is something you made up about him. Even your knowledge of what most “cosseted progressives” think, or what their worth as human beings might be (including whether they are worth saving in the street or not), is stuff you imagine you know. And you are suggesting behavior towards such people that is rather pernicious, and fairly far down on the slippery slope towards evil.

    There’s a reason several religions counsel people to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or some near-equivalent of that. This is part of the reason.

  88. ” neo-neocon Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    DNW:

    Also, in my earlier comments I wrote of pajama boy as a character and as a symbol, so it’s also odd that you would wonder whether I thought you were talking about the pajama boy actor. I had already made it clear I was talking about him as character and symbol.”

    I have no idea what the pronoun “his” referred to when you stated that my thinking I knew anything about his character was bizarre. I figured you might have meant the actor, since I had stipulated the character in my artificial account,

    “Artificial, narrowed, and personified scenario: Pajama boy, i.e., the contented ideological tool of the progressive “recognize no natural limits in law” crowd, is …”

    There has to be something going on here beyond what I have said or implied, to cause this much of a ruckus and wonderment; especially given the endlessly qualified and it seems to me even over-careful terms I have employed.

    Maybe someone this one has a nephew that looks like the character the actor portrays and somehow imagines that mocking the image somehow mocks their relative. Maybe it is that someone likes wearing “onesie” pajamas while sipping chocolate and thinks that it is unfair or cruel to use the image as an emblem of or shorthand for a “contented ideological tool of the progressive “recognize no natural limits in law” crowd”.

    And maybe it is just that the thought of the calculus itself so disturbs some that they cannot distance themselves enough to consider the matter unemotionally.

    But I can assure you, having read volumes of leftist theory, that they have already done so; whether they sip chocolate and wear onesies or not.

    And that is what the conservative who wishes to maintain his freedom and rights, has to consider.

    Ok that about does it for me today …

  89. DNW:

    I don’t think you had read my comment (2:54) above yours when you wrote yours at 2:55.

  90. DNW:

    One more fact—that “wear pajamas, drink hot chocolate, let’s talk” was a Christmas-themed reference to going home for Christmas.

    That’s what it was about; that was the timing of the ad. There are actually Christmas lights in the background of the photo, and it was meant to suggest that while you were home for Christmas with your parents you should also talk about getting health insurance. This was an acknowledgement that most people in this age group weren’t about to think of it or want to buy it themselves. So the ad was taking advantage of a special holiday visit back home, where (at least for a little bit) the young adult would go back in time to an earlier, more childish phase of life, not that this was the way the person ordinarily dressed, or the beverage they ordinarily sipped.

    Since in that age group a great deal of health insurance purchases are indeed parent-generated, the ad was pushing that at holiday time, not advocating to a liberal or even “progressive” (as you indicated) group of young adults. It was trying to push it on all young adults.

    As I wrote earlier, I think it was a bad ad. That’s because most young adults don’t want to think of needing their parents’ help—and believe me, that’s true of liberals, conservatives, and everyone in-between. And it’s also true, however, that a lot of young adults wouldn’t be buying health insurance without their parent’s prodding or help, and that’s also true of all political persuasions. The ad was meant to appeal to all of them at Christmastime (maybe not the Jews or Hindus or Muslims?), but I think it failed to appeal to ANY of them.

  91. “In addition, when you used him in these blog comments as a symbol of the type of person you would not assist if he was being attacked in the street by thugs, people criticized you in several ways. One of them that I mentioned was that he is a character rather than a person you know much about–in other words, as with most people in the world who might be attacked in the street as you were walking by, you know little about him, really. Everything else you think about him–or about such a hypothetical person-in-the-street whom you don’t really know at all well, but about whom you imagine a great deal–is something you made up about him. Even your knowledge of what most “cosseted progressives” think, or what their worth is as human beings might be (including whether they are worth saving in the street or not), is stuff you imagine you know. And you are suggesting behavior towards such people that is rather pernicious, and fairly far down on the slippery slope towards evil.”

    Neo, I have no idea how to respond to this. I originally stipulated, defined, and conditioned my remarks, and still it was not enough.

    Instead of considering the moral reasoning and predicate dynamic in withdrawing commitment to the welfare of statedly, definedly, stipulatively antipathetic others, an argument ensues that centers on the real traits of a fictional character who has been artificially redefined to represent an abstract paradigm case.

    If someone wants to make a pure case for an objective obligation to unconditional human solidarity and state the objective authority, I wish they would do it.

    Instead, the average conservative seems to be perfectly contented with a circular reasoning process, just as do modern liberals and progrssives. No wonder progressives don’t take conservative squalling seriously.

    Here we are, 40 years or so into a post-modern moral realm, and it seems that the best conservatives can do when it comes to arguing morality is to assume their conclusions in their premisses, or point to conclusions already assumed to be evil.

    The question is, or was, “How do you know?. And it is the question with which progressives have been taunting you for some number of generations now. Or the question they were asking before they found they got no intelligible or intellectually respectable answer, shrugged, and then moved on to managing you as they pleased.

    What, Mr. Conservative, was your answer?

  92. DNW:

    If you don’t understand what the golden rule is, and why it’s advocated, I can’t help you. And if you don’t understand that although most people wouldn’t assist a Hitler, withdrawing aid from liberals who disagree with you (or, if you were on the other side, from conservatives who disagree with you) is a bad approach, I can’t help you either.

    One more piece of advice (and I see that I’ve already gotten sucked into this conversation again more than I said I would): if you want people to understand what you mean when you write something, try to be less obscure and wordy. I have a tendency to be obscure and wordy, so I understand the temptation, but your writing seems to be a far more extreme example. You may think you’re being clear, but the fact that intelligent people here seem to continually misunderstand you (at least, that’s what I think you’ve been experiencing) may indicate that you’re not as clear as you think you are.

    [See also my comment at 3:13.]

  93. ” neo-neocon Says:
    August 27th, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    DNW:

    I don’t think you had read my comment (2:54) above yours when you wrote yours at 2:55.”

    Yes, some of it.

    “There’s a reason several religions counsel people to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or some near-equivalent of that. This is part of the reason.

    What is the reason?

    Because the individuals deserve it on some grounds? If so, on what demonstrable grounds?

    Or because it has some social effect desired by some people …

    such as avoiding wars of extermination, because …

    Which I think you will admit, is another matter entirely.

    I’d rather see you argue the first.

  94. Ok. Let’s wrap it up. Getting nowhere and we probably all have other things to do.

    Have a good weekend

  95. For moral guidance and nuance I don’t think of you as an authority. Clear on that point?

    On the topic of DNW’s authority, that is based on DNW’s own knowledge and self taught or practiced efforts. If DNW had claimed that he had doctor credentials and awards, which proved he knew more than me concerning microbiology, human neural functions, and the microbiome, then that would be an appeal to authority.

    I see no problem with people using their personal authority, since they have earned that via their own efforts. A pastor claiming that they are on top because they graduated from seminary school with a degree in “faith” or the equivalent, or a teacher claiming to know more truth than I purely based on their graduation papers, would be appealing to an external authority. External authorities are illusions to me. Especially since a lot of them are fake or incompetent, thus produce incompetent students and lineages.

    It is quite clear and true that if DNW is speaking of philosophy and Marxist history, those who do not understand the concepts can and should look them up, before agreeing or refuting his lines.

    What is your malfunction, OM?

    To put my analysis in, OM is angry about the world being what it is, and has decided to take it out via bitter comments on people. It’s not as if I never had the same thoughts here after 2007. Anger and frustration with the world naturally looks for displacement or even projection. Humans, at least the male type, isn’t designed to hold stuff in forever, without taking action. These days, of course, taking action would be illegal.

