Best conservatism & liberalism books according to redditors
We found 525 Reddit comments discussing the best conservatism & liberalism books. We ranked the 204 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 525 Reddit comments discussing the best conservatism & liberalism books. We ranked the 204 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
It's a fake cover
Same way they made the word “Liberal” a pejorative term.
This book by George Lakoff outlines just how Republicans have hijacked the political discourse in this country and explains how to undo the bunk framing and take it back to reality. Quick and fascinating read. Check it out.
> Conservatives tend to value hierarchy
They don't just value it — hierarchy is the common factor between all conservative movements since the French Revolution.
Read the Reactionary Mind. The author goes through hundreds of years of conservatism, comparing & contrasting different movements. Many of them wouldn't get along, especially in terms of economics, social politics, governance, etc. And yet they all agree on one thing:
> Hierarchy is the natural state of society.
Now, exactly who is on top, and why they're up there... well, the different movements would argue about that too.
EDIT: clarification, thanks to u/RicketyFrigate
FWIW, since the 90s the GOP has become more and more a haven for people who score high on authoritarianism. That is partly why (probably mainly why) the GOP gets more and more insane.
People high on authoritarianism keep leaving the democrats and becoming republican. People low on authoritarianism keep leaving the republicans and becoming democrats.
People who score high on authoritarianism also tend to be dogmatic, aggressive, intolerant, irrational, and oppressive.
https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarianism-Polarization-American-Politics-Hetherington/dp/052171124X
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/10/how-authoritarianism-is-shaping-american-politics-and-its-not-just-about-trump/?utm_term=.6df3096aa889
Studies like this one Politico published have shown that Trump supporters share views that align with traditional authoritarian views: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
​
There are a few books and studies that show a correlation between conservative viewpoints and authoritarian viewpoints. This one from Hetherington and Weiler is one of them: https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarianism-Polarization-American-Politics-Hetherington/dp/052171124X In short, American conservatives and authoritarians both value obedience, an adherence to traditional norms in behavior and speech, as well as deference to elders and positions of power. American Democrats, obviously, have a strain of this but are far more likely to value individuality and personal choices at this point.
​
I don't, unfortunately, have time to pull psychology studies on the issue (psychology is mostly my area of expertise). These were google searches of existing knowledge, and hopefully acceptable to this sub. If y'all have to pull this post down I'll understand - still new to this.
Check out "The Reactionary Mind" by Corey Robin. All this hate and lawlessness are completely in line with conservatism throughout history. They will stop at nothing to preserve their status in the hierarchy. https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110
There are so many:
Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy
The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America
Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?
The Ronald Reagan Myth
The Lou Cannon book is recognized as the most thorough and scholarly:
President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime
From now on, we should sticky this at the top of all these threads.
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437
> we really need to get to the bottom of whatever pathology is causing this
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin
> Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.
>
> Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.
The person who wrote the story is Thomas Frank, but this is not the same Thomas Frank who wrote, What's the Matter with Kansas and Listen, Liberal. The latter wrote a harsh criticism of the Democratic establishment in his latest book, but the former is a corporate tool for CNN (or perhaps a former corporate tool since he has now resigned).
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
We've got a problem in our country. A deep-seated one and one that won't go away when Trump exits the public stage- whether that's 8 years, 4 years, or 2 months. Those people will still be here. Radicalized by a demagogue. And looking for "revenge" against the nonwhites who they've been propagandized to believe are the roots of all their problems. And deeply unhinged. They saw what power they had. I'm watching Trumped-a documentary that revisits the utter craziness of the 2016 presidential election- a stirring reminder of just how far Trump crossed the line in vulgarity, how comically inept he was at the debates, etc. and yet they willed him into office.
Sometimes it seems that a demagogue has gotten so into the heads of his followers, that they are so far gone in terms of what they're tolerate and what they'll believe (ie: conspiracy theories) that ordinary people are at a loss for how to even talk to such people. (let's not forget Voltaire's quote “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”)
Whites have always been a proud people and with the right agitation, history shows it doesn't take much before their violent instincts get the best of them. We shouldn't go to sleep on this tendency of theirs.
And it's not some mentality that is restricted to the low-class mouthbreathers; there are people like Michael Flynn (national security advisor to the White House) and Steve Bannon (chief strategist - White House) who are not 'garden-variety conservatives'. They are also believers in the creed of supremacy and have this notion that white self-restraint in the past has harmed America (which they say publicly) and has harmed "goodhearted American people" (white people) which they are more coy about but believe just as much. (these concepts of white 'self-restraint' and 'victimization' are largely fiction, but they are foundational to their worldview; it justifies their outlook which paints a dark picture of nonwhites- their being problems and threats). I strongly advise people read George Lakoff and how he talks about "framing"; his book "Don't Think of an Elephant" is a short read but a terrific primer on linguistics in politics; summarizing here: Once you use language that convinces your audience that Person X or Group Y is villainous, you can attack them with impunity; the crowd will be indifferent of even supportive. No one will object to your 'defending' them from an aggressor.).
What this re-emergent white supremacist movement's rank& file and leadership both share is a 'persecution complex'. People are very dangerous when they have this perception. They will do things in this mode that they wouldn't ordinarily do if they viewed things like geopolitics in an objective way. It's not a sober evaluation of cause and effect; they see it as Action or Death. Once they whip themselves into this frenzy, where they completely distort reality, flip it on its head, and in their newly constructed funhouse-mirror of the world- nonwhites are 'taking advantage' of whites who are now the Victim- seemingly nothing is off the table in terms of "self-defense". A victim sees himself as willing to use "whatever means are necessary" to stop the "abuse". Trump and Co. have used precisely this language with regards to Mexico and China. Trump has said China is "raping" the US. This is not the language of a statesman; it's the language of someone who wants to sway the people into giving him maximum flexibility to "retaliate". And when it happens, as is our practice, unilateral aggression will be packaged as "self-defense".
To be fair, he's hardly the only one.
In 1969 someone wrote a book called The Emerging Republican Majority that correctly predicted coming Republican dominance due to demographic changes. And the book was quite right when you look at presidential contests. From 1968 to 1988 Republicans won 5 out of 6 presidential elections. And the 1 they lost (Carter, 1976) they only narrowly lost.
In 2004 someone wrote a book called The Emerging Democratic Majority, making much the same prediction based on demographic changes. Sure Bush later won reelection that year, but the exit poll numbers only reinforced the author's point about how the GOP was losing in growing demographic groups, and hence likely to struggle more at winning elections.
These kinds of demographic changes DO NOT mean it's impossible for one party to win the white house however. Only that until demographics or voting behavior starts changing significantly that one party will struggle more at winning national elections.
To say that demographics mean Democrats will control the government for the next 4 or however many decades goes too far.
This is a caricature built to fit a fictional worldview you and the protesters have formulated. They want to blame President Obama for violating the promise he made to those who voted for him -- but they're too afraid to do so, and perhaps rightfully so.
Wall Street trembled when President Obama was elected. The DJIA -- which is not a good indicator of the economy as a whole, but is a great indicator of the health of the banking industry -- tumbled for days after he was elected. Obama, the populist candidate, was not very likely to continue their bailouts. Instead, it was windfall taxes on the horizon. Bad news for banks.
But of course, that didn't happen. It didn't happen because President Obama lacked the courage to do it after pushing through his health care agenda. It didn't happen the GOP-controlled Senate is uncompromising. It didn't happen because the banks threw millions at lobbyists etc. in hopes of preventing it. It didn't happen because many economists thought that the problem was a liquidity crisis, which requires strong banks to fix. It didn't happen for a bundle of reasons.
Republicans are typically in two or three camps. The first one -- Perry/Palin/Bachmann one -- don't really give a rat's ass about the economy. They trot out the belief that the banks aren't the problem, but rather, Federal spending is, but really, they don't care about spending. They'll spend on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and if it were GWB in the White House, Libya too); on rounding up immigrants and sticking them on a boat; and on anything else which pushes their social agenda. They'd bail out banks if it were politically prudent -- it just isn't right now. But they want to cut NPR because it's "too expensive." Garbage.
The second one -- the Paul/Johnson camp -- is honestly anti-spending, and wouldn't have bailed out banks, even if it were the right move. The ideology is low taxes, low spending. They aren't in the bank's pocket, but come off as such because their ideology would allow for a rampant, unchecked banking system.
(Who knows where Mitt Romney sits; only the wind, I'd say, knows for sure.)
The problem for the protestors is simple: they want to point the finger at President Obama and the Democratic leadership -- but they can't, because the GOP alternatives are worse. They want to be able to say, hey, President Obama, when we voted for you, when we donated to your campaign, when we were the grassroots amplifiers which got you elected, we did so because you promised us you'd change things. Hope. Change we can believe in. Can we get there? Yes we can. How? He asked us to believe in our ability to bring change, with him as the vessel.
And he failed.
And that's what the protestors want to say. They want to say "Didn't you promise us an end to Iraq and Afghanistan?," for example, but they can't, because they know if they start pushing at Obama, he'll weaken, and they do not want to help Rick Perry become the next inhabitant of the White House. So instead, they find a scapegoat: Wall Street and big corporations.
It's not the banks fault here -- at least, no more than anyone else's. And if anything, at least the banks are being honest in their self-servicing acts -- no one among them claims that they're doing anything more than rent seeking. I do not think you can say that for our politicians.
The lie started taking over the party when this book was published. After 2004 they more-or-less gave up reaching out to the white working class in favor of trying to turn growing minority communities (Muslims, Latinos) into another captive Democrat voting bloc like the black community.
The two books Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer and Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank pair extremely well and are required reading for anyone that wishes to understand how US politics has been shifted so far to the right these past decades. Dark Money, while extremely informative regarding the propaganda of billionaires, largely gives a pass to the Democratic party which Listen, Liberal reveals as being undeserved.
> FUCK TRUMP
There's a book that was just released, written just for you! Check it out on amazon!
Right now it's in Bernie's head and soon to be in his computer. The release date is Nov 13^th.
As for his other works, here's what you can do:
Step 1: Go to your local library's contact page (now is a good time).
Step 2: Contact them and ask them to order copies of:
> Where Do We Go From Here ISBN 978-1250163264
> An Outsider in the White House ISBN 978-1784784188
> [Our Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Revolution_(book) ISBN 978-1250132925
> The Speech: On Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class ISBN 978-1568585536
> * Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution ISBN 978-1250138903
Step 3: Smile that public funds are supporting the political revolution and disseminating our message.
