Showing posts with label tribalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tribalism. Show all posts

Sunday, October 23, 2022

Sunday morning comedy from CNBC

 

 
Detroit, Tulsa, Memphis, and Oklahoma City
 
Pack the bags, honey! We're moving! 






Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Monday, October 15, 2018

Elizabeth Talking Bull takes private DNA test to prove she's "Native American"

Well, she obviously took the private test and hired Bustamante because the tests you and I take wouldn't show what she needed to show. 

The Boston Globe reports here:

The inherent imprecision of the six-page DNA analysis could provide fodder for Warren’s critics. If her great-great-great-grandmother was Native American, that puts her at 1/32nd American Indian. But the report includes the possibility that she’s just 1/512th Native American if the ancestor is 10 generations back. ...

Detecting DNA for Native Americans is particularly tricky because there is an absence of Native American DNA available for comparison. This is in part because Native American leaders have asked tribal members not to participate in genetic databases. ...

To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American. That’s because scientists believe that the groups Americans refer to as Native American came to this land via the Bering Straight about 12,000 years ago and settled in what’s now America but also migrated further south. His report explained that the use of reference populations whose genetic material has been fully sequenced was designed “for maximal accuracy.” ...

Ivy League universities, like the ones where Warren taught, were under great pressure to show they had diverse staffs.

The University of Pennsylvania filled out a document explaining why it hired a white woman over minority candidates — clear evidence it didn’t view her as a Native American addition. And the Globe interviewed 31 Harvard Law School faculty members who voted on her appointment there, and all said her heritage was not a factor. 

Update: The Boston Globe has amended the first paragraph above as follows:

The inherent imprecision of the six-page DNA analysis could provide fodder for Warren’s critics. If O.C. Sarah Smith were fully Native American, that would make Warren up to 1/32nd native. But the generational range based on the ancestor that the report identified suggests she’s between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American. The report notes there could be missed ancestors. 

In other words, Elizabeth Talking Bull could have far less "American Indian" blood in her than originally reported.



Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Josh Brown thinks you're an Unreachable if you think staging a week long funeral to bash the president is in bad taste

Here, where he amusingly warns about joining a tribe, a tribe! without even realizing it:

Ask yourself whether or not you [yes, YOU] might be an Unreachable in some regard. Are there some beliefs you’ve taken on because they’re of use to you in some social setting or circumstance – beliefs that may not be completely grounded in fact? Are you, in your own way, an Unreachable in the eyes of someone else? Have you affiliated with a tribe of your own, whether out of convenience or for professional purposes, without even having realized it?

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Why do Bush Republicans support Hillary Clinton when even the Manchester Union Leader calls her a lying liar?

Birds of a feather flock together maybe?

From the editorial today, here:

Hillary Clinton lied. ... Hillary Clinton lying is not breaking news. ... For weeks, the administration framed the [Benghazi] attack as a response to a YouTube video, lying to the American people. Hillary Clinton personally peddled that lie to the victims’ relatives. ... She’s counting on the tribalism rife in modern American politics to shield her from responsibility for her blunders and lies. The Obama administration lied about what happened in Benghazi to win the 2012 presidential election. The Clinton campaign is hoping that history repeats itself.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

The opposition finally figures out that Trump will use eminent domain to build The Wall

We told you he would weeks ago.

Randal John Meyer, in "The Great Wall Of Trump Would Be the Ultimate Eminent Domain Horror Show":

The Government Accountability Office reports (PDF) that “federal and tribal lands make up 632 miles, or approximately 33 percent, of the nearly 2,000 total border miles.” What of the remaining 66 percent? “Private and state-owned lands constitute the remaining 67 percent of the border, most of which is located in Texas.”

That means that if Trump’s plan to build another 1,000 miles of wall is carried to fruition, thousands more homeowners will see their property destroyed or partially walled-off. ...

The fence built so far goes extends [sic] to Texas, which ... means it mostly covers land that was already federally owned. Trump’s new fencing would be built primarily on state-owned and private lands.

The author never tells you Trump beat Texas home boy Ted Cruz in several of the border counties, and reduced his victory to single digits in others.

The Wall has support in Texas.

Washington Post graphic



Monday, July 22, 2013

John Kass: Obama Played The Race Card On Purpose To Divide America

John Kass, Greek-American, channels Aristotle here in the Chicago Tribune:


Obama pronounced the killing as racially motivated, though he didn't use the words. He didn't have to, such is his prowess. It was so smooth that few noticed. He put the killing in a racial context, and that was enough. ... Race was established by the president of the United States, and by other political and media actors. It's a cynical business, about money and power, about keeping divisions between American tribes. There are the black tribes that see Martin in the context of the old civil rights struggles and leverage, and white tribes that see Martin being used to pummel them with racial guilt. ... Yet none of this tribalism has anything to do with what happened the night Martin was killed. Politicians don't worry about that. They're experts at the game of tribes, and a tribal America is what nourishes them.

