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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: BoscoX

That all applies WAY more to the left....

I think where your post fails is smearing the "Left" as a whole, and that's equally true when "Liberals" are smeared as a group. In my view, you only have an arguable case in reference to the shenanigans of many so-called "Progressives" and "Social Justice Warriors".

K.

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ORIGINAL: stef

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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NYT, alt left radicals

CNN, alt left radicals

Same with MSNBC, TIME, CBS, ABC, etc etc etc

What the holy bubbling fuck??!

Bosco, where in *God's name* do you get this stuff?

Stormfront.

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ORIGINAL: BoscoX

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ORIGINAL: stef

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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NYT, alt left radicals

CNN, alt left radicals

Same with MSNBC, TIME, CBS, ABC, etc etc etc

What the holy bubbling fuck??!

Bosco, where in *God's name* do you get this stuff?

Stormfront.

CNN is more Stormfront than anything I post

I am guessing

All I know about "Stormfront" is what you post, which it seems like thats half of what you post - bizarre, wild-eyed references to "Storefront"

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

that's funny because for the most part, when I read the quote in the photo, I think of liberals being the perpetrators.

I see now that bosco said similarly, and to an extent, kirata doesn't seem to be far off that either.

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The contemporary left holds that non-socialist societies are composed largely of dominators and the dominated, oppressors and the oppressed. The alleged cause of this social arrangement is the economic system of free-market capitalism, which is viewed by the left as the root of all manner of social ills and vices -- racism, sexism, alienation, homophobia, and imperialism. In the calculus of the left, capitalism is an agent of tyranny and exploitation that presses its boot upon the proverbial necks of a wide array of victim groups -- blacks and other minorities, women, homosexuals, immigrants, and the poor, to name but a few. That is why according to the left, the United States (historically the standard-bearer of all capitalist economies) can only do wrong…

Calling themselves “liberals,” today’s leftists (descended from the New Left) claim the moral high ground as self-anointed exemplars of compassion and enlightenment -- counterweights to the supposedly “reactionary” conservatives they depict as heartless monsters. The modern left understands that in order to win the hearts and minds of Americans, it must present its totalitarian objective -- the uncompromising destruction of the status quo -- in the non-threatening lexicon of traditional Western values; that is, it must cite, as its animating purpose, the promotion of such lofty ideals as “human rights,” “civil rights,” “civil liberties,” and above all, “social justice,” or the “correction” of the free market’s inherent inequalities through political interventions of a Marxist nature...

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Inside the Progressive Mind By N. A. Halkides

The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. The roots of his pathology lie in that oldest and most destructive of all human vices, the desire for the power to rule over other men.

As naked power-lust is a rather ugly motive, the Progressive rationalizes his desire to rule as a concern for human welfare, seeing himself as a great humanitarian, far superior morally to the lesser beings who pursue merely “materialist” ends such as their own prosperity and who frequently object to his program for achieving Utopia. This assumed moral superiority spills over into fields of practical accomplishment, and the Progressive imagines himself capable of allocating resources and even directing entire industries far more efficiently than a free market, often despite not even having any business or scientific experience. But despite what the Progressive believes about himself, the desire to compel others to obey his orders is what drives him forward. To satisfy this desire, there is ultimately no limit to what actions he will take, for he respects none of the restrictions on government officials intended to guarantee individual freedom that have been developed and set forth in written or unwritten constitutions.

It is easy to make the mistake of judging Progressivism by its earlier and less-severe manifestations and to conclude that its petty and paternalistic restrictions, for example New York Mayor Michael “The Nanny” Bloomberg’s recent crusade against large-size soda drinks, are simply bothersome annoyances. In fact the transformation from irritating but superficially benevolent nanny to ruthless dictator not only occurs rather quickly, it is a logical consequence of the Progressive’s zeal to usher in Utopia and of the means he must use to achieve the smallest of his goals - brute force. We should recognize the following principle: Once the Progressive is permitted to intrude however slightly into matters that are properly beyond the sphere of government, then all aspects of the individual’s life may be subjected to control. Once any degree of coercion is permitted, then no level of force is out of bounds...

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I like to think of myself as a pioneer in warning about the rise of the New Totalitarianism in America, which is really not much different than the old totalitarianism. The most important difference is that the new breed is better at hypnotizing itself into thinking they’re good-hearted, compassionate souls who just want the best for everyone… except, of course, the dissenters they grind beneath their jackboots.
I can say with absolute certainty that most of the people responsible for the brutal oppression of the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakers would insist they are compassionate people whose hearts are brimming with tolerance and love.

