Critics Who Disdain Discussion
An illustration of the inability of some to have a reasonable dialogue around differences of perspective.
In response to my last post I received the following comment from an old friend. I'm crossing out his name and icon out of consideration. We had a great friendship at a pivotal point in our lives and I still have a warm feeling for the guy. I don't want to unnecessarily embarass him publicly. Note: I've edited this post as it was too long for Substack. Here's his assessment of my post:
To which I replied:
And then:
In response I wrote something almost identical to the following:
Back in the day when we were aligned in our criticism and suspicion of government, I thought it was because we recognized the key figures as immoral lying warmongers who didn't care about the lives of ordinary people. But no - apparently I was wrong about that - it was because they were "right wing" immoral lying warmongers. Left wing immoral lying warmongers are great - even if they don't care about the lives of ordinary people!
I suspect the actual reason you're unwilling to engage in any substantive discussion is because in your heart of hearts you know the Democrats are just as indefensible as the Republicans. But sadly your hatred of Trump and "right wingers" is far stronger than your concern for truth or love of country.
Have you ever paused to wonder why so many of the Left's heroes in Journalism (you know, the field that gives us some sense of what's going on the in the world) have all of a sudden been labelled "right wing" or "racist" merely for reporting the facts of cases that reveal the hypocrisy and criminality of Democrats? I'm talking about people like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Julian Assange, Seymour Hersch etc...
The fact that "liberals" so quickly turned their backs on these journalists without seriously considering the rather profound implications of the reporting shows that the Democrat establishment operates like an authoritarian or fascist cult. If you do not tow the party line you are immediately ejected. Everyone just falls into formation following the propaganda fed to them via approved corporate media outlets like CNN, NPR, NY Times etc. All of these are pro-war, pro corporate, anti-worker and anti-free speech (fascism is "the integration of corporate and state power" B. Mussolini).
They spend so much time talking about "misinformation, malinformation and disinformation" to scare you into compliance. They control your speech - and thus they are controlling your mind. This is precisely what Orwell warned us about.
Yes, it's frightening and dangerous to go against approved narratives in times like these. If you're aware of the thinking of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn you'll recognize that this is precisely the time to have serious discussion on these issues. If we don't all engage now we will end up in the gulags. There is not much time left. My recommendation to you is to approach your closest "right winger" and invite him/her to have a coffee in the hopes that you might come to understand their perspective.
Now I will return to my efforts to convince my Trump supporting friends that they are in for a very severe disappointment (still in the hopes that by some strange miracle I will be proven wrong!).
Best wishes.
I then received this in reply:
Undaunted, I wrote a slightly longer version of the following:
Yes, well - what your doing here is illustrating that you have no argument. "Dumb", "right wing", "coward". The only thing you're apparently capable of is insult. This is called ad hominem - personal attack to avoid discussing the positions put before you.
Fascists are created by the attitude you're adopting here. When you reactively and emotionally condemn those with whom you disagree and refuse to discuss the vital issues of the day you leave your opponent with little option but strong arm tactics - because you've adopted the same intolerant and disdainful attitude towards them.
Respect is the bare requirement for a civil society. Without it society tears itself apart. This is the fundamental point of the piece I wrote. I'm not defending Trump or the Republicans. I'm saying that the citizenry will get what it deserves if it falls for the divisive ploy of the duopoly. The job of the duopoly is to turn the American people against each other.
You have no willingness to examine your own position. You therefore fail to realize that you (and your comrades who adopt the same attitude) are in fact the ones responsible for Trump's return.
Here's one of the most serious and well informed voices on the Left explaining how the Democrats drove so many otherwise reasonable people to vote for Trump: https://x.com/AskBabaDog/status/1882113652947657034
I included a link to the following video:
As is pretty much always the case - I do not agree with everything said by this commentator but he is one of the most interesting, articulate and well informed voices speaking today.
Oh look - a response!
In the following I eventually lost my patience.
