Comments by "Jack Haveman" (@JackHaveman52) on "PragerU"
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@TrendyStone
We can't read minds but we can imply what he meant when it's put into context. If he wasn't talking about Nazis and white supremacists, who was he talking about? Who else was there? If no one else was there, he's covering for himself, basically lying. If there were others there, then we can, by implication, conclude that the ones he was talking about, on that specific side, were those people. Not the Nazis but those who were advancing their own beliefs in what was happening that day, specifically, that we shouldn't tear down monuments to history. That's the logical approach.
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@billpracells8876
“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country,”. - Robert E Lee 1856
I copied and pasted this from a comment made by Trendy Brown which was directed at YOU. You either didn't read it or are wilfully ignoring it. In case you think this was made up, here's the evidence that it is FACT.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/making-sense-of-robert-e-lee-85017563/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-e-lee-was-not-a-proponent-of-slavery/2013/12/12/9fe474c2-626b-11e3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/arlington-bobby-lee-and-the-peculiar-institution/61428/
This is a known fact that will be lost when we wilfully erase Lee's real life and feelings,from history, and replace it with vilification and denigration.
Slavery wasn't just an American phenomenon. It's 10,000 years old and has been a part of human history all over the world. To reduce it to a moment of time, to a single era, is reducing it to a childish view of humanity and to a simplistic understanding of the human psyche.
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@JohnEusebioToronto
And if you'd have fought for the Confederacy, it might be YOU that would be vilified today. "That General John Eusebio was nothing but a disgusting racist" would be the cry.....but life is much more complex than that. You may have even doubted why you're doing what you're doing but who doesn't do that? What I think is important is not just what you did, but how you got to be in that place to where you ended up at.
History isn't just about knowing how to spot the bad guys and to "learn from history", as they say. It's a mirror that you hold in front of you to see that reflection of all that came before you that made you who you are today. That's both the good and the ugly. Not only are you Lee but you're Grant. You're the man looking for the witch and you're the witch being burnt at the stake. You have to know that the potential to be either one is there within you. If you only view it as "This guy good" and "That guy bad", you learn nothing about yourself and humanity. People are so much more than that and I find the idea of vilification extremely dangerous, just as I find the idea of sanctification of heroes to be dangerous.
That's why I want to remember Lee as a human being, not just as a Confederate General and a racist, white supremacist and just plain awful. People cared about him. He had family, maybe a dog, neighbours that looked up to him and people that couldn't stand him. We NEED to know him as a man....NOT just as that General that was fought for the wrong side.
I learned that from my father who grew up a short distance from the German border during the war. That stupid line in the map, allowed him to be one of the "Good guys". That's it. Had he been born that short distance, to the east of his home town, he would have marched with the Hitler Youth and be forever be stigmatised with the Nazi label. It was that easy.
Please try to understand that history is about people....REAL people, who need to be understood. Those people that are tearing down his statues aren't interested in understanding. They're possessed by a hatred, a sanctimonious hatred that may, in the end, may have more casualties than General Lee ever even thought of. It's the evil of good intentions and it's frightening.
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@JohnEusebioToronto
If you take down the statues and only speak of their evils, you'll never hear about the humanity within them, either. It's the "hate the sin but love the sinner" ideal put forward by some religious leaders.
What I'm seeing is hatred and it's coming from those who are obsessed with racism, white privilege, colonialism, sexism and how THEY are the ones combating evil. I know someone else who thought they were combating evil. They were the Inquisition, who saw evil and were going to fix it and became evil themselves. They were the communists, who saw the Bourgeoisie as the evil oppressors and killed women and children, in their belief that once they were gone, the world would be better. What I see, right now, are self righteous do gooders, knowing deep in their hearts, that if only those evil doers were gone, destroyed and controlled, the world would be a better place and they're tearing the country apart. My nephew, a factory worker, had to go to a meeting, that told him and his co-workers that they were part of an oppressive system and that they had to change who they were to make for a better workplace and world. It reminded me of going to church and the preacher telling us how evil we were and how we must repent to be saved. He told me that a lot of his co-workers were resentful and felt as if this guy had no right to make assumptions about their character or intentions. This is what all this is doing and is about.
"White fragility". How we're all guilty and you'd better follow the rules, say the right things, don't use the intersectional swear words or the "God" of Equity will get you fired or worse. They're fixing the world through vilification and hatred and it's not going to work. In fact, it's killing people as we speak.
