Current Events

[zamb]

Obviously. But, you don't just choose a President, you choose a party. And I'd rather see a Democrat President, however shitty, than a Republican.

As ridiculous as it might sound
I would want Donald Trump to win
I think he is the most incompetent buffoon of them all with no experience in politics or the nuanced level of thought needed to run a country

however i think Americas political system is serious broken and presidents are no longer presidents but Glorified figurehead and this democratic system looks more like an Oligarchy than anything democratic. by this I mean you cannot win no matter how good your ideas or your desire to serve unless you have incredibly rich people and corporations throwing a ton of money behind you.

I am not hopeful for American Politics, I hate democrats and I revile republicans. and most of it is not necessarily their ideas, but the ruthlessness and dishonestly of it all.........one cannot achieve good by being so corrupt

[Fuuma]

The Republican Class War
In 2016, will conservatives finally face the realities of inequality?

One recent morning at the Jefferson Hotel, in Washington, D.C., Peter Wehner, a conservative writer who served as an adviser for the past three Republican Presidents, described his party’s problems over a bowl of oatmeal. He said, “We got clobbered in 2012”—the fifth Presidential election out of the past six in which the Republican candidate lost the popular vote. “There’s a demographic problem. White votes are going down two points every year. We’re out of touch with the middle class.” Mitt Romney—whose very hair embodies wealthy privilege—was nominated at a national convention, in Tampa, that became an Ayn Rand-style celebration of business executives, the heroic “makers.” During the campaign, Romney wrote off forty-seven per cent of the country—the “takers”—as government parasites. He went on to lose badly to President Barack Obama, whom Republicans had regarded as an obvious failure, a target as vulnerable as Jimmy Carter. In the shock of that defeat, Wehner said, some conservatives realized that “there was a need for a policy agenda that reaches the middle class.” He added, “This was not a blinding insight.”

Rest of article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/09/the-republican-class-war?intcid=mod-yml

[cjbreed]

so....how about this whole safe space, trigger warning, social justice warrior stuff, eh?

discuss......

[En.]

so....how about this whole safe space, trigger warning, social justice warrior stuff, eh?

discuss......

Are you talking about things like radical feminism and the BLM movement?

[Arkady]

Do we really have to?

[En.]

Do we really have to?

We could get a good laugh out of it.

[cjbreed]

We could get a good laugh out of it.

thats what i think too...

Are you talking about things like radical feminism and the BLM movement?

IDENTITY POLITICS

Yale Halloween Email Scandal

How One Tweet Ruined Justine Saccos Life

Trying to force people out of their jobs, because some OTHER assholes did something racist

Trigger Warnings and the Coddling of the American Mind in Academia

Shutting down speeches on college campuses simply because you disagree. Neither ignoring or confronting, but silencing people.

Anything to do with "microaggressions".

Getting "offended" for made up reasons, like how the term hard worker is offensive to slaves, or something.

this is copied from a reddit post made by trek-skeptic in response to this video:

[Faust]

so....how about this whole safe space, trigger warning, social justice warrior stuff, eh?

discuss......

We talked about this already, but happy to talk more. I think the idea of putting warning labels on classic literature in the name of "sensitivity" is the last nail in the coffin of classical liberal education, and it's not the Republicans that did it, mind you. It is absolutely disgusting and dispiriting. Our education system is already ruined in the name of pleasing the little ignorant priviliged twats that today's students are. The impoverishment of soul and spirit is all but complete.

I just finished reading The Human Stain by Philip Roth and boy that couldn't have come at a better time.

[zamb]

We talked about this already, but happy to talk more. I think the idea of putting warning labels on classic literature in the name of "sensitivity" is the last nail in the coffin of classical liberal education, and it's not the Republicans that did it, mind you. It is absolutely disgusting and dispiriting. Our education system is already ruined in the name of pleasing the little ignorant priviliged twats that today's students are. The impoverishment of soul and spirit is all but complete.

I just finished reading The Human Stain by Philip Roth and boy that couldn't have come at a better time.

the funny part of it is that the very people who were the advocates of tolerance and acceptance have become some of the most intolerant and rabid proponents of censoring and destroying peoples lives who share a different view that the one they hold.

I came to America 15 years ago, with a certain Joy and hope in the ideals of this country. Now not so much anymore.

[Faust]

And now Paris. I hope all Parisian SZ members are safe.

[Faust]

the funny part of it is that the very people who were the advocates of tolerance and acceptance have become some of the most intolerant and rabid proponents of censoring and destroying peoples lives who share a different view that the one they hold.

I came to America 15 years ago, with a certain Joy and hope in the ideals of this country. Now not so much anymore.

Yes, Robert Hughes wrote as early as fifteen years ago that ironically, the left and the right have converged in their political methods.

[En.]

the funny part of it is that the very people who were the advocates of tolerance and acceptance have become some of the most intolerant and rabid proponents of censoring and destroying peoples lives who share a different view that the one they hold.

Yes, Robert Hughes wrote as early as fifteen years ago that ironically, the left and the right have converged in their political methods.

Unfortunately . Might as well call them Republicrats as both parties only care about reaching and staying in the top 1%. All but one candidate proves just that. The worst candidate is ironically the forerunner of the Democratic party, too.

[MJRH]

It's fitting that, just prior to logging on here, I was skimming Letters to a Young Contrarian. This must be God telling me to post something.*

Since this often seems to come up in discussions of the radical style, I'll mention one other gleaning from my voyages. Beware of identity politics. I'll rephrase that: have nothing to do with identity politics. I remember very well the first time I heard the saying "The Personal Is Political." It began as a sort of reaction to the defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they felt, not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its subgroups and "specificity." This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee transgender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.

Me, if someone mentions triggers, I tell them my trigger is triggers. Have used this in person with someone, it had the desired effect of them fucking off.

*This is irony. Political flimflammery isn't ironic; with even the shakiest grasp of history it's to be expected

[Faust]

Good ol' Hitchens. The last of the Mohicans.

[nvsnli]

Le Pen is going win by a landslide in next election in France.