Real Time With Bill Maher: ‘New Rule, How The Left Was Lost’

Source:Real Time With Bill Maher telling the Far-Left in America to grow up.

Source:The New Democrat

“Bill slams this ridiculous new era of mind-numbing partisanship, where simply speaking truth to your own party can make you an instant hero to the other side.”

From Real Time With Bill Maher

Because of America’s crazy and outdated two-party system, you have two, large, political parties in America, that have two crazy factions in it. Which means you have a Democratic Party that believes in both liberal democracy, quality of opportunity, equal rights, and equal justice, as well as personal freedom is dangerous, capitalism is racist, free speech is bigoted, minorities and women should be treated better than the majority population and Caucasian men. Because the Democratic Party has a Center-Right and Center-Left, that believes in liberal values that I mentioned before and a Far-Left that believes in the crazy values that I just mentioned.

So America has a Democratic Party that looks and acts like the adults in the room, but only because they are the adults in the room. Who tend to run the Democratic Party and don’t need a gerrymandered district to get elected to anything, who can not just get elected statewide in swing states, but who can get elected statewide in Democratic states. (Where Far-left Democrats can’t, like in California) And a Far-Left that really should be in the Green Party (when they’re not occupying mental institutions) who can’t get elected anywhere, to anything, that doesn’t just have an overwhelmingly Democratic population, but left-wing Democratic population.

I’m not saying America should have a parliamentary political system, because that would make me a crazy leftist as well. But the two-party system is why America has a Democratic Party that has two political factions that simply don’t agree on much, because the Far-Left has nowhere else to go, because they represent such a small percentage of the country. And the Green Party is simply to small for them to get elected to anything, that’s worth anything in America.

Plato Shrugs: ‘Ideology Post Trump: Where Do We Go From Here?’

Source:Plato Shrugs– I wish this was fake news.

Source:The New Democrat 

“Ideological turmoil in America has reached unprecedented heights. With conservatives falling into the unfalsifiable throws of populism and Liberals fetishizing 1960 solutions to 2020 problems, both appear lost in moving through the 21st century. What comes after Trump for the populist? What comes after liberals fail yet again to implement a child’s imitation of the Great Society?”

You can read the rest at Plato Shrugs

“In an interview that aired July 19, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked President Trump about the coronavirus, upcoming elections and civil unrest in the United States. Read more at:The Washington Post.”

Source:The Washington Post– President Donald Trump’s Chris Wallace interview.

From The Washington Post

At severe risk of disagreeing with Plato Shrugs here: we’re not talking about what this person calls Liberals on the Left and Conservatives on the Right, when we’re talking about the current political situation in America under Donald Trump. What we have are the children (what some people call fringes) of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party now thinking that they not only belong at the adult table, but that they should own it.

In 2016 the children of the Republican Party thanks to Donald Trump, took over the Republican Party and basically run that party. Politicos that I call children are not very conservative at all: anyone who runs on blowing up the system and taking down the establishment, can’t be very conservative at all, especially being a Conservative means you believe in conserving. Not tearing up the status quo and starting from scratch.

What Christian-Nationalists have done in the Republican Party is to take it over. The Republican Party was once the Grand Ole Party that true Conservatives believe in conserving, a party that was built by Abraham Lincoln, a party of individual freedom, opportunity for all, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense that opposes all forms of authoritarianism, (not just Socialists and Communists) that was about personal responsibility, a party that was led by Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

Today the Republican Party a party that doesn’t even believe in a republic and republicanism is now a party that says: “We don’t care about moral values, personal responsibility, integrity, honesty, character, and fiscal conservatism, just as long as he’s appointing the right judges, keeping our taxes down, and fighting our cultural war.” Which is the attitude that anywhere between 80-90% of the Republican Party now has about their dear leader Donald J. Trump.

I mean anyone can call themself anything that they want: someone could call themself a Martian or a giraffe, but if that person look humanoid and doesn’t own a spaceship, speaks perfect English, why would you take that person seriously, especially if you’re intelligent, sane, and sober, and know that there’s no such thing as Martians.

