That's a question provoked by something Sam Harris says in this video. His instant answer is "It's not left wing. Liz Cheney is not left wing."
Pushed with the question, "You're` content with a conspiracy to prevent somebody being democratically elected President?" Harris stutters and gets out: "It was a conspiracy out in the open." Then: "But it doesn't matter — what part's conspiracy, what part's out in the open." More stumbling, then a retreat into outer space: "If there was an asteroid hurtling toward earth and we got in a room together with all of our friends and had a conversation of what we could do to deflect its course, is that a conspiracy?"
The video clip I'm seeing on Twitter ends there. I would respond to "Is that a conspiracy?" with Is that an analogy?
Is the fight against Trump pro-democracy or anti-democracy? There seem to be a lot of Trump haters who purport to be saving democracy who strongly oppose democracy when it comes in the form of voting for Trump.Wow, you can actually watch Sam Harris self-destruct his career in 2 min 20 seconds.
— Alexandra Marshall (@ellymelly) August 18, 2022
"Taking down the New York Post's [laptop article]? That's a Left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was. But I think it was warranted."pic.twitter.com/0bIoWJDdNa
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We keep hearing from the fascists how Trump is going to "destroy our democracy" somehow.
Could we have some examples please?
We had 4 years, what did he do that was anti-democracy?
(accepting for the moment the hypothesis that the United States is or should be a "democracy" or that "democracy" is even a desirable thing)
John LGKTQ+ Henry
"It became necessary to destroy democracy in order to save it."
"It became necessary to launch our nukes to prevent nuclear war, so we nuked them."
"Taking down the New York Post's [laptop article]? That's a Left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was. But I think it was warranted."
The usual progression of prog smears: 1. Make an outrageous claim: it's true! 2. When the right objects: but experts say! intelligence professionals assure! 3. Wehen it turns out that, yes, after all, the smear was BS: but it was warranted! necessary even!
Call it the Harry Reid MO: Romney didn't win, did he?
But even the Harris concession contains a remnant of delusion: the laptop is about Hunter, not Joe.
Keeping the crook Biden's safe from the law. Totally necessary by the collective leftwing media.
That's why they are corrupt too.
“ Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a wide range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence.”
Translation: Agnostic leftwing doper with TDS.
"By any means necessary".
Very good. Let's bring back the Vietnam language and re-discover how ludicrous it can easily become. We must destroy Ukraine in order to save it. There really seems to be no plan to save it, and one would think lives could have been saved by insisting on tough negotiations early on; Ukraine would probably have to give up Donbas without all the killing and maiming. Is it a viable country without an industrial heartland? I don't know, but the U.S. seems unwilling to send in troops (for now). Biden immediately started talking about assassinating Putin and "regime change," and lots of well-meaning people are literally talking about body counts, as if the enemy will be defeated by attrition.
Sorry, domestic politics. The left doesn't have a hero. They persuade various people to step up and function like hired killers, out to get Trump. Pelosi, Schiff, Biden or whoever is in charge at the White House; no one seems to pretend they are Mount Rushmore material in any way. There are Trump supporters for whom Trump is a true hero, and many of us admire a kind of toughness and consistency in him. Remarkably, he seems law abiding and respectful of the Constitution compared to his enemies. So, the analogy no one likes. In the novel 1984 there was apparently a real Goldstein, and he has genuine supporters, so he has to be stopped, and his supporters have to be rounded up and suppressed. "We have always hated Goldstein, and we always will." By comparison there may be no "Big Brother" at all, no hero on the side of the government, just a vague confidence that everyone working on the government side is somehow good, everything Goldstein, like freedom or enumerated rights, is bad.
When Fauci admitted that he lied about mask efficacy, and later admitted that he tailored his comments about herd immunity based on what polls said, he proved that he should never be believed about anything, ever.
Sam Harris now has shown that his TDS is so grave that he endorses the suppression of news in the service of defeating Trump. After working hard to position himself as a rationalist, Harris proves that he is blinded by hatred.
Not familiar with Sam Harris or why anyone should care that he ends up tripping all over his own glibness. But there is a word to describe those who claim to be more enlightened than the ordinary Joe, and by their superior enlightenment are entitled to direct the affairs of the state — either directly or through subterfuge. That word isn’t ‘democrat’.
One of the problems fascists (a/k/a "progressives") have with "democracy" is that sometimes it favors results they view as undesirable. Harris on Trump is only one example.
Boaty McBoatface and HMCS Uganda are two examples of things that probably never should have been put to a vote. But, having been put to a vote, the vote should be respected.
Americas Got Talent and other shows of that ilk handle it right. THE AUDIENCE GETS TO VOTE ON THE WINNER! they say. But then in the "fine print" that scrolls quickly after the credits, they say "producers decide on the winner"
In fascist democracy everyone gets to vote but the producers decide who they want. Hopefully voters will want who the producers want.
But the producer's decision is the final one.
John LGKTQ Henry
Yep. I watched the whole thing yesterday. I was gobsmacked that Sam was so upfront and unapologetic about his disavowal of any standards of fairness or morality when Trump is involved. In his word salad to respond to the place he instinctively knew he'd put himself, he referred to Trump supporters as "violent morons."
Sam speaks for the system. Sam is an honest man. Sam is going to have to respond to this.
My reaction tracks that of Kisin. Mandate of heaven. Slip slidin away...
Kisin has seen it happen up close and personal as a kid. He sees it coming.
"If there was an asteroid hurtling toward earth and we got in a room together with all of our friends and had a conversation of what we could do to deflect its course, is that a conspiracy?"
