Here's what Hough wrote in the NYT:
This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem, of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The blacks get a decline in wages after inflation.ADDED: Let me front-page what I just wrote the comments:
But the blacks get symbolic recognition in an utterly incompetent mayor who handled this so badly from beginning to end that her resignation would be demanded if she were white. The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word “colored.” The racism against what even Eleanor Roosevelt called the yellow races was at least as bad.
So where are the editorials that say racism doomed the Asian-Americans. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existemt because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King [statue]. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.
Hough was foolish to use "the" and to bring up "strange new" names. It undermined his point and made him an easy target.He's mostly making an old point about the assimilation strategy, but even if he'd made that point more in line with present-day "civility" standards, he'd be missing something. For one thing, trying to blend in could signify a "desire for integration," but it could also represent a fear of discrimination. For another, immigrants and the descendants of immigrants have a different background than the descendants of slaves.
He wasn't more guarded, and his excuse now is that he's old, so he can just blurt things out in the form that they occur to him. The implication is that other people's thoughts look just as racist, but they edit their thoughts when they speak.
ON RE-THINK: Hough's deviations from present-day "civility" standards got us paying attention to him. Prior to that, he wasn't publishing op-eds in the NYT. He was a commenter on a NYT editorial. If he'd been circumspect and appropriate, we wouldn't be reading the rest of what he has to say. That's the thing about civility...
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160 comments:
I like this guy, "Speaking truth to power" just isn't the same when it turns on the left.
“Anyone who says anything is [called] a racist and ignorant, as I was called by a colleague.
Diversity hates nonconformity.
Dog bites man. PETA denies dogs have teeth.
I would much rather hear someone explain what exactly is incorrect about his comments than see him punished for writing them.
While it is true in the course of defending himself the Duke boy talks about being 80, he does this as an affirmative argument declaiming something most people understand as true: Lots of old people don't give a poop about niceties in the way they did when young.
I just saw Winnebago Man on Netflix before my free month trial period ended, and the eponymous protagonist makes the same point, as does nearly every person over 64 it seems, in many cases numerous times in a single conversation.
"The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves. "
The term "the blacks" rubs me the wrong way. But the sentence above is correct.
Detroit was run into the ground on the politics of telling black people to feel sorry for themselves, to see that the whites just wanted to hold them down.
Oh, and can we talk about the mayor?
Calling in the DOJ to investigate the police department procedures. She's the mayor! If she wants to fix the police department, she can do it!
It's ridiculous that the WaPo includes quotes from RateMyProfessor.com in that article -- someone having an axe to grind against a professor is not subjective, but I guess if it "proves" the guy is a big old meanie stuck in the 1970s and therefore a racist, it's all good?
The professor makes good points that are of course misinterpreted by racism hucksters.
Why is he still teaching, though, at 80? And he expects to go 'til 2016? Retire, man. Let someone younger take over.
I don't have much of a problem with anyone saying anything. I think many here would be hypocritical to make a similar claim, having run off the only black commenter and the few liberal women who dared to express contrary opinions.
This is a link to someone portraying being FIFTY years old. FIFTY years old.
Her name is Molly Shannon and she has appeared in the great Television program entitled "The Middle."
I think the term "the blacks" is racist, although some people would say racialist. But he's hardly the only one to practice it. After all, we divide people into races on our census. Our government divides us into "the blacks" and "the whites" and "the Hispanics." People quibble at the margins, upset at "the blacks" but perfectly happy with "African-American people." Arguing about semantics misses the point.
You want to stop racism? Stop dividing people into races. Stop thinking that way. Just stop it. These divisions are man-made, irrational, and stupid.
Oh so a black man can't run off himself, it takes white people to run him off? You racist, blacks are the fastest runners on the planet!!!
He's offended by what blacks ought to be offended by.
AReasonableMan said...
I don't have much of a problem with anyone saying anything. I think many here would be hypocritical to make a similar claim, having run off the only black commenter and the few liberal women who dared to express contrary opinions.
And for the life of you, you can't figure out why.
Think on it. It will come to you.
"Driven by a rash of shootings early in the year, Durham’s violent-crime rate for 2014 was up 15 percent from the year before, according to Police Chief Jose L. Lopez’s annual crime report to the City Council."
Raleigh News & Observer....here.
Durham can be a scary place.
Saint Croix said, "You want to stop racism? Stop dividing people into races. Stop thinking that way. Just stop it. These divisions are man-made, irrational, and stupid."
That's incorrect. These divisions are instinctive and rational. Stupid they may be, but it takes smarts and effort to point that out.
Racism is innate. That's why it's so strong among people who claim it's only practiced against themselves: they get a free pass.
The "infirmity" of old age is not necessarily the basis for his comment. He's an academic. An 80 year old academic, one year away from retirement, is not as vulnerable to the ostracism and retaliation that follows such an unpopular statement. A younger person would be engaging in career suicide. For Hough there is no future career left to kill.
The term "blacks" isn't racist. In days gone by it was the stock-standard non-racist word for African-Americans (before the term "African-Americans" was introduced).
Anyway, if "blacks" is racist then "white" is also racist, and I hear that one thrown around all the time, on TV, everywhere. Since "white" obviously isn't racist, neither is "black."
Hough was foolish to use "the" and to bring up "strange new" names. It undermined his point and made him an easy target.
Why is he still teaching, though, at 80? And he expects to go 'til 2016? Retire, man. Let someone younger take over.
Get with the paradigm.
The retirement age is an artifact of the 20th century and needs to be dispensed with as we move into a future of increased longevity. If he can teach well, let him teach.
He wasn't more guarded, and his excuse now is that he's old, so he can just blurt things out in the form that they occur to him. The implication is that other people's thoughts look just as racist, but they edit their thoughts when they speak.
He is from a way of thinking that all races are acceptable as equals;, PROVIDED THAT, the join in and affirm the common values of the culture.
Those values are, dare we speak it, Christian neighborliness that says what is right and what is wrong.
Hough's complaint is that so many African Americans avoided doing that work to join in the culture. MLK and Herman Cain are examples of men who did join in.
The media blitz and the Progressives want to defeat that common culture and replace it with a King who is non-white...and the no borders Hispanics and the Wall Street world currency uber alles guys say great idea.
As a white male with a great two-parent upbringing, I think I have special insight into what constitutes racism.
I see racism practiced everywhere, but nowhere more than in the blue states.
