Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "PragerU"
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We have to be careful using the word "progressive". Etymologically, it ought to mean being in favor of human progress, but it was first used by the Democrats in the Jim Crow days. It meant Socialism, Eugenics, and Jim Crow laws. Woodrow Wilson was a "progressive", on his watch the first film shown in the White House was the KKK promoting film "Birth of a Nation". He is credited with revitalizing the KKK as the enforcement arm of the Democrat Party. FDR was a progressive, he and Mussolini publicly admired one another, and he agreed to block anti-lynching federal legislation in exchange for southern congressmen's votes for the New Deal. Democrat support for eugenics has been swept under the historical rug since "nazis gave eugenics a bad name." It was all the rage in the first third of the 20th century, all "evolutionary" and "scientific". Margaret Sanger was a prominent eugenicist, who leaves as her legacy the organization she founded, Planned Parenthood.
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"At what point did they mention that this channel is funded by billionaires?"
I suppose the Wilks brothers find what PragerU says to be helpful, that does not discredit them. Are you equally upset by TYT's billionaire donors? You are not addressing his facts or his arguments, you are just giving yourself an excuse for dismissing them. It is a form of ad hominem which C.S Lewis called "Bulverism", basically, what folks are taught in schools today instead of crititcal thinking. "Mansplaining", and a priori dismissal of the opinions of non-minorities are all based on this fallacy:
From Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
"You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
"In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — 'Oh you say that because you are a man.' 'At that moment', E. Bulver assures us, 'there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.' That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
"Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is 'wishful thinking.' You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
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+Jacob Park
" do you think the rich parents in a private or charter school would
allow the "other" kids to attend the same school their child is
attending?"
Exclusive schools don't enter in to the argument. They exclude themselves from voucher money by excluding students.
"They have all of the money and power, "
At present the teacher's unions and the education bureaucracy have most of the money and power, and the rich have enough money and power to exempt their children from the system. Vouchers give money and power to the rest of the parents.
"Public education focuses on the overall big picture. "
The public education power bloc focuses on maintaining their monopoly. Apart from the minority who can home school and the other minority who can prep school, and the upper middle class who can afford the parochial school, the vast majority of students and families are simply the property of the teacher's unions and whatever they are inclined to give us.
"School vouchers will benefit some poor people, but will ultimately
benefit the rich the most since charter schools use PUBLIC money from
the government."
You mention public schools and charter schools, and a particular type of private school, the exclusive and expensive "prep" type school. You fail to mention religious parochial schools. Most of these operate on
LESS money per student than public schools, and produce better results, as measured by standardized tests. So it can be done. Given competition, it WILL be done. In the current system the inner city poor are excluded from a quality education. Given vouchers, they will have a chance. This empowers the poor, not the rich. The rich already have options.
"Also, kids in public schools will be targeted significantly since government tax money is going to charter schools."
Given choice, they won't have to stay in public schools. They are "targeted" for having an option for an upgrade.
". Yes, every student is given $20,000, however, that is not a lot when you consider that it is from our taxes"
What does that mean? The whole education budget is from our taxes. Vouchers are revenue neutral. The same amount per student which is currently being spent will now go with the student at the discretion of the parent. That $20K is more than many parochial schools charge for tuition, etc. Parochial schools generally do not discriminate in admission with regard to race, religious affiliation, or socioeconomic status.
"And stop making it a left or right thing people. I am tired of that."
The reason why it is a "right or left" thing is because it is about control. The left want the government in control of everything either because they are just power mad or because they think that the people are a bunch of rubes that can't be trusted with freedom, an arrogance that amounts to the same thing. Bureaucrats and politicians are just people, no better than the rest of us. A government paycheck does not convey sainthood. Freedom is served by dispersing power, and distributing responsibilities down to the level closest to the people.
+Krishnakali Majumdar
"NikkyyHD so racism is imaginary?"
Since the current bureaucratic power structure is maintaining and defending a system that locks many inner city racial minorities into failing schools, and oppose any attempt to rectify the system, one is tempted to conclude that at least in some circles, racism is alive and well, thanks for asking.
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"You do not need to use force, army, police, etc., because you have reprogrammed your mind and brain, and will change all your instincts, habits, and wills unconditionally."
This is not a workable replacement for personal responsibility. If the programmee determines the program, those who programmed themselves for peaceful philanthropic docility will be at the mercy of those who programmed themselves for Machiavellian psychopathy. If the state decides the program then I leave you with O'Brien's words to Winston in the novel "1984":
" There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
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"We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable."
