Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Ask and ye shall receive:


The originating premise of this novel did not come from me. Donald Mustard and his partners in Chair Enterainment had the idea for an entertainment franchise called Empire about a near-future American civil war. When I joined the project to create a work of fiction based on that premise, my first order of business was to come up with a plausible way that such an event might come about.
It was, sadly enough, all too easy.

Because we haven't had a civil war in the past fourteen decades, people think we can't have one now. Where is the geographic clarity of the Mason-Dixon line? When you look at the red-state blue-state division in the past few elections, you get a false impression. The real division is urban, academic, and high-tech counties versus suburban, rural, and conservative Christian counties. How could such widely scattered "blue" centers and such centerless "red" populations ever act in concert?

Geography aside, however, we have never been so evenly divided with such hateful rhetoric since the years leading up to the Civil War of the 1860s. Because the national media elite are so uniformly progressive, we keep hearing (in the elite media) about the rhetorical excesses of the "extreme right." To hear the same media, there is no "extreme left," just the occasional progressive who says things he or she shouldn't.

But any rational observer has to see that the Left and Right in America are screaming the most vile accusations at each other all the time. We are fully polarized -- if you accept one idea that sounds like it belongs to either the blue or the red, you are assumed -- nay, required -- to espouse the entire rest of the package, even though there is no reason why supporting the war against terrorism should imply you're in favor of banning all abortions and against restricting the availability of firearms; no reason why being in favor of keeping government-imposed limits on the free market should imply you also are in favor of giving legal status to homosexual couples and against building nuclear reactors. These issues are not remotely related, and yet if you hold any of one group's views, you are hated by the other group as if you believed them all; and if you hold most of one group's views, but not all, you are treated as if you were a traitor for deviating even slightly from the party line.

It goes deeper than this, however. A good working definition of fanaticism is that you are so convinced of your views and policies that you are sure anyone who opposes them must either be stupid and deceived or have some ulterior motive. We are today a nation where almost everyone in the public eye displays fanaticism with every utterance.

It is part of human nature to regard as sane those people who share the worldview of the majority of society. Somehow, though, we have managed to divide ourselves into two different, mutually exclusive sanities. The people in each society reinforce each other in madness, believing unsubstantiated ideas that are often contradicted not only by each other but also by whatever objective evidence exists on the subject. Instead of having an ever-adapting civilization-wide consensus reality, we have became a nation of insane people able to see the madness only in the other side.

Does this lead, inevitably, to civil war? Of course not -- though it's hardly conducive to stable government or the long-term continuation of democracy. What inevitably arises from such division is the attempt by one group, utterly convinced of its rectitude, to use all coercive forces available to stamp out the opposing views.

Such an effort is, of course, a confession of madness. Suppression of other people's beliefs by force only comes about when you are deeply afraid that your own beliefs are wrong and you are desperate to keep anyone from challenging them. Oh, you may come up with rhetoric about how you are suppressing them for their own good or for the good of others, but people who are confident of their beliefs are content merely to offer and teach, not compel.

The impulse toward coercion takes whatever forms are available. In academia, it consists of the denial of degrees, jobs, or tenure to people with nonconformist opinions. Ironically, the people who are most relentless in eliminating competing ideas congratulate themselves on their tolerance and diversity. In most situations, it is less formal, consisting of shunning -- but the shunning usually has teeth in it. Did Mel Gibson, when in his cups, say something that reflects his upbringing in an antisemitic household? Then he is to be shunned -- which in Hollywood will mean he can never be considered for an Oscar and will have a much harder time getting prestige, as opposed to money, roles.

It has happened to me, repeatedly, from both the Left and the Right. It is never enough to disagree with me -- I must be banned from speaking at a particular convention or campus; my writings should be boycotted; anything that will punish me for my noncompliance and, if possible, impoverish me and my family.

So virulent are these responses -- again, from both the Left and the Right -- that I believe it is only a short step to the attempt to use the power of the state to enforce one's views. On the right we have attempts to use the government to punish flag burners and to enforce state-sponsored praying. On the left, we have a ban on free speech and peaceable public assembly in front of abortion clinics and the attempt to use the power of the state to force the acceptance of homosexual relationships as equal to marriages. Each side feels absolutely justified in compelling others to accept their views.

