For those of us who have criticized the cancel culture in higher education for years, the attacks and shunning have been unrelenting. The media has played a role in that culture and none more prominently than the New York Times. Recently, however, the mob came for liberal professors and media who have remained silent for years as conservatives and others were targeted on campus. Suddenly, there is a new interest in free speech and academic freedom, including by the Times editors who blamed cancel culture for the recent demonstrations and disruptions on campus.
Until good liberals were targeted on campus, cancel culture was treated as free speech. It did not matter that preventing others from speaking or being heard is the very antithesis of free speech.
The New York Times reached true infamy in the controversy over publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R., Ark.) op-ed where he argued for the possible use of national guard to quell violent riots around the White House.
It was one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. Cotton was calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House. While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful.
Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence. One year later, the New York Times published a column by an academic who had previously declared that there is nothing wrong with murdering conservatives and Republicans.
Later, former editors came forward to denounce the cancel culture at the Times and the censorship of opposing views.
At the same time, the Times has embraced “advocacy journalism.” Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism. Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”
Now, however, liberal professors and writers are being targeted. After years of turning a blind eye to conservative and libertarian figures being purged from faculties or canceled in events, the Times is alarmed that
…students and other demonstrators disrupting college campuses this spring are being taught the wrong lesson — for as admirable as it can be to stand up for your beliefs, there are no guarantees that doing so will be without consequence.
For several years, many university leaders have failed to act as their students and faculty have shown ever greater readiness to block an expanding range of views that they deem wrong or beyond the pale. Some scholars report that this has had a chilling effect on their work, making them less willing to participate in the academy or in the wider world of public discourse. The price of pushing boundaries, particularly with more conservative ideas, has become higher and higher…
It has not gone unnoticed — on campuses but also by members of Congress and by the public writ large — that many of those who are now demanding the right to protest have previously sought to curtail the speech of those whom they declared hateful.
It is certainly good to see the “Old Gray Lady” have second thoughts about cancel culture. However, she might want to look inwardly before casting more cultural stones.
Jonathan: Never thought we would be revisiting the events in Lafayette Park on June 2, 2020. But your column compels that. On that date peaceful protesters gather in the Park to protest racism in the killing of George Floyd. DJT wanted to show he was the “law and order” president. He shared a message from Tom Cotton suggesting unleashing a US Army air assault division to put down what he falsely claimed was “anarchy, rioting , and looting”. So what did DJT do?
He called out the police, backed up by the Nation Guard, to violently attack the protesters in the Park. The Park was eventually cleared and DJT used that “show of force” for a photo-op in front St. John’s Church so he could hold up a Bible. That was the only time DJT used a Bible as a prop–until he recently started hawking his own version of the Bible for $60 per copy!
But now you try to conflate what happened back in 2020 with the J. 6 insurrection. You still call J 6 just a “riot”. No. J 6 was way worse than what happened in Lafayette Park. The latter was a violent attack on the Capitol by a “mob” to try to overturn an election–and overthrow out Democracy. None of that happened in 2020! You only complain about the “mob” when it allegedly involves Antifa. But a violent “mob” attacking the Capitol not so much.
I guess nothing has changed with DJT and Cotton’s approach to peaceful protests. Put them down violently. After the events of 2020 DJT said: “You have to dominate…They’re gonna run over you, you’re gonna look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate…It’s a war in a certain sense and we’re gonna end it fast”.
And Cotton hasn’t changed since his op-ed in the NY Times. In a post on “X” on 4/15 he referred to the pro-Palestinian protesters this way: “I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: Take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way”. So DJT and Cotton are at least consistent. Using organized violence against peaceful protesters back in 2020 is still justified in 2024. You and Tom Cotton make fine bedfellows!
Dennis/Gigi are here every day
trying their best to ‘cancel’ Mr. Turley
and failing every single time.
Both are suffering from chronic Turley Envy,
You clearly live in an alternate world. Those “Peaceful protestors”. Tried to burn down St. John’s church. Tore up Laffeyette Park, Broke down parts of a security fence arround the WH, Something that has not occured in over a century, Attacked Secret Service and Park Police trying to keep them out of the WH. Force the Secret Service to drag the president unwillingly into a bunker,
Threw rocks and frozen water bottles at police, secret service and later AG Bar when he visited the scenes.
While it is not specifically relevant who did what in response to this VIOLENCE. The FACT is that Barr, Not Trump determined that the protestors had to be dispursed to setup a temporary security barrier while the WH Fence was repaired.
George Floyd was not killed – he died of a self induced drug overdose when he ate his own stash. After being caught passing a conterfeit $20 at a local Bodega. The Floyd riots were a disaster waiting to happen. We saw that with the events in Furgesson During the Obama Administration.
The Left has been shilling this lie that systemic racism in police is some huge problem for Young Black men.
The Problem is young black men turning to Crime. There is no real evidence of systemic racism in policing, and as a result of the BLM riots police accorss the nation have been treating violent young black men with kid gloves.
And the results ? Large increases in property crime, Large increases in Drug abuse, and drug overdoses, Large increases in violent crime.
All the “Fergesson Effect” and All confined to cities where the police have implimented these so called anti-racist measures, and elected no-prosecute DA, or eliminated bail.
This is stupid – and stupid to even argue about.
Why ?
Because this is NOT happening in “my Back Yard” – where policing remains unchanged, and crime remains unchanged, and poor blacks and hispanics have atleast some hope of a better life.
The Rising Crime, and violence is occuring in those places that implimented those supposedly “anti-racist” policing and prosecution.
Put simply YOUR POLICES HAVE FAILED – and they are harming the black community.
If Black Lives actually mattered to you – You would favor MORE aggressive policing. Not Less. If you want to save Black men. The best ways are to fight the actual violence that kills blacks in these communities. There are thousands of Blacks – often women and children violently murdered by other blacks for every single black person – or even just person killed by a police officer – lawfully or otherwise.
YOU have a choice – You can accept that to police violence – force is necessary – AGAIN Government is FORCE, and understand that doing so will result in the occasional George Floyd or Micheal Brown. Or you can reject the use of force in Policing and get the anarchy you see now.
As a result of the BLM riots – not only has policing gone down, and violence gone up, but businesses have left poor communities, Drug Stores, Walmarts, Targets have moved out. Requiring poor minorities to pay more or travel farther for the things they need.
Returning to June 2020 – more officers were injured cleaning up the riot you claim never happened than were injured at J6.
I disagree with Cotton’s editorial – as we were and are no where near using the Army to deal with domestic violence. That said we have done so many times in the past – Johnson did so during the Vietnam War. And Democrats more recently proposed the same in the NYT response to campus violence.
What is disturbing is that a paper that publishes editorials advocating for terrorism thinks that a Senator proposing using the Military to thwart rioting arson and looting is beyond the pale and can not be published.