    Emotion is what drives many of the recent comments. Of course, in my personal view, allowing negative emotions to take control for long periods of time is no different than inviting in the spirit of Lucifer and falling under his angels’ dominion.

    I’ve already covered why the Leftist alliance are enemies of humanity. Maybe I’ll go over that, and Neo Neo has also talked about the dangers of mass slaughters vis a vis one of my statements (leading to). And I of course countered with other lines, so Bill bringing up PolPot isn’t new to me. I’ve seen that argument or concern before.

    I think that idea is erroneous, because evil takes more than a few thoughts to become real. It takes action. In order for mass slaughter like PolPot to happen, one must become the leader of a national organization, and that organization needs to have the power and logistics to enforce their decrees. And then if that decree becomes “kill everybody that isn’t us”, then people will obey, because it is enforced, and mass slaughter will begin.

    However, if it is just a few people online thinking about it, that’s not enough to create mass slaughter. A person with a melee weapon can only continue killing until their arm falls off or they stop due to exhaustion. A person with a gun can keep killing only if they have ammo and targets they can accurately shoot ( no cover or concealment). The power of an individual to kill people, enemies or innocents, is severely limited. The power of a human organization to do the same, is not limited, or rather only limited by the number of humans in said organization.

    What was the size of the Nazi organization under Supreme Hitler, which caused millions of deaths? An organization of 100? 1000? 10,000? There’s a certain scale at work there.

    As someone who has studied and thought hard concerning individual and mass slaughter, it isn’t that easy to have a PolPot incident as it would seem. Thus the logical argument, is that what is being argued here isn’t a slippery slope issue. They can’t slip into mass slaughter without an organization, if it is merely individuals pushing their own views and philosophies. They can, of course, make bombs to kill people, but that’s usually a one shot, like McVeigh or that guy in Norway what was his name…

    Yes, I’m a follower of Jesus. I didn’t intend to come across as vague when I referred to the parable of the good samaritan. All of us, regardless of our political party, are created in the image of God and have value. We are more than our ideologies. I’ll take Jesus’ word on that above the political blowhards we’re plagued with.

    You have, of course, the right to “other” other people. But don’t kid yourself about the logical conclusions. Pol Pot’s hordes leading their educated victims to the killing fields held similar thoughts.

    Not saying you’re Pol Pot or have hopes of violence, although you’ve certainly alluded to or joked about these things, then acted surprised when we took you seriously.-Bill

    That’s some of the specific remarks, which provide a background context for my comments here.

    Since I am not addressing a specific person here, I’m just grabbing all the topics I can deal with at large.

    As for being a disciple of Christ, since I do have some studied knowledge of that, I can speak that language, in the same context. Instead of abbreviating it or summarizing it in my own words, I’ll use other words which are more effective. This isn’t an appeal to authority about what is or isn’t in the bible, the words merely spell out the concept very well.

    1 Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers.

    2 They did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ.

    3 And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.

    4 And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church. And they were a separate people as to their faith, and remained so ever after, even in their carnal and sinful state; for they would not call upon the Lord their God.

    5 And now in the reign of Mosiah they were not half so numerous as the people of God; but because of the dissensions among the brethren they became more numerous.

    6 For it came to pass that they did deceive many with their flattering words, who were in the church, and did cause them to commit many sins; therefore it became expedient that those who committed sin, that were in the church, should be admonished by the church.

    7 And it came to pass that they were brought before the priests, and delivered up unto the priests by the teachers; and the priests brought them before Alma, who was the high priest.

    8 Now king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church.

    9 And it came to pass that Alma did not know concerning them; but there were many witnesses against them; yea, the people stood and testified of their iniquity in abundance.

    10 Now there had not any such thing happened before in the church; therefore Alma was troubled in his spirit, and he caused that they should be brought before the king.

    11 And he said unto the king: Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes.

    12 But king Mosiah said unto Alma: Behold, I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands to be judged.

    13 And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God.

    14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

    18 Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine.

    19 And because thou hast inquired of me concerning the transgressor, thou art blessed.

    20 Thou art my servant; and I covenant with thee that thou shalt have eternal life; and thou shalt serve me and go forth in my name, and shalt gather together my sheep.

    21 And he that will hear my voice shall be my sheep; and him shall ye receive into the church, and him will I also receive.

    22 For behold, this is my church; whosoever is baptized shall be baptized unto repentance. And whomsoever ye receive shall believe in my name; and him will I freely forgive.

    23 For it is I that taketh upon me the sins of the world; for it is I that hath created them; and it is I that granteth unto him that believeth unto the end a place at my right hand.

    24 For behold, in my name are they called; and if they know me they shall come forth, and shall have a place eternally at my right hand.

    25 And it shall come to pass that when the second trump shall sound then shall they that never knew me come forth and shall stand before me.

    26 And then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, that I am their Redeemer; but they would not be redeemed.

    27 And then I will confess unto them that I never knew them; and they shall depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

    28 Therefore I say unto you, that he that will not hear my voice, the same shall ye not receive into my church, for him I will not receive at the last day.

    29 Therefore I say unto you, Go; and whosoever transgresseth against me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed; and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him also.

    30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

    31 And ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor’s trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation.

    32 Now I say unto you, Go; and whosoever will not repent of his sins the same shall not be numbered among my people; and this shall be observed from this time forward.

    The Left or individual Democrats, whatever call people them, have not repented. Any apology they make is for personal and social gain, not with sincere emotion. They deny their evils. They blame others for the evils they themselves commit. They are irredeemably evil, not because I say so, but because of their own actions. Even if they are not evil, that does not mean they are categorized by me as with me. They are not with me. They are the enemy, which in other parlance means the “Other” tribe.

    The Good Samaritan does not have the divine authority to judge a person’s transgression against God, only against themselves or other humans. The Good Samaritan is a story told by Jesus, to convince his fellow Jewish tribals, that being righteous isn’t about which tribe you are in or what bloodline gave you birth. Even if your enemy tribe is full of demons, there will be some amongst them like that Good Samaritan. It is a story about good triumphing, no matter what origins your bloodline came from or what your forefathers did or worshipped.

    It is, however, not a story about forgiving every single evil obedient follower of Lucifer on this planet. That, it is not about.

  96. Y:

    Regarding my civil war statement, you are correct that I didn’t give a timeline. I should have. I don’t believe that there is no chance *ever* that the USA could descend into civll war 2. I think the chances of happening in, say, the next 40 years is 0%.

    Hey, maybe I’m wrong. It’s an opinion, but I’d have to see a lot more evidence for things shaping up that way. We will have (already do have) unrest and domestic terrorism. A full blown civil war with US militaries squaring off on US soil? No.

  97. “It is, however, not a story about forgiving every single evil obedient follower of Lucifer on this planet. That, it is not about.”

    It’s not a story about forgiveness at all. It’s a story about the value of every person, spoken into a culture that de-valued Samaritans. The genius of it is that Jesus placed the despised Samaritan in the hero role.

    It’s a story about blessing those who persecute you. Doing good to your enemies.

    Some think this is suicidal political strategy, etc. I think they are ultimately wrong (truly) but I also don’t think the tribalism we’re descending into now is working all that well. But Jesus spoke it, and he practiced it, even on the cross, being crucified by Lucifer’s people.

    (and this thread really has gone far away from it’s original topic. Sorry Neo)

  98. “To put my analysis in, OM is angry about the world being what it is, and has decided to take it out via bitter comments on people.”

    More interweb psyco analysis. /jk

    “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

  99. Hey, maybe I’m wrong. It’s an opinion, but I’d have to see a lot more evidence for things shaping up that way.

    When you don’t even know the trigger points for a civil war, especially this one, what makes you think you are capable of judging what that evidence is, even when you see it?

