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Black Lives Matter protesters shut down debate at university

Brownshirts: A mob of Black Lives Matter protesters shouted down a planned debate on the movement by the debate club of the University of Michigan, preventing it from happening.

Holding signs with statements such as “my life is not a debate” and “black lives are not up for debate,” as well as chanting “Black Lives Matter,” hundreds of protesters filed into the room where the Michigan Political Union, a non-partisan parliamentary forum that facilitates discussions about contemporary issues, was just beginning its debate Tuesday night.

Michigan Political Union’s President student Joshua Strup had attempted to hold the door into the venue closed as those at the debate heard the crowd of protestors approaching, as the room was already filled to capacity, but to no avail. The protesters burst through and stood along the room’s four walls as well as the walkways between chairs.

Comments and yelling ensued between the protesters and Strup, as well as student moderator Carlos Owens, both of whom attempted to quiet the crowd. But the protesters would not be silenced. They shouted out a series of chants after they entered the room, including “racists hurt race relations,” “black lives are not up for debate, and neither is mine,” and “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” After their shouting spree, they laid on the ground to conduct a die-in demonstration. Thereafter, whenever a debate participant tried to speak, they would shout over them. Much of their comments were laced with profanity.

“You’re irrelevant [because] you’re white,” one protester shouted as student debater Jacob Roodvoets attempted to issue the speech he had prepared.

These bigoted fascists will not only not allow anyone to even discuss publicly the merits of their movement, they make it very clear that they are epitomize bigoted racism, ranking everything by race and preferring blacks over whites.

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.

 
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97 comments

  • Cotour

    This movement will continue in earnest when Obama takes it over as either its leader or top consultant after he leaves office and George Soros continues to fund it.

    That is when they will attempt to push it to the max with maximum violence (If Trump prevails). If Hillary prevails, and that will be through treachery at the polls and in cyber space if Trump does not soundly trash her, they will continue as per plan slowly infiltrating.

  • Phill O

    Cotour your comment “That is when they will attempt to push it to the max with maximum violence (If Trump prevails).”

    This has been a growing fear in my mind for some time. It is an extenuation of the retreat and burn philosophy war mongers have used in the past, to slow the progress of their enemies.

  • wayne

    This is Ann Arbor, Michigan. (aka The People’s Republic of…) It is one of our oldest State schools, & increasingly one of our wackiest one’s.

    I attended 2 different State schools in Michigan, they weren’t a whole better, even ‘way back when.’ But the extent of the ends to which these people will go & with University acquiescence, is truly unreal in the here and now.

    I’d shill big-time for Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan. Sent my daughter, best money we ever spent. (I even have a brick, with my name on it, near the Student Center, it was the least they could do! HAR.) She went on in the STEM field with 2 advanced degrees (at State Universities) but we wanted her well-grounded in a classical-liberal education, no matter what she pursued.
    (If you have an exceptional student, in any area, they will find-a-way to cover the cost in large measure. Your out-of-pocket will be on par with a State School. Don’t rule them out…)

  • Cotour

    Phill:

    You never hear discussed what Obama will be doing in his retirement when he is a relatively young man with a lot still to be accomplished. I suspect he will be using his “gravitas” and prestige in these areas to create social turmoil in the pursuit of “social justice” (read: Marxist style internationalization of America and the further dissolving of the “racist” Constitution).

  • wayne

    Cotour/Phill–
    Fully agree, it’s going to escalate, and I believe the period immediately after the Election will morph into something we’ve never seen before.
    Congress just passed that interim spending bill, which expires during the lame-duck session in December, they will have 1 more chance to feed at the trough, in an orgy of un-restrained spending.

    If Trump is elected, the Left will go nutso, and Obama/Mitch/Ryan are still in charge until January. We are in dangerous times, far more than we appreciate.

    These left-wing domestic terrorists are feeling totally immune to restraint & our external enemies are getting unbelievably bold and devious.
    (As a side note & not being all tin-hat about it; The Electoral College doesn’t actually do their thing, until mid December, a good month of chaos, could be manufactured.)
    If, when, DJT is elected, the news media will try to invalidate it ala Bush/Gore, then we’ll be treated to lefty press-whining for 4 years & suddenly the price of gasoline, the unemployment-rate, and inflation/interest rates, “WW-3,” will be front-page news, 24/7.

    Tangentially, as an end-o-the-week, anecdotal story, filed under “people being fed up.”;

    My health-insurance policy morphs into something, I’m not exactly clear on, October 1st.
    What I am clear on?— it will now cost me 80% more, than September.

  • Andrew_W

    Incidents like this are only the symptoms, how about addressing the cause, the belief that Black people are second class citizens in the US. Why does that belief exist and how do you remove the conviction from Black people that they’re treated as second class. No I’m not advocating “positive” discrimination.

  • Cotour

    Yes, you are promoting the concept of “white privilege” and are supporting the thinking that black Americans are second class citizens, which is bull sht. Black Americans, just like white Americans are what they are because that’s what they are and what they have been lead to believe that that is all that they can be (if they are unhappy with what they are). And by the way, there are a tremendous number of very successful and affluent black Americans in America. Race baiting is an industry in America. Which is not to say that there are no problems or issues.

    The Liberals / leftists in America as a matter of their strategy have created a culture of political dependency in order to maintain their political relevancy and in order to ensure their political power. plain and simple. Hopefully this entire agenda will be put in serious jeopardy after a crushing Trump win in the election.

    White privilege, social justice etc, etc., you are right on board with it all. Thats one of the ways that I know its BS.

  • Cotour

    A racial pause: This is one example of how much the whites “hate” the blacks in America:

    Yesterday ……………………https://youtu.be/29UAK_o3Fz4

    Today………………………….https://youtu.be/SiUsk0YMrnw

  • Cotour wrote: “Black Americans, just like white Americans are what they are because that’s what they are and what they have been lead to believe that that is all that they can be (if they are unhappy with what they are). And by the way, there are a tremendous number of very successful and affluent black Americans in America. ”

    Does any one but me realize that we happen to have a black President these past eight years? If blacks were so downtrodden in modern America, how is it that a black man was voted President, twice, by a population that is about 85% white?

  • Andrew_W

    I asked: Why does that belief exist and how do you remove the conviction from Black people that they’re treated as second class?

    A simple question, I know it’s not an easy question to answer, but it’s still a simple question. How about at least attempting an answer, rather than just playing the blame game?

  • wodun

    Incidents like this are only the symptoms, how about addressing the cause,

    One of the largest causes is the Democrat’s identity politics that requires racism to exist in order for Democrats to exist. They have an us vs them ideology so they always need a them to hate. What happens when there is no racism to fight against? Democrats whole identity would cease to exist. This is why they manufacture racism where none exists.

    Democrats also inculcate minority communities with racist ideology toward other races.

    In order to solve the racism problem, we have to get Democrats to stop teaching racism to their followers. But since racial hatred and strife is how they retain power, it is unlikely they will play along.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL8f5iWrzN0

  • Cotour

    I answered your question.

    The “oppression” is a result of one political party’s agenda to essentially permanently enslave a segment of Americans who happen to be black to ensure their political power.

    You seem to write English, but you do not seem to understand English.

    Q: Does being on the other side of the world upside down in the Southern hemisphere effect your ability to reason? And from what I see about New Zealand it is a beautiful country and the people seem to be very nice.

    And yes, I did notice that we have a two term black president now that you mention it. How did that happen?

  • Cotour

    Yes, Wodun, the Democrats / Leftists / Marxists must have racial tension.

    Otherwise they serve no purpose.

  • Cotour: Your previous comment implies that you thought Andrew_W had noted the fact that the U.S. has had a black president for the past eight years. This is incorrect. It was I, your host, who noted this fact, not Andrew_W. Andrew_W is usually incapable of noting anything that might disprove any of his beliefs. He will likely not recognize this simple fact about Obama either, nor will he acknowledge either of the points you or wodun made about the Democratic Party’s historic race-baiting agenda. To do so might require him to reconsider his willingness to make excuses for every race-baiting, bigoted, tyrant worldwide.

  • Andrew_W

    Wodun had a crack at answering it, you did not.

    “They have an us vs them ideology so they always need a them to hate.” Pot meet kettle.

    I’m not buying the “it’s the Democrats fault” justification. While democrats are exploiting the division that exists and publicizing it, I don’t think they can be blamed for the existence of that division, Black people have in the past been second class citizens in the US (and yes, the same applies to other minorities in other countries), long before the Democrats switched to being the champions of the minorities that they now see themselves as.

  • Cotour

    That answer was directed to you, The Zman, although I did not indicate it.

    Andrew W is very characteristic of a kind of thinking and “logic”. He hears what he wants and throws everything else that he does not like that does not support his preferred reality. This as you know I classify as being “Intellectually dishonest”.

  • Andrew_W

    I’m not arguing that Black people are subjugated by white people in America today (why do people here leap to the conclusion that I’m just switching blame, is it projection?) I’m not blaming any group of people, a problem exists yes? I attribute the origins of that problem to historical causes, how do you put those historical issues behind you (and you and you and them) and move on so that the divisions that still exist can also be put to rest? Playing the blame game ain’t, in my opinion, the solution.

  • Andrew_W

    The left offer things like “positive discrimination” (or whatever the correct PC term for it is) what does the right offer? Lets blame the Democrats, lets blame unruly protesters? Is that it??

  • wayne

    Mark Levin On Liberty & Tyranny
    https://youtu.be/3GUwSJML7xw

  • Cotour

    If you are interested in real analysis or understanding regarding where and how to assign “blame” in regards to this American situation then you must understand what the powers that be are involved in doing.

    Why not try to listen to someone who actually lives in America instead of listening to what the agenda driven media pumps into the world? What a concept.

  • Andrew_W: I will make an exception and respond to you this one time, though I know it is a waste of time. You wrote, “The left offer things like “positive discrimination” (or whatever the correct PC term for it is) what does the right offer? Lets blame the Democrats, lets blame unruly protesters? Is that it??”

    The right offers an idea that is very radical and something I suspect you will find hard to fathom. I know the left can’t tolerate it and goes bonkers whenever anyone suggests it. It is called personal responsibility. When someone riots, I blame them for rioting. No injustice justifies looting and attacking innocent third parties, which is what you do when you riot. When someone race-baits, I blame them for race-baiting. No bigotry justifies inflaming racial hatred in the name of power.

    There are certainly historic reasons (slavery, past discrimination, drugs) why blacks generally do poorly in the United States. However, Barack Obama himself proves, by becoming President, that they have the same opportunities as everyone else. If they, as a community and as individuals, were focused more on solving their own problems, of taking personal responsibility for their problems, rather than looking to blame others (whitey, long past injustices, etc), they might actually make some progress and achieve some success.