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@JohnEusebioToronto
Both Hitler and Davis were responsible for horrific wars and actions, but alone, they were nothing. Without the help of millions, those wars would never have happened. They embodied the dark entity inside of us all and, even though they led the insanity, they are just another spoke in the wheel. Hitler is the face of it, the man that makes that entity real but he's no different than you or I had we that moment of opportunity, darkness and power. Like it or not, Hitler is still you. It's the demon that can be released at any time. Hating Hitler isn't what saves you in the end. It's knowing that he's not that special a demon and we're no better than he is and we'd better realise that all it takes is the right motivation to release that demon. Hate is what it lives on and hating a man, even one like Hitler, opens that door, just another crack, so that demon escape. Hate what he did, feel pity for the man. He's us.
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@JohnEusebioToronto
The statue for Lee was part of a healing process between 2 factions of one country. It does no good to anyone to continually vilify one side, the south, as if they're not fit to exist, to talk to or acknowledge. It's there to say, to each other that this is over and we need to work TOGETHER, to make this a country of understanding and to put those differences in the past by forgiving. All that you're doing, by taking those statues down is pouring salt on a wound that was healed years ago. Slavery has been over 160 years ago. Time to let the war come to an end. Time to say, to each other that we know that we disagreed on this and now we'll move forward, AS BROTHERS AND COUNTRYMEN, not as winners and losers, saints and murderous animals. That's not healing. That's being spiteful from a victor who thinks himself morally superior and continuously jabbing those who he feels superior to.
It's not saying that you approve of slavery. It's saying that you're ready to move on. Apparently, you're not ready yet. Let it go. THE CIVIL WAR IS OVER. THE SLAVES ARE FREE. No one in America wants to see slavery return. Quit beating a dead horse.
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@JohnEusebioToronto
You really DO want to fight, don't you. All right then. What party supported the KKK. THE DEMOCRATS. They were against the black vote and many of the KKK leadership were also high in the Democrat party. The KKK formed to prevent blacks from voting Republican in the south. Blacks voted Republican because they were the ones that freed them, gave them full citizenship and then gave them the vote. The first 30 plus black Congressman were all Republicans. When Republican Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for supper, it was Democrats who were enraged. The KKK didn't rise in the twenties....they re-emerged. The KKK started after the Civil War. Then, in the fifties in sixties, when blacks were fighting for Civil Rights, it was Democrats that fought against it. It was a Democrat governor that refused to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was Democrat Governor, George Wallace, who cried "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in the sixties. I remember it like it was yesterday. 80% Republicans supported Civil Rights, 70% Democrats opposed it. Guess who wants to repeal the State Civil Right's Act in California? The Democrats. Guess who supports Blacks only graduations at Harvard....the new segregation? The Democrats. Guess who supports blacks only dorms at universities.....the Dems. Who's against school choice for inner city kids....you know who. Yet they send their kids to the best schools in the country.
Who lied about Nick Sandman and ignored the slanders of the Black Jewish Israelites? Who lied about Jussie Smollett and his MAGA country story? Who lied about about "hands up, don't shoot"? Who withheld the body cam footage of George Floyd? Who said that Antifa and the riots are a myth? Who couldn't wait to use the incident in Kenosha to their advantage? Who holds the "deporter-in-chief" to near sainthood? Who refuses to acknowledge the horrific crime rates in the inner city? Who wants to defund the police and then pretends the burgeoning crime rates aren't happening?
You want to see all the negatives and I've held off. I want to see healing...you want to fight, vilify, use hate when it suits you, deflect and ignore when it doesn't. I want to promote healing. You just want to fight some more. The riots, the destruction, the anger, the hate....you want to perpetuate it. You won't reach out in friendship. NOOO. HATE. MORE HATE. "Them deplorables" don't deserve your time.
You're so filled with self righteousness that you can't see the destructive forces that are being unleashed in the name of your hatred. Worse.....you can't see that Trump will be re-elected because the peace relative peace that was descending on the country 20 years ago is being disrupted by left wing rhetoric calling everything that walks racist and white supremacists. Who would even call conservative black people the most vile names. Names that I wouldn't even repeat on this comment thread.
What's happening in the US right now makes me sick to me stomach and you're displaying a symptom of what's causing the violence. I'm almost 70 years old and I've never seen hate like I'm seeing now, as I am from those who act like you do.