Step 4: Pass on the idea if you think it worthwhile.
Step 5: Lean into standing up, exercising your voice, and fighting for what you believe in.
His whole gimmick is about how terrible liberals are. He even wrote this book about it. I have no doubt that he has nothing for disdain for people like me.
Ben Shapiro embodies everything I am trying to say in this thread. He has no respect for liberals and he only wants to prove himself right. Conservatives need better representatives for their movement. Even Antonin Scalia, as you mentioned, had at least a modicum of respect for the other side.
But when the conservatives that come to universities are like Ben Shapiro, I am not remotely interested in hearing their ideas.
I'm not exactly sure what your view to change here is, but I'll take a stab at your causality by inserting a step before the "the sides don't understand each other so they fight against and demonize straw men," point.
This may CMV - it may not - but the problem isn't ignorance of the other side so much as each side is driving it's own narrative that is intentionally wrong. To borrow from Ronald Reagan, "The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." Reagan was talking about the left, of course, but you could just as easily levy the same attack against the right.
So... it's not ignorance of the other side that's the problem, it's rather a false understanding of the other side in the worst possible terms. It's not accidental; it's intentional.
And it's the inevitable consequence of the application of post-modernism to the political system. This is laid out wonderfully in "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff. This book, which has been essential in shaping left-leaning politics for about 20 years now is all about framing and context. The central thesis is that Truth (with a capitol T) doesn't exist and that truth is whatever people think it is. Therefore, the left must re-frame the debate to it's own ends, developing it's own metrics of success and failure and (this is key) never accepting the right on it's own rhetorical ground. The right is also building on it's own framing paradigms, such that and the end of the day, the left and the right can talk about the same basic issues without actually talking about the same thing at all.
You see this in campaigns where each campaign seeks to "define their opponent" on their own ground rather than to let their opposition define themselves and meeting on that ground.
In summation, I think your point is correct, in as far as it accurately describes the situation, but I think what you describe is a symptom rather than a cause and that the cause is political sophistry designed to prevent the left and the right from finding common ground.
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lol. no way I could do it justice... thanks!
I like bobswern's comment where he politely suggests kos take a sabbatical and give all this some more thought. Im tempted to pile on and tell markos to log off DKOS, turn off MSNBC for a week or two and go read a few good books. Go hole up or have a few drinks with Meteor Blades maybe, heh.
start with this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
Im sure we collectively could come up with a pretty good reading list for him lol
That is an excellent question. I think it requires diligence, pointing out the lie each and every time you hear it, and being fearless in doing so. The liar will profess instant indignation and threaten legal action, so courage is required.
Being careful of what is being said is also important. "Tax relief", for example, is a loaded term, making taxes sound like a sort of punishment, when in reality they are the necessary fees that keep society running, like the membership fees of a gym. You pay your fees, you get something useful in return, like a stable society.
George Lakoff called this "framing the debate" and wrote an interesting book called Don't Think of an Elephant! about this.
I like the customer images myself.
Bill Burr was right. Most of these people are just the arrival of the everyone gets a trophy generation. They stand on their soapbox, high on their self-perceived virtue. Meanwhile, they are shutting down free speech and rational, open discourse.
The 'students' (if you want to call them that) need to read their history or try these books to give them some better insight:
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change
This book chronicles the overall nature, roots, and definition of Fascism. The definition one may find in the dictionary is not what you may find it to be, within the context of history and reality. It documents the popularity of fascism within communities of the arts (screenplay, music, acting, etc.) and how it was widely accepted specifically within counter-culture movements, which I think is ironic.
Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans
No one else has mentioned it. "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff talked greatly about how James Dobson and Focus on the Family moved Evangelical Christianity into a wealth=moral fortitude type of mentality. The idea that God only allows the people who are upright Christians to be successful and wealthy is one they capitalized upon and were able to use that value-speak to cause a lot of people who often voted with the Democrats (particularly the blue-collar labor class in the South and Midwest) to side with the Republicans.
You should read this -
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717
words matter.
Ah, the ol' conservative tactic of accusing others of the thing that they're guilty of.
The Reactionary Mind has more examples from the past 300 years
I think I disagree with your answer, because I understand the OP's question slightly differently, and I'm therefore not quite convinced by the reasons you provide .
As I understand the OP, he asks whether the two-party system makes tribalism (ie. us.vs.them) more salient. Otherwise, the question wouldn't make much sense. Tribalism is probably innate, in the sense of "prepared for certain experiences", since it can be triggered by arbitrary differences.
If so, whoever claimed that a two-party system has a moderating effect didn't think hard enought.
Assuming that in every population people are normally distributed on a conservative-progressive scale, there will always be two parties fighting for the center – at least if they act economically (ie. rationally), and they assume peope vote for the party closest to their own preference.
Suppose an extreme third party manages to survive (in terms of making enought money for its politicians to make a living). Such an extreme party will persuade some voters on the extreme left or right. Let's say left for the sake of the argument. This weakens the left center party, obviously, but will it move to the left to (re-)gain voters?
Probably not, for every step to the left in search for profit (in terms of left voters) will have costs in terms of voters on the center. Given a normal distribution of voter preferences, any step to the left will have high costs (loosing many voters close to the center), while the profits are low (gaining only a few voters close the left extreme).
Of course, that's just a model but it describes the basic current political landscape in Germany.
Concerning whether the two party model in the US makes tribalism more salient: Some research indicates that it does. For examples, see "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America" by Fiorina et.al.
For instance, according to surveys, the US public is not really divided on the issue of abortion. There's a majority to make abortion on demand legal in the first trimester, and to make it illegal in the third trimester. If I recall correctly, the second trimester is kind of fuzzy but the differences are not that high.
It's only people with extreme views (illegal vs. legal under all circumstances) who make this an on-going political issue in the US. In other words, given only two options, people on the extreme sides have more influence on the center than they otherwise would have.
Note that almost all European countries have mostly settled the issue decades ago.
Don't Think of an Elephant is by a cognitive scientist and psycholinguist named George Lakoff. Whether or not you agree with his politics, I've found it incredibly useful to know how to bait audiences into making assumptions.
The general thesis is that people organize their concepts into "frames," or categories that help us make sense of complicated ideas. But many of these ideas can exist in more than one frame, so when people evoke a specific frame instead of another, they can subtly guide your thinking by introducing a new semantic context and perspective.
So much of Act One requires the audience to simultaneously 1) know that the protagonist has a flaw, 2) secretly agree with the misguided belief behind that protagonist's flaw, 3) not know how to defeat that belief, and 4) be enticed into learning how to defeat the wrong belief. Though #1 an #2 seem mutually exclusive, knowing how to lure audiences into adopting incorrect frames can allow you to highlight cognitive dissonance in the audience, which you then correct over the course of the protagonist's adventure.
Further, knowing when leaders or organizations are trying to manipulate you into accepting incorrect frames can be a big indicator that other people are being misled also. So you can be "Mr. prescient hot-button writer guy" when you write a movie about the issue that "says all the things I was thinking, but didn't quite know how to say."
That's interesting. I might want to pick up those for entertainment because a lot of previous election proposals have been really hard to find.
Edit: Obama 2008 for example seems to have one. Romney 2012 (although this seems much worse quality -- little snippets from speeches and stuff)
The book that originated the theory.
This should be mandatory reading for any aspiring political analyst. Too many people read the book and concluded that since demographics would allow democrats to win no matter what, they could abandon the center and push whatever the base wanted without consequence. Trump unfortunately is the consequence of not reading the book more closely.
MANDATORY READING
https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Earth-Restoring-Country-after/dp/1455568244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478368870&sr=1-1&keywords=scorched+earth
The two books i've read are The Political Mind and Don't Think of an Elephant. He is a congitive linguist who wrote a lot about metaphor and framing, and how the Right has effectively framed every major issue in their own terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff
His ideas aren't radical or world changing, but the Dems really shun him (i think over some personal spats... like, he disagreed with Rahm Emmanuel once (a plus in my book) and also with Steven Pinker (more plus), so they don't like him). Not that if they listened to him they'd win all elections, but maybe they'd do a little better?
I'm interested in him because, so far as i've read, his explanation for why Republicans voters vote for Republicans is the only one that makes sense. "Why do they vote against their interests" leaves out that they are voting for their values, even when those values are against their interests.
But, i dunno, maybe he's way off base and that's why no one listens to him. Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts.
You might be interested in a short read called "Don't Think of an Elephant". The author is a linguist and he looks at how Republicans manipulate language as a means to an end. He addresses your question to some extent.
We're not nearly as divided as we sometimes think we are when looking at the wingnuts on both sides. Most people don't hold the extreme opinions on issues like gun control, taxation, or abortion that the fringe always ascribes to society as a whole.
Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy
Under the book cover there is a "Listen".
It's mostly just him ranting about the left and how silly they are for having triggered words and how awesome Trump is.
https://www.amazon.com/Triggered-Left-Thrives-Wants-Silence/dp/154608603X
Kamala Harris let fucking Steve Mnuchin go when there was a mountain of evidence that he was a corporate criminal. Harris was also the only Democrat to receive a campaign contribution from Mnuchin and his criminal enterprise One West Bank. Now that crook is Trump's treasury secretary.
Get the Book "Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank. He lists the crimes of the Clintons and Obama in detail and Frank is a well know liberal himself. It may open your eyes.
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
Actually George Lakoff is not praising them for doing this at all! He founded a progressive think tank to try and COUTNER this framing, and wrote a book about it called Don't Think Like an Elephant (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931498717/103-8161085-8388602?v=glance&n=283155)
> It always sets off alarm bells to see Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Prof. Weinstein, and Hirsi Ali get lumped in with conservatives - even though all of these people are liberal, and most are very liberal.
Conservatism by definition is the defense of hierarchy against leftist movements. The main political split in Western societies is between those who think hierarchical domination should be minimized or abolished, and those who believe it is natural, inevitable, and glorious. If they are defending an ethnic, gendered, or economic hierarchy of any kind, then they are doing conservative politics.
Book link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553447556/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0
Shitreviewing
They have an incentive to. It seems to be working.
Also, this passage, I'm told, got a standing ovation at the end of it:
> But now we are being tested again by a new wave of immigration larger than any in a century, far more diverse than any in our history. Each year, nearly a million people come legally to America. Today, nearly one in 10 people in America was born in another country; one in 5 schoolchildren are from immigrant families. Today, largely because of immigration, there is no majority race in Hawaii or Houston or New York City. Within 5 years, there will be no majority race in our largest State, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States.
