U.S. Politics: Oh Donnie Boy, the Feds are calling...

[SweetPea]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Migration is part of organic cultural change.

Dumping millions of foreign immigrants into a country is about as much organic cultural change as genociding a million people is organic demographic change.

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, SweetPea said:

Dumping millions of foreign immigrants into a country is about as much organic cultural change as genociding a million people is organic demographic change.

Yeah, we should never have dumped all this Irish, Italians, and Poles into our country, amirite?

Jesus Christ, even the words you use ("dumping!") show what racist trash ideas you have.

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Way too kind. Spencer is a Nazi, Plain and simple. The so called Alt-Right does not like the term Nazi, as that is too toxic, and got burned, by, well, the Nazis. I think I've said around a dozen times at least, but can we stop using the term Alt-Right altogether, and can we please call Nazis, Nazis again?

I mean, you don't call snakes alternative worms, do you?

Spencer is a Nazi, no doubt. His use of the term 'Alt-Right' is really just a way to sanitise many of his views and make them more palatable to broader audiences. 

I don't see the term as useful at all, mainly because it seems that anyone who is on the internet and not violently left wing is often branded part of the Alt-Right, making the term mostly meaningless. 

[Paladin of Ice]

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't think the alt right are the princes of peace that you claim.

Hey, Spencer said he wanted a "peaceful ethnic cleansing", and what more could we possibly ask for? I mean, black people didn't remove themselves from the country after a terrorist campaign that included thousands of murders and every possible societal screw being turned on them, and millions upon millions didn't even leave the area that was harshest towards them, but surely the stuper geniuses of the alt-right have come up a way to "peacefully" move out all the non-white population and create their ideal ethnic state.

I mean, there's obviously no chance that said stuper geniuses don't have a plan, or that any percentage of people, however small, would fail to move peacefully, even though it means getting away from Spencer and his ilk. So obviously there's no chance of the foreign wars they decry being replaced with ones in the towns and neighborhoods across America. And it's certainly not like large sections of the alt-right openly advocate for just that! Just don't click on this link. Or this one. Definitely not this one. You should avoid this one too.  Don't even think of clicking on the  multiple  videos that show Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes repeatedly calling for violence and murder, or how he claims to have been encouraged by multiple figures within the alt-right and the Fox News crowd.

I mean, all you have to do is not happen to be black, muslim, or Jewish in their presence. Or part of a multiracial couple. Or a family member who reports them when they start getting especially violent and crazy.

So really OGE, there's nothing but peaceful intentions from the alt-right, and no reason why you have to be so hard on their lickspittles... er, sympathizers... er, sea lions... er, the open minded people who just want to ask the important questions. I mean, we wouldn't want to be uncivil about the matter or anything, right?

[/sarcasm]

[SweetPea]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well the likes of Richard Spencer have called for a white ethno state. So it would seem the claim that this is just about "preserving the culture" is rather disingenuous.

Demographic changes can't cause cultural changes in directions one would not prefer?

Quote

But, even if I were to take this argument at face value, which I don't, I'd just point out that US culture as it stands today is the result of many ethnic groups. So, I think there is no reason to think there will be anything odious about today's immigrants or future immigrants having any negative impact on the US. They will just do what prior immigrants have done, which is just add to the US culture, making it a more interesting place to live.

That is certainly true from your point of view. From a right wingers point of view, lots of immigrants (who tend to vote left) are not that beneficial.

Quote

I think I'm being accused here of taking Spencer out of context, when I think my real crime is taking Spencer in context.

But, I'll play along with this charade. The fact of the matter is that Spencer does seem to have a bit of high regard for fascism, having been seen on prior occasions giving Nazi salutes. I think the explanation that it is all in jest is pretty dishonest. And at Charlottesville, Spencer and his band of alt right assholes were heard chanting "Blood and Soil", which I do in fact believe had it's origins in 19th Century racist ideology in Germany, and then became popular with the Nazis themselves some decades later. And then, Spencer called Trump's election the "Victory of Will" which seems eerily similar to the infamous Nazi propaganda piece "Triump of the Will".

