Posts Tagged → open mind
Savage tribalism vs. the Red Pill
In recent discussions with people of varied perspectives about political choices in the upcoming election, what has struck me is the high volume of tribalism involved in selecting who to vote for. We can also call this political party partisanship, which it is, but at its core this simplistic solution to complex problems is really just tribalism.
Tribalism is Us versus Them, Black vs. White, Good vs. Evil, Democrat vs. Republican etc., and at its core, it represents human savagery. Savagery because tribalism requires little analysis or critical thinking, and because people act out their unconsidered partisan politics in brutal ways that would make them blush in any other venue.
Sure, people living in America have a wide variety of reasons for voting the way they do – Biblical values, atheistic values, pop culture values, no values, but if you watch the YouTube videos of intensely partisan people responding to questions about why they are supporting a given candidate, you will often see that they really don’t know the particulars. All they know is Orange Man Bad, Republicans bad, white people bad, capitalism bad, and so on. Don’t push them too hard, because they can get upset quickly when asked to think about their actions and decisions, or to explain them. Tribalism has pretty much shut off the I Can Think For Myself button in their head.
The over-arching question for the next three weeks is, Can enough people take the Red Pill to overcome their simplistic tribalism in this election?
Recall that in the scifi movie The Matrix, good guy Morpheus offers our clueless young man two choices. He can take the blue pill, and he will wake up in his bed with vague memories of some weird discussion, and a red pill. The red pill opens his eyes and he suddenly sees reality, not silly tribalism. People who have watched the movie know that Neo takes the red pill, which wakes him the hell up to an uncomfortable reality, which he eventually changes through his informed actions.
And so as the mainstream media-Democrat Party-Hollywood entertainment complex has created an evil dream-like “Matrix” environment, you, me, individual Americans are taking the red pill and waking the hell up is imperative.
Today, the red pill means getting voters to read www.breitbart.com and www.thegatewaypundit.com and www.zerohedge.com and #walkaway and the Black exit from the Democrat Party slave plantation among many others sources of information. Anything to get voters off of tribal MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR etc. Daring people to open their minds, to free their minds, is step one to ending tribalism. Getting voters to actually take the red pill, cut through the mainstream media fog, stop behaving like savages, and realize that there is no Orange Man Bad, just false choices that work against their own interests, is the hard part.
Take the damned red pill, Carla! Open your mind!
Google, Facebook, COSTCO – each trying to suppress your free speech
If you think that social media sources like Google and Facebook treat everyone equally, you are wrong.
If you think that COSTCO treats everyone equally, you are wrong.
All three have been documented in recent days to be in an aggressive war against your free speech opportunities, and against your ability to access information that the owners (of Google, Facebook, and COSTCO) do not like.
The owners of all three institutions are liberals.
Liberalism went from a demand for fairness to an overarching totalitarianism in a few short decades. While many people say now and said back then that the socialist and communist roots of liberalism indicated that liberals were never interested in fairness, being open-minded, or tolerant, I grew up surrounded by liberals, and it was not until the last decade that I witnessed what looked to me like a transformation. They went from representing opposing views to crushing opposing views, terminating dissent, as soon as they had the opportunity.
For example, the gentle “peace”-loving pacifists <ahem> were on the war path at Chautauqua Institution, a place long known for providing a platform for different ideas and views. Suddenly authors like Andrew Bostom were shut out of week-long discussions where Islamic terrorists had the stage, as though they could not possibly be balanced by another opposing view. And it then dawned on me and many others that liberalism is just one more tyrannical, evil, cruel, divisive, phony movement designed to create winners and losers by any artificial means necessary.
Like all totalitarian movements, liberalism must be opposed in the name of freedom. Let people make up their own minds.
If you want to see how liberals have been shutting down your free speech opportunities this past week, visit these links:
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/news/wnd-costco-removing-dsouzas-america-shelves/
And simply use BING to search for examples of how Facebook has artificially shut down and hindered conservative Facebook pages, including our own Josh First for PA Senate.
UPDATE: How could we forget to mention that Google removed the Gates of Vienna blog without any notice to the owners, thereby violating the very terms of service that Google themselves had required. The Gates of Vienna blog is a well-known source for history and updates from around the world. But the Left, ah, the Left, they cannot tolerate dissent. So, Google, run by liberals, tried to destroy the blog. But it survived. Use BING to look up the story.
Rutgers University: Berlin, 1937
At one time, the Left was “open minded,” “tolerant,” accepting and so on. That sense of righteousness infused the Left’s various movements. There was a grain of truth. People respected the passion. Gave ground. Made room.
Into that room moved the camel’s nose, then the entire camel. No room was left for the normal people.
Now, fully living in the past and the misdeeds of long ago, the children of the Left are on a fascist rampage. Far too open-minded to tolerate differing perspectives, the angry mob attacks and attacks and attacks. Condoleeza Rice, chased from Rutgers University’s commencement, is but the latest twitching corpse left in the mob’s wake. The Brown Shirts are on the march.
Dr. Ben Carson, black like Condi, similarly chased from speaking at a university, is the nicest man on planet Earth. His hands are clean. No quarter given. The racists are on the march.
Folks, if there’s one reason grass roots activists are at war with the Republican Party establishment, it is because not only does the establishment not recognize that we are in a war for America’s soul, they do not recognize that we are in a war for western civilization. And when establishment members do understand it, they are quick to make deals, either for their pecuniary advantage or for delay of the inevitable. They do not stand and fight. Amnesty is a perfect example. Amnesty means the end of the two-party system, and the succession of the Brown Shirts.
It is Berlin 1937, and the question is: Will you stand and fight for liberty?