Last week Dan Bongino talked about the pointlessness of arguing with the left. He said something like “We think the left are simply people with bad ideas while the left thinks we are simply bad people…” He went on to say that while pointless in terms of trying to convince the person with whom you’re “arguing”, it’s worthwhile because others, who may be open minded and paying attention, might be persuaded.
This was driven home to me via a Facebook discussion that started out with a friend’s cartoon suggesting CRT is an innocuous addition to the teaching of American history that shows some of the darker chapters.
My response was: “No one opposes teaching history, warts and all. I studied slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Chinese workers basically in servitude to build the RR and more. You keep mischaracterizing CRT as just teaching the negative side of American history. It’s not. The heart of CRT is that the US is systematically racist and minorities can’t succeed. That’s fiction and you know it.”
Which started a firestorm from a friend of my friend, from which I’ve excerpted:
It’s apparent that you gained little insight from your studies. If they didn’t touch on the racist systems that led to those events occurring, you obviously got the sanitized, white washed version where the savagery and downright inhumanity to any non-white man BY white men was totally excluded. Just like your fellow GOP white Supremacists, there is NO reality that y’all can’t bend to save your false sense of identity that you’re superior to all non- whites and European genius and goodness is the only reality there is.
American Slavery was different and worse than any other slavery in the History of the World. It’s the only slavery where the slaves were dehumanized. No other slavery treated the slaves like a horse or a chicken.
To which I responded:
It’s true slaves were treated as property, but in fact, slaves in the American south were largely treated better than slaves in South America and the. One major reason for that was the Constitution’s ban on the importation of slaves after 1808. Slaves therefore became far more valuable than they were in the rest of the Americas and it was to nobody’s benefit to work them to death. That is, very unlike Brazil, the Caribbean and elsewhere where slaves were cheaply imported and therefore expendable. The truth of this can be seen in the fact that 94% of the slaves brought to the New World went somewhere other than the United States, but by 1860 2/3 of the slaves in the New World were in the American south.
He continued: The effects are still being felt today when George Floyd’s murderer gets 22.5 years for killing a black human being but a black man killing a Police DOG recently was sentenced to 45 years. That just shows that the dehumanization of black folks specifically males is baked in to American society. The ONLY ones who are treated like human beings are the exceptional negroes who make it through systemic racism baked into every institution in America or those who entertain white folks in music, TV or sports. And even they can’t say anything bad about America or their lives could get turned upside down.
Wouldn’t it be nice if American Europeans tried to dismantle this system and rectify the damage? The boost to our economy through reparations alone and the good will gained worldwide as America denounces its past and pledges to make amends would truly place this nation at the top as it stones for its sins. But, white America collectively isn’t interested in any of that. It’s only interested in the maintenance of white supremacy for various reasons, not the least of which is white genetic survival, power and greed.
After more futile back and forth, I decided to take a different tact:
Let’s try a thought experiment… Imagine everything you said is true about programs being stacked against minorities. What do you do to fix them? Reverse discrimination? How about reparations? Who pays? Who gets what? Who decides? Does Obama pay or does he get money? Do recent African or Caribbean immigrants get money too or only people who can trace their lineage back to slavery or even Jim Crow? What about black families who owned slaves? Do the million or so black millionaires get money too? When are things as they should be? What’s the measure? Will every company or classroom or board have to reflect the pigment hue of the country as a whole? Will it apply to everything from police to janitors to ditch diggers to the NBA and the NFL? Will all of this change the unwed birth rate in black America? Is murder still to be considered a crime as half of the offenders in the US are black males despite the fact that they make up only 6% of the population? Since reparations will make everything even do we do away with welfare programs that disproportionately benefit minorities?
Or, maybe all of us could be grateful for the fact that today virtually every one of us is extraordinarily lucky to live in a country that allows so much freedom and opportunity that millions of people literally risk their lives to come here every year and probably half or more of the rest of the world would happily change places with almost any American.
He responded: In other words, you’re just another psychotic white Supremacist and it makes NO sense trying to REASON with a psychotic.
To seek to evade all responsibility or accountability for the greatest crimes against Black humanity in history is the mindset of a Savage…PRETENDING to be civilized. Someone who cares nothing about Honor, truth, civility, fair-play OR in obeying their OWN laws, let alone those of God.