It is puritanism, not in its separatist form, desiring to live by themselves by their own rules, but in its Cromwellian form, using the power of the state to enforce the dicta of one group throughout the wider society, by force rather than persuasion.

This despite the historical fact that the civilization that has created more prosperity and freedom for more people than ever before is one based on tolerance and pluralism, and that attempts to force one religion (theistic or atheistic) on the rest of a nation or the world inevitably lead to misery, poverty, and, usually, conflict.

Yet we seem only able to see the negative effects of coercion caused by the other team. Progressives see the danger of allowing fanatical religions (which, by some definitions, means "all of them") to have control of government -- they need only point to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, or, in a more general and milder sense, the entire Muslim world, which is oppressed precisely to the degree that Islam is enforced as the state religion.

Conservatives, on the other hand, see the danger of allowing fanatical atheistic religions to have control of government, pointing to **** Germany and all Communist nations as obvious examples of political utopianism run amok.

Yet neither side can see any connection between their own fanaticism and the historical examples that might apply to them. People insisting on a Christian America simply cannot comprehend that others view them as the Taliban-in-waiting; those who insist on progressive exclusivism in America are outraged at any comparison between them and Communist totalitarianism. Even as they shun or fire or deny tenure to those who disagree with them, everybody thinks it's the other guy who would be the oppressor, while our side would simply "set things to rights."

Rarely do people set out to start a civil war. Invariably, when such wars break out both sides consider themselves to be the aggrieved ones. Right now in America, even though the Left has control of all the institutions of cultural power and prestige -- universities, movies, literary publishing, mainstream journalism-- as well as the federal courts, they feel themselves oppressed and threatened by traditional religion and conservatism. And even though the Right controls both houses of Congress and the presidency, as well as having ample outlets for their views in nontraditional media and an ever-increasing dominance over American religious and economic life, they feel themselves oppressed and threatened by the cultural dominance of the Left.

And they are threatened, just as they are also threatening, because nobody is willing to accept the simple idea that someone can disagree with their group and still be a decent human being worthy of respect.

Can it lead to war?

Very simply, yes. The moment one group feels itself so aggrieved that it uses either its own weapons or the weapons of the state to "prevent" the other side from bringing about its supposed "evil" designs, then that other side will have no choice but to take up arms against them. Both sides will believe the other to be the instigator.

The vast majority of people will be horrified -- but they will also be mobilized whether they like it or not.

It's the lesson of Yugoslavia and Rwanda. If you were a Tutsi just before the Rwandan holocaust who did not hate Hutus, who married a Hutu, who hired Hutus or taught school to Hutu students, it would not have stopped Hutus from taking machetes to you and your family. You would have had only two choices: to die or to take up arms against Hutus, whether you had previously hated them or not.

But it went further. Knowing they were doing a great evil, the Hutus who conducted the programs also killed any Hutus who were "disloyal" enough to try to oppose taking up arms.

Likewise in Yugoslavia. For political gain, Serbian leaders in the post-Tito government maintained a drumbeat of Serbian manifest-destiny propaganda, which openly demonized Croatian and Muslim people as a threat to good Serbs. When Serbs in Bosnia took up arms to "protect themselves" from being ruled by a Muslim majority -- and were sponsored and backed by the Serbian government -- what choice did a Bosnian Muslim have but to take up arms in self-defense? Thus both sides claimed to be acting in self-defense, and in short order, they were.

And as both Rwanda and Bosnia proved, clear geographical divisions are not required in order to have brutal, bloody civil wars. All that is required is that both sides come to believe that if they do not take up arms, the other side will destroy them.

In America today, we are complacent in our belief that it can't happen here. We forget that America is not an ethnic nation, where ancient ties of blood can bind people together despite differences. We are created by ideology; ideas are our only connection. And because today we have discarded the free marketplace of ideas and have polarized ourselves into two equally insane ideologies, so that each side can, with perfect accuracy, brand the other side as madmen, we are ripe for that next step, to take preventive action to keep the other side from seizing power and oppressing our side.

