Philosophy Now Forum

promethean75 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 4:04 pm pix

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 4:39 pm Nonsense.

That's when I stopped reading.



- That word is a false premise.
- All that follows is based on that false premise.
- The reasoning may or may not be sound, but it's based on a false premise and therefore,
- Worthless.

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 9:27 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 4:39 pm Nonsense.

That's when I stopped reading.



- That word is a false premise.
- All that follows is based on that false premise.
- The reasoning may or may not be sound, but it's based on a false premise and therefore,
- Worthless.

You are illogical. There is no reasonable reason to assume that "all that follows is based on (it)". Why would there be?

If you ever decide to learn about logic or rhetoric, feel free to read on.

Vaaazz.

(continued)

When compared to the picture of the big bust, Trump is the size of those little people underneath the big bust (maybe a few pounds larger), and I know you get it.

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 3:19 pm - David Mamet was a darling of the Left until he turned his attention to politics.
- Then he saw the Left for what it is, and realized what a fool he had been.
- Now, he is a darling no more.
- He sees that the Democrats Hate America.
- And what about you? Ready to leave the Dark Side?

In truth David Mamet resolved to become a virulent Zionist and to defend Power and what power does with a similar argument that I had and used: Power determines things in this world, and then power comes up with all manner of ways to justify, explain, conceal and spin what it really does.

I know very little about Mamet's politics prior to his decision to embrace sheer Zionism so I can't say much there. But his resolution to really embrace Zionism (defense of Israel with no need to submit to moral or ethical examination) would certainly have put him in a difficult place as it pertains to *peace and justice* which are generally Left tenets. Once you defend Power because it is powerful, because it has power; once you identify with it and align yourself with it, you step out of the Left's idealism posture and into Machiavellian realism. I assume Mamet because more, perhaps, (Leo) Straussian and in that sense Machiavellian.

Honestly, I feel I understand that position because it had been mine. In a sense it still is mine.

This assertion that *the Democrats hate America* is dripping with misleading rhetoric. It has a polemical function, that is true, but I think we need to explain what is actually being said through it. Establishing too-rigid binaries (Democrats hate America! Republicans love America!) will get you nowhere -- if genuine understanding is your object.

One has to spend time defining which *America* the Democrats are defining, and which America the Republicans are defining, to be able to understand the social, political and also demographic realities of what is happening in the country.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 1:48 pm

One has to spend time defining which *America* the Democrats are defining, and which America the Republicans are defining, to be able to understand the social, political and also demographic realities of what is happening in the country.

MAGA longs for a past America in which schools were segregated, black people couldn't vote, and nobody questioned white prvilege. The America of the 50s and 60s was economically good for the white, unionized working class. But even if we return to our racist past, those jobs are never returning. Get over it, MAGA.

Of course MAGA also resents the Progressive postmodern questioning of standard norms. Tough tooties. Such norms are not returning. (I'll grant that I prefer "liberal" to "progressive". Progressive suggests progress toward some unquestioned goal, and I picture jack-booted marching in lock-step. Liberal suggests open-minded generosity.)

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 5:43 pm MAGA longs for a past America in which schools were segregated, black people couldn't vote, and nobody questioned white prvilege. The America of the 50s and 60s was economically good for the white, unionized working class. But even if we return to our racist past, those jobs are never returning. Get over it, MAGA.

Thanks for your assessment. It is useful -- helpful -- to see how people frame things. I think your assessment is distorted and slanted though. And for that reason it is *useful* to one side in their struggles to define MAGA in negative terms. But I would not say that some aspects of your assessment are not true. Even for a distorted assessment to seem valid it must contain elements of truth.

Each assertion of yours is false: MAGA does not long for segregation; it does not want that black people cannot vote; and in any case all of America, over 50-60 years, has done more work than possibly any other country in the world of dealing with racial and ethnic prejudices.

