Lawfare against Trump: all that matters are results
I’ve had a number of interesting – although short – conversations with friends about the lawfare cases against Trump. A pattern has emerged: they’re upset that the cases have been stalled, and they perceive the courts and prosecutors as going too easy on Trump.
I find this extraordinary. But when I really think about it, it’s not so very extraordinary at all. For starters, they probably read and hear plenty of information in the MSM from “legal experts” about how valid and righteous these cases are. In addition, most people are unfamiliar with the details of law and why they protect both sides if followed scrupulously. That part of our education has been either neglected in the first place or forgotten by most people if once learned. Lawyers remember, but so many lawyers are activists (and on the left) these days that they mostly employ their knowledge and skills in sophistry to help the left.
So what most people understand are results. If Trump is evil, then he should be stopped by any means necessary, including prison. It’s the old Roper from A Man For All Seasons attitude:
In that clip, at least the people arguing to “cut a great road through the law” realized what they were advocating, and why (after all, think about how More met his end). The people I’ve been talking to don’t think that the cases against Trump involve any such thing. In wanting him convicted – and soon – they believe they are promoting the rule of law rather than flouting it.
The Dems have less than zero integrity. They have no idea what they are throwing away here.
One of the complaints against the Tsar was his secret police. So instead the communists gave the people the NKVD. I do not like the new rules.
It’s the old they’re sob’s but my sob’s. My favorite from Seasons: https://youtu.be/K_MIECLQ6vU?si=olfdP8SiE4R-9DrG
For fellowship Neo, fellowship!
Nazis didn’t think what they were doing was wrong either.
You’re quite right Tom.
You think it’s about what your friends read and hear. The problem is your ‘friends’ are people of deficient character.
They will be quite happy if he is assassinated,; then they can wash their hands of guilt while saying I told you so. And cheer themselves hoarse supporting preemptive arrests and other Puntinesque suppressions.
“If Trump is evil, then he should be stopped by any means necessary…”
…which is why they are doing EVERYTHING in their power to hammer the point home—to PROVE to us—that he IS evil. Along with his supporters.
Nothing is too low, nothing too base, nothing too dastardly, nothing too lurid, nothing too insane, nothing too illegal.
(To be sure it helps if the media is reinforcing the outrageous lies and slanders. Incessantly—as if lying, slandering, misrepresenting, flouting the law and character assassination have become the new cutting edge of Liberal values…if concealed behind the usual Liberal boilerplate…)
Art Deco:
That’s quite a sweeping generalization, plus it’s an incorrect one. If a person truly believes Trump is dangerous – based on MSM propaganda the person believes to be true – and is basing his or her knowledge of the law on the analyses of legal experts (with seemingly good credentials) describing the law, then there is nothing deficient in their character. It is their sources of information over time that are deficient,
I cannot in good conscience continue to give the benefit of the doubt to the willfully blind. They are enabling the paving of the road to hell upon which tyranny is advancing. They virtual signal their ‘goodness’ while supporting the demonization of those who simply offer reasoned disagreement. Which puts the lie to their claim of good intentions.
Actions have consequences and ultimately, the consequence for enabling tyranny will arrive at the hands of the tyrannical they enabled. The gullible, illiberal “useful idiots” will be enslaved and the true believers purged. But that will be little recompense for the horrors that they enabled.
Missouri AG Andrew Bailey: https://twitter.com/AGAndrewBailey/status/1770892375805608107?t=qUfInRDWpz0lcqTyL4OYvw&s=19
so they are ignorant or they read the Times and the Post, which means much of the same thing yes recall how quiet they were over the Alexandria ambush, or the J20 riots, apparently a scene out of the dystopian wild palms (in that tableau it was a SUV not a limo, that was on fire,)
Neo: “they believe they are promoting the rule of law rather than flouting it.”
This is exactly the case with a couple of people I know. This seems to co-exist with the belief that Trump is uniquely evil, literally a fascist, will in fact initiate a physical bloodbath if elected, etc. I’ve given up trying to argue with them or for that matter discuss politics in any way whatsoever with them.
Well, come to that, I don’t really even communicate with them any more. I have never deliberately cut off people I disagree with, but it happens pretty naturally when disagreement runs so deep about such important things.
recall I think it was a tablet piece about the constitutional democrats, the liberal party in Czarist Russia, that went along with the persecutions of Social Revolutionaries Mensheviks and even some Bolsheviks, ‘the bell tolled for thee’
eventually,
Meanwhile, the group of gangsters otherwise known as the “Biden” Administration doesn’t skip a beat….
