Insanity of the Left

[Hashi Lebwohl]

In the UK, there is a statue of Ghandi that is under threat of being torn down because of his purported but not proven views towards blacks. There is no actual indication that Ghandi was racist and, in fact, had himself been the victim of racism during his time in South Africa (as well as from some sections of British society).

Many Liberals, especially in the United States, suffer from generalized negativity bias. Despite being born into the wealthiest country in the history of the world and arguably one of the most free, these people focus only on the negatives--sometimes even when the negatives are false.

Of special note here, as with all online forums, is the section on "attirbution of intentions".

Studies reported in a paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Carey Morewedge (2009) found that people exhibit a negativity bias in attribution of external agency, such that they are more likely to attribute negative outcomes to the intentions of another person than similar neutral and positive outcomes. In laboratory experiments, Morewedge found that participants were more likely to believe that a partner had influenced the outcome of a gamble in when the participants lost money than won money, even when the probability of winning and losing money was held even. This bias is not limited to adults. Children also appear to be more likely to attribute negative events to intentional causes than similarly positive events.

In other words, even when given almost no information about another person, we ascribe negative intentions onto them...just like Liberals typically ascribe only the worst intentions or motivations onto Conservatives, the typical one being "racism".

Pay close attention to this other little detail, as well, from the section on "attention":

bad news sells more papers and the bulk of successful novels are full of negative events and turmoil.

Basically, we love bad news and we love to spend a lot of thinking about bad news.

[Avatar]

On Gandhi’s death anniversary, not everyone is grieving

“Gandhi's disgraceful treatment of women is a darker and lesser-known side of his story,” historian Kusoom Vadgama said in an online petition she launched against the Parliament Square statue. Gandhi has been accused of sexual abuse of his grandnieces and psychological abuse of his wife. “That disgrace still continues today: his legacy is a culture that (like him) fails to empathize with the victims of sexual abuse.”

--A

[Skyweir]

haha lol

Hashi next we will be seeking an end to the discrimination of policism but mostly just of the right as they are allegedly the most discriminated against side of the political spectrum ... and very much demonised.

What is it with the Trumpers and self-victimisation?? its rather perplexing.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

As has already been noted, when a group which has historically been the majority realizes that in the near future they might not be the majority members of that group will begin to worry irrationally about what the future holds for them. Given that negativity bias I mentioned ealrier, these people see only negative outcomes.

Now...what is not self-vicitimization is the established fact that various social media platforms actually do censor conservative/right-leaning posts. Liberals cannot tolerate dissenting opinions, which is why conservatives are silenced. Why conservatives have not founded their own social media company that won't censor content is unknown to me.

Avatar, we can find failures in any person if we look hard enough.

[Skyweir]

umm ... general conservative media

Television

Edit
Blaze Media
Newsmax TV
One America News Network
Sinclair Broadcast Group

Talk radio

The Rush Limbaugh Show
The Sean Hannity Show
The Mark Levin Show
The Glenn Beck Show
The Dennis Prager Show
The Savage Nation
The Lars Larson Show
The Alex Jones Show
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Buck Sexton Show
Armstrong & Getty
The Wayne Allyn Root Show

Magazines

National Review
Newsmax Magazine
The American Conservative
The American Spectator
The Weekly Standard
Washington Examiner
Taki’s Magazine
Spectator USA

Newspapers

The Epoch Times
The New York Observer
New York Post
The Washington Times
Websites Edit
American Thinker
TheBlaze
Breitbart News Network
CNSNews
Conservative Review
The Daily Caller
The Daily Signal
The Daily Wire
The Federalist
Fox Nation
Free Republic
The Gateway Pundit
InfoWars
Independent Journal Review
LifeZette
Louder with Crowder
Newsmax
PJ Media
Prntly
Rebel News
Right Side Broadcasting Network
Townhall
TruthRevolt
Twitchy
The Washington Free Beacon
The Western Journal
WorldNetDaily
PragerU

Blogs
Hot Air
Instapundit
Michelle Malkin
Power Line
RedState
Zero Hedge

Social Media

Parler ... heres the link https://parler.com/auth/access

Wait theres more ..

