As somebody who's been in this fight for a long time, it's encouraging and almost bewildering to see other people starting to have the same conversations that I wanted to have, but felt kind of broken down at the same time years ago. As one friend put it, out normie friends are all just now finding out about the culture war.
It's kind of makes me want to go back through my original materials and start clipping it or something because somehow it all seems relevant again... Yay
Haha, I totally relate to that feeling! I've been there in other ways. You should definitely go back through things you've done previously! I need to do it too haha. There are so many things people who've found my work today haven't seen because it's languishing in the older corners of the internet.
I’m sorry - boy you are young, God bless you please try not to take offense because it isn’t meant that way, but you have history a little wrong. You said historically government wasn’t there to give things to people (true) that the King or whoever had limited role. Not true. Originally our small, then larger tribes, were definitely ruled, and I do mean RULED, by chieftains (think Powhatan & his confederacy) then Kings, who were absolute rulers/monarchs. Think Vikings. Think Kings in England before the Saxons arrived and took over. Even after, when there were alliances of not just kingdoms/families, but when there was an aristocracy built (after say William the Conqueror- the Saxon king who came from France to England) for the purpose of building & controlling larger groups of people and territories, they were still absolute rulers. The chieftains, then Kings words were literally law. And they attained their position of chief/king through strength of arms. And they accumulated, expanded, and consolidated their positions through warfare. This is the real way it has always been with humans since the beginning of our time, like it or not. Some rulers were good, even beneficial, a few even established rule of law - they still made the law, but they were written down and considered the people’s interests to some extent. After all, as tribes grew larger, it became apparent that chiefs and kings must also keep their people ‘happy’ or they would have a rebellion on their hands. Chiefs and Kings could, and in fact sometimes were, replaced. In addition, religion/God(?) -depending which culture and epoch you are referring to- “anointing” kings helped them solidify their validity to power over so many people. However, people can still be killed, challenged, or replaced. Therefore, when the aristocracy of England wanted more power & stability, and less at the whims of an individual king, they went to war against the king and taking him hostage made him sign the magna carter. This wasn’t the first time that power-sharing happened among human “governments.” Such things had happened in Ancient Greece and ancient Rome and even in ecleastical Rome. Eventually England got a parliamentary system, with the House of Lords (aristocracy), and the House of Commons. We developed a different system, new at the time because up until then all subjects of Chiefs & Kings, etc were the people and property of their rulers. They were NOT viewed as independent individuals/people. They were the property of their King, and he could order them to do whatever he wanted and they had to or die. Again though a despot could be replaced if he pissed off enough people, or enough of the wrong people. So that usually kept some of it in check, sort of. Note the qualifications on that statement, it’s meant. By the time our founding fathers came along, it hadn’t been since Ancient Greece & Rome that philosophers and others had even considered the “independence” of fifes, of slaves, of people just generally. Oh there was talk periodically, but nothing was done about it until the Enlightenment period, which so heavily influenced our founding fathers who were living in the thick of it. The American revolution, and especially the constitution and bill of rights that it was based on, was at that time truly “revolutionary.” I’m paraphrasing and rushing through all of this, but basically the constitution didn’t grant people their rights and powers, not limit people and their rights and powers, revolutionarily it granted in writing limited powers of government (of the people, by the people, for the people) and reminded government that people are imbued with inalienable rights by their creator (not King, Chief, aristocracy, parliament, or any form of government) only. That was revolutionary! That was essentially “new” and creating a new form of government that started there, not in aristocracy or feudalism, or anything that had come before that didn’t recognize people as people (!) but as property of a king/kingdom was amazing!!
Yes you are correct that this last election it wasn’t just “against” word-salad lady, it wasn’t even entirely “for” Trump, there are a lot of people who are fed up with the idea that the government rules top down and people should acquiesce their personal (“independent “) power to higher up’s. Not just recognizing “authority” but really reversing the perspective that our founding fathers had; by the people for the people with the consent of the governed .