It would seem Spencer's prior actions and statements actually lend support to the plain meaning of his statement as quoted.

I'll be concerned when he's actually advocating for fascist ideas.  You can keep on worrying that he is a warmonger poisoning the minds of youth while he is out there talking against wars and calling for an end to them.

11 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Way too kind. Spencer is a Nazi, Plain and simple. The so called Alt-Right does not like the term Nazi, as that is too toxic, and got burned, by, well, the Nazis. I think I've said around a dozen times at least, but can we stop using the term Alt-Right altogether, and can we please call Nazis, Nazis again?

I mean, you don't call snakes alternative worms, do you?

You can do that, you'll just end up looking like a fool.

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

I know you aren't from the US and are also extremely ignorant about what things are like here, so I'd just like to take the time to let you know that immigration over the southern border has been happening for well over a century, and that in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and beyond this natural cultural mingling has been happening the entire time.  It's nothing new or something to be concerned about, and it seems a very strange time indeed to voice such a concern as immigration from Mexico and Central  America has been declining.

The reason why such concerns are voiced today is because while immigration might be in decline, the demographic changes caused by it are only accelerating.

Quote

Eta:. Hilarious that you think that a giant wall and keeping people apart is the 'natural' way for culture to mix.  ROFL lololol

I also find it hilarious that you think illegal immigration is absolutely necessary for cultural exchange, that legal immigration cannot possibly achieve the same thing.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, SweetPea said:

You can do that, you'll just end up looking like a fool.

Do you think I care about what some far right incel trolls on the internet think? If so, think again.

[OldGimletEye]

29 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Demographic changes can't cause cultural changes in directions one would not prefer?

Quote

That is certainly true from your point of view. From a right wingers point of view, lots of immigrants (who tend to vote left) are not that beneficial.

Pizza, Rock Music, Blues & Jazz, Barbecue, and Christmas. Just a few very iconic American things that came from other ethnic groups or immigrants. None of them undermined the "American Way of Life". They added to it.

Quote

 From a right wingers point of view, lots of immigrants (who tend to vote left) are not that beneficial.

Well there are lot of things from a "right wingers point of view" are simply horseshit. From a right wingers point of view Trump's Corporate Tax cuts worked.

29 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I'll be concerned when he's actually advocating for fascist ideas.  You can keep on worrying that he is a warmonger poisoning the minds of youth while he is out there talking against wars and calling for an end to them.

Okay, so Spencer isn't your grandpa's kind of Nazi. He's the peace loving and reasonable sort of Nazi. LOL.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Dumping millions of foreign immigrants into a country is about as much organic cultural change as genociding a million people is organic demographic change.

Are you really going to equate migration to the deliberate and systematic extermination of a group of people for belonging to an ethnicity or religion?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

9 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Can you share with me the secret of your mind reading abilities? 

You really don't know what you're talking about, or you're just lying. Peterson's worldview is fundamentally diffeerent from that of the alt right. He is preaching individualism, and tries to discourage everyone from collectivist thinking. How in the world do you reconcile that with white nationalism? How do you explain the endless criticism of him coming from the alt right, being called things like cuck or Juden Peterstein, and the open hostility between them, if they just love him so much? Do you have any argument at all to support your assertion?

White nationalists love that his "individualism" just so happens to be him fighting against the rights of marginalized groups. His arguments against transgender law also applies to arguments against equal opportunity laws and laws created in the civil rights era to protect marginalized persons. It doesn't matter if he "endlessly" (or twice) criticizes the alt right. Something in his "logic" has attracted them to his cause, and as an academic, he should be willing to stop and say, "Why am I attracting these people?" 