Oh yeah.....the Democrat Convention, in 1924, was called the "Klanbake" as KKK supporters fought Catholics and Jews for control of the Democrat party. It all culminated in a cross burning.
You wanted truth....here you go.
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@Sylvertaco
The enlightenment period took place in the 18th Century, the same century as the writing of the Constitution. It was, in fact, a part of that enlightenment. The enlightenment wasn't a collective slap on the forehead with a "Now, I get it" It was through a long process of which the drafting of the Constitution was a part of. Some might even say the culmination of that enlightenment.
"We the People of the United States" That's the preamble to the Constitution. Either those slaves were people or they were not. Nowhere, in the Bible, could the slavers find that justification that the slaves were primitive and it was all a part of God's plan. That was their own rationalisation. The contradiction was that in that argument, they still acknowledged that the slaves were people and the first sentence in the Constitution does not distinguish the race, religion, ethnicity or gender of the "we the people". Those Amendments were added to ensure that the slaves, women and all were included in that preamble, that all were included when it was said "we the people" and it does give equal footing for all. Those Amendments are an assurance of that very first sentence. In reality, they are redundant if you acknowledge the humanity and equality of all.
The early Constitution doesn't mention slavery at all so it neither legitimises it or condemns it. For many it was the inconvenient truth that slavery contradicted the very essence of the Constitution and when the Amendments against slavery were made, it was to clarify what they had ignored when the Constitution was written. Many of the founding fathers knew that slavery contradicted what the constitution said but were powerless to enforce it because they needed the support of all 13 colonies to succeed in the rebellion against Britain. The Constitution put the wheels of Abolition in motion and was the very first step towards the freedom of the slaves.
Slavery was to old and complex and issue for it to disappear in an afternoon. Ben Franklin wasn't just going to stand up and say. "Slavery is wrong" and all Americans would collectively say "Why hasn't anyone told us this before? It all makes sense now". The seeds were sown in the Constitution and it became more and more apparent from the Constitution and from the religious beliefs of the time that slavery was an affront to the idea of "We the people" or human dignity.
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@Sylvertaco
You seem so critical of the Constitution yet you haven't cited one thing of the original text that you would heartily criticise. Not what it doesn't say but what it does say. This was the first attempt at a document to set standards of rule to make a better society and you're disappointed that it wasn't perfect yet you have yet to offer ONE thing that is says that is overtly wrong.
Also, most people were illiterate in the year 1500 and the first English Bibles were not in any kind of circulation for over 100 years after that. Before that, the Bibles were in Latin and Greek. Literacy rates were rising as printing presses became more efficient but it still wasn't as if millions of Bibles were being printed every year. It wasn't until 1800 that literate people started to become the majority, in the west and it was at that time slavery was ending, one nation at a time.
Yes, the Roman slaves valued the idea of life after death but if God values their lives that much in heaven, how could anyone, as a man, devalue that life on earth. That was the primary idea behind the abolition of slavery. The dignity of human life in heaven and on earth.
It wasn't just that the majority were illiterate 300 years ago. It was also the fact that transportation put limits on the circulation of new ideas. A letter could take weeks, even months to be delivered. You're taking the conditions of today and wondering why those people couldn't get it right 300 years ago under conditions that you or I can hardly imagine today. We have better health care, you and I, not the elites, but just average guys in the west, than King George the Third of England had when the American colonies revolted. That is just the tip of the iceberg. They had everyday survival concerns that we never think about today.
It's so easy to sit in judgement, lazing on our comfy couch in front of our computer. Maybe a little less moral superiority and a little more humbleness and appreciation of the hardships our ancestors had to live through so we can prattle on about our beloved ideas.
Point out, at least one thing in the first Constitution that is blatantly wrong and I'll discuss it. You haven't done it yet.
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@Sylvertaco
And yet, you still refuse to mention what was wrong with it without the Amendments. If you took the original Constitution and applied it today, would it legitimise slavery? I say no. The only reason slavery held on was because it existed at the time. Today, that original document has enough to deem slavery unconstitutional. There is nothing in it that allows it. Had slavery not existed in 1776 or ever in American history, no one could institute it today as a new social norm. That original Constitution would be the strongest argument against the idea of creating slavery.