The fallout of the Cotten editorial has been the purging of the New York Times of the very voices it needs to restore its status as the pre-eminent newspaper in this country rather than little more than a left wing echo of the National Enquirer.
Fortunately Real Journalists like Weiss who was forced out of NYT over this are doing fine at Substack and elsewhere.
I would highly recomend Barri Weiss’s podcasts or her columns on substack.
If you actually want honest comentary regarding Laffeyette Park, or the BLM riots she has covered that and many other similarly controversial topics. She does a good job of getting people from most sides of an issue into dialogues on those issues – though she tends to avoid the stronger conservative voices. After all she is still a liberal – even if she is not a left wing nut progressive.
Glenn Greenwald, Barri Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Micheal Schellenberger – these are just a few of a long list of REAL journalists – almost all liberal who are providing all of us with The Truth about the world, who are providing real discussion and analysis of controversial issues.
I do not always are with what they say – but they are not left wing nut closed minded shills, like YOU or NYT
John Say: No. You live in an alternate world. Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd by a jury. What ever drugs had in his system were not the proximate cause of his death. That was proved at trial. The medical examiners ruled Floyd’s death a homicide because Chauvin compressed Floyd against the street in a way that starved his body of oxygen leading to cardiopulmonary arrest.
If you only rely on conspiracy theories on the right and from those cited in your comment your brain is being starved of the oxygen it needs for rational thinking!
Dennis – this debate ended long ago – the real world evidence exists that the Chauvin Trial was a travesty.
I can and will address some of the details below, but the most important consequence of Martyring Chauvin is that
Minneapolis is now more than 50% below the number of police officers it had in 2020. No one wants to work there.
Worse still – it is NOT the actual dreggs of the police force that are going elsewhere – those are the ones staying.
Those are the ones that the Police can hire when good officers with lives and wives and families decide they can not go on the street to control anarchy and risk their lives each shift AND have to pray that some Failure like Floyd does not OD in front of them and they end up being sacrificed to the angry left wing nut mobs.
Is the fact that Left wing nut cities all over the country have skyrocketing crime, drug, violence problems proof that Chauvin was innocent – no but it is a clue that you are unable to digest.
Few officers – certainly none of the good ones want to work in the places that the left rules supreme.
Nor are you likely to fix this anytime soon.
Do you honestly think the good police are going to come back to Minneapolis ?
You end up with one of two things – The Dregs the police – the people who can not get a job anywhere else they are so bad, and will take the risk because they are desperate for a job.
Or you and up with those who make the safe choices – don’t respond quickly – let the bad guy get away. Then you can not get killed arresting them or jailed because something bad happened and you are going to get blamed.
Derek Chavin and his fellow officers were sacrificed by the Minneapolis City Government and the Minneapolis PD in their effort to avoid a left wing nut riot that might burn down the city.
You want to beleive otherwise you are an idiot. The trial was rigged from the start, that the defense was deprived of evidence, that prosecution witnesses lied right and left, and that the defense was prevented from presenting evidence and properly cross examining witnesses – where do we hear claims like that ?
Frankly the Chauvin prosecution was WORSE than the lawfare against Trump.
Turley recently did a post addressing the abysmal lawfare record of Marc Elias – Elias and his Son were involved in the Chauvin Trial.
But lets address the FACTS.
There is lots and lots of Body Cam video – most of which was not made available to the public or the defense.
That indicates that the video shown was deceptive. Chauvin’s knee was not on Floyd’s neck but off to the side.
Within 24 hours of Floyds death Mineapolis cornoers reported his death to the CDC as a drug overdose.
Records were changed later.
That said even the altered records do not hold up. There is no actual evidence to support the medical experts CONCLUSIONS that Floyd was suffocated. His oxygen levels were not life threatening. They were slightly below normal as a result of being on the ground too close to the tailpipe of a running police vehicle., but no t low enough to kill him or cause a heart attack.
I was personally hospitalized about 6months after Floyds death from a blood infection from a botched colonoscopy.
My oxygen levels were lower that Floyds AFTER he died. I am still alive.
Floyd was not asphixiated PERIOD anyone testifying otherwise is LYING under oath.
Also LIED about was the FACT that the technique used by Chauvin was standard practice for the Mineapolis PD for decades prior to Floyd’s death. It has been used hundreds of times – no one has ever died of it. There is no restriction on the length of time that it can be safely used – there are many instances in which it has been used for 15minutes or longer.
The FACT is that had Chauvin’s knee been in Floyds neck for the full 8 minutes – it would not have killed floyd.
Not only is this claim idiotic it is so idiotic that The Salem Witch Trials provide a refutation.
Giles Corey – one of the few men accused in the Salem Witch Trials refused to enter a plea – because if he died without being found guilty his estate would not be forfeit and his children could inherit.
Corey was 81 at the time – not Floyds 47.
If you refused to plead at this time you were placed on the ground naked with boards placed over you and stoned put on the boards until you entered a plea. Corey was deprived of food and water before his ordeal and then “pressed” – not for 8 minutes – but for 2 days before he died – with several hundred pounds of stones on him. He was still alive and asking for “more weight” at a point in which his tongue was forced out of his mouth.
Separately – the human airway is in the FRONT of the neck – not the back. The back of the human neck is protected by some of the strongest muscled in the human body and by the bones of the spine. Long before you would constrict a persons airway you would break their neck.
But lets address another FACT
“According to the data, for every 10 meters (32.8 ft) of depth, the water pressure increases by 1 ATA. At 10 meters (32.8 ft), the water pressure is 2 ATA, which exerts a force of 29.4 lbs/in on the lungs, causing a 50% decrease in lung capacity. At 20 meters (65.6 ft), the water pressure is 3 ATA, exerting a force of 44.1 lbs/in, causing a 67% decrease in lung capacity. At 30 meters (98.4 ft), the water pressure is 4 ATA, exerting a force of 58.8 lbs/in, causing a 75% decrease in lung capacity.”
Not at 4 ATA with a 75% reduction in lung capacity – people are still alive.
The world record human dive without special protective gear was 332.35 meters by Ahmed Gabr, a 41-year-old Egyptian in the red sea.
While it is unlikely that Floyd could have dived 300 meters and lived – or probably even 100 meters and lived,
There is nothing that Chauvin is ALLEGED to have done to Flyod that would have killed him even if True.
The other possible way that Chaivin could have Killed Floyd was to have put his knee to the SIDE of Floyds neck and cut off blood flow through the cartoid arteries or slightly easier through the Jugular vein. Done consistently to a single side of the neck for long enough a person would pass out. But they would not die. Further that is NOT what the medial testimony was – because you can not kill someone that way and cutting off blood to the brain leaves evidence that was not present.