In the 50s and 60s America was -- demographically -- a white, middle-class country. In the course of 50-60 years it has been transformed -- demographically -- into a multi-ethnic society and where the demographic majority is being -- what is the word? -- diminished. If you imagine that this would not be an issue for any formerly dominant demographic you are not seeing straight. And certainly not compassionately.

The Democrat Party is playing politics within a landscape of this demographic shift, banking on the demographic shift, villifying Whites and white culture, and also playing Blacks against Whites as part of a destabilization strategy.

Of course MAGA also resents the Progressive postmodern questioning of standard norms. Tough tooties. Such norms are not returning. (I'll grant that I prefer "liberal" to "progressive". Progressive suggests progress toward some unquestioned goal, and I picture jack-booted marching in lock-step. Liberal suggests open-minded generosity.)

MAGA is really not a helpful term. If by that you mean, though I do not think you do, the *raising of consciousness among Whites* as to what has been done, why it has been done, and what the ends of it are.

I have written about this in other areas on this forum.

Note that though I might broach these topics (which contradict some of your assumptions and possibly your values) it is hard indeed to have up-front and open conversation on these topics because of their *hot* nature.

I have, at times, posted this quote (Wilmot Roberson, 1973 "The Dispossessed Majority")

Is it not incredible that the largest American population group, the group with the deepest roots, the most orderly and most technically proficient group, the nuclear population group of American culture and of the American gene pool, should have lost its preeminence to weaker, less established, less numerous, culturally heterogeneous, and often mutually hostile minorities?

With all due allowance for minority dynamism ... this miraculous shift of power could never have taken place without a Majority "split in the ranks" - without the active assistance and participation of Majority members themselves. It has already been pointed out that race consciousness is one of mankind's greatest binding forces. From this it follows that when the racial gravitational pull slackens people tend to spin off from the group nucleus. Some drift aimlessly through life as human isolates. Others look for a substitute nucleus in an intensified religious or political life, or in an expanded class consciousness. Still others, out of idealism, romanticism, inertia, or perversity, attach themselves to another race in an attempt to find the solidarity they miss in their own.

I was referring to the meaning of MAGA, i.e Make America Great Again. The idea that America was "Great" in the eras of segregation and Jim Crow either desires a return to blatant prejudice, or ignores the travails of racial and cultural minorities in the ostensibly "great" past.

The Roberson quote (from the end of the Era for which MAGA longs) ignores class in favor of race. The "technically proficient group" does not include most Trump supporters. It comprises the educated elites who tend to be liberal, or, if not, anti-Trump fiscal conservatives. Roberson adumbrates modern conservatism by conflating class and race.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:24 pm I was referring to the meaning of MAGA, i.e Make America Great Again. The idea that America was "Great" in the eras of segregation and Jim Crow either desires a return to blatant prejudice, or ignores the travails of racial and cultural minorities in the ostensibly "great" past.

I didn’t miss what you said or are trying to say. Your stated view is, in my opinion, shallow and inflected with (what I gather are) your own biases and prejudices.

Ignores the travails of racial and cultural minorities? An absurd statement when the facts are seen and stated.

“Whiteness” is obviously under extreme attack by potent adversaries and ideologues. And racial conflicts have been cynically cultivated by “elites” for ulterior purposes.

The Roberson quote (from the end of the Era for which MAGA longs) ignores class in favor of race. The "technically proficient group" does not include most Trump supporters. It comprises the educated elites who tend to be liberal, or, if not, anti-Trump fiscal conservatives. Roberson adumbrates modern conservatism by conflating class and race.

I don’t accept this spin. Robertson predicted many outcomes evident today from his position as a racialist (regarding race as a vital category) and through his cultural affinities. He pointed to a “break in the ranks” which opened the road to the present situation: a nation whose social glue begins to unbind.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 12:32 am

I don’t accept this spin. Robertson predicted many outcomes evident today from his position as a racialist (regarding race as a vital category) and through his cultural affinities. He pointed to a “break in the ranks” which opened the road to the present situation: a nation whose social glue begins to unbind.