Which is true. Evidence of communication might suggest 'conspiracy' but you have to also *prove* that the objective of the communication and agreement is unlawful, and that it was more than just talk.
It is unlawful to commit vote fraud regardless of how necessary you think it is. Getting together with your billionaire buddies to discuss the best ways to circumvent ballot security, and then implementing those plans, is a criminal conspiracy.
Alternative metaphorical Universe #23 - The FBI as Marines burning (figuratively) Mar Lago to save the country club for Democracy almost 57 years to the day. In this alternative universe Morley Safer passed out the zippos and provided journalistic cover for the Marines.
I had read somewhere that Sam Harris was this really wise and genius type guy, great debater, sincerely interested in exploring important issues.
Was that some other Sam Harris? Or did his mask slip?
Sam Harris is the existential threat to democracy. He just told you so. Pay attention, this type of incoherent argument is more dangerous than anything remotely associated with Trump or anything Trump has done. The left is sufficiently delusional and morally detached to be extremely dangerous.
This man is a "philosopher?" No, he's an fascist waiting for the opportunity to impose his will on the other 330 million of us. What a douche bag!
We had to destroy the democracy in order to save it.
I used to have a lot of respect for Sam Harris, but this is unhinged.
There is an absolute right to decline to publish or pass along a story being pushed the President of the United States and his minions. Will Truth Social be publishing or passing along everything that Joe Biden’s political operatives want it to?
The only people destroying our Democracy are the people actually destroying it by taking away our right to protest, and vote for whom we want. People are afraid to protest because there is a chance they will be locked up and put away for some stupid reason that has NOTHING to do with what they were protesting. Unless it is something the elites WANT you to protest...then you can burn it all down. The shit is going to hit the fan. And I believe it is coming sooner than later. They built this.
“…given what I consider bad about Trump…”
“Abattoir of Opinion” sounds like the great lost Blue Oyster Cult album of 1977.
He may be able to go polysyllabic on the deal, but he just wants what he wants. And he doesn’t want Trump. As always, our betters aren’t.
"We had 4 years, what did he do that was anti-democracy?"
The nazis had totally taken over German schools in less time than that. Trump is a piker.
These people are hysterics. The more they try to stop him the more I want to see him prevail.
Yet I don't really want Trump back. He says too much loose shit and doesn't have the civic piety a politician should have. And doesn't know how to work the levers of power in DC anyway.
But these people...
You know I'd been told for years that Sam Harris was brilliant and that I should make a habit of listening to him or reading him. I've tried. Many times over the years. It's not that I've been unimpressed. It's more than that. It's made me feel embarrassed for both him and the people who suggested to me that he's genius.
There's not much more I need to say that he didn't illustrate on the Alexandra Marshall tweet. All of these people- the entire Left- finds it OK to break the standards and rules of civil society, rules of elections, rules of journalism, honest reporting, censorship, manipulation of facts- because Trump! They have so built up this image of Trump as a Hitler/Godzilla/Bernie Madoff/Pol Pot sort of fellow, that they actually look at their actions as world-saving sacrifices for the greater good, and themselves as noble, as the highest level of humans, doing what must be done to save the Republic, the Children, the very Planet itself.
How do young people go to Universities and come out so full of themselves that they turn into Sam Harrises? And how did we turn over control of the levers of communication- tech, media, our universities- to such people?
I'm always curious what this "existential threat" is that Trump represents. He took away a "right" that the Supreme Court said never existed in the first place? He stopped anyone and everyone from entering our country through our southern border? Or is it that he didn't let the Left run everything exactly exactly the way they wanted to?
Maybe it's that he's destroying the planet. A debatable proposition at best that only occurs in computer models 100 years from now, and has massive costs in real human suffering.
I contend that weaponizing the intelligence community, the FBI, the IRS and other arms of government against its own citizens is a far more serious and immediate threat.
But Sam Harris seems to think that it's not only justified but required.
Scott Adams has a rule that allows someone to walk back a verbal miscue in 48 hours. I, for one, am willing to give Sam Harris the benefit of the doubt if he “clarifies” his statement, but the clock is ticking.
So, would assassination be OK in Sam's mind?
It doesn't seem that far out of line withhis train of thought.
nothing on that laptop was as bad as Trump University
did Trump University smoke crack with 12 year old hookers?
were those hookers Chinese Communist Agents?
did the Chinese Communist Party fund Trump University?
did the Chinese Communist Party blackmail Trump University?
just asking
But what if there are two astroids headed our way but we only treat one astroid as if it's a threat?
"We had 4 years, what did he do that was anti-democracy."
He prohibited landlords from evicting deadbeat tenants and banned bumpstocks without an act of Congress. 🙄
Several years ago, Brett Weinstein said that Sam Harris had become intolerable because of his irrational Trump hatred.
Brett is a Progressive and no fan of Donald Trump.
Harris and the Trump-hating left simply should simply acknowledge they view themselves as Diedrich Bonhoffers who must break moral law (murder) to stop Hitler. This is the only argument that works for them. Trump is Hitler, anything you do to stop him is acceptable and trumps (ahem) any lesser moral code you are violating. Suppressing the Hunter Biden story: acceptable. Arresting Trump’s team on false pretenses: acceptable. Raiding Trump’s house: acceptable. Skewing Google searches: acceptable. And on and on.
Of course, this requires they prove Trump is equal to Hitler and that’s a hard charge to prove. Harris brings up Trump University. Hahaha. Good one, Harris. Hunter makes rotten deals with Ukraine, kicks back money to his dad, Ukraine gets invaded by Russia because of such shenanigans …and that’s a lesser crime than Trump University? Again, hahahahaha.
