TheProgressiveLiberal

Yeah. I read some British guy say once that the US screwed you guys hard before we entered the war. We stole all your gold, or something like that. Of course, what our elites were trying to do (replace the British elites at running the world) and the concerns of ordinary people here were to different things. I think most of them thought that WWI turned out to be just another European war about power politics rather than about ideals, and that they figured WWII was the same.

Antifa with the help of local Democratic politicians forced the cancelation of a free speech rally in San Francisco from a Patriot group which sought to specifically exclude anybody who was a Nazi or white nationalist. Nancy Pelosi called the event a "white nationalist" gathering, which can't be true if the group actively asked white nationalists not to attend. The mayor actively encouraged the protestors who ended up forcing the shut down of the rally. Today's Democratic party is more interested in encouraging street thugs to violate the civil rights of Americans than equally protecting the rights of all Americans in areas that they control.

I don't know much about the Eastern Front. Was the average German enlisted man involved in mass killings of civilians? I'm asking an honest question.

The way history was taught to us in high school was that the resistance of American's to entering WWII had to do with the British lies which got us into WWI and your behavior in the aftermath of the war. People didn't want to fight another war for the British Empire on the false pretext of "defending democracy." That was the early view of what WWII was in the US.

I found it on the spotted toad blog that Mr. Sailer linked to. But I originally found that blog through Mr. Sailer. I'm a regular reader of Sailer's blog. Apparently so are most of the people who are important on the right wing of America, but nobody can admit it because of some of the topics he tackles. Yeah. I'm a poor writer. Never claimed otherwise. As for evidence, I thought the rapes committed by the Soviet Army were common knowledge. I also thought the accepted line of thinking was that large parts of the German Army behaved professionally during the war. Am I wrong on this? Can't say I'm an expert on WWII.

So you don't believe in the concept of a nation state or borders? No place in the entire world in inhabited by the original ethnic group if you go back far enough. It's an irrelevant argument to say that the US was originally inhabited by another group. I'm under no obligation to make my country what I view as worse just because at some point my ancestors moved here from another place. It's unfair to bring up the treatment of blacks as justification for why we have to have open borders to 3rd world immigration. Two separate issues. Low skilled immigration and free trade are bad for the working classes of all races in America. It's especially bad for black people. I've worked low skilled jobs my whole life. I've seen it for years. People hate hiring low skilled black people. Lots flat out won't. I'm sure lots more put whites and Mexicans at the top of the stack if there's a surplus of applications. Lots more use a surplus of white and Mexican applicants as an excuse to fire blacks for small infractions. The very first job I ever had around people who weren't white was a summer job at a cereal warehouse before my senior year of high school. There were a handful of white people. All high school or college students doing summer work. There were dozens of Hispanic immigrants who did not speak English. Then there would be the blacks. Their number more or less equaled the Hispanics, but outside of a few all of them would end up fired or quitting within weeks. A few would be fired almost every day. You could be fired for talking to your coworkers, working too slow, and things like that. The impression I developed at that point in life was that Mexicans were crazy workers and the blacks couldn't hang. As I've gotten older my perspective has changed. I realized that I should side with low class black people wanting to work over foreigners working hard to help the bossman. The temp agency which staffed the place wasn't racist. They would send anybody. The bosses who ran the warehouse weren't racist. They held everyone to the same standards. The problem is that the presence of Hispanic immigrant workers allowed them to set up a shop where the rules made it likely that very, very few lower class black people would be able to work there. It was a crappy job, but it helped me build income to go out on my own after I was done with school. If black people don't have that same opportunity because lots of jobs won't employ them then they start out way behind someone like me when they hit adulthood. I have a million stories along those lines. I'm currently feuding with the Chinese man who owns my workplace because I hired a black guy to deliver, which I'm not supposed to do. Most of your pay is in tips, but you also get a bit of a wage. The owner tried to write his first check for $5/hr instead of $7/hr which was the advertised starting salary. This was after attempting to confiscate some of his tips during his first shifts. The Chinese man is trying to do something every day to make the black dude quit and I'm stuck inbetween them. (Blacks and Chinese are the two groups most like oil and water based on their cultural characteristics that I've ever run into.) We go through something roughly similar every time I hire a black guy. As for automation, you are correct. That's not a reason to make things worse when it comes to low skilled employment in other ways as well. We can't stop automation without being Luddites. We can stop low skilled immigration and free trade.

Wait. You use a soccer ball when playing kickball? Not a kickball? I suppose a soccer ball would work if you are playing on an actual baseball field, but when I was a kid it was a 99% indoor game. Usually a basketball court. No way a soccer ball would work on that scale.

What the f**k, Canada? Attention: Half Of Canada Calls Kickball "Soccer Baseball" http://deadspin.com/attention-half-of-canada-calls-kickball-soccer-baseba-1798424183 "Soccer Baseball?" How do you come up with that?