    In the end, it is they who will have to solve the problems. No one else can do it for them.

    So, what does the right offer? What the right and the conservative movement has been proposing now for almost a half century is that the government stop trying to help blacks, that racial quotas and affirmative action should end, that blacks should be treated the same as everyone else, and that we have faith that they can do as well as everyone else if they give it a chance. Unlike the left, the right does not pander to blacks. It doesn’t think they are crippled or incapable of doing as well as others. The conservative agenda is remarkably fair-minded, that they are as good as everyone else, and that if they work hard they will find out that the universe can be theirs, just like everyone else.

    One more thing. Personal responsibility requires us to blame people if they behave badly. Someone who does something morally wrong must be bluntly identified as someone willing to commit an evil act. Otherwise, justice is not served. Thus, while you make excuses for the worst tyrants of the 21st century, I and others will continue to call them for what they are, evil power-hungry bigots who are murdering innocents worldwide.

  • Andrew_W

    “Why not try to listen to someone who actually lives in America . . .”

    Which particular American should I be listening to??

    Wayne, I agree with Levin’s when he says that Conservatives are against change, that they see change only in negative terms.

  • Garry

    I have regular contact with people of all races in a variety of settings. My wife is of another race, and our kids are mixed race. I count blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, and people of mixed races among my closest friends, more casual friends, acquaintances, coworkers, students, people I have a neutral relationship with, and people I don’t particularly like.

    Through the years, I have occasionally gotten surprised looks from people, apparently for being with non-whites. I have not gotten dirty looks in a long time (most of them came in Japan), and it’s been decades since anyone gave me a comment about the race of people I was with that expressed anything beyond curiosity. And none of the looks or comments came while I was in the South; in fact, whenever we go there we are all happy to see how much friendlier people there are.

    Growing up, I had several sets of neighbors I worked for who were WWII vets. They were tremendous people, who shaped my beliefs perhaps as much as my parents did. With one exception: one neighbor, Mr. V, who I considered my 3rd grandfather, was very racist, and made a point to tell me several times that he adamantly rejected the idea that people of other races are our brothers. Aside from this defect, I still think the world of Mr. V.

    Years after I stopped working for Mr. V, I came home for a weekend, my parents had a picnic, and I brought along a Marine buddy who happened to be from Central America, and was very obviously of American Indian descent. When Mr. V saw us, he looked uncomfortable. Seizing the moment, I introduced Mr. V to “my good friend Rolando” and put him in a position where it would have been very awkward if they didn’t shake hands. I wanted to make it clear, without getting confrontational, that I considered Rolando like a brother.

    Mr. V didn’t interact much with Rolando after the handshake, but he stayed over for a long time, watched us play jungle volleyball, and enjoyed himself that day. I like to think that maybe in some small way I modified the late Mr. V’s attitude, or at least got him to think.

    Despite what my father (who worships Chris Matthews, enough said) says, I think people like Mr. V are much rarer these days.

    The most recent racist comment anyone made to me was more than 20 years ago, in Sydney, Australia. I was in a public area, and struck up a conversation with someone who happened to be a black American. It was a pretty run of the mill conversation between American tourists in a foreign land.

    After he left, a man came over and told me, in a charitable tone, that I shouldn’t have let the darkie talk to me, as now everyone would think less of me, and if that happened in his town in New Zealand there would have been trouble.

    I think racism is mostly due to people not mixing with other races all that much.

  • Andrew_W

    I’ll comment in an hour, I’m busy looking after a child.
    But here’s a video for Wayne.
    http://www.storylineonline.net/enemy-pie/

  • Cotour

    Garry,

    Are you saying that there is racism in New Zealand?

    PS: The Left gets more and more nervous the less actual racism exists, they must manufacture most of it to remain relevant.

  • Andrew_W

    Of course there’s racism in NZ, not a hell of a lot but some.

    I’ve heard Garry’s story before, though never with a Kiwi as the villain, usually the villain is an Australian or South African. I suspect there might be a bit of poetic license, either from Garry or from his unwelcome and brief acquaintance. In New Zealand Maori (they were the original rural settlers here) are ubiquitous in small towns and anyone making the suggestion in his local town that the supposed Kiwi did would likely get his head punched in.

  • wayne

    Andrew_W–

    How can you listen to Levin & twist his words so much? You are truly hung-up on bizzaro world definitions.

    Mark Levin: The anti-Semitism of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ platform (August 04 2016)
    https://youtu.be/USbAj9ZNa7Y

  • Andrew_W

    “How can you listen to Levin & twist his words so much?”

    Levin’s exact words: “Change is utterly and completely irresponsible”

  • Andrew_W

    Bob: “The right offers an idea that is very radical and something I suspect you will find hard to fathom. I know the left can’t tolerate it and goes bonkers whenever anyone suggests it. It is called personal responsibility. “

    That’s what Conservatives offer, which is part of the philosophy of the true right, what the right actually offers is freedom as opposed to State control or state control as long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedom of some – but it’s OK if it infringes on the freedom of many others.

    When a society needs to change the place to start is with the young, the left advocates state control over education, the right advocates parental control over education, Conservatives oppose full parental control over education because they don’t have confidence in the ability of minorities to educate their children in the correct way, which is in the way Conservatives believe those kids should be educated, Conservatives are fans of “one shirt fits all” – as long as it’s cut to the size Conservatives think is best.

    Conservatives oppose diversity, they oppose minorities educating their kids in whichever way the parents of those kids might choose to educate them.

    In New Zealand we do have a small Libertarian party in Parliament, (it used to be bigger but our conservative party – the National party – has moved towards the liberal right drawing support away from the libertarian Act party).

    There has been some areas in which the Act party and Maori have worked together and one of those areas has been to allow schooling of Maori kids that is more under parental control, the result has been that the kids in those schools out perform Maori kids in the state education sector.

    Conservatives and the left would call that “separatism”, those on the right use words like “self determination” and “freedom to choose”.

  • Garry

    No poetic license taken on my end, and I can’t imagine that someone would falsely claim to be from New Zealand under those circumstances.

    I have a hard time believing that there’s no place in New Zealand where people are racist.

    And you’re conflating skin color with ethnicity. I’ve known many people in Japan who were ok with black Americans but great fear of blacks from Africa. Some of my students this summer only trusted blacks from Jamaica and didn’t like the black Americans. And so on. I can picture some New Zealanders being ok with Maori (because of familiarity) but not liking black Americans.

    In my experience, there are pockets of racism everywhere, and in many places there is official institutionalized racism. I don’t know of anywhere in the US where there are official policies discriminating against blacks, although there are many examples of official policies discriminating against whites.

    It’s human nature to classify people, and I think there’s a bigger divide in terms of how and where people grew up (inner city, fatherless, in poverty, or what have you) than there is in terms of skin color.

    The difficulty is that, for whatever reason, American blacks are more likely that white to grow up fatherless and in the inner city, which are associated with bad outcomes (incarceration rates, poverty, etc.), and that kind of pattern is hard to break out of and tends to get passed down generations. Note that I’m being careful to talk about tendencies; I know plenty of people who have broken out of those and other circumstances that trap many for generations. At this point I think the government is encouraging blacks (and other residents of bad neighborhoods) to stay dependent on government.

    On a different note, I did not want Obama to win, but once he did, I thought that maybe some good would come out of it, as he seemed to be in a good position to give positive perspectives on race and serve as a good role model. One of my biggest disappointments was his going in the opposite direction, dividing rather than unifying. And with the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, etc. all coming during his term of office, he missed a great opportunity to educate and help put things in perspective.

  • Garry

    I think Andrew meant to write:

    (Some] Conservatives [in New Zealand] oppose diversity, they oppose minorities [Maori] educating their kids in whichever way the parents of those kids might choose to educate them.

    Conservative means different things in different countries, although there are some common threads in some cases. Conservatives in New Zealand do not see everything the same way that American conservatives do, or the way Japanese conservatives do, or the way German conservatives do.

    Your stereotyping is offensive; I consider myself conservative (classic liberal) in many ways, and you write as if you can read my mind, telling me I believe things that I oppose.

  • wayne

    Andrew_W–
    I’ll dive in one last time–

    If you actually listened to that Levin clip, put that sentence in complete context & explain who Levin was actually quoting. (Edmund Burke)

    the quote in context starts around here–
    https://youtu.be/3GUwSJML7xw?t=385

    I’m wasting my time but I’ll expand on it.
    In this context, “change” for the sake of change is destructive, which is contrasted with change-as-reformation, where we can reform Institutions without destroying them in the process.
    Change-as-reform, is always preferable to change-as-innovation.
    (and let us not play dictionary games— common English usage during the 1700’s.)

    If you can’t comprehend that short segment, it is a total waste of my time to even engage you.

  • wayne

    One last (last) time, ‘cuz I know smarter people than I, can read this and know exactly what it means. (without consulting Wikipedia or without redefining words into oblivion.)
    It’s in mid-17th century English, but I think it’s pretty clear.

    “There’s a mannifest marked disticntion, which ill-men with ill-designs or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, and that is a marked distinction between “change” and “reformation.”

    Change alters the substance of the objects themselves and gets rid of all their essential good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is Novelty, and whether it is to opperate any one of the effects of reformation at all or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be known before hand.
    [Levin–“In other words, change is utterly and completely irresponsible.”]
    Reformation on the other hand, is not change in the substance, for the primary modication of the object, but a direct applicatiopn of a remedy to the grievance complained of.”

    Edmund Burke

  • Andrew_W

    Garry, I admit that I was generalizing, so apologize for that, I’m skeptical though that your support for ethnic minority schools under the control of those ethnic minorities without ultimate state oversight is common among American Conservatives.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “Race baiting is an industry in America.

    This is the cause of the belief that Black people are second class citizens, and President Obama was and still is in the race baiting business. Obama is the one who continually blames the police when they perform their duties, especially when he declares that they “acted stupidly” seconds after admitting that he does not know enough about the situation to say anything intelligent about it. Obama declared that the guy who was pounding a hispanic’s head with a planet could have been his son, and I accept him at his word: that Obama would have raised him that way, too. Obama continually takes the side of the race baiter, directly causing Black people to believe that they are second class citizens. Obama is not the solution, he is the problem.

    Of course, our resident troll does not pay attention, so he does not recognize the easy answer to his question when he reads it. Instead, when the answer comes, he thinks it is merely a blame game, blaming the perpetrator for perpetrating the belief. Once again, only he has the correct answer, which he will not express.