All the intellectual left is rotten to the core. Rotten as Hitler. Worse, tbh.
Trump = SMOD?
Good analysis. Sam Harris is one of the "New Atheists," and I suppose he regards himself as being in a deathly culture war against the forces of fundamentalism and obscurantism (though of course it's always the other side who are the culture warriors).
My impression of Harris is that he identifies himself and his cohort with "science" and "democracy" and regards all challenges to his own opinions and status as attacks on science and democracy. Along the way, real science and democracy are lost.
That seems to be common among progressives. They verbally defend scientific and democratic procedures, but are quick to scrap them when their own interests or beliefs are not supported by science or are rejected in democratic elections.
Also, now that Netanyahu is gone, can we drop the "existential threat" talk?
"Scott Adams has a rule that allows someone to walk back a verbal miscue in 48 hours. I, for one, am willing to give Sam Harris the benefit of the doubt if he “clarifies” his statement, but the clock is ticking."
I've heard this too, and psychologically I think you should do the exact opposite. Freud especially would've thought the idea of 'walking something back' a purely cultural exercise.
These things, when said - even in error by the locutor - are a window on the subconscious. Don't think for one second they don't believe what they're saying...they're saying it because they've said it in their mind thousands if not millions of times.
TL:DR NO WALK BACKS!
"our democracy" is a tell. Whenever I see the term used, I just convert it in my mind to what they really mean; "our side being in charge".
He [Sam Harris] says: "We have a massive problem. We have an existential threat. Politically speaking, I consider Trump an existential threat to our democracy."
Well Sam, half the country fully understands that people like you and Liz Cheney are the real threat to “democracy”. In America, post 2020, it doesn’t really exist anymore.
The more these crazy “Never Trump at all cost” people expose themselves, the more you know that the 2020 election fraud was real, and supported by both Democrats and establishment Republicans. And the apparatus to do it again is still in place. But this time it is ever MORE weaponized.
1)To question the integrity of the voting/counting process and procedures in any state is now considered subversive by the MSM and Big Tech. 2)Trump is more than likely going to be arrested on fake charges. 3)87,000 new, armed IRS enforcement agents will be sent out to “audit” those that don’t fall in line. 4)The holding of political J6 prisoners shows everyone what they are willing to do.
Good Luck America. We will see the same things happen in WI, MI, PA, GA, and AZ in 2022 and 2024 as we saw in 2020. If you think they are not going to do it again, you're in severe denial.
The correct answer was to follow our impeachment process and make him ineligible by constitutional means.
The next best answer is to keep reminding people that the man himself is willing to destroy democracy while claiming to save it, and that they should not support him in doing so.
If democracy destroys itself, well, we had a good run. Personally, I'd want it to continue a bit longer.
Temujin - good questions.
I think it's important not to use terms like "existential threat" without being really clear.
Like, if the whole scheme with Pence throwing out electoral votes had actually worked and Trump remained in office, we'd probably still have a country. There might have been bloodshed or secession or civil war, but when the dust settled, there would almost certainly still be at least one country left. Death tolls nearing 100% would be highly improbable.
It's just that there wouldn't be much point in calling what's left "America" anymore.
Dems now admitting to their conspiracy to take down Trump, but refusing to renounce their sin.
They took away a year and a half from me and my family. Virus release. Economic sabotage by shutdown. School shutdowns. BLM reign of terror. Hoaxes and lies and FBI plots against Americans.
An evil attack on fellow citizens.
Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus decided that Trump is beyond the pale and nothing's changed or could change that. So not only are they useless on the topic but they ruined their podcast.
It comes from being able to read Trump's mind by ignoring contrary evidence.
The most vicious and murderous people in the world by sheer volume are intellectuals like Sam Harris. People like this have murdered millions of people to "save" society.
People here are trying to give him some sort of pass because he is smart well spoken rich etc.
It is just the opposite. If any quarter should be given it should be to the idiots like Inga and Left Bank who are barely smart enough to put two syllables together.
You could see the wheels turning in Harris's brain. He knew he was trodding the exact same path as Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Trotsky. He knew where he was going and he knew what he was saying. They are already putting Trump supporters in prison indefinitely.
Inga might be stupid enough to make this mistake. Harris is not.
He knows that the side that lies, censors, and blocks transparency has never been the good guys at any point in history.
You know who should watch this over and over again? Sam Harris.
WTF? Alaska went to ranked choice elections.
Why?
The Murkowski + democrat insiders got their way. Hot garbage.
If they want to convince us that the election of 2020 was aboveboard and normal...
You have to act aboveboard and normal.
When you are faced with a protest in D.C. that spins out into a riot, you should treat it like the other riots.
But instead it makes you crazy! You start talking about "insurrection" and shit like that. And then you do a show trial in the Senate. And then you treat an ex-president like he's a criminal.
Many people start getting the idea that not everything is aboveboard and normal.
I’ve listened to Jordan Peterson converse w/Sam Harris- it’s a deep round about, you know?
To watch their evolution (not that they were ever too much alike)into different directions is rewarding to me.
The obsession with keeping Trump from running again does not comport with "believe the election of 2020."
Why are you worried about a loser running again?
Nobody did this shit to Mondale or Dukakis or Al Gore. Do you remember all the Republicans freaking out about Al Gore after the election was over?
It didn't happen.
Why are you terrified of Trump (still) if the election of 2020 was a valid repudiation of him?
their operating principle is:
By Any Means Necessary
Joe Biden apparently has accepted millions from foreign entities from China and Ukraine, and he puts that up against Trump University?
