The version of the Horseshoe theory that that guy argues against doesn't really fit with my personal conception of it. To quote Eric Hoffer: "Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet. The fanatics of various hues eye each other with suspicion and are ready to fly at each other’s throats. But they are neighbors and almost of one family. They hate each other with the hatred of brothers. They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul. And it is easier for a fanatic Communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal. " The True Believer, Section 62.

For me, the ideal zone is not "the center," but at the very least, something that is, quite frankly, likely to work, and I think it's likely to be on the more leftward edge of the horseshoe, certainly farther left than most of our politicians go. A noble cause is all well and good, but if your goals aren't workable and/or your methods are so similar to the people you're trying to fight, I can't, in good conscience, co-sign.

(August 28, 2018 at 8:29 pm)Khemikal Wrote:

(August 28, 2018 at 7:35 pm)Shell B Wrote: Reparations is actually a pretty long and well-adopted idea. It's not really just some corner of the Internet thing or something some nitwit said that the alt right picked up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

You read the wiki you linked, I take it?  One unsuccessful bill in centuries.  One.  Did it involve taking money from the white mans pocket and putting it into the black mans pocket?  In a word, no.  That we have to dig deep to find something even remotely salient should be telling, but it isn't..at least not to the alt right or those ailing from white anxiety.  I find myself wondering what dystopian alternate reality they wake up in every day.

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(August 28, 2018 at 7:33 pm)bennyboy Wrote: It seems to me that he's most likely an agnostic deist, rather than as a doctrinal Christian.

He's an atheist.  He doesn't believe in gods, he believes that what gods represent is truer than true, realer than real..for Peterson Values™ of the terms "truth" and "real".

That there was a BILL introduced goes to show it's not nearly as unheard of as you think. You said some nitwit said it and the alt right picked it up from there. You were wrong. It's a well-developed concept with arguments for it existing in all levels of society, for lack of a better way of putting it. You seem to want to frame it as some ghost story benny made up, but that's just as disingenuous as his "lazy black guys are going to screw me and my business" fears. Both sides of this argument are being a mite ridiculous.

Sorry i don't buy  Hoffer's views on radicalism and similar methods can be for massively different desired outcomes .

(August 28, 2018 at 10:23 pm)Shell B Wrote:

(August 28, 2018 at 8:29 pm)Khemikal Wrote: You read the wiki you linked, I take it?  One unsuccessful bill in centuries.  One.  Did it involve taking money from the white mans pocket and putting it into the black mans pocket?  In a word, no.  That we have to dig deep to find something even remotely salient should be telling, but it isn't..at least not to the alt right or those ailing from white anxiety.  I find myself wondering what dystopian alternate reality they wake up in every day.

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He's an atheist.  He doesn't believe in gods, he believes that what gods represent is truer than true, realer than real..for Peterson Values™ of the terms "truth" and "real".

That there was a BILL introduced goes to show it's not nearly as unheard of as you think. You said some nitwit said it and the alt right picked it up from there. You were wrong. It's a well-developed concept with arguments for it existing in all levels of society, for lack of a better way of putting it. You seem to want to frame it as some ghost story benny made up, but that's just as disingenuous as his "lazy black guys are going to screw me and my business" fears. Both sides of this argument are being a mite ridiculous.

A bill which had no chance of passing, and which bore no resemblence whatsoever to the white anxiety surrounding reperations, or white people™ paying reperations...that have and never will happen..

-regardless of whether or not it should.

Meanwhile, the alt right was fretting about it before it was ever a proposed bill...and in this case it's nothing that Benny came up with at all.....? Shell....lol...cmon, wtf are you talking about?

Heres the full text, if anyone's interested.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-cong...ll/40/text

TLDR version - it's a proposal to investigate the extent of damage caused by state and federal governments complicity in chattel slavery, and any potential action that might be undertaken by the state, not whitey, to make amends.

(August 28, 2018 at 10:23 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: Sorry i don't buy  Hoffer's views on radicalism and similar methods can be for massively different desired outcomes .

Since I need to clarify that bit about similar methods further, I'll just say this: "Whoever fights monsters, make sure you don't become one yourself." Think back to the upheavals of the 1960s; it's blindingly obvious that the War in Vietnam was unpopular, immoral, and utterly futile. Doesn't necessarily mean that the Weather Underground were actually any better; just less powerful and supporting a position a lot of people supported, and expressing their position by acting not too different from the oppressive imperialists they rightly despised.

And now, we've got groups of people rightly being pissed off at the fact that they've had to walk on eggshells all their lives, and what's the best way many can think of to fix this system that really needs to be fixed? Make everybody else walk on eggshells!

We've got Nazis infiltrating the White House, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the resistance are automatically the good guys.

There's the lefts fundamental inability, right there.  Incapable of firmly grasping any high ground they actually possess, squandering it in the process. 

(August 28, 2018 at 10:59 pm)Khemikal Wrote: There's the lefts fundamental inability, right there.  Incapable of firmly grasping any high ground they actually possess, squandering it in the process. 

And in my experience, the left tends to possess a lot of high ground (far more than the right, anyway), and the more radical leftists work under the assumption that the moral high ground is all they really need, and manage to squander it while they prove their point.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

(August 28, 2018 at 11:31 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

And with that, the likes of Jordan Peterson start to seem like a dose of sanity (at least until you actually scrutinise his positions, that is).

The effectiveness with which the narrative is framed is indisputable.