The notion that we are a. nation whose "social glue begins to unbind" fails to recognize the past. Is there less cohesion now than in the era of Vietnam protests? How much cohesion was there during the Tulsa riots? It is true that Trump's attacks on democracy are troubling -- more troubling than Watergate -- but there have been troubles oin the past just as threatening to social glue.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 1:48 pm This assertion that *the Democrats hate America* is dripping with misleading rhetoric. It has a polemical function, that is true, but I think we need to explain what is actually being said through it. Establishing too-rigid binaries (Democrats hate America! Republicans love America!) will get you nowhere -- if genuine understanding is your object.

Reading the book makes the title easier to comprehend.

Not reading the book locks you into your own uninformed notions.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 6:49 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 1:48 pmThis assertion that *the Democrats hate America* is dripping with misleading rhetoric. It has a polemical function, that is true, but I think we need to explain what is actually being said through it. Establishing too-rigid binaries (Democrats hate America! Republicans love America!) will get you nowhere -- if genuine understanding is your object.

Reading the book makes the title easier to comprehend.

Not reading the book locks you into your own uninformed notions.

It would be difficult for you to get the label uninformed to stick, Walker. I admit though to being differently informed. I have not read his book, that is true, but I have listened to his diatribes [definition: a prolonged or exhaustive discussion; especially, an acrimonious or invective harangue; a strain of abusive or railing language; a philippic] and I believe he makes many good points. I listen to Dershowitz as well and he too sensible points. However I do not trust either of them. However my cynicism and distrust is broad and I might say universal. That is why I recommend, and this certainly in a philosophical environment, of backing up and gaining distance from the polemics of the day. I said: "Establishing too-rigid binaries (Democrats hate America! Republicans love America!) will get you nowhere -- if genuine understanding is your object".

I say that "this assertion that *the Democrats hate America* is dripping with misleading rhetoric". Need I point out to you that rhetorical fire and overheated emotionalism is rampant today? There is a stark difference between clear enunciation of a clear perspective and the rhetoric that embellishes it.

I selected one reviewer's comment I found on GoodReads. Do you suppose that I read this and shut my ears to what is said? That is not the case. My larger point is actually something different. Just a few short years back our country was dominated by a rhetorical platform that emanated from the Republican and Neoconservative faction. It was those people, that faction, those interests (government/military/intelligence/industry) that set the nation on the ForeverWar course that has done extraordinary damage. Certainly not only to the social and cultural fabric of America but to those nations where war rained down, killing hundreds of thousands. And how was that rhetoric managed? and who stood behind it?

The comments I have made about your presentation have been clear and coherent: it is you who are uninformed. Your posts are snips from a Neoconservative talking-points list taken on the whole. But I think we need to see that the former Neoconservatives, who backed such atrocious and harmful policies, are now under assault and seem to be whining and complaining a great deal. Yet what they advocated for, and the results of their advocacy, can be seen as tied up together with the reaction that is now rampant.

So with that said I could certainly find a similar quote to the one I post here which critiques Republican or Neoconservative policies.

Yes, the title of Mark Levin’s new book is definitely provocative. And that is unfortunate if the name of this book gets it banned from stores, or prevents people who really need to hear his arguments from reading them.

As a former Democrat myself (who left the party after almost 40 years), I’m convinced something has gone horribly wrong inside the soul of the DNC. This is definitely NOT our parents’ DNC! Constitutional legal scholar Mr. Levin has put his finger on what has caused the rot within the party leadership. To paraphrase his words, “if you want to fundamentally transform your spouse, that indicates you don’t really like your spouse much.” Hence, a political party that loudly and proudly espouses its desire to fundamentally transform the United States, doesn’t really like the United States much.

