The left won the culture war. Will they be merciful?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Space_Time, May 28, 2016.

  1. Phoebe Bump

    Phoebe Bump New Member

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    I always thought the cultural war was always more of a political construct, anyway. The Republicans were able to capitalize on it for a lot of years until the conservative middle class realized "hey, this nonsense ain't getting me anywhere."
     
  2. Curmudgeon

    Curmudgeon New Member

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    True!, Though it should be pointed out that the group described, White (male), Mainstream Protestant, middle class or professional, home owners, did dominate the political, cultural and social landscape for nearly 50 years between 1870 and 1932. They were not the majority, but they were the dominant player.
     
  3. ChiCowboy

    ChiCowboy Well-Known Member

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    Wow. You actually believe this? (Of course you don't, but have yourself a heapin' helpin' of keyboard fun!)

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    Anything with the word 'war' in the title is a political construct. It's been used so often to have become meaningless.
     
  4. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm sure you "think" you do......:weed: I'm also sure you'll vomit your Hillary excuses all over the thread.
     
  5. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What part don't you believe?
     
  6. ChiCowboy

    ChiCowboy Well-Known Member

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    Stop. You're killin' me here.
     
  7. Brewskier

    Brewskier Well-Known Member

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    "Progressive" views like gay marriage and transexualism are not supported very heavily by their black and Hispanic voter base... the latter of which is their fastest growing demographic. Those groups support progressives because they want more of whitey's power and wealth, but when those things stop being a draw, I suspect white progressives are going to have a hard time keeping these types of social agendas in the mainstream.
     
  8. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "The left won the culture war. Will they be merciful?"

    yahoo, were not gonna be a theocracy... :flagus:
     
  9. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Fear mongering?
     
  10. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    We're also not going to have a strong middle class. We're going to have a deeply divided sectarian country for some years and decades to come.
     
  11. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    look south of the border to see what 98% Christian nation looks like.....

    2 more percent and God is gonna pave their streets with gold

    .
     
  12. GreenBayMatters

    GreenBayMatters Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actually those days did exist. I was born in your state, Milwaukee 1946. My life was "Leave it to Beaver", Father Knows Best" and "Happy Days". I'm sorry you had an unhappy childhood.
     
  13. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree, some parts of the country were richer off then others... all depends how well off your neighborhood was growing up
     
  14. GreenBayMatters

    GreenBayMatters Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    He, like me, probably lived then. Sorry you had a difficult childhood but that doesn't take away from my experience.
     
  15. Pax Aeon

    Pax Aeon Well-Known Member

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    `
    The mind plays tricks on people your age. Still, I'm glad to see you're still active.
     
  16. Pycckia

    Pycckia Well-Known Member

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    They are also going to have problems with Blacks and Latinos fighting over the scraps. The economy is going to nose dive after whites are kicked out.
     
  17. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    It doesn't. America has gotten progressively worse. We're talking about a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump presidency. Only someone pro-nationalistic(and even I have my severe doubts) or a fool would think the country is on the right track.
     
  18. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Absolutely atheists should give nothing to the poor and instead keep financing Wall Street, big banks and International corporations having total control of government, the economy and everything else. Only "those Christians" should help the poor. Great point you make.

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    Unfortunately, as that happens the country will more rapidly move towards socialism. The more the economy collapses, the more voters become beggars to government - which is the goal. Shatter the economy and the further left the country will go.
     
  19. Pax Aeon

    Pax Aeon Well-Known Member

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    `
    I can respect that.....but but hasten to add;
    `
    `
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    "En este mundo cruel nada es verdad ni es mentira, todo es segun del color del cristal con que se mira"
    in this cruel world nothing is truth or lie, everything depends of what color is the glass you're looking through
    Ramón de Campoamor
     
  20. TRFjr

    TRFjr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It has nothing to do with liberals winning and everything to do with the nature of things a cycle that keeps repeating its self
    Morals are always in decay individual morals and societies morals till we become so immoral society falls apart
    then morals once again make a come back societies are rebuilt then lessons of the past are forgotten and morals start decaying once again and the cycle continues
     
  21. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    I can also respect someone with a well-versed reading history. I haven't heard of Campoamor, but as a lover of Shakespere myself there's many classical thinkers worth reading. And Ramon's quote is very accurate. I look at it in the color of someone who hates Democrats and Republicans both. Republicans for being spineless, Democrats for outright sabotage of the country.
     
