Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Most of the frustrations involved in living as an adult human, have to do with conflict between appealing narratives vs. inconvenient realities. And perhaps the best example of this is the narrative that conservatives & liberals can, and should, “sit down and work out their/our differences, find common ground, labor toward the common good and learn from each other.” I think deep down both sides really do want that…so long as it doesn’t involve giving up anything. If it’s cost-free, most people with political opinions would like to be Archie & Meathead after they’ve softened up and learned to see eye-to-eye.
Our parents did that with other grown-ups who didn’t share the same political affiliations, right? Should be easy!
The problem is that what we today call “liberalism” has eschewed any & all notion that its adherents have anything at all to learn from those who are not adherents. This is non-negotiable. All electoral contests and all differences of opinion involve illegitimacy and ignorance on the side of the argument that is not theirs. Every election they lose, was cheated. Every dissenting opinion, indeed every statement or question that bleeds off some of the momentum, intentionally or not, comes from someone who shouldn’t have opinions at all.
Liberalism has devolved into a slightly off-center “I know something you don’t know” smirk. Worn by people who haven’t accomplished anything. And want to make all the decisions that matter, without accepting any ownership of the eventual results.
As such, this notion of “common good” has melted down into the floorboards. It used to be that liberals wanted to get rid of some — perhaps all? — of what we have, and re-do it so that the needs of the forgotten might be met. Like…gay marriage for example. Here are some people who are marginalized through no fault of their own, so let’s dismantle a little bit of what makes society go, and reassemble it to meet these needs. Reactionaries might suspect the desire has little to do with meeting the needs of the marginalized, and has a lot more to do with the process of dismantling and wrecking. They were eventually proven right about that. The liberals who wanted gay marriages haven’t attended any gay weddings — aren’t interested. The dismantling, wrecking and re-defining has shifted into overdrive. Transvestite revolution. New pronouns. Polygamy. Onward!
The tender recruits would protest, with some variation of “But I’m part of that…I don’t want to wreck anything, I don’t want marriages of five or more, or women marrying goats, I just want to help people.” And this is true. It’s also true that the liberals insist “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” They just want the process of transformation, the rioting and protesting…the constant wreckage.
We who want society to manage a foothold so it can thrive and grow, don’t really have any common ground with these people. If there’s too much prosperity then there’s too much individual ambition and hope for success with things the way they are; more conservatives. And their wreck-everything revolution loses steam. Liberalism has reached the point where they’ve come to realize this, and so are invested in widespread suffering — at worst — but, at best, a keenly felt limit to our success without something being wrecked. They don’t want us to keep enough money after taxes to take our families on vacation, or acquire the access to health care we need, or to get our children properly educated. They can’t afford for that to happen. If it happens, it’s too hard for them to recruit new members to their cause, or to win elections, and those are the two things they must do.
Common ground? It’s an appealing narrative…reality doesn’t smile upon it though.
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IMHO
- CaptDMO | 07/17/2020 @ 08:55Ignoring 4000+ years of previous philosophy, history, and “debate” as they do-I can only suggest passing along contemporary(ish)
“The Secret Knowledge” (NOT a play)
Recovered progressive playwright David Mamet
And that’s JUST an easy-to-read primer.