    Meanwhile, as a White person, I am privileged (by governmental decree – institutional racism) to be placed lower on college acceptance lists and lower on hiring lists. I am privileged to be called a racist, because – according to my president – it is in my genes. There are a bunch of other “White privileges” that I would also trade away for actual equality, but that is not how America works, under Obama and liberal Democrat policies.

    I’m not buying the ‘it’s the Democrats fault’ justification.

    Hey, what do you know, Robert, you were right that the troll “is usually incapable of noting anything that might disprove any of his beliefs. … nor will he acknowledge either of the points [Cotour] or wodun made about the Democratic Party’s historic race-baiting agenda.”

    Yeah, you caught me. I wasn’t in the least surprised that you were right. He asks the question, gets the answer, then rejects the answer. He has several Americans to listen to, right here. Rather than listen to any of them, he would rather remain ignorant by asking for only one to listen to, because he will disregard the rest. Isn’t there a line in a song that says essentially that same thing? Plus, his track record shows that he will disregard the one American that he chooses to listen to, anyway. Every day, he continues to make up new and different – and wrong – definitions of conservativism, even after he said that his online test shows that he is a conservative – meaning that the beliefs that he states conservatives to have are actually his beliefs (opposing diversity, opposing minorities educating their kids, doesn’t have confidence in the ability of minorities to educate his children, a fan of ‘one shirt fits all’, etc.). Even in his latest comment, immediately above, he still insists that he knows more than we do about about American conservatives by stating yet another of his misconceptions.

    From thousands of kilometers away and from total ignorance of all things American, he has absolutely no knowledge of America’s history, even recent history. Democrats have always been the ones in favor of division and segregation, and the Republicans always favored actual freedom and inclusion. LBJ pulled off one of the greatest cons in all of history by signing the Civil Rights Act (passed by Republicans and despised by Democrats), making it look like he was on the side of the Black people. Instead, he was privately telling his cronies that he would have those n*****s (LBJ’s word) voting Democratic for two hundred years. And he was right. In addition, his legacy now includes trolls who deny the reality of American history and American life, believing that insisting upon segregation and division, rather than integration and unity, is being the champions of minorities.

    Indeed, if we were properly integrated and unified, skin color (etc.) would not be an issue in American society. Instead, the Democrats have spent half a century pointing out differences and telling the minorities that they are not as good, capable, educated, smart, etc., yet the trolls do not pay attention to what the Democrats say and do – he merely blindly believes their claims of championship.

    The historical cause of today’s racial strife is the Democrat Party. They are the ones who favored slavery and opposed abolition. They are the ones who seceded in order to prolong slavery. They are the ones who wrote the Jim Crow laws. They are the ones who insisted upon segregation, including (but hardly limited to) separate drinking fountains, sitting at the back of the bus, and entering White people’s homes through the back door.

    Even today, liberal Democrats are behind the new segregation movement. Even today, liberal Democrats insist that Black people are unable to make it on their own and must have help from the Great White Democratic (large ‘D’) Hope in order to get by. But the help that liberal Democrats are willing to offer is dependent upon Black people remaining underdogs. They reward the victim status and punish success. Succeed and get taxed and ignored; fail and receive welfare and attention.

    What tools our trolls make for the Democratic Party.

    Garry’s point is that America has been somewhat successfully integrated for the past three or four decades, in that we all have friends and neighbors, coworkers and bosses, customers and vendors of all races and religions. It is hard to say about other countries, but from what I glean from news and social media, many of them seem to have less diversity in race and religion.

  • Andrew_W

    “Reformation on the other hand, is not change in the substance, for the primary modication of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of.”

    To me that is often an excuse for treating the symptoms rather that addressing the underlying problem, which in my eyes is typical conservative rationalizing.

    As Garry points out there is no objective definition of what a Conservative is, conservatism is a position relative to the existing practices and structures in a society, one that is generally supportive of the status quo, so any conservative would be expected to argue (Burke was a Conservative) for “reformation” of the existing practices and structures in a society rather than the more dramatic “change”.

    A conservative in Cuba would likewise, in Cuban terms, be someone supportive of the existing practices and structures in the society, do you think that someone arguing for “reformation” to that society (little tweaks to the form of socialism practiced in Cuba) would be showing better judgment than someone advocating wholesale changes to free market systems?

    I don’t dispute that if you’re advocating change you need to have a how to and where in mind.

  • Andrew_W

    Edward: even after he said that his online test shows that he is a conservative – meaning that the beliefs that he states conservatives to have are actually his beliefs

    Once you get an idea into your head you won’t let it go will you? I’m not a Conservative, I’ve never claimed to be a Conservative, I’m a Libertarian/Classical Liberal. I support freedom in economic terms and in social terms, which is not a definition of “conservative”.

    You go on at length about the Democrats, apparently thinking you’re scoring points against me. I am not a Democrat, Libertarians and modern “Liberal” share beliefs in social freedom, modern “Liberals” are in favor of Government action to advance social agenda, Libertarians are in favor of Government withdrawing from actions designed to progress social agenda, to just let people run their lives as they choose to.

  • Garry

    Andrew W wrote,

    “I’m skeptical though that your support for ethnic minority schools under the control of those ethnic minorities without ultimate state oversight is common among American Conservatives.”

    Ultimate state oversight of education is a liberal principle in the US; the conservative position is that education is a local issue (oversight by the state or local governments as opposed to the federal government). The school choice and homeschooling movements in the US are overwhelmingly conservative.

    There are many minority teachers and administrators in American education; I don’t think most conservatives care who the teachers are, as long as they have high standards. (As an aside, I was once called a liar because off the top of my head I didn’t know how many of my 60 Marines were black; my boss, who happened to be black, was sure that I and every other white officer kept a mental list of how many I had of each race.)

    You are projecting a lot on American conservatives, filling in the blank slate to your liking.

    “As Garry points out there is no objective definition of what a Conservative is”

    That’s not quite what I’m saying; I mean that the definition varies from country to country, but within a country there can be some firmness of definition. Words do matter. The problem in the US is that many who claim to be conservative are just giving lip service; they go against their stated beliefs all the time. People who pay attention know what conservative principles are (hint: the last 3 Republican presidential candidates haven’t have many), it’s just that many people who profess to have them act completely against them (see Ryan, Paul and McConnell, Mitch)

    Conservatism is not so much about maintaining the status quo, but keeping to the basic, original goals (such as universal freedom), which, sadly, requires less maintenance and more reform as time goes on.

  • wayne

    Garry–
    as always, extremely reasonable thoughts presented in a clear manner.
    Edward–
    as always, heavily in your camp.

    Edward_W:
    Yeah, Burke was a Conservative.

    You apparently fundamentally misunderstand large elements of the Enlightenment (and Classical Thought) & the thinking that went into our Founding documents, and the intellectual arguments they made & debated extensively.
    So, you don’t like Burkes thought?
    What would satisfy you? (I’m betting “nothing.”

    “Conservative’s” in America, prefer to built upon functional Institutions & Cultural practice’s and Traditions, because we know what works and what doesn’t, from experience. We don’t accept “change-as-fundamental-transformation,” for the reason– that “change” destroys the foundations of our culture, heritage, and institutions.
    By building upon what we know works, we can better adapt our practice’s, but not our fundamental tenets, to work forward and solve problems, within the constraint’s as outlined in our Constitution.

    “There’s a manifest marked distinction, which ill-men with ill-designs or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, and that is a marked distinction between “change” and “reformation.”

    –Which are you? an ill-man, or with ill-designs, or a weak man, incapable of any design? Cuz you are constantly confounding the marked distinction.

    I don’t want to get into Education big-time, Garry pretty much said what needed to be said.

    Personally– our Education Institution’s have been totally captured by largely anti-American, anti-western, anti-freedom, elements. They all have Tenure, fat pension’s, and immunity from criticism, and we pay for it all under the threat of the State.

    drifting tangentially– I would actually like your (short) opinion on something out of our early (early) Colonial American History

    Old Deluder Satan Law
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_School_Laws

  • Cotour

    I think that its important to keep in mind that the American brand of existence is a result of the constant battle of the push and the pull of ideas both Liberal and Conservative. Through the constant battle we move somehow into future.

    The two forces push against each other and at the point of contact we have the American experience, an amalgam of the two. That is by design. So when we speak of “conservative” and “liberal”, each may have their own definition and philosophy that define them in the dictionary but those definitions are different and transformed in actual practice.

    This is the dictionary definition of Conservative: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”

    This is the dictionary definition of Liberal: “favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.”

    Anyone who politically identifies as one or the other recognizes that there are moments in time when they identify with elements of the other. There is no Conservative that identifies so closely with the definition of the word so as to never be able to recognize that there must be change at some point, and visa versa for the Liberal. The Liberal would never live so closely to the definition of the word so as to be favorable to every proposed form of “progress”. To not be able to recognize this truth and to live so strictly aligned with one or the other is to define stagnating mental illness.

    Lets not get so mired in strict terminology that no one can recognize their true selves in the conversation related to how we actually think and actually live.

  • Andrew_W

    Thanks Garry, I’ll check out more on the US school system.
    Here’s an aside of my own.
    When I was at school nearly 40 years ago, we had a Maori studies teacher relieving when the social studies teacher was away, during the lesson she diverted to talk about race relations, and went on at length about the evils of racism and how she was subjected to it from her own parents, who hated Pakeha (white people), she was convinced that she herself had put the racism of her parents behind her, and that she knew that all us Pakeha had the same racist experiences from the white households that we grew up in. Thing is, most of us didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, in most white households race is not an issue, and practicing racism is certainly not common.

    Since then, after talking to other Maori friends, I know that in many Maori households race is an issue, and that as a result there is a belief amongst young Maori that being brown will cripple your chances of success in the world. The result is that in many Maori families there is a belief that there’s not much point for young Maori working to succeed in this Pakeha world. It’s a case of parents teaching their children defeatism.

    I recently started reading a book Black Skin, White Masks (first published 1952) by an African psychologist Frantz Fanon, which goes on at length about how race can affect a persons outlook as a result of an intergenerational racial inferiority complex. If such a thing does contribute significantly to the social stratification of racial minorities, how to address the problem? I’m thinking more visible good role models in the lives of young Maori people, and that perhaps the success of those Maori schools I alluded to earlier is at least in part to the kids seeing many, rather than a comparative few, positive Maori role models in their schools, with there class mates not having their race as an excuse for not coming top in the class.

    There’s probably a lot in there that Democrats would agree with, parts that Democrats would not agree with.