Floyd died of a heart attack caused by a severely weakened heart do to prior heart attacks caused by past drug overdoses, as well as fairly significant blockages in several heart arteries. Frankly he was a walking fatal heart attack weighting to happen.
When he ate his stash in the police cruiser after arrest and prior to being removed from the vehicle he doese himself with phentaol and meth each over 3 times the fatal dose. Absent immediate medical care – and possibly with it, he was going to die at his own hand.
I would note there is body cam video of Floyd being arrested he was complaining that he could not breath from the moment officers approached him. Long before he was placed on the ground.
There is also bodycam video and audio of the officers at the scene discussing how to deal with Floyd. Four pretty substantial police officers were unable to Get Floyd into a police cruiser and keep him there. He was VIOLENTLY resisting arrest and he was strong as h311 and high as a kite.
They ultimately decided to put him on the ground in the stress position as that was MPD POLICY for this type of issue and wait for the paramedics – who came from a firehouse 2 blocks away and STILL took 20 minutes to arrive.
Chauvin did not suggest the stress position. One of the new recruits did – a Black Officer. But Chauvin was the senior officer and made the final decision.
The point of the “stress position” is that it is relatively easy – especially after the person is handcuffed to get even an oxe like Floyd face down on the ground, and it takes very little force in that position to keep someone down – especially if they are in handcuffs.
They can not flee, they can not fight back, Their own body weight makes it harder for them to fight you.
But in the absence of several hundred pounds of weight you can not kill someone that way.
But then FACTS and logic is irrelevant to left wing nuts.
Dennis.
Your now Changing the facts. NO the medical examiners did NOT say that Chauvin compress floyd against the street.
As I already noted – that is medical NONSENSE – worse than the stupid claim that masks will stop airborne viruses.
Hundreds of pounds of force are needed to cause death through compression of the lungs.
If All four officers involved had stood on floyd’s back – he probably Still would have been about to breath.
At a depth of 10m in the water the water pressure on your lungs is 14.7 psi greater than on the surface – For the typical human that is thousands of additional lbs of force compressing the lungs.
BTW – No the prosecution did NOT claim that Floyd’s brain was starved of oxygen, Floyd died of a heart attack.
No one disagrees with that. Drug overdoses cause heart attacks. Vascular blockage causes heart attacks.
The prosecutions theory is that oxygen starvation caused a heart attack – which BTW is how vascular blockage works.
It is also how drugs work, though more by increasing the hearts need for oxygen rather than reducing its supply.
Cutting off blood to the brain will cause strokes, peticial hemorages, and the death of the brain – before any heart attack.
There is no credible medical theory that fits the facts of Floyd’s death and your brain death argument.
But Covid does teach us (AGAIN) that “experts” are constantly wrong. There are actually very good reasons for that.
There was an National Institute of Science study done of most of the “expert witness” testimony given in courts.
The findings are damning and briefly shook the courts. Unfortunatly most of the stuff that was found deeply flawed and unreliable is still routinely allowed in court.
You can not match a bullet to the gun that fired it to any degree of reliability – Yes, you can tell a .45 from a .22, but being able to prove that two .22’s were filed fromt he same gun beyond a reasonable doubt is not possible.
The overwhelming majority of finger print matches in the US today are 6pt matches – that is at best more likely than not a match.
There are also serious problems in the methodolgy of fingerprint analysis that mean that we are not matching actual fingerprints to each other, but roughly the equivalent of a piss poor mathematical hash.
BTW the same is true of DNA matches – while the statistical odds of two DNA matches as they are done today returing a false positive are low, Low enough to meet the beyond a reasonable doubt standard – they processed used is not within hundreds of orders of magnitude of what is claimed We are not matching actual DNA, but the results of breaking the DNA into peices and then looking at the distribution of the lengths of the peices. That is way different from matching the actual DNA – but far better than what we do for finger prints.
Matching fibres on more than the grosses level is impossible. You can say that fibre X probably came from ablue carpet, but getting the brand of the carpet much less matching even the color beyond generic grouping like Blue is impossible.
Hair matching is vodoo. Does not work – again beyond very generic colors and thick vs thin, and even both of those are problematic because most people have hairs of varying thickness, and non uniform color.
Bite matching is worse than Vodoo. Anyone ever convicted on a bite match should be released.
There has been LOTS of studies of so called “shaken baby” over the past decade. Anyone who has been jailed for allegedly harming a baby by shaking it should be released. It is likely that you will break the neck of an infant before you can harm their brain.
The skull of infants is soft – to allow it to get from the uterous into the world. It does not harden for years.
Further even if the infants skull was hard the amount of energy required to damage a brain is enormous.
We have way too many brain injuries in sports like Football. These involve exclusively men and typically peak athletes.
We do not see concussions or brain injuries in peewee football as an example – because the mass of the kids and their ability to create force is too small.
My wife has a case right now where a taxi driver was convicted of Rape because a medical exam found “fresh blood” that trial experts said was a result of violence. The jury was told that mentrual blood – the women was having her period at the time – could not be red/fresh. More poppy cock.
We are all used to watching CSI or other crime shows on TV where “experts” manage to get the face of the perpetrator off his image in a car mirror, viewed by a traffic camera. This is not possible.
Pretty much everything that you see on TV is not even close to reliable enough to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
But somethings are actually easy While we can not prove beyond doubt that Floyd ate his stash int he police cruiser though there is a great deal of evidence to support that.
We CAN KNOW beyond any doubt that Floyd had enough fentanyl and Meth in him to kill him 3 times over.
With those levels of drugs he was going to die in less than 10 minutes from ingesting the drugs without the administration of Narcan.
Floyd died of a heart attack which is what drug overdoses typically cause. Worse still he had heart problems that were inevitably going to be fatal eventually cause by years of drug abuse.
Floyd was absent the administration of narcan going to die within minutes BEFORE Chauvin put him on the ground – unless you beleive that Floyd was magically given drugs while on the ground. Or that someone tampered with the blood tests – in which case the entire forensics is suspect.
The prosecutions theory requires Chauvin to have done the impossible and caused a heart attack BEFORE the impending death from an overdose occured. And even that claim requires malice of which there was none. If you shoot a dying person shortening their life – you commit murder. But if one form of accidental death beats another – you do not have manslaughter.
This case never should have gone to trial much less to a jury.
What conspiracy theories ? Are you batschiff crazy ?
The only alleged conspiracy in this entire case is that These 4 police officers allegedly conspired to kill Floyd.
That is the ONLY conspiracy theory.
Floyd’s blood tests are a FACT. The levels are not “close to fatal” – they are 3-5 times fatal for each of two different drugs.
There is absolutely no doubt in the world that absent Narcan Floyd would have been dead within a few minuted of taking those drugs.