I don't know who Sam Harris is, but based in this I am not impressed.
I'm with john henry in the first comment. I struggle to understand what Donald Trump has done to make him this existential threat that we must rape democracy in order to save her.
Democracy rests on the foundation that the final deciders of what is, and what is true, and what happened, and what should happen, - the final deciders of all those things is the people collectively, the citizen-deciders.
In the court room, the question is begged: 'What actually happened at the crime scene?' The answer in our democratic republic will come from a group of 12 citizens who will decide. Objectively things happened at the crime scene. How do we decide what happened. We allow citizens to decide what happened, and that is what we proceed on. That is a great example of the premise of our democracy.
Then along comes the smarter ones to tell us that the citizen-decider mechanism is broken, because the citizen-deciders are being told things that aren't true, and they are believing them.
To whom we ask: "How can you say the things aren't true, when we've premised this entire democratic republic on the foundation that whatever the citizen-decider decides, is what we'll go with?"
Their answer: "Well, the experts said that it isn't true." Or "I know it isn't true."
See how this works - the citizen-decider is getting it wrong, so I need to step in and fix the situation. The public is not deciding these things correctly, so we need to step in and assist, or filter information, or control speech.
That is the attack on the foundation of democracy - the notion that the citizen-decider is getting it wrong, but I have it right, so I have to manipulate information and speech.
Trump is a populist. Fascists, elites and other tyrants hate populists just as they hate representative government when it threatens their rule.
Harris says that, even if Hunter Biden had a basement full of baby corpses and the laptop showed Vice President and now "President" Joe taking kickbacks on all of Hunter's foreign business affairs, all of which involve countries with whom we/the world are now having to deal with, these would be "infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in."
The sole example he can give as to specifically what corruption? Why, Trump University! "Trump University as a story is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden's laptop."
The scandal there - allegations that Trump University defrauded its students by using misleading marketing practices and engaging in aggressive sales tactics (during a time in which Trump had no past or on-going role in government, unlike Papa Joe). The horror...
There is an absolute right to decline to publish or pass along a story being pushed [by] the President of the United States and his minions.
Heh. Don't you mean the former President?
But more substantively: sure, yes, there is a right to decline to publish. In a vacuum, this statement is uncontroversial.
But it's not in a vacuum. It's appropriate to consider the stated reasons for spiking the story - it's "mis-" or "disinformation" (generally offered before investigation or even, as now, after the subject had actually admitted that it really is his laptop), it's "not important enough" (that the current President may have been, or even may be, involved in influence-peddling with foreign actors? That's not important enough?), and most tellingly, it originated with Trump and is ipso facto false/bad/an existential threat to Our Democracy - simply because it originated with Trump (which this didn't).
The first two reasons, if either were true, should be able to be disposed of quickly - by publishing the story and the factual takedown of it. If there's no "there" there, the publication can make that clear and back it up. If they don't bother to investigate, they won't be able to do so - they'll just have to do what they do now: either decline to publish, or call it "mis" or "dis" and sweep it under the rug.
The third reason is a tautology and not worthy of the noble pursuit of truth that journalism used to aspire to. Or said they did.
Hey - didja notice that they don't even say that any more? Now it's "Democracy"- not Truth - "Dies In Darkness"!
That "By any means necessary" crap is going to end in violence. Because that is one of the means in the final analysis.
I don't listen to the podcast, but from Kaus's tweets it seemed to me that he agreed with Trump about the issues and would probably vote for him again against Biden or Harris or Newsom or Buttigieg. Maybe Wright brings out the anti-Trumper in Kaus.
What people say now may or may not be what they would do when the asteroid approaches.
This man is a "philosopher?" No, he's an fascist waiting for the opportunity to impose his will on the other 330 million of us.
I believe "a fascist waiting for the opportunity to impose his will on the other 300 million of us" is a good working definition of a "philosopher."
Speak to a progressive Democrat casually about 2016 and they will still tell you that Trump stole the election on the back of Russian Ad buys and influence. They don’t really thing this through. Setting aside exactly what ads the Russians created (because the left does and in so fails to know most of them supported progressive causes); these ads were purchased in media that decided to throw away all pretense of being apolitical and were partisan against Trump. That seems a bit more influencing than a few ad buys. Yet it doesn’t matter to them; Trump still stole the election.
Now, if Trump or any supporter merely mentions 2020 may be stolen; the left quickly pivots that to “do you really believe the voter fraud?” Hey, what about the left’s now 6 year claim that simply buying ads in a free market constitutes stealing an election? The opinions expressed in those ads had to compete in an open market of ideas. In 2022, media companies are banning opinions on the right, even if those on the right are only highlighting exactly what the left is saying. It is so ubiquitous now, nobody is surprised when Google, Twitter, and Facebook bans the same person on the same day. Yet we are not to call this a conspiracy? We can see the tweets and news stories being shared in the open calling for the banning, and you are not even hiding why. The why is you don’t want Trump, or any Republican, to even be on a ballot. That’s called rigging an election and there is nothing democratic about it.
Blogger Left Bank of the Charles said..."There is an absolute right to decline to publish or pass along a story being pushed the President of the United States and his minions. Will Truth Social be publishing or passing along everything that Joe Biden’s political operatives want it to?"
You realize you've just drawn an equivalence between The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Truth Social?
For probably the first time ever, I believe you have hit the nail on the head. Congratulations, Sir.
Here's a guy who purports to teach meditation and mindfulness, but practices and preaches rank bigotry and whose highest value is apparently his own entitlement. He poses as a leading light of empirical rationalism, but reveals himself to be a hollow, preening snob intellectually disarmed by his own emotions.
