Posted on 07/06/2021 4:05:36 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Last week, Dan Bongino talked about the pointlessness of arguing with the left. He said something like (I paraphrase from memory), "We think the left are simply people with bad ideas while the left thinks we are simply bad people." He went on to say that while pointless in terms of trying to convince the person with whom you're "arguing," it's worthwhile because others, who may be open-minded and paying attention, might be persuaded.
This was driven home to me via a Facebook discussion that started out with a friend's cartoon suggesting that CRT is an innocuous addition to the teaching of American history that shows some of the darker chapters.
My response was: "No one opposes teaching history, warts and all. I studied slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Chinese workers basically in servitude to build the RR and more. You keep mischaracterizing CRT as just teaching the negative side of American history. It's not. The heart of CRT is that the US is systematically racist and minorities can't succeed. That's fiction and you know it."
That started a firestorm from a friend of my friend, from which I've excerpted:
It's apparent that you gained little insight from your studies. If they didn't touch on the racist systems that led to those events occurring, you obviously got the sanitized, white washed version where the savagery and downright inhumanity to any non-white man BY white men was totally excluded. Just like your fellow GOP white Supremacists, there is NO reality that y'all can't bend to save your false sense of identity that you're superior to all non- whites and European genius and goodness is the only reality there is.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The left is arguing for communism. Wile slavery was bad, communism is far worse.
Communism is simply slavery by the State.
The issue is never the issue, the issue is furthering the revolution. They will and do argue one side of an issue and then flip to argue the exact opposite if it furthers their revolutionary goals
Shake the dust off your feet, so to speak.
The best way to convince the audience that the Leftist is crazy, is to get the Leftist angry enough that he blurts out what he really thinks.
BUT....But....but....we’ve got to beat them in the arena of ideas. (/s)
Correct you are..I’ve been severely chastised on Free Republic for continuing to post on Facebook although in a severely limited amount. The reason I do while I still can is not to persuade anyone but to antagonize liberals with short but witty comments that drive them insane, at which point they will reveal themselves
It’s probably childish on my part but it improves my language skills and I don’t really care what anyone thinks about what I do
By contrast, there is no end to argument on conservative sites like Free Republic. Reason is we can think for ourselves and so even though we may agree 90% on an issue, we are pretty passionate about that 10%!
Also, human nature is such that nobody ever wants to admit they are wrong (and that you were right all along). The most effective way to bringing somebody around to your way of thinking is to respect their viewpoint and allow them to save face and come around in their own time.
And when they do, never crow and say "I told you so."
“The issue is never the issue, the issue is furthering the revolution.”
The left is about power. Period.
The book 1984, Part 3, Chapter 3, O’Brien to Smith:
“...The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently.
We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
Now do you begin to understand me?’ “
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It only frustrates you and annoys the pig.
Hayek noted in 1944 that socialism is slavery. Moreover, he attributed this observation to Tocqueville and Lord Acton, both of whom argued this point well before the emergence of Soviet Communism or German National Socialism.
The Left (at least the thoughtful among them) are fully aware that socialism is slavery, but they simply don’t care. In their minds, an aspiration of equity justifies a reality of slavery.
That is why, regarding slavery, I suggest the following history lesson to Leftists:
-PJ
The Left cannot let go of slavery because it avoids having to blame themselves for the condition of African-Americans today.It used to be the cultural norm that parents "wanted a better life for their children" than they had. That motivation used to be called "sacrifice." Parents sacrificed so their children could have better lives.
That ethos is gone in the black community. This isn't "systemic racism," it's the consequences of LBJ's Great Society programs of the 1960s.
It's still there in the Asian communities built on multigenerational families. It's mostly still there in the European communities. It's likely still there in the Hispanic communities, too.
Even considering whatever "systemic racism" was inherent in "separate but equal," there are many causes of black poverty in the United States, as well as cyclical periods of gains and losses since the Civil War and emancipation from slavery.
People should read this wikipedia entry, The Great Migration. Then read the companion links at the bottom, the Second Great Migration, and then the final New Great Migration to see how African-Americans improved since Reconstruction.