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"The tyrant should endeavor that the whole community should mutually accuse and come to blows with each other." -- Aristotle, Politics

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Making Afghanistan Safe For Pedophilia

I don't know how I overlooked this story from the end of August, but the effeminate church I narrowly escaped this morning set me to surfing when I got home, and Voila! Our forces as presently constituted find the pedophilia revolting, which must be why the Obama regime is working so hard to repeal DADT. Fag forces will be positively begging for deployments to the theatre:

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.

You'll find the rest of "Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret" here at The San Francisco Chronicle, where  it must have found considerable local interest. In it you'll also learn that there are more pedophiles per capita in Afghanistan than in any other place in the world, even Rome!

I found the way Muslims are said to explain this away as not being homosexuality, which they forbid,  poignantly reminiscent of the kind of text-trimming you will meet with in just about any church or synagogue in America: It's not homosexuality because they don't love the boys.

And the Taliban? I'm sure they're more than ready to blame it all on Alexander the Great.

Priceless.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Aristotle, On Tyranny

Now a tyranny is a monarchy where the good of one man only is the object of government, an oligarchy considers only the rich, and a democracy only the poor; but neither of them have a common good in view.

Tyranny, the worst excess imaginable, [is] a government the most contrary possible to a free state.

Tyranny arises from a headstrong democracy or an oligarchy, but very seldom when the members of the community are nearly on an equality with each other. When there is a want of a proper number of men of middling fortune, the poor extend their power too far, abuses arise, and the government is soon at an end.

A tyrant is chosen out of the meanest populace; an enemy to the better sort, that the common people may not be oppressed by them.

In former times, when the same person was both demagogue and general, the democracies were changed into tyrannies; and indeed most of the ancient tyrannies arose from those states: a reason for which then subsisted, but not now; for at that time the demagogues were of the soldiery; for they were not then powerful by their eloquence; but, now the art of oratory is cultivated, the able speakers are at present the demagogues; but, as they are unqualified to act in a military capacity, they cannot impose themselves on the people as tyrants, if we except in one or two trifling instances.

Formerly, too, tyrannies were more common than now, on account of the very extensive powers with which some magistrates were entrusted: for they were supreme in many things of the last consequence; and also because at that time the cities were not of that very great extent, the people in general living in the country, and being employed in husbandry, which gave them, who took the lead in public affairs, an opportunity, if they had a turn for war, to make themselves tyrants; which they all did when they had gained the confidence of the people; and this confidence was their hatred to the rich.

A government shall also alter from its ancient and approved democratic form into one entirely new, if there is no census to regulate the election of magistrates; for, as the election is with the people, the demagogues who are desirous of being in office, to flatter them, will endeavour with all their power to make the people superior even to the laws.

To prevent this entirely, or at least in a great measure, the magistrates should be elected by the tribes, and not by the people at large.

A tyrant, as has been often said, has no regard to the common good, except for his own advantage; his only object is pleasure, but a king's is virtue: what a tyrant therefore is ambitious of engrossing is wealth, but a king rather honour.

The guards too of a king are citizens, a tyrant's foreigners.

That a tyranny contains all that is bad both in a democracy and an oligarchy is evident; with an oligarchy it has for its end gain, as the only means of providing the tyrant with guards and the luxuries of life; like that it places no confidence in the people; and therefore deprives them of the use of arms: it is also common to them both to persecute the populace, to drive them out of the city and their own habitations.

With a democracy it quarrels with the nobles, and destroys them both publicly and privately, or drives them into banishment, as rivals and an impediment to the government; hence naturally arise conspiracies both amongst those who desire to govern and those who desire not to be slaves.

The extreme of a democracy is a tyranny.

If any one assumes the government, either by force or fraud, this is a tyranny. A king exists but while the people are willing to obey, as their submission to him is voluntary, but to a tyrant involuntary.

What has been already mentioned is as conducive as anything can be to preserve a tyranny; namely, to keep down those who are of an aspiring disposition, to take off those who will not submit, to allow no public meals, no clubs, no education, nothing at all, but to guard against everything that gives rise to high spirits or mutual confidence; nor to suffer the learned meetings of those who are at leisure to hold conversation with each other; and to endeavour by every means possible to keep all the people strangers to each other; for knowledge increases mutual confidence; and to oblige all strangers to appear in public, and to live near the city-gate, that all their actions may be sufficiently seen; for those who are kept like slaves seldom entertain any noble thoughts: in short, to imitate everything which the Persians and barbarians do, for they all contribute to support slavery; and to endeavour to know what every one who is under their power does and says; and for this purpose to employ spies: Hiero also used to send out listeners wherever there was any meeting or conversation; for the people dare not speak with freedom for fear of such persons; and if any one does, there is the less chance of its being concealed; and to endeavour that the whole community should mutually accuse and come to blows with each other, friend with friend, the commons with the nobles, and the rich with each other.