Diaspora
Ello
EyeEm
Vero

And heres a link to alternatives to Facebook https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/onli ... ernatives/

Not enough for ya?

Honestly Parler actually looks very interesting and I hope that financial offer to discuss issues with their conservative-libertarian members is still on offer .. cuz I say ... sign me up.

But dont think that political slagging off is only one sided cuz it most certainly flows both ways ... and a little thicker skin is required.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

There is no conservative alternative to Twitter, Facebook, or now TikTok (which is actaully a Chinese company). Sure, alternatives exist, and I am certain the 500 users they have enjoy it, but they will never have the tens of millions of users the big three platforms enjoy.

Facebook had more to do with trying to influence the outcome of the 2016 election than any Russian agency or farm. Of course, a lot of misinformation on social media platforms comes out of China, Ukraine, and Russia, and those platforms are more than happy to cash the checks those farms give them to host content.

*************

BLM protesters defaced a statue of John Greenleaf Whittier, in Whittier, CA--the town is named after him--whose claim to fame is that he was a poet and--wait for it--an avid and dedicated abolitionist, authored a pamphlet against slavery called "Justice and Expediency" (which actually ended his political aspirations because of the inflence of Southern politicians at the time), and was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Good job, BLM! You don't know history and you want everyone else to forget it, too.

*************

breaking news: the little experiment known as CHOP will be coming to an end. After the second shooting event the city has decided that they are going to reclaim the area, bring down the barriers, and disperse the crowds. Better luck next time, little comrades--you lose.

[Avatar]

I think there's an appreciable difference between conservative or right leaning speech / views and the things Facebook / Twitter "censor."

Also, for example, Twitter isn't censoring Trump, they're asking users to explicitly accept seeing what he's said in some cases (which they obviously will) or linking some comments to factual / objective information regarding that comment.

(And Facebook barely does anything at all. )

As has already been noted, when a group which has historically been the majority realizes that in the near future they might not be the majority members of that group will begin to worry irrationally about what the future holds for them. Given that negativity bias I mentioned ealrier, these people see only negative outcomes.

Yeah, I think you have a good point there, maybe not just for "majorities" but everybody...when all you can see are negative outcomes, that's probably all you ever get.

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

A 1996 video clip has emerged featuring Jimmy Kimmel, a darling of The Left, wearing blackface to impersonate Snoop Dogg and saying the "n-word" a lot.

According to the virtues to which The Left hold dear, Jimmy Kimmel must now be cancelled--his contract must be terminated and his show must be given to a new host.

[SoulBiter]

We are being given fair warning from those that have lived it! Defend your country or it will be destroyed

A slippery slope

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

We need to do more than topple (some) statues [Opinion]

The statue of a Confederate general, Albert Pike, after it was toppled by protesters and set on fire in Washington, D.C., on June 20. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


Toppling the statue of an historical personage is a political act. So is building one. Removing monuments is not more violent than it was to install them in the first place. For those who wish to understand the present moment, the salient point is not "law and order" or "urban decorum." The problem is what we want to do with our past.

Some statues deserve to be toppled and removed because their symbolic value has been undermined by a political and historiographical rethinking of a tragic past. In Italy, my own country of origin, many monuments of the Fascist regime were removed long before it was possible to teach about the 20th-century history of authoritarian regimes. There are other examples as well. In post-communist Eastern Europe, for example, statues from the Soviet era were often moved to museums and parks to become part of a resignification of political art.

But our problem is different. The current toppling of statues in the Western Hemisphere (in the United States, the United Kingdom and parts of Western Europe) is not simply about a change of political regime but about a crisis of civilization. European culture and Christianity have been put on the stand. Of course they are not innocent: Colonialism, slavery, genocide, cultural oppression and white supremacy have made of lot of victims. Are there any cultures or religions that are totally innocent?

Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish philosopher who died in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis, wrote that "there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." I interpret this to mean that destroying statues is not necessarily the most constructive way to elaborate a tragic past and build a different future. We are responsible for the past, and destroying statues will not solve the problem of that responsibility. It could also lead to the assumption that those of us destroying monuments of the past are "on the right side of history" -- something that borders on complacency. Perhaps the language of "being on the right side" works in politics, but intellectually and morally it borders on self-delusion.