Nowhere more than among minority communities...although American Jews and Americans of Asian descent are notable exceptions.
South Pacific said "You've Got to Be Taught". That's backward. You've got to be taught not to hate. Otherwise, you probably will hate instinctively.
I thought the "Hey Twitter, it's Barack" would bring some much needed confidence in the black people's lives but no, they are just collecting their millions and pushing the others down even further. Did you hear MO's commencement address at some university?
Ann Althouse said...
Hough was foolish to use "the" and to bring up "strange new" names. It undermined his point and made him an easy target.
No, he's right about the names. The bizarre (to white Americans) names that so many black people name their children is one way they show that they do not want to be part of "white" "American" culture.
And the word "the" is the problem? No.
Incidentally, the guy has excellent creds.
Hough has taught at Duke for 40 years and is set to stop teaching in 2016, he told the News & Observer. He holds three degrees from Harvard and has penned numerous opinion pieces for national publications, including The Washington Post.
Black, black, black. Negro, negro, negro. Nigger, nigger, nigger. Just words, not mystical incantations. Free your minds! Get the fuck over it.
I thought the name comparison between Asian and Black cultures was a good one to illustrate his point. May not have been tactful but why be tactful when you have nothing to lose.
I remember my husband telling me when we first came to this country that if an Asian name has a regular Christian first name, they would have grown up here and that was 25+ years ago.
Althouse wrote:
"The implication is that other people's thoughts look just as racist, but they edit their thoughts when they speak."
Well, yeah.
Names that blacks give to their children, Loveline show. (youtube)
H/T Radio Derb
Tank wrote:
"Incidentally, the guy has excellent creds."
And cited this:
"Hough has taught at Duke for 40 years and is set to stop teaching in 2016, he told the News & Observer. He holds three degrees from Harvard and has penned numerous opinion pieces for national publications, including The Washington Post."
For a Duke professor, "penn[ing]" Op Eds in newspapers does not at all count as "excellent creds."
The name thing is true and it points out how ridiculous some black parents are. Why add, at birth, a glaring disadvantage to your child?
"The Invention of Lying" with Tina Fey and Jennifer Garner is an amusing Romantic Comedy. I mean an amusing premise with its moments.
Why is he still teaching, though, at 80?
Why not? Mind never gets old. I subscribe to the idea that people should be allowed to pursue their profession to their dying day if they are competent. I don't think he is raking in a six figure salary doing it now. May be he teaches a class or two at $10K a piece. The gal I know who does facials is a 75 year old and I love how active she is.
"For another, immigrants and the descendants of immigrants have a different background than the descendants of slaves."
What a racist thing to say.
They don't have a different BACKGROUND, they have a different HISTORY. Some of their ancestors were slaves, some were legal immigrants just like my ancestors (albeit from different continents). The discrimination that occurred within the memory of their living relatives did not depend on whether they were descendants of slaves.
Blacks would be a lot smarter if people said what they thought.
A better way to illustrate it might have been to compare black urban culture to white hillbilly culture. In both cases strong cultural drivers keep members isolated from mainstream American culture. In both cases the worst cultural habit is to view those who succeed in the mainstream as somehow being untrue to their subculture. The advantage the redneck who wants out has is that once they lose the accent and the attitude they look like any other northern European who hasn't had the idea that "forgetting their roots" is a transgression.
Compare and contrast that to the primary disadvantage that Asians have, which is that when they show talent, skill, and initiative, they still look Asian and therefore can be discriminated against by Europeans and Blacks who hold more political power today.
The cultural habits kids are raised with aren't examined nearly as closely as they should be. It's far easier to focus on race than to worry about how subcultures are raising their kids.
It's not an "I'm old" defense. It's an "I'm old" you can't hurt me explanation for taking on the mob.
It's the "whatta you gonna do, kill me?" defense. He's refusing to pay Don Corleone.
PC rules. Screw them. He made valid points. Of course the fainting-couch left fainted. The left are devastated by debate, so they shut it down by shouting "racist sexist" at every turn.
Might as well have the conversation without them.
I was talking to an old-timer in the commercial tile business the other day. He said that he never sees blacks in the building trades. why is that?
I disagree with Ann about the new Black names and Asians using old white ones. Instead, you have Black names that scream being Black. Yhe funny thing is that even in my (Baby Boom) generation, Blacks were still mostly using European first names with their European last names. You know that almost anyone with these bizarre new black first names is black, and statistically probably both a whiner and incompetent. Why would you ask someone like that in for an employment interview, if you weren't engaging in Affirmative Action or worse?
What is wrong with assimilation? It has been going on here since not long after our founding. Immigrants from the 19th century forward have anglicized their first names. And often last names too. No surprise that they have melted into the melting pot, and now thrive on their own merits. Blacks in this country have moved in just the opposite direction, giving up their (mostly) English names for Africanized names.
I think that the big thing here is that the Africanization of names is indicative of a major problem. Many in the poorer black communities have also given up on other "white" traits like book learning, going to work (on time), etc. Where many of the skills that are essential for success in today's complex technological world are considered too "white" for self-respecting young blacks in these communities. When trying to understand the poverty in these communities, no one is allowed, by political correctness, to point out that much of it is because so many there are functionally illiterate, thanks to their rejection of literate "white" society.
The Irish adapted to American culture quickly and they were catholic. The Germans never thought twice about adapting because they worked so hard.
Italians, and even Sicilians adapted in a generation.
The Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos adapted in two generations and they too were brought here to be a slave labor force.
American culture is accepting to all who join it. The hard part is the instinctive African desire to serve a strong man/King. The American culture we offer hem to join into literally hates Kings. We prefer Congresses/Legislatures up for reelection in two years or less.
"Hough was foolish to use "the" and to bring up "strange new" names. It undermined his point and made him an easy target."
"The" was off. But oddly, it also fits the reification of racial categories that Progs have imposed.
"The" is also inaccurate because there are big difference between native-born and immigrant blacks.
The strange names support his point. Honest Prog reaction would be: so what? Blacks have every right to signal their disapproval of "white culture."
The big problem with Hough's be-like-Asians remedy is that it's not clear native-born blacks can do it, even if the Prog elite would change course. Family and educational gaps are massive.
Nobody gets in academic trouble for being wrong.
A fellow Duke professor compared Hough’s statement to a “micro noose.”
If anyone should be canned, it's the micro-witted sloganeers.