It is also advantageous for a tyranny that all those who are under it should be oppressed with poverty, that they may not be able to compose a guard; and that, being employed in procuring their daily bread, they may have no leisure to conspire against their tyrants. The Pyramids of Egypt are a proof of this, and the votive edifices of the Cyposelidse, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, built by the Pisistratidae, and the works of Polycrates at Samos; for all these produced one end, the keeping the people poor.

It is necessary also to multiply taxes, as at Syracuse; where Dionysius in the space of five years collected all the private property of his subjects into his own coffers.

A tyrant also should endeavour to engage his subjects in a war, that they may have employment and continually depend upon their general.

A king is preserved by his friends, but a tyrant is of all persons the man who can place no confidence in friends, as every one has it in his desire and these chiefly in their power to destroy him.

All these things also which are done in an extreme democracy should be done in a tyranny, as permitting great licentiousness to the women in the house, that they may reveal their husbands' secrets; and showing great indulgence to slaves also for the same reason; for slaves and women conspire not against tyrants: but when they are treated with kindness, both of them are abettors of tyrants, and extreme democracies also; and the people too in such a state desire to be despotic.

For which reason flatterers are in repute in both these: the demagogue in the democracy, for he is the proper flatterer of the people; among tyrants, he who will servilely adapt himself to their humours; for this is the business of flatterers.

And for this reason tyrants always love the worst of wretches, for they rejoice in being flattered, which no man of a liberal spirit will submit to; for they love the virtuous, but flatter none.

Bad men too are fit for bad purposes; "like to like," as the proverb says.

A tyrant also should show no favour to a man of worth or a freeman; for he should think, that no one deserved to be thought these but himself; for he who supports his dignity, and is a friend to freedom, encroaches upon the superiority and the despotism of the tyrant: such men, therefore, they naturally hate, as destructive to their government.

A tyrant also should rather admit strangers to his table and familiarity than citizens, as these are his enemies, but the others have no design against him.

These and such-like are the supports of a tyranny, for it comprehends whatsoever is wicked.

But all these things may be comprehended in three divisions, for there are three objects which a tyranny has in view; one of which is, that the citizens should be of poor abject dispositions; for such men never propose to conspire against any one.

The second is, that they should have no confidence in each other; for while they have not this, the tyrant is safe enough from destruction. For which reason they are always at enmity with those of merit, as hurtful to their government; not only as they scorn to be governed despotically, but also because they can rely upon each other's fidelity, and others can rely upon theirs, and because they will not inform against their associates, nor any one else.

The third is, that they shall be totally without the means of doing anything; for no one undertakes what is impossible for him to perform: so that without power a tyranny can never be destroyed.

These, then, are the three objects which the inclinations of tyrants desire to see accomplished; for all their tyrannical plans tend to promote one of these three ends, that their people may neither have mutual confidence, power, nor spirit.

This, then, is one of the two methods of preserving tyrannies: the other proceeds in a way quite contrary to what has been already described, and which may be discerned from considering to what the destruction of a kingdom is owing; for as one cause of that is, making the government approach near to a tyranny, so the safety of a tyranny consists in making the government nearly kingly; preserving only one thing, namely power, that not only the willing, but the unwilling also, must be obliged to submit; for if this is once lost, the tyranny is at an end.

This, then, as the foundation, must be preserved: in other particulars carefully do and affect to seem like a king; first, appear to pay a great attention to what belongs to the public; nor make such profuse presents as will offend the people; while they are to supply the money out of the hard labour of their own hands, and see it given in profusion to mistresses, foreigners, and fiddlers; keeping an exact account both of what you receive and pay; which is a practice some tyrants do actually follow, by which means they seem rather fathers of families than tyrants: nor need you ever fear the want of money while you have the supreme power of the state in your own hands.

It is also much better for those tyrants who quit their kingdom to do this than to leave behind them money they have hoarded up; for their regents will be much less desirous of making innovations, and they are more to be dreaded by absent tyrants than the citizens; for such of them as he suspects he takes with him, but these regents must be left behind.

He should also endeavour to appear to collect such taxes and require such services as the exigencies of the state demand, that whenever they are wanted they may be ready in time of war; and particularly to take care that he appear to collect and keep them not as his own property, but the public's.

His appearance also should not be severe, but respectable, so that he should inspire those who approach him with veneration and not fear; but this will not be easily accomplished if he is despised.

