When Andrew Sullivan is a voice of reason, you know how out of joint the times are:
The orthodoxy goes further than suppressing contrary arguments and shaming any human being who makes them. It insists, in fact, that anything counter to this view is itself a form of violence against the oppressed. The reason some New York Times staffers defenestrated op-ed page editor James Bennet was that he was, they claimed, endangering the lives of black staffers by running a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who called for federal troops to end looting, violence, and chaos, if the local authorities could not. This framing equated words on a page with a threat to physical life — the precise argument many students at elite colleges have been using to protect themselves from views that might upset them. But, as I noted two years ago, we all live on campus now.
In this manic, Manichean world you’re not even given the space to say nothing. “White Silence = Violence” is a slogan chanted and displayed in every one of these marches. It’s very reminiscent of totalitarian states where you have to compete to broadcast your fealty to the cause. In these past two weeks, if you didn’t put up on Instagram or Facebook some kind of slogan or symbol displaying your wokeness, you were instantly suspect. The cultishness of this can be seen in the way people are actually cutting off contact with their own families if they don’t awaken and see the truth and repeat its formulae. Ibram X. Kendi insists that there is no room in our society for neutrality or reticence. If you are not doing “antiracist work” you are ipso facto a racist. By “antiracist work” he means fully accepting his version of human society and American history, integrating it into your own life, confessing your own racism, and publicly voicing your continued support.
Go here to read the rest. Fight this dangerous idiocy that threatens freedom as surely as any foreign enemy we have encountered in our history.
Abusers always find a reason that you deserve it.
Again, no juveniles on the staff of the Sulzberger Birdcage Liner defenestrated James Bennett. AG. Sulzberger did. A serious executive would have sent out a circular giving a concise explanation of the function of op-ed pages, included a curt dismissal of their stupid ‘concerns’, and told them to get back to their jobs. He might have also told them that unsolicited advice may be tolerated but is seldom appreciated. AG Sulzberger isn’t a serious person. He’s the issue of the latrine of the Ivy League, Brown University, has no practical education whatsoever, and he has spent 16 years working in newsrooms. He married quite late in life (to an NPR employee educated, if that’s what it can be called, in the same latrine). They have one child and likely no time for more.
Take a look at this:
“I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous,” Sulzberger said in a statement released by the Times about the July 20 meeting at the White House. “I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.”
“I repeatedly stressed that this is particularly true abroad, where the president’s rhetoric is being used by some regimes to justify sweeping crackdowns on journalists,” Sulzberger continued. “I warned that it was putting lives at risk, that it was undermining the democratic ideals of our nation, and that it was eroding one of our country’s greatest exports: a commitment to free speech and a free press.”
Hollow man.
The Horror. The Horror.
This AM the local Nassau County, NY [semi-pro] TV news channel and a local village community organizer to whom they gave air time vented their faux outrage over the evil, hate-filled white supremacists that posted on telephone polls “It’s OK To Be White” in a black neighborhood. That’s what gets their bloomers in a bunch. Not that the Nassau County’s poor, benighted blacks are killing, raping, and robbing each other 24/7, when they’re not drunk or doped up out of their crazed minds. Defund telephones polls!
It’s as if America has abolished reason. Of course, criminals, idiots, and black lives matter have no use for sanity.
Permanent bear Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge on millennials, “Once they hit 25, they slowly start to realize that the dream career they had in mind – a sprawling Manhattan apartment, a good-paying job, perhaps as a gossip columnist at a widely read alternative newspaper – is simply beyond their grasp. They didn’t work hard enough, they didn’t have the smarts, the drive or the wisdom. But the notion that their failures are consequences of their own mistakes simply doesn’t compute; it’s not them – it’s the system. It’s capitalism, or racism or white supremacy.” […] “…it’s not you. It’s the system really. It isn’t fair. Go cancel someone. Dox someone. They deserve it. You’re the good guy…”
Not that the Nassau County’s poor, benighted blacks are killing, raping, and robbing each other 24/7, when they’re not drunk or doped up out of their crazed minds. Defund telephones polls!
You have 62 counties in New York State. Nassau County’s violent crime rate ranks 52d.
The rage at ‘it’s ok to be white’ is indubitably derived from the assumption that the speaker doesn’t require a seal of quality from gentry liberals or from black chauvinists. It’s a deft troll.