The examples are -- or should be -- obvious. That we are generally oblivious to the excesses of our own side merely demonstrates how close we already are to a paroxysm of self-destruction.

We are waiting for Fort Sumter.

I hope it doesn't come.

Meanwhile, however, there is this novel, in which I try to show characters who struggle to keep from falling into the insanity -- yet who also try to prevent other people's insanity from destroying America. This book is fiction. It is entertainment. I do not believe a new American civil war is inevitable; and if it did happen, I do not believe it would necessarily take the form I show in this book, politically or militarily. Since the war depicted in these pages has not happened, I am certainly not declaring either side in our polarized public life guilty of causing it. I only say that for the purposes of this story, we have this set of causes; in the real world, if we should ever be so stupid as to allow a civil war to happen again, we would obviously have a different set of specific causes.

We live in a time when people like me, who do not wish to choose either camp's ridiculous, inconsistent, unrelated ideology, are being forced to choose -- and to take one whole absurd package or the other.

We live in a time when moderates are treated worse than extremists, being punished as if they were more fanatical than the actual fanatics.

We live in a time when lies are preferred to the truth and truths are called lies, when opponents are assumed to have the worst conceivable motives and treated accordingly, and when we reach immediately for coercion without even bothering to find out what those who disagree with us are actually saying.

In short, we are creating for ourselves a new dark age -- the darkness of blinders we voluntarily wear, and which, if we do not take them off and see each other as human beings with legitimate, virtuous concerns, will lead us to tragedies whose cost we will bear for generations.

Or, maybe, we can just calm down and stop thinking that our own ideas are so precious that we must never give an inch to accommodate the heartfelt beliefs of others.

How can we accomplish that? It begins by scorning the voices of extremism from the camp we are aligned with. Democrats and Republicans must renounce the screamers and haters from their own side instead of continuing to embrace them and denouncing only the screamers from the opposing camp. We must moderate ourselves instead of insisting on moderating the other guy while keeping our own fanaticism alive.

In the long run, the great mass of people who simply want to get on with their lives can shape a peaceful future. But it requires that they actively pursue moderation and reject extremism on every side, and not just on one. Because it is precisely those ordinary people, who don't even care all that much about the issues, who will end up suffering the most from any conflict that might arise.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Democrats 2019: The war of War.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Photo of republicans and democrats united in celebrating more war:



Because it's not about what's best, it's about opposing orange man.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Democrats 2019: The party of denying service based on the color of your hat, and sex.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/20...ump-maga-hats/

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Dmoecrats 2019: the party Newspeak

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Democrats 2019: The party of thought crime and punishment

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Democrats 2019: The party of equality, so long as equality means everyone suffers equally.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Democrats 2019: the party of killing children

Governor Who Endorsed Infanticide Received $2 Million From Planned Parenthood
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/govern...ed-parenthood/

KLAVAN: The Left Rationalizes Late-Term Abortions Because Of Their Disturbing Core Philosophy

https://www.dailywire.com/news/42879...RLL-xAzGrHM1Rw

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

z31maniac

Not discriminating against a protected class, what's the problem?

I'm not going to bother to see if the restaurant isn't doing well and merely did this as a publicity stunt since it's right in the middle of many huge tech companies HQ.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

why does being a protected class matter?

Is that how being an inclusive democrat works?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Because that's how the laws regarding discrimination in the US work. It's OK to discriminate against people based on criteria other than membership in a protected class. Hats are not generally associated with protected-class status, unless they have religious significance. (eg: a yarmulke)

I realize that you'd prefer to not have laws and merely base everything on your personal opinion of what's right and wrong just like many extreme-left SJW-types, but fortunately that's not* how our system works.

z31maniac

Ding ding ding.

It's the same as the very common signs you see living in redneck country.

"No shirt.
No shoes.
No service."

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Again, why does the law matter?

Illegal aliens are literally illegal, yet democrats want to take money from American taxpayers and give it to them.

The Democratic platform is literally:

Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.


