Crazy Progressives watch thread

[ajax18]

The idea that the Georgia voting law is sonething worse than Jim Crow is ridiculous and shouldn't be taken seriously. Did you know Delaware requires voter ID? The law actually extends voting hours. There are even more dropboxes than before. The minority voter participation rate is actually comparatively high..

[huckelberry]

Atlanticmike, Learning about history and Americas slavery is painful. I suppose it is easier just to not learn it and stick with Aunt Jemima. It takes a bit of emotional maturity to deal with the history of the United States. It is sometimes inspiring and sometimes sickening. That is the real world. I can understand a view that first graders should not be troubled by the ugly realities of American use of slavery and the brutality which has been visited upon black Americans. But as we grow we become emotionally more mature. Part of that maturing process is exposure to problems and things which do not fit our expectations.

critical race theory is much like pre 1978 Mormonism in that it helps you define someone within just a few seconds solely based off their skin color. Again, critical race theory teaches if someone is born with a "darker" skin color, they are automatically labeled a victim and more than likely will live their life feeling like a victim no matter how much progress is made. It's without a doubt a form of mental slavery.
Huckleberry, if a fringe group from the right started making headway at convincing people we would be better off segregating our selves into groups based on color again, I would stand up and denounce their insane beliefs. You seem like a smart individual, are you telling me you don't believe the left also has fringe groups in its ranks? You do realize fascism can be found at the fringe of the far right but also the far left??? In your above statement you talked about emotional maturity. Part of being emotionally mature is understanding when someone who might share your political beliefs puts forth a "theory", that doesn't mean it's automatically the best way forward. Some of the worst wars fought in modern history were fought because people were convinced that a certain "theory" was correct then followed it blindly, usually out of fear, but also because most people can't stand being told the way they're living is wrong.
critical race theory is mental bondage based off skin color. It's wrong to slap a label on someone when they're born soley based on skin color. I hope you're not agreeing with it just because it's a theory that is being pushed by the left. I suggest you check your pride at the door and reevaluate if you've gone to far down the rabbit hole my friend. Mormonism and hi demand religions aren't the only groups that are able to mentally enslave you. You do realize throughout human history governments have put forth certain theories that have turned out to be disastrous don't you? If you care about minorities, help me push back on critical race theory so they don't have to forced to believe they are less than.

Atlanticmike, thanks for taking the time to make an explanation.

I agree with you that both the left and the right have extremes which can damage society, limit freedom, limit the freedom of thought and mangle and confuse followers thinking. I am happy to agree with Jordan Peterson on this. He puts it very clearly.

You criticize critical race theory for slapping a label on people when they are born. It is not critical race theory that does that however. My birth certificate notes I am white. It is nice enough to note my mother is white and my father is white. I was born decades before critical race theory was born so the labeling is not a result of a theory. My views on race in America started as puzzlement in the 1950s and became informed of the facts in the 1960s with the civil rights movement. It should be noted that is before the birth of Critical Race Theory,

Critical race theory is from what I read a collection of a variety of people doing studies about how laws affect race relationships in America. I have three thoughts on that. One that sounds like an important thing to study. Two like any collection of studies some of it may be trash. Third it is bizarre to see in America a law against learning some field of inquiry.

Perhaps most importantly the fact that people born white have some advantages when compared to people born of color is not a result of critical race theory. It was that way when I was born. It was that way a hundred years before the theory.

I can see a concern not to discourage people of color by saying they are at a disadvantage. I see a lot of interest in society for noticing that blacks have proven they are able to accomplish.Black people are not going to let some legal theory stop them from desiring and pursuing all kinds of accomplishments. They have that strength.

[huckelberry]

Doc, I am lost on your trust fund baby.

You were close! It was Cucker Carlson.

- Doc

I used to listen to O'Rieley. There were plenty of times I did not see eye to eye with him but he seem to actually have thoughts to keep a person a bit interested. Hannity strikes me as having a head of wood , I have no inclination to listen. Carlson seems to me to be either fake or otherwise off, not watchable. So that's my excuse for not catching your reference.