Or are you claiming that we do not actually know what levels of drugs are fatal ? If you wish to challenge that aspect of forensic science – I am fine with that. But the rest – including this absurd medical theory that BACK or BACK OF THE NECK compression – which can not kill without prolonged (days) force much greater that Chauvins entire body weightsomehow beat the drugs to Floyds death ?
If we are going to question the relaibility of forensic evidence – I am OK with that.
Bizarre one time only theories get tossed before the basics of what levels of drugs kills people.
The prosecutions claim is as absurd as if you found Floyd in an alley with a bullet through his heart and blood everywhere, and then tried to claim he was killed by aliens ray guns.
“When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
It is also true that when give the choice between the near certain and the impossible, that the truth is what is near certain.
The fact that you may have hoodwinked and pressured a jury
One of the few things in life that anyone who actually knows me has Never accused me of is an inability for rational thought.
I have been accused of being infuriatingly rational. I am not going to toot my own horn and provide evidence – beyond my own posts of my rational abilities. My arguments stand on their own. But is this did turn on any objective measure of logical abilities you would be toast.
The rote reliance on unconsidered and obviously wrong cliches in your arguments undermines your own claims to rational thinking.
“alternate world”
I have provided facts and logical arguments.
You have provided appeals to authority, and numerous factual errors – you can not even get the medical examiers theory of how Chauvin killed Floyd correct. How can you demonstrate it is correct when you do not even know what it is.
“conspiracy theories on the right”
You mean the collusion delusion ?
Or the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation ?
Or that Joe’s uncle was eaten by Canibals ?
The overwhelming majority of right wing claims have proven to be true.
The overwhelming majority of those on the left have proved false.
You have no credibility
Not about Floyd, not about anything.
“brain is being starved of the oxygen”
My brain has plenty of oxygen, I suggest you check yours.
“ George Floyd was not killed ”
Oh, yes he was. The police officers were found guilty for the crime of killing him. The drugs were irrelevant. Putting a knee on his neck while lying prone for a prolonged period is what killed him. Making excuses for police using excessive force and violating department policy is what made the situation worse.
Putting a knee on his neck while lying prone for a prolonged period is what killed him.
That is both NOT what happened – there is plenty of video and even if it actually had – you can not kill someone that way.
You can not cut off either the airway or the blood supply from the back of the neck.
The veins and arteries are the sides of the neck not the back and you must blck several of them continuously for atleast 6 minutes AND make no attempts to rescucitate to kills someone by cutting off the blood supply tot he brain – which again requires constricting BOTHS sides fo the neck. You can kill someone by constricting their airway – but that is in the FRONT of the neck. It is virtually impossible to close that airway without breaking the hyoid bone. It is impossible to do from the back or the side of the neck,
and aside from breaking the hyoid bone it leaves several other indicators – like peticial hemoraging – which was not present.
Floyd had absolutely NONE of the symptoms of suffocation. Even his blood oxygen after death was low normal – consistent with exposure to Carbon monoxide from the cruiser tailpipe – but still well about fatal.
Floyd did not die from lack of oxygen. He died from a heart attack caused by 3 times fatal levels of Drugs
There are over 1000 people today on the innocence projects “exhonerated” list.
These are people who were accused of a crime, – in most cases eventually confessed and later recanted, were tried by a jury.
All of these allegedly committed serious violent crimes.
In EVERY single instance they were ultimately PROVEN innocent.
They did NOT get off on a technicality.
The innocence project does not take a case unless the defendent continues to claim they are completely innocent,
and they only seek to overturn convictions on the grounds of ACTUAL INONCENCE.
There are plenty of other lawyers and organizations funding legal aide that will deal with reducing sentences or reversing convictions for due process failures. The Inoncence project ONLY deals with proving Actual Innocence.
The exonerated list is 1000 times that Juries have “Gotten it wrong”
Further unlike the Chauvin case the exonerated list is primarily people in significant lower profile cases that have none of the political issues of this case. These are not people convicted by a rabid populace amped up by BLM and idiotic left wing nuts.
These people were convicted by ordinary juries trying to do their best with no unusual biases or giant public pressures involved.
And still 1000 times they got it wrong.
Some of these people were sentenced to death – you would think that when someone is facing the death penalty – that Juries would be extra careful to get it right.
I would note that though there is lots of criminal justice reform that I support – though very little of this nonsense the lunatic left is pushing, despite that most of the time especially at the local level absent political and other pressures our justice system does a pretty good job. That is not to say that there are not too many innocent people in our jails today. There absolutely are.
I am a fervent believer that better than 10 guilty men go free that 1 innocent man is punished. A core western value that both the right and the left have lost.
Conservative estimates are between 2-3% of people in prison right now are actually innocent. That is about 50,000 people who have been wrongfully convicted. While that is a pretty good success rate, it is still way too high a number.
If Juries fail 2-3% of the time in cases that are NOT politically charged – there is lots of evidence that they do far far worse when a case has significant media attention, or worse still plays on our political biases.
Regardless, if you beleive that conviction by a jury constitutes proof of guilty – especially in a high profile politically charged case – you are nuts.
“The drugs were irrelevant.”
Because 3 times fatal levels of phentanyl and meth are irrelevant ?
Because obviously Floyd died in a way that is litterally impossible – by as YOU say – having a Knee on his neck for prolonged periods.
Short of actually breaking Floyd’s neck, you can not kill someone by putting your knee on the back of their neck, and you can not kill them by putting your knee on the side of their neck.
Logical fallacy – appeal to authority.
Do you think that juries are more capable than say public health experts ?
Do you think that medical examiners who are having the arms twisted are more capable than public health experts ?
Do I need to list the number of things that public health experts the world over got wrong during Covid ?
And you really want to claim that the star chamber trial in Mineopolis did better ?
We have experiences years of increasingly crazy efforts at left wing nut lawfare.
Through MOST of my lifetime the threat of bias in our criminal courts has primarily been from the right.
But as serious as I have thought that problem has been – it pales in comparison to the political weaponization of the courts that the left has engaged in increasingly over the past few decades.
The abuses I see daily in our courts in normal criminal justice cases are real but small.
My client is a public defender – on of the top criminal appeals attorney’s in our state.
She has 2 clients on the exhonerated list.
Everyday she works on appeals where her clients did not get a fair trial.
Most trials are not fair.
As big a problem as that is – most criminal defendants are guilty of something.
I strongly beleive that we are obligated to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt – no matter what.
Even if the defendant is with 100% certainty guilty of something.
This is not the USSR.
But despite the fact that our system is weakened when we routinely do not give those who are obviously guilty a fair trial.
That problem though real is small,
Compared to the total disruption of society that the left attempts through lawfare.
The beginings of the modern legal h311 come from this living constitutional nonsense.
Which is little more than a legal theory to give judges the power to go with their guts, their heart, their biases, rather than facts, logic and the law. That leads to distruct of the courts – which are the one institution in government that MUST be trusted strongly byby supermajorities of people. Destroy trust in the courts – which you have successfgully done and nothing can be fixed. you are rushing towards anarchy.