Both parties, and the money in the election system, plus manipulation of other systems (electoral college choosing the electors - use a Captain Bly sort of system- and using the courts just to keep people, even third parties, off the ballot) have made things so bad starting in the 1990’s that we have an ineffective system and most people know it and increasingly don’t want it. A lot of us are independents or increasingly “political orphans”. Even people who belong to a party increasingly say they are only a Dem, or Rep, to be able to vote in the primaries; but this last election, Biden stepped aside after the primaries so on one in Dems had chance to elect their candidate!!
“The crazy person who doesn’t want wars!” Because it isn’t about the extreme simplistic postulations of “do you want war or not” not the more nuanced (and frankly mature) discussion will we need to go to war, are we risking war by not showing strength now, up front (ie punch bully Putin, who has already “gotten away with taking Crimea without serious repercussions” and therefore he invaded Ukraine after he failed to install a puppet president/government like Belaruse.) There is no talk about human nature, behavior of people, nations, ideologies that motivate or bind people together, etc. It becomes either/or. “Either you are for ‘US’ or you’re against us.” What if WE want to do what is best for most of us (Americans & Human beings?) The problem is a lack of shared “facts/truth”, objective reality, maturity, nuanced conversations, effective communication, logic, reason, and most especially trust, on any level really. Zero trust. And we need a certain level of mutual trust to work, live, get along, and make our “collective” democracy work.
You mention the movie that recently won an Oscar and why, in some instances, people who should be for “bridging the divide” are reacting negatively “automatically” instead to the movie and it’s director and/or message. This one I can explain: many Jews and “Zionists” (people who believe that Jews should have their own ancient homeland, Israel, as a legitimate country without people trying to kill them or kick them out of the land of Israel) had a very nasty wake-up call on October 7th, 2023. 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians and families including children and babies, were slaughtered. No other word for it really, because while they were murdered, they were murdered in such a way that can only be described as slaughter. It made a lot of people who would have previously “bought” into the “narrative” (lie) that all Palestinians want is peace and to “bridge the divide.” But they don’t. The Israelis pulled all Jews (including cemetery bones!) and all IDF forces out of Gaza in 2005, and a year or two later Palestinians elected Hamas, knowing what they were, what they wanted, and what they would do to get it. They bluntly stated so many times including in their own charter. They only recently “changed” it for appearances sake, when enough people caught on and started to point it out more and more. We have a problem not being able to read Arabic, and not trusting “the opposition” especially if it is represented as the “oppressor”, to truthfully translate it for us. So someone more “reliable” was beginning to make noises about it, so apparently they changed it. However, on Arabic-language tv like Arabic Al Jezzera (not English language Al Jazzera) they freely state they will not stop until they have killed all the Israelis and taken over the land again, and kill all the Jews and ifidels everywhere. Any few Palestinians that are not raised from cradle-to-grave on Jew-Hate, Israeli-hate, Infidel-hate, like watching Arabic Sesame Street that actually tells toddlers to hate Jews & infidels, and manage to want peace or cooperate at All with Israelis, are murdered. Yaya Sinwar even made a Hamas member whose brother was believed to be a “traitor” bury his own brother alive. Yaya Sinwar also said he had murdered people by strangling them with his bare hands. When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Many of the young people killed at the concert in the desert that day were not only Jewish, but peacenicks. So too were many of the people living near the Gaza wall/border, the ones who were brutally murdered, burned to death, raped, and or taken hostage into Gaza; like the Bibas baby & toddler who were strangled to death. I agree with you that people are behaving immaturely, believing simplistic things that simply aren’t true or aren’t the totality of truth. But remember, this is a “post-truth” world now, so the only reality that matters to most people is “my reality”, or if objective truth still matters to them, there are so many voices on so many platforms, most mature honest people have a harder time finding out what is really true. And you are right that mainstream journalism has been co-opted a long time ago. I remember back in the early 1990’s (no later than ‘93) meeting a journalism major in college at a party. She said she was being taught that people didn’t want dry dull facts and didn’t have the time or capacity to “digest” the news, so it was the job of the new kind of press and journalist to make news more accessible by “pre-digesting” all those pesky facts and sources into a more palatable “narrative” that read better (like entertainment/novel.) I think that was also a part of some kind of long march through the institutions started sometime in the 1969’s but beyond the first (& genuine) civil rights movement. Someone piggybacked off that success to take things even further to “the left” or just towards communism/collectivism in a much more subtle way. Hard to explain, harder to see. I’ll try to go into it in my own posts sometime. Interesting subject for conversation you have here. I like your Substack, it’s conducive to conversation and learning.
