Warren Henry, in writing about the “Womens March” for women against Donald Trump, notes sort of clubby fragmentalism that accompanies so much of the far left these days:
Black feminists have turned off white women with calls to check their privilege. The march’s inclusion of a pro-life group as a partner in a march that cites abortion rights as one of its “unity principles” was proven controversial and “horrified” the usual suspects. The march has now disowned the pro-life group. Given the march’s problems with alienating women, it is not surprising that the enterprise has had some difficulty attracting men.
The New York Times helpfully explains that “[t]his brand of feminism — frequently referred to as ‘intersectionality’ — asks white women [and presumably everyone else] to acknowledge that they have had it easier.” Moreover: “[T]hese debates over race also reflect deeper questions about the future of progressivism in the age of Trump. Should the march highlight what divides women, or what unites them? Is there room for women who have never heard of ‘white privilege’?”
Under Urbal Liberal Privilege, there are no contradictions.
I cite this partly to diagnose some of the problems with the American left today – and partly to give me an excuse to run this video which is the ultimate illustration of the phenomenon:
But let’s not get too smug, conservatives. We’ve got problems of our own too – starting with the fact that while we started this cycle with over a dozen great conservatives, none got to the White House. Remember how the Cruz faction hated the Rubio faction?
We’ve got our own homework to do.
It strikes me that a big part of our problem is that we’re concerned about the wrong things–someone does something we don’t like, and we hate him for life. We need to overcome that silliness.
Rubio’s behavior lately justifies a little, if not hatred then at least some exasperation at the little jackass.
Remember how you hated (hate) Trump all last year?
This got blocked on YouTube for some reason.
https://vimeo.com/200293678
It strikes me that a big part of our problem is that we’re concerned about the wrong things–someone does something we don’t like, and we hate him for life. We need to overcome that silliness.
Seconded, there’s a reason you don’t go scorched earth during an election – eventually you’ll need the support of some of the people that you beat if you ever hope to accomplish anything of substance.
The Democrats seem overly fond of being the party of protest, rather than the party of governance. While they only control 6-7 states (both houses of legislature and governor), many of those are big, powerful states. Why not show the country how well Democratic governance can work at the state level? Why not claim common cause with the Republican state’s rights crowd and delegate more responsibilities (and block grants) to the states?
There’s nothing stopping single payer healthcare in Massachusetts or California. Conquer those health care prices! Show America how it’s done! Sadly, either the Democrats either have no real faith in their supposed program, or simply prefer to protest.
DMA; you’re entirely correct that I was an incredibly reluctant Drumpf voter, and I’ve still got concerns that the same things that led to his two divorces and multiple bankruptcies are going to bite us on the tuckus.
That said, I’ve got no objection to pointing things like that out–or Rubio’s open borders flirtation–but what I do object to is going scorched earth over it as if Rubio/Cruz/Trump/whoever is the second coming of Satan or Barack himself. We do that too much while the left pops popcorn.
We’ve got problems of our own too – starting with the fact that while we started this cycle with over a dozen great conservatives, none got to the White House.
You sure about that? Do you think even Cruz would have nominated a Cabinet this conservative? Or floated the ideas of eliminating the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? As well as cutting 10% or more of the general bureaucracy?
I submit that Walker and Cruz, who were my first choices, would have been hard pressed to suggest even freezing spending in those areas. Trump has come in and looked at the Federal government as a money-losing business and is looking to make it over by cutting out that fat, non-core programs. I never thought I’d live to see that day, and probably never would have had we not elected a businessman rather than a politician.
And de regueur: I still don’t like Trump on a personal level and he wasn’t my first choice by a very long shot. But on a policy level I’m beginning to be a real fan.
Why not show the country how well Democratic governance can work at the state level? Why not claim common cause with the Republican state’s rights crowd and delegate more responsibilities (and block grants) to the states?
Oh, Emery, I truly, truly wish that that were the case!
Perhaps you’ve noticed that CA had a $1.9B error in last year’s budget due to overspending on Medi-Cal that’s blown a massive hole in the budget for next year? And that they conveniently forgot to mention that fact when they found it and only announced it now that election season is over? Oh, and that growth is miraculously far below projections and tax receipts are far short of what’s needed, despite all the progressive’s best efforts at “helping” businesses with more taxes and regulations?
Or shall we even mention that Illinois debt is junk status and that public pensions and poor budget management are driving that state into what would normally require bankruptcy, but because it’s a state there’s no mechanism for that?