For younger folks interested in politics, I highly recommend the book, Tear Down This Myth by Will Bunch. It will help you to understand where we are today as Reagan ushered in the Neocons. It's a fairly quick easy read.
https://www.amazon.com/Tear-Down-This-Myth-Right-Wing/dp/1416597638
I've heard several people call Liberalism a Mental Disorder, I've seen it on bumper stickers. In fact, someone wrote a book with that exact title.
Even so, I'd say that an ideology that promotes the belief, for example, that we should not all have to work 40+ hours every week to have a decent life is not the same as having a compulsive behaviour preventing someone from accomplishing what they require for basic needs. For one, a belief is not the same as a behaviour.
We need a trust circle in which the party, activists, and the average voter can engage in dialog and support. A philosophical stalemate between activists and the Idaho Democratic Party has led to a total communication breakdown. The average citizen has given up completely as they know the Democratic Party serves only millionaires and up. The activist resent the IDP for their greed, ineptitude, and frank reluctance to show any support for FDR's values.
The IDP refuses to acknowledge that neoliberalism has failed utterly and completely. The party base continues on roaring into the void while the IDP declines to support what might have been their best field organizers. Unfortunately the IDP has been hooked on the D.C. money funnel for so long they fail to see they have lost all credibility by supporting the DNC. If the IDP were to turn off the tap and start having faith in the citizens to provide for their economic well being they might turn things around. They dare not become accountable to the majority. The simple math determines that pleasing a wealthy minority easier and more profitable then attempting to solicit funding from the cash strapped average citizens. Politics have become a safe career to leach money from the upper crust, see Sally Boyton Brown skipping town.
The enthusiasm among the citizens for the IDP has bottomed out due to the radical differences in finical desires. Idaho's majority individuals lives in poverty or near poverty.. The average the median per capita income for Idaho was $24,273 in 2015. You need at least 30k to stop living pay check to pay check per person. The citizens want healthcare, green jobs, education and social security. The IDP waits in vain for a Idaho millionaire/billionaire to help build the "collation of the ascendant" that will never come to Idaho and what little was here has begun to crumble.
The Democrats for the past 40 years have been slowly dismantling the FDR values that brought them easy votes for multiple generations. They have become lazy and spoiled expecting the working class to keep blindly heaving them over the finish line. The working class well has finally run dry, see the 2016 Presidential elections. Now we face an impasse, do we burn down the crooked orchard and start again or do we try to prune down the twisted roots put down by the neoliberal elite?
The answer is neither. The IDP needs radical restructuring so as to knock out the hierarchical leadership. All party decision should return to directly to precinct captains. As in precinct captains act as a virtual house of representatives that elect a virtual senate made of the district leadership. The senate elects a party leader. Why add all this crazy complication to the political machine?
It's not about free speech. Stop accepting that framing.
*This arguments is obviously less applicable to situations where they really are just sticking to speech, which is worth thinking about. Kinda a whole other can of worms I'm not really ready to get in to.
The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin
Check the amazon reviews on her book
check out the reviews for this pile of shit book. Cannot believe she is even considered a so called 'journalist'
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/0553447556/ref=mw_dp_cr
It's gotten much worse. Reagan/Bush I were pretty much the last civil presidencies. Once Clinton came into office, the right-wing started to lose their collective minds. Fun note, I was one of them, I thought Clinton was the embodiment of the anti-christ. I wanted soooo badly to see him impeached. I listed to all the rhetoric. Now, later, that I have matured and lost my religion, I am aghast at how bad things are.
Anyhow, from Clinton, where the right was off the rocker, to Bush II where the left was off the rocker(though, again in retrospect, not without reason). When we went from a Good White Evangelical Christian(TM) to a "Black Muslim", the right-wing completely lost their mind. It's funny, early in the Obama presidency, Janet Napolitano came out with a report, essentially saying that with a black president, we would see a rise in right-wing hate groups and violence. She was absolutely excoriated, it was vicious and un-called for. She was forced to retract the report and apologize. Here is some coverage from WND(World Net Daily), admittedly one of the worst of the right-wing bigot sites, but none-the-less, its there:
http://www.wnd.com/2009/04/95619/
Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/15/chorus-protest-grows-report-warning-right-wing-radicalization/
Heres a much later report talking about EXACTLY that happening:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/number-of-us-hate-groups-on-the-rise-report-says.html
The polarization of the nation, has a lot to do with Fox News, Right-Wing web sites proliferating and pointing to one another as evidence of truth. They have created their own reality.
It's quite amazing to watch. Just look at how they are bending over backwards, without evidence either way, to make George Zimmerman innocent of anything. A man pursues a 17-yr old kid, 100 lbs smaller than him, somehow ends up on the ground, getting his ass kicked, he shoots and kills the kid and it is justified. If you were to look at only right-wing web sites you would think Trayvon was 240 lbs and just short of killing George Zimmerman when he had no choice, but for his very life, to react by killing the kid. Its quite disgusting really.
Having been a republican, registered and voting, for more than 20 year. I am completely disgusted with what the republican party has become. I am now registered as a Independent because I cannot fathom calling myself a republican at this point, its like a 4 letter word. The republicans scare me. In fact, Im reading a book you might want to take a look at called "Conservatives without Conscience". It is really eye-opening about the thought process of our conservative brethren.
Edit: spelling/grammar
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/1455501441
Educate yourself
Here is a good book on the Bullying in social justice and more
You're still failing to respond... still waiting for an intelligent and rational argument here. Let me recommend you a book, because it is exactly what is going on to you.
What makes this even funnier is how you aren't even an American, just a sad troll.
> Liberalism is literally a mental disorder.
SAVAGE
"With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America." https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
And the Dems are not listening to us. On the contrary, the money of the privileged class is speaking.
A good explainer. http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462717848&sr=1-1&keywords=listen+liberal
How much time do you have? If you have enough time, I’d recommend this book. It’s a little older but it’s the only one by Lakoff that I’ve personally read. It’s a very quick read and great help. There’s a book on a essentially the same topic by Frank Luntz and the thought of my money going to Luntz kinda makes me wanna puke but there’s no denying he’s effective at messaging. At the end of the day (and also sadly) facts won’t effect influence unless you can effect emotion from your message. That’s what the book is about.
Edit 1: Best of luck buddy!
Edit 2: If you don’t have enough time, or if you want a second pair of eyes, feel free to send me what you’re planning to say and I’ll use my experience with this to help. Just PM and we can work out the deets
george lakoffs book "dont think of an elephant" is an inexpensive, short, easy-to-read book that explains how language has been hijacked by the neo-cons, and what liberals can do about it.
A++++ would read again.
> effective blocksize increase
"Effective blocksize increase" isn't too bad. Presuming that "blocksize increase" is the same thing as "effective blocksize increase" is what I'm objecting to. Perhaps you were just misreading Bitcoinopoly, or perhaps you were just abruptly disagreeing with his terminology, I don't know.
> before you started proposing "capacity increase"
I'm just following Greg Maxwell's terminology on that. I think he was being very careful in how he worded things in order to avoid ambiguity and confusion, and I appreciate his effort.
> cut-through transactions like Lightning
Interesting term. That's an improvement, thanks.
> You seem remarkably paranoid and quick to jump to negative conclusions.
Sorry, it maybe comes from being American. Politics in the USA are full of calculated use of [language and framing in order to direct debates] (http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-The-Progressives/dp/1931498717). I took enough classes as an undergrad to know how important these kinds of effects can be, and my cognitive science background makes it hard for me to not notice when these kinds of effects are occurring and potentially becoming significant. In this case it was probably unintentional.
JtO's response seems to me the sort of emotion-laden bombast that you'd find from many political commentators. I don't think he has the reach of impact of a Glenn Beck or Andrew Sullivan, but the tactics aren't dissimilar and they do seem to work by shifting the Overton window.
I sometimes think that the most useful information many people here could learn is standard political issue framing. Pick up George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant and give it a read (don't panic if Lakoff doesn't mesh with your personal political stripe - the tactics are agnostic and the book examines which ones tend to be used by which side in a pretty even-handed way).
This is a political fight, and in political fights, words matter. Learning how to use them effectively forges your metaphorical linguistic sword and shield for that battle.
Read Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank for the full history. The abbreviated version is that the professional, managerial class sympathetic to corporate interests took over the party about 50 years ago and decided to ignore and even antagonize the party's traditional labor base, assuming (rightly) they would have nowhere else to go and could be placated by being threatened to keep voting Democrat or things would be worse under Republicans. Bill and Hillary are the culmination of this transformation of the party
>It seems to me that the gist of conservatism relies on two things, (1) mistrust of a priori (utopian) reasoning and revolutions, (2) and trust in incremental changes by past experiences and wisdom.
If you one day feel like challenging this conception of yours, i recommend taking a look at the book The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin by Corey Robin.
I know what you're referring to, but that's not what I meant. This Reason article sums it up nicely, and this book by Marc Hetherington also address this, from a time well before Trump and this idea that only R's are that way.
From my own personal experience with liberal or conservative friends, there are some on both sides who like this tough approach. It does tend to be more obvious on the Right, but that's more due to age I think. It seems most younger people of any political affiliation - in my experience - tend to reject authoritarianism. YMMV of course
Don't forget to leave your own review! https://www.amazon.com/Barons-Beltway-Washington-Elite-Overthrow/dp/0553447556?ie=UTF8&SubscriptionId=AKIAJBDF5XQBATGDX4VQ&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0553447556&linkCode=xm2&tag=spea06-20
I also strongly recommend former Professor of Psychology Bob Altemyer's books, The Authoritarians (2006) and The Authoritarian Specter (1996). Altemeyer is the person who developed the RWA scale and test.
I also recommend former White House Counsel John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience (2006) and Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain: The Science of Why they Deny Science--and Reality (2012), both of which make extensive use of research on Right-Wing Authoritarian personality orientation.
> This is rationalism?
Reading people who have object- and meta-level views you may disagree with? Yes. I wouldn't hesitate to read The Emerging Democratic Majority if I were interested in their methodology as opposed to just a couple of soundbites that I heard repeated elsewhere in the blogosphere when the book first came out.