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"If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent."
or from C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man":
“It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his own judgments of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. The objection to his doing so does not lie in the fact that this point of view (like one’s first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we grow used to it. The pain and the shock are at most a warning and a symptom. The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners.”
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“For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please…
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"At the moment, then, of Man’s victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely ‘natural’ – to their irrational impulses.”
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“Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.”
+Duy Anh N H
"You do not need to use force, army, police, etc.,"
I need police and armies to keep evil men from enslaving me (or killing me). Slaves or robots don't "need" them because by definition the "needs" of these two classes of entities are for whatever makes them more useful for the master. The sole legitimate role of government is to force men to mind their own business, because left to themselves they will not. Your "cure" is far worse than the disease.
"Most importantly"
In this very tragic world abounding with evils and ills you think that the removal of police and armies is of UTMOST importance? There are far greater evils than these. Where I come from the police and the military are still the sheepdogs of society, keeping the wolves at bay. I realize you may live in a place where this is not the case. In some countries the police and military work for the wolves.
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As far as I understand, this is similar to the idea of the socialist utopia which Marx said years ago was bound to happen. It didn't happen. Despite untold efforts by millions, it never has happened. Productivity may be increased by artificial intelligence and robots, I agree. But, we are so far from being able to humanely program ourselves, that I can't see any profit in discussing it, even apart from the ethical considerations involved.
But this much seems clear. History has shown us that men cannot be trusted with too much power over other men. If mind programming proved possible, this would be the ultimate temptation, and men are not to be trusted to resist it. There is a saying "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The power to "reprogram" men is absolute power. I do not think one world government can be good. Different people throughout the world have different moral values. The only way to get them into a worldwide government is by deadly force. The only way to get them to keep codes of conduct not their own is by deadly force or by programming their minds when this becomes possible. The only way to force them to program themselves to your program is by deadly force.
You are asking me to accept a program involving "mind programming", a technology or technique not yet invented, for the purpose of eventually making a peaceful society, when even after it is invented applying it to all men to bring about your pacifist utopia can only be achieved by a world war. People have sold us a "war to end all wars" before. This time we have sales resistance. Men will not agree on the program. If you let them choose, they will refuse. If you don't let them choose you are a tyrant, and I will oppose you, and all good men will join me. You say "If everyone does what I want the world will be perfect." This is what all tyrants say. The only difference between you and the tyrant is the tyrant has power and you do not.
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I have already replied to this. I understand you want to reprogram humanity, and because you several of your goals will solve current problems as you see them, you believe that your goal will justify anything you have to do to accomplish that goal. This is a common belief of totalitarians and has led to many wars and billions of political murders throughout history.
You do realize that there exists no means, now or in the near future projected, to reprogram human minds against their will or even with their will as completely as you advocate. So, firstly, you are arguing in favor of doing something which cannot be done, which is a waste of words.
Secondly, you realize, do you not, that many, probably most of the people in the world alone, and more the universe perhaps, disagree with you about your goals and are not willing to be programmed to serve them. To program them against their will is as permanently wrong as it is currently impossible.
"Do you understand?"
Yes, I understand you completely. You are a frustrated despot, and if you ever get the power do do as you wish, humanity as we know it is dead, and that is a bad thing. Your government has taught you to believe that a self-selected elite can and should choose for all people and this will be good for the people. In your dream you are this elite who can choose for all. You have been taught that for people to be able and free to choose is a bad thing. I was taught that for people to be free to choose is a good thing. The difference between the sort of society these two beliefs make is the difference between Vietnam and the US, poverty and prosperity, ignorance and knowledge, folly and wisdom, evil and good. To most in the world, the depravity of the vision you have explained is obvious. Perhaps, with your upbringing and political education, you cannot see it. If so, across such a gap in views of the world, no argument is possible, because arguments turn on shared assumptions, and you and I don't share enough common assumptions to even argue.
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I was responding to this sentence:
" If you make Nazi salutes, you can hardly cry that you're being picked up when people call you a Nazi. "
That makes sense only if you assume that the persons complaining about being called Nazis are the persons giving the Nazi salutes. We don't complain when people acting like Nazis get called Nazis (nor do the Nazis, they're proud of it). We complain when Trump supporters are being called Nazis across the board. And it is not just Trump. They called Reagan a fascist, they called Bush Jr. a fascist. The escalating violence is a natural outgrowth of the escalating rhetoric. If X is a Nazi, it's ok to hit him a biff, to beat him, to shoot him. If words are a "microaggression" then aggression in response is called for.