Unfortunately “compromise” became a dirty word with several things: 1.) the “post-colonial” review of history and slavery and putting a “post-truth” & Post-colonial framework on history: how did the founding fathers, even ones who weren’t slave owners or had doubts like Washington who freed his slaves in his will, how did they not get rid of slavery right away (compromise with southerners like Jefferson was the reason slavery wasn’t eliminated. In fact how could they ever do it to begin with? So they are clearly simply bad people, so all their ideas are bad), therefore compromise is bad, therefore No compromise. That will “stop” all obviously immoral actions by obviously completely immoral people & 2.) Bill Clinton’s 2-term election/administration, lies and sleeze, but also perhaps something more (I was shocked to see how much they HATED the Clintons, even before Obama) and things related to the Republican reaction to him. & 3.) the internet arose for broad use in the 1990’s. Its impact and the social media platforms that grew from it cannot be underestimated as contributing to a lot of negatives for humans and American democracy specifically (see next point) & 4.) I also think that the leftist/Cold War long march through the institutions with all the “down on/death to America”, “post-truth”, “post-colonial”, racial (“anti-racism”), etc - find all negatives and overly focus on them and build a self-loathing and universal-loathing “narrative” to destroy morale, unity, & cohesiveness. Destroy American-style democracy and any /all “western” democracy. Help to support collectivism/ authoritarianism/toltalrianism.
As somebody who's been in this fight for a long time, it's encouraging and almost bewildering to see other people starting to have the same conversations that I wanted to have, but felt kind of broken down at the same time years ago. As one friend put it, out normie friends are all just now finding out about the culture war.
It's kind of makes me want to go back through my original materials and start clipping it or something because somehow it all seems relevant again... Yay
Haha, I totally relate to that feeling! I've been there in other ways. You should definitely go back through things you've done previously! I need to do it too haha. There are so many things people who've found my work today haven't seen because it's languishing in the older corners of the internet.
I’m sorry - boy you are young, God bless you please try not to take offense because it isn’t meant that way, but you have history a little wrong. You said historically government wasn’t there to give things to people (true) that the King or whoever had limited role. Not true. Originally our small, then larger tribes, were definitely ruled, and I do mean RULED, by chieftains (think Powhatan & his confederacy) then Kings, who were absolute rulers/monarchs. Think Vikings. Think Kings in England before the Saxons arrived and took over. Even after, when there were alliances of not just kingdoms/families, but when there was an aristocracy built (after say William the Conqueror- the Saxon king who came from France to England) for the purpose of building & controlling larger groups of people and territories, they were still absolute rulers. The chieftains, then Kings words were literally law. And they attained their position of chief/king through strength of arms. And they accumulated, expanded, and consolidated their positions through warfare. This is the real way it has always been with humans since the beginning of our time, like it or not. Some rulers were good, even beneficial, a few even established rule of law - they still made the law, but they were written down and considered the people’s interests to some extent. After all, as tribes grew larger, it became apparent that chiefs and kings must also keep their people ‘happy’ or they would have a rebellion on their hands. Chiefs and Kings could, and in fact sometimes were, replaced. In addition, religion/God(?) -depending which culture and epoch you are referring to- “anointing” kings helped them solidify their validity to power over so many people. However, people can still be killed, challenged, or replaced. Therefore, when the aristocracy of England wanted more power & stability, and less at the whims of an individual king, they