I’m not sure there isn’t a bit of romanticism there. The odds were often cast out, and an awful lot of the American tribes were in a constant state of low level warfare. But they didn’t constantly look for new and better ways to other and attack themselves at least.
Which oddly enough I think Ayn Rand answered well enough, from my reading at least. Enlightened self interest can show the value in doing for your fellow man. Just as bad behavior can be explained a million ways and justified, so can “selfless” behavior. (She wasn’t all that great of a writer, and generally a horrible person, but objectivism taken in light doses certainly seems more humane to me than humanism.)
Helping people makes me feel better, it improves the general environment, it improves the economy, it makes me smile when people who didn’t get a chance get another shot, etc… Even the most self centered of individuals should see the value of keeping poverty down.
I think that was the main difference between the North and South at the time. In the North, most of those with racist attitudes just didn’t like black people. In the South, they had a history where it was necessary to deny that black people were human.
There isn’t really much tangible difference, though. In the South, a black person could be run out of town (or, admittedly, worse) for the slightest offense. In the North, you had “gentlemen’s agreements” and “covenants” that kept black people from buying homes in certain places. The end result in both cases, short of injuries or death, was that black people could not live in those places.
Lynching and other acts of violence got out of control because they could get away with it, and it had already been “proven” that the victims weren’t really people anyway.
I’ve said it before, and will keep saying it: The first act of war is convincing people that the other side isn’t human, or isn’t as human as your side.
And I would rather have been a free black man in the South in 1855 than in the North. Not that either would have been a treat, but a free black man in the south was a subset of a real man, with rights and responsibilities, while a free black man in the north was neither fish nor fowl.
I think in 1855 I’d much rather be a rich white man.
How many different names were there for Japanese and Germans in WWII? How many names for Islamics/Taliban in the military now? It’s a useful piece of psychology, the enemy is always inhuman, part of how bad things happen, they weren’t really people anyway. It’s hard to kill someone just like you.
In fairness to the assclown in question, when the courts end up with a result that the electorate doesn’t care for, the approach generally is to make new laws or even Constitutional amendments. That’s the only approach our system affords, and that’s what he actually referenced in the (brief) article. This is either correcting judicial activism or seeking a legal loophole, depending on which side the press is on.
That said, the conflict here is between two relatively small factions who feel passionately about the issues with the majority of America not really tuned in–but insofar as they care, I don’t think they are sympathetic to his views. We will see normalization at the federal level with enforcement (via equal protection/14th amendment) down to the state level, and we’ll see it within a few years. I am ambivalent at best about gay marriage, but it’s not a hill to die on. I don’t think it would even hit my top ten in national political issues.
“I think it’s important to understand that the supreme court doesn’t have the final word. It has its word. Its word has validity. But it’s important for Congress and the president, frankly, to push back when the supreme court gets it wrong.”
Go ahead crackcheese, try for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. I’m looking forward to the total destruction of what’s left of your political career.
Lawsuits are being threatened by for-profit prison companies, because the states aren’t sending enough convicts to their prisons.
What’s next? Hospitals suing police departments because the police aren’t beating enough people up?
Here’s an idea: the states can counter-sue, claiming the for-profit prisons aren’t releasing enough violent offenders early, to keep the crime rate up.
I think the idea that for-profit prisons would be able to enter into contractual arrangements with states for minimum utilization is deeply, deeply screwed up.
There’s an interesting graphic showing prison employee union membership and prison building and capacity out there. Also showing the increasing criminality of certain acts, the addition of three strikes laws, and minimum sentencing. Basically the increase in employees peaks, then there is a new law, and so they build new prisons, then hire new union members. and on and on.
Since it’s a union, they are backed by other unions. And in the locations of some of the prisons, what do you need to be elected beyond 90% of every teacher, city employee, prison guard, cop, trade union member, and fireman?
No pretty graphs on this one, but there is a timeline.
Is ISIS watching every bad action movie ever made to get execution ideas from? Are they using a form of Mr. Glass’ idea to find a super hero? Let’s use these ridiculous execution methods and someone will show up to save them.
Lining them up and shooting them so they fall into their own grave they just dug. Check
Lining them up and shooting them so they fall into mass grave bulldozer dug. Check.
Shooting them with automatic weapons on pray and spray. Check.
Assembly line pistol to the head and body falls in river. Check.
Beating to death while in line to be shot. Check.
Drugging to the gills and then putting in cage and setting on fire. Check.
And now the three latest.
Putting four dudes in a car and then hitting car with RPG. Dudes likely totally drugged.
And putting four dudes in a cage and lowering the cage into a swimming pool, complete with underwater cameras.
Blowing people’s heads of with detcord.
Why the hell aren’t we wiping them from the face of the earth? We left Iraq so this could happen? What was the damn point? As far as I’m concerned we go there slap the shit out of everyone, split Iraq into Iraq and Kurdistan, let Iraq fall apart and support the shit out of the Kurds, add some carrot and stick on their treatment of women, and then move the fuck on.
These aren’t my ideas, these are what they’ve already done.
But yeah, no need to figure out what blowing someone’s head off with an explosive necklace anymore, it’s been done from three different angles in slow motion with a soundtrack.
Okay, no. Or Jesse Jackson would have been the first black president, or any one of a bunch of Hispanic candidates. Or Ferraro would have been Vice-President.
Jindal’s approval rating has nose-dived the last couple years. He’s made a bunch of public statements that showed an awful amount of callousness and arrogance. His budget, even with plenty of party support, is still showing a terrible deficit.
His hare-brained tax reform scheme couldn’t even get support from his own party.
And he’s sniped at members of his own party enough that a lot of them don’t like him.
It’s not just that I don’t like him. I don’t think he has a chance because of how he has screwed himself over.
And on Jindal, I’ve totally lost track of him the last couple years, and apparently that was for a good reason.
I should have been more clear, the new democratic party. The one totally obsessed with race and gender.
Would Obama, or Hillary, have had a chance against any Democrat candidate in the last 50 years? Hillary is running because it’s her turn, like Jeb is, and because it’s time for a woman to be president. I know there are better candidates in the democratic field, I just see them all getting the hell out of the way.
Oh, I forgot the biggest reason: He’s still seen as a crony of George W. and McCain. McCain’s very public meltdown for the past eight years is going to taint him just as bad as his association with George W.