  • Andrew_W

    Old Deluder Satan Law.

    Getting people on board by presenting a good case is usually better than compulsion, so I’d be more in favor of persuading the parents about the merits of a good education.

  • wayne

    Andrew_W:

    A few FYI things you should know about the United States and Education.
    Property taxes at the Local level historically funded a lot of compulsory public education (K-12).
    In large measure, local Property Taxes are one of the few taxes ordinary citizens can control through their School Boards.
    We didn’t however, have a Federal Department of Education (or the cash they blow) until Jimmy Carter conjured it up.
    Money from the Feds comes with strings-attached.
    What once was the exclusive domain of the Local/State Community, is now centrally-planned in large measure by nameless/faceless people in Washington, DC.

    Massive Federal Funding of higher-education didn’t start until post WW-2.
    Our “G.I. Bill” program sent WW-2 vets to college for minimal cost. The whole Sputnik & cold-war era propelled Science Funding by the Feds, and LBJ started programs such as Head Start.
    School teachers (k-12 & Higher) are heavily organized and represented by public-sector unions, which in effect, bargain against the taxpayers and use our Children as hostages against us, to force their demands.

    Increasingly, Home-Schooling and private alternative’s are expanding, but even those folks have to pay Property Taxes whether they send their children to public school or not, and of course, folks with few resources have only once choice– public schools.

  • Garry

    I think that some people look at everything through the prism of race, which leads to problems. I realized this after living in Japan for a while; there is official, institutional racism there, and many people are afraid of any non-Japanese (if I sat down in an empty train, as it moved from station to station and got more and more crowded, nobody would dare sit next to me). After a while I entered what my roommate called stage 2 of living in a foreign country – I saw all the flaws and none of the good points.

    Now and then people did bad things to me, usually in the train stations, in crowds. The extreme example was a very hard, aggressive push from behind that by some miracle didn’t result in a faceplant. In all these instances, my knee-jerk reaction was thinking that people did these things because they hated gaijin (non-Japanese, especially whites).

    One day it dawned on me that these were people who felt they had to take out their aggression on someone, and I was handy. Perhaps they didn’t hate me, but thought that it was socially acceptable to pick on the gaijin rather than a Japanese, and if I had the language skills to report it to the police (I didn’t), more than likely the police wouldn’t do anything about it.

    Maybe it’s a subtle difference, but looking at things from the viewpoint that I was seen as an easy target rather than as an object of hate made a huge difference to me. I stopped taking these incidents personally, and I focused more on the many positive interactions I had with strangers, which I experienced more often than a typical Japanese does. As my wife always reminds us, we shouldn’t give other people the power to ruin our day.

    It’s easy to fall into that trap when you’re a racial minority (or younger than everyone, or shorter, or uglier. . .), and it relates to what Frantz Fanon wrote. Jumping to conclusions is always bad, and the best we can do to help others overcome it is to let them know there are other possible reasons than race, and treat people as people. It’s particularly difficult to overcome when it becomes a matter of groupthink. Ultimately it’s up to the individual to change his / her attitude. Perhaps it was easier for me because I didn’t have the experience of being a racial minority until my late 20’s, so my toxic attitude wasn’t as deep-seated as it would be in someone who grows up being told by his family that every mistreatment is based on race.

    A while ago the local paper did a feature on some college students who visited China. One girl was very bitter because she felt people stared at her because she was black. She clearly missed some good opportunities, because of her attitude. One of my favorite memories is being swarmed by a busload of 10-year-old Korean boys who were jabbering away excitedly; from what I could gather (I don’t understand a word of Korean), I was probably the first white man they had ever seen up close. One particularly brave boy touched my arm and immediately ran away; somehow I resisted the urge to growl at him and instead I just smiled. They were genuinely curious, and went away excited. I was happy to give them a positive experience.

    Role models are important, but they have to be genuine. My first Marine boss happened to be black, and it’s an understatement to say that he was less than stellar. In fact, as the unit got to know him, everyone, including the blacks, despised him. I have no doubt that he would not have been in his position if he had been white. After seeing many instances like this, when I met a black officer in a position of authority I found myself wondering if he deserved to be there, or was filling a quota, and that’s a sad state of affairs. The ones who were hurt the most were the truly outstanding blacks in positions of authority, who had to work extra hard to prove themselves. People at the lower levels know who is competent and who isn’t, and filling quotas based on race is often counterproductive.

    Even good role models can be ineffective if we put them on too high a pedestal. I have no problem with making race a tie-breaker in the rare case where there really is no discernible difference in who is more fit for a position of authority, but even that puts an unstated pressure to use quotas.

    One of the tragedies of inner cities is lack of role models for young men, due to absentee fathers.

    There are no easy answers, and the easy solutions are often counter-productive.

  • Cotour

    Garry, you bring to life a pet subject of mine (and Edwards), people understanding when they are being subjective or objective.

    And just as importantly, understanding when someone else, friend or stranger, is being subjective or objective in the many various instances that people interact with each other and why they would be either subjective or objective.

    To fight a war generals must have their personnel see the enemy in objective terms, you can not efficiently kill someone who you see in subjective human terms. However, it is “easy” to kill someone who you see and are trained to see in purely objective terms.

    When you can objectify another human being they cease to be human.

  • Andrew_W

    Cotour, subjective means from a point of view, an opinion. Objective means factual, not from any persons point of view.

    If a general says your enemy is another human being, your enemy has parents, likely brothers and sisters” he is speaking objective facts, these are not what generals tell there soldiers.

    In war you must think of your enemy in subjective terms, he is not just another human, he is someone you must be prepared to kill, you are on the side of good he is on the side of evil.

    I think you’ve heard “my country is good, people who don’t like my country are bad” that you’ve come to think of it as being an objective fact that “my country is good, people who don’t like my country are bad” when in fact what I quote is a subjective statement, not an objective fact.

  • Andrew_W

    I did like Garry’s comment, it showed good insight, and empathy.

    Cotour, I don’t think “being objective” and “objectify” are synonyms. You’re right that when you can “objectify” another human being they cease to be human, but that contradicts “being objective” about them because, they are actually human.

  • Cotour

    Objective: “based on facts rather than feelings or opinions : not influenced by feelings
    philosophy : existing outside of the mind : existing in the real world”

    Objectify: “to treat as an object or cause to have objective reality”

    Understanding when we personally are being either subjective or objective related to any particular interaction we are involved in or in our point of view related to any particular subject that we may be discussing is key to better understanding ourselves and others.

    Garry tells a story with good examples of being objective, subjective and objectifying. In the discussion about politics and race and all associated subject matter it is very important that we all understand the subtle differences when those who dare to lead (politician’s etc) manipulate these points of view to their own purposes and agendas.

    Its fine to be compassionate but not when it serves someones agenda to further weaken an opponents position in order to later further weaken their position further, and they are unable to understand the manipulation underway.

    “Guns are killing people, so we must get rid of all guns!”

    A total subjective (emotional) political attempt at bypassing the objective (reality / experienced based) concept enshrined in the Constitution that the people need to be armed in order to ensure their personal freedom from the inevitable tyranny that will occur in their government.

    This applies to race relations and any other subject where persuasion related to a position is involved.

  • Andrew_W

    Are you saying that it’s an objective fact that “people need to be armed (I assume that means with guns?) in order to ensure their personal freedom from the inevitable tyranny that will occur in their government”?

  • Cotour

    Yes, that is indeed what Founders observed and what the Constitution directs.

  • Andrew_W

    It’s an objective fact that the US constitution says what it says. It is not an objective fact that the citizenry of countries need to be armed to resist Government tyranny.

  • Edward

    Our resident trolls think that, by pointing out the source of American racial strife, I must be blaming foreigners, such as them, as being that source. What a non sequitur. After claiming to have taken an online test that shows him a conservative, he now claims that he is not a conservative – so why did he brag to us the results of that test?

    I was surprised and disappointed to hear from our trolls that conservatives in New Zealand are flaming racists. This would explain much about why the trolls think so ill of America’s conservatives, projecting their own racism onto America’s conservatives.

    In addition, what is now projected upon us are various sayings, such as “my country is good, people who don’t like my country are bad,” as though this is how Americans or conservatives think. Perhaps New Zealanders, or their conservatives, think this way, but if everyone who said anything negative about America was bad, then much of the rest of the world would be considered bad, and we Americans would be insisting upon closing our borders (which is different than securing our borders, which virtually every other country on the planet does). The point of view that “those who do not like me” are bad people is a modern liberal concept, not a classical liberal, conservative, or libertarian concept. It comes from the modern liberal thinking that anyone who disagrees with them is a hater.

    Not being in America, our trolls do not know that we Americans are inundated with left-wing messages of “my country is bad, people who don’t like my country are good.” This is yet another reason for the Only Black Lives Matter movement and the accompanying racial strife – again, coming from Democrats and other left-wing liberals.

    Our troll tells us that he knows about “intergenerational racial inferiority complex” but refuses to acknowledge that America’s Democrats have spent the past half century feeding that complex in America’s darker skinned people. Did I say half century? I meant to say century and a half, because they really got into it right after the (Un)Civil War.

    Wait, did I say century and a half? Because America’s Democrats have always done it, even before there was a Democratic Party – the families that would eventually make up the first Democrats were always of that mind. It was the Democrats who wanted a segregated military in WWII, and it was Democrats who tried to (physically) block the first Black people from going to universities that hadn’t been matriculating Black students.

    And now there is the soft racism of thinking that Black people can’t get along without government-imposed advantages, such as Affirmative Action; section eight housing, EBT cards (food stamps), the Affordable Care Act, and other various forms of welfare; and the assumption that Black people are unable to get their own ID cards in order to show, at the poles, that they are the registered voter.

    But now there is a worse reverse racism than even Affirmative Action: the Only Black Lives Matter movement.

    From the US Constitution: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

    Well regulated, meaning functioning well. Militia, meaning the citizenry of military age. Free state, meaning We the People are free to exercise our God given – or natural – rights. The founders believed that governments devolve into tyrannies at a rate much greater than happened in the United States. At least one of them believed that every couple of decades there would have to be another revolution in order for the citizens to take back their freedoms from a tyrannical government. Unless the Article V process works as The Founders intended, he seems to have been off by an order of magnitude.

    Now our trolls think that the Maori, and their “”

    But our trolls, living thousands of kilometers across an ocean, won’t listen to those of us here; those of us who know. They refuse to see any viewpoints other than their own, even when it comes from people who are there, experiencing the reality of the situation. No, just by virtue of being trolls, they know better, because they read it on the internet, which to them trumps actual, personal experience.

