If Mort Divine ruled the world

[HamburgerBoy]

https://www.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2020/09/Princeton-Letter-9-16-20-Signed.pdf

I initially was going to reply simply "Beautiful." assuming that they were being punished by the left for giving an inch, but seeing that it came from one of Trump's feds is even better.

 

[Dak]

Caught the end of the Trump rally in NC. Dude has more energy at 74 than probably anyone on this forum, including me. Even if you hate the dude you have to admit it's pretty incredible. There are 40 year olds out there already doddering around with handicapped placards and he's standing up under bright lights yelling for 2 hours while almost double their age and subsisting on a diet of McDonald's and Diet Coke.

 

[Einherjar86]

I wouldn’t call it incredible. I have uncles who could do the same if given the chance (also subsisting on diets of fast food and soda).

It’s just typical American vindictiveness given a pulpit.

 

[Dak]

I wouldn’t call it incredible. I have uncles who could do the same

I doubt it tbqh. Maybe for one night and then they'd need several days of recovery. Trump is full blast all the time *while* president/after over three years in office. The office of the presidency is incredibly stressful, and even with plenty of money and "vindictiveness", it ages people. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are the same age and ol Bill looks like all of those child sacrifices did the opposite of what they were supposed to do (I keed, I keed). I'm healthier than the large majority of the US population simply based on things like BMI, muscle mass, and run times, and I don't know that I could sustain Trump's level of energy, even being half his age.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think you're selling yourself and a lot of people our age short, not to mention some of our drunk uncles.

Trump doesn't drink, which I'm sure contributes to his ability to sustain himself onstage. But somehow I don't think he stresses too much about the presidency.

You are right that he successfully captivates his fans for two plus hours. So do modern pop stars. It just goes to show he's an entertainer, nothing else.

 

[Dak]

I think you're selling yourself and a lot of people our age short, not to mention some of our drunk uncles.

Trump doesn't drink, which I'm sure contributes to his ability to sustain himself onstage. But somehow I don't think he stresses too much about the presidency.

You are right that he successfully captivates his fans for two plus hours. So do modern pop stars. It just goes to show he's an entertainer, nothing else.

I'm probably selling short on the power of entertaining for extraverts/narcissists.

 

[Dak]

https://quillette.com/2020/09/17/black-lives-matter-and-the-mechanics-of-conformity/

After subjecting more than 10,000 people to knowledge-based questions about the state of the world, the late researcher Hans Rosling found that, on average, activists had a less accurate picture than the general public of the very issue to which their activism is devoted.

Activists are ignorant. Marches are ignorance in action. That's the charitable view. The uncharitable view is that activists are malignant and purposeful destroyers.

 

[Einherjar86]

https://quillette.com/2020/09/17/black-lives-matter-and-the-mechanics-of-conformity/

Activists are ignorant. Marches are ignorance in action. That's the charitable view. The uncharitable view is that activists are malignant and purposeful destroyers.

Just activists/-ism of a particular historical moment, I'm assuming...? Or would you say that the marches in Selma, suffragist picketing, and the Boston Tea Party were also ignorance in action...?

 

[Dak]

Just activists/-ism of a particular historical moment, I'm assuming...? Or would you say that the marches in Selma, suffragist picketing, and the Boston Tea Party were also ignorance in action...?

Maybe to a lesser degree than today in terms of the complaints, but yes.

 

[Einherjar86]

Maybe to a lesser degree than today in terms of the complaints, but yes.

Well hate to break it to you, but ignorance in action leads to change. Not always for the better--but then, we can also have ignorance in inaction. That's probably worse. It sounds like you want to make an argument against activism in all its manifestations, but that's counterproductive and unrealistic.

Not everyone can have full access to the theoretical workings and information that experts have. This is why I follow activists who are experts (people like Katharine Hayhoe, Bill McKibben, Naomi Oreskes, etc.); I trust them to make a sound case for activism.

 

[Dak]

I should be clear that I'm not against taking action. But the style of taking action by "activists" is childish on one end to criminal on the other (the older I get the more revolted by the whole Boston Tea Party chain of events I get).