Donald Trump's superpower is getting his enemies to reveal themselves.
This is our democracy now.
Joe Biden is not going to be alive much longer. They couldn't even juice him up for this photo op.
And the FBI raid is the wheels coming off.
People in Germany have 1000$ energy bills coming.
There is a global famine coming.
It isn't just the Biden administration that is falling apart. The globalists are all collapsing economies and systems that will lead to some real nastiness this Winter.
Buckle up and store some food.
The analogy I have used over the last few years is, "What kind of coward would not cheat to stop Hitler?" You are a hero to the left if you cheat to stop ANY Republican candidate. Most reasonable people would agree that Trump is an easier target than most but this started long before Trump. GOP candidates are all some degree of Hitler, and their policies are all some degree of extermination whether it be the extermination of women, the earth, non-binaries, whatever, and what kind of low life person would not cheat to save the women, planet, and little non-binary children.
Doesn't this all sound like the progs are getting ready to foist Antifa on us again in the run up to the November election.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
There is an absolute right to decline to publish or pass along a story being pushed the President of the United States and his minions. Will Truth Social be publishing or passing along everything that Joe Biden’s political operatives want it to?
8/18/22, 7:56 AM
They have the right to not publish anything FOR THEMSELVES. They do not have the right to force others not to publish. Do you understand nothing?
See how this works - the citizen-decider is getting it wrong, so I need to step in and fix the situation. The public is not deciding these things correctly, so we need to step in and assist, or filter information, or control speech.
The Sam Harrises of the world all want the legislatures (if they're run by Democrats) to dissolve the people and elect another.
Never got the admiration for Sam Harris. Always struck me as a BS artist just pushing the standard Leftwing narrative under the guise of being a NEW ATHEIST.
THere is a conspiracy to destroy Trump. Go talk to Robert Riech. Or the head of the Brookings institute. Or Adam Shithead. Or the guys at "Lawfare". After 2020 election, someone printed an article talking about how Business leaders, labor leaders, various lawyers and NGOs, all got together behind the scences to coordinate, and defeat Trump. Newsweek maybe?
THe article patted everyone on th eback for putting aside their differences, and doing whatever it took to defeat Trump. BTW, Don Trump junior, just got banned from Facebook for whatever reason. Guess Zuckerprick gave money to Liz Cheney.
More than 50% of the population are on to these elite assholes. Unfortunately, in 2022 it is likely elite assholes+chumps+media+cheaters for the win. Ditto 2024.
Else how could they be so brazenly anti-democratic? E.g., no bond for Jan 6th misdemeanants, unapologetic corruption of federal law enforcement, topping off Obama's civilian "National Security Force"* with 87,000 armed IRS agents and 5 million rounds of ammunition, etc.
We are in some deep caca here.
*Obama speech, 07/2008.
America’s Founding Fathers knew about the Sam Harris’s of the world when they constructed the checks and balances of our Constitutional order. They were operating at the highest level of consciousness ever seen in political affairs. But the Constitutional order can only survive so long as the majority of the people holding the greatest powers in America want to preserve it even at the cost of their side on issues being out of office for a while.
The existential virus that came after the Founding is Marxism in its various forms, which are all destructive to the greater good and designed for a minority to seize power in the name of “the people”. Simply put, it is about dictatorial rulers displacing the sovereignty of the individual. There is nothing democratic about what Democrats are trying to do to Trump and America. The Democrat Party has been overtaken by those of a Marxist mind and not those of a mind aligned with traditional liberal thinking and moral reasoning.
I never thought when he rode down the escalator that I would come to see Trump as our greatest defender of America as intended by our Founders.
People like Harris are more akin to the ancient Sophists than seekers of the truth.
Don't know who Sam Harris is. Don't care what he thinks.
Like tommyesq (comment at 9:22 am) I was really taken aback at Harris revealing his hierarchy of scandals. How on earth could anyone believe that the Trump University scandal was of a magnitude of existential threat to our nation?
If he were to honestly examine his own biases revealed here, what he is admitting is that the same phenomenon that allowed Trump to declare that his base would still support him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue (said in jest by Trump) quite literally applies to the never Trump contingent with regard to anyone they thought could beat Trump in an election. They truly are the ones who don’t care how much corrupt, evil, and criminal activity is carried out by an opponent of Trump.
And what’s really incredible is that the specific corrupt activities of the Biden family are clearly at odds with national security interests in a way that nothing, nothing Trump has done or been accused of doing has ever come close to being. Which is again why it is bizarre that Trump University was the only thing he could cite.
Its funny how the Left will label the Right, and people on the Right, as "evil" and a "Threat to democracy" and act accordingly.
But the Center-Right refuses to return the favor. Even when its true. Instead, the Right will label the Left as "Dumb" or "UNhinged". Or say they're suffering from some sort of "Derangement."
The implication is they're "good people" who just need to persuaded to do the right thing. OR they'll come to their senses in time. Its an amazing perspective. And one that is unture.
Of course this is going to end with violence. We have those on the left saying conservatives are just as evil and a threat to our nation as Isis, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. You know what we did to members of those groups? We "droned" them, bombed them, or put them in prison.
It's a poorly executed strategy to excise a malignant tumor.
hombre said...Fascists, elites and other tyrants hate populists just as they hate representative government when it threatens their rule.
Full stop.
Howard: "It's a poorly executed strategy to excise a malignant tumor."