went to war against the king and taking him hostage made him sign the magna carter. This wasn’t the first time that power-sharing happened among human “governments.” Such things had happened in Ancient Greece and ancient Rome and even in ecleastical Rome. Eventually England got a parliamentary system, with the House of Lords (aristocracy), and the House of Commons. We developed a different system, new at the time because up until then all subjects of Chiefs & Kings, etc were the people and property of their rulers. They were NOT viewed as independent individuals/people. They were the property of their King, and he could order them to do whatever he wanted and they had to or die. Again though a despot could be replaced if he pissed off enough people, or enough of the wrong people. So that usually kept some of it in check, sort of. Note the qualifications on that statement, it’s meant. By the time our founding fathers came along, it hadn’t been since Ancient Greece & Rome that philosophers and others had even considered the “independence” of fifes, of slaves, of people just generally. Oh there was talk periodically, but nothing was done about it until the Enlightenment period, which so heavily influenced our founding fathers who were living in the thick of it. The American revolution, and especially the constitution and bill of rights that it was based on, was at that time truly “revolutionary.” I’m paraphrasing and rushing through all of this, but basically the constitution didn’t grant people their rights and powers, not limit people and their rights and powers, revolutionarily it granted in writing limited powers of government (of the people, by the people, for the people) and reminded government that people are imbued with inalienable rights by their creator (not King, Chief, aristocracy, parliament, or any form of government) only. That was revolutionary! That was essentially “new” and creating a new form of government that started there, not in aristocracy or feudalism, or anything that had come before that didn’t recognize people as people (!) but as property of a king/kingdom was amazing!!
Yes you are correct that this last election it wasn’t just “against” word-salad lady, it wasn’t even entirely “for” Trump, there are a lot of people who are fed up with the idea that the government rules top down and people should acquiesce their personal (“independent “) power to higher up’s. Not just recognizing “authority” but really reversing the perspective that our founding fathers had; by the people for the people with the consent of the governed .
Both parties, and the money in the election system, plus manipulation of other systems (electoral college choosing the electors - use a Captain Bly sort of system- and using the courts just to keep people, even third parties, off the ballot) have made things so bad starting in the 1990’s that we have an ineffective system and most people know it and increasingly don’t want it. A lot of us are independents or increasingly “political orphans”. Even people who belong to a party increasingly say they are only a Dem, or Rep, to be able to vote in the primaries; but this last election, Biden stepped aside after the primaries so on one in Dems had chance to elect their candidate!!
“The crazy person who doesn’t want wars!” Because it isn’t about the extreme simplistic postulations of “do you want war or not” not the more nuanced (and frankly mature) discussion will we need to go to war, are we risking war by not showing strength now, up front (ie punch bully Putin, who has already “gotten away with taking Crimea without serious repercussions” and therefore he invaded Ukraine after he failed to install a puppet president/government like Belaruse.) There is no talk about human nature, behavior of people, nations, ideologies that motivate or bind people together, etc. It becomes either/or. “Either you are for ‘US’ or you’re against us.” What if WE want to do what is best for most of us (Americans & Human beings?) The problem is a lack of shared “facts/truth”, objective reality, maturity, nuanced conversations, effective communication, logic, reason, and most especially trust, on any level really. Zero trust. And we need a certain level of mutual trust to work, live, get along, and make our “collective” democracy work.