Or shall we discuss the corruption that is Albany and how the governor’s cabinet is getting thinned out by the US attorney general in the area?
In the case of IL you’re likely to see an appeal for a Federal bailout in the next few years, and CA is utterly dependent on the Federal government for assistance with its overly generous welfare state, to the point where 25% of the US aid to the poor for the whole country is blown there.
Personally, I’d say let’s go the way of Federalism and let the states be the states and the Feds cover only international and interstate issues. But that will tank CA and IL at the very least, and turn NY into an even larger pile of corrupt governance.
Why not claim common cause with the Republican state’s rights crowd and delegate more responsibilities (and block grants) to the states?
Ah, yes, Republicans in power and the Constitution is rediscovered. As is patriotism. And Federalism. And now that the Democrats have “weaponized” the Federal govt, in more ways than one, they want us all to be reasonable. Like they were. Ptui.
And with that said, screw the “conservatives” who conserved nothing. And that goes double for most of those “dozen great conservatives”.
SSOLSEmery, that video was epic playing on my 52″ Hidef in Dolby© surround sound. The only thing that would have made it better would have been for you to have been here to fetch me beer.
MAGA bitch.
That was one entertaining video. Thanks, Emery, all is forgotten.
Swiftee: “Everyday is a canvas waiting to be painted.”
http://m.imgur.com/nChG9xR
bikebubba, good point. But you should be lecturing the people throwing stink bombs like Rubio, and the host of this blog.
eg. “we started this cycle with over a dozen great conservatives, none got to the White House.” – Stink bomb.
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DMA; you should see the stink bombs I throw at Mitch via email! It’s amazing he puts up with me after the fertilizer I throw at him, that’s for sure!
Seriously, if the worst people were doing was what you give as an example, that would be an awesome improvement in my view.
It only took 8 years from the Financial Crisis for us to hand the country over to real estate moguls, hedge funds and Goldman Sachs.
Reaganism has been dead since 1988, GHW Bush claimed to represent a kinder, gentler nation.”
That was handing the Left the keys to the kingdom. You can’t out do the left if you think the purpose of the political state is embody attributes like ‘kinder” and “gentler.”
If Bush had believed that the US should be “a stronger, more prosperous nation” he might have gotten a full eight years.
I find Trump to be without moral center or relevant experience, and intellectually and temperamentally ill-suited to the job, which is why I did not vote for him. But if the Democrats do nothing but protest about what a bad person he is for the next 4 years, whilst bickering amongst each other, he will likely be re-elected, just as GWB was in 2004. It is no longer enough to declare yourself a social democrat and decry the iniquities of capitalism, as many center left parties in Europe have discovered. There must be an actual plan to govern.
The superman cannot have the morality of a slave and cannot have experience a slave would believe was relevant:
An overman as described by Zarathustra, the main character in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is the one who is willing to risk all for the sake of enhancement of humanity. In contrary to the �last man� whose sole desire is his own comfort and is incapable of creating anything beyond oneself in any form. This should suggest that an overman is someone who can establish his own values as the world in which others live their lives, often unaware that they are not pregiven. This means an overman can affect and influence the lives of others. In other words, an overman has his own values, independent of others, which affects and dominates others� lives that may not have predetermined values but only herd instinct. An overman is then someone who has a life which is not merely to live each day with no meanings when nothing in the past and future is more important than the present, or more precisely, the pleasure and happiness in the present, but with the purpose for humanity.
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~pj97/Nietzsche.htm
Feeling merciful? What the Left thought that its proper behavior towards conservatives should be after the (inevitable) Hillary victory:
https://balkin.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandoning-defensive-crouch-liberal.html
https://balkin.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandoning-defensive-crouch-liberal.html
One of Trump’s first items he signed was to raise interest rates on first time homebuyers. Perhaps it’s his way of showing support and appreciation to the hard working voters that voted for change.
One of Trump’s first items he signed was to raise interest rates on first time homebuyers.
Are you just posting L wing talking points, emery?
Trump didn’t do anything with interest rates. He added back a quarter point discount from the PMI that FHA borrowers pay. Obama discounted it a few weeks ago. How Cruel! Trump charging FHA borrowers the same rate that Obama did!
The reason Obama did it is as lame duck is because congress would never approve it because it would leave PMI underfunded and Obama had not given congress a spending offset to pay for it.
Geez. Is this half-baked crap what we all have to look forward to for the next four years? Isn’t Trump crazy enough that you can actually find something irresponsible and dumb that he’s done and criticize him for that?
