I used to think that the descent of liberals into nasty people, whose way of debating people who disagree with them has been reduced to name-calling - racist! Nazi! - was relatively new. Apparently not. In this article, the author describes the hateful, intolerant ways liberals shut down any civil discussion we see today.
It was written 20 years ago. Back then, this way of illiberalism was termed “defamation and demonization” and it even more true now than it was then.
It's hard not to notice that political discussion over the last decade has degenerated into name-calling—and that the insults most often come from the left.
www.city-journal.org
I am sorry, but Brian Anderson has been a conservative voice for decades. And I will be up front, I am opposed to affirmative action. As Anderson states,
Moreover, racial preferences penalize non-blacks who have committed no wrong, conservatives say, and they end up harming blacks by demoralizing and stigmatizing them as somehow in need of special help to get ahead.
He is spot on. And I demonstrated as much quite eloquently in 1981. Political science class, professor is explaining affirmative action. She asks for three volunteers and then she places one of the volunteers on another's back, piggy back style. Matches the piggy back couple up against the third person and tells them to race across the room. She explains, this is discrimination. Then she tells the person riding piggy back to switch partners and asks them to race again. She explains, this is affirmative action.
I was all to hell, I mean livid. I jumped up out of my seat and demanded control of the situation. The professor agreed, she kind of didn't have a choice. I looked at the second pair of piggy back riders and asked, did you have anything to do with setting up the first race? Nope they said, and I said, "go sit down". I looked at the solo, affirmative action beneficiary and asked, "Did you have anything to do with setting up the first race? "Nope", they said. I answered, "Go sit down". Then I got three new volunteers, put one on the others back and turned to the teacher and asked, "What is that?". She seem puzzled, even confused, and didn't answer. I jumped up in the air and said, "Discrimination, just like it was the first time". And then told the person riding piggyback to return to their desk and proclaimed, "Now we have a fair race". I then turned to the professor and told them, kind of Waterboy style and with my slow southern drawl, "Mama always told me, two wrongs don't make a right". The class exploded, jumping to their feet and cheering.
But your boy takes it a step to far here,
if you oppose the left's policies, on racial preferences or on anything else that affects blacks, you must be out to harm black Americans.
That kind of falls into the, "whoops, I didn't mean to" category. We really can't determine intention, all we have to rely on is the predicted results. And if the results of a proposed action disproportionately affects minorities the charge of racism stands. "I didn't mean to", is not going to cut it. Now notice, the affirmative action argument actually presents a viewpoint that affirmative action actually damages the minorities it is intended to help. The same can't be said for cutting social programs in the inner city, or removing federal stipends to urban schools. There is nothing positive about that position for those minorities. The racism charge still stands.
But like you said, the article is 20 years old. And I got to be honest, anyone proclaiming Bush Jr. was a racist was off base. I would be the first to defend him. But Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, it is inherently racist, and the subtle undertone of racism is the very foundation of the movement, mostly because of the last "A". WTF--what you talking about again? Oh wait, we were no longer great because we had a black president, gotcha. I mean that undertone was deafening and cannot be ignored. Do you have an alternative explanation? I mean just exactly what did Obama do to destroy America's greatness. Free the people from the bonds of servitude initiated by employer provided healthcare?
Look, no president in a generation has done more damage to this country than Donald Trump. He stroked division, he completely destroyed our reputation abroad, and he completely miffed the Covid pandemic. I doubt Biden can bring us out of what Trump has done. But I know this much, replace Biden with a Republican, or worse, a second term Trump, and you can hammer the death knell for the American Republic.
That definition is entirely erroneous, wherever you dredged it up from, fascism is "one party political rule, ruthlessly wielded and enforced by a fascist elite, who use it to control every aspect of their society, industry, government, education, culture, art, absolutely everything, subjugated to the complete total control of the one party ruling elite, and you never ever get a say in how they rule you, and if you object then they shut off your access to society, your families access to society, and ultimately imprison, and or execute you! Right or left have absolutely nothing to do with fascism, fascism, just as with communism, is just another name for "aristocracy," and absolute total control over their serfs!
