The people who consider themselves to be the saviors of black people — are hurting black people, because what they’re committed to is more virtue signaling than actually doing something in the world.
— John McWhorter
No rational person would deny that, but I assure you — the likes of Loury & McWhorter will turn on a dime to deny the undeniable to protect their own (just like those they’re trying to change). Hypocrisy does not lend itself to compelling argument (as it poisons everything in its path).
Believe it or not, the best way to serve your interests is to first and foremost — hold your own accountable. If you wanna make the opposition look bad, try looking good.
If you wanna have the moral high ground, try earning it:
The moral high ground, in ethical or political parlance, refers to the status of being respected for remaining moral, and adhering to and upholding a universally recognized standard of justice or goodness.
Marching to Black Lives Matter with the first black president sitting in the White House — was that a smart move? The answer should be abundantly clear and yet the question is not even considered. I’ve been blocked on Twitter for just politely suggesting that BLM is a counterproductive cause.
Instead of considering how you could fight for justice more intelligently — you act like I’m saying you shouldn’t fight for it at all.
Was that smart move?
It’s a sign of the times that people fail to understand the premise of such a simple question.
What’s more, they make it nearly impossible to explain it to them — as detail has a way of complicating the narrative. Even if drawing attention to a problem produces some positive activity, the concept of unintended consequences entirely escapes those consumed by what they see only in the moment.
A lot of that goin’ around
Taking on the entire country is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. Explaining America’s decline over decades of delight in the Gutter Games of Government — is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms. Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest. But you’re busy . . .
You’re always busy
Think of what you’re saying
You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s alright
Think of what I’m saying
We can work it out and get it straight, or say goodnight . . .
It astounds me that even sharing something in hopes of a human connection — that maybe having something in common could connect in a way that undeniable evidence doesn’t: Even that is mocked and conveniently taken as “weakness” in argument.
So in the Face of Centrifuge Physics
On a matter of world-altering consequence (that shaped everything you see today): Belittling my “disjointed” & “juvenile” website with “irrelevant music & movies” is the best ya got?
When you have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, on what basis are you so doubt-free?
What’s more . . .
By miserably failing to understand that — it entirely escapes you how it led to this:
And in a world that no longer allows for this quaint thing called conversation — “Think of what you’re saying” could not be more relevant.
So I will ask you once again . . .
Try to see it my way
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long . . .
“Enslaved People”
It’s not the change in terms that bothers me so much:
It’s the complete absence of intellectually honest discussion by people preoccupied with victories in vocabulary.
When I am making my edits, “John’s slave” becomes “a person enslaved by John.” “John owned Sally” becomes “John enslaved Sally.” . . .
Good grief!
Even if there is a distinction deserving of discussion:
What you miserably fail to understand is that the net effect of your efforts is what counts, not your well-meaning intent. If you do far more harm than good — what’s the point?
But you know best
Your March of Folly mentality always does:
Like many alternatives, however, it was psychologically impossible. Character is fate, as the Greeks believed. Germans were schooled in winning objectives by force, unschooled in adjustment. They could not bring themselves to forgo aggrandizement even at the risk of defeat.
— Barbara Tuchman
Unschooled in Adjustment
With all the problems that plague America — it just astounds me that this is of paramount concern:
Consider this sentence: “George Washington owned slaves at Mount Vernon.” It doesn’t agitate our sense of morality as much as the sentence “George Washington enslaved people at Mount Vernon,” does it? To most people, it seems much worse to say, read, or hear that someone “enslaved” other people than that they “owned” other people.
That’s partially because ownership is one of the primary rights and most cherished ideas in the American system — and most Western systems — of government.
I’m not among “most” . . .
And on what basis is she making the claim that “most people” see it that way? “Owned” has an ugliness that “enslaved” does not — precisely because we know it’s not a “primary right” to own people. Such efforts are really reaching to re-engineer what cannot be undone.
All this over-the-top engineering of sensitivity has gotten totally out of hand. Excessive sensitivity breeds hypersensitivity. When you water things down to be politically correct, our nation’s ability to discern decreases right along with it: Creating a culture that’s increasingly more easily offended and radically irrational — across the board.
It just never ends . . .
In our culture of instant offense, we ban before we think. However, banning isn’t a sign of strength or resolve, but an admission of defeat, of showing how little we have engaged with whatever the bigger issue that belies the ban.
Instead of asking or addressing the roots of violent racism in the South in 2015 — far too difficult, far too intimidating — we focus on symbols. If we take a flag down, if we remove a TV show from the schedules, it shows we are doing something.
It shows our hearts are in the right places.
Renaming teams and pancake products, kneeling, knocking down monuments, wiping Indians off boxes of butter, banning Dukes of Hazzard, and Microsoft’s Inclusiveness Checker to program you proper:
Enough already!
These are not serious-minded measures for problem solving.
Elaine’s exasperation x 10 =
How impossibly stupid it is that they banned The Dukes of Hazzard
But the high five is just so stupid!
From as far back as I can remember, I loved the Land O’Lakes Indian. And then they butchered the spirit of it for the sake of sensitivity. If such measures had any chance of actually making an impact that matters — I’d gladly sacrifice my precious brand of beauty.
For those who would try to educate me by saying I don’t understand the feelings involved in empty overtures that accomplish absolutely nothing:
No, you don’t understand . . .
And don’t even get me started on how homelessness is a problem perpetuated by those most sensitive in their approach to solving it. If you wanna start solving problems instead of perpetuating them, it’s gotta get ugly.
Or as ol’ Bill perfectly put it:
Tough love used to be timeless:
Now everything’s an assault on increasingly fragile egos. And so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore (which was predictable when you water everything down to the point where its original intent is conveniently forgotten).
Fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
If you have a history of hypocrisy and lying — you are a hypocrite and a liar. If you don’t like being called those things, don’t do those things. And right on cue: Calling criticism “mudslinging” is just somethin’ to say to escape scrutiny.
And the irony is, I’ve received almost nothing but mudslinging for decades — by people who cry foul with counterfeit claims on what they do for real. And let’s face it: You need it to be mudslinging, because if it’s not — your beliefs are gonna fall apart.
And on that note
I don’t see what the problem is
— Typical Tweeter tapping earth-shattering insight
You don’t see — a lot!
Your track record is not what I would call astute — and the Right doesn’t have anything to write home about either. We’re well beyond “disagreement” in America — this is madness (countless millions miserably failing to follow even the most fundamental methods of how understanding works).
Tuchman alighted on a root cause of folly that she called “wooden-headedness” — defined in part as “assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting contrary information.”
The second you shun evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative you want — you have contaminated your judgment. How quickly you come to your conclusions — and what you’re willing to ignore to solidify them:
That is the underlying message of my efforts.
As I said in my doc:
At the heart of why we fail to live up to our potential as a society is because we excel at polluting even the purest form of fact. How can we possibly solve serious problems when we refuse to adhere to some semblance of the fundamentals of making sense?
— Richard W. Memmer: Epilogue
One Voice Became Two 