    A person that has never played a violin, can they judge the quality of a violin in their hands. A person that has never shot a gun, can they judge the quality of the firearm they hold in their hands. A person that has never cut a target using a sword, can they judge the sword quality in their hands. It’s on par with that problem, the problem of the limitations of human knowledge. In most cases, people would rely on external authorities as “experts” to talk about the stuff we don’t know about. That, however, has gotten more problematic in this social context, and people, here at least, try not to use external authorities to prop up issues of contention.

    Bill, you talk a lot about not seeing the evidence, but I’ll refer you back to something you de prioritized in addressing, since I see it as precisely the proof behind why the dots are connected.

    http://neoneocon.com/2016/08/25/do-people-learn-from-their-mistakes/#comment-1601941

    That’s exactly why there will be a war. When one side, such as the slave lords in 1855, thought that their enemies would be too weak or cowardly to ever fight a war to its fullest, that is when people escalate and use violence to get what they want. As nothing but violence deters them.

    The Left will not stop its advance, so long as it believes their enemies are too weak to hold evil at bay. Same for Islam as well. Organizations of humans like that, continue to conquer until stopped. It’s almost their reason for existence. They are a virus, designed by humans, to destroy human Western civilization. And nothing Western civilization can produce, has countered that virus.

    There are two incidents here which can be used as deductive cases for US Civil War 2. US Civil War 1 and the Revolutionary War or rather the War of Independence waged by the 3% and the Founding Fathers against Great Britain’s Kingship and corrupt parliament.

    There is plenty of evidence here for the trigger points. The question is, whether you are capable of judging them and dealing with them. You seem mostly uninterested in these trigger points, on a historical level, on a current status quo level, and in a future sense level. By trigger points, I don’t mean timeline events, I mean cause and effect that led to each war, one after the other.

    Those two cases would have been implausible to use back in 2007, but in 2016, there are plenty of examples and trigger points that show things are escalating.

    It’s a story about blessing those who persecute you. Doing good to your enemies.

    The Good Samaritan was not persecuting them. You are corrupting the facts of the case. Those that are guilty of evil, need to be punished or stopped. Those that are not guilty, need to be protected from unjust accusations or punishment. Because the Primitives back then couldn’t figure out white from black, Jesus had to admonish them, just as he did to his fellows on any number of issues. The shepherd handles the sheep, because the sheep do not know where to go nor what to do.

    Primitive tribal societies are often like the Scots Irish or the Hatfield vs McCoys. Getting them to stop their feuds and blood vendettas was not an easy task. Nearly impossible for most humans. However, trying to use modern ethics and social sensibilities to replace the ancient ones, and then transpose stories about Jesus, stories which themselves have become flawed in their corrupted translations, will only further the corruption and destroy whatever divine truth is sought.

  100. Y:

    “The Good Samaritan was not persecuting them.”

    Of course he wasn’t. He was helping a jew, a member of a race who persecuted him. That’s what’s meant by doing good to your enemies.

    Even without the parable, Jesus tells us to do good to those who persecute us, and this is echoed other places (Romans 12, etc).

    Regarding the next civil war. I’ve read a lot about Civil War 1. I know the triggers. we’re not in that kind of space at all right now.

    But is this really worth arguing about? You’re right, you haven’t been proved “wrong” because . . . we might still have a civil war someday. You started predicting it 10 years ago. You haven’t been proven wrong. Touche

    I’d like to make a deal with the commenters here. If you think I am “blind”, “incapable of understanding”, etc., quit talking to me. 🙂

    (cue someone cutting in here to tell me that I have massively misquoted them, because they never said I was “blind”, they said I was “unable to see”.)

    Peace everyone.

  101. A person who has never fought in a civil war can he know about the causes,,,,, Has Y been in the balkans, Iraq, or Syria in the last 30 years? Just asking and extending an analogy. Far to profound for me. /s

  102. Well, I’m coming to this party late. Good post, neo-neocon. A question for you:

    What would help people learn from their mistakes? I try, I think I learn, but I see myself making the same mistakes over and over. It’s frustrating.

  103. Replies to comments that caught my attention:

    Bill: Every four years, no matter what’s going on, we have an election where every citizen over the age of 18 is allowed a vote

    Yes, and the dead, and illegals, and some legal citizens more than one …

    If you compare our election system with other Western nations, ours are easy to game. There is reasonable evidence (but not proof) that the Dem primaries were fiddled with to produce a Hillary victory. I don’t think it happens on a grand scale, but it could easily happen on a small scale. For a national election, just one or two key states shifted by fraudulent voting could shift the presidency from the rightful winner to the other candidate.

    Has this happened? I don’t know. Why don’t I know? Because the states are not required to keep paper ballots. We actually can’t know.

    Ymar: … the number of humans who can grasp the truth independent of any help from other humans, is about 3%.

    Really? Where did you get that number from?

    Big Maq: Well, I guess there are no George Washingtons or Abraham Lincolns around here, who each faced far more dire circumstances and yet saw their way through it.

    DNW: And the “Washintons” and “Lincolns” did it through shooting wars.

    Bill: That confuses end result with the circumstances. We are nowhere near the circumstances that they faced. A “shooting war” is hardly an inevitable outcome from where we are today.

    Actually, the current federal government is FAR more oppressive than the British government was to the colonies in the 1760s and 1770s. If we followed the Founding Fathers’ ideals, a violent revolution would be fully justified today.

    As for Lincoln, he could easily have avoided the Civil War by just accepting the Confederacy. I’m not saying that would have been the right decision, but it’s clear that sometimes civil wars happen even when they aren’t necessary.

    The Founders and Lincoln both chose war even though there were peaceful alternatives.

    That said, I am absolutely not advocating a civil war or revolution. I think the outcome would be disastrous and result in far worse oppression, but that doesn’t change the fact that men like Jefferson and Adams advocated war for far less than we suffer under today, and Lincoln chose war rather than letting the South go its own way.

    When I studied the history of WWI, one of the most depressing things was all of the intelligent, well-educated thinkers who, in the years leading up to 1914, claimed Europe could never have another major war because it was too economically integrated.

    I don’t really see how a civil war could develop here, but then, they didn’t see how in just a few years Europe would be engulfed in one of the bloodiest wars in history. I doubt that I am smarter or better informed than they were.

    So, I think the idea of civil war or revolution right now is far-fetched, but 0% seems incredibly optimistic.

    DNW: The left doesn’t care about your religious faith …

    Oh, yes it does. It cares a great deal, enough to try to pervert and destroy it at every turn.

  104. “As for Lincoln, he could easily have avoided the Civil War by just accepting the Confederacy. I’m not saying that would have been the right decision, but it’s clear that sometimes civil wars happen even when they aren’t necessary.”

    By just “accepting the confederacy”? That means losing half the country, dividing the united states in half. Who knows what would have happened after that. Some have suggested that secession would have continued and souther states might have seceded from the Confederacy, and today what we call the United States would be a balkanized set of nations… Who knows. I just know it wasn’t easy.

    The problems the founding fathers faced had to do with taxation without representation. We have representation. We vote for it every 2 years. So we have recourse. We just get the government we deserve. But we aren’t going to “rise up” to unseat a government that we seated.

    WWI was awful. But it was sovereign nations rising up against one another and was made horrible due to the terrible confluence of a) confusing and complicated alliances, b) the death-knell of the old empires and c) the technological advances that led to industrialized warfare. But, again, these were separate nations, not civil war. I never said we wouldn’t get into a war. I said that we won’t get into a civil war.