You are right that people are more immature now too. Idk 🤷♀️
You mention the movie that recently won an Oscar and why, in some instances, people who should be for “bridging the divide” are reacting negatively “automatically” instead to the movie and it’s director and/or message. This one I can explain: many Jews and “Zionists” (people who believe that Jews should have their own ancient homeland, Israel, as a legitimate country without people trying to kill them or kick them out of the land of Israel) had a very nasty wake-up call on October 7th, 2023. 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians and families including children and babies, were slaughtered. No other word for it really, because while they were murdered, they were murdered in such a way that can only be described as slaughter. It made a lot of people who would have previously “bought” into the “narrative” (lie) that all Palestinians want is peace and to “bridge the divide.” But they don’t. The Israelis pulled all Jews (including cemetery bones!) and all IDF forces out of Gaza in 2005, and a year or two later Palestinians elected Hamas, knowing what they were, what they wanted, and what they would do to get it. They bluntly stated so many times including in their own charter. They only recently “changed” it for appearances sake, when enough people caught on and started to point it out more and more. We have a problem not being able to read Arabic, and not trusting “the opposition” especially if it is represented as the “oppressor”, to truthfully translate it for us. So someone more “reliable” was beginning to make noises about it, so apparently they changed it. However, on Arabic-language tv like Arabic Al Jezzera (not English language Al Jazzera) they freely state they will not stop until they have killed all the Israelis and taken over the land again, and kill all the Jews and ifidels everywhere. Any few Palestinians that are not raised from cradle-to-grave on Jew-Hate, Israeli-hate, Infidel-hate, like watching Arabic Sesame Street that actually tells toddlers to hate Jews & infidels, and manage to want peace or cooperate at All with Israelis, are murdered. Yaya Sinwar even made a Hamas member whose brother was believed to be a “traitor” bury his own brother alive. Yaya Sinwar also said he had murdered people by strangling them with his bare hands. When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Many of the young people killed at the concert in the desert that day were not only Jewish, but peacenicks. So too were many of the people living near the Gaza wall/border, the ones who were brutally murdered, burned to death, raped, and or taken hostage into Gaza; like the Bibas baby & toddler who were strangled to death. I agree with you that people are behaving immaturely, believing simplistic things that simply aren’t true or aren’t the totality of truth. But remember, this is a “post-truth” world now, so the only reality that matters to most people is “my reality”, or if objective truth still matters to them, there are so many voices on so many platforms, most mature honest people have a harder time finding out what is really true. And you are right that mainstream journalism has been co-opted a long time ago. I remember back in the early 1990’s (no later than ‘93) meeting a journalism major in college at a party. She said she was being taught that people didn’t want dry dull facts and didn’t have the time or capacity to “digest” the news, so it was the job of the new kind of press and journalist to make news more accessible by “pre-digesting” all those pesky facts and sources into a more palatable “narrative” that read better (like entertainment/novel.) I think that was also a part of some kind of long march through the institutions started sometime in the 1969’s but beyond the first (& genuine) civil rights movement. Someone piggybacked off that success to take things even further to “the left” or just towards communism/collectivism in a much more subtle way. Hard to explain, harder to see. I’ll try to go into it in my own posts sometime. Interesting subject for conversation you have here. I like your Substack, it’s conducive to conversation and learning.
Unfortunately “compromise” became a dirty word with several things: 1.) the “post-colonial” review of history and slavery and putting a “post-truth” & Post-colonial framework on history: how did the founding fathers, even ones who weren’t slave owners or had doubts like Washington who freed his slaves in his will, how did they not get rid of slavery right away (compromise with southerners like Jefferson was the reason slavery wasn’t eliminated. In fact how could they ever do it to begin with? So they are clearly simply bad people, so all their ideas are bad), therefore compromise is bad, therefore No compromise. That will “stop” all obviously immoral actions by obviously completely immoral people & 2.) Bill Clinton’s 2-term election/administration, lies and sleeze, but also perhaps something more (I was shocked to see how much they HATED the Clintons, even before Obama) and things related to the Republican reaction to him. & 3.) the internet arose for broad use in the 1990’s. Its impact and the social media platforms that grew from it cannot be underestimated as contributing to a lot of negatives for humans and American democracy specifically (see next point) & 4.) I also think that the leftist/Cold War long march through the institutions with all the “down on/death to America”, “post-truth”, “post-colonial”, racial (“anti-racism”), etc - find all negatives and overly focus on them and build a self-loathing and universal-loathing “narrative” to destroy morale, unity, & cohesiveness. Destroy American-style democracy and any /all “western” democracy. Help to support collectivism/ authoritarianism/toltalrianism.
Thank you for watching Noah! Glad you enjoyed it. Appreciate your comments!