Mao More Than Ever

[Paddy1989]

Yes, I can understand where the author is coming from. In my view, the problem with the left and the right is that both are so rigid. The left seems to believe that EVERYTHING must change in order for social justice to be achieved, whereas the right appears to think that NOTHING needs to change, that everything is just fine the way it is, or was, several decades ago. Is there no way to change some things but keep others? For example, can we not present our history in textbooks and classes with a better perspective regarding the role played by minority groups (American Indians, African Americans, Latinos); and, at the same time, not entirely denigrate the contributions of our Founding Fathers even if we point out their flaws? What I am asking for is a more balanced approach rather than an all-or-none, simplistic one. Can certain monuments be replaced, which obviously are offensive to groups of people, but others remain because they represent individuals who made important contributions to our nation even though they were flawed? Why do we have to think and act only according to extremist viewpoints, whether left or right, rather than compromising on certain issues of disagreement?

Sorry but I disagree, both sides want change, they just disagree on what change. With the left however it has become much more violent and aggressive in recent years. Democracy is starting to matter less and less and it is starting to appear as if they would rather the country burn that to accept another term under Trump

 

[meltzerboy2]

Bunkum and balderdash. What does the right want to change? Nothing except to return to 1950’s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry America, an era of relative peace and calm. They want to hold onto the remnants of that era. I will admit they want to deregulate government and trash Social Security and Medicare, but it is in an attempt to go back in time even further, to the Wild-West era perhaps. And with regard to violence, why is the right stockpiling weapons if they don’t intend to use them? Doesn’t the right continue to display violence in the form of hate groups? Both extremes, left and right, are dangerous to the future of this nation.

 

[Paddy1989]

Bunkum and balderdash. What does the right want to change? Nothing except to return to 1950’s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry America, an era of relative peace and calm. They want to hold onto the remnants of that era. I will admit they want to deregulate government and trash Social Security and Medicare, but it is in an attempt to go back in time even further, to the Wild-West era perhaps. And with regard to violence, why is the right stockpiling weapons if they don’t intend to use them? Doesn’t the right continue to display violence in the form of hate groups? Both extremes, left and right, are dangerous to the future of this nation.

Tell me what does the US of 50s which was still predominantly Christian have in common with the right today who are mainly pro choice and supportive of LBGTQI+? Do you honestly believe the right wants to go back to that? By the way I fully support neither but it would be foolish to say the right doesn’t want change. The left just look like the ones who want change the most as they have been the most radical and violent in going about it in recent times, they are the loudest

 

[Edmundus1581]

And what should I, as an Australian, be ashamed of? … For not intervening in their (admitted) disadvantage, or for intervening too much?

A demonstration of the complexity of these isssues is the “Intervention” by then PM John Howard in 2007 to enforce dry zones in aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory (NT), following a report which told of the horrific abuse of aborginal children, largely associated with alcohol abuse. The child abuse was well known for decades, but couldn’t be mentioned or for fear of being labelled “racist”. On the release of the report PM Howard pre-emptively intervened with the military to enforce dry zones free of alcohol and pornography. Good? Nope! The left railed against this as “paternalisitic” and an abuse of human rights. Nevertheless Howard pushed ahead and the zones continue to this day, with modifications in 2012, and are welcomed by the aboriginal communities. One can guess that these communities also have considerably fewer “deaths in custody” than others.

(The reason the federal government could do this in the NT and nowhere else is that the NT, as a territory rather than state, comes under federal jurisdiction.)

So, should Australians’ “shame” be that we aren’t declaring and enforcing more dry zones? That would seem to be the single biggest action we could take to reduce deaths in custody, by having many fewer aborigines in custody.

Or, is it more helpful to see a video of a black man being killed by police in the US, and march in the streets in 10s of 1000s yelling “432 deaths in custody since 1991! End police racism!”.

 

[Welshrabbit]

Nothing except to return to 1950’s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry America, an era of relative peace and calm.

What’s wrong with that? Assuming that we exclude the bad from that era (racism, discrimination against women, etc.) why is that a bad thing?