If, therefore, he will not take the pains to acquire any other, he ought to endeavour to be a man of political abilities, and to fix that opinion of himself in the judgment of his subjects.

He should also take care not to appear to be guilty of the least offence against modesty, nor to suffer it in those under him: nor to permit the women of his family to treat others haughtily; for the haughtiness of women has been the ruin of many tyrants.

With respect to the pleasures of sense, he ought to do directly contrary to the practice of some tyrants at present; for they do not only continually indulge themselves in them for many days together, but they seem also to desire to have other witnesses of it, that they may wonder at their happiness; whereas he ought really to be moderate in these, and, if not, to appear to others to avoid them-for it is not the sober man who is exposed either to plots or contempt, but the drunkard; not the early riser, but the sluggard.

His conduct in general should also be contrary to what is reported of former tyrants; for he ought to improve and adorn his city, so as to seem a guardian and not a tyrant; and, moreover., always to seem particularly attentive to the worship of the gods; for from persons of such a character men entertain less fears of suffering anything illegal while they suppose that he who governs them is religious and reverences the gods; and they will be less inclined to raise insinuations against such a one, as being peculiarly under their protection: but this must be so done as to give no occasion for any suspicion of hypocrisy.

He should also take care to show such respect to men of merit in every particular, that they should not think they could be treated with greater distinction by their fellow-citizens in a free state.

He should also let all honours flow immediately from himself, but every censure from his subordinate officers and judges.

It is also a common protection of all monarchies not to make one person too great, or, certainly, not many; for they will support each other: but, if it is necessary to entrust any large powers to one person, to take care that it is not one of an ardent spirit; for this disposition is upon every opportunity most ready for a revolution: and, if it should seem necessary to deprive any one of his power, to do it by degrees, and not reduce him all at once.

It is also necessary to abstain from all kinds of insolence; more particularly from corporal punishment; which you must be most cautious never to exercise over those who have a delicate sense of honour; for, as those who love money are touched to the quick when anything affects their property, so are men of honour and principle when they receive any disgrace: therefore, either never employ personal punishment, or, if you do, let it be only in the manner in which a father would correct his son, and not with contempt; and, upon the whole, make amends for any seeming disgrace by bestowing greater honours.

But of all persons who are most likely to entertain designs against the person of a tyrant, those are chiefly to be feared and guarded against who regard as nothing the loss of their own lives, so that they can but accomplish their purpose: be very careful therefore of those who either think themselves affronted, or those who are dear to them; for those who are excited by anger to revenge regard as nothing their own persons: for, as Heraclitus says, it is dangerous to fight with an angry man who will purchase with his life the thing he aims at.

As all cities are composed of two sorts of persons, the rich and the poor, it is necessary that both these should find equal protection from him who governs them, and that the one party should not have it in their power to injure the other; but that the tyrant should attach to himself that party which is the most powerful; which, if he does, he will have no occasion either to make his slaves free, or to deprive citizens of their arms; for the strength of either of the parties added to his own forces will render him superior to any conspiracy.

It would be superfluous to go through all particulars; for the rule of conduct which the tyrant ought to pursue is evident enough, and that is, to affect to appear not the tyrant, but the king; the guardian of those he governs, not their plunderer, but their protector, and to affect the middle rank in life, not one superior to all others: he should, therefore, associate his nobles with him and soothe his people; for his government will not only be necessarily more honourable and worthy of imitation, as it will be over men of worth, and not abject wretches who perpetually both hate and fear him; but it will be also more durable.

Let him also frame his life so that his manners may be consentaneous to virtue, or at least let half of them be so, that he may not be altogether wicked, but only so in part.

-- from The Politics --




Friday, November 6, 2009

President Pothead Forgets Again

Mike Bates over at News Busters hits a home run with this one.

The president's much vaunted cerebellum apparently continues to suffer from the ill effects of prolonged marijuana use. He just gave the guy the Medal of Freedom in August for crying out loud, barely three months ago. It's actually starting to look surprising that he can remember George Bush was his predecessor.

Obama Gives Shout Out to 'Congressional Medal of Honor Winner' Who Isn't

By Mike Bates

November 6, 2009 - 01:18 ET

The Washington Post this afternoon reported "President Obama delivers remarks on Ft. Hood shooting at end of tribal leaders conference." The transcript begins:

SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
OBAMA: Please, everybody, have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow (ph) was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you.

Ah, the dangers of giving shout outs without a teleprompter. Crow is not a Medal of Honor recipient. As noted by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society: The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress, it is often called the Congressional Medal of Honor. Crow's name is not included on the Society's Medal of Honor recipient list. He was, however, awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in August.

Obama, often described as "cerebral" by the mainstream media, should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow. Don't expect his blunder to receive wide coverage. It's not something he can blame George Bush for.