The only reason that slavery endured at that time was because it had existed in human history for thousands of years.....not because that original Constitution allowed it. The only reason that the 13th Amendment was necessary was to reinforce what the preamble had already said but in a more specific manner. It stands alone in it's power but it had enormous pressure not to be followed in the spirit in which it was written.
However, even if I concede that it wasn't complete, you'd have to honour it as the first real attempt to the concept of human rights. Only the most naive would expect such a revolutionary document or ideals to arrive, fully formed, in perfection, right from the beginning. That original document is the foundation of all that came after.
Think of it. Those ideals have never been put to paper in the thousands of years of human civilisation. Thousands of years of human history and you're upset that it took 80 some years to specifically mention slavery. Like I said earlier, so easy to judge from the perspective of today. I'm sure that you wouldn't have been so fully enlightened in those days.
To give an example. My dad grew up in the Netherlands, 30 kilometres west of the German border. He had to live through the Nazi occupation and it wasn't easy for him or my family. Yet, he has wondered what his attitude towards those Nazis would have been had he been born 50 km. east of where he was born. Would he have joined the Hitler youth, raised is arm in salute to the Fuhrer and marched to the glory of the Fatherland? He says he likely would have, just as he hated the Nazis because he was born on the other side of that border. You're judging the founding fathers from a vantage point that they didn't have and then vilifying them for the flawed people that they were. No nuance, no understanding, no appreciation on what it took to write that revolutionary document.
We're not as good as we like to think we are. At least try to admire what they were trying to accomplish and give them and there work the admiration it deserves instead of finding fault with what you perceive as imperfections.
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@reptard6833
The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks were rival Marxists groups in the Soviet Union. They were both communists but still had philosophical differences.
Socialism definition:
"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
Fascism allows for private ownership but the owners are under control of the Party. The Party is, who they call the people. Any citizen can join the Party and you can work your way up, even to become supreme leader. In fact, China is now the closest country to a Fascist country there is. An authoritarian government, with privately owned businesses, under the control of their government. Their companies act as arms of the state just like the companies of Nazi Germany did. Germany abolished unions. They were redundant once Party members took the place of union stewards. They'd hold regular meetings with ALL levels of management in attendance, ensuring full loyalty to the Party, even owners and management. Not much different than China. Just look at how Huawei and other companies have been involved in industrial and political espionage. It's a BRAND of socialism, a step down from communism. Mussolini started out as a Marxist and reshaped his thinking into Fascism after he became disillusioned with the ineptness of his fellow Marxists. It's nothing like right wing American thinking or Conservatives. They believe in the Constitution, individual freedom and that all men are created equal and little to no interference in the affairs of private business. Any company tries to follow those principles in China or in Nazi Germany would see it's owners and management system replaced and likely arrested.
Also, I came to this conclusion on my own, after reading extensively on Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The similarities were striking other than the way they treated private property. When China started to relax their rules on private property, they slowly morphed into a Fascist state, akin to Nazi Germany. A nationalist state that's trying to dominate the world economically and politically. They couldn't be more alike had China used Nazi Germany as a blueprint to economic power. The only difference is that China doesn't emphasise, as a propaganda tool, the glory of the state like Germany did. It's still there but not as overt.
Next time try discussing this topic, instead of reacting in anger and with insults. It makes it seem as if you have an agenda and that you hate to have your agenda challenged, sort of like a religious fanatic.
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@reptard6833
If the American right, represented by the Republican Party, is so similar to Fascists, why do they support limited government, less government control over the lives of the people and a free, market drive economy? Also, why aren't the Republicans sending Party members to our places of businesses to ensure loyalty to the state and maintain the purity of Party values in our corporations and businesses? That's what Fascists did.
Why is there no call to control education. In fact, the right wing Republicans support school vouchers, separate schools and homeschooling. Fascists took over the schools and amalgamated youth groups into Party machines like Hitler youth. In fact, it's the American left that doesn't like school independence and supports the idea that ALL schools be government controlled with no choice for parents or students.
Also you've not mentioned one word on how the definition of socialism doesn't line up with the way the Fascists controlled the economy. Instead you advance the horseshoe model of political systems but you ignore my example how China has changed from a Marxist state into a Fascist state without going through the full Capitalist economy of the west industrialised nations. It seemed to have skipped right over it.
