Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Giest118]

Progressive: To make progress. To move forward.

I don't disagree, and if we lived in a different world, progressivism would probably be a good thing. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the progressive mentality can get taken advantage of by corporate shills like Hillary Clinton in order to force Russia to eat our nuclear cock.

We didn't want to believe the terrible things about Clinton because if we did, we would've needed to accept the fact that punching civil rights in the dick was actually the correct choice this time around. This is what Jill Stein was talking about when she spoke of "lesser evilism".

[Opus131]

There's also the problem of "change" not necessarily being a good thing. Sometimes it can be, sometimes it cannot. Sometimes keeping things the way they are would be for the best. Progress when taken in and of itself doesn't mean anything. It all depends on what it is you are "progressing" towards to.

But yeah, mentioning the dictionary definition of a thing is disingenuous. Progressives don't have a bad name because they like progress, much like feminists don't have a bad name because they like equality.

[GaijinPunch]

I don't disagree, and if we lived in a different world, progressivism would probably be a good thing. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the progressive mentality can get taken advantage of by corporate shills like Hillary Clinton in order to force Russia to eat our nuclear cock.

Gotta call you out there. Most true progressives are not happy w/ Hillary, and were merely voting against Trump. I know plenty that will benefit, and are not totally against economic policies of the likes of trump. However, they are really opposed to the closet homos (Pence, etc.) that he's appointing that are ruffling the feathers, as they (by definition) take us back to the 50's... at least if they get their way.

We didn't want to believe the terrible things about Clinton because if we did, we would've needed to accept the fact that punching civil rights in the dick was actually the correct choice this time around. This is what Jill Stein was talking about when she spoke of "lesser evilism".

I think the extent of her progressiveness is simply she isn't really retrogressive... and of course she's a woman which carries a sense of modernism. I didn't see her truly championing protected classes, like the gays.

There's also the problem of "change" not necessarily being a good thing. Sometimes it can be, sometimes it cannot. Sometimes keeping things the way they are would be for the best

Extremely rarely, in just about everything. Sometimes... yeah, whatever... but stagnation is a very slow creeping beast and is hard to escape from. Of course I'm biased on this as I lived in Japan for the majority of my professional career, and watching that place utterly fail (but life remaining awesome by many metrics) scares the fuck out of me. Bad change is quite often good, and I'm very interested to see the shake up The Donald gives rise to.

[BryanM]

There is some weird stuff going on like Reid endorsing Keith. I don't buy it for a second that they'll let him touch a single lever of power. It'd blow me away if they did - that means the Clinton sycophants have surrendered completely. It'd be like Freddy Krueger killing himself. Just weird.

Perhaps they feel like they won't be able to sell influence if they don't have any influence to sell. You know they have no viable plan for 2020 because they did not foresee the possibility of losing everything this year. All according to accelerationist's keikaku.

Trump flip flopping on the wall, deporting cheap and reliable Mexican labor, and putting Hillary Clinton in jail are expected and rather unremarkable. You might not have noticed this, but those things have either no or negative effects on the amount of money in his bank account.

I'll be thrilled if we can have George W Bush without another huge war. That would be a "win" for everybody to salvage something out of this clusterfuck of an election.

A social security number can't be used for more than one valid voter registration at a time. The form's not a credit card application.

The SSN also differentiates between citizens and non-citizens just working here.

Trying to register to vote as a non-citizen is a great way to get deported.

Most true progressives

Yatta, that's the problem with lumping people into giant homogenus groups. Culture and economics are two different things.

Saying "being racist is bad" is easy. Actually undoing racist policies, like throwing black people into jail disproportionally for weed or the fact the 13th amendment still allows slavery... that's very very hard.

The dish washer or the lady selling her body on the street don't give much of a fuck about "racism". They don't have the time or money to afford to.

What a small, craven thing this PC outrage campaign of Clinton's was. The sad thing is Bill kept trying to bring them away from the abyss, and they ignored him. Entire senior campaign staff hurt her, it didn't help. To paraphrase our great president Trump, "you don't need all those people."