What we need is a struggle for justice and the redemption of victims through action that is also political. But this is impossible without a sense of history. Destroying statues makes history look like drama. It should be seen instead as tragedy, where "tragic" means seeing ourselves not only in solidarity with the victims, but also as part of that past.

[...]

This is not just the plea of a historian but also an overall concern about this loss of sense of history. Let me offer two examples. The first deals with the problem of the theological tradition: Are we going to cancel all the Fathers of the Church who held anti-Jewish or sexist views from the great source collections Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina? Or, rather, are we going to read them more contextually in order to learn how the comprehension of the Gospel grows in history?

The second example: The new phase of the sexual abuse crisis (after 2018) has started a new round of research. I think Catholics are still in search of a hermeneutic of history necessary to understand the sexual abuse crisis in a way that is helpful to build and correct its theological and magisterial tradition. The risk is that the church will limit itself to toppling -- literally or figuratively -- some of the monuments of its past, including doctrines, institutions and church leaders.

The Germans, of course, have a word for this: vergangenheitsbewältigung, or "working through the past." Removing statues can be, at best, only part of a much longer and more difficult path ahead. Toppled monuments can create obstacles, or they can be foundation stones.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Debate the issues; don't destroy the statues [In-Depth, Opinion]

A vandalized statue of St. Junipero Serra in San Francisco is seen June 19. (CNS/Reuters/David Zandman)


"History is written by the victors," we are told and of course that is true in one sense. But history is actually written by historians, and their interpretations and reinterpretations of events change. It is why a consequential historical personage like Queen Elizabeth I or Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I or Abraham Lincoln requires many biographers. It is why each subsequent generation of the peoples whose history is bound up with these great historical figures must revisit their lives and pose new questions to them. It is why, over time, we learn that their flaws were often as great as their achievements.

[...]

In the late 19th century, Britons might have been willing to tear down the duke's statue but there was no effort, and could have been no such effort, to strip his name from its American associations where anti-Catholicism was still pronounced. This was the era of anti-immigrant "Blaine Amendments," which aimed to keep public support from Catholic schools. Catholics were still routinely discriminated against in the U.S. into the first half of the 20th century. Oregon's Compulsory Education Act, a thinly veiled attempt to shut down Catholic schools, was passed in 1922, with support from that state's Masons and Ku Klux Klan. Six years later, when Al Smith became the first Catholic to run for the presidency, Protestants distributed palm cards in Florida that read, "If he is chosen President, you will not be allowed to have, or read, a Bible."

So, when the Knights of Columbus erected a statue to Fr. Junipero Serra in what is now downtown Los Angeles in 1932, a statue that was torn down last weekend, as when they erected statues to Christopher Columbus throughout the land in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were taking a symbolic stand against the Klan and its nativism. They were saying that there were Catholic roots in this land, some of which went back as far as the Protestant roots. They were saying that Italian-Americans and Mexican-Americans belonged here as much as Americans whose ancestors hailed from Protestant lands.

Vandalizing a statue erected for such reasons is as objectionable as it was to toss the Pachamama statue into the Tiber at last year's Amazon synod. If we are to debate whether or not Serra and Columbus still deserve a place in the American pantheon, let us debate the issue, not destroy the statues. Let us be mindful that what we might view as objectionable, others may cherish, and not because they are racists.

I deplore vandalism, but no one should shed a tear for the removal of Confederate statues erected to nullify the emancipation of the Black Americans that the Civil War had accomplished. On both points, the record of the man and the motives of the statue-builders, monuments to Davis should be removed.

[...]

I am no expert on the California missions, but from what I know of the missions there, and more broadly about how white Europeans interacted with native peoples, however problematic things got with Catholic missions, things got much worse for the native peoples when English-speaking Americans arrived and secularized the missions. The history of Spanish conquest was often brutal, but only the English took an exterminationist approach.

Serra evangelized in ways we would never think to do today, but if we had lived when he did, we are fooling ourselves if we think we would have evangelized in ways markedly different from those he employed. We should never examine such cases anachronistically, judging him by the standards of our day, not by the standards of his own time, in order to make him into a bad guy. It is wrong to simply tear down his statue on his own merits, and even more so when you consider the reasons that statue was erected in the first place, to demonstrate that Spainard Catholics were a part of the American story.