But like I said, by and large, his biggest group of supporters are young white men who feel powerless in this scary world. They believe that making your bed in the morning and standing up straight is just the thing to fix their lives. His views on gay couples raising children, on modern women's unhappiness being formed by feminism--that women are ignoring their biological needs, are the kind of conservative talking points you see on Fox News. His support of "borders" and "limited immigration" go flat in the face of individualism. He assigns collective tags to an entire group of people: Latinx. Limited immigration might impact all immigrants, but a border only impacts one specific demographic. They are a collective mass to him, they are not individuals. His logic is so faulty and broken at the core, I don't know what to tell you. He doesn't even do the reading on epistemological viewpoints he vehemently tries to attack.

He is the epitome of conservative philosophy: positions that support the further marginalization of anyone who is not a white male.

But go to his lectures, keep paying him his money, and continue to watch the world around you change in ways you aren't comfortable with (even though you made your bed everything morning and stood up straight more often). 

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

White nationalists love that his "individualism" just so happens to be him fighting against the rights of marginalized groups. His arguments against transgender law also applies to arguments against equal opportunity laws and laws created in the civil rights era to protect marginalized persons. It doesn't matter if he "endlessly" (or twice) criticizes the alt right. Something in his "logic" has attracted them to his cause, and as an academic, he should be willing to stop and say, "Why am I attracting these people?" 

But like I said, by and large, his biggest group of supporters are young white men who feel powerless in this scary world. They believe that making your bed in the morning and standing up straight is just the thing to fix their lives. His views on gay couples raising children, on modern women's unhappiness being formed by feminism--that women are ignoring their biological needs, are the kind of conservative talking points you see on Fox News. His support of "borders" and "limited immigration" go flat in the face of individualism. He assigns collective tags to an entire group of people: Latinx. Limited immigration might impact all immigrants, but a border only impacts one specific demographic. They are a collective mass to him, they are not individuals. His logic is so faulty and broken at the core, I don't know what to tell you. He doesn't even do the reading on epistemological viewpoints he vehemently tries to attack.

He is the epitome of conservative philosophy: positions that support the further marginalization of anyone who is not a white male.

But go to his lectures, keep paying him his money, and continue to watch the world around you change in ways you aren't comfortable with (even though you made your bed everything morning and stood up straight more often). 

I think his popularity on the right is more to do with the way he's been able to highlight a lot of the hyperbole and hypocrisy of many far left arguments. His views do track pretty well along centre right lines, but in 2018 that would put him firmly in the Nazi camp.

(not sure why Peterson is being discussed in this thread, maybe there is a better place for it)

[Centrist Simon Steele]

13 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Yeah, I read an article, I think on the Atlantic, claiming that liberals should be afraid of this guy as he is convincing many young people of his point of view. But he is totally not an an alt-righter! He is this totally cool guy that is beyond all politics and has maximum charisma points. But the liberals all hate him be because his his an alpha male and they are all cuck betas! I personally thought I was still fighting the Trump nazis. I guess they have already realized Trump is a huge loser and have moved on.

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

If there is anything interesting about Peterson, and I’m not sure there is that much, it’s how the media treats him. As a microcosm of click bait and ‘fake news media’ it’s quite entertaining to see

It's interesting too--Peterson really "hit" at the right time, when the alt right (which I use interchangeably with these conservatives who live and die at Trump's altar--they are mostly white men who don't believe they are racist, but instead, are horribly discriminated against) came out of the woodwork. I think this talk of Peterson as an alpha male is interesting too. He looks like Mr. Peanut when he gets on stage (he just needs a monocle and cane), he's not tough, and he gets whiny and aggressive when people review his work negatively.

The idea of the alpha male (a philosophy created between bench press reps) indicates they are precisely the evolutionary answer to saving humanity from all the beta weakness our PC culture is creating. Peterson seems to have embraced this view of strength. I'm sure he's taking MMA lessons in his spare time. But natural selection does not work the way the "Alpha Male Doctrine" thinks. Natural selection removes those groups who cannot adapt to new environments. If the new environment is a PC culture that prides itself on striving toward enlightenment, then the alpha male is doomed to go instinct.