Calling policies which put Americans first in terms of jobs and protection "malignant" is probably not the slam dunk you think it is.
alanc709 (to Left Bank): "They have the right to not publish anything FOR THEMSELVES. They do not have the right to force others not to publish. Do you understand nothing?"
Left Bank is on the left. So, the beginning operating assumption must be that he/she/xe knows nothing, and it goes from there.
US liberals continue to behave disturbingly like the privileged class of Chile during the Pinochet takeover. The idea that the peasants could chose someone (Allende) not of the anointed class to run the country was so intolerable, that they, "the people who always win", were willing to do anything to overturn the election, even back a mass murdering monster.
Old-timers will note that Harris is simply regurgitating the 1940s-1950s justification for outlawing the Communist Party, USA; prohibiting its members from seeking or holding public office; and sending its top leadership to prison. This was generally supported not just by the American Right, but also by quite a few liberals, including Hubert Humphrey, who led the charge for passage of the Communist Control Act of 1954. Even socialists like philosophy professor Sidney Hook argued that this was a legitimate exercise of power since Communism was a global conspiracy that, if it ever came to power, would never relinquish its authority and thereby end democracy in America.
Even Justice Robert Jackson joined in, asserting that the First Amendment was never intended to allow global conspiracies to function unhindered, and upholding the Smith Act, under which the leaders of the CPUSA were sent to prison (Black and Douglas dissenting). Until the Warren Court, later in the 1950s and into the 1960s, began to cut the legs out from under this legal theory (generally by stricter application of the "clear and present danger" doctrine), conspiracy and irreversibility remained at the heart of the argument that Communism (i.e., those American citizens who organized under its banner) represented an exception to the Constitution's broad rules of political discourse.
Kant had his Categorical Imperative. Mr. Harris appears to have a Trump-a-gorical Imperative.
I'm reading the Gulag Archipelago right now. It's hard not to see "Of course we want to save the working class but first we have to kill it" that runs through Solzhenitsyn right here in the gold ol' USA. Keep on talking, Sam.
So... this guy is a philosopher, a thinker, and famous? He's glib all right, but his skill with words is like a bricklayer using bricks: To build a wall you can't see the other side of. I think he's been hiding behind them, all this time. But these two young men brought the real man out, didn't they? Good job, men.
Harris quite obviously can't think his way out of a paper bag.
Prestige is the name of a trickster god.
Scott Adams has been discussing this same topic a lot lately. If the Democrats truly believe Trump is Hitler, they have to stop him by any means necessary. I don't know where he is going with this, but I think he is trying to get the Dems to admit what they are really saying and doing.
Huge fan of Triggernometry. They do serious and wide ranging interviews twice a week and 3 livestreams that are news with comedy and lots of interaction with the viewers. Just look for Triggernometry on Youtube.
Konstantin Kisin has just written a very good book: An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West. I am still reading it. Pro west, pro free speech, many warnings about where we are heading.
Ficta wrote that "US liberals continue to behave disturbingly like the privileged class of Chile during the Pinochet takeover. The idea that the peasants could chose someone (Allende) not of the anointed class to run the country was so intolerable, that they, "the people who always win", were willing to do anything to overturn the election, even back a mass murdering monster."
Typical rewriting of history. The vote in both the parliamentary election in 1968 and the presidential election in 1970 showed the country basically split into thirds. Far from overturning the election, the Christian Democrats, who controlled the parliament, magnanimously voted to install Allende because he had a plurality in the fragmented presidential election. They could have legally elected their own party's candidate. Once Allende showed his true colors, the Christian Democrats turned against him and allied itself with the Conservatives. But Allende never had majority support and was never elected by a majority of Chilean voters.
Too many people get their history from the novel "The House of the Spirits," written by Allende's niece, which falsified the Chilean political scene by ignoring the existence of the Christian Democrats and pretending that Chile was bifurcated between the good Socialists and the evil Conservatives.
Sam Harris believes he is smarter than most other people, and it's hard to argue with that. But he also believes that makes him better than other people, or at the very least makes his preferences morally superior to their preferences. And based on that conclusion, he is comfortable disenfranchising the rubes. It's a disgusting, elitist, narcissistic and undemocratic attitude. 1 person, 1 vote. Not 1 person, 1 vote so long as your vote is approved by Sam Harris.
No question, Sam is smart. Sam is nowhere near as smart as 70 million people combined. It's delusional for him to believe he has it all figured out and therefore it's both OK and a good idea to override democracy. The mask covering up his authoritarian tendencies has dropped.
Worse, he understands exactly what he is doing. In this interview, he preemptively defends himself by assuring us that he doesn't condone stuffing the ballot box; he doesn't support compromising the machinery of democracy. (At least not that way.) Yet he fully supports manipulating information and denying speaking platforms (and, more pointedly, listening platforms) for people he disagrees with.
To skirt past cognitive dissonance, he hides behind the idea of social media companies being private businesses who should be allowed to discriminate. And he understands well that this is contrary to liberal themes he purportedly holds dear and to the philosophy of the civil rights era, e.g. public accommodation-type arguments. What about the idea that access to information and the right to hear ideas of others is more fundamental and important than the right to sleep at whatever hotel you choose? It's not obvious that he has even considered it. But even if he has, his rationale is that it's different this time. Trump is an existential threat, and at this point in history liberal concerns must give way to Sam's enlightened opinions.
For someone who has created a public persona based almost solely on trying to figure out what is reality, the fact that he doesn't understand that his cognitive gifts, while impressive in comparison to most other individuals, are far inferior to the collective abilities of tens of millions of people, is, again, delusional. It essentially disqualifies him from being a reliable source of opinion or influence. Which is a real shame and a total waste, in fact a net negative for humanity.
tommyesq said...