Excerpt from The Great Migration:
African Americans made substantial gains in industrial employment, particularly in the steel, automobile, shipbuilding, and meatpacking industries. Between 1910 and 1920, the number of blacks employed in industry nearly doubled from 500,000 to 901,000.[29] After the Great Depression, more advances took place after workers in the steel and meatpacking industries organized into labor unions in the 1930s and 1940s, under the interracial Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The unions ended the segregation of many jobs, and African Americans began to advance into more skilled jobs and supervisory positions previously informally reserved for whites.Between 1940 and 1960, the number of blacks in managerial and administrative occupations doubled, along with the number of blacks in white-collar occupations, while the number of black agricultural workers in 1960 fell to one-fourth of what it was in 1940.[33] Also, between 1936 and 1959, black income relative to white income more than doubled in various skilled trades.[34] Encountering very little employment discrimination, blacks had higher labor force participation rates than whites in every U.S. Census from 1890 to 1950.[35] As a result of these advancements, the percentage of black families living below the poverty line declined from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960 and to 30 percent by 1970.[36]
African-Americans experienced a cultural flourishing in the decades after slavery as they migrated away from the south to other parts of the country. President Lyndon Johnson put an end to all that, and then President Barack Obama blamed "white people" for it.
And now, desperate Leftists are inciting rioting and looting in the name of "slavery" to blame President Donald Trump, "white privilege," and "white supremacy" for it, because they are ignorant of the gains African-Americans made and then lost throughout the last century.
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It only frustrates you and annoys the pig.
+++++words for the day!
I have a low threshold of tolerance for the systemic stupidity of such individuals
and generally send them to the kiddies’ table on the other side of the block.
I was loading a 7mm RUM and a 300 RUM for a friend, two identical rifles just different calibers. I kept telling him that he’s going to want to keep the 300 and get rid of the 7. I went about this for some time. After shooting and doing both, the 7 was the clear winner. I had to admit I was wrong. It was hard, and now he won’t let it go. Now I’m too the point where I’m thinking getting rid of the evidence might be the best way heh.
Most times arguing with leftists is difficult because while i stick to the truth and facts, they have a whole fantasy world to pull their words from. They see and hear things that exist only in their fevered inaginations, but come to believe its true.
One time a leftist told me that Donald Trump made many trips to Epstein’s pedo island on Epsteins plane as shown by the flight logs. I countered, pointing out Trump isnt listed on the flight logs to the island once, much less multiple times. I then asked him what was it about his brain that made him lie like that. He didnt respond.
Another time, Im going back about 25 years when i was brand new to the internet, I was involved in a debate with a leftist on a message board. I cant recall the details of what we were arguing about. But some time during our debate, he claimed that the president voted on legislation and the congress signs it into law.
I pointed out to him that he had it backwards. It was congress that voted on legislation and the president signed (or vetoed) legislation. In response he called me an idiot and told me that I didnt know what I was talking about!
I was stunned that anyone could be this ignorant. I swear, for a minute or two there I thought I was debating politics with an 8 year old kid. How else to explain this level of stupidity? So I looked up his member profile and was stunned to learn that he was 52 years old! Old enough to be my Father. You’d think a guy at that age would be a little smarter and wiser about the proper roles of the branches of government. Even a leftist.
“He went on to say that while pointless in terms of trying to convince the person with whom you’re “arguing,” it’s worthwhile because others, who may be open-minded and paying attention, might be persuaded.”
Very true. It’s also helpful in that many “liberals” live in an information bubble and have never heard of another point of you. When they hear that coming from someone they consider normal it might cause them to open their eyes.
Just knowing that there are many people that think differently than him can have a positive effect.
Most so called liberals are useful idiots who go with the prevailing wind, ie, what they think is the majority. So the more they hear from us (the stronger our wind) the more they’re likely to come our way.
Never wrestle with a pig.
For example, a guest was a Professor of Economics; his opinion was that the government should print more money and give it to people. In almost the next breath, he was complaining about inflation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.