"in America at the moment the most serious abuses are certainly coming from the Republican side."
Are Republicans attacking their opposition at opposition political rallies? Are Republicans doxing people and harrassing them at their homes and in public places? Are Republicans seeking to deplatform and censor their opposition? Are Democrat congressmen getting shot by Republicans like Republicans are by Democrats?
I know this polemic mode seems justified to you, because it is what you are taught in school nowadays in place of critical thinking. Rather than go to the effort of engaging your opponent's arguments and data, you give yourself an excuse for dismissing it. This is Bulverism:
Quote from Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is "wishful thinking." You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
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+mankeytoes
"How is Fox not mainstream media?"
When all the newsrooms of the broadcast media, public funded broadcasting, a significant bloc of newspapers, all the cable news outlets save one, and the gatekeepers of the Internet are an opinion monolith against which to balance 1 cable news network, a few web sites, and a majority of talk radio, the term "mainstream media" is a useful, indeed vital, term for speaking clearly about the situation. Sorry -Bigfoot Hawk, you replied after I started writing.
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+mankytoes
"I mean it isn't normal, is it? I don't remember either Bushes or Reagan having their supporters do that."
By "having them do" I presume you don't mean "encouraging them to do"
"Maybe because you aren't Europeans?"
That has something to do with it. Nationalist parties with racial overtones are a significant voting bloc in many European countries. They are not so here. By the most tendentiously pessimistic estimates, the KKK and the Neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups all together have less than a million members nationwide in the US, a nation of about 350 million. They are not a political power, they are a universally despised tiny minority, despised by Repubs/ Dems/ Trumpers/ never Trumpers, by all and sundry. They are NOT a POLITICAL player here. While extremely irritating, the worse they can do is a bit of amateur violence and terrorism on a small scale, a relatively minor police matter not an existential crisis. While it is a shame that they manage to ruin their own lives and damn their own souls, they are impotent to do much else.
"I hope you apply the same logic to your opponents, like not labelling people communists just because they wave communist flags."
Dude, by now it must be clear, even to you, that you are being deliberately obtuse. You would be justified in assuming, to first order, that people giving Nazi salutes in a political rally are Nazis. You ARE NOT justified in saying "Trump supporters" or "a significant number of Trump supporters" are Nazis when there ARE NOT a significant number of Trump supporters making Nazi salutes or supporting Nazi policies, like state control of major industries, abortion, racial discrimination in hiring, wage and price controls, censorship, criminalization of opposing parties and views, using the law enforcement and military for partisan political purposes, and an increase in the power and money centralized in the government. All of these policies are the policies the Democrats have in common with the Nazis of yore, which conservatives and Trumpistas oppose.
"To survive in the world you've got to recognise danger signs, it's in the most base parts of our programming, and a Nazi salute is just about the biggest red flag you can get."
What are we supposed to do? Drop our political principles because some bad guys say they're on our side? Don't worry, we are watching our house, look to yours. You act like this slander of yours is new! The leftists have been calling conservatives and Republicans racists for over 50 years now in this country. It is a deception tactic that has run its course. Bulverism, as I said. "You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time." - FDR who was an expert on the subject.
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TheJudge01 The NRA was supportive of southern civil rights leaders being armed to defend themselves against KKK attacks. NRA opposed Democrat gun control legislation aimed then as now to remove the protection of poor folks and minorities. Many civil rights leaders of the time were open and enthusiastic members of that fine organization. If MLK had been for gun control in the '60s, he would not have been a civil rights leader.
As for immigration and Mexicans, Latin American labor organizer and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez was adamantly opposed to illegal immigration, rightly seeing it as an attempt by US employers to undercut entry level US workers (then and now). Your opinions on such matters are by no means dominant among women, and we have a formal means of collectively citing their general will. We call it an election. Illegal immigrants, like all lawbreakers, can be constitutionally deprived of their rights by due process. Women AMERICANS, Mexican AMERICANS, and Muslim AMERICANS are not systematically deprived of their rights in this country, tendentious claims to the contrary notwithstanding regardless of source. There is such a thing as objective truth.
What you are calling the "right" now are precisely the ones who support and uphold civil rights, especially enumerated constitutional rights. And as your post admits THAT IS WHY you disagree with them (2nd amendment is an enumerated civil right). Legitimate rights are freedom "TO" (to act to do something) bogus rights are freedom "FROM" (government restrictions on your neighbor's freedom to act) or free stuff. Freedom of speech as opposed to free beer.
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