Harris says that, even if Hunter Biden had a basement full of baby corpses and the laptop showed Vice President and now "President" Joe taking kickbacks on all of Hunter's foreign business affairs, all of which involve countries with whom we/the world are now having to deal with, these would be "infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in."
remember the left's OUTRAGE! when Trump (supposedly) said: "i could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters."
???
TL;DR:
Being smarter than someone else doesn't make you a better person.
This will end in violence.
Yes, it sure will. It will end with leftwing jackbooted thugs hauling people off to the American Gulag.
Only the Left is politically active. The Right is passive, and just wants to grill and watch football. The right won't even directly attack the Left Online! They make excuses for the Left, talk in a passive agressive manner, or make wry comments and vague generalizations. Anything to avoid direct conflict.
So yes, it can only end one way.
Howard said...
It's a poorly executed strategy to excise a malignant tumor.
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had much better execution.
If I hear 'Democracy' one more time I'm going to projectile vomit.
The left are fascists.
So it turns out that all of those vaunted ‘Intelligence experts’ and organizations flat-out lied when they said the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation.
They lied on purpose.
They lied to get a democrat elected president.
They succeeded, and now we are where we are with more taxes, more IRS agents, hundreds of billions spent on the green new deal, and another many steps closer to socialism.
Will there ever be any accountability for these people?
Brandon Morse
@TheBrandonMorse
Decades from now I really hope science looks back at this time and studies this kind of mentality toward Trump. I'm pretty convinced TDS is real at this point, and I'm fascinated by it.
Blogger D.D. Driver said...
He prohibited landlords from evicting deadbeat tenants and banned bumpstocks without an act of Congress.
That's it? That's all you can come up with for 4 years of jackbooted authoritarian rule?
He owns thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of apartments. Seems like the eviction hiatus would have hurt him a lot. Why do you think he would step on his own crank like that?
John LGBTQ+ Henry
How bad was Trump University? Lots of people paid to go through it, only 2-3 complained.
Was it any worse than these courses that keep popping up in my browser to learn economics with Paul Krugman? At least Donal Trump has demonstrated competency in real estate.
John LGBTQ+ Henry
When unelected FBI, DOJ etc officials take action to affect an election, that is a conspiracy. When dems use falsified docs and lies to ruin an opponent, that is a conspiracy. Just saying the word conspiracy does not invalidate an argument, because sometimes it is one.
Left-wing as in authoritarian, as in single/central/monopolistic solutions, as in diversity, as in redistributive change, as in witch hunts, warlock trials, and babies on a metal slab.
We had to destroy our institutions in order to save them.
The tragedy of life is that everyone has their reasons.
D.D. Driver said...
"We had 4 years, what did he do that was anti-democracy."
He prohibited landlords from evicting deadbeat tenants and banned bumpstocks without an act of Congress.
Hilarious. John Henry beat me to it but is that all you have ? The theory of the rent moratorium was that people could not work because of the idiotic shutdown. Trump opposed it but was over ruled by his staff. Scott Atlas' book explains the pressure he was under. Then your hero, Biden, tried to extend the rent moratorium AFTER the epidemic was over !
"Taking down the New York Post's [laptop article]? That's a Left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was. But I think it was warranted."
Thanks Sam, for establishing that you're an enemy of democracy.
He says: "We have a massive problem. We have an existential threat. Politically speaking, I consider Trump an existential threat to our democracy."
I consider Sam, and everyone like him, to be existential threats to our democracy."
Unlike him, I have actual justification for my belief. Because these people are supporting actual attacks on voters, their ability to vote as they wish, and their ability to know the facts.
So, Sam, what are the proper limits on my response to your existential threat?
I can't silence people using Twitter, FaceBook, etc. So does that mean I should just kill them to silence them instead?
Because once you've agreed that it's alright to "silence existential threats to democracy" (see NY Post Hunter Biden article), you've lost any moral high ground to say "no, you can't do it that way".
I say "you can't do it any way". But if you can do it, then any way that I can do it is perfectly fine, for me and anyone else stopping your existential threat
I have been amazed at intelligent people who think Trump is self evidently evil. For a while I would ask people what he had actually done that they objected to. The phumphering was amazing.
Almost all would go with the Fine People Hoax and when I debunked that, they had nothing. When I limited it to things actually done instead of said, they were even more incoherent. We are talking people I have known for years since I wouldn't talk politics to someone I didn't know well.
What Temujin said.
I can't even hate-listen to that smarmy brat.
D.D. Driver said...
He prohibited landlords from evicting deadbeat tenants and banned bumpstocks without an act of Congress.
Yes, he did. And both those acts were wrong
He also declared a national emergency so he could free up some funds to do border wall building that Congress wouldn't authorize.
But if those three actions make one a "dictator" who is an "existential threat to democracy" that we must stop "by any means necessary", then Biden, Obama, Clinton, and GWB al were dictators.
So you might want to reassess your position
In your case, I'm pretty sure you'd rather remain a raving lunatic. But you do you
Lloyd W. Robertson said...
Very good. Let's bring back the Vietnam language and re-discover how ludicrous it can easily become. We must destroy Ukraine in order to save it. There really seems to be no plan to save it, and one would think lives could have been saved by insisting on tough negotiations early on; Ukraine would probably have to give up Donbas without all the killing and maiming. Is it a viable country without an industrial heartland? I don't know, but the U.S. seems unwilling to send in troops (for now)
Are you a moron, an ignoramus, or just a liar
1: In the Budapest Accords Russia agreed to honor and accept Ukraine's borders, in exchange for Ukraine giving up the nukes they had possession of
Ukraine gave up the nukes, now you want them to give a a serious chunk of the country. After all, it's not like Putin will come back for more later!
