Who Are They To Hate Now?

Virginia’s GOP has suffered some significant loses over the past few days. The “Stars and Bars” have become toxic, Roe v Wade is still the law of the land, the Affordable Care Act has again been ruled Constitutional by the Supremes and gay marriage is the law of the land. Isn’t it time for fauxconomist Dave Bratt, Kirk Cox,and their band of modern day “Know-Nothings” to start coming up with some real ideas instead of focusing on who we should hate?

— Les Schreiber


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  1. larryg Avatar

    crickets.. Les.. crickets…

  2. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Good point, Les. Maybe John Roberts?

  3. planet_elroy Avatar
    planet_elroy

    Maybe they can turn on the Pope for reaching beyond his theological expertise and dipping into climate change as a moral issue??

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      Pretty sure the Bible gives man dominion over the Earth, which extends to good stewardship of the planet. That means it’s still well inside the Pope’s wheelhouse.

  4. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    The new issue will see the left pressuring against expansion of marriage to plural marriages. Feminists hate the concept as does the UN, and the left will dance to argue the fundamental right to marriage does not extend to plural marriages (probably due the position in the day sky of penumbras and emanations). I say so long as religious institutions are left to follow their doctrine and conditions, I see no reason not to recognize both so long as the parties are of legal age.

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      Every single polyamorous grouping I know is comprised of feminists and leftists. Flesh out your reasoning and try again.

  5. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    This sort of mindless crap has no place on Bacon’s Rebellion or any other self-respecting website.

  6. Les Schreiber Avatar
    Les Schreiber

    Have you read the First Amendment??

    1. TooManyTaxes Avatar
      TooManyTaxes

      Les, I agree with your argument. The best remedy for free speech is more free speech. Does it extend to the folks flying the Confederate flag along I-95? And how about those Americans who regularly speak negatively of President Obama?

      1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
        LifeOnTheFallLine

        Who has called for action to restrict either by force of law? No one. Go back to calling your fellow Virginians hillbillies.

  7. Les, in the context of the issues you just cited, could you please explain how either Dave Brat or Kirk Cox have “focused on whom we should hate”?

    I suppose you could argue that supporting traditional marriage means one “hates” gays.

    And I suppose you could argue that defending the Confederate battle flag means one “hates” African-Americans. (Just curious, though, have Brat and Cox been defending the display on public property of the Confederate flag?)

    As for Roe v Wade, what are you saying? Opposing late-term abortions means you “hate” women?

    And, as for the Affordable Care Act, are you saying that reading the law as written, as opposed to how it Congress “meant” it to be written, means one “hates” poor people?

    I have some questions for you. If you support gay marriage, do you “hate” evangelicals?

    If you oppose the Confederate battle flag, do you “hate” those Southerners who view it as a symbol of their heritage?

    If you support abortion, do you “hate” foetuses?

    Basically, as I understand the thrust of this post, people who disagree with you either are ignorant fools or “haters”… or both. Is that the way it works?

    Is that really an argument or just name calling? C’mon, Les, you’re better than that.

    1. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
      LifeOnTheFallLine

      “I suppose you could argue that supporting traditional marriage means one ‘hates’ gays.”

      If “support” of “traditional” marriage means you believe homosexuals don’t have the right to enter into marriage then yes, that’s exactly what that means.

      “And I suppose you could argue that defending the Confederate battle flag means one ‘hates’ African-Americans. ”

      Let’s see…defending the the flag flown in battle during a war to maintain and extend the enslavement of people based on their African heritage…yeah, that sounds pretty hateful.

      “Opposing late-term abortions means you ‘hate’ women?”

      It certainly means you don’t believe they can’t be trusted to make decisions about what goes on inside their own bodies. Also, nice weasel definition of what the opponents of Roe v. Wade actually oppose, which is the whole thing.

      “And, as for the Affordable Care Act, are you saying that reading the law as written, as opposed to how it Congress ‘meant’ it to be written, means one ‘hates’ poor people?”

      Yes. Or, rather, one cares more about a decontextual reading of the law than expanding health insurance to poor people or stable insurance marketplaces.

      “If you support gay marriage, do you ‘hate’ evangelicals?”

      Do the people who support gay marriage seek to block evangelicals from getting married? Do you understand context at all?

      “If you oppose the Confederate battle flag, do you ‘hate’ those Southerners who view it as a symbol of their heritage?”

      I won’t answer for Les here, but personally, I come awful close.