This is precisely the time to be civil - have you ever taken the time to understood the horrors of the last civil war? I wrote the piece because I see us heading towards another civil war - and it looks like it could ignite any moment now.
These last few days have seen your team protesting in the streets to defend USAID, an agency that uses humanitarian programs as a cover for intelligence operations that included supporting heroin production in Afghanistan (here too), a fake vaccine program in Pakistan to collect intelligence on Pakistanis, censorship campaigns on social media and multiple coordinated initiatives to overthrow governments, some of which have been successful, all of which have been extremely destabilizing. It’s also used taxpayer dollars to help fund the World Economic Forum which is an elite organization of the wealthiest individuals on the planet devising plans for global technocratic totalitarianism. Of USAID’s many “humanitarian” programs many if not all are dual purpose - meaning they also serve intelligence objectives, some of which fundamentally undermine humanitarian concerns. Other nations are very much aware of the nature of these operations and so it can reasonably be said that USAID is one of the agencies that has caused the rest of the world to see the USA as duplicitous, meddling, malevolent, and hypocritical. And really when you look at the behavior of US it’s hard not to agree with them.
Does that mean I think what Musk and Trump are doing to USAID will be good? No, of course not. I have no idea what will happen but the fact that Trump is surrounded by people like Larry Ellison, Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Peter Thiel (etc.) certainly suggests a totalitarian agenda. The Stargate initiative is an absolute nightmare.
The biggest danger with USAID is that the revelation of its actual role in the world will bring to light the dirty secrets of the most powerful people in government - on both sides of the aisle. It would be an absolute disaster if the activities of our government were publicly known (this is meant both sarcastically and seriously). We must protect our corrupt government officials!
War criminal Dick Cheney (who supported your Kamala in the last election) once worked for USAID. USAID is uniparty to the hilt. Strange how they get along just fine when they’re not trying to turn the citizens against each other, right?
Trump rose to office on a wave of discontent about our system’s rampant corruption. Desperation is fertile ground for opportunists. If you didn’t have the disenfranchisement of the citizens by the corruption of the duopoly, you would not have Trump. This is a recapitulation of what happened in ancient Rome. It was the corruption of the senators that laid the groundwork for the ascendancy of Caesar.
I can only imagine you actually believe the corrupt senators who are now telling you what an outrage it is to have USAID programs suspended. If this is the case it reveals your total ignorance and lack of concern. You just prefer the way your side sounds and looks because of how much you hate the way the other side sounds and looks. That’s how they got you to become a motivated warrior in your own nation’s destruction. All they had to do was present you with two opposite faces that you fail to notice are emanating from the same malevolent Hydra. Good cop, bad cop - off to jail with you.
This exchange makes me think the last idea you took seriously was “stop making sense”. That’s what the cool kids did, right? David Byrne put on a big suit, what a hero. Whatever you do, don’t associate with the nerds who ask uncomfortable questions! It’s dumb to ask questions because it means you don’t know the answer and that’s not cool. How awkward; avoid at all costs - even if it means the dismantling of your society, family, soul. Cool!
I think this brief back and forth has been a profound illustration of how stubbornly disrespectful intolerant and irrational your cohort has become. Therefore I plan to publish it as a separate substack post. As a courtesy to you I will block out your name and icon if you wish. Kindly let me know asap.
He then deleted his comments so I wrote the following:
Nice try but I already grabbed the screenshots.
By the way - you apparently don’t even understand how elections work. Oregon is a Blue state. Harris won by something like 14%. I could have voted for Trump and it would have made no difference. But yes, I voted for RFK to preserve the We The People Party we worked so hard to establish.
As a bonus here are some more USAID corruption stories for ya:
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1886449207352959216
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1498546635361734656
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1400189329218146312
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1386775481899421707
https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1886469026874110227
https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1886921189043446239
https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1886806999079219504
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1885847871859167477
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1885871401116041308
https://x.com/JoshWalkos/status/1887190637721915779