A bad system of laws, is far batter than a system where the law is subject to the whim of each individual judge, juror, or prosecutor.
Is it that difficult for you to understand that there is a huge difference between a system that gets it wrong periodically,
and one that has lost the foundations of logic and reason, that has become arbitrary ?
The left likes to pretend that Hitler and the Nazi’s were on the right. That is clear error, the Nazis were unabashed socialists.
But there is one point that the left actually has in that argument.
When we depart from the rule of law not man, we will ultimately have some form of authoritarian system that it does not matter whether you call “right” or “left” ?
The left argues that Hitler was on the right because he was authoritarian – Hitler was authoritarian.
So was Stalin, Mao, Castro, Noreiga, Chavez, Maduro, Pol Pot.
While it is pretty much inevitable that left systems will become authoritarian – because that is what happens when you are unanchored to the rule of law. It overall does not matter much whether you call Hitler or Musolini right or left.
ALL cases of authoritarianism arrise from the lost connection to the rule of law.
The left is hillariously ranting that if Elected Trump will be out for revenge, that he will be a threat to democracy, that he will be authoritarian.
I do not expect Trump to seek revenge – he is interested in his legacy. He has 4 years to prove that he can bring about peace and prosperity from the mess that he inherited from democrats TWICE. If he succeeds at that – he will be remembered favorably forever – and no amount of leftwing nut nonsense will change that.
But Trump is not the entirety of the GOP. There are LOTS of republicans looking to do to the left what the left has been doing to them.
Whether Trump is re-elected or not – you are going to see a rise in Republican Lawfare unless SCOTUS gets its act together and reigns this nonsense in. So far their efforts to do so have been tepid. I do not beleive they have a real sense yet of the scale of the problem they are dealing with. Though maybe we all will start to see the problem as more republicans start to do what democrats have been doing.
BTW that is a pattern we have seen over and over.
The left violates the norms, and republicans follow with the same bad conduct later.
The filibuster is gone – democrats fault. That was a major moderating influence on government – now we pivot between left and right extremes.
Democrats tossed the rules of the house to “get Trump” – the rules are now gone. Republicans are not acting as partisan as democrats in weaponizing or ignoring house rules – but the rules that used to moderate things a few decades ago are gone.
Democrats have weaponized ballot harvesting and mailin voting – both huge mistakes that undermine our trust in the system.
Republicans are behind in playing that game. But they are learning. Make election fraud legal and both sides can play.
Turn about is fair play.
Biden and Obama were 10,000 times more authoritarian than Trump.
When did Trump just ignore the law as president and do as he pleased ?
Biden and Obama have done that constantly.
The reason the Senate Compromise bill never stood a chance – is because no one – not Republicans in the house and senate, not the voters trust democrats in power with following the laws they agreed to.
Bidne is busy trying to buy student votes anyway he can. He is repeatedly unconstitutionally trying to obliterate student loans.
He is now cutting off a key ally at a critical point in a war against an existential threat, in order again to pander to a tiny but critical portion of the democrat vote.
And he is greatly risking making his own problems worse.
We have been teetering on the edge of this turning into a wider war.
Iran is itching to cause more chaos in the mideast.
Hezbolla is itching to get into the fight against Israel.
What stops the war from expanding is that Israel has the support of the US.
Israel can handle Hamas on their own. But if Iran and Hezbolla think the US will not fully support Israel
we could get a much wider War.
The point is that the left is both authoritarian and stupid.
In freshman high school english we learned one of the themes of the Arthurian myths.
Man bears the seeds of his own destruction.
Something the left has never learned.
A simpler version is “Sometimes god punishes us by giving us what we ask for”
The left, the left’s lawfare the left’s abandonment of the rule of law, the Biden administrations assorted policies
all fail because they are and have always been very bad ideas – they DO NOT WORK.
No amount of political power makes something that does not work, work.
The above is a classic example of pressure of thought and pressure of speech.
Symptoms of bipolar disorder and/or schizophrenia.
Google it.
Trump had nothing to do with clearing “peaceful protestors” from College Campuses arround the country in the past few weeks.
New York Mayor Adam’s, nor the presidents and boards at Columbia, NYU, UCLA, … did not call in the police because they are closet MAGA.
The BLM riots in 2020 did not occur in MAGA states and cities. It was not Republican mayors and governors that put down these peaceful protests.
It was not Cotton or Trump that decided these were NOT “peaceful protests”,
It was democrat mayors and governors, and college presidents.
You do not live in the real world.
Trump had nothing to do with clearing the rioters from Laffeyette park.
That was done by Barr, it was done by the Metro Police and the Park Police – the National Guard was not involved.
If you did not want to give Trump a photo op at St. Johns – maybe you should not have tried to Burn it down.
As to the rest of your nonsense – when the left actually protests peacefully – then we can talk.
Taking over parts of campuses so that tens of thousands of students can not attend classes is NOT peaceful protest.
Destroying property is not peaceful protests.
Beating up jews is not peaceful protest.
Kidnapping and beating up janitors is not peaceful protest.
Denying others the ability to attend their graduation is not peaceful protests.
Agree, but from NBC re that topic… By Ken Dilanian
WASHINGTON — When federal police officers violently cleared protesters from the city’s Lafayette Square in June 2020, they did it so a contractor could install fencing — not to let President Donald Trump hold a photo opportunity at a nearby church, an investigation by the Interior Department’s inspector general has found.
That finding, published Wednesday, is likely to surprise many critics of Trump, who have long asserted that the president or his attorney general ordered the operation to pave the way for an act of political theater. That is also the central allegation of a federal lawsuit by Black Lives Matter against the Justice Department.
The report found no evidence of that, but did find that Attorney General William Barr urged officials to speed up the clearing process once Trump had decided to walk through the area that evening.
+100
Have you granted manumission to your driver and body servant yet?
To the contrary, the reality is that there were only two consequences of the J6 protests, one trivial and the other felonious. The trivial consequence was that the counting of electoral votes was postponed from 2:30pm to 8:00pm. The felonious consequence was that Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester rendered utterly harmless by becoming stuck in door opening, was murdered in cold blood by Michael Burke, with Burke’s crime being whitewashed by anti-Trump elites in a disgusting and astonishing travesty of justice.
Everything you wrote about the Lafayette Park riot was a lie.
1. It was not peaceful; it was far more violent than anything on J6.
2. It was not cleared at Trump’s orders, nor was it cleared to give him a photo op.
3. Yes, he used a Bible as a prop; what’s wrong with that? Its purpose was to highlight the fact that the rioters had set fire to a church.
4. The Portland riot, which went on for more than a month, were a genuine insurrection against the USA, which J6 was not. Cotton was 100% right that it should have been put down by military force, and the survivors tried before military tribunals.