[huckelberry]

critical race theory is much like pre 1978 Mormonism in that it helps you define someone within just a few seconds solely based off their skin color. Again, critical race theory teaches if someone is born with a "darker" skin color, they are automatically labeled a victim and more than likely will live their life feeling like a victim no matter how much progress is made. It's without a doubt a form of mental slavery.
Huckleberry, if a fringe group from the right started making headway at convincing people we would be better off segregating our selves into groups based on color again, I would stand up and denounce their insane beliefs. You seem like a smart individual, are you telling me you don't believe the left also has fringe groups in its ranks? You do realize fascism can be found at the fringe of the far right but also the far left??? In your above statement you talked about emotional maturity. Part of being emotionally mature is understanding when someone who might share your political beliefs puts forth a "theory", that doesn't mean it's automatically the best way forward. Some of the worst wars fought in modern history were fought because people were convinced that a certain "theory" was correct then followed it blindly, usually out of fear, but also because most people can't stand being told the way they're living is wrong.
critical race theory is mental bondage based off skin color. It's wrong to slap a label on someone when they're born soley based on skin color. I hope you're not agreeing with it just because it's a theory that is being pushed by the left. I suggest you check your pride at the door and reevaluate if you've gone to far down the rabbit hole my friend. Mormonism and hi demand religions aren't the only groups that are able to mentally enslave you. You do realize throughout human history governments have put forth certain theories that have turned out to be disastrous don't you? If you care about minorities, help me push back on critical race theory so they don't have to forced to believe they are less than.

Atlanticmike, thanks for taking the time to make an explanation.

I agree with you that both the left and the right have extremes which can damage society, limit freedom, limit the freedom of thought and mangle and confuse followers thinking. I am happy to agree with Jordan Peterson on this. He puts it well.

You criticize critical race theory for slapping a label on people when they are born. It is not critical race theory that does that however. My birth certificate notes I am white. It is nice enough to note my mother is white and my father is white. I was born decades before critical race theory was born so the labeling is not a result of a theory. My views on race in America started as puzzlement in the 1950s and became informed of the facts in the 1960s with the civil rights movement. It should be noted that is before the birth of Critical Race Theory,

Critical race theory is from what I read a collection of a variety of people doing studies about how laws affect race relationships in America. I have three thoughts on that. One that sounds like an important thing to study. Two like any collection of studies some of it may be trash. Third it is bizarre to see in America a law against learning some field of inquiry.

Perhaps most importantly the fact that people born white have some advantages when compared to people born of color is not a result of critical race theory. It was that way when I was born. It was that way a hundred years before the theory.

I can see a concern not to discourage people of color by saying they are at a disadvantage. I see a lot of interest in society for noticing that blacks have proven they are able to accomplish.Black people are not going to let some legal theory stop them from desiring and pursuing all kinds of accomplishments. They have that strength.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

You were close! It was Cucker Carlson.

- Doc

I used to listen to O'Rieley. There were plenty of times I did not see eye to eye with him but he seem to actually have thoughts to keep a person a bit interested. Hannity strikes me as having a head of wood , I have no inclination to listen. Carlson seems to me to be either fake or otherwise off, not watchable. So that's my excuse for not catching your reference.

The fact that you don’t watch TC makes me appreciate you as a human being.

- Doc

[canpakes]

Again, critical race theory teaches if someone is born with a "darker" skin color, they are automatically labeled a victim and more than likely will live their life feeling like a victim no matter how much progress is made. It's without a doubt a form of mental slavery.

Nope.

“The theory’s proponents argue that the nation’s sordid history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination is embedded in our laws, and continues to play a central role in preventing Black Americans and other marginalized groups from living lives untouched by racism.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... apple_news

Like poverty, this implies effect and challenge, but does not mandate victimhood.

You could talk to the folks who’ve actually created the discussion, instead on continuing to try to mischaracterize it for your own partisan reasons.