  • Edward

    Sorry, that should have read:
    Now our trolls think that the Maori, and their “intergenerational racial inferiority complex” do not feel like they live in a tyranny, thus do not need to be armed in order to overthrow their tyrannical, racist government.

  • Cotour

    “It is not an objective fact that the citizenry of countries need to be armed to resist Government tyranny.”

    Tell that to the German Jews in 1938 Germany.

    And tell that to Maori of 1805.

    “War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand’s land passing from Māori to Pākehā (European) ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.[3]”

    And tell that to the Polish people, and tell that to the Venezualan’s, and tell that to the Cubans, and tell that to the American Indians, and tell that to captured and enslaved blacks in Africa, and tell that to anyone who wants to live as free people anywhere any place on this planet.

  • Andrew_W

    Cotour. Firstly pointing to examples of governments becoming tyrannical and that tyranny subsequently being overthrown by armed civilians does not make “it an objective fact that the citizenry of countries need to be armed to resist Government tyranny.”

    Firstly.
    I can point to endless examples of governments not becoming tyrannical as a result of stable and respected democratic structures, with populations not aware that they would need to physically arm themselves against their government, in most countries with long term stable government it’s those governing structures and the respect those in power hold for those structures that are the only serious defense against government tyranny from within a country.

    Secondly.
    1. Do you seriously think that the German Jews could have prevented the Holocaust had they been armed? No doubt it would have been more civil war than Holocaust (which may be seen as better, that’s subjective) but the Jewish community would still have likely been bloodily slaughtered by the Nazi’s.

    2. New Zealand was not a country in 1805, the Maori were faced with a foreign invasion similar to that which the North American indigenous people had experienced, so not a case of an established government imposing tyranny against its own people.

  • Cotour

    In America (anywhere really) its best that the government have a degree of fear of the people. If the government does not fear the people than the government essentially owns the people and the people work for the government.

    Are you suggesting that because the Maori, or the black Africans, or the American Indians were not faced with the oppression of a formal “government” that they would not have preferred to have defended their land with equal force from being taken ?

    Here’s one for you, how about the Syrians who have been fighting their own “modern” government for the last 8 or more years?

    Are you asserting that a modern government is superior to older governments? No corruption there, right?
    And these new “modern” structures of governance the people need not be concerned about them? Please begin your endless list of examples of governments where the people need not be concerned.

    PS: There is a reason that America is fundamentally different (be thankful for that) than all other country’s, and the Second Amendment is where that fundamental difference begins.

    If the world turns to chaos, when the Chinese begin to buy your politicians and they begin to get favor from your government and they start throwing you off your land because they need the minerals your sitting on, what action will you take and with what?

    Where do you think the Chinese are going to go to test out their new gear after they build their massive blue water navy? They are probably not coming to the U.S.

    South China sea? Australia? New Zealand? (hey, wait a minute, you live in New Zealand) Don’t worry, your government can go to the U.N. and they will straighten it all out.

  • Cotour: You are wasting your time. (It is interesting how this expression keeps getting repeated, by me, by Wayne, by Edward, and by others, when it comes to conversing with Andrew_W.) As you can see with his most recent comment, Andrew_W’s first instinct is always to make excuses for tyranny, to accept its right to exist, and to offer apologies for every example where such tyranny happened.

    His comments especially about the Holocaust shows the typical ignorance of that event by many non-participants. Trust me, if you are Jewish and grew up in the last 70 years, you know the significance of the Nazi effort to disarm the Jews. You also know that a mere handful of stolen weapons in the Warsaw Ghetto sufficed to hold off the Nazis for weeks, while also causing them significant losses. Had the Jews had been armed in the 1930s and had had the 2nd amendment to protect their right to those arms, Hitler would have definitely thought twice about his effort to kill all the Jews.

    In fact, your list didn’t include Israel, where the phrase “Never again!” resonates deeply with every citizen. It is for this reason that Israel is well armed.

    Andrew_W will never understand that. As far as he is concerned, citizens should never fear their governments, because modern liberal governments always have “good intentions.”

    You and I and most of my American readers here know however where those “good intentions” always lead, which is why we will passionately defend our 2nd amendment rights to bear arms.

  • Andrew_W

    And these new “modern” structures of governance the people need not be concerned about them? Please begin your endless list of examples of governments where the people need not be concerned.

    In America (anywhere really) its best that the government have a degree of fear of the people.
    Does the NZ Government “fear” the NZ people? Nope, the governing party simply respects the electoral system and acts within the rules of the governance structure in ways to maximize its chances of getting re-elected every three years.

    Are you suggesting that because the Maori . . . ”

    No, I’m suggesting that in terms of the relationship between the people and their government the examples of invasion by foreign powers is totally irrelevant.

    Are you asserting that a modern government is superior to older governments? . . .

    I didn’t use the word “modern”. The structure of the democratic systems we employ to control Government is important to the long term stability of countries.

    Here’s that list:
    All stable democracies, including the US.

    Syria is an example of how ineffective and costly violence is at opposing tyrannical government compared to good democratic structures, with good structures the tyrants rarely get to power, and when they do get to power people quickly work out what thugs they’ve ended up with and vote them out.

    If the world turns to chaos, when the Chinese begin to buy your politicians and they begin to get favor from your government and they start throwing you off your land because they need the minerals your sitting on, what action will you take and with what?

    That sort of paranoid fantasy doesn’t worry me because the systems in place in this country ensure that there is little corruption in NZ and bent politicians get exposed quickly and thrown out.

    Where do you think the Chinese are going . . .

    Of course there’s always the possibility of the threat from foreign powers, do you think that that threat is reduced by A. maintaining good international relations, stable government and a strong economy and military or B. Untrained civilians having .22 rifles under their beds and 9 mm handguns in the draws of their desks?

    I don’t know why you’re so keen to create boogie man scenarios, all I was interested in was getting the understanding of objective vs subjective straight.

  • Andrew_W

    The Warsaw ghetto is an example of people fighting a foreign invader, not of people rebelling against their own government. The Nazi’s were very happy to confine the Polish Jews to the ghettos for months while starvation weakened them. When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising happened in April – May of ’43 German loses were light, Jewish loses were horrific.

    All of which has no relevance to the theory that having an armed civilian population is serious obstacle to tyrannical government. I’ll put my faith in the governing structures, if they’re sound – as they are in todays stable Western democracies government rarely gets out of control, the thugs get kicked out, if they’re unsound the thugs can take over. In New Zealand we did have a thug called Muldoon, he was a bully intimidating pretty much anyone, there was an election and he lost, there was no way he could have gotten the right people to go along with him had he chosen to attempt a coup against the democratic process, the structure of the system is what kept him in check, not rifles under people beds.

    All this has no relevance to what the gun laws in America should be, I don’t care what your gun laws are. I own a couple of rifles, using them to defend democracy against some hypothetical future tyrannical NZ Government is not high on the list of uses I expect to put them to.

  • wayne

    Yow– it is a waste of time!

    Andrew– this isn’t some abstract, hypothetical, political-science, exercise.
    In the United States at least, we are citizen’s & not subject’s. We have inherent right’s, that no person or government can take away, of which include the right to Liberty & self-defense against people or governments.
    Our Local/State/Federal Government institution’s, work for us, we don’t work for them. We grant our leader’s awesome & pervasive power, in our name’s. If they cross a line, a well armed citizenry is our last defense.

    “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”
    – John Basil Barnhill
    (Often tagged to Jefferson, ‘cuz that’s something he would have said.)

  • wayne

    Andrew-
    >complete waste of time.
    Sayin’ stuff, doesn’t make it true.

  • Andrew_W

    “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”

    Are those the only two options? Can’t it simply be acknowledged that in functioning democracies Government just another institution? New Zealanders don’t fear their government, and the government doesn’t fear the people, we generally get along OK, John Key is the PM now, there’ll be a general election on or before 18 November 2018 and another one three years later.

  • Andrew_W: You remind me of my 1960s generation here in the United States. They were so naive, thinking that a “functioning democracy government was just another institution.” Similarly, many of the Jews in Germany in the early 1930s were as naive. They had nothing to fear. Government was just another institution that made sure the trains ran on time.

    In the United States, now, I am watching freedom die because too many people from my generation were like you. They could not understand that there are power-hungry evil people in the world who will use the power of government for their own ends, with sometimes horrific consequences. Instead, they saw government as a tool to make society better, not realizing that to do so required them to give government more power. The result? That power is now being turned back upon them, and solely for the benefit of the people who wield that power.

    I don’t expect you to understand this. But be warned. This sad collapse of freedom has happened many times in history. It is happening now in the United States. And it could very easily happen in New Zealand, no matter what you think. Your goal shouldn’t be to make believe it can’t happen, but to make sure it won’t so that your children can be born free and follow their dreams.

  • Andrew_W

    there are power-hungry evil people in the world who will use the power of government for their own ends, with sometimes horrific consequences.

    I completely agree with that. In a stable democracy with solid structures that resist those people they are not able to take control of Government and turn Government power against the population under normal circumstances. We have to look at dramatic events that switch the populace away from the normal democratic process, giving them excuses to allow Government to usurp the limited power the system in place allows the politicians.

    In the real world it is almost always NOT the elected politicians that cause the overthrow of those democratic structures, it’s almost always the military, the army chief or some other officer using a relatively minor act of civil disobedience or “terrorism” (is it’s used as the excuse for a coup the action is always labeled”terrorism”) to claim the country’s in chaos, and that a firm hand is needed to protect the people from the “terrorists”, “revolutionaries” whatever label is most useful to justify the military takeover.

    And guess what, if the coup is successful it’s because there’s some chunk of the population that’s keen to go along with the army in its efforts to preserve “law and order”.

    As often as not it’s those sections of society that are most in fear of chaos and civil unrest that are the first to leap to support this new, strong leadership, and usually it is that section of society that’s actually the best armed.

    If there were a situation of civil unrest in the US and, Heaven forbid, some General managed to get enough support within the military to support “restoring order” which sections of US society would be the most likely to support the Generals?

    I know such a scenario is really unlikely in the US – but it’s unlikely because of the strength of the US system of democratic governance and the respect that the vast majority of Americans have for those systems – the systems are far more important and more respected than the politicians, the generals or any other individuals.

  • Andrew_W wrote, “In a stable democracy with solid structures that resist those people they are not able to take control of Government and turn Government power against the population under normal circumstances.”

    What you can’t seem to comprehend is that democracies have repeatedly failed in history because the citizens in those democracies allowed them to become unstable, by being naive or nonchalant about the misuse of power — as you are — and thus look the other way as those “solid structures” fell apart.