Unless someone’s neck is about 4 feet long and that have hair all over the body and they speak a human language, why would you take the person who calls themself a giraffe seriously.

It’s the same thing with being a Conservative: if you’re going to be a Conservative, you have to believe in conserving. And in a political sense that means conserving values like honesty, integrity, strong character, fiscal responsibility, limited government, the U.S. Constitution, individual freedom, all conservative values that Donald Trump and his supporters don’t believe in.

As far as the Democratic Party: they have their children or adult day care center (what the mainstream media would call a fringe or the Far-Left) people who belong in the Green Party, and in some cases should be members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the far fringe of this movement should even be members of Communist Party USA. (Or be committed to the nearest mental institutions)

Some of the most illiberal (not liberal) and regressive (not progressive) people in America are people who call themselves Liberals and Progressives, because these folks don’t believe in liberal and progressive values like liberal democracy and even limited government, personal freedom and free speech, pluralism.

Political labels mean nothing if the people don’t believe in the values that their self-described political label is about. An illiberal person calling themself a Liberal, is like a doctor calling themself a lawyer, even though they don’t have a law degree. To be a Conservative, you have to believe in conservative values, like the values that I mentioned before. Otherwise you’re just someone who calls yourself a Conservative.

As far as where America goes post-Donald Trump, which I like perhaps hundreds of millions of other Americans hope is just months way: lets says Joe Biden wins, Democrats not only hold the House but add to their majority and they win back the Senate, giving a President Biden a united Democratic Congress. I believe the Republican Party will have a great opportunity there.

The GOP establishment can come back from their four year vacation and retake the Republican Party and argue that Trumpism has failed both politically and governmentally and it’s time for the Republican Party to come back to life and return to the part of Reagan, Goldwater, and Eisenhower. A party of Conservative-Libertarians and Progressive Republicans (yes, Progressive Republicans) that has to hold Joe Biden and the Democratic Party and accountable and prevent a socialist takeover of America. Joe Biden, is obviously not a Socialist, but his Far-Left will be even moral vocal in his presidency.

But what I think will happen instead is similar to what happen when Barack Obama became President. And the Republican Party will be run by their Far-Right and perhaps try to pretend that Donald Trump was never even President, but hold onto to Trumpism with their dear lives and try to blame everything in the world on Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats and try to use that to win back the House or Senate, if not both chambers in 2022.

Top Celeb Tube: ‘Jayne Mansfield Transformation From 01 To 34 Years Old’

Source:Top Celeb Tube– A look at the short life of Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield.

Source:The New Democrat

“Jayne Mansfield was an American film, theater, and television actress. She was also a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. She was a major Hollywood sex symbol during the 1950s and early 1960s, while under contract at 20th Century Fox. Wikipedia
Born: April 19, 1933, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States
Died: June 29, 1967, Eastern New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Cause of death: Brain trauma sustained in automobile crash
Children: Mariska Hargitay, Jayne Marie Mansfield, Zoltan Hargitay, Tony Cimber, Mickey Hargitay Jr.
Spouse: Matt Cimber (m. 1964–1966), Mickey Hargitay (m. 1958–1964), Paul Mansfield (m. 1950–1958”

From Top Celeb Tube

I guess one way to talk about the life and career of Hollywood Babydoll Jayne Mansfield, is to look at her like you would look at a very talented pro athlete, who not only never reaches their potential, but their career is over 5 years into it, or they become a journeyman (or woman) who bounces around from club to club, with each new club thinking that they make that player the best that they can be. Or they suffer a career ending injury, get into alcohol and illegal narcotics, are addicted gambler, have trouble with the law, on top of bad attitude and someone who thinks way too much of themself.

The problem with the one-hit wonder or flash in the pan comparison with Jayne Mansfield, is that she was sort of a flash in the pan in Hollywood in the 1950s, but she returned briefly in the early 1960s and the mid 1950s to do movies again. And she was working and making money her entire career and was pretty much always financially secure.

Jayne didn’t have any criminal justice or illegal narcotics issues. She did have an attitude issue as someone who thought she was more than a sexy, adorable, gorgeous, comedian in Hollywood, who wanted to do more things in Hollywood. But she was working up until she tragically died in a horrible car crash in 1967.