It is an odd fact of Western culture that while we nod when told the victors write history and see that they are the most likely to be memorialized in stone and statuary, nonetheless the most common human image in Western art is not a scene of victory: The crucifix does not portray human victory. Statues of the risen Lord or of the empty tomb are not unknown, but they pale by comparison to the sheer number and variety of crucifixion portrayals. Further, it is a remarkable fact that it is this image of the crucified that has so often moved the hearts of the serfs in Russia and the slaves in Alabama and the Indigenous of Chiapas. Remarkable, too, that images of his mother have found such a prominent place in the spiritual devotion of the poor throughout history.

[...]

In our multicultural society, we need to invite each other to discuss what constitutes a beam and what a splinter. America's puritanical streak often wears the mask of moral reformation, from the Salem witch trials in the 1690s and Prohibition in the 1920s, but the Gospel points us in a different direction. Those of us who are white Christians have a moral obligation to sympathize with the sadness an Indigenous person feels when he or she sees a statue of Columbus or Serra, but no one is obligated to applaud historical anachronism. The vandalism of the statues should stop. And we should all contemplate this humbling fact: None of us knows what things we do now will, 200 or 300 years hence, be viewed as barbaric or inhumane.

[Kizza]

We are being given fair warning from those that have lived it! Defend your country or it will be destroyed

A slippery slope

That Venezuelan lady has nice hair.
I cant stand that indignant, myopic, bandwagon anthem cheering news reporter though. If you must have her from FoxNews and that Don Lemon guy from CNN on tv, then make it a midnight show. Between them, their biased efforts grease the slippery slope.

[SoulBiter]

That Venezuelan lady has nice hair.

Is that really all you got from that? A dissatisfaction with the reporter and a comment about the Venezuelan ladies hair. Which by the way should make her indignant.... she had an actual topic to discuss, you only see her nice hair.

[SoulBiter]

Black Lives Matter president Hawk Newsome of NY gave an interview that should alarm everyone. If anyone thought this was about equality, they should listen to this guy.

If this country doesn't give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.

I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary.

Sovereignty is the full right and power of a governing body over itself, without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority.

That isnt equality, that is coming right out and saying we want blacks to be in charge and be sovereign in this country.

[Lazy Luke]

That Venezuelan lady has nice hair.

Translation:

Ooh, nice tits.

Taking down statues is a "healthy expression" of anger.

Translation:

Ah ForgetAboutIt

[Gaius Octavius]

A 1996 video clip has emerged featuring Jimmy Kimmel, a darling of The Left, wearing blackface to impersonate Snoop Dogg and saying the "n-word" a lot.

According to the virtues to which The Left hold dear, Jimmy Kimmel must now be cancelled--his contract must be terminated and his show must be given to a new host.

To be fair, Jimmy Kimmel sucks as a comedian.

[Kizza]

That Venezuelan lady has nice hair.

Is that really all you got from that? A dissatisfaction with the reporter and a comment about the Venezuelan ladies hair. Which by the way should make her indignant.... she had an actual topic to discuss, you only see her nice hair.

Um, I thought I pointed to the media as the means for your slippery slope and not the statues. Depending on how the leadership leads, the media will inflame or calm the majority and isolate the minority as either heroes or villains. Maybe a successful media depends on how easy it is to believe as opposed to how true it is. That interviewer has shouted and shut down anything she doesn't like every time I have seen her on the tv.
If a statue goes over in Australia, does that put Australia on the same slippery slope to destination Venezuela? I dont think so.
If the majority are pulling down statues and the minority dont like it, does any of the following sound familiar? Pent up social issues, political repression, crime, economic downturn, corruption, poverty, censorship, unemployment, hyperinflation, shortages, undernutrition, human rights violations.... proximity to cocaine....

Is the slippery slope a comparison between Trump and Chavez or Maduro(sp)?

I admire the fierce pedigree of independence of the US and its citizens. That said, I understand if you don't like my response or understand my meaning.
From my perspective, an Orange march through a catholic Belfast neighbourhood is offensive and obscene and would drive me to irrational and regrettable behaviour and distraction. Like a nazi flag probably does to a jew, or as a confederate flag might be to an African American.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That isnt equality, that is coming right out and saying we want blacks to be in charge and be sovereign in this country.