 

58 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm going to once again call upon my superior Asian genetics and reason that Sweatpee's idea of "organic cultural change" means "nothing that makes white people nervous."

This seems to be it. White people (really a significant percentage of white men) seem terrified of the prospect of the world changing. For the first time in (ever?) white men are forced to consider aspects of their privilege that they've had the luxury of ignoring. 

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are you really going to equate migration to the deliberate and systematic extermination of a group of people for belonging to an ethnicity or religion?

You just showed me why this argument is useless. Yikes. That analogy is terrifying.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think his popularity on the right is more to do with the way he's been able to highlight a lot of the hyperbole and hypocrisy of many far left arguments. His views do track pretty well along centre right lines, but in 2018 that would put him firmly in the Nazi camp.

(not sure why Peterson is being discussed in this thread, maybe there is a better place for it)

I think Peterson has potential to derail this thread too, but I also believe he is a kind of perfect example of what conservative "reasonable" politics have become in America. I don't want to derail the thread, but I do think a systematic deconstruction of the walking fallacy that is JP might help us better understand the nightmare the U.S. has become. That's just me though.   

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I think Peterson has potential to derail this thread too, but I also believe he is a kind of perfect example of what conservative "reasonable" politics have become in America. I don't want to derail the thread, but I do think a systematic deconstruction of the walking fallacy that is JP might help us better understand the nightmare the U.S. has become. That's just me though.   

I'm certain it will derail this thread. I do think Peterson is a case study on what is going wrong on both the left and the right, and why nobody can hear each other.

[Paladin of Ice]

26 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Okay, so Spencer isn't your grandpa's kind of Nazi. He's the peace loving and reasonable sort of Nazi. LOL.

Who totally respects and values American ideas like Free Speech. 

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Who totally respects and values American ideas like Free Speech. 

Yeah, Spencer is pretty much a bullshit artist.

On the Statue of Liberty it says:

Quote

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Spencer would re-write it as:

Well, just fuck you foreign people. Go away.

So much for his cultural preservation.

[Rippounet]

So SweetPea, who not long ago claimed to definitely NOT be an alt-right troll now tells us he "follows" a number of alt-right figures and that these guys are "misunderstood."

Ok.

As for cultural changes... Blah. Modernity and technological progress are what's really destroying what some people present as their "culture," though tbh I doubt they care. All too often what they want to defend is half-fictional to begin with, and a convenient excuse to reject the very idea of having to live with people behaving (and looking) slightly different.

I'd take most of these "culture warriors" more seriously if they were actually involved in cultural affairs to begin with. But most of them have yet to actually learn what their culture is ; most of them aren't exactly involved in the arts, literature, cuisine, or music, and their knowledge of history tends to be sketchy (and seriously biased) at best. If they understood what culture is, they would understand that immigration is barely a threat to it. But they don't, because they don't really care about culture, and are only using it to promote neo-nazi views.

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I'm certain it will derail this thread. I do think Peterson is a case study on what is going wrong on both the left and the right, and why nobody can hear each other.

I don't know much about JP but from what I can tell he can be summed up as being the newest version of the conservative intellectual. I'd compare him to William F. Buckley Jr. having seen both on tv.
And like Buckley back in the day, it seems to me that quite often JP doesn't know jack shit about what he's talking about. He's more articulate than your average conservative, I'll give him that, but he's basically spewing the same bullshit on individual rights, free speech, social evolutions, economics... etc.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

I don't know much about JP but from what I can tell he can be summed up as being the newest version of the conservative intellectual. I'd compare him to William F. Buckley Jr. having seen both on tv.
And like Buckley back in the day, it seems to me that quite often JP doesn't know jack shit about what he's talking about. He's more articulate than your average conservative, I'll give him that, but he's basically spewing the same bullshit on individual rights, free speech, social evolutions, economics... etc.

It depends what bits of those things you think are bullshit. I do think he speaks with a lot of certainty on many issues, and its quite often misplaced certainty. But he does have some value.