MayBee said...
The term "the blacks" rubs me the wrong way.
Saint Croix said...
I think the term "the blacks" is racist, although some people would say racialist.
But not "the Asians"?
But he's hardly the only one to practice it.
The others being every government agency and every major media outlet. But it's OK for them because they're pretending that "the blacks" are victims.
I'm 80 means the PC establishment lacks threats that matter to him.
Or perhaps that he knows better from working prior to the PC academic shutdown.
It's more impressive to say what you think when the effective threats exist, of course.
The name thing is true, but it's irrelevant to the point he was supposed to be making--that the current liberal equality regime is harmful to blacks by encouraging them not to strive for better. He diluted his point by picking a fight he didn't need to pick.
Rusty said...
And for the life of you, you can't figure out why.
Trust me, I can think of good reasons why this might be. Probably not the ones you came up with.
The fainting couch left would still like to destroy him. That's how they roll.
Ann Althouse said, "He wasn't more guarded, and his excuse now is that he's old, so he can just blurt things out in the form that they occur to him."
I'm old, I'm a professor, I have a Ph.D., I'm Joe Biden, I'm African-American, I'm dying, I'm dead, I've been raped, I'm so rich I don't care, I'm Muslim...
These are not valid walls against proof of malice or stupidity, but they can be valid statements in preparation for saying something politically incorrect.
Most Popular U.S. Baby Names
"For one thing, trying to blend in could signify a "desire for integration," but it could also represent a fear of discrimination."
Either way, it certainly produced a better result.
This case juxtaposes nicely with the black professor at Boston University who ranted about how white males were a "problem population," after which the BU president issued a statement noting that she had the "right to hold and express her opinions," even if he disagreed with them. Did I miss the Duke statement affirming this professor's right to express his opinions?
I can understand this guy's frustration. The original article is the usual whiney liberal pap. As anyone who can leave does, Blacks take political control of cities like this, and that is when they really go into the crapper. My theory is that the basic problem is that they have been Democrats long enough that they accept disfunctional and corrupt Dem machine politics as normal. And, of course, politically correct fauthors like this aren't going to even look at the systemic progressive causes behind these seemingly intractable problems.
When a group of folks acts as monolithic as Blacks do (e.g. >95% block voting), they earn the article/adjective "the".
One of the plot devices in “The Wire” was the police had accessed the gangster’s cell phones, but they couldn’t understand what they were saying. The gangsters spoke their own language. That sounds like a cool idea, until you think about the ramifications. How could poor urban blacks born into an English speaking society, speak a different language.
It says a lot about the lack of honest discussion that only those with little to loose dare to speak up and then they are nitpicked over language and focus.
Frontal lobe disinhibition is a bitch.
JSD said...
. . . That sounds like a cool idea, until you think about the ramifications. How could poor urban blacks born into an English speaking society, speak a different language.
As I've pointed out before, the problem is not so much that Blacks are too unemployed. It's that they are too unemployable.
And that is, perhaps, somewhat by design. A feature, not a bug. Helps keep the 'America is racist' meme alive.
Eighty year old from Duke has much in common with the young lad who commented on the Emperor's new suit.
The NY Times Editorial started the ball rolling, in a typically misleading, uncritical, fashion.
Every inquiry into the modern day problems concerning black urban communities cannot reflexively be explained away by "past historical racism"
Yes, there was past historical racism in this country. It is our original sin. But many honorable men & women, blacks & whites, struggled to end it. Yes, there remains work to be done.
But, in 2015, the primary struggles in the black community have very little to do with "past historical racism" or "current police brutality" . There is a lack of fathers. There is a lack of high school graduation. There is a lack of capitalism. There is a lack of cohesive family support. There is too much dependency on government, too much crime, too many births out of wedlock, not enough marriage and stability.
Detroit, Baltimore and parts of Chicago didn't just "happen." The current troubles found therein were "caused" by a multitude of forces, some historical (I concede), but some active and current and correctable. The NY Times and the Left in general, trumpet the former, and ignore the latter. Which is why the problems rarely get addressed, let alone solved.
"For one thing, trying to blend in could signify a "desire for integration," but it could also represent a fear of discrimination."
In this immigrant's opinion a certain amount of fear of discrimination by the majority is a necessity to break into the larger group. But I parse the fear of discrimination at the emotional level and not in the legal sense. Most of us want to feel that sense of belonging and we do seek acceptance as much as we seek to accept that which is alien.
The "name thing" shouldn't hurt blacks, but studies show that it does--employers are less likely to hire someone with a "black" first name than a white one, or so I've heard--and if this is the case then it makes sense that blacks give their children "black" names to their detriment. Maybe this is unfair--if true, it is certainly unfair as a name your parents chose has nothing to do with your qualities--but you have to deal with the reality you live in. Name your kids "John" and "Cathy" if you want to play it safe (or "Jaden" or "Madison" if you want to sound like trendy white people).
Accepting the premise that blacks face certain racial disadvantages today--which I do--this still doesn't justify a cult of victimhood which is pushed by the Left. There is hardly a surer way to keep someone from striving and taking advantage of the assets they do have than to tell them the deck is stacked against them. Every minority group that overcame disadvantages in this country has done so by working extra hard, assimilating, and adhering to universal values--and while the black experience is unique it doesn't mean such a path isn't available to them.
There's nothing that this guy says or believes that isn't just a slight shift of blame-focus, and a few out-of-date phrasings, off being perfectly politically correct. He shares his fundamental views about race with the most rabid SJW.
That's what's disturbing about these now regularly-scheduled Two-Minute Hates. Hough isn't an iconoclast speakin' world-view shattering truth to power. He just neglected to run his conventionally pious views on race through the Old Guy-to-Newspeak translator.
It's one thing when the usual suspects go nuts over a Derbyshire or a Razib Khan. It's stupid and unjust, but understandable - it's human to react strongly and even irrationally when one's cherished and comforting core beliefs about reality are threatened. But today's amped-up, non-stop witch-hunting frenzy, where hapless old liberal goodthinkers like Hough are being dragged off their porch-rockers and strung up by an "anti-racist" mob that needs a new victim, any victim, every day? Friends, we've moved onto a whole new level of stupid and crazy here.
Unknown said...
"For another, immigrants and the descendants of immigrants have a different background than the descendants of slaves.