    In the 1850s, we were a collection of states and many people considered their state almost like a “country”. People weren’t mobile, often were born, lived, and died in the same state. Very few people think of the united states that way any more. We are a nation made up of states, rather than states that make up a nation. Many of us have lived in numerous parts of the country. Our culture is far more homogenous due to mass media, travel, and communications. Plus, back then, it was conceivable that a state could raise an army, under the command of a rebel general with West Point training, and face the federals. Because you had to have cannon and rifled muskets, *perhaps* a few naval ships and training, etc but that was doable. You didn’t have to have an air force, missiles, advanced weapon systems, submarines, a massive navy, satellites, modern command and control systems, and all the other aspects of modern warfare (including nukes). States simply can’t get up to speed like that.

    We may have unrest. We may have domestic terrorism. We’re not going to have a civil war in the next 40 years (since I can’t see that far out into the future).

    I’m not ready to trash our system or burn it down. We all vote every two years. We just need to vote better.

  105. Bill, those are good points all.

    Let me point out that, while you see it that way, many other Americans do not. You may not want a war, but if they do, your viewpoint won’t stop them unless you persuade them to accept it. In 1910, many Europeans were just as convinced that a major war between European powers could never happen again.

    With regard to the Founders, I think you are missing the larger reason for the Revolution. “No Taxation Without Representation” became the rallying cry, but the point was that taxation without representation violated the English Bill of Rights. Their rights as Englishmen were being violated. If you go back and reread the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson listed quite a few things besides taxes as causes for the war.

    Today, we suffer from similar abuses. Our Constitution has been hollowed out; the “Living Constitution” theory of interpretation means that 5 justices can change it whenever they feel like it, and that has allowed a long train of bureaucratic abuses that shows every sign of getting worse.

    If the colonists were incensed by taxation without representation, the violation of one right, think about the Left’s goals: It seems clear their intent is to eliminate the right to free speech via hate speech laws, the right to exercise one’s religion via “discrimination” laws, and the right to keep and bear arms by getting the USSC to declare that the 2A does not apply to individuals. These are just the Constitutional rights they are doing their best to eliminate.

    By “long train,” remember that those abuses by the Crown began after the 7 Years’ War, in 1763. It was only 13 years to the start of the Revolution. In 1763, when the British were fresh from victory over the French, and with many colonial militias having just fought alongside the British army against the French, how many American colonists would have thought revolution against the British Crown was possible?

    Finally, on that score, an increasingly large percentage of Americans do not believe that Congress or the President or the USSC represents them. Legally, yes, they do. But legally, from the British perspective, Parliament actually did represent the colonists as British subjects. Many Americans are calling into question the very legitimacy of our current government.

  106. By the way, I want to point out again that I am not advocating for violence. I think it would end very differently this time around, and that it would most likely lead to far more repressive regimes.

    But it’s useful to understand a wide variety of viewpoints. This is one I’m seeing more and more in the US.

  107. I’ve read my share of history and I know revolutions and civil wars happen. Perhaps it’s a failure of imagination or a shrinking away from the thought, but I can’t imagine a real civil war as in 1860 America with the current military and weaponry.

    What’s a decent scenario for how a US civil war would unfold?

    Unless one posits a substantial portion of the military backing secession, I don’t see how it gets off the ground today.

  108. Ya know, huxley, I’ve never heard anyone give a good explanation of that.

    When I think about it, I also don’t see a new civil war happening unless some states decide to secede (Texit anyone?). Instead, possibly there would be an attempt at revolution, but I think it’s more likely an insurgency would develop and certain areas would become effectively independent (i.e., no-go zones for the authorities).

    Also, the people I have heard talk about this do think a lot of the military and police would be sympathetic, and there are a lot of disgruntled veterans with combat experience out there. I’m not sure what they think that would amount to in material terms, though.

    How far an insurgency would go would depend on a lot of unknowns. However, if it were successful enough, some police and military units might switch sides and it could snowball.

    The reason I think it ends in disaster is, I don’t think enough Americans understand or care about liberty anymore. The young are increasingly hostile to it, for example, and the old are risk-averse. So I don’t think it would ever be successful enough to draw in those sitting on the fence.

    Another reason is, without outside help, insurgencies never win, not as long as the government is willing to keep fighting. It is only when the government decides it isn’t worth fighting anymore and gives up that insurgencies can win.

    Instead, I think any insurgency or attempt at revolution would end up being just another crisis the Left would not let go to waste, and they would become more powerful from it. And we would all lose more liberty.

    There are other disasters that could occur as well. The drug cartels would almost certainly get into it, and what if Russia or China decided to play by providing arms, money, advisors, etc.? What if La Raza took the opportunity and made their “reconquista” a violent insurgency as well? Bad news all around.

    Depressing to think about.

    Again, I do think it’s far-fetched. Bill is probably right about what will happen. But this is an unusual year, is it not?

  109. “DNW — you aren’t really listening to what anyone is saying to you. But it was a real question… Treating the people you are having a conversation with like they are idiots and not really trying to understand what they are asking you is a really bad debate style and just generates heat.” – Bill

    “Not saying you’re Pol Pot or have hopes of violence, although you’ve certainly alluded to or joked about these things, then acted surprised when we took you seriously.” – Bill

    “DNW: Speaking of smug, there is something about your answers to people here–not just to me–that carry a pretty strong whiff of smugness… You also seem to make a lot of assumptions… I’m not going to keep going with this because I don’t get the impression you’re really taking in what people are saying” – Neo

    “One more piece of advice (and I see that I’ve already gotten sucked into this conversation again more than I said I would): if you want people to understand what you mean when you write something, try to be less obscure and wordy. … You may think you’re being clear, but the fact that intelligent people here seem to continually misunderstand you … may indicate that you’re not as clear as you think you are.” – Neo

    Some time ago DNW addressed a question or two to me. I smelled a rat and refused to engage in a rabbit hole of a conversation, as I’ve seen these things play out many many times before.

    It is masked as an earnest conversation, but it quickly gets mired down in minutiae, minor points, and side debates (e.g. pajama boy) rather than addressing core points.

    Soon one finds themselves getting sucked into some long drawn out never ending “debate”.

    It invariably seems that one somehow “misinterprets” their meaning. There is always some explanation that shows you are wildly off the mark about what they said or meant.

    They also seem to have a style of writing that tend to obfuscate meaning, but made to appear “lofty” / “sophisticated”, often with a condescending “tone” or “affect”.

    I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt, but seeing the responses here in this blog (not just under this article) to several other commenters, including Neo, has confirmed my initial suspicions.
    .

    @Neo, your advice is correct for someone who is truly interested in being understood. Clear, concise, and direct is always a better approach to be understood. I hope it is heard.
    .

    “And you are suggesting behavior towards such people that is rather pernicious, and fairly far down on the slippery slope towards evil.” – Neo

    The thing is, even after explaining it was all a “joke”, the follow on conversation about pajama boy and the implications of DNW’s statements taken in, gives one pause as to just how much that “St Bartholemew’s Day” comment is a bad joke.

    I’d like to think not, but there seems a genuine desire to do away with those “others” based on some group level “tit for tat” rationale, rather than have to figure out how to bring more folks on board.

    Beyond “Do Unto Others…”, behaving with this kind of thinking results in escalation rather than solving the problems we see.

  110. “The Founders and Lincoln both chose war even though there were peaceful alternatives.” – TD

    Of course there were “peaceful alternatives”, but were they “acceptable” relative to what the Founders had set up afterwards? Did they “choose” or was the choice effectively made for them?

    Our freedom always has been at threat from one force or another. So what is different now?

    The difference seems to be an underlying assumption by too many here – as if there is an inevitability to the success that the left will have and that it would be irreversible.

    However, there is no inevitability to any of it. We have far more peaceful alternatives available to us that are rather acceptable than those posited as “available” to Washington or Lincoln.

    It becomes inevitable and irreversible if we behave like it will be. We won’t bother to engage the “others” and try to bring them onto our side, because we think “they” won’t change (ignoring the evidence of Neo’s very own example).