 

[JimG]

Yes, I’m rather in favor of peace and calm. Even the politics of that era was more calm and peaceful. Democrats supported Stevenson over Eisenhower, but nobody was rioting.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

meltzerboy2:

Nothing except to return to 1950’s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry America, an era of relative peace and calm.

What’s wrong with that? Assuming that we exclude the bad from that era (racism, discrimination against women, etc.) why is that a bad thing?

There wasn’t anything wrong with it as long as you aspired to be Ward or June Cleaver. But Ward and June didn’t see the writing on the wall, so things were a mess by 1980. So, Ward and June, not so great. Peace is great, but Ward and June have nothing to do with peace other than being the ones to have lost it.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Not a bad era except for what you have pointed out, that is, relative inattention to those who didn’t have it so great due to racism and discrimination (minorities, women, the disabled, gays, and so on). For the majority of middle-class and working-class Whites, it was indeed an era of relative peace and calm, apart from the Cold War, the calm before the storm of the late '60s, which changed the United States and the world forever.

 

[Annie]

Both extremes, left and right, are dangerous to the future of this nation.

And you just described conservatives, unqualified, as being like the small number of the extremists. You usually are much more fair in your posts.

It is as if I wrote:

Bunkum and balderdash. What does the left want to do? Turn the whole country into the Soviet Union. I will admit they want to provide free education through college for all but it is in an attempt to have the opportunity to brainwash everyone and they want to have the KGB monitoring our every communication. And with regard to violence, why are these actual acts of violence–riots and looting and arsons–done under their banner? The left continues to display violence in the guise of protest groups. Both extremes, left and right, are dangerous to the future of this nation.

 

[Welshrabbit]

Fair enough. I wonder what living through the Cold War was like on a daily basis. I mean the Cuban Missile Crisis had to have been extremely scary and there seems to have been a constant threat of a nuclear war.

In studying the '50s while in college I had a professor who said that this decade was one of “extreme conformity,” meaning everyone tried to act and dress in a similar manner. I can only read about it as it was several decades before I was born but would love to hear from anyone on this forum about their experiences.

 

[Welshrabbit]

Not sure I’ve ever seen any of those shows so I can’t really comment on individual characters. I was more commenting on the fact that it was a relatively calm era that seemed to be good for the middle class (aside from the bad stuff that I posted about).

 

[1Lord1Faith]

The period you’re talking about only lasted for about 20 years. I don’t know if that’s a long enough period of time to qualify as anything other than a post war anomaly.

But to the people, some of whom are on CAF, who grew up in ‘Mayberry’ that ideal is cemented forever in their minds as some kind of utopia that they think is normal. People have to remember that a lot of the post war children didn’t want to be boxed in to the world that they thought they were being forced into - “extreme conformity”.

The ideal of the ‘Mayberry’ 1950’s is to some people the same kind of longing for an illusion as the idea of the Antebellum South being some sort of land of enchantment. I think the 1950’s needs its own “Gone With the Wind” moment because it wasn’t what it’s idealists thought it was and it’s not coming back.

 

[FiveLinden]

FiveLinden:

The disproportionate number of aboriginal victims should be a matter of shame for all Australians.

And what should I, as an Australian, be ashamed of?

You should be ashamed of your country and its institutions and its history of ill-treatment of the peoples displaced by the colonial invasions. This shame should not stop you being proud of other things done by Australians, the Australian States or the Commonwealth they formed. But shame is the right emotion for anyone who feels themselves to be a part of Australia.

And on your other point: why did the various Australian police and prison services not protect the many people who died in their ‘care’ from suicide?

And your term ‘uniformed judiciary’ is all too revealing. The police are neither judge nor jury in law. But in Australia their actions too often result in death without trial or sentence.

 

[Tommy999]

Why do we have to think and act only according to extremist viewpoints, whether left or right, rather than compromising on certain issues of disagreement?

Good observation. Unfortunately, I think that political moderates - the sensible center - are required in larger numbers for compromise to prevail. However, moderates have gone the way of the dodo bird, or at best are choosing to remain quiet and inconspicuous.