“US taxpayer money is flowing to the Taliban: Damning government report reveals American cash is getting into terrorists hands through $2.9 billion UN plan and bundles of notes delivered to Kabul airport;
“Inspector general’s report reveals how UN flies billions of dollars to Afghanistan;
“It includes aid money sent by the State Department and USAID;
“Some ends up at the country’s central bank, which is controled by the Taliban”—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13219937/us-taxpayer-money-funds-taliban-plan-kabul-airport.html
One can always count on Obama’s trademark sense of humor…
Isn’t it Mark Steyn who said the process is the punishment
I think they are trying to break Trump, as wondering if Trump call their bluff let them confiscate a property.
And aread a comment somewhere this morning and seemed to explain they had a bit more learned law that Trump could fight the court without paying this 1/2 a Billion fine. But wouldn’t put it past Marxist judge he couldn’t.
so do you see that they stole this country out right,
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/new-york-times-after-years-of-appeasing-ccp-now-plans-attack-on-shen-yun-5609232?ea_src=frontpage&ea_med=lead-story-medium-0
Moderate Taliban, the counterparts to Speer and Schacht, you understand
“All that matters is results”….
‘ “What Are We Doing?” Ana Kasparian Flips Out After Suspects In Murder, Dismemberment Case Released In New York’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-are-we-doing-ana-kasparian-flips-out-after-suspects-murder-dismemberment-case
Key grafs:
Watershed moment (AKA “Good ‘n hard”)?
Neo: “they believe they are promoting the rule of law rather than flouting it.”
It’s becoming clear to me that these people are beyond reason. They are so blinded (and brainwashed) in their hatred of Trump that nothing less than him imprisoned for life, or dead will appease them.
It’s sad as many of them I’ve had good times with, but I fear we will be pointing guns at each other soon. This must be what it felt like in 1859.
That’s quite a sweeping generalization, plus it’s an incorrect one. If a person truly believes Trump is dangerous –
==
Ask yourself if they’re able to engage in inductive reasoning and to treat like cases like. If they cannot, it’s a character defect, no matter how much you’ve enjoyed their company. Would you like to meet some of the women in my family? Because it’s tough to find even one whose thinking on matters abstract from their daily life incorporates walking through an issue step by step. You talk to them, and what you get is their emotional processing on a subject.
==
A fairly petty example (at this point) would be Brett Kavanaugh. I’m acquainted with quite a number of street-level Democrats, some of them quite opinionated. The next time I hear one say that Christine Blasey Ford is not someone you’d take seriously will be the first. Now, there’s a glaring reason why you wouldn’t and it’s quite divorced from the content of her accusations or any other issue relating to the controversy at hand. The reason is that neither she, nor the oppo research crew employed by various affiliates of the Democratic Party, ever produced any evidence that she’d ever met the two men she accused, nor did they present an argument that there was a set of circumstances where it was likely they would meet.
. This seems to co-exist with the belief that Trump is uniquely evil, literally a fascist, will in fact initiate a physical bloodbath if elected, etc.
==
Again, this does not derive from inductive reasoning. This derives from their emotional recesses.
yes she has evolved a little, in the shadow of Beast Unger,
of course this was usually around the time of the Magnum Force or Paul Kersey
(deathwish would show up)
Art Deco:
Their reasoning is just fine. In fact, for some it’s superior. If a person starts with false or inadequate information, all the logic and good values in the world won’t keep them from drawing incorrect conclusions.
This happens sometimes on the right, too, although somewhat less often, in my observation.
miquel+cervantes,
Remember “If Stalin only knew” they yelled as they were marched to the room.
I used to find it amusing, but now I’m just tired. The Democrats are always instituting changes to benefit themselves, i.e. the filibuster. And yet are always, always surprised when it is used against them. Whatever happens to Trump, the younger Republicans and Conservatives get to say “Game on!”. And the Democrats will be surprised, again.
Their reasoning is just fine
==
Non ci credo, sister. You act like no one else has met these types.
Art Deco:
Physician, heal thyself.
I know whereof I speak; I know the people I’m talking about very very well.
And I think it very interesting – and very revealing – that you lump them all together as “these types” into which YOU have the superior insight.
One man decided to end the US car industry.
In other news, Trump is a dictator.
Not examining an argument’s premise to determine if it is true is itself a demonstration of bad character.
David:
Then almost everyone on earth has bad character, because few people ON EITHER SIDE do that.
What’s more, it depends how that “examination” of the argument’s premise is made – in other word, what sources are used and how valid those sources are. It is not a simple process at all. I spend many many hours a day at it. Most people haven’t got that sort of time. They use sources they believe are reliable, sources other people they know and respect think are reliable.
“…almost everyone on earth has bad character…”.
Truth.
Something I always told my daughter was “Always ask, ‘how do they know that?'”
I always look for corroboration. Always. I don’t immediately believe someone simply because they are politically aligned with me. Most of us have had our fingers burned that way in the past, and some of us have learned from the pain.
Now as for the other side, I believe nothing they say as they are proven liars. Printed in the New York Times? Lies. Pronouncements from talking heads on the alphabet channels? Lies. Any Democrat? Lies.