    We increase their chances by advocating big government, and an active executive branch (only with “our guy”), by requesting our own special laws and favors, by adopting a grievance and victimhood mentality, by restricting our involvement to the act of voting every few years, etc.

    Even tump seems like he would accelerate that very same “inevitable” outcome. Hard to see how he is even acceptable as an alternative, if our concern is the leftist march.

  111. Trump has been nicknamed “The Donald” since Ivana referred to him as such in a 1989 Spy magazine cover story.[443][444] By early 1990, Trump’s troubled marriage to Ivana and long-running[specify] affair with actress Marla Maples had been reported the tabloid press.[445][446] The couple divorced in 1991.[447] In 1992, he successfully sued Ivana for violating a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her best-selling book.[448][449][450][clarification needed] In 2015, Ivana said that she and Donald “are the best of friends”.[451]

    Maples gave birth to their daughter Tiffany on October 13, 1993. They married two months later on December 20, 1993.[452] The couple formally separated in May 1997,[453] with their divorce finalized in June 1999.[454][455]

    In 1998, Trump began a relationship with Slovenian-born model Melania Knauss, who became his third wife.[456][457] They were engaged in April 2004[458] and were married on January 22, 2005, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, on the island of Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.[459][460][461] In 2006, Melania became a naturalized United States citizen.[457] In March 2006, she gave birth to their son, whom they named Barron William Trump.[462][463] (Trump had previously used the pseudonym “John Baron” or “Barron” in some business deals and for other purposes.[44][464][465]) Having heard the language since his birth, Barron is fluent in Slovenian.[466] In a February 2009 interview on ABC’s news program Nightline, Trump commented that his love for his business had made it difficult for his first two wives to compete with his affection for work.[467]

    Trump has eight grandchildren: five via his son Donald Jr.,[468][469][470] and three via his daughter Ivanka.[471][472][473]

    Trump’s brother, Fred Jr., predeceased their father Fred, and, shortly after the latter died in 1999, Fred III’s wife gave birth to a son with serious medical problems. Trump and his family offered to pay the medical bills through Fred Sr.’s company (Fred Sr. freely provided medical coverage to his family through his company for decades).[474] Fred III then sued the family for allegedly having used “undue influence” on a dementia-stricken Fred Sr. to get Fred III and his sister Mary a reduced share from their grandfather’s will, but Trump attributed the reduced share to his father’s dislike of Fred III’s mother, and Trump stopped the aid for Fred III’s son. The aid was resumed by court order pending outcome of the lawsuit, which was then settled.[475][476]

    Religious views
    Trump is a Presbyterian.[477] Trump said he began going to church at the First Presbyterian Church in the Jamaica neighborhood in Queens, when he was younger.[clarification needed][478] Trump attended Sunday school and had his confirmation at that church.[478] In an April 2011 interview on the 700 Club, he commented: “I’m a Protestant, I’m a Presbyterian. And you know I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion.”[479][480] Trump told a 2015 South Carolina campaign audience he attends Marble Collegiate Church, where he married his first wife Ivana in 1977. Marble has said that, though Trump has a longstanding history with the church, he is a Presbyterian and not an active member of Marble.[478][nb 1] Trump has said that although he participates in Holy Communion, he has not asked God for forgiveness for his sins. He stated, “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture.

    One of the interesting bits from researching Trum, is his wikipedia remarks. In the latter set of the bolded section. Trum’s concept of using lawfare or what not, is often similar to what the ALt Right accuses neo neocons or the NWO of using. The law is merely a device one buys with money, to settle personal affairs and rankings. If you aren’t a subordinate of Trum, then by definition you are an enemy. This is often seen in Trum’s reflexing lashing out at people on twitter or the news, even though they are a common phenomenon in the public eye.

    Of course he wasn’t. He was helping a jew, a member of a race who persecuted him. That’s what’s meant by doing good to your enemies.-B

    There’s a reason why Jesus often used parables. Most of it was because many of his followers were the great unwashed, illiterate, semi literate, and not part of the philosophical class of Hillel or Judaism or Jewish religious/political authority.

    To turn that question around on this context, was the Jewish neighbor or traveller, the one persecuting Samaritans or that Samaritan in particular?

    Are all Jews an enemy to the Samaritans because some Jews ordered the persecution? None of that makes sense in the modern context. It only has any application or context, in the old days. Their network of authorities, obediences, tribal loyalties, enemies, allies, are not comparable to modern day’s social networking.

    To put it another way, the Jewish authorities considered the Samaritans the Other, and the Samaritans may have had an equivalent reaction. Yet Jesus noted that an individual Samaritan did not belong to this tribal hierarchy or authority, and chose to help another traveler as his neighbor. This is one of the roots of the Jesus as rebel mythology. This isn’t an invalidation of enemies or differences. This is trying to bring a context closer to our modern view of individual right and wrong, to a tribal society that believed the sins of the fathers passed to the son, the debts of the family passed to the descendants, and that a city or tribe shared in the spoils and risks of war. Since a human could not survive absent his social support and group, a human belonged to society and did not have much individual influence unless in a leadership spot. Jesus turned that order of human affairs around, and began treating people as individuals, not merely as an attachment to some social or political faction. And it’s also why his existence back then was a thorn not only to the Romans, but to the Jewish tribal factions who fought the Romans. This applies even without the divine elements added to the history line.

    Since others have covered some of the pivotal and trigger points of US wars, I’ll only have to gloss over and review them. Writing a historical thesis would take a significant amount of time, so I was trying to avoid that with both the REvolutionary and Civil War 1 in the US. Now that the context has set itself up, it will be easier to isolate one point down and talk/write about it. If I could stop having to scroll the screen thread at least whenever I have to write stuff at the bottom…

    Really? Where did you get that number from?

    Deduction and inference. It’s an often noted number for groups that are under peer pressure and must obey their authority. In those cases, the 3% applies to national movements like the Revolution, but in Milgram type experiments, there’s just usually one person. Using Neo as the case example, she was the only one to stand up and say something was wrong with the way a professor was running an “experiment” in some art class. There were other people that also felt it was wrong, but they didn’t speak out or only spoke personally to Neo after watching her speak out.

    To see the truth, and then deny it for expediency under the public gaze, is not accepting the truth. Human self deception is why I don’t consider the numbers any higher than 3%.

    As for Lincoln, his choice was to either allow the South’s military to siege and take Union forts like Fort Sumter. Or, do something about it. It was that “do something about it”, that the Confederacy didn’t expect out of Northern abolitionists, and since Lincoln was a candidate out of the Radical Republicans, they expected Lincoln to be the same. Otherwise, they would have killed him far sooner. After all, the slave lords controlling the Confederacy had already killed a significant amount of abolitionist speakers in the North, from 1830s onwards. They couldn’t do that to Charles Summer, but one Southern “gentlemen” did indeed try it in Congress. With many Sympathetic Northern Democrats, watching.

    As for why people can’t see it now, it’s because of a lack of imagination. That can be cured by personal experience in war or conflict, but it can also be cured by being one of the rarer sorts, the mad genius or the 3%, who can see beyond what most of society is willing to accept. There is also an element of time involved. This issue takes years to come to grasps with, equivalent to a Ph.D. or Masters degree or the ability to mastery an art or skill: 10,000 hours.

    It’s not something that can be done if you haven’t put the effort in for the last 7 years. And for a lot of people, it’s only recently, in the last 2-4 years, that they have noticed something is wrong, and even more time was wasted trying to figure out what was wrong, before they could attempt to see it.

    For people that lived under Communism or Islam, they didn’t need an intellectual understanding of the dangers, they knew it in their hearts and spines. For Americans, war is generally something the military fights, so the idea that the military would split off and fight each other, is not something they can imagine in Civil War 2. That’s the only way they can imagine Civil War 2. They do not think about how many veterans are on the reserve or in civilian life. They do not think about civilians fighting civilians. All you need for CW 2 is two factions that want to kill each other. The military is irrelevant, since people can kill each other without modern military ranks and medals and equipment.