If the New York Times meant a word of this, they’d denounce the reckless third-world immigration they’ve been using to deliberately marginalize anyone who might disagree with them. The Democrats don’t need cancel culture to get a one-party dictatorship. Reckless immigration alone will do it.
And the NYT can’t just call off the dogs once they’re set loose. Leftwing revolutions don’t work that way. Just ask Robespierre and Trotsky.
Oh, geez, I forgot! They’re dead. I wonder how that happened??
We’re just a few million short of freak-show tyranny–if it isn’t already too late.
You can’t ask Robespierre or Trotsky because if they were alive they’d be about 250 and 150 respectively! How their lives actually ended is no longer relevant; they’d have ended by now anyway, and thus would not be available for interview.
Now let’s see if Fox condemns the brazen telling of the lie that Trump won in 2020.
I imagine Robespierre felt the same way on July 27th 1794
Bingo!
OT: NBC just flashed this: “Biden to Host Fundraiser with Obama and Hollywood Stars.”
Lin, Biden is focused on campaign donations from the rich, those engaged in Lawfare and the corrupt. Biden is corrupt, so that is where his mindset is. He is all about the money, but that doesn’t necessarily turn into votes. Trump is concentrating on the people, and we can see that in his rally in New Jersey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fH6Qv9ZqII.
Trump hit hard and probably gave us the name of his VP choice. That name will attract the moderates, and Halley will be out in the cold. Trump also defined Biden as the worst!
The outcome of the election remains uncertain. Will Trump’s rally, which drew over 100,000 regular people, have a greater impact than Biden’s exclusive fundraiser from the rich? It’s hard to say. However, Trump’s ability to garner more people than Biden while placing NJ into play underscores the importance of every vote and every effort in this election.
S. Meyer said: “Trump hit hard and probably gave us the name of his VP choice.”
Doug Burgum may be a sound choice. Reported to be a moderate R, but as I read his positions, they don’t appear to be in serious conflict with conservatism. I don’t think he is all that well known on the coasts, but as Governor of ND, he might be more so in the North Central and Great Lakes regions, which include a couple of swing states where Trump could use some help. Trump had better leave Hailey “out in the cold”. If he picks her deep state, neocon adze for VP, he loses my vote, period, end of story, and I doubt that I am alone in that.
” Trump had better leave Hailey “out in the cold”. If he picks her deep state, neocon adze for VP, he loses my vote, period”
Number 6, how could that cause you not to vote for Trump? Do you want Biden?
Lin, I love ya pal, but why oh why are you watching NBC?
Actually, you have to wait a couple days before you congratulate them. To see if they take it down, apologize profusely for it, and fire anyone connected to it.
Follow the money…could it be the chill this behavior puts on academics & professors for publishing research papers & studies thereby having a huge efect on research funding and other monetary stipends supporting those institutions of higher learning? Are tenured professors no longer required to publish academic papers to offset their higher salaries and do-nothing jobs?
Look, until grown-ups stop believing that NYTWAPO is anything except SWAMP propaganda, we will be debating the hypocrisy forever, because that is all the SWAMP is capable of.
Do yourself a favor and quit believing the lie that NYTWAPO is essential. You’ll see so much more truth without them.
Anyone notice that the biggest office building in Fort worth was just sold in a foreclosure auction for 9% of what it sold for 3 years ago.
I wonder what happened?
Well, as you may recall, during COVID most businesses had their employees work from home. With high speed internet and conference software everything went very smoothly. Then the light bulbs lit up. Businesses realized that they were doing just as well even though the employees all worked from home. Why did they need to spend tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands a month renting prime office space. Well, obviously they didn’t need the space, so they stopped renewing the leases.
In Manhattan, brokers have started to market debt backed by a Blackstone-owned office building at a roughly 50% discount. A prime office tower in Los Angeles sold in December for about 45% less than its purchase price a decade ago. As of March 2024, New York City’s commercial real estate market is in turmoil, with office building values down 40% from pre-pandemic levels and delinquency rates up more than 1,000% from January 2023 to January 2024. The city’s office vacancy rate is over 20%, and some say the city is facing a “doom loop” of a downward spiral similar to the 1970s.
I wonder who might be in big trouble in the NY real estate market.
Maybe the Trump Organization????
@Anonymous
I don’t even know what to tell someone that thought we or businesses were doing ‘well’ or that anything was ‘functioning’ just fine during covid measures (or after!), that’s a good one. I also can’t imagine how insular or privileged one would have to be to not feel the effects of the historic levels of inflation over the past few years and not see a possible correlation. I’ll grant the greed, though.
The last time I set foot in the office was March 2020, when it shut down due to COVID. I have been 100% remote ever since.
Last year I was paid $160,000 plus a $12,000 bonus, plus a bunch a of stock options. Pre-COVID I made $76,000 in 2019.
My expenses are way down. No commute, no buying expensive lunches. I put less than 5,000 miles on my car last year, mostly just weekend trips.
I am doing just great, and the company’s profits are way up, because they cut office space by 90%. Big profits mean big bonuses for everyone.
I am laughing all the way to the bank.
Anyone that brags about their salary on a legal/political site is a loser that never had any friends, never went to a prom, never ended virginity and never understood why all he missed all of the above.
Just trying to point out that the economy is booming under Biden.
The nonsense you are hearing on Fox about the economy tanking and inflation running rampant is pure bull$h!t.
Unemployment is at a 50 year low. In 2023 wages increases were greater than inflation. Inflation is nearing record lows. In the fourth quarter of 2023, corporate profits in the United States reached an all-time high of $2.8 trillion, which is a $105 billion increase from the previous quarter. U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.5% in 2023, significantly outpacing that of other developed economies. The stock market is hitting record highs almost every day.
Of course if you are an incel living in your mother’s basement watching Fox 24/7, as I suspect most of you are, then you will be completely oblivious to all this.
“I wonder who might be in big trouble in the NY real estate market.”
What about the Times?
NY Times owns their own office space.
The ones who are in trouble are the ones who own an office building but lease the space to other businesses. These businesses now realize they don’t need the space so they stop renewing the lease and walk away. The building empties out, the owner’s rental income drops, the value of the building drops because in commercial real estate the value of the building is tied to the return on investment from the leases.
None of this is relevant if you own the office space that you occupy, as in the case of the Times.
But Biden just said the US economy is the best in the world. The US has the quickest economic in the world.
Of course you believe Biden.
Ignore what you see. Empty office space. That’s bad. Does the article think about all the businesses that serviced all tho people? Nope. To stupid to add the pieces together.
Empty office space is bad for the owners of the buildings, but great for the businesses that used to occupy them.
