Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Well I admit I did not read the commentators of this blog as I was just trying to provide a link to the video, which apparently was part of a political advertisement from 9 years ago. If by "take" this person means physically, I would agree. If by "take" this person means the left wants to illiberally "take" the parental right, role, and responsibility to form their own children in their image - in the beliefs and morality of the parents own choosing, I would say that is what the Progressive left wants to accomplish and like @Pancakes admitted Hillary and others have explicitly said it. No they are not asking anyone to be community minded, because in a Classically Liberal community there is real tolerance of other worldviews. Instead they want a collective - a homogeneous world view and morality. The right in this country is still the more liberal, and don't want to impose the collective over and against the rights/responsibilities of parents, at least that is the way they are running politically now and so far governing, assuming Virginia is not an aberration.

 

At this point I'm unclear what you're even arguing about. For every example where the Left overreaches with homogeneity, there is at least one where the right overreaches as well. You're speaking in broad terms, let me speak in specific ones.

1. The State of Texas rewrites its curriculum to teach Christian creationism and climate change denial. There is no tolerance here for other worldviews, including ones based in science.
2. Again in Texas, we have an abortion law that allows members of the community to sue other citizens (with no penalty if they lose, and no way for the defendant to recoup attorneys fees) if they suspect they have gotten an abortion after six weeks.

Not only are these enforcing worldviews of a vocal minority (most Texas [edit: US Republicans in this poll, not just Texas Republicans] Republicans do not support the Texas abortion law, for instance), they demonstrate that they're not actually Classically Liberal (a term literally nobody should give a shit about since political theory and political reality are so divergent) because they impose an extremely homogenous world view and sense of morality, to borrow your phrase. They are quite literally preventing people from taking control and exercising their rights.

 

People preach all sorts of shit. The entire church all the way up to the pope swept under the rug the fact that priests were raping young boys.

And I don't see anyone in Republican leadership being ok with America's young deciding that unions are a good thing. I'm not arguing either for or against. I'm pointing out once again, that no one in a leadership position wants the youth to think any differently than they do. It corrodes their power. It's plain as day in all levels of society. Ever been employed? I bet you received some sort of training on company values and had regular corporate coolaid spilled on you. Sure it wasn't directed at someone's kids, but that's only because it's already done through advertising.

There is no person or group who wants the young generation thinking different than they do and if they have the power to influence that, they will.

 

@crenca doesn't mean most of the GOP like the ones in TX are the classic liberal types. If you read carefully, he is talking about the classic liberal types who don't enforce their beliefs on others, but respect other viewpoints. The horny-lawyer types in TX GOP don't meet the cut.

Furthermore, he didn't say GOP are the gold standard at all in his arguments. You guys are only assuming that.

 

And my point is that classical liberals don't actually exist. It's a political science term that has no real analogue in the US. There is no group in the US who is espousing a worldview but isn't vocally disappointed by dissent. The left isn't more guilty of this than the right, and some would argue (like me, for instance) that the right's brand of homogeneity is more odious and dangerous than the left's.

 

Hi - Classic Liberal here.

Stop presuming stuff.

Love - @YMO

 

Are you a group? Are you a political group of classical liberals? Two sentences after I clarify that I'm talking about groups. A political group not enforcing a worldview isn't a political group, it's Futurama's Apathy Party. "Classical Liberal" isn't the only classification of people who can understand that people have different worldviews and be accepting of that.

 

Not only do classically liberals exist, it's what most folks in America actually are at bottom politically, mostly. Sure like all "theoretical" terms there is a fluidity and messiness to real people that the term does not fully capture, but it is a very useful. I admit I don't really care about "creationism" and "climate denial". Both are unreal nonsense, and neither are on the ascendancy. The latter does however capture (however poorly) the concern some have - the idea that because anthropogenic CC is real, a person (especially a child) is morally obligated to be taught/think a certain political prescription is the only right response. Even in the RC private school I send my children to, the textbook tried to teach her that oil is "bad" and renewable energy is "good". I stepped in as a parent and taught my daughter the text was trying to persuade her of a moral perspective that does not follow necessarily from the fact of anthropogenic climate change - that the text had dishonestly (or was it merely unconsciously and does it matter?) switched from science to religion/morality.

Abortion goes to the heart of a central weakness of the Classically Liberal world view: who is a person, and when are they a person. My opinion it's intractable so I don't think it says much about left/right commitments to CL, political differences, etc. CL has no hope of "solving" the issue any more than it solved slavery. In any case it is not a significant factor in education, parental rights/responsibilities in education, etc. that I can tell.

 

I will say I'm not a big fan of people saying the left when they're talking about democrats. Democrats are not in any way left.. they're center right. America's political spectrum is all kinds of fucked. We have two militaristic, authoritarian right leaning powers and one of them pretends to like gay and black people and one of them doesn't. The establishment is honestly not very politically varied. It's people in the country that have varying opinions

 

Haha this is why I stay away from Twitter, this interpretation of what she's saying is literally insane. She's saying it takes a community to raise a child, one of the most mundane bits of anodyne wisdom you could think of, and you'd think she was suggesting rounding up children and sending them to re-education camps. I mean Jesus, can we stop assuming the most sinister interpretation of everything? Almost everyone who cares how the next generation is raised wants to raise them to think the things they think, because everyone thinks their world view is the correct one. This is not unique to any part of the political spectrum.