Not true. Immigrants from Jamaica, T&T, Barbados, Virgin Islands, etc., and their descendants have the same background.
The "name thing" shouldn't hurt blacks, but studies show that it does--employers are less likely to hire someone with a "black" first name than a white one, or so I've heard--and if this is the case then it makes sense that blacks give their children "black" names to their detriment. Maybe this is unfair--if true, it is certainly unfair as a name your parents chose has nothing to do with your qualities--but you have to deal with the reality you live in. Name your kids "John" and "Cathy" if you want to play it safe (or "Jaden" or "Madison" if you want to sound like trendy white people).
But this holds true for other names, not just black sounding ones. It's been a long time since I read it, but doesn't Freakonomics also stipulate that there are names that are deemed lower class (of which the black sounding names are apart)? So naming your daughter Brittany or Shanequa today will ultimately prove the same result.
Larvell said...
This case juxtaposes nicely with the black professor at Boston University who ranted about how white males were a "problem population," after which the BU president issued a statement noting that she had the "right to hold and express her opinions," even if he disagreed with them
Heh. Great point.
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we -- I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards," Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.
He said that Americans are afraid to talk about race, adding that "certain subjects are off-limits and that to explore them risks at best embarrassment and at worst the questioning of one's character."
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we -- I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards," Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.
He said that Americans are afraid to talk about race, adding that "certain subjects are off-limits and that to explore them risks at best embarrassment and at worst the questioning of one's character."
Mission accomplished! Obama administration, high fives all around!
What is wrong with assimilation?
Stifling? Loss of self-identity.
I don't know. I can blend in.
AprilApple wrote,
"I was talking to an old-timer in the commercial tile business the other day. He said that he never sees blacks in the building trades. why is that?"
For proof of the old timers statement one only has to go as far as watching PBS episodes of, This Old House where week after week mostly white men repair and renovate. There are a smattering of women, mostly designers, but blacks only show up when it is a black specific project, like the Roxbury House. Even then the blacks, when given the opportunity to display their talents, are woefully slow and inefficient.
His statements can properly be characterized as controversial, perhaps even hostile, but to claim that they are "noxious" is overstating it quite a bit. Why not discuss the point he's making. Does a name like Dashawn help or hinder a child's advancement in America? Does it reflect a certan amount of alienation on the parents' part or is the unease that such a name causes among whites merely a projection of the whites' own racial distrust. When you call the remarks "noxious", you are stating that they are the poisonous beliefs of an evil man and not worthy of consideration or debate. You're not refuting his point. You're refuting the man.
Don't remember the black comedian who wondered if mothers get the names for their children from the drugstore.
"Hey, come on in and meet my kids. Here's my son Tylenol, my other son Advil, and my twin daughters Visine and Murine."
I am not religious, but the black friends or neighbors I know who come from religious and/or intact families are very successful individuals.
There is a crisis in the African-American community. He might not have been tactful, but what this professor said needs to be heard as the constructive criticism it is.
"the Africanization of names"
Would that that were true. They're not Africanized. It's not a return to a past culture/roots thing. None of the common names have anything to do with Africa. They're just trendy, made-up names in a subculture.
Here are some names common in the African country I lived in. See how many seem familiar:
Dorley
Boakai
Dorbor
Yarkpawolo
Varfaley
Weedor
Check out a list of any African names and see how many begin with La
Here's a list
And here's ABC News' helpful contribution:
Top 20 'Whitest' and 'Blackest' Names
What it fails to capture, though, is all of the one-of-a-kinds that are different but in the same vein.
The only two black celebrities you can safely criticize in America are Clarence Thomas and Bill Cosby. In certain qualified circumstances you can make fun of Kanye West, but even here care must be taken. The Baltimore Mayor is safely in the protected class. Any criticism of her by a white man must be assumed to be racist.
"But this holds true for other names, not just black sounding ones. It's been a long time since I read it, but doesn't Freakonomics also stipulate that there are names that are deemed lower class (of which the black sounding names are apart)? So naming your daughter Brittany or Shanequa today will ultimately prove the same result."
That's true--also, they found that longer and harder to pronounce names (regardless of ethnicity) are more likely to make the "toss" pile.
Althouse was foolish to say that fashion is more important than science.
kcom @9:55 AM:
There's more than one entry on that "whitest girl names" list that would sorely tempt me to toss an application. (I wouldn't, of course. It's not the kid's fault. But I confess to implicit name-ism.)
Althouse wrote:
"The implication is that other people's thoughts look just as racist, but they edit their thoughts when they speak."
Absolutely not. People have thoughts that they worry will be perceived as racist if they aren't expressed in the most modern and milk toast vernacular. We couldn't have a real discussion about what he has said that is correct; we have to listen to him being torn apart as racist for not telling the truth in the proper way.
"we have to listen to him being torn apart as racist for not telling the truth in the proper way."
He's being TORN APART!!!! The hysterics are strong, with Steve.
But in truth, this "being torn apart" professor knows nothing of the sorts of suffering and trouble endured by the people whose protests sparked his pronouncements in the first place.
Not to belabor the point, but a group that regularly calls anyone who disagrees with them a fascist doesn't seem to be ideally positioned to complain about someone else's lack of commitment to free speech. While you guys have many admirable qualities, tolerance of alternate speech would not seem to warrant a place high on that list of virtues.
To quote: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
AReasonableMan said...
Not to belabor the point, but a group that regularly calls anyone who disagrees with them a fascist doesn't seem to be ideally positioned to complain about someone else's lack of commitment to free speech
Fascist!
ARM
Curious as to your thoughts on the elderly gentleman's remarks. Do you disagree with him and if so on what points and why? Or do you agree but would have stated things differently?
So naming your daughter Brittany or Shanequa today will ultimately prove the same result.
The funny thing there is that a girl from one of the richest families in my kid's class in prep school is named Brittany. We are talking high nine to low ten digit family wealth. Which may be the exception that proves the rule. Not surprising though that probably half the girls in that class had names from the Whitest list cited above.
ARM - we don't call people like Obama, Hillary!, Pelosi, et al. "fasccist" because we disagree with them, but rather, because they really are adherents of fascist style socialism. And, yes, they support the sort of speech codes that other fascist (and other brands of) socialism approve of.
Fun fact - Hillary! has come out in favor of overturning the court case that allowed a corporation to broadcast an anti-Hillary movie (commonly known as Citizens United).