Following the "pros" is pretty basic activism. Those people with ulterior motives. Activist get used like pawns to tear shit up, making things worse for many while not actually improving their own material position to any measurable degree. Big win for the "organizers" though.

 

[Einherjar86]

Does this mean we agree that the Founding Fathers were basically whiny children...?

I'll just point out that the large majority of activist movements currently taking place in this country are nonviolent and non-destructive. A plethora of YouTube videos doesn't change that.

 

[CiG]

Exclusive: $1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history.

The protests that took place in 140 U.S. cities this spring were mostly peaceful, but the arson, vandalism and looting that did occur will result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims — eclipsing the record set in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who brutalized Rodney King.

That doesn't even include the damages that aren't getting payouts. It's a good thing the majority are "nonviolent and non-destructive" when you consider the severity of violence and destruction the small portion is already responsible for.

 

[Dak]

Does this mean we agree that the Founding Fathers were basically whiny children...?

Not whiny children, but definitely smart people with a certain amount of power that were interested in expanding that power. The British government had a little culpability with poor government but I'm increasingly of the opinion with all of the benefit of hindsight that the American Revolution was probably a net-negative. That said, who knows what other stupid things could have happened in history without it. The unfortunate issue with going further and further back with historical counterfactual analysis.

I'll just point out that the large majority of activist movements currently taking place in this country are nonviolent and non-destructive. A plethora of YouTube videos doesn't change that.

As CIG noted, we probably couldn't recover if they were/the military probably would be called up anyway if they were. I appreciate the moving forward with declaring certain cities as anarchic zones, as they rightly should be when the city stewards won't protect the citizens/businesses.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's a good thing the majority are "nonviolent and non-destructive" when you consider the severity of violence and destruction the small portion is already responsible for.

As CIG noted, we probably couldn't recover if they were/the military probably would be called up anyway if they were.

I mean, yeah. It'd be a shitshow. But it's not that--not even close.

 

[CiG]

The main reason majority of the protests have been peaceful is because there have been protests in every state, many of which are 100 people or less, and in small towns and cornball states like Alaska which had protests in 12 different parts with 0 incidents. In Hawaii there were like 10 protests held, none of them breaking 500 people, and none of those protests were violent. Examples like these count towards the overall peacefulness of the protests.

What do the numbers look like when you limit it to protests with sizeable crowds or in large towns and cities? You can claim "peaceful majority" all day long, but the public perception of the protests has been pretty badly damaged.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/22/1619-s22.html

Great exposé. The media gaslighted everyone in unison after Tara Reade that it was never "believe all women" and apparently they're at it again now that based Trump is attacking critical race theory head-on.

 

[Einherjar86]

The main reason majority of the protests have been peaceful is because there have been protests in every state, many of which are 100 people or less, and in small towns and cornball states like Alaska which had protests in 12 different parts with 0 incidents. In Hawaii there were like 10 protests held, none of them breaking 500 people, and none of those protests were violent. Examples like these count towards the overall peacefulness of the protests.

What do the numbers look like when you limit it to protests with sizeable crowds or in large towns and cities? You can claim "peaceful majority" all day long, but the public perception of the protests has been pretty badly damaged.

You're implying that episodes of violence = violent protest, a kind of "one drop" rule for protests. I take issue with that. The vast majority of most of the large protests are also peaceful. The breakouts of violence are vaguely related incidents that generally occur away from the center of organized events. They've been manipulated and amplified by media of all ideological platforms, and have been largely misconstrued as features of the movements at large--when if we're being honest, they're bugs. Large gatherings attract rabble-rousers and ne'er-do-wells (downright Dickensian, I declare).

 

[CiG]

Roughly 7% of the protests have been violent according to research, and of the roughly 375 million interactions civilians have with police every year, about 1000 result in death at the hands of the police. Just saying, if we're calling out the "one drop" rule and all.

 

[Dak]

Same issue with "gun violence" being a bugaboo, when a legally owned gun is so much less likely to be used in a crime than a "mostly peaceful protest" is to burn down buildings.