      Aside from that, you do understand that opposition to the battle flag is rooted in a negation of the hatred it stands for, right? Like, you have to get that people who oppose its flying are saying “We don’t think a symbol from a bunch of pro-slavery traitors that was resurrected in the midst of the post-WWII Civil Rights movement as banner for people who hated the people seeking those rights and opposed them getting full protection under the law is a great thing to stand behind, especially on public grounds,” don’t you? You’re far too smart to really believe this false equivalence you’re engaging in here, I need that to be true.

      “If you support abortion, do you ‘hate’ foetuses?”

      Another false equivalence. Supporting abortion is a positive assertion of rights for human women. Working to undermine it is the exact opposite of that.

      You should have just rightly accuse him on name calling, inserting into the debate politicians who had nothing to do with it and not knowing what the Stars and Bars are before calling it a day. Instead you trotted out a bunch of really bad arguments for no reason.

  8. CrazyJD Avatar

    Jim,

    The fact is: No, he’s not. His principal arguments are by assertion and by name calling. The latter neatly cuts off argument. Les won’t answer Too Many. He also more than likely will not answer your questions, at least not directly. He can’t. A direct answer exposes him. He will answer with another proposition, change of subject, or diversionary assertion. Just watch. More than likely, though, he will not answer at all. That will take some research WORK on his part to find where Brat said some of the things he claims. No, instead he will throw the bomb and then disengage.

  9. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Can’t stand that the Progressives have had a good week so far? Tsk. Tsk.

    I remember when Obama got bin Laden. This blog went nuts!

  10. Les Schreiber Avatar
    Les Schreiber

    Flying the stars and bars in a private setting .Thats a right under first amendment.
    Dave Bratt has compared immigrants to terrorists.The problem with much of his politics is that it is based on a fear of “the other”. Twentieth century history is a reminder of where this type of politics can lead.
    Unlike the Republican Governor of South Carolina the leaders of the GOP in Virginia have remained silent on the flag issue in public places.

    1. TooManyTaxes Avatar
      TooManyTaxes

      Les, does the terms “legal” and “illegal” mean anything to you? My wife and I jumped through considerable hoops to bring our kids from Korea to the U.S. and make them citizens. I have a significant number of friends who followed the rules and immigrated lawfully and are now U.S. citizens. At least Bill Clinton felt the system ought to work for those who follow the rules. Obama is just trolling for votes.

    2. TooManyTaxes Avatar
      TooManyTaxes

      Les, I guess you missed this.

      House Speaker William D. Howell, R-Stafford:

      “The legislation passed by the General Assembly in 1999 was clear that the emblem should not be part of the plate design. I still think that is the case. At the time the Courts felt that was a violation of the First Amendment, but in light of the Supreme Court’s latest ruling it is appropriate for the Governor and the Attorney General to review the application of Virginia law.”

      It was quite similar to Tim Kaine’s comments.

      Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.:

      “I support Governor McAuliffe’s call to remove the Confederate battle flag from state-issued Virginia license plates. The use of the flag by public bodies is integrally connected to celebration of the cause of the Confederacy, which is inimical to American values. With the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., prior court rulings in Virginia that have protected the use of the emblem on license plates are now obsolete. This is the right call for the Commonwealth and I commend the Governor for his leadership on this issue.”

      But hey, this is America. Liberals get passes on everything. Still haven’t heard anything from the left on Woodrow Wilson.

  11. larryg Avatar

    sounds like – if you call out someone for hating.. then .. that’s hate also?

    confusing.

  12. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    Who are the haters?

  13. My larger objection is to the leftist trope that anyone who disagrees with their nostrums is a “hater.” The irony is that the left is just as disposed to vitriol and negativity as the right, perhaps more so. Those on the left are more inclined than those on the right to say, not only are those who oppose us wrong, they are stupid, ignorant and evil.

  14. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    The lefties decided that they may have over-played the word “racist” to cover anyone who dares to think differently. It appears to have been replaced by “hater.” Don’t want to see a tax increase, you are a “hater.” Didn’t vote for Obama – hater. Refuse to build heavy rail in Baltimore – hater. Opposed to the ACA, immigration amnesty, secure borders – hater. Demonize the opposition.

  15. larryg Avatar

    I’ll point out – the “left” usually does not hate people or groups that are different from them, – but rather those who express hate towards others. You won’t find them accusing SCOTUS of being Unconstitutional traitors – even when the rulings go against them.

    You won’t find liberals flinging insults and hate talk towards
    illegal immigrants, homosexuals, trans-gender, those who need ObamaCare or MedicAid – or now – the members of the SCOTUS… being called outlaws and worse.

    the vitriol these days is explicit in blogs and on the airwaves – 24/7.