The Dems did abandon the white working class, or at the very least were in the process of doing so. I will give no specific policy evidence for this but will give an underlying truth. We had the emerging Democratic majority. We had "the jobs arent coming back mantra", we had the deplorables, we had record immigration(both legal and illegal), we had proposed amnesties for illegals, we had identity politics coming out of our ears, we had race and ethnic baiting. All this with an eye on the electoral advantage to the Democrats. All this to ensure the soon to be Dem Majority. Even if you disagree with the above I think you have to admit the emerging Democratic Majority had some influence on how Dems had been playing politics recently.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783
If you look at the "Items mentionned in these reviews" column on the right, you get an extra chuckle for free!
http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Plumber-Fighting-American-Dream/product-reviews/0976974037/ref=cm_rdphist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has a $158 billion question for the wealthiest person in the world. “Jeff Bezos and his company, Amazon, make huge profits by paying their employees wages that are so inadequate that many of them need public assistance just to get by,” the senator says. “How absurd is that?” But try to ask Sanders why he’s set to sell his upcoming book, “Where We Go from Here,” on Amazon and you won’t get an answer.
What a terrible article. So because Bernie wants Amazon and other companies like them to pay their employees a fair wage and not rely on public assistance, he's not allowed to use their platform? He never said Amazon should not exist. This is absurd.
It's like saying Democrats or Republicans want to change the minimum wage - yet they still eat at restaurants paying their servers a different minimum than their proposal? Gotcha!!!! Checkmate for the low effort thinkers.
Michael Savage is a prophet.
https://smile.amazon.com/Scorched-Earth-Restoring-Country-after/dp/1455568244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474194455&sr=8-1&keywords=scorched+earth
SCORCHED EARTH
The man has been saying this for 8 years.
Ben Shapiro wrote a book about this.
https://www.amazon.com/Bullies-Culture-Intimidation-Silences-Americans/dp/1476710007
Like... generally or lately? I'm fairly involved in politics and haven't really seen anyone beyond the usual few calling for impeachment.
Generally speaking, some people say his executive actions are too overreaching. There's also been a lot of questionable events under his watch, from the IRS scandal, the EPA scandal, Benghazi, and intentionally sabotaging Fox's and employees. They are exacerbated further by intense stonewalling and uncooperative.
The layman's explanation is abuse of power, multiple scandals, and lying. It's an oversimplification, but close enough.
This book summary does a decent job in my opinion.
http://www.amazon.com/The-People-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138
Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions
Father's day is coming up, OP should get his dad a copy of Michael Savage's book, Liberalism is a Mental Disease
Brainwashed by Ben Shapiro
Ben’s at it, too. With FACTS and LOGIC!!!!1!!11!
>Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth Paperback – June 14, 2010
>Brainwashed is the explosive exposé of the leftist agenda at work in today's colleges, revealed by firebrand Ben Shapiro, a recent UCLA gratudate, syndicated columnist, and one of today's most exciting new conservative voices, who's been on the front lines of the battle for America's young minds. This book proves once and for all that so-called higher education continues to sink lower and lower into the depths of liberal madness as close-minded professors turn their students into socialists, atheists, race-baiters, and sex-crazed narcissists.
Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank
>Also Clinton supporters being right wing? I don't see it, like Trump supporters most Clinton supporters are coming straight from Obama and I don't see how they're right wing.
From a modern American perspective, no. But from a global perspective yes. It used to be very different, in FDR's time for example. People did fight against his social-democrat policies, but they were adopted and widely popular. I mentioned how the John Birch Society shifted the Republicans to the right, and that's where things started to change. After McGovern's loss and, later, 12 years of Reagan and his VP being massively popular somehow, Democratic leaders assumed that they couldn't win by appealing to the left (which ignored the other circumstances surrounding McGovern's loss and Reagan's win). When they got back into power it was with Bill Clinton, who explicitly pursued a centrist agenda (he called it "triangulation") that included dismantling/privatizing the welfare state (welfare reform), expanding the police state and deregulating the financial industry (Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000). And these are all positions which were considered right-wing in the pre-Bill Clinton era. Now fast-forward to Obama, who has basically pursued the same foreign policy as Bush II, and whose central accomplishment is a bill which is an altered form of a healthcare-reform idea proposed by the far-right Heritage Foundation, and he is basically being attacked as a secret communist by Republicans. Frankly, it's rather insulting to the communists to group Obama with them.
(The book Listen, Liberal discusses in more detail how the Democratic Party moved to the right, if you're curious in reading further into this.)
>the real problem that we both should be against is the current corrupt people in power which is why a lot of people support Trump's promises to get rid of the people dividing us further for their own gain.
His proposals for lobbying reform and term limits aren't bad actually. But his proposed cabinet is, well, it's certainly a change from Democratic corruption but not the good kind. The people he's proposing are mostly distinguished by loyalty rather than actually fitting their position (lol Ben Carson), most of them have conflicts of interest based on their business histories, and most of them are big donors to the Trump campaign. Is any of this unusual for a Presidential cabinet? Well, not really, but it doesn't inspire hope about Trump actually wanting to address corruption more than nominally. And maybe he won't appoint any people with connections to the right-wing's favorite boogeymen such as Soros (though Mnuchin is a close Soros associate so... lol) but for every Dem-aligned billionaire rigging the system in their favor there's a Republican one doing the same thing. There's the Kochs, ALEC, and so on. Corruption isn't a Dem-only thing. When businesses spend billions to elect their stooges, that's an assault to democracy, doesn't matter which party's doing it (as I've said, the two parties are not too different in their goals at this point). But I never see Trump supporters worry about the Kochs or ALEC, oddly. I think that they're using anti-corruption as a cover for partisanship, ultimately.
If anti-corruption reform does happen, it's not going to occur thanks to politicians and businesspeople who've benefited from it. You can't use the system to change the system. Big money is the problem. And capitalism more broadly is the problem. Electing someone who'll just put the big businesses in power directly, rather than having them go through middlemen, isn't a solution in my opinion. If you want to get shit done, you do it through a mass movement and direct action. The civil rights and women's rights movements didn't succeed because they elected the right people, they succeeded because they essentially used sheer manpower (or, womanpower in the latter case) to make the government change shit. That's real democracy, IMO.
I have noticed that when existing moral or cognitive categories/structures are challenged, people tend to regress to more basic ones. So even as many people have embraced liberal human rights ideas, such as gender equality and dignity for QUILTBAG (LGBTQIA+), many others are in a backlash as they pull back to try to find something that they can understand and rely on, and that tends to be more simplified power and authority structures where big/loud=strong.
George Lakoff described some of this thinking in Don't Think of an Elephant.
You might be thinking of George Lakoff's Don't Think of An Elephant (2004). I searched the wiki of episode guests from 1999 - 2006, but Lakoff doesn't appear. He has written many books over 40 years, has lots of interviews on youtube; plenty of material to sink your teeth into.
If Lakoff wasn't what you were searching, maybe he'll be a good substitute.
source: http://coreyrobin.com/2016/02/27/why-you-should-never-listen-to-the-pundits/
...in case anyone wants to sign up for Corey's email updates—they're a goldmine (he's the author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin)
> I've met plenty of conservatives who don't see anyone as inferior.
It's not usually explicit, that specific people are inferior. But the ideology believes that the "better" people should control the lessers in various spheres in society. Great related book here: https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110
> nowadays you won't see anyone on National Review or so implying someone is less worth.
https://newrepublic.com/article/131583/national-reviews-revolt-masses
Regarding the polarization part, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America is a good read. He puts the onus on politicians and tactics.
Fiorina and others argue that most Americans really are in the middle and that the notion of polarization is overblown. If centrist voters make "polarized" choices, keeping their beliefs and positions constant, their voting behavior will appear more polarized when the candidates act more extreme left/right.
When these relationships between voters and their candidates change, analysts tend to assign the source of the change to voter attitudes, not as a response to changes in candidate strategy and candidate behavior.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307460452/
Come on, you were asking for it! ;)
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'political books' but I'm going to assume that you're looking for books that help explain the current political situation and current events. Maybe I'm wrong.
Fiasco and the follow up by Thomas Ricks The Gamble. These are fantastic books that put the Iraq war in perspective.
Looming Tower. A great book about the lead-up to 9/11.
For stuff about torture and Bush's policies therein I'd start with Dark Side but Torture Team is better, just more legalistic and possibly drier.
For understanding the politics right now I think it's really good to know about authoritarianism. It's completely changed how I've viewed politics. This is a new book on the subject that I have on my shelf but haven't gotten around to reading.
If this is the type of stuff you're looking for, I'm happy to provide other recommendations, but I think that's a good place to start.
EDIT: formatting
Gotta step in here, as I'm currently writing a quantitative article on authoritarianism in this election. Altemeyers work is super outdated. His measurement schemes actually conflate authoritarianism and conservatism. You should check out Stanley Felman, Karen Stenner, Marc Hetherington and Johnathan Weiler's updated work on this topic. It's got some differences to Altemeyer and some similarities. They conceptualize authoritarianism as having two components that must interact: a personality predisposition that favors conformity over autonomy and a perceived threat. When those two things are both present, people start acting authoritarian, which DOES often manifest itself in wanting to punish others, specifically people who caused the perceived threat (often minorities, people who break norms, people who disrupt the social order). Super interesting!
https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarianism-Polarization-American-Politics-Hetherington/dp/052171124X
Here is the desktop version of OP's link
> Michelle Fields
LMFAO, writing career BTFO'd
https://www.amazon.com/Barons-Beltway-Washington-Elite---Overthrow/dp/0553447556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466785680&sr=8-1&keywords=michelle+fields#customerReviews
She is pressing charges on the grounds of battery which is basically touching.
Let's be honest here, she was being aggressive and repeatedly ignoring calls to stop touching Trump. Corey grabbed her arm, stopped her, and moved past her. Would anyone in their right mind say, that's battery and actually press charges? Even Piers Morgan is calling her on her bullshit.
She is releasing a book in June. Either she is pushing this beyond what it should be or someone else is pushing her to do it in order to try and smear Trump.
Her new book
Conservatives Without Conscience
or
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in The 21st Century
Both of these books' authors are Republican, I might add, and served under GOP Presidents. Their careers were deep inside the GOP, at the very center. They have interesting things to say about today's GOP.
Omigod, the pixels! The pixels are coming for me!
Seriously, they couldn't find one good high-res picture of the book cover?
http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/0670037745.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V63542942_.jpg
>For some reason they went absolutely insane when he won.