[quash]

This is the difference between "liberal" media and the dickheads at Fox News. I've seen nothing but class from even outspoken left-leaning commentators and voices. Between Dave Chappelle's monologue and SNL, and the countless points Bill Maher said on his last show of the season, I am glad I vote on the side I do.

They're some of the few who acknowledge that "your side" is completely full of shit when it comes to some of the most important issues of our time, so it doesn't come as a surprise.

Yes, there are some assholes in the streets, but a lot of people on the left are either screaming at the dems (as they should) or not screaming at all. I don't recall the right being so nice to Obama 8 years ago.

For all the fuss the Tea Party et al. made, I can't recall any instance of them committing destruction of life and property on the scale of our current Soros sponsored civil unrest.

[Opus131]

Extremely rarely, in just about everything.

I disagree. I think change is often for the worst and people often bring change when a renewal or a reform (re-form, precisely) would be more appropriate.

[quash]

As a traditionalist, i see both the modern right and the modern left-wing as two sides of the same disease, and i disagree entirely with the notion the will is everything, and that there is no other reality (suck it Nietzsche, you were wrong, while religion had it right) but the biggest problem with our society today is the left-wing, not the right-wing, and i support Trump not because i believe in the supremacy of the will or that reason is useless, but because i reject completely this idea that the ego is all, and that nothing else matters, not even reality. It is this insanity, exemplified by SJWs but also by our "post-modern" world as a whole, that needs to be demolished.

Social justice is slave morality incarnate, just like Christianity is slave morality incarnate. Just because weak people use the methods of the strong today doesn't make the methods of the strong wrong. If anything, it proves just how effective they are.

Your perspective of reason and strength is backwards; the latter comes from the former. Social justice will die long before many stronger ideas that have been around much longer, and it has the muscle of American media backing it.

[Opus131]

Social justice has nothing to do with morality of any kind, it just means the supremacy of the ego. That's really what it is. This is the end game of nominalism. When you believe that there is no commonality between things, no underlying reality that ties certain things together, that a name is just a label we use as a matter of convenience, with nothing concrete or objective underneath it, then only the individual matters, and human subjectivity become the measure of all things. Do you believe that fat is healthy and beautiful? Then fat is healthy and beautiful. Do you believe there are no differences between the sexes, and that gender is just a matter of personal choice? Then that's the reality. And so on and so forth. This explains many of their discrepancies. For instance, why feminists are obsessed about "equality" here in the west but then defend Muslims in every way they can. Because it is not equality that matters. What matters is the 2+2=5 notion that there are no differences between the sexes, and the 2+2=5 notion that all cultures are equally valid. That's the metaphysical underpinning of all that they believe in, regardless of what their rhetoric (which is as Orwellian as it gets) says.

The enemy of nominalism is of course realism, which to them is "oppression" because to claim there is an underlying reality which goes beyond the individual is to restrict the "subjective" freedom of the individual.

[BryanM]

Obama deported ten times as many Mexicans as your guy is planning to.

Can't even trust a pathological liar. Sad

[Rob]

[GaijinPunch]

For all the fuss the Tea Party et al. made, I can't recall any instance of them committing destruction of life and property on the scale of our current Soros sponsored civil unrest.

Indeed they did not, and I don't support that bullshit for a second. It is, however, outliers. There are extremely peaceful protests here in Chicago. This is a city that can't go a weekend without double-digit gun deaths.

However, on the tube/radio/interwebs, Obama was crucified before he could be given a chance. Definitely not everyone is on board but a lot (most?) of people in the "liberal media" are calling for the masses to give him a chance.

Extremely rarely, in just about everything.

I disagree. I think change is often for the worst and people often bring change when a renewal or a reform (re-form, precisely) would be more appropriate.

Thinking like this is why parts of America are stuck in the 50's.

[Bitter Almonds]

The real "tea party" was about the destruction of property.

[neorichieb1971]

If Donald is to be taken seriously he needs to give the world a tour of area 51.

[Domino]

The SSN also differentiates between citizens and non-citizens just working here.

Trying to register to vote as a non-citizen is a great way to get deported.