    Once people start killing each other, and that’s already been going on for awhile now, the factions that lead to the development of the Radical Republicans vs the Confederate slave lords, will finalize and materialize.

    Once 2 or more factions solidify and consolidate their hierarchical support, everybody else will have to pick sides. That is why it is a civil war, it destroys the fabric of society itself, it does not need military orders to do so.

    Having this process explained to you is not the same as learning it for yourself, which is why I consider explanations to be meaningless.

    After WWI, the Great War as Europeans called it, many people refused to stand up to Germany or Italy, because they thought that people were tired of war and would never wage another war equal to the Great War. And by those actions, they made it inevitable that a second World War would occur, because Hitler and Mussolini, didn’t suffer from the problem of disbelief in power. Western Europe had their best generation destroyed, and what came to lead people afterwards were the cowards and those who stayed behind, avoiding the front lines. It’s natural patriotism and nationalism would have died in Britain and France. But as others mentioned, a war begins when one side wants to fight, not when both sides or all sides agree to fight. If Germany and Italy wants to fight, doesn’t matter if France and Britain does everything they can to avoid war, they cannot avoid war.

    Ever wonder why humans don’t learn from history? It’s because humans are limited in their capability to understand the truth. Humans repeat history, because for whatever reason, they think it won’t happen again to them.

  112. Ya know, huxley, I’ve never heard anyone give a good explanation of that.

    When I think about it, I also don’t see a new civil war happening unless some states decide to secede (Texit anyone?). Instead, possibly there would be an attempt at revolution, but I think it’s more likely an insurgency would develop and certain areas would become effectively independent (i.e., no-go zones for the authorities).

    This is a needless complication of a reasoning.

    It is like trying to analyze the cause or effect of Civil War or the Revolutionary War, by pointing to how many divisions and regiments each side has to fight each other. That isn’t very useful, when you are trying to figure out what is happening before the conflict went hot.

    A civil war starts because at least two factions gain enough power and use it to kill each other. It’s pretty simple. As for why humans want to kill each other… well, there’s not exactly a limit on that.

    Slavery will tear the Union apart, some people figured that out even before 1850.

    For the white race to be supreme, and to avoid killing and enslaving the poor Irish, we need blacks to be born to serve in the fields.

    There’s all kinds of “reasons”, that don’t make any sense unless you belong to the faction itself. Or their descendants.

    Whether no go areas develop doesn’t affect whether CW2 is inevitable. Whether insurgencies develop, doesn’t affect whether CW 2 is inevitable. None of it affects it.

    All that affects CW 2 is whether you can ensure your society doesn’t fracture and split off into enemy camps… and that is what people have failed to do. And that is why, they haven’t proved my statements wrong from 2007. If humans were capable of preventing internal conflict, they wouldn’t be humans. They would have transcended by now. But some exceptional humans have tried to stop this even as Churchill tried to stop Hitler, but this time they have failed. Against the dual power of Islam and the Leftist alliance, their odds of success weren’t that great, especially since many people watched as the Tea Party marched to DC. They watched, but did not understand.

    As for what people like me see as the “trigger points” of armed conflict in the uS, since factions already Hate Each Other as Enemies, those would be Confiscation of Arms by the ATF or FBI or some apparatchik of the federal government or even the state government. Such as what happened in Louisiana. Of course, people will just refuse to hand in their guns, so the authorities will have to go house to house, just like in Katrina New Orleans, to confiscate weapons. That is just like Boston in the War of Independence. It’s very easy for an American versed in their history, to understand. But it’s not only the flash point around. As others have mentioned, there’s La Raza, Russian/Chinese interference, etc etc.

  113. The difference seems to be an underlying assumption by too many here — as if there is an inevitability to the success that the left will have and that it would be irreversible.

    Most of people’s views here, at least, didn’t see civil war 2 as inevitable in the US circa 2007. It was only because of Hussein Obola’s elections, that they started getting hints and connecting the dots.

    The reason why I use 2007, is to make a sharp line. My sources weren’t based around the results of the election or Hussein Obola as a candidate.

    Thus what you see as the underlying assumption, is not the same. People here came to their conclusions via dramatically different paths. Now of course some of it looks the same now as a result, in 2016, but that is a result of the times.

    Also B, don’t forget your question here in the old thread.

    http://neoneocon.com/2016/08/24/how-can-you-tell-a-campaign-is-way-behind/#comment-1603174

  114. One of the things I have learned through previous mistakes, is to not waste time communicating directly with persons who brazenly make up pseudo-facts (or quotes, as Maq has previously done), and then perform elaborate rituals of pseudo-analysis; triumphantly dissecting their own projections and propagated falsehoods.

    Now, whether this behavior of theirs is ultimately due to some cognitive deficit, or it is just part of their character to engage in dissembling theatrics when they have been previously caught out lying and they want to get back some of their own, I will leave aside.

    If their motivations are not transparent, their techniques certainly are: and can be seen in the way they either fail to quote the primary, or truncate the primary to suit, or quote polemical secondary characterizations instead. Anything to avoid the actual text and context which would make their gambits self-defeating.

    Bad enough practice as so-called “analysis” whatever the reasons, and when warned of it and persisted in, a sign of a bad character as well.

    Here, we have a perfect example in Maq’s latest attempt to imply a fact situation which is not factual at all, and then to further insinuate menace in a supposed expression of irony: the appearance of a “joke”, which he imaginatively asserts took place within his spurious recounting. Shivers!

    Thus Maq: in another epic journey to the center of what turns out to be only his own mind:

    “The thing is, even after explaining it was all a “joke”, the follow on conversation about pajama boy and the implications of DNW’s statements taken in, gives one pause as to just how much that “St Bartholemew’s Day” comment is a bad joke.”

    If Maq had a fraction of the analytical and research prowess he pretends to have he could have avoided this blatantly obvious [for anyone with a functioning memory] falsehood simply by searching the term “joke” and ensuring that what he purported to be quoting, actually referred to what he purported it was referring to.

    But the joke had nothing to do with the valid observation that massacres of political opponents, even under conditions of duress, were at odds with conservative values.

    The joke was in this: a comment that Neo had changed her mind and decided to endorse Trump. The fallout of which was:

    ” DNW Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    Again, I’m assuming you’re joking …

    Yes I was joking. I neither swear by Glamorous Gaia, nor believe that you are implying an endorsement of Trump.

    And I don’t hope that the Russians nuke Manhattan, or that Hillary collapses on stage and is replaced by Louis Farrakhan, or that Michael Moore finds a way to reach round and wipe his own ass without a telescoping claw-arm.

    neo-neocon Says:
    August 26th, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    DNW:

    I will also assume you are not now nor have you ever been a member of the Communist Party. 🙂

    See, I put that smiley-face there just to make sure everyone knows it was a joke. My sense of humor is not what it used to be pre-Obama/Trump/Clinton.

    That was the joke: that by Glamorous Gaia, she had endorsed Trump.

    This factual reminder will of course be of no interest to the fabulating tar baby (if he is even capable of understanding it), but for some others at least, it will help keep, or set, the record straight.

    Would that Maq had some of those same principles of moral self-restraint which I ascribed to conservatives.

  115. DNW:

    How about just assuming that Maq made an error caused by not paying enough attention to the details of the exchange in the comments, an error that may even be somewhat understandable and forgivable? Correct it, and then move on? Why such accusations of bad faith?

  116. “That was the joke: that by Glamorous Gaia, (Neo) had endorsed Trump.” – DNW

    My mistake then, you were NOT joking about a “St Bartholemew Day” after all – you make one of my points for me.