 

[JimG]

In studying the '50s while in college I had a professor who said that this decade was one of “extreme conformity,”

I wonder if by “extreme conformity” he also meant that most people had a Christian worldview. I have never seen such etreme conformity as is now enforced by the Left.

 

[Welshrabbit]

I think he meant more that people felt the need to dress/act a certain way in order to fit in with the rest of society. Not sure this would have worked out too well for a weirdo like me…

 

[JimG]

This just seems like normal behavior to me. When I was a child, I dressed and acted in accord with my parents’ wishes, when I was in school, I dressed and acted as a school kid. When I was in the Air Force, I dressed and acted like an airman. When I got a job, I dressed and acted according to the requirements of the job. I didn’t wear a clown outfit to the office. Most people adapt to what is expected. And I didn’t notice any demonstrators wearing business suits to the demonstration.

 

[Welshrabbit]

Hard for me to comment because as I said, it was decades before I was born. I get along fine in today’s world, in fact I like to think I’m pretty darn successful. I make a good living, live in a beautiful house, and have a beautiful wife who stays at home with our children.

That being said, I like to walk around in my neighborhood and pray my rosary. I like to ride my bike around playing music and singing. I hug my adult male friends and tell them I love them. My buddy who is originally from Syria and I greet each other with a kiss on the cheek, (at least we did pre-covid). Would this type of behavior have lead me to be ostracized in the '50s?

My takeaway was that it could have but again, I wasn’t there so I have no idea.

 

[goout]

From the article:

" I do believe, though, that the elimination of our traditional American culture by teaching people to despise it as evil is exactly what The New York Times, the Washington Post , the networks, NPR, and the others are seeking to do."

Yep.
Columbia School of Journalism and academia generally have done a great job of indoctrination.
My parents valued a college education. Now, I think they would encourage me to attend trade school, cause students are spending a boatload of money to support wackjob leftism.

 

[otjm]

Prisoners have a right to be protected form suicide and assault by other inmates. Failure to do so is criminal.

You have made a false assumption that the prisons make no effort to prevent suicide; you might want to do a bit of research as to why they have suicide watches on prisoners they suspect of being suicidal. And that needs to be a bit more than spinning through Wiki.

No one should die in custody for want of medical treatment. And no one would die as a result of the use of force, by anyone.

It is also crystal clear you have never dealt with criminals; people who take your position will be screaming the loudest when a violent criminal gets loose and harms/kills citizens, that “police did not do their work”.

Taking your position to its logical conclusion is that anyone who chooses to resist arrest should be allowed to continue on their way. It further indicates a mindset that criminals are just “misunderstood”, and if we just get Social Services involved, we can all rationally sit down and have a nice cup of tea and a chat, and all will be well. I would love to be a fly on the wall watching the social worker trying to work out reparation between a rapist and their victim. Or rather, I would not wish to be one, as I have a pretty clear idea of how that would work out.

It is also clear that you have never so much as done a ride-along with a police officer; you have never set foot in a prison, you have never done research on the matter of recidivism and it would appear you have never been robbed (someone armed with some form of weapon demanding your goods), never been burglarized, and have had no experience whatsoever of someone on illegal drugs.

Minneapolis city council has voted to get rid of their police force and then rebuild something in their liberal image; New York City has removed their plainclothes force on June 15th, which was working to remove guns from the streets and to reduce crime. In the month of May, before the announcement, there was a 79% increase in murders, a 64% increase in shootings, and a 34% increase in burglaries. In the week following (15th to the 19th) there was a surge in shootings with a total of 28 incidents and 38 victims. That is in 5 days. If you are so gung ho to revise police procedures, I would invite you to consider moving to jurisdictions which appear intent on redefining procedures without so much as anything beyond emotions as to what is necessary.

But of course we must handle those shooters with kid gloves, and heaven forbid they should resist arrest - we just need to let the go on their merry way.

I am against excessive use of force, which I define as beyond what is necessary to gain and maintain control of someone resisting arrest. Mr. Floyd’s cause of death will have to be determined in a trial; at least one medical examiner indicates it was a heart attack, not strangling. It appears from the incident that sitting on his neck was excessive as they appeared to have control of him without that specifically; as to whether or not it caused his death is a separate issue.