I wouldn't worry about him--that guy is a talker, not a doer. He sounds tough in an interview but I suspect he doesn't have the balls to get his hands dirty and actually do anything about it.

Black Americans are already liberated and have been since 1863--I can only presume that he did not get the memo. I don't see how that is possible since we had a holiday about it only a week ago. I presume he was either in a coma or out of the country from 2009 to 2017--a black man was The Man for 8 years, so how was that not liberating?

*************

The BLM is now upset over a statue commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation--a statue which was paid for by newly-freed former slaves after Lincoln's death--because the black man depicted in it is kneeling while Lincoln is standing. They don't understand the context--the black man is in the process of rising to his feet to stand as an equal alongside Lincoln, not kneeling in deference to him.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Now we have proof that pulling down statues is not specifically a response to slavery. Students at the University of Wisconsin want a statue of Lincoln to come down because he signed the Homestead Act of 1862 and ordered the deaths of 38 men from the Dakota Nation.

These people will not be happy until any statue commemorating a white person from before 1940 has been pulled down.

*************

New York is cutting $1 billion from the police budget. That is not enough for AOC, though--she wants the NYPD to be completely defunded in its entirety. I am uncertain what her constituents will do when the criminals target them should the NYPD cease to exist, but then I don't think she cares what happens to her constituents.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Wisconsin bishop denounces activist's call to destroy statues of Jesus [In-Depth]

In this undated file photo, Shaun King poses where he was the lead pastor of Courageous Church in Midtown Atlanta. (Credit: Vino Wong/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)


MADISON, Wisconsin -- Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison June 24 denounced comments by a Black Lives Matter activist who said statues of Jesus Christ that depict him "with European features" need to come down "because they support white supremacy."

As a shepherd of the Catholic Church, "I cannot remain silent. I need to denounce such a call to violence and destruction," the bishop said, responding to a June 22 tweet by activist and writer Shaun King about "the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus."

"Our statues, pictures, stained-glass windows, churches, icons and devotions are holy to us," Hying said. "They are sacramentals, blessed and sacred, visible expressions of the love of God, poured out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and made manifest in the saints."

Hying's remarks came in an open a letter posted on the website of the Catholic Herald diocesan newspaper, which addressed the broader issue of the need for the country to come to terms with its moral failings in its history as a nation, but to do so with a national educational effort and respectful discussion, not through destruction and violence aimed at statues and memorials.

Regarding King's call for the "destruction of 'white' artistic depictions of Jesus," the bishop said, "The principle of enculturation merits our reflection here."

"In the Catholic Church, every culture, country, ethnicity and race has claimed Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary as their own," Hying explained. "Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to St. Juan Diego as a mestiza, African art depicts Jesus as Black, Asian depictions of the Blessed Mother, too, take on similarities of both bodily appearance and, often, cultural garb.

"In this context, are white representations of Christ and his Mother inherently signs of white supremacy?" he asked. "I think not. Because the Son of God became incarnate in our human flesh, does not all of humanity -- every race, tribe and tongue -- have the spiritual ability to depict him through the particular lens of their own culture?"

[...]

In the Catholic Church's missionary outreach, some "have mistakenly equated the fullness of Catholicism with European culture," he said. "We have learned over time, as have others, to approach a different culture with respect and humility, recognizing the inherently authentic human elements already present in each person and place."

"A robust proclamation of the Gospel will purify every culture of its negative and destructive elements, but will leave intact its beauty, goodness and truth," Hying said. "Belief in Jesus as Our Lord and Savior only makes us more fully human and more deeply rooted in the worth of our respective culture and country."

The statues, stained-glass windows, icons and the church's other sacramentals that some, like King, would like to destroy, he said, "remind us of God, his love for us in Christ and the nearness of the divine."

Catholics "must not surrender must not surrender our religious liberty to the voices that seek the destruction of our public presence," he said.

"Religious freedom, given to man by God himself, and guaranteed by our Constitution, allows us as Catholics to practice our faith, build our churches, pray in public, put up statues and crucifixes on our property, and serve the common good through a remarkable network of health care, schools and social services," Hying said.