"a group that regularly calls anyone who disagrees with them a fascist"
You do see all the problems you've shoehorned into this one short phrase, don't you?
1) Groups don't call people things. People call people things. But go ahead and use that broad brush, baby.
2) "Anyone." Yes, anyone who disagrees. Not just some, but anyone.
3) They call them a "fascist". Yes, Any disagreement causes everyone to call anyone a fascist. They must have a really big sale on broad brushes down there at the Home Depot.
I searched this thread and you're the first person to use the word "fascist". I even went back to four or five recent politically oriented posts and found no mention of the word fascist in any of them. Perhaps (I didn't check) none of those posts and any disagreements between commenters. Perhaps those were pure lovefest posts.\
Up your game, dude.
It's been a long time since I read it, but doesn't Freakonomics also stipulate that there are names that are deemed lower class (of which the black sounding names are apart)?
Definitely, and that is part of what I was trying to get to above. There are names that benefit those assigned them, and names that disadvantage such. Why wouldn't you give a kid one of the ones that benefit them?
I should add that this is one of the things that got me started with Freakonomics.
Oh, and not to belabor the point (hah!), I just disagreed with you and didn't manage to call you a fascist. You know why? Because it only applies when it applies, not when it doesn't. (See Bruce Hayden above.)
"Ignorant I am not."
The more I see that line the funnier I realize it is. And not just for its Yoda-as-ignorant racist qualities.
It's sort of like how just about every standup comedian does a routine about how they detest "stupid people," and as soon as they say it, everyone in the audience laughs and applauds.
AReasonableMan said...
To quote: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Thanks for reminding us that phrases designed to shut down debate are at least as old as the Bible.
I guess it's safe to say that this guy was not one of the "Duke 88" professors who formed the mob to thoeretically lynch white lacrosse players based on the lie that a black stripper told... er, African-American stripper.
Not to belabor the point, but a group that regularly calls anyone who disagrees with them a fascist doesn't seem to be ideally positioned to complain about someone else's lack of commitment to free speech. While you guys have many admirable qualities, tolerance of alternate speech would not seem to warrant a place high on that list of virtues.
You are belaboring the point. Nobody "ran" off any commenter to this blog. They ran themselves off.
In stark contrast, the response to Hough's comments has been fully intended to run him off. That's how you lefties roll. Rather than address his points (whether good or bad, and I, for one, certainly don't agree with all of his points), the lefties just call him a racist and shut him up.
While I don't recall anyone calling you a fascist, that doesn't mean that someone around here hasn't. Still, I often assert that if you scratch a leftie, you'll find a tyrant screaming to be be let out.
So let's get down to substance. Rather than PC fixating on his diction in the use of "the blacks" or "the Asians", or breathlessly fretting over his gall in pointing out the naming orthodoxies in black families, the libruls would serve their own cause better by ending the relentless hair-on-fire PC reactions to criticisms of them and reviewing their own blameworthiness in what is going on in Baltimore, Ferguson, NY and LA.
It's my view that lefties intend this civil discord. It's part of the leftie playbook. All leftie social policy is designed to enhance unrest so that they can gain control over an implacably relentless growth of central government authority and power.
Now if any of that is true, wouldn't that merit just a teeny bit of comparison to the fascists?
- Krumhorn
AReasonableMan said...
I don't have much of a problem with anyone saying anything. I think many here would be hypocritical to make a similar claim, having run off the only black commenter and the few liberal women who dared to express contrary opinions.
5/19/15, 7:30 AM
Ah yes, Crack Emcee where art thou? Run off by the racist commenters of Althouse blogspot, according to this guy. The reality is Crack Emcee was a bomb-throwing bigot with his head far, far up his keester. He hijacked many a thread with his racist accusations and bigoted insults. He did not acknowledge the legitimacy of opposing points of view or the validity of facts which discredited or invalidated his topical argument. In short, he was an angry, offensive demagogue, and his increasingly caustic and disconnected rants isolated him from the regular commenters here. Still his poisonous presence was tolerated here long after his usefulness as "a different viewpoint" warranted. If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't until he started engaging in personal attacks against Althouse and her husband that he got "run off"- same as Shouting Thomas, who I don't think is black, and who still appears here now and again to vomit on the hostess. It's better place here without Crack Emcee's ignorant and abusive race-baiting nonsense polluting every topic. As far as the liberal women being "run off", that's baloney too. No one gets "run off" a blog comment section- They either get banned because they've crossed the boundaries of acceptable discourse, or they stop showing up because their arguments are routinely dismissed and refuted for the progressive stupidity that such arguments usually are.
Prof. Althouse: You are wrong about the "name thing." It is appropriate to remark upon it.
Hough makes two points:
..there are persons/groups who work the victim status of "protected classes" for monetary or political gain;
..blacks (not wholly, but markedly as a group) have rejected much of mainstream American culture.
These are two components of a self-amplifying circuit. The "name thing" is a marker for one of the components.
Year or so ago, the MSM lambasted ignorant Middle America over the need for a National Dialogue About Race.
Methinks they meant "Monologue."
I hesitate to say it, but ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqmHHNYOO5s
If kids are given a funny name by their parents they can always change it to a normal name, like Rafael to Ted, Piyush to Bobby, Barack to Barry and Willard to Mitt (strike those last two).
They can also switch from a normal name to a funny name, like John to Jeb or Randal to Rand.
One of the local news outlets has refrained from publishing descriptions of suspects because......it was always the same.
averagejoe said...
He did not acknowledge the legitimacy of opposing points of view or the validity of facts which discredited or invalidated his topical argument. In short, he was an angry, offensive demagogue,
Sounds like a perfect match to me:)
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
Thanks for reminding us that phrases designed to shut down debate are at least as old as the Bible.
Jesus, just another fucking Fascist!!!
Ignorance is Bliss said...
AReasonableMan said...[some stuff]
Fascist!
Advocate of centralized autocratic government and regimented industry!
This calls for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw
ARM
You only comment on the commenters not on the topics.
Why is that?
I happen to think this 80 year old made a number of points that are difficult to refute. Would be interested in seeing someone of reasonable intelligence give it a try.
I have yet to see a criticism of his column that addressed his points and showed why he is wrong.