White Supremacy has made most white folks, LIKE YOU, spiritual MONSTERS to be able to say stuff like that with a straight face and sleep like a baby at night. There lies the entire problem of Racism in America which is a power dynamic that only WHITE AMERICANS have. Blacks can’t be racist towards you because we haven’t set up systems of power that can destroy the lives of you or your family. White folks do that to blacks ALL the time.
It was clear he was not really interested in ideas focused on making life better for black Americans, but rather extracting revenge in the form of reparations from the whites who by definition are racists and guilty.
This is why Biden is in the White House, other than the fraud, obviously. Democrats have become the party of grievance, the party of victimization. If they can convince a group they’re victims, they never have to actually accomplish anything. The focus is always on past failures or some other strawman that rational policies simply cannot be allowed to address. It’s the ultimate in maintaining a grip on power. Why ever address policy failures or “unintended” consequences, when it’s so much easier to simply craft a grievance that can simply never be addressed. For Democrats that’s a recipe for success. For America it’s a recipe for disaster.
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But in the real world Vince, it isn’t Democrats howling about being victimized over CRT. It’s red state Republicans along with the likes of Tucker Carson racing to ban the studies from schools who don’t teach it anyways, blaring a solution to a nonexistent problem.
Now since the study of CRT is pretty much exclusively looked at in law school, what’s so politically advantageous about it to stir these so-called conservatives and propaganda media?
The answer does back to Ronald Reagan and GWHB political advisor Lee Atwater’s deathbed confession of the Southern Strategy and the need of division between whites and blacks. Atwater explained: “In the 1950s, you could just say nigger nigger nigger but you can no longer do that because of the backlash. So we need to decode it and make it more abstract”.
And this is exactly the intent of the GOP by incorrectly connecting CRT with reparations- that the black man is coming after the white mans wealth. And because CRT is a complexed study, it’s easy for the propagandists to make it about anything they want.
Of course, we’ve seen almost identical versions of this movie many times. You state above:
“Or, maybe all of us could be grateful for the fact that today virtually every one of us is extraordinarily lucky to live in a country that allows so much freedom and opportunity that millions of people literally risk their lives to come here every year and probably half or more of the rest of the world would happily change places with almost any American”.
That’s my opinion as well as I’ve always thought Mexicans were crossing the border for a better life or to send needed money back home to their families. But Trump, using Atwater’s cue, told us they were coming to sell drugs to our kids, rape our wives, and then murder us. Can we say “brown men, brown men, brown men”? And wasn’t the entire birther issue about reminding us that the black president may have been from Kenya and of Muslin beliefs and well, not like us? I recall the Mitt Romney campaign saying it was a good subject to keep front and center. And what about Mitt’s joke about how no one ever asked Mitt for his papers when walking down the street? Har har, get it? Ever wonder what John McCain meant at the debate when he pointed at Obama and asked “That One?”
Considering I was never taught about the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres in school and that I was raised in Mayberry, I may have never known they were prosperous and thriving towns that were crushed and silenced by white mobs. Could there be some connection in a refusal of allowing blacks to rise above? And what about a President of the U.S. repeated demeaning of a prominent athlete for taking a knee in protest to police brutality? Could it be that because of the fame and higher voice of the athlete, he needed to be silenced, lest the argument of systemic and institutionalized racism succeed?
Does, as studies indicate, a black man spend more time in prison than a white man for smoking a joint? Does a house depreciate when purchased by a black couple? Is an applicant named Bill or Mary more likely to land a job than one with an African or Hispanic sounding name? Is a black man in more danger than a white man when pulled over for a broken tail light?
Now I realize asking you to evaluate a leftist article such as the now shut down ThinkProgress would be like asking a vampire to stare directly into a cross but it does give considerable insight of what goes on outside of Mayberry and how the laws and courts are preventing black communities of freeing from the traps set for them
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/its-racist-as-hell-inside-st-louis-county-s-predatory-night-courts-21be3d5bf723/
No one claims to be “victimized” by CRT. We don’t want children indoctrinated with it and taught to be racist. I don’t know how you learned and perfected your own racism, but my guess is you were not taught to hate others based on their skin color in school.