As I say in my posts above at 10:31 and 12:20, the reason office buildings are emptying out is that during COVID businesses, like the one I work for, realized that sending workers home to work remotely was great for business. Expenses, such as rent and office infrastructure go to zero, while profits surge.
The companies abandoning office space are not going out of business, or firing people. They are booming, like the one I work for. Everyone works remote now. With the internet, and Zoom and Microsoft Teams, we are all just as connected as we ever were. In fact it is much easier to communicate now. You don’t have to waste time walking the halls to someone else’s office.
Business is booming. Profits and bonuses are huge. The economy is booming.
The Biden economy couldn’t be better for us.
The people who own the office buildings like Trump, are taking a bath, but who cares.
@iowan2
***Ignore what you see***
Really????? Are you serious???? Ignore what you see!!!!
Yeah right. Ignore your lying eyes.
Believe the bull$h!t propaganda from FOX. They are the only source of truth.
The thing that your op Ed so glaringly omits when trying to both sides the demonstrations for George Floyd in D.C. with the 1/6 raid is that the violence was used by authorities against demonstrators in the former and it was used by demonstrators against authorities in the latter…
Apples and oranges.
One set of demonstrations was near the White House, while another attacked/raided the Capitol. And it’s in your job purview to try to make each demonstration seem identical. And they’re not. So there’s that. Party on!
the george floyd riots were in many places across the country, and by many places I mean a few select democrat run places. Those riots had plenty of demonstrators attacking authority, property, each other, others, and anything else they were either paid to hit or that their 80-iq and/or addled minds saw. The riots lasted weeks.
The “violence” on 1/6 was minimal, carried out by both sides – the only murder was by a cop – now a captain, exaggerated, provoked, and only lasted a couple hours.
Notice I’ve confined my comments to the demonstrations Turley actually mentioned. And reality…
While you haven’t.
Party on and have a great day!
Notice that that confinement limits your perspective to a moot point.
1/6 was less violent than most weekends in most large democrat run cities.
Your reality is orange man bad and you have been addled. Sober up and have a great day.
“The Old Gray Lady” = Koristne Budale.
As if they’re just going to give up their
yellow journalism
c’mon man, you know the thing
OT (sort of)
The picture attached to JT’s post is of a relief titled: “Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy.”
Menander was an ancient Greek comedic dramatist. There are three masks in the relief. The one he’s holding is “youth” (presumably one of M’s muses).
Any ideas about the relationship between that relief and the subject of JT’s post?
Hi Sam. Appreciate that you always add depth and breadth to the discussion.
But was that a rhetorical question, as it seems you answered it yourself?!
“But was that a rhetorical question . . .”
Not at all.
“as it seems you answered it yourself”
I did? As in: Menander is the NYT and Youth the cancel culture (the NYT muse)?
If so, I didn’t see it the first time. And if so, that’s a very clever move by JT.
If they are having second thoughts, it is only because the continuation of the crackdown on “hate speech” is now hitting their ideological allies. This is like Claudine Gay suddenly espousing free speech if it involves the genocide of Jews while “microaggressions” against the DEI protected groups are strictly policed on her campus.
Fear not! Nothing has changed at the new york times. This aberration is just until their pro-terrorist stance blows over. This lull is just temporary. Cancel culture is alive and well at the new york times.
I took notice of Jonathon’s attaching the Editorial Board’s cite to the standard of academic freedom: “ Today, the American Association of University Professors defines it as “the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach or publish findings without interference from political figures, boards of trustees, donors or other entities.” That makes every professor an individual laboratory hunting understanding and truth. Just like every State in the Union is an individual laboratory of governance. Can you imagine the sea change in outcomes if faculties had the robust viewpoint diversity that academic freedom demands?for openers use of the term University would, refreshingly, be true. A place where cancel culture goes to die.
Oh the Slimes is now ready to turn the page, pun intended, on cancel culture? Pardon me if I keep my panties on. This reminds me of that time when Trump was elected – or should I say, the first time Trump got elected – and the Slimes did a mea culpa how-did-we-get-it-so-wrong thing, promised to do better, and then proceeded to do even worse all the way up to now. They’re not really done with cancel culture. They just don’t like cancel culture that affects them. Nothing is going to change.
Introspection is not fun – ask anyone going to a therapist. Much easier to have the mirror that the queen in Sleeping Beauty had that always assured her that she was the fairest in the land.
Like so many things, the cancel culture came into being because of the Internet. Whenever we do something, whether it’s buying a book, visiting a nice restaurant, staying at a hotel, going to the dentist, or taking a college course, we are expected to give “feedback” in the form of a “how did we do?” survey that arrives in our email box a few days later. Retailers live and die by these surveys. So do college professors. Rate your student less than “A” and you risk being zeroed out on the course survey. Those surveys mean a lot to college administrators looking to have and hold an attractive workforce. Gone are the days of a professor writing a book or article that tries to address something new and different. If it differs in any way from the student culture, goodbye professor, and don’t let the classroom door hit you on the way out! Education has been stood on its head. Students run these colleges and teach the professors what to say and do, and the result is ignorance, frustration, and confrontation with the truth. It’s no surprise that the latter results in more heat than light. Stop letting the students rate their teachers and we might be able to get back to where this was and is supposed to be. The Internet is a great thing but like AI, we need to control it, not be controlled by it.
Very well said. Thank you.
@anonymous,
“Stop letting the students rate their teachers and we might be able to get back to where this was and is supposed to be.”
Students PAY for their education. They are essentially the university’s customers. If students are not getting what they expect or are unhappy with the quality of instruction from professors they have right to demand better service or changes.
Where it was and supposed to be went the way of the dodo when states started shrinking state funding and raising tuition to compensate. When students pay a larger portion of the school’s costs every year they have a larger say in what they expect of the school and the professors. It’s their investment. People tend to forget that it’s students who pay also get to demand better quality education from their professors and schools. They are customers.
New George, you have everything wrong. You assume universities are playgrounds. They aren’t! They exist to educate, and education is the product being sold.
Your views differ, because you don’t believe in education. That is obvious.
@S. Meyer,
“ You assume universities are playgrounds. They aren’t! They exist to educate, and education is the product being sold.”
No. I am not assuming they are playgrounds. Putting words into others mouths is the first sign of a dishonest individual.
You don’t read minds or get to tell me what I think. Your big problem is you’re clearly ignorant. You being a mind reader is amusing.
“No. I am not assuming they are playgrounds.”
New George, do you think pup tents equate to education? Maybe you are behind the times and don’t know what is happening. Either way, it shows you to be an ignorant fool.
“Students PAY for their education.”
At public colleges and universities, they pay a pittance (about 15%). Hardworking Americans are compelled to pay the rest.
At private colleges, many pay with student loans — which Biden then forces the public to pay off.
You are very adept at deception via dropping the context.