I can't speak to why the base lost their minds in such a drastic fashion (outside of just regurgitating the hysteria they get from the media), but the party leadership is losing it because Trump winning put a pretty big dent in the whole Demographic Destiny idea that they've been building up for the last 15 years. They honestly thought by now they'd be ruling a 1 party state in all but name, at least at the federal level.
You can track the Democrat strategy of silent approval of increasing illegal immigration and doing everything they can to appeal to ethnic minorities to riiiight around the time this trash was published.
Where We Go from Here by Bernie Sanders https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250163269/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_NCGIBbTZ3T60A via @amazon
Edit: at least you can get a look at the cover.
What does that even mean? That’s ‘taking’
So what?
Edit: look, here is Bernie enriching Bezos. That’s fine, but let’s not pretend Bernie isn’t also involved in the system.
https://www.amazon.com/Where-We-Go-Here-Resistance/dp/1250163269
I got the political statements from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Tear-Down-This-Myth-Right-Wing/dp/1416597638
It goes into more detail about how much Lee Atwater was doing for Reagan by the end of his administration. Having said that it also messes up a Gorbachev quote by having him say "Karl Rove" instead of "Lee Atwater" and I quoted it wrong for years because of that book until a reddit user corrected me. However generally it has a good reputation and that quote was corrected. So I think he just wrote it down wrong at some point or an editor messed it up before publication.
For $10 you can get Liberty Defined which is everything you're looking for and more.
His book, liberty defined would be a great starting place.
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/1455501441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333121760&sr=8-1
for opposition, maybe any books written by the other candidates.
Great! I'd start with this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/0446537527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480350675&sr=8-1&keywords=ron+paul+the+revolution
and then follow up with this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/1455501441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480350707&sr=8-1&keywords=ron+paul+liberty+defined
Pick up a copy of Liberty Defined, Ron Paul has a great short summary in the book.
The basic problem is how government encourages employer based health care through tax incentives. But government even created the employer based health care mess when they had wage caps on labor from FDR through Nixon, so employers started offing healthcare to subsidize for the lower wages government mandated through those years. So there is no real option currently with healthcare, you get the healthcare your employer provides you and that's it. You rarely hear people complaining about their house or car insurance because if their premiums go up to much, they change provider, change their deductible, or change their coverage amounts. This puts the customer in charge of their insurance. But we don't have those options now.
Also, back in the day when Ron Paul was practicing, all the doctor students would sign the Hippocratic Oath which basically stated it was their duty to provide for the poor. They did this in various ways, sometimes discounts, some times payment plans, some times they did work pro bono. But once medicare/medicaid were introduced, this whole practice disappeared.
Another problem is price transparency. There is one surgery clinic in Oklahoma that no longer takes medicare/medicaid patients and is a free market only practice. Since they don't loose money because of government underpaying them for work at the medicare/medicaid pricing, they don't have to jack up the cost for the other patients. The result is costs that are 1/5 to 1/10 of the prices insurance would pay in other hospitals. Almost every surgery they offer is less than $12K, the most expensive is some penis surgery that is 15k.
I kind of lost my train of thought, but what America has now is no where near the Free Market system and hasn't been for many many decades. Probably the last time it was free market was the last time no one was complaining about the system and before government got involved.
http://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Michael-Savage/dp/1595550437
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437
related: https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437
It's just as valid a concept as as this one
Near as I can tell, the idea of "Liberal professors brainwashing students" comes from:
Right-leaning source:
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/betsy-devos-educators-brainwashing/
Some selective censorship:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3960800/KATIE-HOPKINS-College-liberals-think-people-voted-Trump-Brexit-dumb-letting-brainwash-society-s-stupid.html
Another UK source:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/what-explains-the-idiocy-of-the-liberal-elite-its-their-education/
A book:
https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Universities-Indoctrinate-Americas-Youth/dp/1595559795
A tabloid:
http://nypost.com/2017/01/09/how-trump-can-end-brainwashing-on-us-campuses/
Fox News:
https://youtu.be/-fyISqxPUSw
HuffPo admits it:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1312889
NYTimes describes it here:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/how-liberal-colleges-breed-conservative-firebrands.html
But denied it years before:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opinion/sunday/college-doesnt-make-you-liberal.html
This girl describes her woes:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/liberal-arts-college-turned-me-into-a-conservative
>Do you listen to yourself?
What do you listen to? yourself?
Jimmies have been maximum rustled. If anyone wants to gift a liberal family member or friend in college, check out check out Ben Shapiro's book Brainwashed. Excellent read.
Exactly, a system excluding independents 7 months before the vote, when people barley know any other candidate but the establishment name-recognition candidate, is not corruption, definitely not rigged, it's the voters stupidity for having busy lives and being disgusted by the dirty tricks of the two parties.
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
They should just know to make sure the system didn't exclude them months before the candidates have even set foot in their state to pitch for their vote.
Trump merely just has to say the democratic primary was rigged and it falls on sympathetic ears, he's now winning amongst the people cheated by that process, and you are calling them idiots, I have rarely seen something so obviously backwards, your perspective makes it that that simple for one of the biggest liars to tell the truth, my god.
The Democratic Party hasn't been liberal for 35 years. It is astounding that liberals still believe the DNC represents them.
Thomas Frank explains it way better than I can, and it is worth a read or listen:
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? https://www.amazon.com/dp/1627795391
I'll ignore the "insult" part and just focus on the label.
Liberals isn't just used by people talking about those who are "too far left". They are people who believe in or advocate for one of the liberal ideologies. Why do you think it's "toxic" to have a label we can use to refer to those who believe in and advocate for a specific ideology (or family of closely related ideologies)?
Now, I'm not going to disagree it's not misused, but that's a thing that's always going to happen with words, especially ideologies. It's a useful rhetorical tool and, let's be honest, most people aren't gonna have, want, or need a nuanced understandings of the features that differentiate their perceived enemies. Euphemisms happen. Ignorance is a fact of life. I understand people are going to call me a liberal sometimes because they don't know what I am, and that's okay - I'm sure I've done the same to others in other situations!
And yeah, it's gonna get misused as a symbol for the purpose of virtue signaling, but anything could be.
That doesn't mean the word isn't useful, and it is (often) used in a way that is perfectly descriptive. To a certain extent, I sort of feel like this post is an attempt to deny that the ideology even exists, or that it's particularly common - but it is an ideology, a fairly coherent one, and it is a common (often outright dominant) ideology on college campuses, in news rooms, in the entertainment industry and the halls of politics on the Democratic side. How else will you better describe those ideologies and their advocates if not using the word that literally means that?
I think it's also important we have the word, so we can differentiate between the different flavours of leftist thought - between the liberals, the neoliberals (who really aren't particularly liberal despite the name), the socialists (of various flavours) and those who identify as none of the three.
What exactly do you think "Listen, Liberal" should have been called instead? Who exactly would we say the book was trying to address?
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
Those two quotations are from the front matter of Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, the new book from Thomas Frank.
http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
Read this book and it will make sense
If you found this article interesting, checkout "Don't think of the elephant" by George Lakoff. He goes in much deeper into the whole Horatio Alger myth and how it affects US politics.
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717
You ever read any George Lakoff? Check out: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717
this fantastic and short book is a great primer on the cognitive science that underlies political leanings
In short -- conservativism and liberalism constitute holistic world views.
The conservative world view is one in which the following exist: good, evil, weak, strong, work, and sloth. The strong and good must protect the weak from evil. people show their nature through their actions. ultimately this means they get what they deserve. it is evil to interfere with that process because it hampers justice.
The liberal world view is one in which these categorical divisions blur due to complex causality. Behavior that looks like evil can be protective and result from previously received trauma. A good work ethic can be the result of a good and safe upbringing. A bad one can be the result of hampered development. Ultimately we are all the same and deserving of nurturance.
Everyone please read this book https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717
We can take back our country!
Bill was the master deregulator. Sure, while they are in office it might seem fine on the surface. Thomas Frank briefly goes over it a bit here if you are interested: https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People-ebook/dp/B012N992EK Kept seeing this in amazon and bought it recently.
> this is the mindset of conservatives since inherently you are being steadfast against a changing world. The idea already has conflict set and the world is crumbling around you as you get older and wish for whatever idea of right you had.
Totally. Corey Robin has been pushing (in his book and elsewhere) the thesis that conservatism has always essentially been about preserving the hierarchy of the past. And this is necessarily a project of oppression and occasional violence. Nice New Yorker writeup here.
https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110
This is partly because out current representatives appeal to the extreme left or right to get elected and usually have policy positions that are to the right/left of their constituency. This is largely because that is a way to get elected and because we have not expanded the House of representatives to keep up with changes in population. Some works to consult would be Culture War and Disconnect by Fiorina and Frederick's Congressional Representation & Constituents: The case for increasing the U.S. House of representatives
tl;dr Our districts are too big to get good candidates, so we have to choose between left/right wingnuts instead of moderates.
If "Polarization" is even a thing. There is still some debate on that topic, see Fiorina (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Myth-Polarized-America-Edition/dp/0205779883). Not to say she is right, merely that there is debate on that topic specifically.
And the point I think was made, that I am more inclined to believe, is that historical events like this are generally culminations of a long process of events. As soon as you say it began with laissez faire Republicans, someone can go back and say that the roots of laissez faire Republicanism are the actual root. But of course, those roots have roots, and back and back we go.
For me, I pick FDR as the "start" of this shift as he was the "class traitor" that really pushed the shift to the left.
Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise
The fuck? Obama released a book two months before the election in 08. Hillary released a book in 2016 two moths before the election. People release books before elections. It’s a thing. You see what I mean about reaching?
Edit: here’s the links to the books. Check the release dates
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307460452/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_mnCBCbRMJ0BDC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501161733/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_5oCBCb0V3QJDE
Sorry for my heated reaction.
There was a Study published in 2009 showing what Authoritarian characteristics look like and what political stances they're likely to take.
Trump is the crystallization of their findings.
Here is a 538 article about the book. But the Vox article is vast and much more in depth.
The authoritarian stars aligned and we got Trump.
He very clearly grabs her in this video.
She immediately posts picture of bruises on her arm
Washington Post reporter Ben Terris saw it happnen
Michelle Fields is a very conservative reporter who works for Brietbart, a severely right wing conservative propaganda newspaper. She literally just wrote a book shitting all over the Democratic establishment in Washington. She probably would have voted for Trump, she may still vote for Trump. Why would she lie? Nominally she and Trump are on the same team. She very clearly had nothing to gain and everything to lose. There's just no reason to not inherently believe her given she has no incentive to lie, on top of the preponderance of evidence.
