Posted on 02/09/2019 1:08:13 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[R]ecently, other ancient prejudices have been insidiously returning. And this time, the bias is more subtle, and it can be harder to address than traditional racism against non-white populations. The new venom, for example, is often spread by left-wing groups that claim victim status themselves and thus, by their logic, should not be seen as victimizers.
...
What is behind the rebirth of these old prejudices? In short, new, evolving prejudices.
First, America seemingly no longer believes in striving to achieve a gender-blind, racially and religiously mixed society, but instead is becoming a nation in which tribal identity trumps all other considerations.
Second, such tribal identities are not considered to be equal. Doctrinaire identity politics is predicated on distancing itself from white males, Christians, and other groups who traditionally have achieved professional success and therefore enjoyed inordinate “privilege.”
Third, purported victims insist that they themselves cannot be victimizers. So, they are freer to discriminate and stereotype to advance their careers or political interests on the basis of anything they find antithetical to their own ideologies.
The Democratic senators who questioned the morality of judicial nominees’ religion likely would not treat a Muslim nominee in the same manner — although one could make the argument that contemporary Islam has had as many or more problems with gender equity than Western Catholicism has.
Calling any other ethnic group other than Jews “termites” might have earned Representative Johnson congressional censure. And if professional football and basketball franchises turned away talented but “over-represented” African-American athletes to ensure greater diversity in the same manner that universities now systematically discriminate against Asian Americans, there would be a national outcry.
What once helped to diminish ancient prejudices was the American creed that no one had a right to discriminate against fellow citizens...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
ping
Looks like what's good for the goose, isn't so good for the gander after all.
It reminds one of Trump's use of the old tale of the lady who helped the snake back to life.
As the snake said, "you knew I was a snake when you took me in."
Now the snake is biting America.
Academia must be purged completely.
Stop the flow of this filth from the origin.
First he uses the the left’s language lie of “progressive” as an identification. The correct identifier is “racist, regressive fascists”. Racist, because everything is viewed through race, just as a plantation owner does. Regressive because the left wishes to erase Western freedoms such as the first and second Amendments. Third fascist as the left insists on state control and dominance over the individual. Every time a conservative uses the lie “progressive” the left wins.
His remark on “prejudice” is way to weak. The term “white privilege” is overly racist and should be called out wherever it is used. I have yet to see any conservative say to one who uses that term that they are a racist for ascribing a stereotype to an entire class of people. No one would accept such a stereotype elsewhere.
Until conservatives grow a brain and learn that language is a weapon of war, they lose.
I don't think it can be purged. It has too great a hold on the institutions of learning (too many years of communists conditioning and indoctrination).
Academia, as we know it, must be circumvented and replaced by online education (which can be akin to homeschooling).
Bullsh!t. The word "progressive" means "radical liberal" in today's jargon and that is perfectly descriptive.
I do agree with you there. The Left understands well the Orwellian point that "if one can control the language, he can control the people."
My point is that we need to pick our battles carefully and we need to understand specifically how the Left is controlling the language and which words and changes in meaning are the most important.
The word "progressive" is not one of the important ones.
The word "racist" was important but its meaning has already been sufficiently damaged as to have no meaning (or power) left.
> “First, America seemingly no longer believes in striving to achieve a gender-blind, racially and religiously mixed society, but instead is becoming a nation in which tribal identity trumps all other considerations.”
VDH is a great writer and thinker, and 90%+ what he writes is solid, but the quote at the top is taking it too far, and it’s understandable how he and we can fall into specious generalizations.
Each day, day in and day out, we are subjected either directly or indirectly, to propaganda and to those affected by it. We end up with cognitive dissonance, a fancy way of saying we become confused, cross-eyed, frozen by sensory or signal input that stops us for a moment while our minds try to resolve the illogical non-sequitur. But sometimes a non-sequitur will slip by unaddressed as we are beset by illogical barbs from many directions, conflating propaganda with truth.
Here’s where I’m getting at:
“... America seemingly no longer believes in striving to achieve a gender-blind, racially and religiously mixed society, ...”
Parse his construction. VDH uses the generalized setting as ‘America’ as meaning all of us. That’s drinking the Koolaid. All of us have not abandoned the ideals of ‘E Pluribus Unum’. To his credit, VDH includes the modifier ‘seemingly’ so his imbibing of the Koolaid is perhaps more aptly described as ‘spotted with a splash of Koolaid’.
America has never been more wisely melded among people of black, white, Hispanic origins. But a new generation of Americans is subjected to a daily, relentless onslaught of divisive propaganda leaving an impression that our youth are ‘seemingly’ without the experience and wisdom of the previous generations.
Quite simply, people today are on to the leftist liars in Congress, the liars in the so-called ‘news’ media, the liberal apernicious programmed advertising of 5th Avenue meme writers.
“We are on to them.”
Their divide and conquer tactics are not working today as they did in the past. But yet the effort to divide American society along racist lines continues with spotty successes but mostly failures. We need to be careful not to exaggerate their occasional small moment skirmish victory dances with a general victory over ‘all of us’ meaning America.
