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Journalist and author claims police actions against looting equals “white supremacy”

Our bankrupt intelligentsia: Journalist and author Sarah Jaffe went on Twitter yesterday to claim that the police effort to catch and arrest looters in Florida is the equivalent of “white supremacy.”

When she was lambasted by numerous other Twitter users for this dumb statement she doubled down, implying (with an obscenity) that her critics were all Nazis.

This minor story illustrates two things. First, that someone as uneducated and thoughtless as this person can get published and be treated as a respected author demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of our modern elites. Everything to her is race and bigotry. Capitalism is evil. Anyone who disagrees with her is a racist or a Nazi. Comparing this childishness with the thought processes seen when you read Shakespeare, John Adams, or William Butler Yeats, and you will see that the future of modern western civilization does not look good.

Second, this story shows again why anyone who has any intelligence should avoid Twitter. That venue is not for thoughtful discussion. It is specifically designed to cause people to hurl insults at each other, and only serves to lower the level of our intellectual discourse. And I am not alone in this opinion.

Far more fundamental is the way Twitter intensifies and amplifies pathological social tendencies among those who act within, report on, and write about the political world. It turns politicians, political staffers, reporters, editors, pundits, and analysts into petty, vain, childish, showoffy, hostile, vindictive, dogmatic, impulsive, careless versions of their best and most professional selves. This makes Twitter horrible for our politics and equally bad for journalism. The single best thing for both politics and journalism would be for Twitter to go out of business tomorrow.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • FC

    Twitter’s capacity to short-circuit the superego and reveal who people really are makes it indispensable. Both politics and journalism are irreparably corrupted. The sooner they are both revealed and reviled, the better.

  • Cotour

    Mark Styne and Jordan Petterson on the techniques of the Left.

    https://youtu.be/I6vYMg2KEM8

    Political correctness and social justice will destroy us all, that is my position on this form of political war fare being employed by the left if it is allowed to stand. Is it too late for us? Styne asks Petterson. I believe that there may be many revelations on the horizon that will challenge the very foundation of our country, but in the end we will have to decide to reconnect with that foundation instead of discarding it, there just is no other way. Not that I can see.

    If the gross end result of the exercise of our particular flavor / scheme of governance (The Constitution and by extension Capitalism) is corruption and abuse of power, then so be it. Abuse of power and corruption is assumed when speaking of any form of governance, it can be nothing more or less. It is what it is. Governance is necessary but it is also evil. Why is it evil? Because governance represents power and there can only be one result from the exercise of power, abuse. Its very circular, it is something that one can always bet on and you will always win your bet.

    So in the event of these revelations what must happen is that we must drag ourselves all back and reconnect to the foundation that we know through experimentation and application works so well. All forms of governance are by definition abuses of power and can only be corrupt, its just a matter of degree. Churchill said: “Democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all other forms of governance”.

    Lets modify that a bit: A Democratic Republic based in the American Constitution and Capitalism are the worst forms of governance and economy, except for all other forms of governance and economy.

    Styne and Petterson are unsure, “Is this the end?”. I think it is important that all understand that what ever the Left offers and how ever utopian it sounds it must be rejected with great prejudice. Utopia, “Globalism”, Social Justice, “Global warming”, “Safe spaces”, “Triggering”, tearing down Confederate statues, ANTIFA, BLM, all politically correct and social justice Leftist tools of political manipulation.

    No matter what may be come to be understood of how corrupt America and the people who We The People have empowered may have become we must resolve to reconnect with our Constitutional foundation. Embrace the chaos, shine the light of truth and reconciliation where ever and on whom ever needs it to be shone on and let there be cleansing and organization after the chaos.

    We are still IMO the cleanest dirty shirt. But let there be no doubt, our government is corrupt, it can be nothing other.

  • wayne

    C–
    The whole show is here:

    The Mark Steyn Show with Jordan Peterson
    [April 13, 2017]
    https://youtu.be/p4obxH2vSms

  • wayne

    The DEA is still looking for the people that looted 175,000 dosage units of opiates, benzodiazepines, and amphetamines, from 27 Baltimore pharmacies, in 2015.

    “DEA Releases 3rd round of Photos of Pharmacy Looters”
    June, 2015
    http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/06/11/dea-releases-photos-of-pharmacy-looters/

  • Edward

    On the other hand, Twitter is exposing the biases and true personalities of formerly respected people.

    Perhaps Twitter was so named because they expected only twits to use it.

    http://www.dictionary.com/browse/twit
    Definitions 1 and 4 may also apply to twitter

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