I think the way to look at the life and career of Jayne Mansfield is to put her in “what could’ve been” category and say what could’ve Jayne Mansfield been had she not died from that tragic car accident in 1967 and what she could’ve been had she just realized who she was as an entertainer and just stuck with that instead of thinking that she was more than she actually was.

To me Jayne Mansfield will always be a comedian: she always had great comedic timing, a great sense of humor, someone who could’ve done monologues, who could’ve written comedy. (If she wanted too)

If you look at her interviews, similar to Diana Dors who interviews are funny, because she’s funny whether she was talking about herself or what was going on in Hollywood.

If you look at her nightclub act (which is what she was doing after she left Hollywood in the 1950s) she was singing and doing standup and joking around with her audiences in her act.

Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore, two of the best comedians of their generation, if not ever, both wanted to be dramatic actresses when they came to Hollywood. The problem with that is that Hollywood knew pretty quickly how funny they were to the point that Carol Burnett gets her only skit-comedy show from CBS in the late 1960s and that show goes one for 12 seasons. (Perhaps you know the same of that show yourself)

Mary Tyler Moore is known as the star of two of the most popular sitcoms ever in Hollywood and the big reason for that is because of how funny and popular she was on Dick Van Dyke and her sitcom: The Mary Tyler Moore Show. .

I think if Jayne Mansfield realized what her gift as an entertainer was in by the late 1950s, she would’ve have one movie comedy after another and perhaps allowed to write and produce those movies as well and get TV comedy roles and perhaps even her own show in the 1960s. Maybe by the 1970s she’s has her own skit-comedy or comedic talk show and maybe she’s doing soap operas (which are dramatic comedies) but no, she didn’t think that was good enough for her, which is Hollywood’s and her fans big lost.

The Dick Cavett Show: ‘Christian Views on Abortion and Homosexuality’

Source:The Dick Cavett Show– Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970.

Source:The New Democrat

“Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey debates with Jane Fonda over his stance on other beliefs and atheism, and discusses the laws surrounding homosexual relations and abortion.

Date aired – March 13, 1970 – Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Henry Fonda, Michael Ramsey and Mort Sahl”

From The Dick Cavett Show

Perhaps someone who is older or has a better sense of American political history than me knows this better, but I don’t believe the terms Christian-Right, Christian-Conservatives, Christians-Conservatism was used in America at least until the late 1970s and into the 1980s, when abortion, homosexuality, women’s place in the word were such huge issues in American politics, but these folks even has a political movement have always been with us, at least in the television age.

Pre- 960, America was living in Phyllis Schlafly’s, Beaver Cleaver’s, Ozzie and Harriet’s Utopian America, where the woman’s job was to raise her kids that she had with her husband: perhaps go to college and get a good job before marriage, but after she was married she was to quit her job and be a housewife for the rest of her life and take care of her kids, husband, and home.

Gays weren’t locked in a closet, but were locked in mental institutions and even in jails, if they were out and proud of their homosexuality. Non Anglo-Saxon-Protestants, including Italian, Jewish, and Latino-Americans, were seen as second-class citizens in America, not equal to English-Protestants. Not just African-Americans or Asian-Americans who were seen as inferior to Anglo-Saxons and Caucasians in general in America. But anyone who wasn’t Northern-European, Protestant, straight, and male.

The 1960s Counter-Culture that Hollywood Goddess Jane Fonda both as an actress and filmmaker, but as a political activist as well, blew up Phyllis Schlafly’s Christian-Fundamentalist Utopia up and what we started seeing in the early 1970s was what we call the Christian-Right or Christian-Nationalists today, started fighting back and speaking out against the Counter-Culture and the personal freedom movement that was going on back then and wanting a return to their traditional America. And you see a little of that in this interview.

The Dick Cavett Show: ‘The Best of Carl Reiner Guest Hosting’

Source:The Dick Cavett Show– Comedian Carl Reiner, guess hosting for Dick Cavett in 1971.