The debate so far is this; The NYT said that the problems in Baltimore today are caused by segregation policies which began in the Thirties and existed legally till the Sixties. This, I say, exonerates the present and immediately past Democratic city from government from any responsibility for the current mess in Baltimore. The Hough speaks up and says that the results of desegregation have not been all we wished and that he thinks we should ask why. This returns the problem of the mess in Baltimore to present and immediately past Democratic policies. This is a no-no as Hough knows - he used to write for the WaPoo. But he (like me) thinks that older people who have no career to tend are the only ones likely to speak up and even begin a discourse. So he speaks up.
His point is exactly the one that strikes an older person. In our day the talk was all of how we were excluding people. But now it seems as if the people we were chastised for excluding (in the person of our ancestors or the laws of our state since we personally never supported excluding people ever from the time we were children) but anyhow now these people seem to be objecting to being included. That is what he is trying to get at when he talks about the names children are given. That is what he is getting at when he talks about the fact that since 1965 (a very real date to those of us who were over twenty when the civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed) Asians have gotten ahead in a way that blacks have not.
Isn't he trying to say that we have to figure out whether blacks are not getting ahead because they hate whites and white culture? Because you see, "white" culture is European culture, it's math and science, it's industry and economics, it's landing on the moon, it's human rights, it's a free press, it's power to the middle class, it's suburbs. If you refuse to join, you will be poor. How can you hold a job without education and with a chip on your shoulder?
But is that it? Are they refusing? Or are they joining as evidenced by the rise of competent black leaders like Colin Powell and by suburban flight like that to PG county and by black parents like the Obamas keeping their children out of DC schools? Only they aren't joining all at once. They aren't joining as fast as expected.
Those who don't join - as things now are - condemn their children to the public schools of the inner city.The Democrats refuse to reform these schools because the Democrats care about the teachers unions who oppose reform, not the students. More generally we know from Obama's Department of Justice report on Ferguson that failing cities are recouping budgetary losses by quota driven policing (petty fines that are not petty to the poor). Another way, as Walker showed in Wisconsin, would be rebidding city contracts for health care and pensions but that would be opposed by the unions so the Democrats can't do that. Everyone who can is leaving the cities; everyone who can't leave is being fined and poorly educated to make up for the Democrats refusal to reform.
ARM
Why is that?
It wasn't something I hadn't heard, literally hundreds of times before - I listen to Geraldo on a regular basis. I am a walk a mile in my shoes kind of guy. Life strategies that seem nutty from the outside may make a lot more sense when you feel trapped on the inside. I am very glad I didn't grow up in poverty and I am glad my kids didn't either. We had it easy and still life has been hard enough for all of us.
Besides, I find what you guys have to say is much more interesting.
My solution is the Romney plan. Every parent gets a voucher for their children which they can spend at the school of their choice.
And also I would declare a jubilee year - all debts from petty fines in cities with quota driven policing and all child support debt mountains that can never be paid - would be revoked. That is what a jubilee is. The budget deficit then evident would have to be handled some other way which each city would determine.
"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land"
That quote on the Liberty Bell is about a jubilee year.
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family"
Larry Nelson, the comic you're looking for is Franklyn Ajaye, "The Jazz Comedian", a very funny man.
AReasonableMan, I've spent a few minutes trying to find a reference to "fasc" in the original letter and in this comment thread, and yours still comes up first.
I may have missed something. Can you elucidate?
Some four decades ago, a childhood friend of the Afro-American persuasion gave her child a Swahili name. I didn't say anything to her, but I found the use of a Swahili word somewhat amusing because Swahili was a lingua franca for slave traders in East Africa. Her son has done well- as did his elder relatives. He is a writer- both books and movies. You can find his works on Amazon. He hasn't found his African name a handicap. But he certainly didn't inherit any "studying hard means you're white" mentality from his relatives, either.
Bob Ellison said...
I may have missed something. Can you elucidate?
You don't have to look very far in Althouse threads to find left-leaning people repeatedly called Fascists!!!. I think there was one thread today. My point, which is a very simple one, is that this has become a childish insult rather than a meaningful way to advance an argument. The idea that one ideology has a lock on Fascist!!! behavior and the other is as pure as the driven snow, does not jibe with either commonsense or history, despite Jonah Goldberg's Goebbelsian efforts to prove otherwise.
As a moderate, this obviously does not directly affect me, but it has become tiresome watching grown men acting like children, although I will defend to the death their right to call libruls Fascists!!! if they really want to :)
AReasonableMan said...
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
Thanks for reminding us that phrases designed to shut down debate are at least as old as the Bible.
Jesus, just another fucking Fascist!!!
So I guess you weren't able to refute my point, then. No surprise, that.
AReasonableMan said...
You don't have to look very far in Althouse threads to find left-leaning people repeatedly called Fascists!!!.
If the shoe fits.
I think there was one thread today. My point, which is a very simple one, is that this has become a childish insult rather than a meaningful way to advance an argument.
In your opinion. It can also be a fact. Just an unpleasant one. To you.
The idea that one ideology has a lock on Fascist!!! behavior and the other is as pure as the driven snow, . . .
There's that strawman we were expecting
. . . does not jibe with either commonsense or history, . . .
And down the strawman goes!
. . . despite Jonah Goldberg's Goebbelsian efforts to prove otherwise.
And there's the ad hominem we knew was coming.
As a moderate, . . .
And there's the self-delusion
. . . this obviously does not directly affect me, but it has become tiresome watching grown men acting like children, although I will defend to the death their right to call libruls Fascists!!! if they really want to :)
No you wouldn't.
I love these guys.
Didn't read the whole thread (yet), but dammit - SomeoneHasToSayIt @ 7:45 is today's winner IMO.
I am an African-American, having descended from Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) who hailed from what is now the Afar Triangle, Ethiopia.
Kaiesha, Jamal, and Jemain are cool. Honey Boo Boo, Billy Joe Bob, and Rojean, well those names are just stupid. Everybody knows that.
----having run off the only black commenter -----
That pathologically announced and obsessed on his blackness.
I’d like to know how ARM knows there aren’t any other black commenters? Super x-ray vision? No ebonics posting? Who’s the racist now?
Perhap’s I’m black.
The issue he has and it's the issue we all have is his biases cause him to filter some data to draw his conclusions - leading to a sloppy over generalization (which qualifies him to be a blog commentator). As a professor, he should account for these biases and filters.