[honorentheos]

I was curious what the thread was about and was surprised to see the OP didn't really include an example of a progressive being crazy so much as a poster on the board spitting fire about people who continue to support Donald Trump. Well, not that surprised. It was inevitable but I did honestly think the OP at least would have started off with something from the news. More like something Ajax would post I guess.

To define what being progressive means in relation to American politics is broken as can be seen in the thread so far. Largely, it's used as a war banner declaring whose house one fights under or why one chooses to attack another flying a different banner.

To have a better discussion about the topic would, I believe, require pausing the battle to revisit what the core concepts of conservative and progressive political thinking entails minus the high school antics.

At this most simple, conservative politics are those based on the protection of fundamental social norms, values, and institutions.

On the other side, progressive politics are based on advancing ideals.

On their face, both have very admirable foundational aims that, in a healthy society, are needed to ensure that society protects what deserves and needs protecting while allowing it to adapt to change both in understanding as well as external changes the society cannot control but can only react to instead.

At the core of these personal proclivities that aggregate into political parties and online communities are, or were if things are as bad as they appear, fundamental institutions and values that gave rise to the Republic. Among which is the principle of individual rights and the need for a governmental structure that best protects/advances those rights. The resulting thinking, debate, experimentation and failure, then reinvention that became the US Constitution. To get there, the founding fathers acted as the ultimate progressives, rejecting the social order of the European hereditary class structure and rebelling outright to secure access to form what become our own independent nation and government.

While self-representation is a central aspect of that government, the founders recognized pure democracy could not provide for the government needed nor survive in the face of threats from other nations. Thus the need to elect representatives to whom we outsource the job of learning about issues, collaborating with others to write and approve laws that are in our interest. But due to the nature of the job, we have to recognize that a rep doing their job will have information we don't have and make choices that we might not based on our initial under-informed, off doing our own jobs position.

Also essential to the outcome of the creation of the nation and this core commitment to individual liberty came views about public goods and services. If a characteristic of the Old World's system was that a person's future was largely defined by the circumstances into which they were born, the founders sought to establish institutions and practices that made opportunity more broadly available. Otherwise, on what grounds can one argue they are for individual liberty if they do not also commit to making possible access to education even if one is born into poverty? Access to open spaces like parks and gardens even if one can't even own property Access to books even if one cannot afford to buy one? Access to information even if one isn't born into the right circles? Access to credit to potentially convert ideas into products and services that benefit the creator and society? Access to protection from threats to one's life, liberty, and property? Access to be one's self in society?

That's a grand experiment we set out on as a nation. Individual liberty is a tricky thing to protect while also having a strong social order capable of functioning as a government that can protect it's citizens and their rights. That required our judicial system to be robust but aligned with the principles of the nation that guide its legislative structure and activities. Since individual rights can lead to actions and expressions that infringe on the rights of others, the judicial system has to be able to navigate complicated issues with often problematic outcomes.

It's here where I think it's essential to recognize the United States, while founded largely by western European protestant men, were imperfectly attempting to identify and address many of these kind of issues at the inception of the Constitution. God is not mentioned in the Constitution precisely because national religion was recognized by enough of them as a potential venue for the edifice of government to impose unjustly on others that would infringe their rights. Sure, most of the individual signers were Christians or Deists, and many of the founding documents use the term, "God" or "divine Providence" or the like liberally. But America was envisions from the ratification as a religious plurality not a Christian nation. And this was to protect Christians as well as others. Liberty to worship has boundaries but they are bounded equally across belief systems including non-belief.

The founders were less successful in casting off the prejudices towards women, people of other heritage, and did harm in ending the debate over slavery in the interest of getting a government in place that enough people could agree to after the collapse of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union failed. As a side note, much of what is being debated today sounds at least in part for a return to the AoCaPU which must be a cosmic joke against humanity. Sorry, I digress.