What a judge decides is irrelevant, a court decision doesn't change a fact. If you're not aware that courts can make the wrong decision then you're woefully ignorant of history.
)0; luckly i saw on twitter that the reviews of a book on amazon was getting crushed by Trump supporters! imagine my surprise when i went to read them and got my tendies fix!https://www.amazon.com/Barons-Beltway-Washington-Elite---Overthrow/dp/0553447556/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466813957&sr=1-1&keywords=barons+of+the+beltway
I've heard that before.
https://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=democratic+majority&qid=1566270263&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Yes, a smart Democratic party would exploit it. But its one of the things they can't actually push because it might work.
Democrats are operating of this book and have for some time. Hence, they dream of flipping Texas using the Hispanic vote and locking in a permanent majority.
https://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/the-coming-democratic-majority-might-be-coming-a-lot-slower-than-you-think.html
Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream
I'll read it if you read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Where-We-Go-Here-Resistance/dp/1250163269
https://www.amazon.com/Where-We-Go-Here-Resistance/dp/1250163269
It came from selling this.
More utterly transparent Republican projection. "We don't steal, THEY steal!"
>It is that and worse! I as of now woukd like to stop buying anything from Amazon... I usually buy a fair amount of stuff every month. Bezos should be stoned at his next public appearance. I have already canceled Netflix just due to their unwarented price increases.
https://www.amazon.com/Where-We-Go-Here-Resistance/dp/1250163269
lol
The proxy wars were definitely a part of it. Iran-Contra for one, Afghanistan for another. Reagan backed the mujahideen in order to "fight" Russia, but these are the same people who then became al Qaeda.
He lowered the tax on the wealthiest from 70% to 50%, then to 28%, reducing the Federal revenue and more than doubling the national debt. The US went from the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation in the world under his administration. The average Americans wages have never recovered. While he made the corporate class richer, he did nothing to prevent the massive offshoring of jobs to other countries.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
He was a homophobic bigot who deliberately ignored the AIDS crisis, the crack epidemic, and anything else that didn't directly affect white "Christian" Americans.
He escalated Nixon's "War on Drugs", sold weapons to our enemies, dramatically increased military spending by 35%, feeding the massive military-industrial complex we have today.
I could go in, but I'm on vacation and don't need to get my blood-pressure up over this asshole. Suffice it to say, I have despised Reagan since he was in office, and honestly believe he was the beginning of the end for the working class in America.
If you are interested in reading more from the "anti-Reagan" perspective, give this book a read.
Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416597638/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ArxrDbKM8686Y
You should check out Tear Down This Myth if you want a really great break-down on the subject that's told in an interesting way.
— "The Obama Deception"
— "War by Deception" (Israeli connection to 9/11)
— "International Law?" (a critique of globalism)
— "David Icke Live at Oxford Union"
— On Blowback and Interventionism (short; highly recommend)
— On the Prussian Education model: (first short), (second short), (third short)
— "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" by Thomas Woods (essay summary: here)
— "Liberty Defined" by Ron Paul (online PDF version: here)
— "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins (online PDF version: here and here)
Liberty Defined by Ron Paul https://smile.amazon.com/Liberty-Defined-Essential-Issues-Freedom/dp/1455501441/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1VT8J25TDUGQM&keywords=liberty+defined+ron+paul&qid=1555784579&s=gateway&sprefix=liberty+defined%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1
This is what's called a Scorched Earth policy
More here
Link from Drudge: https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Earth-Restoring-Country-after/dp/1455568244/
> This is how the pro state side dominate social discourse. Our side of the argument is not pro active (or insincere) enough to waste our time going out of our way to attack and put down opposing view points. The statist side though, always finds the time to put down the opposing side of the argument and with much more rudeness and aggression then our side would ever dream of using.
Sounds like you might enjoy Bullies
> Dude, you made non-sequitur and appeals to emotion. Like do you even know what a non-sequitur means? There was no actual argument to avoid.
Ok "dude", I'm not going to "like" waste my time with this "actual" drama. Moving on...
> Your article is riddled with IAT developers that don't believe it is useful for diagnosis and zero in on the one that does.
Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Please refer to my argument and create a counterargument to my argument, which still stands. Moving on...
> There's literally no argument about why political correctness bad.
I was going to give you a hand-written history lesson on what happened with "political correctness" and what it lead to, but it sounds like you're just trolling, so I'll just refer you to this short video. I'll be surprised if you watch it.
> Did that kid make a bomb I wonder?
I've already made it clear that it's just a clock that he bought, disassembled, put in a suitcase, went to school, said "I'm Muslim, look at this clock that I made in a suitcase (where the teachers knew it was a clock)", refused to follow instructions and instigated problems, and then was arrested.
My point is the following: his family members are terrorists, his friends are terrorists, and he himself is a terrorist. The idea of "political correctness" is what allows him to commit these acts of terror.
In the case of Mohamed v. The Blaze Inc, et. al.:
> The “Clock Boy” issue quickly became the
forum for a societal debate of critical political issues of critical public interest, including both
alleged prejudice against Muslims and the use of claims of prejudice against Muslims to shame
and silence critics of Islamic terrorism within the umbrella of what is sometimes labeled by critics
as “political correctness.” (See Petition, ¶¶ 28-61)
> In his dealings with the press, the family spokesperson was one Alia Salem, Executive
Director for the Dallas-Ft. Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR is a controversial Islamic activist group that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in
a terrorist trial.
> As
discussed above, Shapiro had no personal knowledge of Plaintiffs, but he had seen photos of the
device and believed no reasonable person would take such a device to school during a period of
terrorism and school attacks. (Shapiro Aff., ¶ 13, p. 44) He also knew that school officials and the
police had reacted to the device as if they believed it to be potentially dangerous. (Shapiro Aff., ¶
13, p. 44) He knew the family had a connection to CAIR, an organization the federal government
had linked to terrorist supporters. (Shapiro Aff., ¶ 12, p. 44) He knew the family had associated
with Sudan’s bloody dictator. (Shapiro Aff., ¶ 12, p. 44) Shapiro also understood that a tactic of
activists was to manufacture controversies in order to gain media attention, and he knew the family
had sought media attention both during this event and previously. (Shapiro Aff., ¶ 12, p. 44) In
short, Shapiro knew multiple facts that supported his opinion that this entire controversy was a
hoax set up to support the Mohameds’ political narrative, and he knew of no credible facts—the
only other evidence being Plaintiffs’ denials, which Shapiro found self-serving and not credible—
that led him to any other conclusion.
> E. Plaintiffs Cannot Show That Shapiro’s Statements Were False
> 13 Neil MacFarquharaug, Muslim Groups Oppose a List of ‘Co-Conspirators’, NEW YORK TIMES, August 16, 2007
avail. at. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/us/16charity.html, attached hereto as Exhibit L. p. 135 (“The
unindicted co-conspirators were named in the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development,
which opened July 16. The charity and five of its officers are accused of providing material support for terrorism by...
> February 15, 2015 (DALLAS, TEXAS) – One of the dozen contenders in Sudan’s presidential
elections pledged that he will work with the US administration to lift the decadelong economic
sanctions imposed on the country and remove it from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.
> Sudan is also on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism since 1993 even though the two
countries have strengthened their counterterrorism cooperation since September 2001 attacks on
Washington and New York.
> The Internet is his refuge — and his attacker. He reads every story and long, rambling conspiracy theory about him. Countless
blogs and videos have been dedicated to proving Ahmed’s clock was just a RadioShack clock he put in a new box. (It was
partially made of RadioShack parts, but the design was all his own, he says.) Others insist that this was all a stunt
masterminded by Mohamed to get attention. (“He can’t plan the reaction. And why would he want me to get arrested?” Ahmed
says.) Still more have proclaimed that the Mohameds are terrorist sympathizers because they once owned a company called
Twin Towers Transportation. (They did own a company by that name, because their offices were housed in a Dallas office
building called the Twin Towers.)
The court affirmed that Shapiro's statements could not be proven false, and for since Ahmed the terrorist didn't have a case, the court's decision was that Ahmed had to pay Shapiro a total of $58,189.38.
> Per the affidavits, Shapiro should be awarded $58,189.38, representing the total amount
of attorneys’ fees and recoverable costs expended defending this lawsuit. (Exhibits R-S, pp. 162-
171; Schlichter Aff., ¶¶ 2-15, pp. 48-51; Gober Aff., ¶¶12-19, pp. 55-56)
Conclusion: Ahmed cannot, and refuses, to disprove the allegations that he is a terrorist, considering his ties to terrorism.
> Do you know what communism is? socialism?
Yes, and I can write about this for hours, but you didn't read anything I wrote, so I'm not going to reply to this. Go back and read, quote what I wrote, and reply to the quote. I challenge you. If you can't do this, I will assume that you don't have the intelligence to figure out what needs to be done in order to copy-and-paste.
I almost feel bad wasting my time talking to you, since you obviously can't hold a rational argument and you're bigoted. I used to be a democrat, and I used to advocate social justice. I, however, actually have an open mind and collect raw information before making decisions.
It's really ironic how predictable you are.. You just have the same argument over and over again, character assassination followed by character assassination. I've read nearly all of your comments: they're all the same.
Ben Shapiro disagrees: https://www.amazon.com/People-Vs-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138
>What have they been accused of that is worse, provide your evidence.
https://www.amazon.ca/People-Vs-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138/ref=asc_df_1476765138/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312349107987&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15953338993469219971&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001161&hvtargid=pla-568140332126&psc=1
Read this book ^^^ if you really want to know.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2018/politics/news/trump-press-war-obama-administration-reporters-1202782264/amp/
https://pjmedia.com/trending/six-reasons-why-barack-obama-is-the-worst-president-in-history/
A simple Google search will give you the full story if you're willing to do the research.
Hillary
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-benghazi-hillary-clinton-obama-rhodes-edit-0629-jm-20160628-story,amp.html
I don't want to do anymore research but the emails. You'll say Ivanka. Well Hillary had over 30,000 emails with highly classified information, from an illegal server, that was destroyed and bleached when subpoenaed. That isn't an issue for you? Ivanka did none of this.
She harrassed credible accusers that accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. You name it, she's done it. But I bet you'll just ignore it all and think that the orange man bad.
Way less
I doubt he was born in the US but it really doesn’t matter at this point. Trump is erasing everything Obama did while in office so it’s almost like it never happened anyway. Just like to bring up the birth thing to trigger people like you.