Their reasoning is just fine.
Their reasoning may be fine given their “information,” but they choose their information sources and evidently accept them without question. So they lack something in the critical thinking department. I also know these people all too well. I am surrounded by them in NYC, not to mention my family (the one I grew up with, not the one I made myself).
Think back to Harry Reid saying that Mitt Romney didn’t pay his taxes. When it was pointed out after the election that Reid was wrong, he responded “It worked, didn’t it?”
Jimmy:
Most people “choose their information sources and accept them without question.” This is true of most people on both sides of the political spectrum. I’ve observed this over and over.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about how he and a friend would torment a true believer. The man had been tossed in the gulag like A.S. was, but he insisted that it was all just a bureaucratic mistake and the revolution was still wonderful. Not all the logic they could muster would sway the guy. My take was that the human psyche is too infinitely complicated to conclude that “they” are deficient. There are an enormous number of reasons someone would believe in something that I believe is obviously wrong. My believing it to be wrong doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong, it only means I believe it so. I hope I never become that arrogant.
David:
That is a degree of cynicism – and a very broad definition of “bad character – that I can’t get behind.
chazzand:
Ditto. We can only try our best to seek the truth and base our beliefs on it.
“That is a degree of cynicism – and a very broad definition of “bad character – that I can’t get behind.”
That’s fine. No problem with your evaluation or the approach you prefer. We are all free people.
Though I prefer ‘realism’ to ‘cynicism’.
I didn’t study psychology, but don’t experiments designed to test this conclude that people appear to have a stronger urge for group acceptance than being correct?
In other words, when in situations where a group is stating something incorrect (2+2=5), people hesitate to speak up rather than be seen as not one of the group?
In other words, we are more interested in concurring with what our Martha’s Vineyard Mah Jongg group states than stating truth.
I remember my parents watching a man for all seasons and it being very significant then thank you for posting this neo
Well, we have been over this point several times. The first time I asked what good the safety of the standing laws did More. And you acknowledged the point.
The second time you presented the scene, you noted the upshot yourself.
I believe there have been two subsequent references to this since, but I did not check closely.
But the fact is that Henry made himself head of the Church, dissolved the monasteries, and got everything he wanted; whereas Catholic priests were eventually drawn and quartered in England for saying a private Mass pretty much tells the tale in practical terms. And of course, aside from More, all of one bishop stood his ground and lost his own head as a consequence.
As far as your friends go, I would think that they would be eager to give your views a hearing, and investigate your assertions.
On the other hand they just might be, at base, like the happy mail lady who after provoking a discussion on politics with me, threw her head back and derisively exclaimed. “Freedom !!!??? Hahaha. What are you Mel Gibson?”
She had her rice bowl filled, and as far as she was concerned neither her nor anyone else’s freedom and autonomy meant anything in comparison. And she would happily suck the Devil’s … tail, in gratitude for that “security “.
And what use did a 50 year old woman whose ambition was to nest in a large organization have for freedom anyway? What was she going to do, get a pick axe and a donkey and go prospecting? Open a diner?
Of course that Devil business, is a bit of an inference on my part. The usual subjects of the voluntary admission of a desire perform an act of oral immuration in gratitude for abortion laws or a social affirmation, was usually Bill Clinton, or Obama.
Whether the target of their osculatory ambitions were offered in gratitude to Satan or to Bill Clinton, makes I suppose, only a difference on the metaphysical margins.
Either way, it’s one Hell of a fellow citizen, that.
DNW….”On the other hand they just might be, at base, like the happy mail lady who after provoking a discussion on politics with me, threw her head back and derisively exclaimed. “Freedom !!!??? Hahaha. What are you Mel Gibson?”
She had her rice bowl filled, and as far as she was concerned neither her nor anyone else’s freedom and autonomy meant anything in comparison. And she would happily suck the Devil’s … tail, in gratitude for that “security “.”
Dostoyevsky has entered the room:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/48081.html
…Do most of The USA’s reporters like to tell lies about Trump?
Well, since they’ve done that for about 8 years, so it looks like it is a bad habit of theirs.
I apologize if swear words offend some of this site’s readers, but-
the actions of most of the US reporters, reminds me of, [what I think is], an Irish…folk song.
The song is about a man singing a lullaby to his child. In his lullaby, the man warns his child about the dangers in the world.
In the song, the man sings, that in the world:
“…There’s no GOBLINS, and no WITCHES, just lying sons of bitches.”
That’s kind of my view- I think we need to teach everyone that they need to watch out for people: lying, cheating, and being dishonest.
Neo, what would your friends say if the County decided to take their homes based upon a mortgage application they submitted to a bank? The mortgage was paid when due and the bank didn’t lose a penny, but the County says they borrowed the money based on a fraudulent estimate of their home’s value. Therefore, they must be punished by the loss of their home. Oh, and incidentally the County Executive doesn’t like their politics.