YOU should pay reparations, not me. YOU support those who supported and defended slavery and put Jim Crow in place. YOU support those who institutionalized racism in the South, not me. Anyone that supports Democrats should have to pay reparations if anyone does.
“But Trump, using Atwater’s cue, told us they were coming to sell drugs to our kids, rape our wives, and then murder us.”
When you have to lie to support your point, perhaps your point is not worth supporting. Ever consider that? Why do you rely so heavily on lies? Furthermore, why do you support the racists?
You know why the facts of the Tulsa massacre were not taught? Because DEMOCRAT rule made it possible. It was sanctioned by Democrats then covered up by Democrats.
Yeah, like I’m going to click on the racist, socialist left wing propaganda site ThinkProgress. Ha. Neither thinking nor progress is promoted by the left.
America is getting very tired of all the BS, the domestic racist crap and the gang bangers looting cities. blue major cities are now shitholes and there will be no recovery. Very tired of a fat, ugly and stupid racist telling me how to run my live and my belief’s. No education just a big mouth and a fat ass to match. Doubt if most of them can even read. it will be interesting to see where this street trash winds up in 10 years. half will be dead from drug overdose.
If Republicans are successful in curtailing Democrat election fraud and securing legitimate elections, Democrats could suffer a devastating 2022 election cycle. If that happens, it will be because of their failure of keeping the public safe, protecting their lives and property and their assault on law enforcement. Imagine what that turn around might look like.
As usual, your understanding of the world is about 30 years in the past.
You are the racist fascist pig you think you are fighting.
Cult-members gonna Cult.
And who is this, by the way? Your writing is completely different than Ron/AJ’s.
Bot account afterall? Or did you just finally get some Xanax?
CRT is simply collectivist guilt. That, historically, always ends in genocide. Always.
You should read up on these two men. You might want to understand the racial struggles of black Americans for a change:
“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man.” — Malcolm X
“When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” — Martin Luther King
Please note that Martin Luther King’s name comes from Martin Luther, a Reformer of the Christian Church. That’s rather significant, especially in the religious Atheist induced fervor of CRT. Atheism kills more than any other religion, ever.
Nathan, you prove my point in so many ways.
A moderator post an asinine attempt to promote the Republican’s divisive Southern Strategy ploy while claiming you can’t argue with liberals, runs and hides, and then sends in his regular band of nonsensical ankle biting sock puppets to muddy the water and throw sand in the air.
You and this site have promoted racism and sucked your rancid racist leader’s ass for years but yet low and behold, I and liberals are somehow the racists?
You and this racist infested scum site have lied repeatedly, been caught lying repeatedly, lie about what you just lied about and caught repeatedly, yet I and liberals are the liars.
An unhinged white mob of indoctrinated Trump cultists attacked the Capital in broad daylight but you say below that Biden and I are the insurrectionist.
You and your clan ignore all valid arguments, simply create you own out of thin air, and then claim victory to your fabricated buffoonery yet I and liberals are somehow the unreasonable ones.
And it isn’t so much that this in nothing new but it’s been evolving into a full blown batshit crazy boiling kettle of nonsense since your rabid racist god took power.
I think watching this transition from rabid right to an Alice in Wonderland convention of mindless programmed zombies who have lost all abilities of distinguishing what is real and what isn’t is what’s kept me coming back.
While I’ve predicted this coming since 2016, I really didn’t think the kool-aid guzzling Caucus of Kooks would get to this level.
You accuse those around you of being racist while you heartily endorse racism and racists. You grovel at the feet of the idiot Biden, though he is not only a racist with a documented racist history but has raised a racist son, with a documented racist history. You support a party that supports TEACHING racism.
I guess you think we didn’t notice the idiot Biden cult you are a member of, that cult that thinks the idiot racist Biden emits class and dignity and his farcical “doctor” wife is a doctor, classy and dignified. It’s like you think you can carry on your Obama cult by just replacing the fixtures.
And you regard the racist Hunter as a genius artist? How much more white privileged can you get? He became a millionaire “consulting” where he has no expertise and now can rake in $500,000 for a “painting” that the only significant characteristic of it is that he used a straw with the flow going in the opposite direction from when he was snorting coke through them.
