One of the things that irks me most is that the fracture lines in 21st-Century American Society are in the wrong place.
Oh, we've got the same old Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, who mostly differ on wallpaper colors, what directions judges ought to be activist in, and if it's more okay to kill kids before they are born or after they turn eighteen. Both parties love war when its going well, and they object to covert action and sweeping Presidential power any time their party is out of office -- after all, their guy wields it carefully and reluctantly, while the other party's fellow is liable to start WW III as he flails about.
But that's just the usual B.S. It's not really much of a problem and it keeps so many people in nice suits out of the competition to dig ditches and stock shelves -- 538 just at the top not standing in line when the Hyundayota plant has an opening for a half-dozen wipers, and that doesn't begin to include their flacks and flunkies.
No, the problem is out at the fringes, where both sides wink at their jerks and fools. That's the real enemy. It's not cute to troll for the LOLs, and it doesn't matter if your Nazi/Communist pose is a mask or your deepest soul: you are fanning the flames. It's not cute to treat an incoming President as your Fuhrer and it's not at all cute to riot, smash windows, set fires and try to silence your fellow citizens when they speak. Yet both parties tolerate it, sometimes smiling at the "youthful enthusiasm" -- and then complain that good, regular Muslims tolerate ISIS and the like. Gee, I wonder how that works?
If you like your nice life, if you like arguing politics across the fence with your neighbor, extremists are your enemy -- even the ones on your side.
Waving signs and chanting slogans is one of the best traditions of the free world, right up there with boycotts and Letters to the Editor.. So's circulating petitions and ringing up Your Fool In The Capitol. Smashing and burning is the opposite of that; it communicates nothing Attila the Hun didn't already scribble across human history in letters of blood.
The barbarians are the enemy of every civilized person. Don't let them get away with it. The future depends on it.
I am angry with my left leaning friends, who have often succeeded in making me defend a man whom I didn't support for president. They have, by their own hatred, alienated any possible support from anyone who might have disagreed with them, but who was willing to listen to their arguments. I try to stay out of it, but I fail, to often. I hope to do better, as I just feel sad for them when I get involved in any discussion of politics. I don't think that I have ever been that bitter, in my life.
ReplyDelete"Smashing and burning is the opposite of that; it communicates nothing Attila the Hun didn't already scribble across human history in letters of blood."
ReplyDeleteLeave the violence to your elected representatives. They're trained professionals. :)
I don't often see right leaning people (or folks who say they are right leaning) looting, burning, smashing windows, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt is almost always the leftists....and not most leftists, really.
It is the politicians and the police who let it happen, and wink and nod when it does.
Ferinstance, someone paid for those folks to do the protests in seattle, and DC, and Berkely. Those folks all got to the protest somehow, and got themselves organized somewhere. Failing to find out who is organizing this is failure to uphold the law.
I don't want to point fingers, but I bet it wasn't the Koch bros who did the organizing, or the NRA or any other Right side group.
B, it's the Right that has the real-or-troll Nazis, though, and those guys are part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteBut is it the Right that smashes and burns? Destroys things in protest? Acts like "Brownshirts"?
ReplyDeleteCan't see it, from where I stand. I see Leftists doing that.
Sorry, I can't see where the Right has Nazis, except in the world defined by the Left.
Please explain?
Dude, if you don't see the alt-Right is playing at being Nazis, nothing I can say will change your perception. Words and expressed thoughts matter, and lag only a little behind smashing and burning.
ReplyDeleteThe Far Right and the Far Left are the same kind of danger to civil society. Left unchecked, they will ruin things for the rest of their fellow-citizens.
ReplyDeleteRoberta X said...
Dude, if you don't see the alt-Right is playing at being Nazis, nothing I can say will change your perception. Words and expressed thoughts matter . . .
Yet, Roberta, you have not articulated your position; you have made no real attempt to explain and gain converts; much as the Left is known to do every single time they are contradicted, or exposed. All you have done is reiterate a talking point the Left originated to distract attention away from the acts f their candidates.
I suspect the "silent majority" cares littelf or the antics of either siide of the political brouhaha. I for one am still - a little - hopeful that grownups will prevail, but the probability is that most will leave the "children" to suffer the fruits of their mislabors.
As for your point about the Alt-Right (what exactly do you mean by that, anyway?), many of us would be willing to listen, but you're not talking.
So mo one can give even one explanation of how the "Right" is being Nazi-ish? "Everyone knows" isn't a good explanation. It comes from groupthink, and doesn't show anything.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for being convinced, I just don't see it.
on that, I'm out, so I don't overstay my welcome.
Gosh, B, odd how you drift from "Alt-Right" to "Right..." And for you and "a retired G.I.," here's an illustrative link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o6-bi3jlxk
ReplyDeleteOr, try on the political musings of Theodore Beale for size.
I'm sure you'll get your little Left-Right civil war by and by, but I don;t have a "side" in it: I'm a libertarian. I was hoping you would put it off until I was dead, but if I have to die in a big old pile of spent brass, taking fire from both of the addled sides, well, I'm okay with that. Certainly better than the world the surviving extremists will build.
I have articulated my position plenty, right here on this blog, for years; I'm not after converts because I'm not selling a religion. I haven't got anything to preach other than the Bill Of Rights, all ten Amendments, of which the Left and Right only like four or five apiece and they have plenty of spin to apply to most of that reduced number.
I am not sure if I can characterize myself in any category anymore. It used to be libertarian, small l, because of the poor candidates that the party has run recently. But I tend to lean right on some issues, and left on others, as far as social ones. I am a strong supporter of the constitution as written, the bill of rights in particular, including all of them, with my favorite ignored ones being the 9th and 10th. That there will be a shooting war in our country, I don't know. That we will see a civil war, I am not sure, but I think that we might already have it. I just came to that conclusion, and it makes me sad, and miss my parents. I know that they would not make anything better, I just miss them. I am about ready to say that both sides can go screw themselves and just take care of my own. What a hell of a way for a patriot to have to live, right?
ReplyDelete