That’s an analogy of what’s happening to Trump. It’s a bigger scale, but if this “taking” of a property because of political differences is allowed to stand (And I pray it will be overturned on appeal), then no one is safe.
The Democrats are openly trying to devalue private property in this country. Your store was robbed? Your car was stolen? Squatters seized your house while you were on vacation? Someone stole your bicycle? Their answer is not to enforce the laws protecting private property. Their answer is that you’re insured, or you can afford it, or the perps are needy, and it’s only property. If they can devalue private property they are well on the way to a socialist state.
The donkey party as a whole are lying cheating trash. Literally anything can come out of the rat filth mouths of their lawyers, judges, politicians and media. I learned in mandatory annual ethics training in a large company that has gotten a lot of negative press lately, no amount of training will make the unethical ethical. It just makes them sneakier.
I think some folks get a charge out of the law fare because they know the whole thing is bogus. That makes it more fun.
People will believe what they NEED to believe to support their….whatever it is, self image? place among friends?
So, hating Trump means they’ll believe 2+2=7.
Long ago, we had a discussion about whether one is morally required to use rational processes instead of emotional valuations in trying to affect (vote, etc.) public policy.
Some people, in discussions I’ve had or heard, know it’s bogus and love the idea. They’ll throw up a smoke screen of word to cover as if bumf equals reality. Eventually, you quit trying.
And some believe because the hate means they NEED to believe. And contradictory facts are darn near a mortal threat.
“And some believe because the hate means the NEED to believe.”
Though I’ve become increasingly persuaded—I could be wrong—that all too many people, many of them good people, intelligent and caring people, alas, NEED TO HATE…or are persuaded that they need to…and that hatred in groups—as laughter, as “THINK”(?)—is particularly inebriating, even refreshing, and convincing and self-perpetuating (of course it has to be “topped up” every so often)…
To be fair, it’s a hatred that’s been—that’s being—stoked meticulously and continuously, enthusiastically and VIRTUOUSLY…and with a huge dollop of dishonesty.
(And here we thought we were better than the Germans…at a particular point in their history…)
File under: “It’s the [Ideology], stupid…”
For no reason in particular other than that someone had mentioned Vedic cosmology in another thread, and I had responded, and remembered this, one of my favorites.
C. S. LEWIS, once when asked what religion he would think best if Christianity were not true nor an option, indicated, as I recall, that a “Master Morality” made the most sense.
Whether he might have made room for Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics in there, I cannot say.
But what I can say is that a self-hating God absent Judaism is about as sustaining as a Christianity that bows before a neutered cosmic christ. To what end these flavors exist one wonders, apart from providing good feelz for the perverted.
Here is a reminder of what a mythos that does not spend all its time slashing at its own flesh, once looked like.
“
DNW:
“She had her rice bowl filled, and as far as she was concerned neither her nor anyone else’s freedom and autonomy meant anything in comparison. And she would happily suck the Devil’s … tail, in gratitude for that ‘security.'”
Sigh… That woman is the result of the crappy state of affairs. People no longer go to church and learn about good and evil, and why it is not a good idea to suck the Devil’s “tail.” Poor education also contributes in that people have missed out on the classical education that teaches the same thing.
I know we are not literally talking about selling one’s soul to Satan, but…
Who knows if that “security” will remain secure? Once you start down a slippery slope of trading freedoms for “security” at some point, you may have neither. Seventy-five years ago, people understood that, for the most part. Now, not so much. I think only conservatives (which may be why we are conservative.)
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?
If you sell your soul to get ahead, it will cost more than you bargained for.
You sleep with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Once you start paying the Dane geld, you never get rid of the Dane.
I suppose there is a point where the left/dems have gone so far that, if they lose they cannot regroup in the usual way and try again.
Have we reached the point where the left CANNOT AFFORD to lose? Not at all?
Presume Trump wins the election. He has amassed enemies, not in the political sense, but in the moral/criminal sense. What, said enemies might be asking themselves, would he do if he were in their position(s) and wanted to act as they actually have done? To them, who have loudly announced themselves. As in the J^ committee. Letitia James and her staff. Ditto the justices and others who wanted to kick him off ballots. And the nebulous crime of…RICO or whatever. And asking about Georgia votes.
The classified documents nonsense.
If they can destroy law and the constitution, why, they might think, should Trump and the right not do the same to them?
I once saw a compendium of democrats worrying about the accessibility of Dominion voting machines. Now, to even mention it will get you sued for defamation.
Can the left afford to have the tools they have designed used by the right? Are they depending on the right to take the high road until they, they left, get another shot?
Quite literally, what will the left do if Trump wins and the down ballots all over go right as well?