Most of your argument isn't built on the discussion of ideas but on mockery and put downs. This idea isn't new and even if it wasn't that doesn't devalue the efficacy of the idea. Ideas are to be discussed, not sneered at. The search for truth isn't about finding a consensus but an examination of ideas and thoughts through the lens of facts and perspectives. Mussolini must a Marxist, whose ideas devolved into Fascism. The Chinese Marxist government has changed it's ideas to devolve into a Fascist type state. I don't see the horseshoe model here. I see a straight line evolution. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd prefer to be shown how that's wrong instead of your mocking tone. I learn through discussion. All mocking accomplishes is resentment.
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@reptard6833
Morality is everything to those who are religious. They believe that abortion is wrong and they're afraid that a teacher, an extremely powerful influence on children, would use that influence to teach their children that abortion is an acceptable solution to a problem that, quite often, occurs when who is engaging in another, to them, immoral and irresponsible act of sex before marriage. It's a matter of perspective to them. It matters, to them, if it is taught in a manner of acceptance or whether or a manner of choice and responsibility to their faith, their partner, the child that is an inevitable outcome. It matters to them because they don't want that person of influence to be the arbiter of how the morality of sexual behaviour is taught to their children. They don't like the idea that the state is a "co-parent" to their children. Faceless state reps, labeled as teachers, who come into the children's lives for a semester or 2 and disappear from their lives, forever.
The claim that you've sat on education boards in no more than an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy. It means nothing.
If you can't see how sexual behaviour and morality is intricately woven, to people of religious faith, then you don't understand religion, AT ALL.....and it's not just Christianity, either. Muslims are even more concerned with the morality of sexual practices than Christians and Hindus have their own traditions regarding sex and the marriage bond. They don't want it reduced to a "one size fits all" type of ideology. To then sex and the family bond is the cornerstone of society and teaching it as a generic practise is not only wrong but damaging to the young.
I'm saying this as an atheist. I'm saying this as one who believes that parents are the most important factors in a child's life and that the most important ideas of the family should be taught by the family. It's the diversity of thought and lifestyle that parents possess and they believe should be taught to their children....not in school but in the home.
That's the morality of sexual behaviour they believe in and they don't want strangers influencing the morality of sex to their children.
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@reptard6833
Just because abortion is legal, that doesn't mean it's moral or right. I don't need the government to tell me what I should believe or think. Remember, slavery was once legal, too. Legal does NOT mean moral.
Also, it's not that some conservatives don't want their children to know about sex before marriage. It's the context in how sex is portrayed. They don't want 8 year olds to be influenced to view sex as recreational, that it has no consequences and there is no responsibility to your sexual partner or to any consequences that may result from unconsidered sexual behaviour.
Another fallacy is that just because one believes a practise is wrong, that doesn't automatically imply hatred of the person who commits that practise. Which is something else that is a popular belief in popular culture and encouraged in schools. Conservative beliefs are so vilified in the education system that students feel quite comfortable suppressing any ideas expressed that don't line up with their own and will even resort to violence to shut down any ideas that they don't like, behaviour fully supported by the school, itself. Evergreen College is the most egregious example of this type of indoctrination but not nearly the only one.
Also, you're ascribing the behaviour of some conservative types to the ALL conservatives. No nuance, no diversity of thought, all EXACTLY the same. That's the major objection of conservatives. The Westboro Baptist Church is considered a whacked fringe group by almost ALL conservatives, even those that are religious and disapprove of premarital sex, including that of homosexuals. And Chick-fil-A wasn't donating to anti-gay organisations. They were donating to groups that thought that they could change gays into straight people if that's what an individual wanted for their life. A naive idea but not necessarily hateful. In fact, Chick-fil-A has gay employees and has never discriminated against any gay customers. A trans person can go, any time they want, and buy a chicken sandwich.
I'll tell you what's really strange. It's strange that when the conservative is Christian, there is all kinds of vitriol thrown at him but when that person is Muslim and espouses the same ideas, the left make excuses for them. Which brings me to another point. No school should EVER, as an official stance, support left or right causes or ideals. They are there to teach the young how to read, write, understand mathematics and the facts of history, science and the world. If they teach evolution of the species, they should NEVER tell the children that the religious beliefs of their parents is wrong whether they're Christian, Muslim or whatever, although many teachers would never dare to say that to a Muslim child due to the prevalence of identity politics in the education system. That's another ideology that shouldn't be taught in school. Beliefs systems are personal and shouldn't be supported or discouraged by the state.
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