  22. lizarddust

    lizarddust Well-Known Member

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    I stopped reading here.
     
  23. Pycckia

    Pycckia Well-Known Member

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    Well, nobody can ever accuse you of being open-minded, that's for sure. It must take a great deal of gate keeping of ideas to maintain the fragile state of mind of a liberal.
     
  24. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    Here's more:

    http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/22/meet-intolerant-vulgarians-dirtbag-left/

    Meet The Intolerant Vulgarians Of The Dirtbag Left
    In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory, some on the political Left are lashing out, loudly proclaiming just how intolerant and illiberal they really are.
    John Daniel Davidson By John Daniel Davidson
    NOVEMBER 22, 2016
    Nearly 20 years ago, Radiohead released “Karma Police,” the second single on their groundbreaking album “OK Computer.” The song is an anthem for an illiberal age. It opens with a demand, “Karma police / Arrest this man,” and the refrain sounds a warning, “This is what you’ll get / When you mess with us.”

    Given his left-wing politics, Thom Yorke no doubt feared conformity of thought and suppression of speech and dissent would come from the political Right, and from the homogenizing effects of capitalism and consumer culture.


    He was right that we were entering an era of intolerance, but wrong to think it would come from conservatives. Our illiberal moment, and the popular culture that creates and sustains it, is almost wholly a creation of the Left.

    Every passing day since the presidential election bears this out. The spasms of outrage and protest that have rocked the country since Donald Trump’s election have revealed what should have been plain to see for a long time: progressives are through debating; they are interested only in enforcing their views.

    They believe they have won the culture wars, that there is no room left for dissent on matters like gay marriage, abortion, and transgender entitlements. They believe, too, that questions of public policy, from health care to entitlements and welfare, have been settled once and for all. Any remaining dissenters should feel the full weight of the administrative state, with all its powerful mechanisms.

    Don’t want to bake a cake for a gay wedding? We’ll put you out of business. Donate to the wrong political cause? You’ll lose your job. Don’t want to pay for government-mandated birth control for your employees? We’ll haul you before the Supreme Court, even if you’re a group of septuagenarian Catholic nuns. This is what you’ll get when you mess with us.

    You Don’t Reason With Nazis, Do You?
    What a shock, then, when half the country rejected the reigning consensus. Many of those who voted for Trump didn’t agree with any of his policies and disliked him personally. But they were tired of being told what they could say and think by progressive elites, who after eight years of the Obama administration have become comfortable treating with disdain anyone who disagrees with them.


    So the Left has been lashing out, in the streets and on college campuses, but also on stage. On Friday, the cast of Broadway show “Hamilton” lectured Vice President-elect Mike Pence, reading a statement from the stage proclaiming they are, “alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights.”

    Set aside that people who really feel threatened by a powerful government do not behave this way in the presence of that government’s leaders. Set aside, too, the irony of celebrity actors lecturing the VP-elect after an election in which the losing side leaned heavily on the endorsements of celebrity actors.

    The cast of “Hamilton” weren’t just broadcasting their faux alarm and anxiety; they were signaling that they reject the new administration and will not be seen colluding with it—or even entertaining its leaders without protest. Imagine how a Trump voter in the audience must have felt Friday night.

    But, the Left will reply, who cares about the Trump voter? There’s no such thing as a good Trump voter. If Trump is a racist and a bigot, then those who supported him are complicit in his racism and bigotry, and they will be partly responsible for all the bad things that happen in Trump’s America. “To insist Trump’s backers are good people is to treat their inner lives with more weight than the actual lives on the line under a Trump administration,” writes Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. “At best, it’s myopic and solipsistic. At worst, it’s morally grotesque.”


    Got that? It’s morally grotesque to insist Trump voters are good people. If that’s true, and Trump’s supporters really are, in Hillary Clinton’s phrase, just a big “basket of deplorables,” then who cares what they think? Why bother trying to persuade these wicked people? Better to shout them down, mock them, muzzle them by force, if possible. You don’t reason with Nazis, do you?