Neo, Jonathan Turley is also thinking about this movie and this scene.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/22/the-dripping-away-of-the-democratic-party-sir-thomas-more-and-the-biden-corruption-scandal/
Neo: I have a category of people who I figure, “can’t be that stupid”, and thus must be lying about what they believe to be true. But they need to believe it. I have a relation who claims to never have heard that Michale Brown didn’t have his hands up crying “don’t shoot” and seemed skeptical when I mentioned it. Can anybody–who judges people by having or not having a college degree–be that stupid? Or, to be more charitable which is my go-to for a period at least, manage to ignore the screamingly obvious in order to be honestly ignorant? Does that take a positive effort?
Might it be that your friends know better but know they can’t admit it to you? They’re not stupid enough to believe that sort of thing, are they? If so, if they have resisted the obvious, what is the process? And which is more likely?
To seque to the reax of the Palestinians seeing video of Oct 7: Perhaps they know it, they like it, and they’d pay for the video so they could keep watching it. But they know they can’t be seen by certain others to be loving it and so the get-out-of-jail free card is to claim not believing it.
If you can create an enemy terrible enough and threatening enough, people will go along with any measure designed to crush that enemy or at least keep it at bay. More education and more information aren’t going to help if those who educate and inform are those who are fixated on that enemy and in favor of doing all things possible to destroy it. The educational system and the media are the real “Blue Wall.”
It helps the controllers that there’s a massive cultural gulf between Democrat and Republican states and very little open dissent in Democrat ranks. Disagreement with the party line is taken as an indication that one is a backward, uncultured, dangerous yahoo and part of the problem.
Most people “choose their information sources and accept them without question.” This is true of most people on both sides of the political spectrum. I’ve observed this over and over.
I don’t think it’s equivalent. The MSM is 99% left, and we are all exposed to it. Even Fox News has commentators from the left, as well as anti-Trump conservatives. Ditto the WSJ. The NYT’s token “conservatives” are people like David Brooks. The one time in recent memory they published a conservative viewpoint (the Tom Cotton op ed) there was so much backlash the editor had to resign.
Barry @ 12:33am,
It is something humans throughout history have figured out, but we have also seen this when social media companies dependent on ad revenue wrote their programs to examine their data and maximize user engagement to prolong eyeball time and clicks.
Mad people linger longer and engage more than copacetic people. Riling up consumers is good for business*. Very, very good**.
It’s not enough to be team Coca Cola. One has to hate team Pepsi. It’s not enough to be team donkey. One has to hate team elephant. It’s not enough to be team “Palestinian.” One has to hate team Israeli. Team climate has to hate team skeptic. Team vegan has to hate team meat. And team Urban really, really hates teams suburban and rural.
With people unwise to the grift the information source selling hate of the other will always win over more nuanced, subtle sources.
*Also good for Generals, Dictators and Emperors.
**You likely know the Etta James song, “The Blues is my Business (and Business is Good).” For the folks at Meta, Alphabet, X, the RNC and DNC, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC… Hate is their business, and business is good.
These leftists are the new Nazi’s. Really, at this point, what is the difference?? (It’s not just Trump they are targeting anymore)
well browder thought berezovsky, was foolish, until it happened to him, the apparat evolved from the oprichnik to the third chancellary to the okrana to the various soviet organs,
“The Democrats are openly trying to devalue private property in this country. . . . If they can devalue private property they are well on the way to a socialist state.” [Jimmy J, 11:30 pm]
An insightful comment that allows us to see just how all of this non-sense is tied together.
“These leftists are the new Nazi’s. Really, at this point, what is the difference??” [Wendybar @ 10:41]
These “new Nazis” are, in fact, the same as the old Nazis.
It bears repeating: The Nazis (and fascism) were not far-right, but far LEFT. The name of the political party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei shortened to “Nazi”, i.e., the National SOCIALIST German Worker Party.
Since the end of WW II the left has taken great pains to identify Nazi-ism with the right so as not to tarnish their own reputation. It has been one of their most successful lies in a collection of many.
yes the communists and the nazis had their own street battalions
I noted this in a previous thread
https://twitter.com/Travis_in_Flint/status/1771180142863233342
Abraxas’ first paragraph at 920am I think sums up exactly what I observe with all my acquaintances on left side of the spectrum. They see an existential enemy in Trump, and also in the GOP, and pretty much anyone right of center. Nothing will persuade them of any other viewpoint. They are literally convinced that they may suffer terribly, or worse, if Trump is elected and the GOP gains seats.
and these are people with stem degrees, yet they seem to be ignorant about many things,
physicsguy
Would your acquaintances be as jumpy if we’d had a more conventional political season the last ten years?
I repeat my question: Are they now afraid of having done to them the same awful things they approved of when done to Trump?
Or is it just GOP bad in the usual sense?
