Thursday, February 1, 2018

The Intellectual Dark Web

Michael Lumish

Those intelligent few who read here know that I have developed a fondness for some of the emerging voices from places like Youtube, while being exceedingly aware of the necessity for rational discrimination on the quality of ideas.

Dave Rubin is a bright and politically-savvy guy, formerly a part of The Young Turks Network, who recognizes the ways in which political sands have been shifting in the US and the West for a number of years now.

Rubin says:
 I think that the left/right paradigm of politics is becoming increasingly meaningless and the new more relevant spectrum is one of personal freedom versus state power. 
You're either for a society based on laws which treat individual people equally with minimal involvement from the government in their day-to-day lives or you prefer a society which treats certain groups differently based on immutable characteristics and thus the government must play a major role in whether they succeed or fail. 
The simplest way to say it is you are either for your own determination or you want to hand it off to someone else.
In truth, this is the same argument that we have been having in ths United States since its founding under the Constitution.

The Preamble reads:
We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The constant fight in American politics is between those who wish to "promote the general Welfare" versus those more concerned with securing "the Blessings of Liberty."

That is the American political tension in a nutshell.

The most significant, fundamental aspect of American political stress is embedded directly in the Preamble of the Constitution, but where we fall on that continuum should depend on the historical moment.

It is, after all, not always-and-forever 1932 as many of my socialist friends like to imagine.

Nor is it always-and-forever 1968 as much of the aging vestiges of the New Left continue to believe.

14 comments:

  1. "General welfare?" Puleeze. Specific welfare is more like it. Specific welfare of identified victims, most of which hate America, Jews and Whites. There was a time when general welfare was a good description but it has been co-opted by those who wish to destroy America/the West. We see it every day. We saw it at the SOTU when Dems refused to stand or applaud for things they should have. Important things which enhance the general welfare.

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    1. This is going to sound hokey as hell, but I adore the Preamble.

      It is a mastery of concision.

      But more importantly it does contain that central tension.

      "General welfare" refers to the common good.

      The "Blessings of Liberty" refers to individual freedom.

      That is the perpetual tension in American political life.

      Delete
    2. Mike,
      Yes, you mentioned that in one of your Acknowledging the Obvious columns, and have made a serious contribution to my own education with that.

      Delete
  2. "Glenn R. Simpson, the co-founder of the controversial opposition research firm Fusion GPS, espoused a conspiracy theory claiming that Vladimir Putin “essentially took over the Russian Jewish community” and that Putin uses “the Jewish Diaspora” as a route for Russian influence.

    Simpson’s outlandish claim was made during testimony on November 14 before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, a transcript of which was released two weeks ago. His statements, which arguably contain anti-Semitic undertones, were almost entirely ignored by the news media."

    http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/01/31/fusion-gps-founder-unhinged-putin-uses-jews-control-world/

    hmmmmmmm

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  3. www.algemeiner.com/2018/02/01/at-least-five-imams-in-america-have-called-for-the-death-of-jews-wheres-the-outrage/

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    1. Perhaps I am single-minded about this material, but what automatically leaps to my mind is the blatant hypocrisy of the American Left. They honestly do not care. They claim to stand in opposition to racism, but they are not.

      Delete
    2. RECOMMENDED BOOK:

      Do As I Say (Not As I Do):
      Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

      by Peter Schweizer, year 2005


      This entertaining book is filled with devastating attacks against:

      Michael Moore, Al Franken, Ralph Nader, Barbra Streisand, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Noam Chomsky, George Soros, Barbra Streisand, Gloria Steinem and Nancy Pelosi.

      ---------------------------------

      http://5tjt.com/the-mask-of-liberal-anti-semitism/

      ---------------------------------

      “Liberals have a sort of death wish, really wanting to go down in flames.

      Action or success makes them suspicious, and they almost lose interest.

      They like it much better to have a cause than to have a course of action that’s been successful.”

      SOURCE: RFK and His Times by Arthur Schlesinger, year 1978 CE, Houghton Mifflin Publishers, New York. ISBN 0395248973 / 9780395248973
      ---------------------------------

      Understanding How Modern Liberals Think
      by Evan Sayet

      www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIboXTpF6t4

      Delete
  4. "Donald Trump declared on Twitter, “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats.”

    He forgot to include the collusion of the press.

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    Replies
    1. I love the Trump Twitter nonsense!

      I mean, I like the idea that the POTUS engages with the rest of us on Twitter.

      I am a democrat.

      Delete
  5. But they are Mike as long as they get to define racism. And that definition is colored by their ideology and drive to power (ie getting votes.) Repeat and rinse for other things like free speech, love of America, etc. This is why they are so violently outraged and offended by Trump's victory handed to him by the stupid voters that should have voted for them. The DNC is broke, the writing is on the wall just as it was on the Berlin Wall.

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  6. Actually it is 1932 again. But the Dems would rather promote transgender bathrooms than tackle transnational corporations.

    Come on everybody, do The Social Issue Shuffle!

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    Replies
    1. Actually, I wasn't sure about Mike's reference to 1932. Did he mean the year FDR was elected, or that the Nazi's were about to take power in Germany? Both FDR and Roosevelt came to power in 1933. Both died in the Spring of 1945. Hitler, of course, deserved it in spades.

      Delete
    2. Now that you mention it, I did assume he meant FDR. In any case, we need the New Deal back. We could even call it the Old Deal.

      Delete
  7. The Rubin Report with guests Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro is definitely worth a see.

    ReplyDelete