Characterize it any way you see fit.
At this point in history the political battles that the boomers have been conducting since 1968 have resulted in a bitter stalemate, with no new ideas since the war against poverty and supply side economics. The boomers have already argued every argument a dozen times. Political debate is now only repetition. We need younger people who are prepared to reject the assumptions of the boomers before even starting.
Emery, From what I’ve seen a good number of younger people are rejecting the assumptions of “boomers”, mostly the “hippie boomers”!
I’m enjoying watching the snowflakes melt, and the progressives/socialists sniveling and crying while standing in a pool of their own piss and excrement.
Completely reject Boomers . . . Emery has a blind squirrel moment. Quite right, Big E. And first up, quit spending money we don’t have, even if it’s something we really, really want but can’t afford.
Like, for instance, special programs to increase home ownership. Glenn Reynolds explains why it’s not the good thing that you think it is.
“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
Yes. That. Exactly that. Which is why Obama’s move was wrong and Trump’s was right.
Deficits don’t matter. Trump’s tax cuts and infrastructure spending proposals will increases the national debt by $5.3 trillion over a decade relative to current policy, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 105%.
It’s not “characterizing.” Trump’s EO Keeps the PMI rate where it is, Obama’s cut of 0.25% did not take effect until the 27th of this month.
It doesn’t have anything to do with mortgage interest, the PMI amount paid is paid per thousand dollars of the amount borrowed.
How’s this for a headline:
BILLIONAIRE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER PRESIDENT MAKES REAL ESTATE MORE DIFFICULT TO BUY!
‘It’s good for America, my bottom line isn’t important’ says Trump.
In this case I would bet that the push for the executive order came from congress, aka Ryan, because it made a hole in the budget that would have to be filled by transferring money from elsewhere, raising taxes, or deficit spending. And of course, Obama, as was his wont, never bothered to discuss his MI rate reduction for FHA loans with congress, which is obligated to pay for it.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/20/trumps-first-executive-action-cancel-obamas-mortgage-premium-cuts/96853446/
I do not believe that you can describe pre-WW2 politics, anywhere in the world, as producing stability or prosperity.
But it would be a mistake to say want to return to August 1914. The dynamics that led to WWI began in the 1840s, with the rise of Bismarck’s unified German state, the Paris Commune, and the Italian Risorgmento.
And the political transformation of Europe in the 1840s was a direct result of the Napoleanic wars of the late 18th-early 19th centuries.
And that Europe came from the Reformation.
If you want a quasi-stable political system, a political system that did not carry within it the seeds of its own destruction, you have to go back to Medieval times, when it was dynastic wars, Holy Roman Empire vs Pope, and Christendom vs. Islam, for half a millennium. The wars of the Middle Ages, however bloody, were incapable of producing a New World out of the Old.
Deficits don’t matter? How do we cover that shortfall? By borrowing money, which costs interest. If we’re going to pay off the debt, we need to cut spending, dramatically, for a long time (remember Michelle Bachmann’s 47% figure, it was dead on).
If we don’t intend to repay the loans, then we are planning to screw our creditors. I seem to recall you complaining about that when Trump suggested it, Emery.
So what’s your alternative proposal that lets us continue to pile up debt without paying it?
That’s cute, you think those tax cuts will have offsets. A real Laffer! I wonder if the dollar index is rising because of Republican future deficits. They’ll need to be financed.
It is wise to recall how the German’s resolved their currency crisis of the early 1920s: the German government issued a new currency based on the physical assets of the nation owned or controlled by the state. These were mines, railroads, etc.
The natural resource assets our federal government owns or controls are worth tens of trillions.
“There is a lot of ruin in a nation,” said Adam Smith.
That’s cute, you think those tax cuts will have offsets.
Yet again you prove yourself a true moron, eTASS. Tax cuts don’t work? Really? REALLY? Oh, wait, I forgot, you don’t know history, nor care for it, especially since you are always, always on the wrong side of it.
Trump’s tax cuts and infrastructure spending proposals will increases the national debt by $5.3 trillion over a decade relative to current policy, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 105%.
And another knee slapper. it was OK for 0bumbler to raise deficit and spending more than (I do not have the right number on hand) his predecessors combined, but it is an anathema for sTrumpet to do less. Oh, and showing how bad you are at math, although you claim to be an engineer, there is another side of the equation, CUTS in goobernment spending that you so conveniently choose to utterly ignore, lest they interfere with your libturd talking points.