I wonder if, to pick one example, Letitia James ever thinks about her fate should Trump win. Or any of a bunch of others. Trump probably can’t shift the DOJ around to be his KGB in time to do to the dems what has been done to normal Americans. But he could put his thumb on a number of scales, national and local, if revenge is being sought.
If Trump does what is, in a moral sense, legitimate to his enemies, that, too, will ruin the country.
If he does not, then his enemies will…ruin the country with the escapes allowed them.
I have an old friend who is a brilliant retired scientist. She gets her news, she tells me, from Google, on her way through to Google science news. She is never exposed to anything contrary to the Google ideology, and she never questions. This is, I repeat, a brilliant person. It’s very sad.
she seems to have lost the scientific method
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1770892724419342709
So those that think that Trump should already be in jail apparently believe the garbage they hear / see from the MSM.
How come I don’t believe the MSM (and I have no legal expertise)?
Some folks just believe whatever they hear and that’s all there is to it. They have no desire to seek out the other side of an issue or even ask themselves “can this be true.”
It never enters their thought process.
It is just easier not to have to think and question, which seems to be the default setting in the brains of many (most?) people.
Propagandists know this very well and make good use of this unfortunate human attribute.
Some other folks immediately doubt whatever it is they are told and seek ways to prove their contrary point (e.g., the moon landings were a Hollywood stunt; the
9-11 terrorist attack was orchestrated by Bush 2, Cheney, Halliburton and the Israeli Mossad) .
Not sure what motivates these sorts of folks (like a friend of mine), other than their belief that there must be some underlying truth being covered up by, oft times, the US govt.
In either case – the “true believers” or the full time cynics – the real danger here is that these sorts of people vote.
Winston Churchill famously said ‘…it is better to be both right and consistent. But if you have to choose—you must choose to be right.’
What a person believes is a conscious choice. Some people just refuse to turn on their brains and think things through.
It has little to do, IMHO, with one’s level of education or intelligence.
miguel+cervantes and JohnTyler,
Do not discount the power of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect
https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
I guess Gell-Mann amnesia is just a restating of the old adage “Everything you read in the newspaper is true except those things you have personal knowledge of”
Trying again:
Physicsguy.
I see two possibilities with your acquaintances. As with some of mine and others at large.
One is a business as usual concern, very strong in this case, that losing to the right is a Very Bad Thing. Maybe VERY VERY BAD.
The other is that, Trump having inherited a good number of tools and other underhanded and likely illegal expectations might use them for an unprecedented reign of revenge. Which, said people on the left expect because that would be the logical thing and even if they didn’t think Trump was some kind of evil genius, might well be a normal guy Brassed Off Beyond All Possibilities. IOW, can they afford to lose to a monster they created carrying a tool kit they devised? And what would they do to avoid it?
Richard+Aubrey on March 21, 2024 at 11:54 pm and
Barry Meislin on March 22, 2024 at 12:33 am
“And some believe because the hate means they NEED to believe.”
JohnTyler on March 22, 2024 at 12:33 pm
“It has little to do, IMHO, with one’s level of education or intelligence.”
It so happens I just found this Substack item discussing these very points.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/cp/142864661
Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things: Intelligence is not rationality
GURWINDER FEB 13, 2023
R2L
Maybe “smart” needs a new definition.
I have a relation who’s told the same story three times in my hearing and I have no idea how many other times. It’s about a tree falling on his lawn. A buddy helps him. Each time, it is said parenthetically that the guy doesn’t have a college degree but he’s really okay. Three for three.
Other examples abound, and I can think of two people who judge others by their possession of said sheepskin who know so much that isn’t so. One thinks the resort areas on Michigan’s lower peninsula are cooler in the summer–which is why they started getting old money coming in after the Civil War–than Cincinnati because of global warming.
IQ and other tests are attacked because they’re misrepresented as some kind of general knowledge tests. The “chitlin” IQ test was a response to IQ testing as if the whole thing was vocabulary, in this case black slang.
Australian traditional peoples do better than anybody in the world on tests of what is known variously as “spatial memory”, and similar other terms. Or, as my mother would say, a “bump of direction”. Those who do that research are anxious to make the results cultural because for them to be heritable might reflect on the IQ tests, where the trad folks don’t do well at all. But Ashkenazi Jews NEED street signs.
I vaguely recall that a good part of my senior year in high school was sitting in the cafeteria filling in little bubbles with a fat pencil. Odd questions. No idea what for.
Then there were those picturing wheels going this way and the other wheels going the other way and the result of the rope would be…..
It was all vaguely interesting and I had no idea what the whole thing was about.
Some people think I’m smart because when we have discussions I seem to know a lot. Secret to that is, if you don’t know the issue, keep quiet.
In any event, what the heck does “smart” mean? Problem solving? I’ve seen intelligent people rationalize from one conclusion–to an action–to its opposite based on convenience, the first one being not good and with likely unpleasant results….to a good idea which can’t go wrong. Only diff is….might not have to make left turn or something.