Source:The New Democrat

“With comedy legend Carl Reiner passing this week here’s a compilation of best moments from when he guest hosted the show back in 1971!”

From The Dick Cavett Show

I gotta be honest (not for a change) that I was underwhelmed by this video. Silly me thinking that this would be about Carl Reiner who just happens to be one of the best comedians, as well as comedic writers not just from his generation, but ever and I’m thinking they would show some of his best lines and standup on Dick Cavett, but it’s not my show.

The clips of these so-called interviews were either too short or they just weren’t very good. They show him talking (not interviewing Ralph Nader) and gets to the point where Reiner is telling Nader to run for President, not about what’s going in the world with the economy and consumer protection, things that Nader is knowledgeable about.

They show Reiner talking to Gloria Steinem (the Queen of the Radical Feminists) and Reiner says: “Women’s liberation has come a long way in the last few years” as if he’s the only one who knows that. I mean, this show was shot in 1971. And he calls Gloria beautiful (which she is) and he could get into trouble for calling a radical feminist beautiful, which he did. (Talk about political correctness)

And then they show Carl Reiner talking to an African-American actor or filmmaker from I guess the Blaxploitation genre from the 1970s, but they don’t bother to give out the man’s name (I guess introducing the man would’ve been too expensive) or bother to mention what movie he was on the show to talk about. (Because that would’ve been helpful and informative) And Reiner goes into the story about he was able to get into the movie theater and watch the film for free, because he’s a celebrity. But they don’t really talk about the film itself.

There was one thing early on in this video that caught my attention when Carl Reiner was doing his monologue: New York City really for the entire 1970s was going through an economic and crime crisis, as well as well as law enforcement corruption crisis in the early 1970s. And there was talk about how city of 7 million (of whatever the population was back then) was simply too big to govern.

Carl Reiner took suggestions from the audience essentially about how to help New York get through this. And the guy that they showed to give a suggestion suggested legal prostitution to help NYC with its economic and fiscal crisis. And he made a pretty good case about the extra tax revenue that would come in, as well as the money that it would save NYPD because they would no longer have to bust prostitutes, pimps or johns.

And I don’t have Reiner’s exact response, but he said something like: “We should all love sex, but not that much.” Which I thought was a clever response. I guess my response to that would’ve been: “This just in: New York City cleans up its streets with prostitutes. More breaking news from The Onion, as it breaks.”

But overall especially since this was from The Dick Cavett Show and it was about Carl Reiner guess hosting the show, I thought these clips were very underwhelming.

Willy Beable: Diana Dors Documentary

Source:Willy Beable– English Muffin Diana Dors and Rod Steiger, in The Unholy Wife (1957)

Source:The New Democrat

“Short documentary profiling the life of British ‘Blonde Bombshell’ Diana Dors, who died of cancer in 1984.”

From Willy Beable

English Muffin Diana Dors (as I call her) got tagged as the British Marilyn Monroe and the latest Hollywood Blonde Bombshell from the Silent Generation, when he came to America in the mid 1950s.

But if you look at the interview that Diana did with Mike Wallace (yes, that Mike Wallace) in 1957, which is available on YouTube she answered Wallace’s question by saying and I paraphrasing: “I don’t want to be Marilyn Monroe or anyone else. I’m just Diana Dors and that’s the only person I want to be. Marilyn has her life and career and I have mine.”

She wasn’t Marilyn Monroe or anyone other than Diana Dors. She was also better than all of those actresses and entertainers from that era who were also compared with Marilyn, including Jayne Mansfield and if anything had more in common with Jayne, then Marilyn.

Both Jayne Mansfield and Diana Dors were especially gorgeous, adorable, 5’6 great curves 17 months or so apart in age, both women knew what they wanted, both women extremely adorable to the point that they both sounded like little girls when they spoke and even had baby faces that matched their voices. And in Jayne’s case she had a little girl personality, really her whole life.

But Diana and Jayne both had the same weakness which gets me to a Salt N Pepa lyric from 1993 from the song Shoop and the lyric is: “What’s my weakness, men!” Both Diana and Jayne dated and married bad men who were simply untalented users who if they had any talent at all it was the talent of good conmen looking to make money off them, which Diana simply didn’t mine as long as they kept her happy and didn’t bankrupt her.