/sarc
2: Ukraine is beating Russia. What's the US plan? To keep on sending Ukraine weapons until they've kicked the Russians out?
Why?
Well:
A: It's saving Ukraine, so the dying should be done by the Ukrainians
B: Putin is an expansionist dictator of an industrial country. You either stop him, or he takes over the world
Therefore, it's always best to stop him as soon as possible. Bush and Obama let him invade Georgia and Ukraine. Trump kept him in check.
So We either stop him now, or fight him after he's absorbed Ukraine and become more powerful
3: Why do the Ukrainians think it's worth the cost to fight Putin? Well, probably because they remember the Holodomor, and expect even worse should Putin enslave them again
So, other than being a garbage person and utterly worthless pile of shit, what's your problem with keeping the Ukrainians from being enslaved by Putin?
Left Bank of the Charles said...
There is an absolute right to decline to publish or pass along a story being pushed the President of the United States and his minions.
Sure there is. By publishers
Publishers aren't protected by Section 230 of the DMCA
But no, if you claim to be a "news organization", and you suppress the distribution of news that voters would consider relevant, you've completely violated the social contract and gone to war against the American people
And that deserves a destructive response
Farmgirl: true. Peterson strives to the humane; Sam Harris is the very worst combination of the new leftitarianism, atheism, and dumbass biological essentialism, the field that imagines we can answer all human questions by looking at pretty lights popping up in the brain and that justifies any damn thing they pull out of their collective asses. Results of which, by the way, he falsified in his Very Important Research, just like certain primatologists, cough, de Wall, who try to deny the relevance of crime because they watch bonobos masturbate a lot.
For decades.
While somehow not noticing that they do, indeed, fight like other primates.
The "philosophical" questions Harris asks about free will and determinism are like a stoned scene from Animal House. He fails to notice they have been discussed by the religious for centuries. So add dumbass presentism to his list.
Harris had a few good points to make years ago but he's a shallow thinker about politics--which most often traces to a lack of historical knowledge. The most politically obtuse educated people I know were trained in the pschologizing cults, and try to force every figure and movement into a few convenient social-scientific boxes.
Atheism is the least of his flaws (if flaw it be). Hysterical inability to comprehend other minds, now . . .
But if those three actions make one a "dictator" who is an "existential threat to democracy" that we must stop "by any means necessary", then Biden, Obama, Clinton, and GWB al were dictators.
😅Exactly! Trump is no better than Biden or Obama or Bush.
Dictator is your word, not mine. Not sure I would use that word. I would call all the people on your list a "tyrant," though. The acolytes that pretend Trump is some defender of democracy are just precious. Stay gold, Ponyboys!
Trump opposed it but was over ruled by his staff.
What a coward and a traitor.
That's it? That's all you can come up with for 4 years of jackbooted authoritarian rule?
How about facilitating the theft of family farms to give it to Taiwanese conmen. "America First!" LMAO.
Blogger D.D. Driver said...
That's it? That's all you can come up with for 4 years of jackbooted authoritarian rule?
How about facilitating the theft of family farms to give it to Taiwanese conmen. "America First!" LMAO.
You make no sense. Mostly you're just a lefty but this sounds deranged,
So, let me get this straight. Trump (= Hitler) allowed an election that he lost (Hitler never did that, did he?). So Trump sent a mob of his armed supporters (oh, no guns) his unarmed supporters to protest the certification of the election (where the only shot fired was by a Capitol cop and killed an unarmed protester). Was that worse that Trump U? Why Sam?
In all seriousness, I'm not a fan of Trump. I wasn't a fan of JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, or Obama. But I never thought my opposition meant that I could violate all the rules of political conflict.
"B: Putin is an expansionist dictator of an industrial country. You either stop him, or he takes over the world"
Ridiculous.
D.D. Driver said...
But if those three actions make one a "dictator" who is an "existential threat to democracy" that we must stop "by any means necessary", then Biden, Obama, Clinton, and GWB al were dictators.
😅Exactly! Trump is no better than Biden or Obama or Bush.
No DD, Trump is NO WORSE than Biden or Obama or Bush.
So until you throw them all in jail, STFU about how "bad" Trump is
D.D. Driver said...
How about facilitating the theft of family farms to give it to Taiwanese conmen. "America First!" LMAO.
Says the pathetic wanker who provides no link to support his claim
Robert Cook said...
"B: Putin is an expansionist dictator of an industrial country. You either stop him, or he takes over the world"
Ridiculous
So, Robert, which expansionist dictators of industrial countries stopped because they felt they'd conquered enough, and not because they'd BEEN stopped?
Presumably Harris believes in lying for the good cause (less likely: his thinking is actually socially distorted and he's now just honestly mistaken about many things), so I wouldn't waste any time listening to him these days. Harris was also to me suspiciously+vehemently anti-Islam (yes, allowing them to infest the west is a mistake, but there's no reason to believe we should crsuade them into 'democracy'). The best fight is the one you don't take; Harris seeks+cherishes the fight.
Censoring the truth that you don't like IS
Breaking Democracy
stopping a 100% free and fair election.
2020 was not Free and Fair.
And drop boxes probably did have ballots stuffed in them, with no way, now, to know for sure.
All who care about "democracy" should be clean, fair, honest elections, with all legal votes being counted, but no illegal votes being counted.
Paper, in-person voting is closest to that ideal so far.
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