In fact, it might actually hate most things about our country—especially our founding documents that created our Constitutional Republic. This book takes a methodical, logical, and clear-eyed look at all the ways today’s Democrat Party is attempting to dismantle our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Mr. Levin provides accurate, up-to-date examples, illustrated with recent current events, of manipulations and attacks on the American rule-of-law by the DNC and their party apparatchiks. Levin always brings the receipts when he makes an argument—as a Constitutional lawyer he’s way too smart to make claims he can’t 100% document.

Bottom line, this book is proof positive that the DNC is no longer a “normal” political party that shares power and makes compromises with other political parties to govern the citizens who elect candidates. It has morphed into a monstrous authoritarian apparatus with near total control over everything in our lives: our executive, legislative and administrative government; our multi-leveled judiciary; our civic institutions; our traditional media; our social media; our educational system (from public elementary schools through the universities), our economic institutions, even our military—all bow down to a DNC that puts party and power before its citizens and country.

If the American Experiment and Republic is to continue beyond its 250th birthday, the Democrat Party must be, shall we say, fundamentally transformed. Or perhaps it must merely be peacefully dismantled and patriotically reimagined.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 6:14 amThe notion that we are a nation whose "social glue begins to unbind" fails to recognize the past. Is there less cohesion now than in the era of Vietnam protests? How much cohesion was there during the Tulsa riots? It is true that Trump's attacks on democracy are troubling -- more troubling than Watergate -- but there have been troubles in the past just as threatening to social glue.

That is an inaccurate or a misleading statement. To make the statement that right now the social and political and ideological cohesion of the United States begins to unbind is first a statement of truth -- that is happening -- but also a starting-point for an analysis of why this is happening. It leads, at least in my view, to a much wider and also a global analysis of developing and exacerbating problems.

If that topic is broached in its fullness there is a whole wide range of opinions as to why. And my view is that within the mainstream conversation -- what is allowed in, what can be talked about freely and openly -- there are obvious control barriers that are established. Take the quote from Robertson's book The Dispossessed Majority. Today, now, everywhere, the book and the ideas in it represent ThoughtCrime. However, Robertson and his ideas and views are far more similar to those of the Founders of the nation than the new ideological stance of the New America.

That is why I say that it is not precisely that the Democrat Party *hates America* but rather that what they represent is a newer ideological foundation. And that faction feels very comfortable, indeed totally justified, in tearing down the monuments to that former America. Tearing down of monuments is a metaphor for what many people are reacting against.

To put forward the phrase *attack on democracy* is laden with a one-sided perspective. I imagine, or I guess since I cannot be sure, that with that statement you reveal your own orientation. But if the advent of Donald Trump is taken as a manifestation of revanche and, as Walker might believe, the manifestation of a will to stop the advance of radical progressivism or as Immanuel Can might say of socialism, the movement is then understood to be a manifestation of will arising out of a demos, and in that sense 'democratic'.

To speak of civil conflict, and to notice that the binding glue comes undone, is obviously to point out that there may be irreconcilable differences that will not be bridged. If that is the case and civil conflict moves to a more active phase then 'democracy' and 'liberalism' become problematic. In a sense then the present radical progressivism or wokism represents a democratic movement but so then does the movement that opposes many of its radical tenets. What happens when differences are irreconcilable? Traditional democracy and liberalism shatter. Or the presumed foundation, the accepted and former foundation, becomes unsustainable.

There is a book -- The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalism (James J. Farrell, Routledge 1997) -- that had a strong effect on my thinking. Very much in pro of personalism and forms of radical opposition to the status quo.

But there is a contrasting perspective found in, say, Slouching Toward Gomorrah by Robert Bork.

My perspective revolves around what I see as a fact: the dissolution of the binding glue. I am inclined to focus on why this is happening and to examine the unpopular and un-allowed arguments that try to interpret and explain why this is happening.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 2:17 pm It would be difficult for you to get the label uninformed to stick, Walker. I admit though to being differently informed. I have not read his book, that is true ...

'Nuff said.