    The Rise of the ‘Dirtbag Left’
    The fullest expression of this posture doesn’t come from Bouie but from a cohort of young progressives styled the “Dirtbag Left” in a recent profile in The New Yorker. Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, and Will Menaker are the trio behind “Chapo Trap House,” a comedy and politics podcast dedicated to “vulgar leftist commentary,” which prior to the election had stood out mostly for its withering critique of the Democratic Party and its erstwhile nominee.

    It also stood out for its (*)(*)(*)(*)-talking, “Bernie bros” tone. Christman told one interviewer that members of the dirtbag left aren’t afraid “to offend the sensibilities of ‘leftist’ language police whose only goal is sabotaging social solidarity in order to maintain their brands as arbiters of good taste and acceptable speech.” The hosts, all thirty-something white guys, don’t worry about offending anyone, even other progressives. They’re as foul-mouthed as they please, even when they’re being interviewed by The New Yorker:

    Menaker, who is thirty-three, told me that fans are drawn to the podcast because the hosts have ‘no special obligation to be nice to anyone, or get a pat on the head, or’—and here he briefly affected the voice of an aristocrat—‘have a fine debate with mon conservative frère.’ He rolled his eyes and mimed masturbation. ‘My reaction to that is a jack-off motion so hard it opens a portal into another dimension.’
    But the vulgarity isn’t just for entertainment. It’s also a way of being honest—telling it like it really is. Many on the Left called Trump a (short-fingered) vulgarian for doing the exact same thing. He wasn’t afraid of offending. But it’s the dirtbag left’s honesty that’s so instructive: these guys want you to know what they really think.

    That makes it easy to see their intolerance; they wear it like a badge of honor. Asked if part of the blame for Clinton’s defeat should go to voters who chose Trump despite his supposed racism and sexism, the “Chapo” guys scoffed. “Even if you do blame the electorate, where do you go from there?” Biederman asked. “Do we shame these people into liking us?”

    Clearly not. You just ignore them, or make fun of them. The dirtbag left isn’t interested in persuading Midwestern Democrats who voted for Trump that the redistributive policies of Bernie Sanders would benefit them more than whatever Trump is going to do. That’s not the conversation they want to have. Before the election, much of their humor sprung from mocking the insufficient progressivism of the Democratic Party. They were counting on a Clinton victory so they could spend their time and energy pulling the Democrats further left, not morphing into a podcast version of “The Daily Show.”

    The Left Is Impatient for Its Revolution
    Now, they’re not interested in soul-searching about how to forge a post-identity liberalism that focuses more on how to help out white people in the Rust Belt and reach out to religious voters. For the “Chapo” set, so much is already settled. Capitalism is dying, conservatism is bankrupt, and quaint constitutional ideas about free speech and “religious liberty” deserve a vanishingly small place in America’s future. Why bother trying to persuade those who don’t agree with you? Anyone who doesn’t agree is an ignorant rube on the wrong side of history—including, even especially, Democrats.


    This was the prevalent mindset among Sanders protestors at the Democratic National Convention back in July. They were outraged that Clinton would be the nominee, not because they thought she would lose to Trump but because they wanted to be done with her less-than-full-socialism brand of liberal politics. One got the sense they felt they had defeated the GOP once and for all, that Republicans were nothing but a laughingstock now and could be safely cast aside. They were impatient to complete the revolution on the Left, and furious they would have to wait for Clinton to have her turn in the White House.

    But such a mindset betrays a deep provincialism endemic to the modern Left, especially the dirtbag left, which must be one of the most provincial demographics in the country. If you think, like the “Chapo” vulgarians do, that the “consequences of capitalism” for a lot of middle-class white dudes is that they feel bored and aimless because they don’t fit into the economy as producers or consumers, then you’ve probably had almost no contact with poor people or anyone outside your immediate peer group. Likewise, if you think the only reason Trump won is because Clinton was a bad candidate who ran a lazy campaign, then you’re not trying very hard to understand America.

    But then, that’s the conceit at the heart of the Left: if you’re on the right side of history, what is there to understand?

    John is a senior correspondent for The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
    Photo Elvert Barnes
    2016 Barack Obama Bernie Sanders Chapo Trap House Democratic Party dissent Donald Trump free speech Hillary Clinton political correctness Religious Liberty
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