I retired at age 58 after 30 years as a professor for the reasons you state. The quality of teaching was assessed against end of year student survey. It appeared to me the best students learned and adapted and poor learners of lazy folks were angry to make students read, write, calculate and speak.
Anonymous said: “cancel culture came into being because of the Internet”
Meh. As you describe it, “cancel culture” is nothing other than individuals suborning integrity to social pressure, which is hardly a recently developed weakness in the human psyche. So, possibly the very specific behavior you cite as “cancel culture” had its advent on the internet, but the cause both precedes and is distinct from it.
Meant to write “subjugating integrity to social pressure”, sorry.
One thing about I really appreciate about the NY Times and PBS is that they tell me right up front when conservatives make false or baseless statements so I don’t have to check it out myself. However, I do wonder why they don’t do that for statements made by left wingers. Maybe AOC and Bernie Sanders never make false or baseless statements.
kaufman1948: Ha! You are soooo right. Moreover, on my Microsoft desktop homepage (that provides photo blocks of current news headlines),– I remain daily shocked that it appears only Republicans, conservatives, and Trump supporters commit campaign/election violations, financial fraud, insider trading, adultery, hypocrisy, bribery, and other horrible indiscretions. (Except for the necessary and compelled reporting of Menendez.) Those nasty right-wing criminals!
kauffman1948 said: “One thing about I really appreciate about the NY Times and PBS is that they tell me right up front when conservatives make false or baseless statements so I don’t have to check it out myself.”
Was that intended to be sarcasm, or are you truly naive anough to believe that when the NYT or PBS makes such an analysis, that it is both accurate and honest?
Protesters and their cancel culture feed on visibility, media coverage, attention.
Thirty years from now, we will learn about all the news that was Not covered by media,- but instead pushed down the meter of Importance, -in order to fuel and continuously feed the political agenda of this era of cancel culture/protest.
Kudos to the good professor Turley who was one of the first to presciently call out this looming “age of rage.”
30 years from now? Lin, at home we have discussed buying multiple large containers that can hold enough gasoline to get us to Steinhatchee when the election results hit the fan knowing that the nation will stop operating, e.g. businesses closed, gas stations shut down, etc much like hurricanes. At the rate we are going we will not see another US President sworn into office. Biden recently remarked that he wished Trump had killed himself via injecting bleach. Such a comment has all of the markings of a Communist dictator disappearing his opponent. Nothing good is coming our way. Nada.
Estovir,
If things come to pass as you predict, do you really want to be in an area like that with no AC?
Look, I agree that we have some rough times ahead. I believe it will get worse before it gets better, because it must. For too long, Americans have been the spoiled adolescents of the world stage. We let our country be stolen because we couldn’t be bothered to take an interest. Now, it’s late but with God, it’s never too late. A certain amount of pessimism is certainly warranted but relentless negativity is not. What if the divine purpose of this mess were simply to wake us up and grow us up?
@Anonymous
That was what I naively thought with covid – ah! A light is being shined on the poor quality of self-care in the American lifestyle if a relatively harmless virus is impacting the obese and self-neglected at these levels! We will see what we’ve done to ourselves! I thought self awareness and course correction would kick in, and I’ve thought similarly about other issues that have finally come to light, too. What I’ve seen instead is the depth of people’s hostility in reaction to perceiving threat to the status quo of their comfort levels, as opposed to the level of their freedom and sanity.
I agree it’s (almost) never too late, but we are a small number leading the pack. I won’t give up, but there will be great resistance to righting the ship. A lot of us are very concerned about what the left might do in November and beyond, they have literally lost their minds, and we have lost our courage. That is evident in the parental/grandparent response to the actions of the feral children they raised on campuses. I honestly don’t know how we undo so much generational damage, but I know it won’t be easy.
James,
While this generation is a spoiled brat, most American’s dont know what real hardship is like.
Granted there are those who do. Just read an article that some 14% of Blacks and Hispanics go at least 24 hours once a month without eating.
The number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck has gone up over the past few years due to Bidenflation. Granted some of those people put themselves in that situation by buying a home they cannot really afford, cars, vacations, shiny things.
@Upstate
In my opinion, a LOT of people did that (There was a story in the local paper of the blue city we left about the tragedy if a woman living in her car; nobody seemed to think it was important information that the ‘car’ in question was a pickup that cost six figures, she somehow thought she’d be able to afford it working at a gas station, or that somehow she got approved for the financing in spite of all of that), but yes, that’s the point – we are soft, spoiled, selfish, and insulated by slabs of glass and plastic that only tell us what we want to hear and how fabulous we are. Many of our children were raised by people who did the same at home.
A lot of ignorant people are fine trading their freedom for government control if it means they won’t have to be resourceful or productive in maintaining their superficial comforts or notions of status.
“While this generation is a spoiled brat,”
Upstate, I recently discovered that such thoughts can be radically wrong when the sh1t hits the fan. My friends and I often wondered if the Israeli youth had what their elders possessed when they created the State of Israel. We were afraid that under adversity, the young Israelis would fold. How wrong we were. The Gaza War shows that.
We looked skin deep when we should have looked at the Bible to see the strength that each generation has below the surface over time.
The ‘we will fail’ approach lacks that knowledge and fails to understand the intricacies of human nature.
I’m hopeful for our young people, too, Allen. They’ve been lied to a lot, and I think some are waking up to it. I just don’t know if it’s too little too late or not.
The Left says we have to reduce the carbon footprint and the United States is the biggest perpetrator of that carbon footprint. What is the Left’s solution? Massive, uncontrolled immigration that expands the carbon footprint in the United States. That hypocrisy exposes the big lie. It’s really about power and money.
The NYT will never admit that lie, so anything else they say is just a tactic.
I agree it’s (almost) never too late, but we are a small number leading the pack.
Our nation has a population of ~ 335 M. Can you visualize half of that (167 M) making a complete 180 degrees turnaround in their thinking? How about 25% (84 M)?
You mentioned overweight/obesity, which reflects 2/3 of Americans today and growing. The public health message of cardiovascular death, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and comorbidities associated with a BMI >25 have been articulated since forever.
Im the eternal optimist when it comes to the individual. Choices matter.
As for the entire population? Follow the data. Trends speak loudly
“I’m the eternal optimist when it comes to the individual. Choices matter.
As for the entire population? Follow the data. Trends speak loudly”
Estovir, since the sum total of individuals represents the “entire population,” your statement is contradictory. Trends are transient. As a nation, we trended in the right direction under Trump, and under Biden, we trended in the wrong direction. It appears more likely that Trump will win the election instead of Biden, so we will trend in the right direction. Trump is an individual, and as you are an eternal optimist, maybe you discovered that Trump is a better candidate today than he was yesterday. He is trending in the right direction.
Individually, yes. As a nation, we’re under Judgement right now. Romans 1 18-32
Romans Chapter 1: 18-32