    The only way to keep freedom and democracy alive is to defend it and to make no excuses for those who would corrupt it. This is the entire point of everything I and Wayne and Edward and Cotour have been trying to get you to understand, all to no avail. You remain naive and trusting, and I suspect you would continue to remain so even as jack-booted thugs came to take you away.

  • Andrew_W

    “allowed them to become unstable”, no when they fail it’s because a few people take actions with the intent of usurping the democratic process, trying to replace the elected government and managing to persuade the military and enough of the population – though a minority – that an usurpation is necessary. As long as there’s no sign of that happening I’m not worried about a risk to the democratic structure and process. I think those that argue that the Prime Minister or President’s corrupt and so should be overthrown are far and away the greater threat.

  • Andrew_W

    Those few people are easy to spot: They see enemies everywhere, and justify their anti democratic actions in the name of The Greater Good.

  • Wayne

    Well said, Mr. Z!

  • wayne

    Andrew_W–
    you appear to believe “stable democracies” are the norm in history, rather than the aberration.
    (Do you guys have a written constitution?)

    All Governments trend toward the concentration of power, always and forever. Even in your idyllic-utopian Country, there are people & Institutions ready & willing to utilize force to impose their will.

    We don’t love our Government, we tolerate it. Government has nothing except that which they take by force.
    It’s a necessary evil & one that must be constantly constrained. Constantly restrained and contained.

    We do however, love our Country and our Founding documents.

    (I might speculate you’ve been watching too many movies on America, “Seven Days in May” comes to mind…)

    On a tangent–

    Most excellent author-interview on John Batchelor this weekend (will be 3 parts, full 40 minute segments.)

    “Black Earth; Holocaust as History and Warning.”
    https://audioboom.com/boos/5117181-black-earth-the-holocaust-as-history-and-warning-by-timothy-snyder-part-1-of-3

  • Cotour

    “They see enemies everywhere, and justify their anti democratic actions in the name of The Greater Good.”

    You accurately describe Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton. Using the IRS as a political weapon out of the reach of law to disable their political enemy’s, the Justice department protecting Hillary from her blatantly illegal email server and her self dealing concerning her very own Foundation and the “donations” to it in order to garner favor and access to the State department and the potential future president, no responsibility in Bengazi, no responsibility in the Fast And Furious clearly illegal gun running into Mexico by our very own government to threaten the Second Amendment, the enriching of the enemy’s of America to the tune of billions of dollars in the name of some Leftist doctrine of “fairness”, apology and empowerment, and I could go on and on describing how our government has become the enemy of the peoples freedom and justice. New Zealand can not relate.

    This is how power in government is abused on a massive scale to the favor of one party when that party is willing to trade away its fiduciary responsibility for political advantage. It remains to be seen if the people of America will dare to rectify this condition in this coming election, its a 50/50 bet.

    And this really is how it should be, if the opposing party can not present their argument and reason to the electorate and prevail then it is their and the people who supports them failure. All government is corrupt, it can be nothing less than corrupt. It is the nature of man related to power that there will be corruption. (even in New Zealand).

    Speaking of which, not to diminish you personally but New Zealand has a population of 4.5 million, which is half of the population of the city in which I live, NYC. We could fit your entire population in Brooklyn alone. And then you have the entire rest of the population of America of 310 million or more (depending on how many illegals the present president has bused illegally into the country in order to perpetuate political domination. Another example of government abuse of power).

    China, 1.5 billion people, India 1.5 billion people, Russia 142 million, New Zealand is literally a rounding error related to numbers of population and so Andrew W’s perspective may be a bit idealistic because of it. His perspective is more related to Ice Land. Ideal places where small populations can incorrectly extrapolate their relatively comfy life experience related to power and governance.

    So taking that into consideration your perspective may be a bit idealistic and convenient, in the real world there is abuse of power and the rectifying of that abuse of power is not as easy as you portray. Not by a long shot.

    And as for the difference between “Objective”, “Subjective” and “Objectify” I think that I have thoroughly clarified my position.

    Zman: This is a very instructive exercise. Andrew W represents the best reasoning in the leftist international argument to dial down American power and the internationalization of the world and its governing. Andrew W makes his arguments and they are all IMO half measure and too idealistic, not even coming close to understanding the treachery that exists in the nature of man as it relates to power and governance. History tells us all that what Andrew W is selling is a dangerous and naive interpretation of how the world actually works. He argues for the eventual usurping of individual freedom and oppression world wide.

    So while Andrew W, who I have pointed out previously is obviously intelligent and well spoken, even at his high level he fails over and over again presenting his half baked arguments on these issues.

    I say let the conversation continue.

  • Andrew_W

    Wayne, it seems to me that you people are forever trying to pigeon hole me based on your expectations, rather than on what I actually say.

    “you appear to believe “stable democracies” are the norm in history, rather than the aberration.”

    Stable democracies originated in Europe, until recently most of the world was under colonial rule rather than self government.

    “(Do you guys have a written constitution?)”

    Not as such, procedures are written into the laws of the land, plus there’s common law.

    “All Governments trend toward the concentration of power,”

    Pretty much, certainly the size of government as a proportion of GPD has steadily increased.

    “It’s a necessary evil & one that must be constantly constrained.”

    Agreed.

    “(I might speculate you’ve been watching too many movies on America, “Seven Days in May” comes to mind…)”

    I did say: I know such a scenario is really unlikely in the US – but it’s unlikely because of the strength of the US system of democratic governance and the respect that the vast majority of Americans have for those systems – the systems are far more important and more respected than the politicians, the generals or any other individuals.

  • wayne

    “….but it’s unlikely because of the strength of the US system of democratic governance and the respect that the vast majority of Americans have for those systems – the systems are far more important and more respected than the politicians, the generals or any other individuals.”

    I would put forth the proposition– it’s unlikely, because we have 300 million guns in private hands.

  • wayne

    Cotour– good stuff!

  • Garry

    Andrew W wrote,

    “In the real world it is almost always NOT the elected politicians that cause the overthrow of those democratic structures, it’s almost always the military, the army chief or some other officer using a relatively minor act of civil disobedience or “terrorism” (is it’s used as the excuse for a coup the action is always labeled”terrorism”) to claim the country’s in chaos, and that a firm hand is needed to protect the people from the “terrorists”, “revolutionaries” whatever label is most useful to justify the military takeover.”

    There are many other ways to corrupt democratic structures than by the military.

    I think the fundamental problem is that the government gets too bloated, and starts seeing citizens as subjects instead of those to be served by government.

    A micro example – decades ago my sister was hired by the state Department of Transportation. She was tasked with approving routine permits, and faced a 6-month backlog. Turning to the task, she cleared the backlog in short order, only to be taken aside by 2 older women who worked in the office, who told her “we don’t do that here; we’ll lose our jobs if things go that easily.”

    Left unchecked, bureaucracy exists for the sake of justifying its own existence, and expanding itself.

    Before long, the expense to maintain the bureaucracy diverts a lot of capitol (human and monetary) from private enterprise, requiring the collection of more taxes. Ergo, the citizens now work to support the government, rather than vice versa.

    Just a few decades ago, those in the U.S. public sector made significantly less money than those in the private sector; now they earn about 50% more.

    As Reagan often said (I’m paraphrasing, I don’t know the exact quote): “Freedom is always potentially just a generation away from extinction.”

  • wayne

    Ronald Reagan 1961
    “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”
    https://youtu.be/SDouNtnR_IA

  • Andrew_W

    “There are many other ways to corrupt democratic structures than by the military.”

    When I say “democratic structure” I’m referring to the laws and processes through which the people select their government.

    Your example is of bureaucratic inefficiency or corruption.

    Who here thinks that their guns are going to be a useful tool in dealing with the insidious problem of government bureaucracy? We had a guy who thought his shotgun was a solution in Ashburton last year, walked into a social welfare office and killed two of the staff. Am I conversing with similar warriors for democracy here?

  • Cotour

    An expression of this internationalist / Leftists “compassionate” Obama/ Hillary / Soros think:

    http://heatst.com/politics/october-surprise-thwarted-wikileaks-cancels-highly-anticipated-tuesday-announcement-due-to-security-concerns/

  • Cotour

    That last story about Julian Assange is interesting enough, has he traded his information for a pardon from Obama? But alas I posted it by mistake in stead of this story below about the effects of illegal immigration and open borders as per Obama, Hillary and Soros and what it brings with it.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/nyregion/they-keep-finding-bodies-gang-violence-in-long-island-town-fuels-immigration-debate.html?_r=0

  • Andrew_W

    Cotour: You accurately describe Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton.

    Could be, is that going to be a reason to use your gun to try to overthrow the Government, or are you going to trust in the structure that lets you have a vote?

    our government has become the enemy of the peoples freedom and justice. New Zealand can not relate.

    Is that your opinion or an objective fact? Do the majority of other American’s think your government has become the enemy of the peoples freedom and justice? Or is it just a minority who know they can see further and more clearly than their countrymen? Is it perhaps time that that minority used their guns to return America to the true course of freedom?

    All government is corrupt, it can be nothing less than corrupt.

    Is that an objective fact or an opinion? Maybe you’re just using a very broad definition of “corrupt”. Government is not intrinsically corrupt, what its is is a Monopoly! And like any monopoly there have to be measures taken to keep it from becoming bloated and inefficient, the system we use to do that is the electoral system, which isn’t a great method for achieving that ends.

    And that is the big difference between the conservative an the Libertarian, the Conservative first blames the people to him the fault lies with the people in the government system, the Libertarian first blames the system, the fault lies not with the people, what they’re doing is looking after themselves, which is what people were designed to do. The Conservative wants to keep the system and thinks that the solution to bloated bureaucracy is to kick some people around to them those people are the enemy, the Libertarian wants to change the system so that the system keeps the bureaucracy in check through replacing the monopoly with a competitive market, the faulty system is the enemy.

  • Andrew_W

    Oops! Missed a few comma’s there.

  • Andrew_W

    Speaking of which, not to diminish you personally but New Zealand has a population of 4.5 million, which is half of the population of the city in which I live, NYC.

    I prefer to think of NZ being more like Oregon, Kentucky or Connecticut than half of NY. I think, that in terms of understanding the world I’m in a better position than you.
    When I follow the news, there NZ news and the rest of the world, for you there’s NY city news, NY state news, US national news and then World news. When things happen in the world I don’t see them so much from the perspective of how I, as a New Zealander, have a stake in that news. It’s not my country that’s being bombed or doing the bombing – an analogy, if there are three people at a fight or an argument, the two protagonists and an independent witness, whose perspective are the police most likely to trust?