Or get your new car repoed due to fraud. Happens more often than you think. Yes, people with the non-citizen SSN cards thru crooked dealership can get car financing with someone else's credit via a finance company. When the banks discover it was fraud, repo time.

In other news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ-FUptkUNY

[GaijinPunch]

Or get your new car repoed due to fraud. Happens more often than you think. Yes, people with the non-citizen SSN cards thru crooked dealership can get car financing with someone else's credit via a finance company. When the banks discover it was fraud, repo time.

Isn't that the person w/ the non-citizen SSN and stolen credit card though?

[BryanM]

The onion's review of Back to the Future is randomly appropriate for this thread.

[Mischief Maker]

The onion's review of Back to the Future is randomly appropriate for this thread.

That's not too far off from Crispin Glover's actual thoughts. He says it's the reason he was lowballed for part 2.

[Lord Satori]

Extremely rarely, in just about everything.

I disagree. I think change is often for the worst and people often bring change when a renewal or a reform (re-form, precisely) would be more appropriate.

So renewal and reform somehow don't count as change?

[EmperorIng]

Only in the most general sense. Change here should be understood as "throwing out all old methods/traditions to try something completely different" or "turning one's back on established customs in favor of new approaches."

Now, there are some situations or subjects in which you would want "change" - how about less Marvel movies, for one? Or using the scientific method to expand on our material knowledge of the universe - but I agree with Opus that advocating for something different, just because it's different, is more often than not folly. Outright rejection of common wisdom ought to be greatly scrutinized, or else you end up with dumb stuff like people forgetting the difference between the words "gender" and "sex" (in essence equivocating the two so much that what "gender" you "feel" suddenly determines your sex. Which is delusional).

In this sense "progressive" values are often championed by people saying "we need change" regardless of whether or not that change is worth considering - or if there are current societal or governmental practices that can be reformed or clarified without going for the nuclear option.

Here is an illustrative comparison:

The American revolution, while offering a substantive break from its colonial parent and a foray into the unknown, nonetheless sought to model its governmental structure off the centuries of accumulated knowledge of British common law. While its growing pains point to imperfect formulations and executions, it nonetheless retained a remarkable degree of stability over time (the Civil War notwithstanding).

The French Revolution, after deposing the monarchy, saw its leaders stripping away every facet of French society in order to reshape it in their image: days and months renamed, streets renamed, and total governmental and societal overhaul. Despite any positive developments that might have arose from this egalitarian spirit, soon the French saw the government collapse under the weight of its own zeal, and the societal disorder from the Reign of Terror left the nation vulnerable for a dictator to take over (Napoleon).

[Cee]

as they (by definition) take us back to the 50's...

Gets my vote, the 50's was the peak of the American dream.

[BulletMagnet]

Gets my vote, the 50's was the peak of the American dream.

Largely because it was the most "redistributionist" era in our history, thanks to strong and widespread organized labor, a top federal tax rate of 90 percent, expansions of social programs, rolling back of corporate welfare, and huge investments in education and infrastructure, among other things. And that was under a Republican administration.

Though I'm sure there are a few here who will insist that all of that was just a coincidence, and that the real reason things were so great then is because it was socially acceptable to use racial slurs and pinch your secretary.

[Opus131]

It was also the hey day of American black culture, or at least the surrounding decades were.

[Durandal]

Point being? So what that David Duke endorses Trump? How is that supposed to reflect negatively on Trump in any shape or form?

I know I'm saying this to precisely the wrong person, but the fact that he's been so ambivalent about the overwhelming support he's gotten from hate groups and his refusal to decisively disavow them - can you imagine the reaction if Hillary had claimed that she didn't know who David Duke was? - yeah, for a lot of people that does reflect negatively on both him and his party.

Does this count?

[Rob]

but I agree with Opus that advocating for something different, just because it's different, is more often than not folly.
people saying "we need change" regardless of whether or not that change is worth considering

Trump voters must be the ultimate progressives.

They don't know what kind of change they've summoned - just change. Mystery change. I hear variations of this "we need change" line from people making 100K+ a year.

days and months renamed, streets renamed, and total governmental and societal overhaul.

Amusing or not side note about the re-re-renaming business: "Witness the politicization of a mountaintop".