I’ve seen brilliant people screw up because a course of action which had been agreed upon in advance was taken sideways because, “I just {something warm and fuzzy and hard to condemn but which could obviously make the whole thing fail} and, indeed it failed. But… “I just wanted to….” indulge a minor emotional issue of…something warm and fuzzy and irrelevant.
Is that smart?
The Homestead Act would give a farmer clear title to 160 acres if he could farm it for five years. That’s not a lot of ground but if it’s good soil it might be better than other options. If a farmer could make a go of it that way….how smart did he have to be? Weather, blight, is this worth risking my back?, is the plow horse going to make another year? seed prices? trench for the kitchen garden away from the house? He had to get it right pretty much all the time and not having a college degree–or having one–wasn’t a factor. And if you could resurrect one and arrange for him to take some version of an IQ test, where would he likely be?
If somebody’s wrong a lot, do his credentials still count?
Don’t seek this guy’s content out but it popped up and I watched the “short”
Credentials,
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/cehyeBHtVoA
Tablet Mag, Armin Rosen profiles Seth Barrett Tillman, “The Outsider Legal Genius Who May Rescue Trump” : https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/outsider-legal-genius-seth-tillman-trump
Barry Meislin…”Though I’ve become increasingly persuaded—I could be wrong—that all too many people, many of them good people, intelligent and caring people, alas, NEED TO HATE…or are persuaded that they need to…and that hatred in groups—as laughter, as “THINK”(?)—is particularly inebriating, even refreshing, and convincing and self-perpetuating (of course it has to be “topped up” every so often)…”
See Milan Kundera on Circle Dancing, cited IIRC at this blog a couple of times. Also my post Conformity, Cruelty, and Political Activism:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70696.html
T at 11:39
You have it spot on
Neo’s friends do not recognize the legitimacy of the opposition party. This is dangerous.
This narrowing of acceptable thought is exactly why I judged Johnathan Haidt to be a failure. When he did his TED, he asked people to step out of the moral matrix and recognized that everyone utilized a moral system to seek a moral good for society.
Today, smart Democrats are so possessed they think the lawfair against Trump is justified. Democrat outlets promote threat narratives about fellow countrymen. The center has broken and the left is seeking power over everything.
If Democrats can’t see where invalidating people leads to, there is a deficiency.
@Richard;
As Einstein once said “Everyone is clever at something. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, the fish will go through its whole life thinking it is stupid.”
Folks, for the umpteenth time, and I know many, if not all, disagree, but: it’s not, or no longer, a social or good of society question, but an anthropological [definition] question; as terrifying or unsettling as that may be to consider.
“Social,” ordering question you say. An association of exactly what, for what – ostensibly agreed upon – purposes?
It’s really the reappearance of an ancient question, admittedly radical, which conservatives just cannot seem to bring themselves to face.
My personal opinion, is that conservative Americans who come from a Protestant tradition, and Jewish as well, have imbibed a voluntarist ethics along with their religious formation which has left them ill prepared; meaning that right and wrong are whatever God wills, plain and simple, full stop, no further conceptual or grounding analysis required.
This leaves them in the position of feeding off of a third hand natural law report as adverted to in the Declaration, with no idea where to go once someone says to them: “You take your dead white man incantations and stuff it”.
Duh … now what? Pound the Bible harder? Recite the Declaration of Independence again as if it will be more persuasive on the second reading? Whine about the consequences of not being nice and the dangers of looking too closely into the reasons for tolerating in the first place?
We – or conservatives – act as if we know why no one could ever step beyond their humanity, without being able to argue why that is, even though we see it unfolding in real time right before our eyes. Trans this, trans that, all hail the sovereign impulse coming for a throat near you. “Good” itself redefined. But once it becomes truly subjective, what then? Scary.
Best not to look too close then, and keep chanting, I do believe, I do beleve, I do believe, as if that will repel the flying monkeys.
And why not? It’s worked so well so far …
BJ.
Good for Einstein. But what tree do we need people to be good at climbing to have a decent society?
@Richard,
That was Einstein’s point. There is no one tree that “everybody” needs to learn to climb in order to have a decent society. To have a decent society (or at least take a few steps toward it), we should accept that there are many, many kinds of intelligence and/or talent, not just having a college degree, or a lot of trophies, or a great sales record, etc.
DNW, if I understand you,
What do conservatives do if there is nothing left of the moral/legal framework which was the basis of our founding? If there is nothing left to conserve.
The constitution was the secular framework to build a legal/civic basis for society. The Judeo-Christian moral framework was so imbedded I don’t think the framers ever envisioned having to defend its relevance or necessity. Those that didn’t ascribe to Judeo/Christian moral standards tolerated the parts they didn’t like and practiced whatever deviation they preferred in private/semi-private ways.