I get this big-time. 5 of my kids live in the Pacific Northwest and have bought into this nonsense. They try to shame me because of my contrary attitude and get upset when I send them counter-arguments. They accuse me of being un-Christ-like.
All of this beclouding of minds–confusion about justice and mercy–is a work of the devil and is fully supported by the Vatican II Catholic Church. Can the Great Chastisement be near at hand?
I
I noticed something. Notice how much of what the Left says about America Sullivan concedes. I notice that conservatives do that – begin by accepting the accusations and premises of liberalism, and then somehow try to meet them halfway. So America has been a country of racism, slavery, genocide, religious fanaticism, homophobia, bigotry, and on and on – but there are good things, too. Conservatives will also start by saying ‘of course there are conservatives who are racist, bigots, sexist, etc.’ I also notice liberals almost never do this. They never start with a laundry list of everything that is wrong with socialism. They don’t begin by saying ‘of course there are bad liberals out there who are whatever.’ I think that’s one reason for conservatives losing. If every time conservatives wade into a battle, they begin by handing over half of the fight to the opponent, expect a lot of defeats.
Andrew Sullivan is of the Left Dave.
Art,
It’s like that guy that got ‘it’ from the enlightened-outrage mob for tweeting, “:All Lives Matter.”
When I saw the newsy bit, I thought, “I’ve seen better frat pranks, but that is pretty good.”
Of course, I had been home alone since Friday. Ergo, I’m not responsible for anything I said or did until the Warden came back yesterday PM.
Good stuff.
I notice that conservatives do that – begin by accepting the accusations and premises of liberalism, and then somehow try to meet them halfway.
I’d say it’s a signature of Ross Douthat, but quite a menu of characters exhibit the tendency from time to time. A variant of it is commentary for which the point of departure is an attack on the conventional right or smarmy condescension to them. The American Conservatives collective mission is pretty well limited to that, and it’s a consistent feature in the writing of their alumni, like Michael Brendan Dougherty. I don’t know why I waste time reading opinion journalists. They’re all such tools.
Andrew Sullivan is of the Left Dave.
He’s actually sui generis, notable for his exhibitionism. Sullivan, Greenwald, and Taibbi have long been unattractive characters. However, none of them are responsive to the bandwagon effect, and they’re fairly appalled at people who are.
I realize Sullivan is hardly a conservative icon. But the observation remains. He accepts the premises, and then simply tries to add a few ‘but there’s some good, too.’ I see conservatives do this all the time, begin with ‘of course the critics are right here, here and here … but there is some good, too!’ I don’t see those on the left doing this.
Blind fanaticism Dave gives a side certain advantages in political strife, but ultimately it is a dead end. The Left’s game of forcing people to say there are five lights when there are four creates the seeds of their defeat. It also produces endless heresy hunts which end up producing real heretics, from disgust, from their ranks.
I don’t see those on the left doing this.
If you’re a normal person, your understanding of who you are is derived from being someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s husband, someone’s father, a practitioner of some trade, a member of some confession, a citizen of some country, &c. If you’re a leftist, that gets pushed aside and a great deal of your self-understanding is derived from political-tribal affiliations. The effect of this is that you insist on making everything a subsidiary of it, with no realm of life left autonomous. The people who moderated the Ravelry site managed to politicize knitting. The other aspect of this is that you make inane and obnoxious arguments you’d never attempt were your sense-of-self not implicated. See, for example, all the people who invest in Christine Blasey, whose sponsors could not provide one piece of evidence that she’d ever been in the same room with the two young men she accused (and who demonstrably lied about a number of ancillary matters).
I get what you’re saying. I’ve just often felt there is a better way to go. For instance, yes, America was certainly guilty of the universal sin of racism. Or yes, America failed to rise above the ubiquitous institution of slavery faster than it did. Or while America joined other European countries in being among the first to unilaterally abolish slavery, it still failed on certain levels to rise to its highest ideals. Or of course conservatives have their bad apples like anyone. That’s how I think it would be better. No, we wouldn’t want to plow in with ‘Sins on my side? Never!’ I just think the way I see too many frame the discussion as it is handed to them as taking two steps forward and five back.