Push them harder, and they’ll claim their seething hatred for the Christian bakers – their totalitarian urge to use the power of the State to personally destroy these innocent people – isn’t a black mark against their “compassion” and “tolerance,” because those bakers aren’t really people at all, at least not in the same sense that loving gay couples who demand cakes for their weddings are.

That’s what I mean about the New Totalitarians being the same as the old. We’ve heard all of their ideas, rhetorical tricks, and ugly inner urges before. You’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelette. The ends justify the means. Everything inside the State, nothing outside the State. Everything Obama-era “liberals” are exhaling today was in the atmosphere of Europe a century ago. How can our young people be so poorly-educated that they don’t find the spectacle of howling mobs demanding vigilante revenge against “enemies of the people” to be both familiar, and terrifying?

One of my goals as a writer in the Age of Obama has been to rescue the proper meaning of terms like totalitarian, authoritarian, and fascist. They’re not synonymous, although the ideas are related. They are all aspects of collectivism, the true and eternal enemy of liberty...

If you want to defend liberty against the totalitarian impulse, you’ve got to do better than poking your head out of the political window and declaring the coast is clear, as long as you don’t see any concentration camps or goose-stepping Gestapo squads. Totalitarianism comes before all the other evils, and I have my dark suspicions that it inevitably slides into darker and more feral expressions, in part because of the economic and social pressures created by the politicization of everything. We ought to be on guard against the first level of collectivist evil, not complacent until it bares its fangs and starts vomiting bullets and barbed wire.

Tom Nichols at The Federalist has a superb piece explaining what totalitarianism is, and how it differs from authoritarianism, with which it is often conflated:..

Totalitarians are a different breed. These are the people who have a plan, who think they see the future more clearly than you or who are convinced they grasp reality in a way that you do not. They don’t serve themselves—or, they don’t serve themselves exclusively—they serve History, or The People, or The Idea, or some other ideological totem that justifies their actions.

They want obedience, of course. But even more, they want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining. And the only way to achieve that is to create a new society of people who share those beliefs, even if it means bludgeoning every last citizen into enlightenment. That’s what makes totalitarians different and more dangerous: they are “totalistic” in the sense that they demand a complete reorientation of the individual to the State and its ideological ends. Every person who harbors a secret objection, or even so much as a doubt, is a danger to the future of the whole project, and so the regime compels its subjects not only to obey but to believe.

This calls to mind C.S. Lewis’ famous warning about how “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive,” because “those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

To the warnings of Nichols and Lewis, I would add that totalitarianism involves politicizing every corner of life, imbuing even the citizen’s choice of which fast-food chicken sandwich he consumes with political significance. People who would rather not make political statements with their lunch choices are nevertheless forced into the game defensively… because if they don’t play, and play to win, they’re going to wake up one morning and discover they have lost vital freedoms.

Totalitarianism, you see, isn’t just about turning every aspect of life into a nasty political squabble. There are consequences. The compulsive power of the State is deployed to punish the losing side of nearly every social dispute these days. The fact that we speak of political arguments over every damn thing implies this grim outcome of compulsion and punishment, because politicians aren’t members of an academic debating society, no matter how much they love to posture that way. They control the compulsive power of the State. That’s their job. Everything the State does involves force, which means people get hurt. Regulations are enforced with muscle, as the Sweet Cakes couple can attest. Every dollar the government spends was seized by force from the people who earned it (or, under the modern enthusiasm for irresponsible deficit spending, seized from children who aren’t old enough to earn it yet.)

After all these years of Obama, it should be painfully clear to everyone that the Left isn’t interested in “winning arguments.” They’re not terribly interested in persuasion at all. They want power, and as soon as they have enough to get what they want, the very first thing they do is bellow that all further debate is over, forever – the “law of the land” is “settled.” They’re increasingly comfortable with casting aside their pretensions of adoring free speech and punishing those who verbally disagree with “law” that was “settled” by one weird election, one midnight congressional vote, or one Supreme Court justice.

That’s because, as Nichols notes, totalitarians want Total Victory. They understand ideas are dangerous, and when people are permitted to discuss dissenting ideas, they eventually desire the freedom to implement them. They start wondering where all the walls and prison bars came from, and why they shouldn’t be allowed to explore the free space on the other side of those walls. That’s why the Left is so insanely neurotic about all the social arguments they supposedly “won.” They didn’t win any of them by persuading a majority of people to embrace social change through the republican process. At best, they got to the 51-yard line, spiked the ball, declared a touchdown, and then announced the game was over forever. The Left understands that both totalitarianism and liberty are viral.