That said, he's not completely wrong. He does recognize a pattern that should be explored. Are there differences that can be determined in the Asian and African Amercian approach to the post-civil rights world? What accounts for those difference and what can be learned by understanding those differences? These are not bad questions to ask. This professor states the answers with certainty because he let his mental models get the best of him. But that doesn't mean he's not raising issues that can be explored.
Unknown said...
Perhap’s I’m black.
Perhaps you are. You seem equally uncertain about some other aspects of your identity.
As someone previously pointed out, American Blacks are not giving their kids African names. They're giving them names with no history behind them at all. Which pretty much ensures screening out job applicants by name if an employer is so inclined.
Althouse wrote, "For another, immigrants and the descendants of immigrants have a different background than the descendants of slaves."
That statement will ALWAYS be true. So it's a PERMANENT obstacle and the problem CANNOT be solved and will never go away, right?
But if that conclusion is not correct, what SPECIFIC, CONCRETE things must be done, and by who? Answers with any vagueness gets you the grade of F.
"For proof of the old timers statement one only has to go as far as watching PBS episodes of, This Old House where week after week mostly white men repair and renovate. There are a smattering of women, mostly designers, but blacks only show up when it is a black specific project, like the Roxbury House. Even then the blacks, when given the opportunity to display their talents, are woefully slow and inefficient."
You sir, have never seen Bob Vila take five minutes to lay a brick.
mark baker said...
You sir, have never seen Bob Vila take five minutes to lay a brick.
Sounds painful.
AReasonableMan, you are not living up to your title name.
Show your evidence. This is not difficult. I can help you with the HTML.
The Prof's only sin - which he probably couldn't avoid - was using language which gave the opposition an opportunity to change the subject.
"The subject" is the idiocy of the New York Times opinion re: the source of Baltimore's problems.
Baltimore's been run by Democrats for, what, 50 years now? Aren't they the enlightened, non-racist party? How, then, could Baltimore's history during the past half-century be tainted by racism?
How about we get honest for a change?
Baltimore's a cesspool because (a) Democrat policies don't work; (b) the Democrat machine doesn't care that they don't work; (c) the Democrat machine's constituencies don't care that they don't work either.
Bob Ellison said...
Show your evidence.
So, I invested 7 seconds on this. Here is Garage being called a fascist troll today.
Do you just not read the posts? You only pontificate?
Garage gets called a fascist on pretty much a daily basis. He is, by a significant margin, the easiest going guy here, still Fascist!!!!!!!
AReasonableMan:
garage mahal: Only a fascist would question this.
...And ya'll would be fascists for even bringing it up.
Those are the first two instances of "fasc" in that thread.
Are you garage mahal? You're not doing it well in either case.
"For one thing, trying to blend in could signify a "desire for integration," but it could also represent a fear of discrimination."
Could I guess... but most of us, white types, do not have Anglo Saxon backgrounds but our parents gave us English names.... because, as the prof argued, they wanted us to assimilate...
My conjecture is that all of the idiots, especially the lefties, on this forum are the same person. Prove it false, weirdos! It'll be more difficult than showing that ARM is a fool.
I think the term "the blacks" is racist, although some people would say racialist. But he's hardly the only one to practice it.
It isn't racist.
You can't fathom the disgust in the mind of a tolerant person who was taught in the 1940s that 'Negroes' was the proper and polite way to reference those with black skin, and then was bullied by leftist peer-groups in the 1960s to say 'blacks' because 'Negroes' was now pronounced racist, and has been further bullied by the MSM knowitalls and social-justice warriors toward using the seven-syllable 'African-Americans' because 'blacks' has been pronounced racist. By whom?
One change of terminology is all you bullies get. Blacks it remains, nice and concise, no pejorative to the terminology except in the minds of the Perpetually Aggrieved.
This will pass too and nothing will change. Whites have learned that talking about race is a big loser for them.
It would be really disappointing to find out that all of the leftist opinions on Althouse are coming from the same person.
Some perspective from PowerLine: CIVIL WAR ON THE LEFT, PART 19:
I recall back in the 1980s that you could always count on Duke political scientist and “Sovietologist” Jerry Hough to take the wrong line on everything. Reagan was a dunce, the Soviets are normal folks just like us, détente is dandy, the arms buildup is bad—the whole catechism. You wondered sometimes whether he was on the Soviets’ payroll.
So it is with some delight to see this octogenarian grandee of liberalism get into all kinds of trouble for writing to the New York Times to criticize one of their post-Baltimore editorials....
Althouse volunteers as the enforcer of what white people are allowed to say. Fuck you and the horse you wrote in on.
“Hough’s arguments are forcefully put, backed by intriguing details and the kind of arch contempt for conventional wisdom that has made Hough an enfant terrible in his field,” according to a 1988 book review in The Washington Post.
He was an "enfant terrible" when he was in his 50s? Un enfant très vieux!
Recent history shows that civility, in response to intellectual dishonesty, is counterproductive in the defense of liberty.
It gives the illegitimate the veneer of legitimacy.
"trying to blend in could signify a "desire for integration," but it could also represent a fear of discrimination."
Discrimination is partially the refusal to let someone blend in. Furthermore, it stands to reason that a signal that you wish to blend in might generate positive reciprocation.
Bob Ellison said...
Those are the first two instances of "fasc" in that thread.
He is, obviously, making fun of its usage. Obvious, at least, to anyone with even the glimmer of a sense of humor. Lot of cranky old men around here.
Garage gets called a fascist on pretty much a daily basis. He is, by a significant margin, the easiest going guy here, still Fascist!!!!!!!
You haven't been paying attention.
I'm working on a new song:
On a park bench
Near the town hall
Stinking of urine and wine
Lies a man who's
Lost forever
Any faith in
Humankind.
OK, the melody is stolen. And it's a waltz. It'll never make radio. The new market is YouTube, now that GrooveShark has once again popped.
Just so you know, arm, we've cracked the code. The left used to use fascist as a childish insult against the right. The right took this, befuddled, for a long time; but finally with analysis they figured out that actually the heart of the leftist movement is more amenable to the fascist label. And they started throwing it back at them.
So now the left prefers to reduce the insult to silence by ridiculing it in the manner that you affect. So, as I say, we're onto your game.