[Rippounet]

42 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It depends what bits of those things you think are bullshit.

I'd say his positions on Marxism or "neo-Marxism" are utter rubbish, to such a point that I don't think he understands what Marxism is at all. Like many conservatives he seems to equate Marxism with Communism and Marxism-Leninism, except he manages to add gender theory, women's rights, or the defense of LGBTQ individuals in there. It somehow allows him to link modern liberal thought with the atrocities of Stalin and Mao ; he may be articulate in doing so, but for a political viewpoint, it's as intelligent and subtle as what you find in the comments section at Breitbart.

Of course, it allows him to victimize white males by pretending that they are the ones being oppressed by a dominant "neo-marxist" ideology. Throw in there a bit of bad faith about climate change or the gender pay gap, and one has to wonder why this guy is even considered an intellectual to begin with. The tensions between liberalism and conservatism or between Marxism and individual rights are considerably more subtle and paradoxical than he will ever admit, and he has become the voice not just of angry white men, but also of the dominant neo-liberal ideology that focuses on individual rights at the expense of the social contract and collective responsibility.

42 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It depends what bits of those things you think are bullshit. I do think he speaks with a lot of certainty on many issues, and its quite often misplaced certainty. But he does have some value.

He's a useful idiot perhaps, in that if this is the best type of intellectual the right can muster in 2018 2019 then the present-day conservative movement is even more worthless than I imagined, and that's really saying something.

 

[OldGimletEye]

21 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I'd say his positions on Marxism or "neo-Marxism" are utter rubbish, to such a point that I don't think he understands what Marxism is at all. Like many conservatives he seems to equate Marxism with Communism and Marxism-Leninism, except he manages to add gender theory, women's rights, or the defense of LGBTQ individuals in there. It somehow allows him to link modern liberal thought with the atrocities of Stalin and Mao ; he may be articulate in doing so, but from a political viewpoint, it's as intelligent and subtle as what you find in the comments section at Breitbart.

Even right of center luminaries like Peter North have proclaimed they are Marxist of right. In short a bit of Marxist analysis of political economy or history ought not be that controversial (even if you disagree with Marxist solutions).

Now, if JP were the "classical liberal" that he claims, then it seems to me that he would adamantly oppose the white identity politics of people like Spencer and make it clear he wants nothing to do with the alt right.  But, I don't see him doing him do that and instead has become a sort of hero to them.

Also, he often, it seems to me, confuses post modernism with Marxism, when in fact, Marxist have often butted heads with post modernism.

Now I will say this, I dislike post modernism, for reasons I have stated. And when people, like Peterson or his predecessor Hicks attack it, I just can't find myself wanting to come to its defense. But, certainly I don't buy everything either are selling. I certainly don't buy Hicks' love of Ayn Rand (who was an economics idiot anyway) or Peterson's garbage. He seemingly confuses a lot of stuff. And I certainly, have issues with "classic liberals" often being completely obtuse to the issues of class, race, gender and so forth, pretending people always act as hyper rational individuals.

[Heartofice]

I’ve heard Peterson come out so many times against Spencer , the Alt Right and the Nazis that I think it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest he’s courting them or has any love for them at all. 

In fact one of the reasons Peterson gets so much love from the right is because of the way he is reported. If you see the media talking about Peterson using terms like Nazi or Alt right , and you know it’s untrue then what else do you stop trusting. It just buys into everything they believe about a left wing media hooked on smears and hyperbole.

I think Peterson is a slimey character and can’t be pinned down on a lot of subjects, mainly because of how often his words get misrepresented, and his views on religion and whatever the hell modern Marxism is don’t seem to hold much weight with me. He’s really not the intellectual giant a lot of people hold him up to be, I mean Joe Rogan has given him a bigger kicking than most people I’ve seen. 

But like I said, his popularity is due to him being a reaction to a lot of progressive left ideology that many assume to be untouchable, and he fills a gap for many and talks to people who get forgotten quite often.