The history of our nation has been one of conservative caution when changes have the potential to pull everything apart or cut off the branch the entire tree house is built on. While also being one of realization that the ideals of the nation have only been imperfectly implemented, or have been eroded or damaged, and proactively changing to better realize the promise that lead to the creation of the USA. Demographics also change, technology advances, nations push and test us, we form alliances and make war, and new changes bring new threats or potential threats. If history were a car ride, the majority of it feels like we were driving up a hill in a car with a standard transmission and the driver doesn't know how to work the clutch.

For me, there is a gap between the ideal and promise of America and the current institutional structure and social order. So I'm progressive. But I value true conservative voices who provide needed perspective so we don't demolish loadbearing walls as we continue to build towards a better future for even more people.

But I also think it's critical to realize the conservative/progressive divide in the US is not an economic one. In fact, economics is better understood as a weaponized condition.

More than any other change, I'd argue the creation of the global international financial elite class has been the most radical. It's tied to the creation of the Eurobond in the 1960s which led to the detachment of the very wealthy from needing to be concerned about social stability. Once an entity with billions to protect could simply move their money into the dark world of offshore, independent yet internationally protected financials, they didn't need to be concerned about social conditions in the US or Russia or Brazil or England or...It effectively turned global elites into their own nation with their own interests to protect which are at odds with those of national governments that happen to protect the rule of law. Climate change is the biggest threat to our and the next generation for sure. But this one is number 2 and will likely end western democracy one way or the other.

Why bring that up? Because most people today in the US feel less secure about the future than they did in the past. And they imagine their parents and grandparents lived in a society with better opportunities to realize one's potential. Or, alternatively, their parents and grandparents were being oppressively kept from better opportunities and we can better see that now. This means people across the board are in stressed fight-or-flight stances when it comes to the future. So whether or not one leans conservative or progressive today really seems to come down to if one thinks the threats are TOWARDS foundational institutions that need protecting. Or those threats are CAUSED BY institutions that need to evolve and improve access to opportunity. Both are right, but most idiots engaging in the discussion seem to view this as a zero-sum game were the old is rotten and needs burned to be purified or, on the conservative side, the mobs are out seeking to pillage and reave so they can take rather than earn.

I think most people engaging in the discussion at this level are lost and being manipulated by people hoping to leverage the fear, the anger, the sense of threat so the individuals who successfully leverage it can gain more power. This covers the spectrum from true wealthy elites with access to media platforms and government institutions around the world to individuals online and in grassroots organizations.

Trump is easily understood to be a global elite whose wealth is not only independent of the social stability of the US, but seems to be threatened by laws that protect common people. He couldn't care less about any individual outside of himself. Well, maybe, MAYBE Ivanka but that's a big maybe. When he's threatened, he forms a human shield around himself by telling those who feel threatened by change that he is being attacked so the forces behind those attacks can then get to those who support him. But anyone who even remotely acts in a way that he finds threatening to him is attacked and vilified. He seems to have enjoyed having access to the controls of government and wants them back at any cost. And some people who feel threatened by change and see in him a savior buy into that regardless of anything else.

We don't arrive here without people having lost sight of the original vision for the nation or why institutions need to be both protected and adaptable including accepting having been inflicting harm where they could instead be supporting healing and furthering access to opportunity.

Anyway, there are plenty of examples of progressives acting poorly in the news. It'd been interesting to see a conversation about such examples that wasn't just a shouting match in a sports bar between rivals, though.

[MeDotOrg]

Again, critical race theory teaches if someone is born with a "darker" skin color, they are automatically labeled a victim and more than likely will live their life feeling like a victim no matter how much progress is made. It's without a doubt a form of mental slavery.

I remember my stepsister telling me an African-American LDS covert's skin became lighter after he joined the Latter Day Saints, but I guess critical race theory is okay if it's based upon religious beliefs.