Diana’s weakness for bad men I believe is why Diana never went back to America other than doing a few interviews and selling her books. Similar to Shelly Winters, Diana Dors was also a successful author and writer.

It’s not just the great, Hollywood blonde bombshell, that shouldn’t be the only way to tag Diana Dors, she shouldn’t be just tagged as an actress either. Diana was a great entertainer, a great comedian. Jayne Mansfield and Shelly Winters are the two American actresses and entertainers who are the best comparisons to Diana, because they’re so beautiful, the great curves, insanely adorable, and funny, as well as very intelligent.

And I think if Diana wanted to be the great entertainer in America, similar to Joan Collins whose also a great British actress, comedian, and writer, whose done a lot of work in America, Diana could’ve always had that here, because she was always that good.

The Dick Cavett Show: ‘Hugh Hefner Clashes With Feminists’

Source:The Dick Cavett Show– Hugh Hefner vs Susan Brownmiller in 1970.

Source:The New Democrat

“Hugh Hefner gets involved in a sexist debate with the Feminists of The Women’s Liberation movement as they discuss the oppression of Playboy Models.

Date aired – 3/26/1970 – Hugh Hefner, Susan Brownmiller and Sally Kempton.”

From The Dick Cavett Show

“When Susan Brownmiller and Sally Kempton appeared as representatives of the women’s liberation movement alongside Hugh Hefner on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970, Cavett joked, “We really set you up tonight, didn’t we?”

Though Hefner’s Playboy was thriving, Cavett’s line really applied more to him. As seen in this exclusive clip from the upcoming episode of CNN’s The Seventies, airing on Thursday at 9:00 p.m., Hefner seemed to have no idea what was coming.

From the minute he referred to the activists as “girls,” he was put in his place. The women took full advantage of their public forum to express thoughts and feelings that had been bottled up for so long, and the nation took notice. When TIME’s Person of the Year honor for 1975 was given to 12 separate Women of the Year, Brownmiller was one of them.

The magazine dubbed her the “second-sex scholar” and explained why she deserved the recognition…

Source:TIME Magazine– Hugh Hefner vs radical feminists in 1970.

You can read the rest at TIME Magazine

This is a really important debate discussion this being about women’s liberation and freedom of choice. If you truly believe in freedom of choice and consider yourself pro-choice whether you’re talking about women or men, then you believe women and men should be able to make their own choices in life whether it’s to work for Playboy Magazine as a writer, or as a performer, or work anywhere else in this country.

The definition of feminism is: “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” If you believe that, then you believe that men and women should be treated equally under law and not rewarded or punished in life simply because they’re a man or woman.

The reason why radical feminists get label radical feminists, is because they take the mainstream definition of feminism a step further and argue that men and women aren’t equal, but that women are superior and should be treated better under law and in society simply because they’re women and that men have so much power in this country and over them over the years.

The other reason why radical feminists are called radical feminists and not just feminists, is because as much as they claim to be pro-choice, they’re really not: being pro-choice on abortion, women’s health care, and sexuality doesn’t make you pro-choice. It makes you pro-choice on those issues. What radical feminists really are is pro-choice just as long as people, especially women are making choices that they approve of.

No one forces women or anyone else to work at and pose at Playboy Magazine. Those women worked there because they other wanted to or needed the money or a combination of both, and Playboy wanted them working there. They weren’t kidnapped or being held hostage as some radical feminists might have you believe, but the made them conscience, voluntary decision to work there themself, as Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner said himself on this show.

So what you really had in this Dick Cavett episode is a debate between a man who always believed in freedom of choice and the rights of the individual for both men and women (Hugh Hefner) against radical feminists who believe they know what’s best for women and apparently don’t trust women to make their own choices whether it’s to work at Playboy or for any other private company in America.

The New Yorker: Douglas Watt- ‘The Glittering, Corrosive Humor of Lenny Bruce’

Source:The New Yorker– Comedian and free speech champion Lenny Bruce.

