No, trials are held when someone is charged with a crime. Like, say, Darrell Issa, alleged arsonist, car-thief and insurance fraud.

” Mac Says:
May 14th, 2014 at 5:52 pm

A_nonny_mouse:

“There’s obviously a w-i-d-e difference in the way the Left and Right see/ interpret/ understand Reality . . . which leads me to wonder if we’re at the point of regarding each others’ views as so alien that we can no longer communicate”

I’m still astonished and baffled every time I think of this: there were people, one of them a friend of mine and pretty intelligent, who thought Hillary’s “what difference?” response was a brilliant and crushing rejoinder. That was truly a moment of perceiving utterly incompatible versions of reality.”

It’s not only a reasonable conclusion, but an inescapable one.

As internalized cultural relativism, radical nominalism, and values nihilism have percolated down from the professoriate to considerable segments of society at large, it cannot be otherwise.

Your relatives and neighbors have imbibed these waters in school, in church, on PBS, and have found them tasty and satisfying …

A story from about a week and a half ago, story paralleling your “what difference?” experience.

A business associate made, as he often does, some remark about the scientific illiteracy of the general populace, and how that impinges on social progress.

“Do you know there are idiots who believe the world began 7 thousand years ago? How can people like that even be allowed to vote?”

I asked him how that affected their votes.

He said that they figured it was ok to ruin everything because they thought that they were going to heaven anyway.

He then remarked, regarding science popularizers and polemicists: “You know who I really like? That guy I saw on the PBS special about the cosmos and the big bang and who wrote …” and was unable to remember the name.

I made a few suggestions.

“Not Sagan … Yeah, Dawkins and Krauss. They proved that there’s no purpose behind life, and …”

‘Then you reject all forms of intrinsic or built-in teleonomy and teleology and intentionality, even at the genetic level. And would assert that concepts like “coding” and “information” are just metaphors. ‘

“Right”

Metaphors for what, exactly?

” ahhhh”

‘And that Genes are not really selfish, and that that phrase really means nothing scientific.’

“ahhh”

‘You know that Dawkins has just been accused (referring to a post linked to by a Feser commenter ) of saying that genes literally carry information?’

[http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/information-is-the-new-aristotelianism-and-dawkins-is-a-hylomorphist/]

“I don’t know about that. But Krauss proved the universe could come from …”

‘A vacuum state?’

“What! From nothing … he showed that nothing is unstable and all reality can spring from nothing.

‘You realize don’t you that his concept of “nothing” is not really a concept of nothing, and that he admits it, and in an interview even admits that he kind of hyped the term for book sales appeal.’

“So what?”

‘So basically he admits he lied about what his book really says, and it is endorsed by a guy who argues both for and against the reality of the concepts of inherent purpose and intrinsic meaning.’

“So what?”

‘Doesn’t it bother you that you are being basically lied to?’

“No! Everybody lies all the time!”

‘But they are asking you to modify your behavior on the basis of an argument constructed on bankrupt premisses.’

“I didn’t know you were one of those religious cases”

‘I can’t say I am, but I get pissed off when people try to b.s. me; and I am interested in the geometry, so to speak, of their arguments. If it falls apart then there is no reason to accept that they have any basis for saying what they are saying whether or not it turns out ultimately to be true’

“Man, you have way to much time on your hands” he said.

‘Well, you did bring this issue up …’ I said.

He looked at me and said, “Hey dude, gotta get back to work. Later …”

Afterwards I downloaded both the NYT review of Krauss and the Massimo Pigliucci critique, and forwarded them to him.

He seemed to be mollified by the effort I put into showing that I was not just kicking his dog for no reason, but as of a couple of days ago he had only glanced at one of the articles.

However, Eric’s position here has gotten fixated on Marxist activism as the one thing, and everything else are merely methods used to achieve that goal. Thus while war merely uses what methods are available, Marxist activism is considered the only and best thing that anyone who succeeds must have used.

Strategically, this is suicide, as it prioritizes methods over goals. Or tools over the solution. If victory is the strategic goal, then it doesn’t matter what methods are used, only that the right methods are used. To fixate at the strategic level on using only one type of trick, is to fall into prediction and thus annihilation. At the tactical level, what Eric says may be true, but only at the tactical level.

There are plenty of top down and bottom up organizations. Marxist activism has historically only been one of them. Eric’s attempting to make some kind of analogy, unified field theory, on the matter, but it’s not bulletproof.

I’m still astonished and baffled every time I think of this: there were people, one of them a friend of mine and pretty intelligent, who thought Hillary’s “what difference?” response was a brilliant and crushing rejoinder. That was truly a moment of perceiving utterly incompatible versions of reality.

What’s in it for you is that understanding an enemy is a necessary piece for competing effectively with that enemy. Especially when you’re the underdog in an asymmetric contest.

Rank-and-file leftists may or may not understand you but for sure they know your competitive-social strengths and weaknesses. Their leaders know you because they do their due diligence on intelligence.

Do you want to compete socially with the Left? If so, then you need intelligence – among other competitor/activist things.

As far as “bloodletting”, it won’t be the Left’s blood that’s let if the social competition reaches that stage.

If war is politics by other means, then Marxist-method activism is war by other means. War and activism are just different forms on the same continuum of zero-sum social competition, and the Left has a big head-start on you.

Leftists aren’t self-weakening pacifists. Rather, their competitive intent is to pacify their opponents. If the social cultural/political contest flips from ‘by any non-violent means necessary’ to a completely open ‘by any means necessary’, leftists will transition seamlessly to build on their big head-start with gloves off. Any leftist who might demur at that point because he’s a genuine, principled pacifist will be pacified, and their social movement will be clarified to carry out the “bloodletting” of their opponents.

To hope to win at that theorized stage of the social competition, if it gets that far, requires you to learn to win now the current stage of the activist game.

Remember, the “bloodletting” Islamist terrorist activists in Iraq weren’t defeated by being outgunned; they were defeated by activist COIN. The Founding Fathers defeated the British as Marxist-method activists before there was a Marx. Activists were instrumental in the Civil War.

Different forms on the same continuum. Activism created the American nation. Activism will take it away. Activism is required to keep it.

And as a competitor/activist, you need to understand the Left if you intend to compete against them for America, now and later.

The bars on the safe-room window were to be unlocked from the inside, then the ambassador and his people were to exit through the window and get into a car that was always parked outside the window and speed to a nearby CIA annex. The plan failed the night of the attack because there was no parked car outside the window. We need to know who moved the car and on whose orders.

http://www.aim.org/guest-column/unanswered-questions-for-benghazi-special-committee-to-ask/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=3fe7b5d6d6-email051414&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4ddfc8d9d-3fe7b5d6d6-221591649