    Just tune in to FOX in the evening or listen to Limbaugh, Levin or read blogs like Brietbart, Hot Air, and actually much, muchworse…

    All you need to do to see the blogs is to put a controversial issue in GOOGLE and see what pops up – it won’t be the liberal groups shouting and cursing and frothing about the latest “outrage”.

    Nope.

    If ya’ll would like some examples….

    If ya’ll would like me to pull up some blogs talking about the “n” POTUS, I can quite easily. It’s rampant.

  16. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    “Here is the Great Society. It’s the time – and it’s going to be soon – when nobody in the country is poor … It’s the time – and there is no point in waiting – when every boy and girl in this country … has the right to all the education that he can absorb … It the time when every slum is gone from every city in America, and America is beautiful … It’s the time when man gains full dominion under God over his own destiny. It’s the time of peace on earth and good will among men. The place is here and the time is now.” So said President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

    In counterpoint consider this:

    “Individual men may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, of preferring the advantages of others to their own. (As individuals) they are endowed by nature with a measure of sympathy and consideration for their kind, the breath of which may be extended by an astute pedagogy. (As individuals) their rational faculty prompts them to a sense of justice which educational discipline may refine and purge of egoistic elements until they are able to view a social situation in which their own interests are involved with a fair measure of objectively.”

    “But all these achievements are more difficult, if not impossible, for human societies and social groups. In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained ego (within the Group and its individuals) than the individuals who compose the group reveal in their personal relationships.” (Parentheticals added)

    Thus spoke Reinhold Niebuhr in his Introduction to Moral Man and Immoral Society, a study of Ethics and Politics, first published in 1960.

    Of course, it must be noted that Lyndon Johnson’s statement that echoed the Book of Revelation was not made in a private conversation. Rather his pronouncement on to the current State of the Union under his then administration and its “soon” to be realized future was made in the last week of his 1964 campaign for President. Thus America’s return to the Garden of Eden depended on the people electing him to serve another term so that that he could assure their deliverance back into the Garden.

    1. larryg Avatar

      If you’re looking for quotes that politicians make with their promises – I probably can dredge up a few dozen to go along… but what’s the point?

      Niebuhr also said this – “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

      and…

      “Niebuhr’s Burkean ideology, however, often conflicted with his liberal principles, particularly regarding his perspective on racial justice. Though vehemently opposed to racial inequality, Niebuhr adopted a conservative position on segregation.

      While after World War II most liberals endorsed integration, Niebuhr focused on achieving equal opportunity. He warned against imposing changes that could result in violence. The violence that followed peaceful demonstrations in the 1960s forced Niebuhr to reverse his position against imposed equality; witnessing the problems of the Northern ghettos later caused him to doubt that equality was attainable.’

  17. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    To return of Lyndon Johnson’s Garden of Eden –

    The President, concerned about the Garden’s future should he fail to be elected President for another term worked to prevent that possibility. One Sept. 7, 1964, one of his TV spots featured a two-year old child (said to be chosen given her cute little Norman Rockwell freckled-face) who stood in a summer meadow of flowers.

    Slowly, carefully, she’s seen picking pedals off of a Black Eyed Susan. She’s picks the pedals haltingly. She’s struggling to learn her numbers: how to count up to ten, when an alien male voice interrupts her. The strange voice takes over from the little girl. The voice is counting backward as the camera zooms in on the child’s “cute little Norman Rockwell freckled-face” looking skyward.

    As the male voice approaches to Zero, the camera’s focus gazes into the one of the little girl’s open eyes. The child’s eye dissolves into a nuclear explosion as if to evaporate the child and garden and her meadow into a cauldron of nuclear gases as Lyndon Johnson’s voice overrides the roar:

    “These are the stakes,” announces the US President Lyndon Johnson. “To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.”

    As the mushroom cloud spirals skyward, another voice concludes: “Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”

    President Johnson’s TV spot on the child’s garden combined with his promise to soon build a time “when nobody in the country is poor … when every boy and girl in this country … has the right to all the education that he can absorb … “when every slum is gone from every city in America, and America is beautiful … (and a) time of peace on earth and good will among men” illustrates the powerful dynamic of group behavior. It shows how this dynamic powerfully influences, intoxicates, and overcomes not only the followers in the group but also its leaders, for good and for ill.

    Doris Lessing points this up when telling us about the psychology department of a small town American University that invited a few hundred town’s people to the campus to participate in an “experiment.”