We see the gradual migration of blacks, whites, Hispanics over toward the viewpoint of our President. Polls of substance show Americans are uniting more and more behind his leadership. We include a generation who witnessed the Watts riots and so many others. We know we are more comfortable, more understanding of our ethnic differences than ever before.
I wish Hanson would have directly condemned the advocates of division and their destructive political course as its proponents rely on terms like tribe and race instead of doing so obliquely. To defeat this should this be applied ?
One thing the Mexican Constitution has that we should consider doing.Mexico has no hyphenated Mexicans. They prohibit any reference to race when they conduct a census or issue any means of identification, Where a physical description is needed skin color yes but not by race or nationality or tribal background.By doing this Mexico has avoided “balkanizing”, creating fractional disputes in areas where a given group in one of its states is a majority or a minority.
Sounds nice, but other than the census and a few other things, how could such a thing be enforced?
The best weapon we have against the Left is to expose it...and that is happening more and more every day.
In the wake of the Reagan presidency, it was very unpopular to be identified as a liberal. Hence the change to “progressive”. Yes, we here know that one who claims to be a “progressive” is really a radical liberal, my sense is that it hasn’t been generally viewed by the public as a derogatory term the way liberal became. I agree with Badboo, the more appropriate term is racist not progressive. Progressivess should not be allowed to hide their racism in the term progressive.
Controlling the language so that one can control the people is the demokraps’ way. Lovers of freedom don’t use language as a way to control people for obvious reasons. Use of language in politics and news to “frame the issue” is very important to free people in order to move the citizens to support or not support what one’s government is not doing / doing. President Trump did a masterful job of the framing the issues in the SOTU. It was like daylight to Dracula. The public saw and heard him without the demokraps / propaganda machines controlling the narrative or his speech. Very very powerful... the subsequent polls showed positive trend for him.
A more fitting analogy (while similar) would be to Aesop’s fable about the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across a stream, and the frog is concerned the scorpion will sting it. The scorpion points out that if it does, they will both die, as the scorpion will drown. Reassured, the frog takes him aboard and starts to cross; feeling a sting, he asks the scorpion why. The scorpion responds that he is a scorpion - it is what they do. Whether or not they are smart enough to realize it (there are plenty of examples in former colonies and even whole Western cities), the takers we’ve both bred and imported end up in bad circumstances when they’ve chased out the makers. When they frame life in racial contexts, the frogs realize they can’t be around the scorpions - and the scorpions re-create the Third World dumps from which they originated.
When AOC is your most prominent spokesman, followed by an octogenarian, Bernie Sanders.....well..you’re outta gas is about all you can say.
Hansen makes more than just two grievous errors. He also makes this nonsensical claim; “What once helped to diminish ancient prejudices was the American creed that no one had a right to discriminate against fellow citizens..”
The Constitution never asserted such a creed. Rather, the Constitution was intended to guarantee equality before the law, which is entirely different.
Freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution, not non-discrimination. The use of the term “discrimination” has been totally perverted, too. If I choose a hamburger instead of a hot dog, I’m discriminating, in the proper use of the term. If I choose to avoid interacting with a racial or ethnic group, I’m exercising my right of free association. Forcing me to do otherwise is tyranny, not freedom.
Affirmative Action was known to be counter to the principle of equality before the law but was justified by the Marxocrats and their ilk as being necessary to address the effects of people exercising their right of free assocation. It was supposed to be temporary. Like every other governmental encroachment on freedom, though, its pernicious effect has become embedded in every nook and cranny of our society.
Sounds nice, but other than the census and a few other things, how could such a thing be enforced?
Both of you make excellent observations that bear on the matter. I shall extend those observations to make the larger point about it being one thing to make a statement in law and another entirely to enforce it. The historic reality is this is especially difficult in the face of the long-standing, i.e. since the Conquistadores, division between the indigenous people found by the Europeans and those elites sent here by the Spanish crown to claim new riches and land. It is a point of pride in the elite families of Mexico today to point to a pure Euro heritage from Spain, along with a connection to royal land grants. This separates them from the indigenous and mixed/mestizo population by size (indigenous typically being shorter than Euros), coloration (Euro/Spaniard typically lighter skinned), and language (Euro/Spaniard using a more refined Euro Spanish).
They are authoritarian, hate-filled, communistic, sexually perverted or supportive thereof, fascistic, illogical, closed-minded, atheistic (anti-God), anti-freedom, anti-American, anti-Semitic, etc., etc., etc.
If they were just racists, yes, it would be appropriate to use the term "racists"...but they are sooooo much more.
The concept of racism or being racist has been watered down to the point it is no longer meaningful.
Many fear being called racist and as a result yell racism! in order not to be labeled racist.
I hadn't thought about it, but you are right.
That is another form of "virtue signaling."
Can I get an Ahmen?
You are right on, brother!
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