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Phred
Fred's son


Registered: 10/18/00
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Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT!
#14554878 - 06/03/11 10:10 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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This has been one of my all time favorite vids ever since I saw it the first time some years back. However, it is in six parts (though parts five and six are the question period rather than the speech itself) and takes well over forty minutes to watch, with introduction and all. Like most of us here, I can read text many times faster than most people speak, so I prefer transcripts of important speeches to videos of them.
I came across the transcript of this speech today. I notice it has been around for four years now, but I somehow managed not to have discovered it before today. My bad.
I find the speaker's analysis of the driving principle behind Modern Liberalism (as opposed to the Classical Liberalism of the Founding Fathers and other Enlightenment Era thinkers) to be bang on. His premise, in a nutshell, is that people who refuse to discriminate end up as adherents of the Modern Liberal philosophy, and he makes very compelling arguments in support of this premise.
I've excerpted a few parts of the transcript here, but as they say - read the whole thing! It's well worth it.
My question to the readers here - can you come up with an even more convincing explanation why the Modern Liberal believes the things he does than the above premise? If so, post your favorite theory below... but not before reading the transcript. It will make you think about the subject in ways you haven't previously, I assure you.
For those who prefer to watch the video rather than read the transcript, all six parts are available on YouTube. You can skip the lengthy introduction by advancing to 4:00 on Part One -
To pique your interest further, some excerpts -
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What I discovered is that the Modern Liberal looks back on 50,000 years, 100,000 years of human civilization, and knows only one thing for sure: that none of the ideas that mankind has come up with--none of the religions, none of the philosophies, none of the ideologies, none of the forms of government--have succeeded in creating a world devoid of war, poverty, crime, and injustice. So they're convinced that since all of these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the real cause of war, poverty, crime, and injustice must be found--can only be found--in the attempt to be right.
If nobody ever thought they were right, what would we disagree about? If we didn't disagree, surely we wouldn't fight. If we didn't fight, of course we wouldn't go to war. Without war, there would be no poverty; without poverty, there would be no crime; without crime, there would be no injustice. It's a utopian vision, and all that's required to usher in this utopia is the rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality, and decency--all the tools that you and I use in our attempts to be better people, to make the world more right by trying to be right, by siding with right, by recognizing what is right and moving toward it.
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What happens is, they are indoctrinated into what I call a "cult of indiscriminateness." The way the elite does this is by teaching our children, starting with the very young, that rational and moral thought is an act of bigotry; that no matter how sincerely you may seek to gather the facts, no matter how earnestly you may look at the evidence, no matter how disciplined you may try to be in your reasoning, your conclusion is going to be so tainted by your personal bigotries, by your upbringing, by your religion, by the color of your skin, by the nation of your great-great-great-great-great grandfather's birth; that no matter what your conclusion, it is useless. It is nothing other than the reflection of your bigotries, and the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought.
There's a brilliant book out there called The Closing of the American Mind by Professor Allan Bloom. Professor Bloom was trying to figure out in the 1980s why his students were suddenly so stupid, and what he came to was the realization, the recognition, that they'd been raised to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative because its opposite is the evil of having discriminated. I paraphrase this in my own works: "In order to eliminate discrimination, the Modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate."
I'll give you an example. At the airports, in order not to discriminate, we have to intentionally make ourselves stupid. We have to pretend we don't know things we do know, and we have to pretend that the next person who is likely to blow up an airplane is as much the 87-year-old Swedish great-great-grand mother as those four 27-year-old imams newly arrived from Syria screaming "Allahu Akbar!" just before they board the plane. In order to eliminate discrimination, the Modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate.
The problem is, of course, that the ability to discriminate, to thoughtfully choose the better of the available options--as in "she's a discriminating shopper"--is the essence of rational thought; thus, the whole of Western Europe and today's Democratic Party, dominated as it is by this philosophy, rejects rational thought as a hate crime.
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There was a song that came out at about this time called "Goodbye Stranger" by a group called Supertramp--because, you know, being a "tramp" is super! In it, this guy and this girl shack up together for a couple weeks, and apparently things are pretty wonderful until she says something like, "Honey, we've run out of food. Why don't you go to the supermarket, pick up some things, and then we can do this for another week or two?" He says, "I should go shopping? No, no, that's not my paradise. I'm leaving." And as he's walking out the door, he says to her, "Now, I believe that what you say is the undisputed truth, but I have to see things my own way just to keep me in my youth."
That is so much the mindset of the Modern Liberals. It's not that they are not aware of all the things that we're aware of; it's that they need to reject them in order to remain in this five-year-old's utopia that they've been told is the only hope for mankind: a mindless indiscriminateness.
So what you're left with is not really adults, but citizens of voting age who cannot judge their own positions but are virulently antagonistic to any position other than their own. Why? Because when you've been brought up to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative, any position other than their own must have been arrived at through the employment of discrimination. This is why Bush is Hitler; this is why Reagan is Hitler; this is why Giuliani is Hitler.
How is Rudolph Giuliani like Hitler to a thinking person? In one way: Hitler discriminated against the Jews; Giuliani discriminated against the crack-addicted prostitutes mugging people in Times Square. Hitler discriminated against the Catholics; Giuliani discriminated against the criminal over lords. Hitler discriminated against the gypsies; Giuliani discriminated against the terrorists on 9/11 and beyond. In other words, any form of discrimination is wrong.
That's all you get. You'll have to either read the transcript or watch the vids for the rest of it. It's thought-provoking stuff.
Phred
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memes
Blessed



Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
Loc: In a Tree
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: Phred]
#14554960 - 06/03/11 10:44 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Can't wait to watch!
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GazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
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Loc: London UK
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: memes]
#14556252 - 06/03/11 03:53 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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hahaha!! Good one Phred...but its not April fools day?
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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Phred
Fred's son


Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 4 months
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: GazzBut]
#14557289 - 06/03/11 07:59 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Good one Phred...but its not April fools day?
Ah. So you have a more convincing explanation why the Modern Liberal believes the things he does than does Sayet. Let's hear it.

Phred
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GazzBut
Refraction

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Loc: London UK
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: Phred]
#14558373 - 06/03/11 11:56 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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It is the biggest strawman argument I have ever seen. Perhaps if he referenced something a little bit more relevant than John Lennon and Supertramp to back up his argument I could take it a little more seriously!
The "modern liberals" this author describes are not based in reality they are blatantly a caricature based on the authors own set of biases. Before we can argue why these people think like they do I would need you to prove that these people do in fact exist.
Unfortunately I cant open the transcript at the moment but from the very start he talks about how these "modern liberals" hate America and think that America deserved 9/11...he doesn't prove this he just tells us this. Anyone with half a brain knows that he is actually misrepresenting people who would say something a lot closer to "Well I hate what happened on 9/11 and think it was an horrific tragedy but I dont think we should overlook what role our foreign policy may have had to play in motivating these terrorists in the first place." Apparently criticising American foreign policy = hating America, although I imagine if you criticise any foreign policy that equates to giving foreign aid that would = loving America. Such a bunch of childish bullshit!
A little further on he makes a statement to the effect of "its not just one or two of their ideas but every single one that is completely wrong" This obviously suggests that every single one of this dude and all his right thinking colleagues is absolutely right...gimme a break. (although I can see why you love it Phred..)
Anyone who is this blindly attached to a set of beliefs kissed goodbye to rational thought a long time ago.
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: GazzBut]
#14559132 - 06/04/11 08:00 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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I have to agree with you based on what I read in the OP.
Statements like this It is nothing other than the reflection of your bigotries, and the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought and all that's required to usher in this utopia is the rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality, and decency . lead me to believe that this guy is truly irrational not to say that he's completely wrong by any means. It's just more of the "I'm openminded and the good guy and you're closed minded and ignorant and so the bad guy. I'm always impressed that one can point out any perceived bias in another but be clueless to their own. This type of black and white thinking assures us that nothing new can come of any of this political banter. Which is how things really are.
If it all comes down to black and white then I choose neither.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Phred
Fred's son


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Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 4 months
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: Icelander]
#14559180 - 06/04/11 08:33 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
I have to agree with you based on what I read in the OP.
For a while last night, the linked site for the transcript was not responding. It seems fine now. As I pointed out, in the OP I made a few (a very few) short excerpts from a thirty-five minute speech. Do the few short excerpts I chose to extract represent his entire argument? No - of course not. This is why, in my OP, I was very careful to urge -
Quote:
My question to the readers here - can you come up with an even more convincing explanation why the Modern Liberal believes the things he does than the above premise? If so, post your favorite theory below... but not before reading the transcript.
The site is up again, you now have an opportunity to read the entire transcript before commenting again.
It seems GazzBut's choice is to challenge Sayet's designation of the people he's describing. GazzBut disagrees that the people who hold these views and think this way are, properly speaking, "Modern Liberals" (even though the vast majority of them would self-identify as such if filling out a survey - they most certainly would not call themselves Conservative) but in fact, adherents of some other political philosophy. Fascists, maybe? Socialists? Anarchists? Monarchists? It's a mystery.
In the ten years I've been reading this forum, I have come across hundreds of posters who fit pretty closely the description Sayet offers. In real life, the same. Have I been wrong in thinking of these folks as Libbies?
Phred
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Regurgitating the Apple - in transcript form at last! WOOT! [Re: Phred]
#14559202 - 06/04/11 08:42 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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No you are not wrong thinking there are some people like that out there. However I run across all kinds of so called liberals who don't fit that mold. Same with Conservatives.
If this fellow thinks that everyone in school is dumb due to this crazy liberal thinking how does he account for the poor educational results in Conservative voting states?
Like I said I'm far from disagreeing with everything he presents that I've read but I can find just as much fault with Modern Conservative thought. For instance their embracing of fundamental religious nuttiness. Of course they assume that the religious moral code based on a book claimed to be the inspired work of some god is totally rational.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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