Those fawning reviews on Amazon are something else! I can't shake the suspicion that the Trump's pay people to buy the book and post reviews written by the Trump PR team.
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/154608603X/ref=acr_dpx_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
>The thing that I love about the Trump family is their honesty. The bad reviews come from liberal haters that had once claimed that they were the party of love and acceptance. They were that party, until the the truth was told about how they want socialism. I don’t know about anyone else but when the truth is told by people like Donald Trump Jr. people on the left get very angry. Sometimes the TRUTH hurts. If anyone as an adult can’t handle the TRUTH, they are ignorant cry babies. Go cry somewhere else while the TRUMP family saves our great country. Donald Jr. is a great man with honesty and integrity . Thank you for the TRUTH!!
Seriously, they've already been trying to convince people that. See Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by Michael Savage or anything written by Ann Coulter.
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484178189&sr=1-1&keywords=michael+savage+liberalism+is+a+mental+disorder
Have you ever heard of Michael Savage?
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Michael-Savage/dp/1595550437
Rush Limbaugh on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/RushLimbaughAndTheEIBNetwork/posts/10154025327167906
On his website:
http://dailyrushbo.com/rush-liberals-democrats-are-genuinely-mentally-ill/
Anne Coulter:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/17/ann_coulter_liberalism_is_on_the_spectrum_of_mental_illness.html
Conservative Radio Host Wayne Allyn Root:
https://twitter.com/wayneroot/status/764139954561687552?lang=en
It's also on Infowars but I don't know what stature they really hold:
https://www.infowars.com/new-york-legislator-proves-liberalism-is-a-mental-disorder/
Would you agree that these are some fairly influential voices?
They need mental help.
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Savage-Solutions/dp/1595550437
My comment was meant to be humorous, just as the title of Michael Savage’s book was meant to be funny.
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Mental-Disorder-Michael-Savage/dp/1595550437
Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder https://www.amazon.com/dp/1595550437/
Analyzing gnzlgrc
https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Universities-Indoctrinate-Americas-Youth/dp/1595559795
Pretty sure it's this one. The year seems right.
Look into Ben Shapiro's book Brainwashed. His strategy was to speak conservatively while in class, but would write his exams as if he were far left / socialist. His exams were graded anonymously so teachers couldn't single him out.
Oh, my goodness gracious, there are literally thousands of articles on Google on this, dozens of books by conservative intellectuals on how leftists, starting with boomers, took over American college campuses and stymy careers of conservative academics.
They've successfully brainwashed generations of students - I was one until I got out into the real world.
If you're so lacking in intellectual curiosity, here are some suggestions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/05/01/higher-education-has-a-strong-leftist-bias-but-not-enough-for-one-prof/#ecf1e2576d7c
"A good many educators take seriously the idea that teaching is a political activity and accordingly feel justified in using their classrooms as platforms for spreading their social, economic, and philosophical beliefs. They want to act as “change agents” who will improve the world.
Most of those educators have been imbued with a leftist cast of mind – hostile to capitalism, private property, and anything that stands in the way of their utopian visions of a just society brought about through government power. Instances like the recent ones at UC Santa Barbara (where a professor physically attacked a student who was peacefully protesting abortion) and Eastern Connecticut (where a writing professor went off on a rant about how evil Republicans are) are pretty common."
https://www.leadershipinstitute.org/Writings/?ID=2
"Leftist Control on Campus
Overwhelmingly leftist faculty.
Overwhelmingly leftist administrators who actively suppress conservative activities and refuse to address grievances from students who suffer persecution for their conservative beliefs.
Leftist domination of most student government associations.
Leftist domination of "student courts" which decide issues regarding student government actions and persecute students for activities in behalf of conservative principles.
Leftist Indoctrination on Campus
Large numbers of courses presented that explicitly in their catalog descriptions push leftist ideology, but no balance of conservative principles offered in the curriculum.
Indoctrination of students in class by faculty who promote socialist ideas and other leftist priorities.
Leftist faculty using their class time to preach politics instead of teaching the topic at hand.
Faculty who express in class blatant contempt of conservative ideas.
Assignment by faculty of one-sided textbooks and readings which systematically push leftist ideas and denigrate or ignore conservative ideas.
Leftist domination of almost all official campus newspapers, which are funded by taxpayers, compulsory student fees, or unwitting donors to the colleges and universities.
Large numbers of leftist student organizations, supported by major, national leftist organizations.
Leftist monopolies of most journalism faculties.
Programs which present overwhelmingly leftist off-campus speakers to the students.
Overwhelmingly leftist speakers provided to speak to graduates and their families at graduation ceremonies.
College and university libraries packed with leftist books and magazines but few if any books or publications which promote conservative principles.
Compulsory freshman orientation programs and "sensitivity training" designed by leftists to undermine traditional values.
Mandatory seminars for students on how to have "safe sex" with little or no mention of the possibility or merits of abstinence or marriage.
Enforced diversity in every area except for the adherence to or the teaching of conservative principles."
https://townhall.com/columnists/danieldoherty/2011/11/19/avoiding-leftist-indoctrination-at-american-colleges-and-universities-n797669
"One of the greatest dilemmas facing American students today is the perennial threat of leftist indoctrination on college campuses. In recent years, institutions of higher learning – which have historically been places for enlightened thought and dissenting opinions – have increasingly become breeding grounds for radical liberalism. College courses, which are often taught by biased professors who espouse leftist ideology, fail to adequately challenge undergraduate students and often leave many of them woefully unprepared for the real world."
Some full books:
https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Universities-Indoctrinate-Americas-Youth/dp/1595559795
https://www.amazon.com/Indoctrination-Lefts-Against-Academic-Freedom/dp/1594031908
Here is his new one , another home run imo
[Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?]
(https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
>From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats?
>It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.
>But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.
Read Listen Liberal if you really believe Dems aren't neoliberal.
>1. The Democratic party, for some insane reason, followed the Republican party to the right. I dunno what the strategy behind that was, but if they had not, they would likely have control of most State governments + Congress.
Read or listen to Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
cool. Thanks for acknowledging my point and stating your disagreement in a diplomatic way. I think we are getting to a real discourse here.
My first disagreement with your statement is I don't think fighting republicans and making democrats better is either or first or second type of situation. In fact, considering how the democrats are always chasing the republicans rightward often losing big in election seasons, I think that making the democratic party a stronger one that better represents and inspires its people will stop the rightward shift of both parties.
Because policy polling shows the democratic platform is way more popular than the republican one and actually on most polices, the majority of American's are left of the democratic party but the constant losing of ground on policy, the appearance of elitism and corruption, the focus on identity politics which doesn't resonate compared to economic issues, and the fact that economically the middle and working classes have been devastated by republicans AND Democrats are some of the reasons why Democrats keep losing. That and the Democrats constant shift rightward, because when voters are presented with the options of republican and republican light, they'll go with the real thing.
I do agree the republicans are worse and we should fight and obstruct their agenda I also don't think investing energy in trying to change the republicans is the most prudent strategy.
There is a cogent argument made by Thomas Frank in his book Listen Liberal that the democratic party abandoning the working class in favor of the professional class is what led to them losing the majority of legislatures over the last 40 some years. So the way I see it, if the democratic party can take on the role of being the party of the people again, in a meaningful not rhetorical, way they will win seats and if the republicans want to stand a chance as a party they'll have to follow the democrats lead.
Continued support for the military industrial complex
Bold and expressed support for the war in Iraq
Pushing for the war In Syria
Continued support for more wars abroad, even adding 4 more major conflicts under the Obama presidency
Continued support for the war on drugs
Continued support for the prison industrial complex
Continued support for predatory lending industries
refusal to support a living wage
refusal to support single payer / medicare for all / universal healthcare
refusal to support extending public education beyond k-12
growing support within the party to move towards greater and greater privatization of public services
Enactment of the ACA, a healthcare proposal initially concocted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
refusal to break up the big banks
refusal to support or truly fight for a carbon tax
a continual decline of support for unionized labor
The continued and increasing acceptance of legalized bribery / money in politics
A general abandonment of leftist economic policy
The democrats do pander very frequently to leftist ideals, but they are either extremely ineffective at governing toward their ideals or are disingenuous. In my view I lean toward the latter, mostly due to the blatant and transparent acceptance of enormous sums of money from special interest groups. It makes them look like they are paid to lose/throw the fight - but still pander to the left and win votes.
This criticism of the Democratic party as moving rightward by no means excused the disgusting sprint toward facism of the Republican party, but the Democrats have been trying for years to run away from being branded with associations to FDR or New Deal style politics. For a very thorough analysis, check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1627795391
Two books related to upbringing and politics that you might enjoy: George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant and Thomas Franks' What's the Matter with Kansas?
Lakoff also has some youtube videos of his lectures.
Read "Don't think about an elephant" (https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717) for an excellent rundown of how the GOP has used language to shape the thinking (when people bother to think) over the last 30+ years.
Read Lakoff's, Dont think of an elephant. It talks about how politicians like Lamar frame their debates around issues similar to SOPA. You can learn a lot from the book on running a productive campaign against politicians who try misrepresenting an issue.
A great book that discusses why some don't want taxes on the rich, are against abortion but for the death penalty. Don't think of an elephant!. Summary: some believe in the nurturing parent theory, others believe in the strong father theory.
I'm being down-voted, but seriously. This isn't just once in a lifetime. We can repeat this. We have to. Electing Bernie once won't do much this first point . We need to sustain. We need a new generation of politicians like Bernie. That is the only way the liberal vision will survive.
George Lakoff has some great ideas on liberal language that people should read! Language is important! I'll post some links to his works. Incorporate them into your daily life. PM me and I might buy you the books. We need an awaking of liberal frames.
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-The-Progressives/dp/1931498717
http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Blue-Book-Democratic-ebook/dp/B007WT31BM
Little blue book annotations:
http://www.nowforourturn.org/Reframing/The%20Little%20Blue%20Book.pdf
Seriously. The language of the debate is important. I'll be releasing a paper on language of Bernie vs Hillary soon. I'm not respected or good at writing, but I think it has a good few points on the language we use. It's more important that people think.
Reddit should read more George Lakoff. He said the same thing years ago.
Don't Think of An Elephant
>The only way to counter this is to use "fox news" tactics. Step one: Give this law a catchy nickname that will make people oppose it.