Looks like you are correct. Good thing those protestors were there to keep the Nazis from taking over America.

For the 16 people who liked this quote, the latest Hardcore History podcast about the Roman conquest of Gaul gave some statistics on this topic. Up to 98% of Native Americans who were in what is now the US would have died of disease at first contact with any group from outside the New World. Over 80% minimum. At the US founding there were around 600,000 Indians living in territory that now belongs to the US. The rest had died off from diseases over the past few hundred years. It's such a yawn argument even if I accepted it's premise that Americans today don't have a right to our nation because we conquered it from another group, which is not a premise I accept.

Reminder about the actual effect modern progressive leftism and multiculturalism on steroids has on blacks. Part of this chart can probably be explained by the exodus of working class whites from California over the past 30 years, but certainly much of it has to do with increased low skilled immigration, environmental policy which pushed low skilled jobs away, and pro illegal immigrant government policies. It's important to remember that the biggest gains blacks made relative to whites wasn't after the Civil Rights era. It was between when we shut down immigration from Europe and when we opened immigration up to the 3rd world.

If you looked this stat up yourself you misread. If you read it in some news source never trust that source again. I've been to this city. It's a Mexican city. Currently 62% Hispanic. 18% white. You always have to look past the white % to the non-Hispanic white %. A guy who looks like this and doesn't speak English is included in the first % you quoted. Not that I have a problem with that, but I imagine it's not what you were envisioning. Uh, I'm sure there were individual good Germans in WWII. Certainly your average Germany soldier probably behaved better than your average Russian soldier. If you're referring to Charlottesville, I though I was clear that I disagreed with Trump on the good people thing. I think everyone involved on both sides chose to march under flags of totalitarianism and with people they knew wanted violence. You are responsible for the people you associate with.

A. This is what happens when you let immigrants in. This gathering was almost exclusively immigrants. B. So we had a massive peaceful rally at the height of fascism where a bunch of Nazi Party members gave speeches, and we didn't fall to the Nazis? I wonder how that's possible since nobody showed up to beat them up in the streets? I thought masked thugs were the only things standing between our country and fascism.

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/22/donald-trump-is-using-dreamers-as-a-bargaining-chip-for-funding-a-border-wall/ Salan had this article. Chuck Schumer tweeted a link and said, "Dreamers are not a bargaining chip for the border wall and inhumane deportation force." Nancy Pelosi: "It is reprehensible to treat children as bargaining chips. America's Dreamers are not negotiable." Well, I guess since the current law says they have to get deported, and the President is constitutionally charged with faithfully enforcing all laws that means many of them will be deported. It's probably good long term for Democrats. They get nice photo ops of people raised in the US since they were 3 getting sent away, which they hope will help defeat Trump and then they will get even more 3rd worlders in the end. If we got an actual deal where the people in a tough spot got to stay and future immigration is restricted to highly skilled workers then Trump would look good and we get less 3rd worlders in the end.

The Democrats are officially rejecting overtures from the Trump administration that would give the Dreamers permanent legal status in exchange for future crackdowns on immigration. Guess that shows their real feelings 100%. It's not about helping people who are in a tough spot because they were brought here as illegals by their parents. What's really important is making sure future 3rd world people have easy access to our country. The key to understanding the modern Democratic Party leadership and activist base is that on any given issue you can predict how they will side based on which group is farthest away from being the hated average American. In this case people who currently live in the 3rd world and don't speak English need to be sided with over people who mostly grew up in the US and mostly speak English.

It's a fair enough criticism of Trump that he didn't have a plan ready that could pass. According to what I read they had to use a complicated parliamentary process called reconciliation to avoid a filibuster. I'm not 100% sure what all this entailed, but supposedly the end goal was to fix the insurance market based on executive orders from the Dept of Health and Human Services. They couldn't get any real changes through the Senate because that would have required 7 Democrat votes even if every Republican agreed. I guess we were supposed to ignore what was actually in the Congressional bill and just wait for Trump to fix it through executive action once passed. That was the best pro-Trump argument I heard and I didn't present it in the fullest way, but it sounded really sketchy to me. I will admit that I was wrong about Trump being able to negotiate with Democrats on areas of common interests in a way that Obama wasn't able to deal with the Republicans. Perhaps I was naïve. My own belief is that Trump's immigration stance is so odious to 95% of the elected Democrats and their big donors that they'd rather let things fail and hope that leads to his defeat, rather than deal with him on areas of common interest like infrastructure or a moderate / centrists health care proposal to replace Obamacare. I come to this conclusion partially based on personal experience because Obama's immigration policy made me think this way, but in reverse. Just a small note, the White House can't send bills to Congress. All bills have to officially originate in Congress. If the swamp creature Republican leadership doesn't want to work with someone like Steve Bannon, they can basically drag their feet on any proposals they want. Interestingly, they are not allowing Trump to make recess appointments to positions that are not filled. This is fairly standard when a different party controls Congress. They send one Senator down to gavel the chamber into session for a minute so they aren't technically ever in recess. It prevents the President from appointing someone who couldn't otherwise pass a Senate vote who can then serve with full power until they get around to actually voting. For the Republican Party leadership to do this to their own President shows how much they are unwilling to work his way.

