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Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), "Sower with Setting Sun," 1888.
So I have always disagreed with the Randian libertarians who think that all collectivism and all moves towards socialism are an attempt to take power over the masses. I’ve always sided with Milton Friedman who famously believed that leftists were well-meaning people.
Joy Reid and the anti-Doge campaign have made me rethink that noble sentiment. Gad Saad has made the argument that ties together these two contradictory ideas. His explanation is that humans are constantly evolving to take advantage of each other and they are evolving to resist being taken advantage of. Eventually tricksters evolved the ability to believe in their compassionate ideology to hide their psychopathic will to power.
Islam is a good example of this. When they kill or enslave Jews or Christians, it’s in the name of a kind and loving Allah. By forcing them into Islam, they are helping them. Sort of like Communists sending the wrong-thinking people into Gulags. Forcible conversion seems to have many fans among people with this mentality.
After contemplating some clips on the internet about Joy Reid, I reckon that she believes her nonsense. By convincing herself that anyone who disagrees with her is an evil Nazi she can justify the use of any government force.
This train of thought logically brought me to Joy Reid. I think she genuinely believed all her crazy nonsense in order to seek domination over people different from her. By believing it, she can further her political tribes' consolidation of government power. Maybe Rand had a point.
On a related note, I think Joy Reid and the regular MSM make white people more racist towards black people. On the rare occasions when I watch the local news, the black people they have on are always against white people. According to them, all the problems that black Americans have are the result of white people’s racism; whites are racist all the time unless they support Democrats; America is a very bad, no good country and your ancestors were hamsters who smelt of elderberries (I might have misremembered the last one). I also notice that there is a white lady who agrees with the haranguing black person.
I doubt these news programs affect white people who work with black people. I suspect that over the water cooler, white and black Americans talk about sports and their favorite Netflix shows, as Americans are wont to do. But in Idaho I suspect it has a more pernicious effect because there are extremely few blacks there, so the depictions on the news shows carry more weight.
Conversely, I think Fox News helps make white Idahoans less racist. On Fox News there are leftwing blacks, but they tend to be nicer. Also, there are blacks like Cyrus who likes sports and Tyrus. Tyrus also talks and makes jokes like a masculine blue-collar guy unlike the blacks on the local MSM who are either effeminate or take pains to speak in a way that shows that they went to college. A slightly racist kinda rednecky Idaho guy could watch Tyrus and think/feel, “I can relate to this guy.”
The firing of a race grifter is not in and of itself an important event — welcome though it may be. What is important is the vibe shift we are seeing throughout the wider ethos of American culture and society.
I pay attention to the nerdy pop culture front and things are clearly changing. Mainstream video games such as Avowed are falling in sales as people turn to indie developers who aren’t interested in preaching to their customers. Apple is backpedaling on DEI. Younger folks are reading manga rather than comic books. Perhaps most importantly, one of the DOGE wunderkinds was not fired for the dumb tweets he made.
There is a shift in in the air and the old tactics aren’t working anymore. Not just here in the USA, but in Europe too, wokism is being rethought. I’m not sure where this will go, but it’s interesting to observe.
Discussion (33)
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If I understand you correctly, you have come to believe that
AND
Congrats.
Now if you will just stop starting articles with "So", we can finally stand in the gap, shoulder to shoulder. It is not a moment too soon.
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I think both are correct. Most leftists I know don't understand trade-offs. Many believe we can have a wonderfully large state that provides goodies for all of us but will not invade any of our civil liberties. I think the lefties in charge want as much power as possible so they can mold our society the way they want. The good side of the left doesn't understand the malevolence of the other side.
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I agree and I think your last sentence is about the only way to explain it. I've seen it in close family members who I know are very good people.
I think the evil occurs when the power and control aspect dominates and excludes the other good intentioned attributes
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The problem is the "good" side is unwittingly manipulated by the bad side.
Good-hearted people can seek dominion over others and it is still evil.
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But conversely, if you were not well-meaning...
Let's say you were downright nasty and wanted steal people's wealth, and maybe imprison them or otherwise make their lives miserable. And you needed to rally up support, funding, people, and resources to accomplish this.
How would you market that operation?
I'm guessing you'd make up some virtuous cause.
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