    If I watch the TV news, I can watch: NZ TV3, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, RT, Fox, Australian Sky, lots of channels from different countries, when you watch the news how often do you watch something not filtered through American eyes?

    Incidentally I wouldn’t rely on Russian Television as it’s under state control, a Russian pointed me to RT the other day to prove that it was USAF A-10’s that bombed Aleppo, nor would I rely on Fox, it’s there to entertain its viewers – much like WWF Superstars of Wrestling is.

  • Cotour

    “Could be, is that going to be a reason to use your gun to try to overthrow the Government, or are you going to trust in the structure that lets you have a vote?”

    Always with the vote.

    This is where you fundamentally misunderstand the Constitution. The Constitution does not for one second suggest that change come from the barrel of a gun, but through the devised system of governance that it proscribes.

    However, the Founders, who knew well the history and nature of man and power devised a safety system in the form of arming the people in order that if and when the government became corrupted to the point where the peoples freedoms and liberty was threatened there would exist in the hands of the people a guaranteed force that could be used to wrestle their freedom back from that corrupt government. Its good that the government have a degree of fear of the people should they abandon or forget for whom they work. (they tend to over time flip that thinking. Not in New Zealand of course)

    So the rules and concepts of the Constitution are what we live by, we do not live by the gun. The Second Amendment describes a right, not given to the people by the government but as a natural extension of their being born. A right is not something that a government can take away from an American, not without adhering to the proscribed methods for doing so and with cause.

    You might ask why can the American government not take away an Americans right to own a firearm? Because, and this is the brilliance of the Founders, they argue that since the government does not grant you these rights because they are a function of being born, of existing, of their individual creation, the government can not take away what they do not grant in the first place. Human beings (Americans anyway) have the fundamental right to protect themselves, their family’s and their freedom which is entrusted to the government to protect. And that is basically what the Second Amendment is about.

    ” Do the majority of other American’s think your government has become the enemy of the peoples freedom and justice? ”

    I would have to say the majority understand that our government has become corrupted and politically perverted as evidenced by the several examples that I have listed and that you read about in the media.

    A “Libertarian” is just a confused or outraged Conservative. Libertarianism is a philosophy and not a functional form of governance. A Libertarian philosophy is essentially a New World Order type think where there are no borders and everyone lives in harmony :) (read………BS) A personal philosophy is a form of governance NOT.

  • Andrew_W

    “Always with the vote.”

    Heh, I admit I was being facetious.

    “This is where you fundamentally misunderstand the Constitution.”

    Not me, some American’s do though, the McVeigh’s of this world.

    “they argue that since the government does not grant you these rights because they are a function of being born, of existing, of their individual creation, the government can not take away what they do not grant in the first place.”

    Agreed. In reality though every society has rules it lives by, and taking away those rights: the right to use drugs, the right to earn money through prostitution, the right to gamble, are things that Governments do, Conservatives are more in favor of governments taking those rights from people than Libertarians are.

    “A “Libertarian” is just a confused or outraged Conservative.”

    Not at all, there are though some Conservatives that lean strongly towards Libertarianism.

    I’ve given my definition of Conservative, and conservatism is not even an ideology, isn’t merely supporting the present system, a resistance to change.

    “New World Order type think where there are no borders . . . ”

    Nope, that’s not what Libertarianism is about, I’m not in favor of no boarders, nor are other Libertarians.

  • wayne

    You might think NZ is “like” Oregon, but that’s a spurious comparison, on a whole number of levels. (The ones that matter the most. There’s a bit of the Seen and Un-Seen, going on.)

    “There’s a manifest marked distinction, which ill-men with ill-designs or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, and that is a marked distinction between “change” and “reformation.”

    Cotour– I commend your persistence!
    :)
    ( I pretty much bailed on engaging our NZ friend a whole lot, but it sorta resembles watching-a-car-accident, and I just can’t look away, sometimes…)
    {“It’s deja-vu, all over again.”}

  • Cotour

    “Not me, some American’s do though, the McVeigh’s of this world.”

    So you agree with the reasoning of the Founders?

    “Agreed. In reality though every society has rules it lives by, and taking away those rights: the right to use drugs, the right to earn money through prostitution, the right to gamble, are things that Governments do, Conservatives are more in favor of governments taking those rights from people than Libertarians are.

    These are not “rights”, they are rights as per your Libertarian “everyone should be able to do as they please as long as what they do does not effect another” philosophy. This where government clashes with the foundation of Libertarianism. Government (the people) make certain judgments both moral and criminal, about what is socially acceptable and what is not. In this sense Libertarianism is chaotic and unsustainable in the large social model because it fundamental fails to make these decisions and choices. It may work in the small model but not so much in the large. Libertarianism, in America anyway, is IMO fantasy for the frustrated and outraged.

    “Conservatism” in America is about reasonable moderation, smaller government, less dependence on government etc. The Left has an agenda and strategy of increasing the size of government and the peoples dependence on that large government. It is a sick and depraved and freedom stealing but successful strategy.

    The Left endeavor to create a massive legal obligation for the people and this legal obligation can never be too big. And in that bigness and obligation we have the creation of a modern form of slavery to that debt. Two polar opposites pushing and pulling to somehow move into the future. These forces have been transmuted in America where they are no longer distinguishable, they have essentially become one. This is the current perversion of the two party’s that we are dealing with.

  • Andrew_W

    “So you agree with the reasoning of the Founders?”

    Yes, I’ve no problem with the second amendment, but what was the intent?:
    “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

    or

    “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    I don’t know if that’s a reference to external or internal threats, certainly we’ve seen the world over situations in which “militia” translates to guerrilla warfare. At the time of the creation of the second amendment the weaponry carried by a civil militia was little different to that carried by regular armies, and back then the US standing army was very small, a well regulated civil militia served the role of defenders of the nation in times of peace.

    Anyway, whatever the intent it’s up to American’s to sort out amongst themselves what laws they want around fire arms and other weapons, you can all run around armed to the hilt with HMG’s, grenades and antitank weapons if that’s what American’s want, I don’t care.

    “These are not “rights” ” they’re as much “rights” in the objective sense as bearing arms, what’s it to you if one person chooses to earn money using their body to perform sporting feats while another person chooses to earn money using their body to perform other services? You’re not required to watch in either case, if sports offends you don’t watch etc.

    ” “Conservatism” in America is about reasonable moderation, smaller government, less dependence on government etc.”

    Define “reasonable”, what’s reasonable to you might be tyranny and depraved freedom stealing to another.

    “The Left has an agenda and strategy of increasing the size of government and the peoples dependence on that large government. It is a sick The Left has an agenda and strategy of increasing the size of government and the peoples dependence on that large government. It is a sick and depraved and freedom stealing but successful strategy.but successful strategy.”

    That’s according to your beliefs, not according to their beliefs. You’ll argue that your beliefs are the correct ones, they’ll argue their beliefs are the correct ones, whose right?
    Neither.

    There is no objective right size for Government, what it comes down to is recognizing that you’re all part of the same society and that if it’s the other side that controls the government after the election, well there’ll be another election in a few years, no need to get all psycho about it unless the election’s canceled – you should get all psycho if that were to happen.

    “This is the current perversion of the two party’s that we are dealing with.”

    You should sign up to Jon Goff’s advocacy of a multi-ballot system.

  • Edward

    The Warsaw Uprising is a valid example. The question was about whether being armed was effective, not about whether the defender was defending against a foreign or domestic enemy. Once again, another distraction from the topic because his point was so easily shot down.

    But, if examples of rebelling against their own government are mandatory, then every civil war is an example. Even the relatively peaceful Russian revolution in the early 1990s wouldn’t have been possible without the people – led by a politician – talking battle tank crews into supporting them instead of supporting their military commanders. Those were virtually the only arms that the civilian population had, because they had been disarmed by their own government. If they had had their own arms, perhaps their uprising could have come sooner, before the grocery store shelves were empty.

    Disarmed people must rely upon getting support from the military, but an armed population is able to put fear into government. Why does our troll think that the US government is working so hard to disarm its own population? Because they know that it is difficult to convince the military to go against the will of the government and favor the will of the people. Most military coups end up with a military-based government, not a civilian-based one.

    Of course the New Zealand government does not fear its disarmed – yet dissatisfied — Maori population. The laws that the New Zealand government follows can be as anti-Maori as they wish, nothing bad will happen to the government from their disarmed population.

    Even tyrannies can present a “good case.” In fact, that is what they usually do. It is how Germany disarmed its population, back before WWII, and convinced its population that it was acceptable to round up all the Jews and segregate them in ghettos or concentration camps. It is how FDR convinced America that it was acceptable to do the same to loyal Americans who had Japanese ancestors. Any government can abuse power or even its own Constitution, if it has one.

    Our troll’s list of “examples of governments where the people need not be concerned about ” their governments turning into tyrannies is very interesting. He states “All stable democracies, including the US.

    I don’t know what he is thinking, but he ignores history. Apparently he failed his world history classes and does not keep up with world events. Germany was a stable democracy even after it started WWII. The US is now a tyranny and one of the worst tyrannies ever. What other tyranny in all of history has had the audacity to direct its people as to how to spend their own money? The US government, through its misinterpretation of the “Commerce Clause” and the abuse of the Sixteenth Amendment, allows itself to be more tyrannical than any other tyranny in all of history.

    Our troll has even claimed that the US government starts wars, just like the tyrannical NAZIs did; imprisons a greater percentage of its people than any other country; and is more racist than most or all other countries, yet he considers it to be an example of a government that the people need not be concerned about, going so far as to emphasize it on his list. I can only wonder which version of the US he truly believes or if he continues to change his belief system in order to make yet another inaccurate, easily disproved, laughable point.

    Western democracies are clearly able to get out of control. The US is a classic example. The European Union is so out of control that Britain chose to secede from it. Just like New Zealand voted against a thug called Muldoon, California recalled an abusive governor. Just because some revolutions do not require arms does not mean that none require them.

    It would be nice if the US were able, with a single election, recover our liberty, as happened in New Zealand over Muldoon, but this has failed to happen over several elections, now, and this election will be no different.

    The American Revolution is an example of one that did require arms. None of the army, at the time, favored the revolutionaries; they all had to come from the disgruntled population. All of them. And they all needed their own arms.