Totalitarianism is the antithesis of principle – the ends justify the means is their slogan, hovering on the lips of every single “liberal” in the United States today. It gives them an advantage in these brutal political scrums, because they fight dirty. The whole point of Saul Alinksy’s infamous Rules for Radicals is that totalitarians have no principles they can be pinned to, while their victims are great believers in intellectual consistency and the rule of law, which puts them at a severe disadvantage. Good luck asking any of today’s lefties what happened to the joyous celebration of free thinking, free expression, non-conformity, and provocative bravado they supposedly worshiped just a decade or two ago. They never really meant it – they’re totalitarians, so they only celebrated plucky upstarts who challenged consensus, stuck it to The Man, and fought The Power when they weren’t The Man. Now that they have all the power, you’re not supposed to fight it – conformity and unquestioning obedience are cool.

Totalitarians view everything through the lens of their power goals and preferred political narratives. That’s why President Obama will attend certain funerals and insert himself into certain local crime stories, but couldn’t give a rat’s ass about politically inconvenient horrors like the murder of Kate Steinle, allegedly by an illegal alien. The massed ranks of the Left are whistling past Steinle’s graveyard because her death is extremely inconvenient for them politically. Meanwhile, they’ll whip their supporters into a frenzy over “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” events that didn’t even happen. That’s actually a persistent feature of totalitarianism over the ages, because imaginary hobgoblins are much more politically useful that real, complicated, factually accurate stories. Every single totalitarian system has invented or exaggerated nemeses and instructed the people to focus all of their rage and despair upon them, while ignoring the actual events taking place right outside their windows.

Totalitarianism can begin by declaring benevolent intentions and citing popular support for its ideas, which is especially easy to do when the totalitarian party has near-total control over the media… but as I said, it always slides into something uglier. We’re arguably well into the ugly stages of the process now – how many people thought in 2008 that freedom of speech and religion would be on the chopping block by 2016? Things get ugly because power, like any other resource, suffers from the law of diminishing returns. The Ruling Class has to squeeze its captive people ever harder to produce each new droplet of power; taxes must become higher and more complicated to chase the dwindling pool of free dollars still fluttering through a statist economy; the regulatory apparatus must consume new areas of our lives to continue its growth...

What’s happening in America right now is bad, and it will get worse, because that is the nature of the collectivist beast. Its work is never done, and it grows increasingly angry with anyone who still dares to resist it. The number of actual voters required to form a compulsory “consensus” that cannot tolerate even the most polite verbal disagreement will continue to dwindle. The “tyranny of the majority” will degenerate into tyranny, period, because the actual majority has been intimidated into silent acquiescence. When everything is political, every freedom becomes a prize for the taking… and those prizes will be taken. There will be more injuries, and not all of them will bleed money.

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ORIGINAL: forceonature

The left looks ahead with idealistic hope

The right looks behind with frustration fear and hate

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I like to think of myself as a pioneer in warning about the rise of the New Totalitarianism in America

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ORIGINAL: blnymph

He fled Austrian military service and joined the Bavarian army in 1914. Technically he might have faced a military trial as a deserter - it might have been one of the reasons he was not expelled to Austria in 1923 and afterwards. Joining the Bavarian army did not make him a Bavarian/German citizen.

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ORIGINAL: BoscoX

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

that's funny because for the most part, when I read the quote in the photo, I think of liberals being the perpetrators.

I see now that bosco said similarly, and to an extent, kirata doesn't seem to be far off that either.

I think Kirata has a point, there are some honorable types on the left, it's the "progressives" and SJW types who fit that meme

But my point is, where are the "honorable" left leaning members, on threads and posts such as the one "joking" about the military killing President Trump

All I see are people on the left joining in to yuck it up

Not just that topic, post or thread by any means, that is just the latest most egregious example

I get a little bit out of line and someone on my side often says something (Kirata comes to mind, and a few others). Which is good, I make mistakes and I like to know when I do

But where are the, corrections on the other side? Has anyone seen any to speak of?

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

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ORIGINAL: BoscoX

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

that's funny because for the most part, when I read the quote in the photo, I think of liberals being the perpetrators.

I see now that bosco said similarly, and to an extent, kirata doesn't seem to be far off that either.

I think Kirata has a point, there are some honorable types on the left, it's the "progressives" and SJW types who fit that meme

But my point is, where are the "honorable" left leaning members, on threads and posts such as the one "joking" about the military killing President Trump

All I see are people on the left joining in to yuck it up

Not just that topic, post or thread by any means, that is just the latest most egregious example

I get a little bit out of line and someone on my side often says something (Kirata comes to mind, and a few others). Which is good, I make mistakes and I like to know when I do

But where are the, corrections on the other side? Has anyone seen any to speak of?

Actually, I find that post about the 21 gun salute missing Trump offensive.

Just saying.

Your post celebrating protestors run down was over the top offensive.

When it comes to a discussion of honor, you don't have a seat at the table.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

You are beyond redemption.