I listen to radio programs from the 30’s-50’s. I was listening to the Easter episode of the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show where they were preparing to go to church. Now the underlying schtick of Phil Harris and his band (as portrayed on the Jack Benny show) was Phil and his band were lushes. It was the running gag. Yet Phil Harris the family man was getting ready to go to church.
It’s my anecdotal evidence that Christian principles were so ingrained in society they weren’t questioned.
The two-pronged humanist assault on our society will leave us with no framework to continue– rejection of Christian moral principles and a constitution that means whatever the left says it means, and nothing more. We’re hanging by a thread of traditional constitutional principles, but one more election and they’ll be gone. In fact, I doubt the rearguard action of the existing justices can stave off the leftist model of a living constitution.
Where do we go from there? The idea of conservatives taking up arms is foolish talk. A coalition of deeply conservative states forming a practical alliance against the smoldering corpse of what was the former republic would be an interesting proposition but would require a massive realignment.
Even that would only be temporary. I was listening to a podcast where the virtues of monoculturalism was mentioned. Ultimately, we can’t escape “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams
As a Christian I’m reminded of an old hymn,
“This world is not my home I’m just passing through
my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore…”
Putin, Islamism and the Case for Monoculturalism | Konstantin Kisin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiXzMntCEfk
the conversation turns to monoculturalism around minute :40.
BJ Disagree. But let’s put it this way: There are a heck of a lot of trees nobody should be climbing if we want a decent society.
I know people who think the most ridiculous stuff about Trump, and, indeed, are of the “mean tweet” persuasion. One is a very good gardener. Another a good cook and hostess.
They believed in the HCQ and ivermectin lies with the certainty of Galileo. They took it as if it were a religious doctrine coming to us on clouds of glory accompanied by legions of archangels. Nothing could sway them.
So let’s say they should climb the tree of rational thinking, along with gardening and cooking.
We could get along without the latter two if they had the slightest rational thought process as regards public affairs.
Yeah, that’s pretty much right, and it forms the first half of the analysis.
And because they never had to argue for the celebrated self-evident principles against nihilists, as opposed to monarchists [ or those who kept the application narrow] , and because neither they nor the opposition at the time of the founding believed that natural facts were irrelevant to the formulation of social values and norms but rather that facts entailed them, we in the United States had a comparatively free philosophical ride for 200 years, having and preserving and accepting an intellectual inheritance that was abandoned in Europe about the time of our political founding. No Jacques Hebert or Robespierre here. No David Hume. No Nietzsche, Marx or Freud. Urban American populations encountered such theories of life in universities and in magazines, not so much on the streets and in their faces at home. Until now.
Thus, Americans preserved a natural law and rights credo like some honored but only half understood language; one ultimately deriving from classical antiquity and the late middle ages, but had by and large forgotten how to argue the principles, if indeed they mostly ever knew. (And that cannot be ignored because even principles have a producing context that at base itself bears – or will eventually be subject to – scrutiny and question.)
But, eventually the corrosion worked its way into and throughout society through the efforts of the Marxists in the law schools and teachers colleges and university liberal arts departments; and now churches. And here we are.
And the American Protestant [ of the voluntarist subspecies ] had in general, and until recently, no clue at all how to even approach the issue, other than to try and recite the time honored platitudes in a louder or more affecting manner.
And of the Jews, the only socially influential one I can think of off the top of my head, the guy who got it early and right at least as far as the core issue being the anthropological fallout of epistemological and metaphysical principles, was Mortimer Adler.
Two faith traditions producing between them one guy, standing more or less alone.
And now to mention objective truth, or even teleonomy as distinct from teleology, is considered by the freaks, to be “fascism ”
There is a really precious irony in that, isn’t there: these modern apostles of the “will”, shrieking about “fascism” …
@Richard:
“No one, I think, is in my tree/ I mean it must be high or low.” John Lennon, “Strawberry Fields Forever”. 😉
BJ
The Fab Four were a good party group; play the album, dance, talk.
Then they went to India and got all philosophical. Not worth the ear time after that.
Point remains, in a society which hopes to be decent and successful, should “mean tweet” thinking, taken broadly, be a tree to be avoided by all in matters of public affairs?
DNW, Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein take the ordering of society based on a rational basis of reciprocal altruism vs kinship as far as it can be taken.
The Darien Gap & Postmodernism | Bret Weinstein | EP 434
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkC1BYzK4NA
Consider me in the voluntarist subspecies.
The constitution is the rule book for society. It is inflexible in the sense that the precepts should be locked in place. The founders gave us the ability to add on to that or take away by amendment, which was purposefully difficult.
But the current notion that we can just re-define the meaning of the existing words destroys the compact.
I would suggest that every human society ends in authoritarianism/totalitarianism. That’s just human nature.