 

The only accurate thing said here today, except all the things I already said.

 

For me personally, it's not about the right or natural solution, it's about the best solution. Humans are designed to live in groups of less than 200. Over that group size, natural communal distribution of resources starts to break down. Capitalism, communism, and all proposed economic systems, being that they are theories on the large-scale distribution of resources, are methods for overcoming this inherent limitation and they each have their own benefits and pitfalls. We cannot go backwards to living in groups that size (well, we can, but the ethics of that are questionable). We are living far beyond the means of nature and that requires interesting solutions. I have an opinion on which is best in implementation, and that's guided by my personal principles. If someone managed to implement a different system that also upheld my personal principles and distributed the resources more effectively, I would believe in that instead.

Maybe some crazy genius, probably one of these gen alpha nutjobs, will think of a new solution that's better than any that came before it, who knows.

 

I interpreted my responsibilities as a parent to include teaching my son about my world view, especially when what they attempted to inculcate was a contrary set of beliefs (often, if not most of the time), and also to take the calls from teachers and adminstrators after he told one of them how wrong they were and why. They only called a few times, then apparently gave up after I told them how proud I was.

Edit: spelling.

 

Help is always coming from unexpected quarters. Rochelle Walensky is asked point blank: how many of 886,000 deaths are from COVID vs with COVID. two years into the pandemic she...cannot give an answer, she is not saying large majority, she is not saying I have no clue, she is not answering. But somewhat people repeat this 886,000 like if they f'ing knew.

Maybe all of them, but maybe the proportion is as in the UK government answer to FOIA request? Can we agree that knowing that maybe would result in different policy decisions? Would it be good to know if you are CDC?

But..the UK government knows, they directly answered this question. But that was a lie too, apparently.
It is all lies of course, until you hear it on CNN...then it becomes true. Unfortunately for the COVID enthusiasts you are starting to hear it on CNN.

Only one kind of experts were right about COVID, psych-ops experts that were advising the UK government and some of them did speak on record: if you manage to scare people shitless you can tell them whatever you want and make them do whatever you want. That the only expert opinion that I actually respect because it obviously worked

 

At the risk of setting off a powder-keg in here, Youngkin ran on the same anti-CRT book-banning culture war stuff that the GOP is running on across the country. I get that this is framed as fighting the imposition of a worldview, if you're coming from the position that the CRT threat is real, but it sure as hell might look like imposing a worldview through negation otherwise

 

CRT is a racialist ideology that says people are racist by nature. It is a moralism and a "religion" (though not a fully fleshed out one), not a secular fact. As I understand it Youngkin ran, and so far has governed, that such moralism does not belong in public/secular schools, that parents who do not want such religion taught to their children are "domestic terrorist's", etc.. I am the first to admit that Classical Liberalism is under enormous pressure, the "space" for it is shrinking, and the illiberal left is used to getting its own way. Still, I think Youngkin's and the coming GOP success in the coming elections will be in large part because the illiberal left overreached and thought the majority of parents were ready to have their children taught such ideology.

GOP inc. fell into this role by accident, by simply being slightly more liberal and tolerant than the illiberal left, so I admit it is not indicative of their thoughtful reflection or political skill. Nevertheless they are more liberal and ironically more secular, as of 2022, then the left is currently.

 

Parents do have the right to decide what gets taught to their children. Last time I check, even the middle of the road parent don't want the public schools to teach morality, that's is the parents job. End of the day, I kind of prefer to let the parent raise their children how they see morality wise.

No one is stopping the parent to teach CRT at home if that is what they believe. No one is stopping the parent to teach GOP good/Dem bad stuff at home. Just keep this stuff out of math class.

 

the point of CRT is combating racialist ideology and the idea that people are racist by nature. this post is 180 degrees from right talking about real CRT. CRT is intensely anti things like affirmative action, etc. the issue isn't with CRT, but that dems don't actually support real CRT. they support a watered down, intensely moralized version of it that serves their agenda and allows them to cast their opponents as villains for votes

I view systemic racism in the US as one of the greatest threats to individual freedom, so analyzing and dissecting how we got here and what to do about it is essential to my mindset as a liberal. everything and anything that creates excessive legal tyranny over the individual must be disestablished, and that includes systemic racism more than almost anything else.

CRT's criticisms of classical liberalism are not actually critiques of classical liberalism, they're critiques of how the establishment uses classical liberal talking points to disguise illiberal behavior.

I don't think you're necessarily wrong (about the dems version of it) but there is definitely important analysis going on here that's getting caught in the political crossfire. CRT is a real thing that exists and is a very specific segment of legal studies. I don't like how the media has made it a term that means basically anything and nothing.

 

I don't want to argue about what CRT is or isn't, let's just assume I think you're wrong and you think I'm wrong. My issue is that the presumption of a neutral existing is false. If you disagree with CRT, the neutral position is not banning CRT. If you think CRT makes white kids feel guilty for being white, the morally neutral position is not saying teachers can't teach about the history of racism in America. Other than hard sciences and math, it is impossible to teach at all without imparting at least implied moral positions. If you think what you're teaching is morally neutral it's because you haven't reflected enough on the lessons you're imparting.

 

That's easy since it's a legal framework and there's not a whole lot of law schools that teach math to K-6 children.