There's actually a best-selling book about those tactics:
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-The-Progressives/dp/1931498717
Everyone still puzzled by right-wing tactics in the US should read George Lakoff's Don't Think Of An Elephant.
Chapter 1 is especially relevant:
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/dont_think_of_an_elephant:paperback/chapter_1
Dude, the book is a collection of data featuring the CIA's funding Hussein's rise into power in the first place! The opinion of the writer isn't the point, it's the collected data. But missing the point seems to be your forte.
"JFK was not alive when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq." Um yes, that's the fucking point you blithering idiot liberal. He HELPED Hussein gain power BEFORE he had it. How are you this incapable? The US supported (president after president) Hussein, all the way up until the point he wanted to nationalise resources, and ONLY then did the US recognise his "crimes against humanity".
Liberals are excellent at flitting about, chanting platitudes and telling minorities to wait for a better time to protest - when push comes to shove they side with the reactionaries. Liberal internationalists may very well oppose the war (when it suits), but they still blindly support a system which inevitably exploits.
​
A.N.S.W.E.R were the largest anti-war group after Iraq, liberals wouldn't help or join them because they were leftist and "too radical". The majority of anti-Vietnam protestors were LEFTISTS, not liberals.
If you had even read any article from your google search; "The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small - among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses - but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest."
"Though the vast majority of the American population still supported the administration policy in Vietnam, a small but outspoken leftist minority was making its voice heard by the end of 1965".
"The anti-war movement began mostly on college campuses, as members of the leftist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)" You liberals don't get to do nothing, and then claim the actions of leftists. Sorry. Not happening anymore.
https://depts.washington.edu/moves/antiwar_intro.shtml The majority of anti-Vietnam (New Left) protestors wanted to be rid of the democratic and republican parties, while the liberals (you) blindly followed/follow the democrats no matter what they do; just like the reactionaries blindly follow the republicans.
​
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1960s-america/a/the-student-movement-and-the-antiwar-movement
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"71% of US citizens supported the decision to use military force, while just 22% said it was the wrong decision". The majority of liberals are NOT anti-war. https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-moore-on-the-iraq-war-the-liberals-backed-it where are you guys on your anti-war stance whenever someone questions dem leaders warmongering? Opps that's right; too busy asking if everyone is Russian.
http://crookedtimber.org/2013/03/25/why-did-liberals-suppor-the-iraq-war/ Liberals have been nothing but a thorn in the side of leftists, nothing. They not only never challenge the status quo, there is always a better time for the revolution. There is always a better way to act, a better way to be "angry" and a better way for minorities to get "justice" - protest is only "good" for a liberal as long as it's all within the confines of the system. Because we wouldn't want to rock the boat, would we? How do you feel about the black panthers, were they "too radical" should they have tried to be more "demure"? That's all I've heard from the liberal mouthpiece.
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Ask any neoliberal what they think of the "conflict in the middle east" and actually listen. Complicity in western intervention is a liberal past time. https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitLiberalsSay/
https://themarxistminx.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/marxs-critique-of-liberalism/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLqKXrlD1TU&pbjreload=10 Liberals in a fucking nutshell.
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“weak-minded, market-friendly centrist, wonky, technocratic and condescending to the working class … pious about diversity but ready to abandon any belief at the slightest drop in poll numbers”.
https://chomsky.info/20161214/ You don't even seem to understand what a fucking liberal is. Do you even know what economic liberalism entails? You seem to think liberals are social reformers when liberals have done nothing but sit on their arses, wait for leftists to actually do something, then claim they were there all along; how is neoliberalism anything but right wing? How is market theory that advocates free trade and the pursuit of material self-interest "revolutionary"? Fuck off liberal. And stop, claiming the work of leftists.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People-ebook/dp/B012N992EK
Rather than respond to individuals in this thread, a reasoned argument is Thomas Frank "Listen Liberal."
They just wanted change that we can believe in.
Vote for us you insufferable bigots, and by the way here’s a guide to your future: https://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-John-Judis/dp/0743254783
Intersectionality forever!!!!
Which one's were false? Please you took the time to respond, so back it up. Also, does this book among others I've read count?
seems like Don Jr is the one who's Triggered.
Wow, multiple replies from the same person.
Have you read Donald Trump Jr's new book? I think you'd like it. It's about you.
Yes, it has been.
>Obama had his cabinet picked by CitiGroup
Have to stop reading once you say something I know is bullshit. This is false.
If anyone wants a non-reddit, educated understanding of the topic at hand, please read "Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?". This is where Dems lost there way. And believe it or not, some of the blame is on the American people who fail to show up.
I can't tell if this a bot response, or someone throwing their hands up in the air before even making an effort to have a discussion. If I'm not worth the time that's fine, but I do recommend that book. Here's a link. There are also plenty of interviews on Youtube where the author talks about details from the book. I promise it's all more worthwhile than talking to random dudes online for fake internet points.
I second this.
Lakoff is a linguist. Don't think of an elephant should be required reading for every progressive.
This
Educate yourself boy:
http://www.amazon.com/The-People-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138
And dont make this shit about race because I think Bush should be in jail right now.
> Also, why is it your assertion that a liberal mentality is a mental disorder? What makes it inherently wrong (in your opinion) to align one's views with a liberal agenda?
A good read would be this book, it gives a pretty good idea of why people call liberalism a "mental disorder".
From one of the reviews, I don't agree with everything said in this review (not all of it is even discussed in the book and some is blown out of proportion but whatever, I don't feel like writing a thousand word essay on the book, but some of the talking points of the book are in there to give you a rough idea:
> I won’t give the entire book away, but here are a few contemporary examples (some discussed in the book) as to why liberalism is a mental disorder:
>
> Feminists will say nothing about the mistreatment of women in Muslim majority countries (i.e., honor killings, female genital mutilation, stoning for adultery, forced marriages, divinely-sanctioned wife beatings, etc.) but will complain around the clock about President Trump’s “treatment of women.” How do you explain this? Liberalism is a mental disorder.
>
> The LGBT community will embrace Islam, hold rallies against “Islamophobia,” and invite millions of Muslim “refugees” to live in Western countries. The problem is that if these Muslims were to seize power in Western countries, they would murder the gays and lesbians and throw them down a well (homosexuality is forbidden in Islam). Why does the LGBT community unite with the Islamists who would destroy them? Liberalism is a mental disorder.
>
> The liberals, who are pro-women’s rights and pro-gay rights, support the “Palestinians,” who want to destroy the State of Israel, which is pro-women’s rights and pro-gay rights. Yet if the “Palestinians” were to invade Israel and drive the Jews into the sea, then women’s rights and gay rights would disappear from the Middle East. Why are the libs cheerleaders for Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamist groups? Liberalism is a mental disorder.
>
> The liberals in Britain allow the Islamists to hold rallies where they call for Sharia to replace English law, while banning critics of the Islamic jihad from entering Britain (e.g., Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Michael Savage, etc.). In other words, those who want to destroy Britain are given a free pass in Britain, while those who want to save Britain from future destruction are banned from entering the country. How do you explain this? Liberalism is a mental disorder.
>
> The liberals praise Yasser Arafat as a “freedom fighter” against the Israelis, even though, as Savage notes, “Arafat was a monster. This walking obscenity invented airline hijacking, hostage taking, school massacres, and suicide bombings. He kept the Palestinians in a prison of moral, spiritual, and economic poverty. He embezzled their money and, during his final years, skimmed more than $2 million a month to line his pockets.” (117). After Arafat’s death, the libs in the media eulogized him to the point that “you’d think this mass murderer was Abe Lincoln in a turban” or “George Washington reincarnate.” And Arafat’s “Hitleresque view of the Jews” was scrubbed from the media, too. Even Gerhard Schroeder, whom Savage calls “a socialist weasel,” said “it was not granted to Yasser Arafat to complete his life’s work” to which Savage replies, “What work? The annihilation of Israel?” Later on, Savage asks, “Why does the American media sit by silently, or worse, glorify this mass murderer? Because they hate the Judeo-Christian values upon which we as a nation were founded. Therefore, they vilify America and Israel and lionize vermin like Arafat.” (128) How do you explain this? Easy: Liberalism is a mental disorder.
>
> This is only scratching the surface. There are dozens of other examples one could give. Savage says regularly on his show that whenever you hear libs do or say something that baffles you to the core and for which no rational explanation is possible, then all you need to do to regain your sanity is to say “Liberalism is a mental disorder” and you’ll feel much better.
>
>
Conservatives without Conscience also is quite similar.
Read this for Obama's broken laws. It was written by a lawyer.
https://www.amazon.com/People-Vs-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138
>That always gets me because, regardless of what opinions you have about his presidency, you have to admit that Obama is a good man.
>
>No one is perfect, but he seemed like he was just a few steps above many people.
https://www.amazon.com/People-Vs-Barack-Obama-Administration/dp/1476765138
Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy shows Reagan in a different light than the mythological conservative the right-wing ideologues are and have been pushing. It's an excoriation of the myth of Ronald Reagan but not necessarily of Reagan himself. You might even sometimes find the book complimentary of Reagan.
Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Is-Mental-Disorder-Solutions/dp/1595550437
This NYT piece explores that question pretty thoroughly, and includes a lot of outside links
This section is a decent summary:
>In other words, upscale voters were just as important to the Obama coalition as downscale voters. One consequence of the increased importance of the affluent to Democrats, according to Bonica and the three co-authors on the inequality paper, is that the Democratic Party has in many respects become the party of deregulated markets.
>“The Democratic Party pushed through the financial regulation of the 1930s, while the Democratic party of the 1990s undid much of this regulation in its embrace of unregulated financial capitalism,” the four authors write.
> They cite the crucial role of congressional Democrats in enacting the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which eliminated past restrictions on interstate banking; the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, which repealed the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act separating commercial banking from other financial services; and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which restricted government oversight of most over-the-counter derivative contracts, including credit default swaps — all of which played a role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
>The critique of the increased Democratic dependency on the rich by Bonica and his co-authors is modest in comparison to that of Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, political scientists at Princeton and Northwestern. In a 2014 essay, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” they analyze congressional voting patterns and conclude that
> >"The majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose."
> >“These findings may be disappointing to those who look to the Democratic Party as the ally of the disadvantaged,” Gilens wrote in a 2012 essay published by the Boston Review:
It's going to be more slanted, but the Thomas Frank book Listen, Liberal charts the road the Democrats traveled from focusing on common welfare to catering to the needs of the upper-middle professional class.