Source:The New Democrat

“Early in 1966, the entertainer Lenny Bruce, who died in the midsummer of that year at the age of forty from a self-administered overdose of morphine, gave his next-to-last public performance, at the Berkeley Community Theatre, a large auditorium near the University of California’s Berkeley campus. It drew two thousand people, and Bruce, as had become his custom in those last, lean years, which were marked by repeated brushes with the law, had the entire thing taped, so that the obscenities with which he customarily larded his act could not be used against him, out of context, by police witnesses testifying in court…

You can read the rest at The New Yorker 

“Lenny Bruce on Stage Just Before He Died.”

Source:Lenny Bruce– Last act.

From Lenny Bruce

I know I’ve written this before in previous pieces the last 5 years about comedian Lenny Bruce, but it’s very important, so I’m going to risk boring you and perhaps even put you in a coma and repeat this.

There is a left-wing illiberal version of political version of political correctness that attempts to censor speech that they believe is offensive or critical of minorities. That this blog has covered countless times just in the last 6 years that of course we oppose as champions for free speech regardless of who may not like the speech or speakers that are being heard, even if this blog doesn’t like the speech or speakers that are being heard.

But then there is a right-wing, anti-conservative (at least in a constitutional sense) version of political correctness that attempts to censor speakers and speech that offends these rightists political or cultural values.

Comedian Lenny Bruce like comedian George Carlin from 10 years or so after Bruce, was a victim of right-wing political correctness to the point that he was put in jail for using adult language and talking about social and adult issues in the 1950s and 60s that apparently free adults weren’t supposed to talk about, at least in public, even though they were’ talking about it in private and even using adult language in private (even in Ozzie and Harriet’s and Beaver Cleaver’s 1950s America) because they were interested in those adult issues, didn’t mind being heard swearing, just so long as no one they didn’t trust could hear them swear, and they had a First Amendment right to talk about those issues and even use adult language.

I’m not saying right-wing political correctness is better or worst than left-wing political correctness or vice-versa, but Lenny Bruce was put in jail for his comedy routine and using his First Amendment right to perform his comedy act. And George Carlin fought his case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to be able to continue his comedy act.

Right-wingers don’t get put into jail when they use offensive language or language that just offends leftist candy-asses, simply because that would be unconstitutional as well, but also because these leftist, so-called political correctness warriors have never had that kind of power in America, for the most part.

In the 1950s and 1960s there was no official political movement known as the Christian-Right in America (perhaps better known as Christian-Nationalists today, thanks to Donald Trump) but they’ve always been there claiming to be the real champions of America and the real Americans. We saw the beginnings of this movement during the early days of television thanks to Senator Joe McCarthy and his McCarthyist movement in America that attempted to stamp out Communists in America, simply because they were Communists.

The Christian-Conservative movement has always been in America and Lenny Bruce is one of their most famous and best victims. He was a great comedian, with a very sharp and keen wit, who should’ve had another 20 years to perform, had he been able to live in a normal life in years.

The Dick Cavett Show: Raquel Welch- ‘Discuses Myra Breckinridge & Homosexual Audiences’

Source:The Dick Cavett Show– Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch, on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970.

Source:The New Democrat

“Raquel Welch discusses her movie, Myra Breckinridge in which she plays the title role undergoing gender reassignment surgery.”

From The Dick Cavett Show

I’ve seen Myra Breckinridge maybe 20 times, certainly 10 times in the last ten years when I first started blocking about the film and even though it may have bombed like country music festival in Compton, California, I think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Raquel Welch and John Huston are absolutely hilarious in it and Raquel is absolutely adorable and hot in it, like she is in most of her films.

Raquel is a born entertainer and perhaps even a born comedian put on this planet to entertain and make people laugh. And the fact that she’s also some of the best eye candy a man could possibly ever look at (similar to Sophia Loren) just makes the movie that much more entertaining.

Myra Breckinridge did bomb at the box office in the early 1970s, but that’s because the movie was probably at least 10 years ahead of its time and I’m not America was ready to understand it.