The critical race theory bugaboo is largely white paranoia. But I'm curious, Atlanticmike, how should the history of the United States be taught with relation to the Constitution's 3/5th Clause (which codes racism into our Political DNA) and the constant dislocation of Native Americans and our Government's abrogation of virtually every treaty they made with Native Americans? What about Manifest Destiny, the Klan, thousands of lynchings, and prohibiting teaching reading skills to African-Americans? What about the systematic enslavement of African American men in Southern prisons, creating a judicial and political system that provided the state a ready pool of free labor? What about the black AND white Americans who were shot, burned and beaten in non-violent civil rights activism?

In the collective psyche of the United States, we have a gap between our mythos and logos. Our mythos is All men are created equal. Our logos is the reality of the 3/5ths rule. My parents used to say the Constitution was divinely inspired. And it was close to divinely inspired, if you were white. But to say a government was divinely inspired that allowed 1 of 7 Americans to be held in chains is blasphemy to me. Racism is one of the primary themes of American history. That doesn't mean that other aspects of our history aren't laudatory and inspirational. But we should deal with the good and the bad is our history through the same lens.

[honorentheos]

But we should deal with the good and the bad is our history through the same lens.

With respect, I disagree.

I think of the good as a goal, not just a mythos but an ideal that we have not yet achieved. When we look at the good that we've accomplished it's not to critique it and tear it apart so it can be rebuilt. And I think this is a problem that defines views the further to the left one goes on the spectrum in the US. Eventually one finds ones self among the true anarchists who would see the whole edifice blown up on the grounds none of it is worth preserving. A ridiculous amount of the language used and positions presented from so-called progressives takes this form in the public sphere, too.

When we look to the evils of our past, I would hope we'd see in it something we can advance from rather than some ugliness that is part of the whole that just HAS to be owned perpetually. Yeah, it's bad and racism is a real problem alive and well in the US. But this is an experiment, still. We're the third largest nation, population-wise, in the world. Demographically we are incredibly diverse and becoming more so all the time. Religiously, there isn't a more diverse nation on the planet. Want to follow the Swedish model? We'll need to kick everyone out that isn't the equivalent of Swedish until we get to about 75% US, whatever that is. And we'll need to mostly identify as a member of the Church of US, even if largely indifferent to religion and not really religious.

China and India, #1 and #2, are governed by an authoritarian state with a leader-for-life in the case of China. Or in India's case, they're effectively Hindu Nationalists.

For the American experiment to continue without collapsing completely or becoming another authoritarian failed state requires we find something around which we can collectively identify. It honestly could be that we have been as successful as we have been because like the Swedes our nominal identity was still a shared one of race and religion. It could be racism is at the heart of the American reality. But if that's true we need to find a better identity on which to build that is inclusive rather than purely radical and destructive, seeking to upend rather than realize.

So I'll hit my one note yet again. At our core, we are a nation built on the ideal of small "d" democratic access to opportunity. We were not perfect in realizing this, far from it, but if we have a future as such it will be built on this form of ideal around which we can unite.

We don't have anything else.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

More than any other change, I'd argue the creation of the global international financial elite class has been the most radical. It's tied to the creation of the Eurobond in the 1960s which led to the detachment of the very wealthy from needing to be concerned about social stability. Once an entity with billions to protect could simply move their money into the dark world of offshore, independent yet internationally protected financials, they didn't need to be concerned about social conditions in the US or Russia or Brazil or England or...It effectively turned global elites into their own nation with their own interests to protect which are at odds with those of national governments that happen to protect the rule of law. Climate change is the biggest threat to our and the next generation for sure. But this one is number 2 and will likely end western democracy one way or the other.

Picking out perhaps the most important paragraph in Honor’s excellent post. The country’s wealthiest people pay virtually no federal income tax on their massive accumulation of wealth. It’s a shame people like Xanax and AM don’t read, because this article is an eye opener:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the- ... income-tax

Hopefully they’ll click on the link, scroll a bit, and let their eyes rest on the graphic.

Anyway, Conservatives should be concerned about this. If they want to maintain their hierarchy, it’s essential that people who benefit from their labor AND consumerism you know, actually exist within it, not outside it acting like a vampire sucking it dry.

- Doc