    New Zealand may be like the nice, friendly place that the US was a century ago, but the US Founding Fathers knew that powerful people like to add to their power, and this is what has happened in the US over the past century – or more. We now have a president who ignores our constitution and laws, and he and the people of his administration get away with some of the most heinous things, because it is only the people of his administration that have the power to prosecute evildoers, and his administration is not prosecuting any evildoer who does evil that the president likes being done. The democratic process in America has failed, as those who are charged with keeping it stable have usurped it for their own means.

    Who here thinks that their guns are going to be a useful tool in dealing with the insidious problem of government bureaucracy?

    Me. If our Article V process fails to return liberty to our country, then We the People are the last resort to nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Without our Constitution being upheld and protected by our politicians, bureaucrats, and military, our guns are the only tools we will have.

    Is that your opinion or an objective fact?

    That our troll had to ask such a question shows that he continues to not pay attention to what is said here. He skipped right over the examples of Obama and Clinton’ abuse of government. Unless he thinks these abuses are acceptable actions in a democracy. After reading his comments, I conclude that he might find them acceptable and be wondering what we are crabbing about.

    McVeigh understood the Constitution. He chose to do evil anyway. Our troll so misunderstands the Constitution that he does not know the difference between those who don’t understand it and those who do but choose to violate it. He might even suggest that Obama and Clinton do not understand the Constitution, but they do and choose to violate it. Once again, he projects his own misunderstandings onto others. His comment: “I don’t know if that’s a reference to external or internal threats” shows that he has no understanding whatsoever of the US Constitution.

    There is definitely a wrong size for government, and most of the world suffers from huge, bloated, oversized, overbearing governments.

    So much of law is based upon what a reasonable person would do, but our troll needs the word “reasonable” defined, because he does not know. Which explains much of his unreasonable and fallacious arguments. In fact, this inability to know reasonable from unreasonable could get him excused from jury duty, in the US.

    To our troll, everyone must be as good and righteous as he is. In his world, there are no criminals to jail, no corrupt politicians, and government only makes rules that everyone likes. Well, everyone who matters, anyway. The Maori population does not fall within that set.

    Our troll is a fool. “Naïve” is not the right word. He sees democracies being abused around the world, but willfully chooses to pretend that because New Zealand is currently stable, then all other democracies must always be stable, too. Our troll is a fool.

    I know that our trolls do not have the learning power to understand that the rest of the world works differently than it does down on the sheep ranch, but there are evil people in many governments and religions around the world, because those are two of the places where power accumulates; evil likes to have power. Democracies have proved over the centuries to be unstable, requiring a lot of work by the people to prevent evil people from winning. If only our trolls were part of the good people who could do something about evil, rather than being among the people who willfully ignore the evil around them.

    Including the evil perpetrated by the Only Black Lives Matter group.

    By the way, Robert, Musillini’s “on time” trains were only on time because the time they finally arrived at the station was decreed to be “on time.” At the time, Italians – and much of the rest of the world – used the phrase as a joke.

  • Cotour

    “I don’t know if that’s a reference to external or internal threats”

    Both external and internal, there’s no reason to differentiate, a threat to the established order and system is a threat.

    “Define “reasonable”, what’s reasonable to you might be tyranny and depraved freedom stealing to another.”

    That is subjective related to the general parameters of the “Conservative” philosophy. You will know the difference between the Liberal / leftist “reasonable” agenda and the “Conservative” agenda when you compare them. Reasonable is a term that can be agreed upon by reasonable people. Your question of course reveals the weakness of your Libertarian beliefs where no one is able to make a decision related to anything because in doing so you have offended someone. Totally non functional in the context of actually governing. Some one somewhere is going to be pissed off for some reason, that does not mean that all progress must come to a halt.

    I personally do not care what an individual does with his or her body, but there are a set of moral standards which society deems at certain times to be appropriate or not appropriate. Get over it, like I said, someone somewhere is going to be unhappy. These things change over time.

    “That’s according to your beliefs, not according to their beliefs.”

    Yes, that is what I observe and interpret my observations to be leading to exactly what I said.

    Who’s right? Me. Why? Because I trust my judgment.

    And don’t think that too obnoxious, I believe that the two sides of the argument must battle and argue their points of view and from the chaos of battle comes the new reality. Again, I may not be totally pleased with the results but there it is. The battle must be had to progress.

    I will make a prediction here: The likelihood that you become more Conservative and less Libertarian is directly related to the level of welfare that you are required by your government to pay for. When you realize that your social systems are un checked and without feedback I.E. you are paying for your fellow countrymen to stay home and reproduce and you pay for their rent, and food and phones, and internet connections, and etc, etc, and your politicians are pandering to those now growing masses for their support.

    That is what is going on in America for the last 30 or 40 years as a formal Democrat party agenda, and that group of dependents become very solid supporters of those politicians that pander to them and they supply them with their votes. Now you better understand the Lefts agenda in America.

    Why does the president of the United States actively encourage illegal immigrants to flood the country? Its all about the goal of perpetual control of power through pure numbers.

    You are a Conservative in waiting. You will remember this conversation.

  • Andrew_W

    Cotour, I’ve unintentionally mislead you, my comments expressing my opinion that there aren’t goodies and baddies in the left – right debate, just people looking after their own interests and expressing their own opinions isn’t necessarily a Libertarian perspective, more a personal one. A lot of Libertarians are as one eyed and convinced that their way is the only right way as anyone.

    You’re wrong to assume that just because I acknowledge that those with different ideological perspectives aren’t corrupt or unethical does not mean that I don’t care if it’s their candidate or my candidate that wins in the ballot.

    Right Libertarians are, if anything, more against big Government than Conservatives, many of whom still like to see government supervision of the safety and moral aspects of our lives.

  • Andrew_W

    Edward: “Why does our troll think that the US government is working so hard to disarm its own population? Because they know that it is difficult to convince the military to go against the will of the government and favor the will of the people. Most military coups end up with a military-based government, not a civilian-based one.”

    Do you seriously think that? Most people on both sides of the debate are happy with the obvious explanation for the left’s preference for restrictions on gun ownership – less accessible guns supposedly leads to less killers armed with guns. I’m not arguing that that rational is correct, just that it is an honestly held belief. I’m not buying into a crackpot conspiracy theory that the motivation is to make it easier for a military takeover.

    “Of course the New Zealand government does not fear its disarmed – yet dissatisfied — Maori population. The laws that the New Zealand government follows can be as anti-Maori as they wish, nothing bad will happen to the government from their disarmed population.”

    Nope, the present right of center Government of New Zealand is coalition that includes the Maori Party, has for several years, Maori are improving their position in NZ social demographics. In this country we understand the meaning of the adage “The pen is mightier than the sword”.

    “He states “All stable democracies, including the US.” ”
    He also states: In a stable democracy with solid structures that resist those people they are not able to take control of Government and turn Government power against the population under normal circumstances. We have to look at dramatic events that switch the populace away from the normal democratic process, giving them excuses to allow Government to usurp the limited power the system in place allows the politicians.

    Dramatic events like the great depression, maybe you should brush up on your history, and more honest with your quote mining.

    Andrew: “Who here thinks that their guns are going to be a useful tool in dealing with the insidious problem of government bureaucracy? ”

    Edward: Me. If our Article V process fails to return liberty to our country, then We the People are the last resort to nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Without our Constitution being upheld and protected by our politicians, bureaucrats, and military, our guns are the only tools we will have.

    Edward apparently doesn’t get the difference between bad bureaucratic systems and the fall of the American Constitution.

  • Cotour

    “just people looking after their own interests and expressing their own opinions isn’t necessarily a Libertarian perspective, more a personal one.”

    You over and over again reveal the hole in Libertarian philosophy, it is a personal position and not a philosophy of governance. The people who identify with it, hell I identify with it, are generally reasonable and responsible people who want to be left alone. It is the Golden Rule transmogrifide into a so called political party / position. It is not either of those things.

    And all people do what is in their self interests, it is inconceivable that anything other would be true. And this goes to my example about what has been going on in America related to the social welfare system and the culture of dependency that has been crafted as per a mainly Democrat strategy and agenda to maintain their political power. You seem reluctant to either recognize or comment on this issue.

    “Right Libertarians are, if anything, more against big Government than Conservatives, many of whom still like to see government supervision of the safety and moral aspects of our lives.”

    As a general note: You seem to be agreeing with most of my positions (the ones that will will comment on anyway) . Everyone can identify with “Libertarianism” from a personal point of view, this is a temporary luxury. Where Libertarians realize that they are in fact Conservative (everyone is Conservative) is when their government begins to legally confiscate their wealth through taxation and redistributing it to others who support those politicians.

    “Social welfare has long been an important part of New Zealand society and a significant political issue. It is concerned with the provision by the state of benefits and services. Together with fiscal welfare and occupational welfare, it makes up the social policy of New Zealand.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_New_Zealand

    At what point in the future will you become a Conservative?

  • Cotour

    And to be clear so as that it not be thought that social welfare programs are not acceptable or needed for any society that can afford it. I see no problem with reasonable programs that help those in need.

    But as a general rule not to the extent where it becomes a planned part of “normal” culture of existence / dependency without some reasonable way of freeing those in need from their plight.

  • Cotour

    In addition: By speaking in support of Islam using the “Libertarian” philosophy you essentially directly or indirectly support things like this.

    http://nypost.com/2016/10/03/why-i-had-to-kill-my-sister-to-defend-our-familys-honor/

    “The killers routinely invoke Islam, but rarely can they cite anything other than their belief that Islam doesn’t allow the mixing of sexes. Even Pakistan’s hard-line Islamic Ideology Council, which is hardly known for speaking out to protect women, says the practice defies Islamic tenets.

    It doesn’t matter: In slums and far-off villages, away from the cosmopolitan city centers, people live in a world where religion is inextricably tied to culture and tradition, where tribal councils can order women publicly punished, and a family can decide to kill one of its own, even to avenge a wrongdoing committed by someone else.”

  • Edward

    The fool continues to believe that he knows more about the US, her culture and society, and her history than we who live here. He does not. He learns nothing from those who do. For most people, ignorance can be cured.

    Not for him.

  • Cotour

    Edward, the conversation is useful and revealing and I am thankful that the Zman has allowed it to continue.

  • INSOMNiUS

    It’s late into this thread, but anyway.

    The “Black lives matter” groupthink, tend to behave more like the KKK who were opposing the civil rights that Martin Luther King strived for. “To the back of the bus!” Did Martin Luther King ever do this in his protests for civil rights?
    Hell no! He gladly and sincerly welcomed all races to march with them. Everybody united for a noble cause, hand in hand.

  • INSOMNiUS

    If it wasn’t for that, white people also protesting alongside Martin Luther King, there would have been no civil rights for black people, period.

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