Even though America was going to a cultural revolution which personal and sexual freedom exploding in this country, I’m not sure that America was ready even for an openly gay man and a queen and that person’s life being the focus of the movie, let alone a formerly gay queen man, now transitioning into a woman. which is who Raquel plays in the movie. This movie comes out in the 1990s or 2000s, and it would’ve made a tone of money and been very successful.

Skeptic Magazine: Michael Shermer- Interviewing Anthony Kronman: ‘The Assault on American Excellence’

Source:Skeptic Magazine– Michael Shermer: interviewing Anthony Kronman about his book.

Source:The New Democrat 

“The former dean of Yale Law School argues that the feverish egalitarianism gripping college campuses today is out of place at institutions whose job is to prepare citizens to live in a vibrant democracy. In his tenure at Yale, Anthony Kronman has watched students march across campus to protest the names of buildings and seen colleagues resign over emails about Halloween costumes. He is no stranger to recent confrontations at American universities. But where many see only the suppression of free speech, the babying of students, and the drive to bury the imperfect parts of our history, Kronman recognizes in these on-campus clashes a threat to our democracy. Shermer and Kronman discuss:

• free speech vs. hate speech
• how language affects how we think about other people
• diversity of characteristics (race, gender) vs. diversity of viewpoints
• the search for universal truths vs. understanding other’s perspectives
• affirmative action in the academy: from the University of California to Harvard
• taking down statues of Hitler and Stalin vs. taking down statues of Confederate Generals
• the problem of applying current moral values to the past, and
• how to reform the academy to refocus on excellence.

Anthony T. Kronman served as the dean of Yale Law School from 1994–2004, and has taught at the university for forty years. He is the author or coauthor of five books, including The Assault on American Excellence; Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life; and Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan.

This dialogue was recorded on August 12, 2019 as part of the Science Salon Podcast series hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, in California.”

From Skeptic

Source:Skeptic Magazine– “Skeptic » Science Salon » Science Salon Archives”

I realize I’m not on expert of college having not even gong through a whole year of college and I’ll be the first to admit that, but if college is for anything it’s to prepare young adults for life in the real world.

College is not a gigantic spaceship to the Planet Paradise or Planet Utopia where there’s no such thing as any bigotry, including racism and life is supposed to be swell ( to use a 1950s word ) or awesome, ( to use a Millennial word ) for everyone on the planet. But college is supposed to represent life and what life looks like on both the outside, as well as in college. All the good, the bad, the in between, awards for performing well, consequences for doing poorly, steep consequences for breaking the rules. People who think like you that you even like or love. As well as people who just don’t think like you, but where you’re so far apart what the person believes and says angers you and you even hate what they have to say and what they think.

College is not a free ride, ( even for the athletes and cheaters ) everything that people are supposed to gain there is supposed to be justified. You’re supposed to earn your good grades and other experiences there and suffer the consequences when you don’t do well, or even do poorly, or even break the rules. And people who go there regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, culture, politics, etc, thinking that they’re entitled to never have to see or hear anything that they don’t like or disagree with, don’t belong in college. And perhaps would be better off to moving to Planet Utopia or Paradise where they never have to see or hear anything that they dislike.

Sort of like hardcore Libertarians who believe they should never have to pay any taxes, because they’ve never personally approved of the programs that their taxes pay for: well: if you don’t want to pay taxes in America or anywhere else, go look for, find, and move to a place where there’s no taxation. Or get elected to office and try to make the case for why there shouldn’t be any taxation. But until the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl, if not even longer ( to use an NFL analogy ) you have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

For these so-called Che Guevara a man they don’t even understand, (by the way and yet somehow they got into college ) loving so-called social justice warriors, who really are just illiberal leftists, ( Neo-Communists if you will ) who believe that anyone who isn’t of European background and who has dark skin is entitled to never having to see or hear anything that they disapprove of, you should find another platform or place to express your fascist views other than college. Which is supposed to be an arena of ideas and liberal democracy where all views are heard and debated. Not some social laboratory where the scientists there are supposed to design the perfect people ( in their minds ) as far as how humans are supposed to look and think. And where everyone else need not apply.