    Look, several of us have said that your approach and attitude is a problem (and by implication needs to change). At first I was thinking maybe it was just me, but no, it has become increasingly clear it is not.

    The short space and the English language itself makes it challenging to carry on these conversations. But, there is no need to take the approach you are to writing, and then getting “upset” when we “misinterpret” something.

    Change if you are seriously interested in a discussion and trying to convince anyone.

  117. Ymar: This is a needless complication of a reasoning.

    You, sir, are hardly in a position to accuse me of needless complication. 😉

    It is like trying to analyze the cause or effect of Civil War or the Revolutionary War, by pointing to how many divisions and regiments each side has to fight each other.

    But I wasn’t looking so much at causes as development. When you ask, is a war possible, the existence of opposing forces, even as potential, is relevant. When the question is how such a conflict would develop, then discussing revolution vs. civil war vs. insurgency, etc., is relevant.

    Big Maq: Of course there were “peaceful alternatives”, but were they “acceptable” relative to what the Founders had set up afterwards?

    Yes, exactly. We have the same question before us today.

    It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, that I’m the one trying to explain why some people see large-scale violence as possible today, while you two are claiming that we should go for peaceful resolutions. Meanwhile, neither of you find the peaceful alternatives for the Revolution or Civil War acceptable.

  118. Bill, I don’t think I really addressed your points yesterday. I was tired.

    I don’t think we’ll have a civil war like the Civil War. I think you’re right about that. As I did later, I tend to think more in terms of insurgency.

    I would also say that an insurgency doesn’t need all the high-tech, big battlefield stuff the US military has. Small arms, explosives, and the support of a significant segment of the population are enough.

    The only reason I brought WWI up was because so many intelligent people thought it was impossible in the years just before it happened. I don’t expect anything like that war here, but it reminds me that just because I think something is impossible doesn’t make it actually impossible. We need to keep looking around and taking in new data.

    On the question of whether we should have that kind of violence, I’m with you and Big Maq. I don’t want it. I am dedicated to peaceful resolutions. I’m just not optimistic about their success.

    I was a year ago; I thought we’d end up with a good Republican nominee who could give us some breathing space. Now, I just have no idea what’s even possible. I don’t know exactly what to hope for that’s realistic.

  119. Some don’t learn from their mistakes no matter how educated and erudite. The Dunning-Kreuger effect in action, as Matt_SE referenced recently.

    “The Dunning—Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect.

    Read about it from The Ignoble Prize Award in 2000 when working a as Field Engineer cleaning up rad waste and other little problems. I shard it with a union electrician who was going to school to get a degree in psychology. He found it quite interesting, he is another good egg, altough a liberal.

  120. Big Maq & Bill, and anyone else who cares to address the question, what’s your plan?

    It can’t just be voting. For one, I think we have to question whether the vote is being tampered with. For another, the cultural problems are much bigger than the political ones.

    What are your ideas?

  121. It isn’t just old style machine vote “enhancement,” the Chicago or Philadelphia method. When vote by mail, motor voter, and vote without ID “provisional ballots” become legal methods, “tampering” becomes less needed. Since those three allow fraud without evidence or a centralized precinct level machine (speculation alert). Another progressive improvement in the name of democracy. It has to be fought out on the state level, fighting the DOJ all the way to SCOTUS. It is disconcerting that DHS (Homeland Security) has identified the voting process a “critical infrastructure” (Mark Levin from last week). Glad the Feds wouldn’t think of imposing Federal guidance on the election processes. /s

    Convention of States, Article V and a long (decades) political fight is a plan, giving up and hoping things will be better after “we win the Civil War II” is not a plan.

  122. “It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, that I’m the one trying to explain why some people see large-scale violence as possible today, while you two are claiming that we should go for peaceful resolutions. Meanwhile, neither of you find the peaceful alternatives for the Revolution or Civil War acceptable.” – TD

    Well, TD, you are blending two ideas. You may be explaining how “other” people are seeing large-scale violence as possible today, but that doesn’t mean that it is probable, nor desirable / optimal to respond as if it were likely.

    Second, the circumstances were well different at those times versus now. Doesn’t say we won’t ever get there, but we have multiple avenues to explore before we need to settle on war or insurgency or some other violent means to take corrective action.

    In particular, what seems to be happening is that too many folks (especially early trump supporters it seems) have historically barely involved themselves in trying to get the government they claim they want to have. IOW, they haven’t even bothered to try to engage and convince others – they want it delivered to them simply because they demand it.

    The reality is Liberty is a Responsibility, not a Right.

    When we strike the attitude that all is lost, or that it is useless to even try to convince others of our ideas and policy prescriptions for this country, we are the ones who are creating the conditions that escalate to violence that so many are “forecasting”, as you state.
    .

    <em"what’s your plan?… It can’t just be voting."

    Back to the above statement: Liberty is a Responsibility.

    As such, it requires care and feeding, no different from our jobs, businesses, children, marriages, church communities, etc.

    There are no guarantees, but it takes involvement. Eric around here frames it as activism. And, we need to be pushing for radical reduction in the size and scope of government.

    At minimum, we have to be there to actively recruit the right candidates, support their nomination and election, and we have to each hold our elected representative’s feet to the fire, no matter which party label they hold.

    When we are not involved then we are leaving it to others to shape the parties and our government to their own benefit.

    Our involvement is not just in the political world, but with those we interact with. Are we engaging those to make a case? Are we reaching beyond those that we already agree with, or are we just working a bubble? Are we building our own credibility and reputation such that our message is hitting a more receptive audience?
    .

    TD, you and others seem to want a sure, guaranteed path. That doesn’t exist. It never did. There is no magic formula that everyone will go “aha, that’s it!”.

    I think the Founders knew that and tried their best to set up a structure that could facilitate our liberty, but as Franklin said “A Republic if you can keep it”.

    Involvement – taking Responsibility, is a huge first step in keeping it. We aren’t even there yet.
    .

    That said, if your are beholding to conservative principles, 2016 is essentially lost. The next four years are about regrouping and looking to either dominate the GOP or start another party – it will be messy – then position for a 2020 POTUS win.
    .

    “For one, I think we have to question whether the vote is being tampered with.”

    Focusing heavily on vote tampering and other forms of “cheating” as if that is how we lose elections is not productive. It is like focusing on how biased or skewed the polls are. Until we have clear evidence that we can prosecute with, it is largely a bogeyman that riles up the crowds. Not saying we ignore it, but it creates a victim and grievance mentality that is destroying our own motivation to even try.
    .

    “For another, the cultural problems are much bigger than the political ones.”

    Cultural problems start at home.

    It is astonishing how many of my Christian and hard core conservatives or even trump supporting friends and acquaintances let their children run wild or exhibit very undisciplined behavior in public places and the parents don’t address it.

    So, what has this got to do with anything?

    We expect our politicians to be solid and beholding to our principles, but we don’t even expect the same from, nor raise our children to be that way. This has been ongoing for some generations.

    How many here have children or grand children that are allowed to use their smart phone at family dinner? How many parents have and monitor their own phones at dinner?

    Some consider this normal and acceptable behavior!

    It may be acceptable to them, but it is a sure sign of disrespect, relative importance of the people there, and is a lost opportunity to engage.
    .

    Recognize a theme here? Taking responsibility – care and feeding to produce the results we want.

    Too many want to take the easy path, but that never existed.

    So now we have an election with a GOP nominee that many were hoping would shortcut that entire process and be a strongman who could implement the changes they want.

    Even if trump were to be elected, it increasingly looks clear that he will be very FAR from implementing anything close to what folks were hoping for and expecting.

  123. “Convention of States, Article V and a long (decades) political fight is a plan, giving up and hoping things will be better after “we win the Civil War II” is not a plan.” – OM

    Right. And, great example of one of many avenues yet to explore.