You're right it's an ethical issue. This exact situation came up before in the US. You don't think some psychologists would be willing to lie about Trump and chalk it up to the greater good. You don't think large parts of the media would be more than happy to run with their claims. The American Psychiatric Association's ethical rule that their members can't offer a diagnosis of public figures is called the Goldwater Rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule The Goldwater rule is the informal name given to Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics,[1] which states it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements.[2] It is named after presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.[3][4] The issue arose in 1964 when Fact published the article "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater".[3][5] The magazine polled psychiatrists about American Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president.[6][7] The editor, Ralph Ginzburg, was sued for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg where Goldwater won $75,000 (approximately $579,000 today) in damages.[3]

Because they falsely labeled Barry Goldwater as being mentally ill. There's a history in this country of health care professionals lying about the mental condition of right wing leaders.

Except I have the good sense to try and avoid such situations. George Zimmerman was a dumbass.

Why do you think that?

Obviously people with masks running up on you is a different situation then if they come around a corner and have the gun in your face before you can react. I was just saying that I've never been in the situation where I had a gun, knew I was about to have a gun in my face in a few seconds, and had to make a decision. I've only pulled my gun out once, but I didn't point it at anyone. I was walking through the center of an apartment complex when I heard a teenager yell, "There's a white boy, get your guns." I looked over and heard another kid repeat the same thing as they started scrambling around. I went into the building where I had the delivery and collected the money. I pulled out my gun, put my hand inside the delivery bag so nobody could see it, walked out the back entrance of the building, and took the long way around the perimeter of the complex back to my car. It was dusk time, but I could make out a group of kids standing in the middle of the complex. Don't think they actually were going to threaten me with guns as people attempting to scare me for sport happened from time to time, but I wasn't 100% sure.

You might have a point if this guy was voting between the German system and Obamacare. What he was voting for in the last election was Obamacare vs. Trump's mysterious plan that would cover everyone and be affordable. What this guy knows is that before Obamacare, he and his wife had insurance for a reasonable price. Democrats managed to get 60 seats in the Senate and control of the House for the only time since 1992, along with a President who made healthcare his signature priority. So basically the best possible position they could ever achieve. The bill they came up with wasn't the German system. It was Obamacare, and now his costs have gone through the roof. And Hillary Clinton was running on a platform that said Obamacare was great. Why would he possibly vote for that? What you don't understand is that lots of Republicans would favor a more socialized medical system, but that isn't anything close to what the Democrats are ever going to offer because too many Democrats don't want any change which will affect their personal health care coverage, which they like. When they offer Obamacare, many people who might be for more socialized medicine might just decide that what the Republicans are selling is better. What did they say that was staggeringly stupid? They all seemed like fairly normal people with fairly normal thoughts.

I believe the standard narrative. We went into Afghanistan because of 9/11. We went into Iraq because neoconservatives thought they could turn it into a liberal democracy (the conservative flip side of the multicultural leftist belief), which would help US security long term. I'm sure there were arms companies lobbying in favor, but I don't think either war was primarily driven by a profit motive. As for whether he's a puppet, he has altered his path on foreign policy somewhat. That is to be expected. One of the problems with having a giant military is that you're going to be tempted to use it. It's one of the reasons our founding fathers favored the 2nd amendment/armed population strategy for national defense over building a standing army when they were creating our country. This problem is furthered by the nature of our political system where Presidents get frustrated in their domestic goals but have seemingly unlimited power in foreign policy. One of the areas where I disagreed with Trump the most during the campaign was the whole "rebuild the military" thing. So you've moved from your position from just after the election when I argued that the Deep State was going to oppose Trump from the bureaucracy? I believe you said the bureaucracy was staffed by professionals who would do their jobs. As for those "Blacks for Trump" guys, they've been at rallies for the entire campaign. Always in the same spots with the same dress and signs. I always thought they were an example of the street hustle that our African American friends excel at, rather than plants by Trump. Right. Under Obama, and to a lesser extent Bush, the best play for Pakistani authorities was to pay lip service to US goals, but not really try to hard to help. You have to change their calculation about what's in their best interests. The US is a powerful country. We can collapse economies and overthrow leaders. We can support their enemies. If we are going to contain radical Islam in Afghanistan we are going to need Pakistan's full cooperation. Maybe Trump's strategy won't work, but it makes sense in the context of what he's trying to accomplish in the end.

Nice kicking motion.

ESPN has removed Robert Lee from calling the upcoming William & Mary vs. Virginia game in Charlottesville because of his name. The world has gone mad.