Your party of political terror, violence, racism and oppression is derelict. That’s why you have to endorse election fraud.
Someone show me what part of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that instituted racism. It ain’t there. This nation was created with slavery already in place; it didn’t invent it, didn’t promote it and, it can be argued, it eliminated it as quickly as possible.
It’s as if the people making this argument think Jim Crow was instituted in 1776. No, that was a Democrat temper tantrum as a result of losing their slaves in 1865. The ONLY time racism was institutionalized and systemic in the US was under the Democrats and REPUBLICANS cleaned that up.
You could have reminded your friend that Democrats have never atoned for their racist past. In fact, in the not too distant past, they lionized, praised and worshipped a racist Democrat who was not only a Klan member but recruited NEW members when the racist quota in their little linen-draped club ran low. Was he forced to atone? Did he pay reparations? Was he banned, cancelled or stripped of power? Were any of his friends treated thus? Well, no… not by Democrats, anyway. You know why? Because he, Robert Byrd, former Grand Kleagle of the KKK, said “I’m sorry.” But for everyone else, this is not nearly good enough.
It doesn’t really appear that eliminating racism, atonement and true equity and equality is not all that important to Democrats. It’s really nothing but a lever for power.
I find arguing with liberals good mental exercise but not really productive.
Larry’s rule #1: Never, ever argue with a liberal. It is simply a waste of time.
As opposed to trying to rationalize with cultists who cannot accept their mango god lost the election, that COVID was a Democratic hoax, that Jan 6 was akin to a peaceful tour guide, and that CA wildfires were started by Jewish laser beams shot from outer space?
Gee Ron you got 2 of 3 conspiracies that proved true. We continue to look for new ones. How about forced vaccinations with Bidens door to door search for those that dont want to become lab rats for Gates depopulation plan? BTW didnt we hang people after WW2 for nasty medical experiments without consent ? Over 4K deaths, almost 400K adverse reactions and serious permanent adverse effects.
As with agent orange and Vets kids born deformed we dont know the long term effects of this experiment.
Case and point.
Good luck with the censorship, the arrests, and the “disappearing”.
That’s what Dictatorships do well.
Insurrectionists like Biden, and you, and merely being tolerated…for now.
Dan Bongino:
“We think the left are simply people with bad ideas while the left thinks we are simply bad people…”
The main problem with the left’s premise is that they think they are good people, even “close-to-perfect,” people.
Capitalists understand that their system, while far from a totally free laissez-faire one, still allows anyone, of any color, creed, sex, age or political leaning to move up its ladder.
Capitalists understand that humans are flawed, but that their system is the best for the most, both locally and even globally.
OTOH, the left hold these two opposing views simultaneously:
1. that capitalism cannot work because people are selfish
BUT
2. that socialism will work because people will all work for the common good
Socialism NEVER works because everybody wants more than he is willing to contribute.
Soviet workers had a saying that revealed a fundamental flaw in their economic system: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”
At least in capitalism anyone can save up a few month’s income (or borrow it from a relative) so as to give a new idea, good or service, a try.
Anyone can go from “wage slave” to owner /entrepreneur if they want to badly enough.
That is never possible for the prole under any socialist system.
Look at the globe.
The more capitalists have been involved, the better it has been for the people.
The more communists/socialists have been involved, the worse it has been for people.
That was very profound.
Come on! I love arguing with liberals. You just have to fight fire with fire. For example: If they accuse you of being a racist respond by declaring Dr. Martin Luther King (a liberal icon) was the greatest anti-racist of the 20th century and suggest those who reject his “teachings and solutions must be anti-anti-racists.
Quote Dr. King: I have a dream where my four little children will grow up in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, I have a dream… where black boys and girls will walk hand in hand with white boys and girls like brothers and sisters, I have a dream…
At this point you have established you advocate for Dr. King and you can attack their obsessions’ with judging people by skin color. No matter what they say you can hammer them with “why do you reject the teachings and solutions of Dr. King”?
All you need to do is focus on one point that exposes their hypocrisy or ignorance and beat them over the head with it.