Why do you even pretend to reasonableness or moderation? I'll say that you are more reasonable then perhaps Cook, but not by much, and your go-to is mockery which he generally disdains. Also he seems to actually believe in something, evil as it is. I have to give him credit for that. You just seem to think that your shit don't stink, but you would be mistaken.
and yeah, old house, is in this really just amores Italy bullshit of the kind that you like? Truth is truth, what he says is true, therefore you should be defending it and if you feel a need to be involved, help with the expression of the sentiments in a more palatable fashion. It's absolutely true. As for the trope of the, he says the Democrats and then the blacks. Get over it get over yourself.
By the way, as for the women in the military thread, if you had never been born, that would be ok. You would not be missed. Some other whore would have sucked all those dicks, some other flibbertigibbet would have taken a stab at art, and some other rotten shit would be teaching law in Wisconsin. your existence or non-existence is certainly no argument for or against women in the military. Whatsoever.
You have haven't cracked anything. This is not how a grown man should conduct himself. The right has turned into the biggest and whiniest grievance industry of all.
AReasonableMan said...
You have haven't cracked anything. This is not how a grown man should conduct himself. The right has turned into the biggest and whiniest grievance industry of all.
Fascism is a phenomenon of the Left. That's just a fact, obvious to anyone who analyses the situation dispassionately.
We keep pointing this out, because for decades, the Left has slandered the Right with that term. Now, we are correcting the record.
We can't help it if it causes you butt-hurt. That's on you. You ought to be thanking us for making you aware of the slippery slope of big government, speech codes, over regulation, etc. That way, lies fascism. And it always has. We're just helping you realize it, by pointing out the micro-fascisms along the way.
You can't get to fascism, when your guiding principles are individualism, limited government, and freedom.
Any truly reasonable person should be able to see that, easily.
The fact that your first instinct is to laugh, just shows how deeply misinformed you are.
You're in a deep intellectual hole, ARM. But you can think your way out, if you choose to.
You can't get to fascism, when your guiding principles are individualism, limited government, and freedom.
Tell that to Henry Ford.
You are a complete fool.
You can't get to fascism, when your guiding principles are individualism, limited government, and freedom.
Tell that to Henry Ford.
You are a complete fool.
You know nothing of the entire context of 'Henry Ford'.
And again, what's with the ad hominem? Don't you realize that is like shouting 'I HAVE NO FACTS!'
https://www.google.com/#q=fascist+site:althouse.blogspot.com
https://www.google.com/#q=fascism+site:althouse.blogspot.com
I'm not gonna go to the effort to do the links properly. That should be an exercise for jerks like ARM to learn how to cut and paste.
By the way, your last comment there is part and parcel of what is wrong with your 'knowledge'.
You write the words 'Henry Ford', and think that is a defense, or that that constitutes an argument.
Because, because, well, everyone just KNOWS what a fascist Henry Ford was!!
Pitiful. Show your work. Starting from first principles, build up your case.
If you next post is not at least a high level outline of how one gets from limited government, respect for individual rights and property, codified freedoms of press, speech, religious practice, association, the right to keep and bear arms ---- if your next post is not an outline of how one gets from that, to fascism ---- then we will all assume you cannot do anything more than call names.
And I don't know if that makes you a 'fool', but it certainly indicates a deep indoctrination in ideas that cannot be founded.
It is nothing more than: "Shut up!, he explained".
And that's pitiful.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
And again, what's with the ad hominem? Don't you realize that is like shouting 'I HAVE NO FACTS!
This is genuinely funny coming from you. If the calling people Fascists!!! gig doesn't pan out you can always get work as a complete hypocrite.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
Show your work.
I will do this right after you convince a majority of the American people of this statement:
Fascism is a phenomenon of the Left. That's just a fact, obvious to anyone who analyses the situation dispassionately.
You are out on a limb with nobody other than a few whack jobs and Jonah Goldberg, but I repeat myself.
The American Communist Party, the American Socialist Party, the French Communist Party, and the French Socialist Party were all pro-Nazi at at least some point in the 1930s. In many cases they didn't just advocate for it but were rabid proponents of National Socialism.
One can wonder if the Americans, in general, really knew what they were supporting, but it seems incomprehensible that the French didn't.
Within Germany, the support for the Nazis by young people was absolutely incredible and hard to overstate. German universities were at the very center of Nazi support. And it wasn't just the students it was the majority of their professors and high school teachers.
This is an unendurable truth and the left has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to erase the memory of the past. I suppose at some point they will succeed, but it hasn't happened quite yet.
So, you CAN'T reason your way from individual liberty and limited government, to Fascism.
I thought not.
Great article. It's good that he's not afraid to say what he thinks. I'm learning english with native speakers at http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers and my teacher is somehow similar to you. Continue making these kinds of articles.
What's that bumper sticker? "well behaved women rarely make history"??
You can't convince a majority of the people on this right wing blog of the crazy shit you believe. I have the majority of the US on my side except, of course, for the fascists, who hated the left with insane passion.
Remind you of anyone?
Again, so, you CAN'T see a chain of reason that starts from individual liberty and limited government, and ends in Fascism.
I thought not.
On the other hand, projecting current Liberal big government, ever expanding regulation, confiscatory taxes, speech codes, weaponizing of Federal agencies against political opponents, NSA blanket spying ---- it's very easy to see those things as being on the road to Fascism.
Maybe you should rethink who is the Fool.
This would be an argument if it wasn't for the fact that Republicans can be fairly accused of most of these things. Are Republicans now Fascists!!! too? And, if so, why don't you call all the moderate Republicans that post here Fascists!!! as well?
You are out on your own, a lonely man bellowing Fascist!!! into the wind.
Gosh, I go by Duke all the time. I didn't know there were any intelligent people there. Good for the prof!
AReasonableMan said...
This would be an argument if it wasn't for the fact that Republicans can be fairly accused of most of these things. Are Republicans now Fascists!!! too?
They could be, if they betray Conservative values.
The dichotomy is Liberal(Left)-Conservative(Right), not Democrat-Republican (but then you knew that and were just trying to sneak one past me. Won't ever work, and shame on you)
So, the more Liberal things get, the more they move towards Fascism. The Republicans have been getting more liberal-leaning, so the answer to your question is 'yes'.
And, if so, why don't you call all the moderate Republicans that post here Fascists!!! as well?
Something (e.g. speech codes, large powerful central Government) is either Fascistic, or it isn't. Doesn't matter who is doing it.
You are out on your own, a lonely man bellowing Fascist!!! into the wind.
You keep making that assertion, and it means nothing. Except to the extent that if I am taking flak, I'm probably over the target.
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