    When the visitors arrived on time and no university officials were there to meet them, the group waited. Soon, still waiting, people in the group began to argue among themselves about what was happening, the fact they had been invited to come, but no university people had showed up, and nothing was happening as they waited.

    Still waiting some more, and with ever more arguing, the group broke into two camps. Debates then ensued and leaders of each camp emerged. Disputes spread to past grievances with the university and among the two groups. Quarrels erupted. A few said the meeting was becoming useful now if only “to have it out once and for all.” Scuffles began, first among the younger men.

    At this point the University psychologists arrived to put a halt to the proceeding and announce that their experiment was finished, having accomplished it’s goal of showing the tendency of the human mind to see things in pairs – either/;or, black/white; we/you, good/bad, the forces of good/the forces of evil.

    And, of course, it also showed how this tendency of human behavior is magnified when people act in groups so that they often break into more groups, if only to oppose one another.

    Thus apparently, for any group to succeed and for leaders to emerge and achieve control or dominance of the group (so as to direct its actions) the group needs at least one enemy. Thus Groups often fight about non-existent or artificially made up or inflamed differences, just to keep the group going. This is common as mud. It’s how football games and wars happen, along with much else in human society.

    Another words, to quote Doris Lessing: “The business of seeing ourselves in the right, others in the wrong; our cause as right, theirs as wrong; our ideas as correct, theirs as nonsense, if not downright evil … Well, in our sober moments, our human moments, the times when we think, reflect, and allow our rational minds to dominate us, we all of us suspect that this “I am right, your are wrong” is, quite simply, nonsense.” See Doris Lessing, Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, published 2013.

    Reinhold Niebuhr suggests that this strident group behavior, where powerful psychological forces render people irrational, putting them in highly agitated emotional states that blind them to reality, can never be fully neutralized. He suggests that individuals in groups could only enlightened by character driven leaders capable of mitigating their blindness.

    A sterling example of this is Lincoln, his appeal to his constituents “better angels.” And how he most always sought their better good, not his own selfless interests.

    On other hand, and in contrast to Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson’s obsession to win at any cost too often imposed a very high cost on his constituents. This was despite his other successes like the voting rights bill. Johnson’s fatal flaw of overweening self-interested ambition, and his obsession to win, apparently worked its will from the start, his theft of his first election, according to Robert Caro’s Means of Ascent, the 2nd of of his four volume biography of Johnson. See also http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html

    The fact Lyndon Johnson’s followers in his administration even today fail to see or acknowledge President Johnson many character flaws are also testament to the power of a group over the people working within it.

    Perhaps, in light of recent comments, it’s useful to review briefly Reinhold Niebuhr’s character, reputation, and place in history, according those who knew him, worked with him or studied his work.

    Here I quote Wikipedia. “Niebuhr’s long-term impact on political philosophy and political theology involve his utilizing the resources of the Christian faith to argue for political realism and his contributions to modern just war thinking. His work has also significantly influenced international relations theory, leading many scholars to move away from idealism and embrace realism.[9] Many leading political scientists, such as George F. Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and political historians, such as Richard Hofstadter, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Christopher Lasch, have noted his influence on their thinking.[10][11] Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr’s book The Irony of American History “the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy”.[12]

    “Aside from academics, numerous politicians and activists such as U.S. President Barack Obama,[13] former President Jimmy Carter,[14] Martin Luther King, Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hubert Humphrey, Dean Acheson, Madeleine Albright, and John McCain have also cited his influence on their thought.[12][15][16][17] Arthur Schlesinger described Niebuhr as “the most influential American theologian of the 20th century”[4][18] and Time posthumously called Niebuhr “the greatest Protestant theologian in America since Jonathan Edwards”.[19] Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Niebuhr’s work, in part because of Obama’s stated admiration for Niebuhr.[20]”

  18. larryg Avatar

    I call this – the cult of personality – rather than using one’s own critical thinking about right and wrong.

    people do not suddenly decide to not get along.

    the Black people in American did not suddenly decide that they dislike their status and proceeded to blame whoever was nearby.

    you speak of flaws – in terms of YOUR views of who has the worst ones as if that is reality. Everyone has flaws – including all major POTUS. You’re basically voting for the ones you find in your own view less acceptable.

    what exactly does that prove?

    No one person or leader changes for good or bad – any issue that affects thousands, millions of others.

    Johnson did not cause racism nor the poverty that comes with it – he only wanted to alleviate it if he could. He was misguided but I’ll take him any day over someone who stands off to the side while racism is going on and chooses instead to speak of others flaws.

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