    Another piece of the puzzle would be activism in this form:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/05/06/the-case-for-conservative-civil-disobedience/?utm_term=.cd71e32c6209

    http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/catosletter_spring2015.pdf

    But any movement depends on involvement and action.

  124. Thanks for the replies.

    I’m still very interested in what people think the way forward is, but I want to reply to a few things now.

    OM: Convention of States, Article V and a long (decades) political fight is a plan, giving up and hoping things will be better after “we win the Civil War II” is not a plan.

    I completely agree with pursuing the Convention of States, and that we are no matter what going to be involved for decades. I am increasingly pessimistic about our odds, but I am also far from giving up.

    And as I mentioned above, a year ago I was quite optimistic. I didn’t expect any of the candidates to save us (we aren’t electing messiahs), but several of them would have made solid improvements. The odds seemed to be solidly in our favor.

    Big Maq: Well, TD, you are blending two ideas. You may be explaining how “other” people are seeing large-scale violence as possible today, but that doesn’t mean that it is probable, nor desirable / optimal to respond as if it were likely.

    Something I tried to convey was that I didn’t know how probable it was, and I don’t think many people do. I know I’m hearing more agitation and grumbling that we ought to have a new revolution, and at first I wrote it off as hyperbolic, but I have been assured several times that some folks mean it.

    I certainly didn’t say it was desirable. Quite the opposite.

    Second, the circumstances were well different at those times versus now. Doesn’t say we won’t ever get there, but we have multiple avenues to explore before we need to settle on war or insurgency or some other violent means to take corrective action.

    Well, yes and no. I do think we are just as oppressed as the colonists were in the years leading up to the Revolution. Maybe more so. I just don’t think a revolution would help anything today, and would rather be quite destructive.

    Arguing from history is always arguing from analogy, and that is never perfect. Circumstances today are always different than they were yesterday.

    That said, we do have multiple peaceful avenues to explore, and I’m glad you’ve talked about that.

  125. Big Maq, I agree with a lot of what you wrote about how to improve things, and I’m already working on a number of things.

    However, I’m going to pick a couple of nits. (Because that’s my raison d’etre, in case you haven’t already guessed.)

    First, liberty is both a right and a responsibility.

    Second, I have no idea what I’ve written that makes you think this:

    TD, you and others seem to want a sure, guaranteed path.

    Maybe others have asked you for that, but that’s certainly not true for me.

    That said, I agree with most of the rest.

  126. @TD – fair enough.

    On the question of “guaranteed path” – may have jumped the gun a bit as “what’s your plan?” or similar has been asked on these and other blogs regarding alternative to a binary choice, and it was addressed to Bill and I (and presumably others who are not voting trump nor clinton).

    On liberty – far too many stop at “is a right”. We do believe in natural rights. But that is not enough to make it exist for us. As we are finding out it is much easier to lose rights than to keep them.

  127. It is precisely because freedom is an individual responsibility and duty to uphold, that when people fight to kill their enemies, you won’t be able to say anything about it, based on the justification of freedom itself.

    Individual freedom does not need the apparatus of society or the US laws created by humans. Individual freedom only needs divine laws, to function, similar to natural laws. When humans laws violate divine laws and seek to control human free will, those human laws must be destroyed if people desire freedom.

  128. When you ask, is a war possible, the existence of opposing forces, even as potential, is relevant.

    That’s fighting the old war and thinking Saddam’s forces are all we need to defeat and we’ll be done. That didn’t turn out to be the case, because anyone or everyone will join their forces in, once a war starts. You can’t control for the things you don’t know that you don’t know. Which is why I said it is pointless. Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, is the standard guide. But none of that includes setting up straw regiments to beat before the war happens, nor does it mean hoping for peace and preparing for peace, not war.

    When the question is how such a conflict would develop, then discussing revolution vs. civil war vs. insurgency, etc., is relevant.

    I remind you that these “questions” are from you and others here. They are not from me, because I don’t need those questions to get the answers. I already had them since I had several years over the rest of you, to work on them through the more than half a decade I had extra on you and others here.

    You, sir, are hardly in a position to accuse me of needless complication.

    I am in the exactly right position to do so. For the same or similar reasons as you would give for the other argument.

    I was a year ago; I thought we’d end up with a good Republican nominee who could give us some breathing space. Now, I just have no idea what’s even possible. I don’t know exactly what to hope for that’s realistic.

    And a year ago, at Grim’s Blog, I told a Tom something G, that he was underestimating the Leftist alliance, due to his optimism. You don’t have an idea of what’s possible because you are still figuring things out and needlessly complicating them as a result. It’s only after years of polish that subjects of complexity can be reduced to simple foundations, in a human communication context. You do not have those years.

  129. Big Maq: On the question of “guaranteed path” — may have jumped the gun a bit as “what’s your plan?” or similar has been asked on these and other blogs regarding alternative to a binary choice …

    Yeah, I can see that. I’m jumping in without knowing all of the context here. But it was just an honest question.

    On liberty — far too many stop at “is a right”.

    Yep. Far too many don’t even really understand the concept of liberty, I think.

    Ymar: That’s fighting the old war and thinking Saddam’s forces are all we need to defeat and we’ll be done.

    No it’s not. You really don’t seem to understand what I was doing.

    I remind you that these “questions” are from you and others here.

    Right, so again you’re addressing phantoms. If you want to communicate with me, communicate with me. Don’t fly off on random tangents with little relevance to the conversation going on here.

    Me: You, sir, are hardly in a position to accuse me of needless complication.

    Ymar: I am in the exactly right position to do so.

    That was a joke. It was clearly marked as such with a 😉 Addressing it seriously is yet another indication you don’t understand what’s happening here.

    You don’t have an idea of what’s possible because you are still figuring things out …

    You have no idea what you’re talking about.

  130. No it’s not. You really don’t seem to understand what I was doing.

    You have no idea what you’re talking about.

    I’ll take that as another joke then. It is funnier than the other one.

    That was a joke. It was clearly marked as such with a 😉 Addressing it seriously is yet another indication you don’t understand what’s happening here.

    You’ll figure out just how ignorant you are, regardless of whether your jokes work online or not, soon enough. As I told Grim before, I didn’t need to lift a finger to convince him or demonstrate the power of the Left nor its evil. If what I say is true, and it is, the world will smash your face in the ground as many times as is needed to ensure you are convinced that the threats are real. I don’t need to convince nor coerce you to do anything. So believe as you wish, that I am the ignorant one and you, the lesser educated and young tree in this forest, is wiser than me. But often times, belief is not enough to save you.

  131. Don’t fly off on random tangents with little relevance to the conversation going on here.

    Coming from a youngling that thinks jokes are effective on the internet and that if I don’t respond correctly, that demonstrates you’re knowledgeable and I’m ignorant. Now that’s a good joke.

  132. You’ll figure out just how ignorant you are, regardless of whether your jokes work online or not, soon enough.

    I know how ignorant I am, that’s why I ask a lot of questions.

    If what I say is true, and it is, the world will smash your face in the ground as many times as is needed to ensure you are convinced that the threats are real. I don’t need to convince nor coerce you to do anything. So believe as you wish, that I am the ignorant one and you, the lesser educated and young tree in this forest, is wiser than me. But often times, belief is not enough to save you.

    See, this is the point. When I said you had no idea what you were talking about, it wasn’t about the world at large or politics or the Left. It was about me. You were making claims to know me, and that is ridiculous. You don’t. You absolutely are the ignorant one when it comes to knowing me. You couldn’t even find the right stadium for that race, much less compete.

    I’ll listen to you when you talk about the world. I know you’re intelligent and you’ve read quite a bit. But when you talk about me and what I know or believe or who I am, that’s laughable.

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