Maybe they need to caveat that with where required by law, or unless straight white male?

Democrats prove time and time again, they do not hold those as core values. They believe in violent conflict (e.g. antifa and other violent protests), they believe in division (e.g. refusing service to Republicans), they are vilely jealous (e.g. rob from rich to give to themselves for votes from the poor), and care/value foreigners more than our own citizens.



Democrats of the past:




Democrats of Today:

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

If you don't think the law matters, we can't have a productive conversation about this.




This is obvious. Straight white males are the root cause of all evil, and are literally Hitler. As such, it is not unreasonable to prioritize the rights of the victims of straight white males.

chiefmg

iTrader: (5)

Thank you good sir.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

This is not about law breaking or not -- stop bringing up the law. It's a very weak argument also, as Democrats love to break the law; they are very-pro crime.

Yet Democrats love to claim the moral-high ground, and even write it into their core platform, again:

Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.

Again, nothing about following the spirit and/or letter of the law.

We have ourselves 4 key core covenants: cooperation, unity, empowerment, and extending a hand.

How does refusing service to someone wearing a particular hat demonstrate any of the core values of a Democrat?

Again, I know it doesn't violate the law, but it does violate the core values of the Democratic platform.

At work, I have the nickname "gold-plater" as I often go above and beyond the basic requirements to a project to provide a high-level of functionality, usability, and/or interaction to an application. I have no reason to do this other than my own core value of delivering the best product I'm able to provide in the time/budget. Should I fail to continue this work ethic because it's not the law to provide exceptional levels of service/product? Should I just go back to provide applications that while technically pass the requirements are absolute junk and completely unusable?

Shouldn't a Democrat -- who believes that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls -- serve ANYONE in their restaurant who wants to patronize? This restaurant owner is willing to lose out of half his patrons because of his morality -- which happens to be the opposite of his morality. Maybe it's just that the Democratic party wants you to think democrats are morally superior while they abortion post-birth infants?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I'm not sure I'd agree that democrats are pro-crime. It's probably more accurate to say that democrats are anti-accountability. Blame and punishment hurt people's feelings.



I've met you in person (and shared a very good meal and a few beers with you), and so I can vouch for the fact that you are a white male. I never met Mrs. Braineack, but judging from the pictures I have seen, I assume that you are also straight.

You are a straight, white male. And, I think, that's the point which you are missing. Because of your skin color, gender, and sexual orientation, you are an evil, patriarchal oppressor.

You're bragging about it, in fact. The whole paragraph where you talk about how you like to voluntarily do better-than-average work exemplifies this. You don't see the reason why this makes you evil, because you've totally internalized it as normal. But not all cultures value hard work and productivity, and you're marginalizing them by touting your own view of "normal" as superior. How do you think this makes lazy, unmotivated people feel?

Because of this, it would be not merely wrong, but actually counter to the core liberal values of cooperation, unity and empowerment, to treat you equally to the people you oppress. Your hard work and productivity serves to disenfranchise those who are less motivated and skilled than yourself. That creates division, resentment, and conflict. You don't achieve utopia by expecting the lazy and stupid to rise to a higher level, you do it by otherizing smart, motivated people, to combat the assertion that they are some kind of ideal.

So, to answer your question, YES, you should fail to continue this work ethic. Not because the law does not require it, but because, by working hard and producing a superior product, you are implying that you are somehow superior to people who do not. This not only makes them feel bad, but also harms their chances for career advancement and increased prosperity. And that is the very definition of a racist, patriarchal oppressor.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

HOLY ****!

Mother **** that guy anyways, but can't wait to see what happens. This is obviously retaliation for Michael Ertel. It's not like every news agency in the world didn't already have this story on speed-dial just waiting to unleash it whenever it suited them. Of course he's apologizing and of course the liberal machine is going to come to his aid... I just don't know how yet.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ral...kface-kkk-robe
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/polit...oto/index.html

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

^Northam must have seriously pissed off somebody at CNN... this story has been the whole front page for more than 12 hrs now. Between the abortion comments and this, we might be getting a new Governor.