[system11]

As an aside, I've started to consider progressivism of the kind exhibited by generation snowflake / liberal left, to be extremely toxic to the concept of a fair and rational society. The most frightening this is that it's the prevailing world view of kids being brainwashed on their way through the education system. I have a message for them.

* Not everything you disagree with, is evil.
* Trump is not Hitler, Brexit is not Hitler, Le-Pen is not Hitler. Nothing except Hitler, is Hitler. Anyone with even a cursory grasp of history should see the difference, and thus understand why it is so stupid and insulting to water that name down through overuse to the point where it's a meme.
* It's got to the point where we are long past a reasonable desire for everyone to be treated respectfully. Society should not be expected to conform to your constantly expanding beliefs and correctness rules. Respect is good. Authoritarianism and fascism are bad.
* You need to go and read Orwell's 1984. You need to read that book from cover to cover, let it sink in, and then contrast it with your treatment of anyone disagreeing with your world view.
* The act of yelling accusations of misogyny, racism, bigotry at anyone who does not subscribe to your increasingly infantile opinions, is not fucking acceptable. Practise what you preach and be accepting of diversity you hypocritical bullies.
* Diversity is not a gender/colour matrix. This core concept of identity politics with assumed advantages for certain types is perhaps the single most damaging aspect of the whole ideology.

[Mischief Maker]

Why is everyone on this thread shaking their fingers at progressives? Hillary's center-right strategy just lost an election that the polls show Bernie Sanders would have knocked out of the park. She lost because she wasn't really the progressive she claimed to be and rust-belt liberals burned by NAFTA stayed home. Obama stuck a knife in her presidential dreams when he left Wisconsinites flapping in the breeze during the Walker recall, then twisted it during the campaign by pushing hard for TPP while she was trying to convince people she was against it.

What's more I'd say SJW fears were vindicated. For eight years right-wing pundits were crowing that because a black man became president racism was dead. But here we are and in a few angry months David Duke slithered out from whatever rock he was hiding under to became relevant again, Steve Bannon, matriarch of the Alt-Right, is in the white house, and Trump supporters are using Nazi phraseology in the original German "ironically." Just in the blink of an eye we're back to those times as the SJWs warned.

And can someone explain to me why you're allowing Opus, of all people, to lead your discussion right now?

[GaijinPunch]

as they (by definition) take us back to the 50's...

Gets my vote, the 50's was the peak of the American dream.

Just don't think about marrying interracially or being gay.

In this sense "progressive" values are often championed by people saying "we need change" regardless of whether or not that change is worth considering - or if there are current societal or governmental practices that can be reformed or clarified without going for the nuclear option.

And by contrast "making America great again" and the concrete example of what that stands for is a warranted change?

In this sense "progressive" values are often championed by people saying "we need change" regardless of whether or not that change is worth considering - or if there are current societal or governmental practices that can be reformed or clarified without going for the nuclear option.

All the comparisons to Hitler are tiring. Agreed. But it's on both sides. No shit I saw guys with a stand outside of the post office in Los Gatos, California (one of the most expensive zip codes in the cuntry) with a big ass sign of Obama with a Hitler stache. This was right after he took office. This is literally the 1%'s backyard and they're comparing Obama to someone responsible for 6 millions deaths.

[BryanM]

They don't know what kind of change they've summoned

But I do!

The government will go from being run by Citigroup to Dentons.

That's change you can believe in.



It's not quite weeaboo, but it's the next best non-union equivalent we're ever going to get.

(I find this hilarious after all the "China".)

This is literally the 1%'s backyard and they're comparing Obama to someone responsible for 6 millions deaths.

Geez. At least Hillary was going around praising dudes responsible for multiple megadeaths.

[system11]

Why is everyone on this thread shaking their fingers at progressives?

To be fair, I specified the exact type, and it was an aside, and Opus is free to post whatever he likes as long as he's not attacking people directly again, or I'll ban him.

[Mischief Maker]

Opus is free to post whatever he likes as long as he's not attacking people directly again, or I'll ban him.

I wasn't talking about banning him, I literally meant that he was leading the conversation. Probably a dumb thing to post.