Christopher Caldwell, one of the most insightful political theorists of the present time, wrote about this very thing in 2020s "The Age of Entitlement." It was the most eye opening thing I've read in the last 5 years.
The crux of the biscuit is that the root of all of our political discord is a fundamental divergence in constitutional first principles. Conservatives base their reasoning on the de jure Constitution of the United States circa 1788. For leftists, their Constitution is The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the myriad legal precedents that have emerged in its application. For virtually all U.S. leftists, THAT constitution, and its extension most recently to things like Gender Ideology and "Climate Justice" will always take precedence over any other legal or moral principle.
That's the one hill they absolutely must be willing to die on, or their whole project falls apart. Regrettably, it might actually come to that.
The behavior of the Jenkins couple demonstrates how severely the social contract has broken down.
The following happened to me about forty years ago, when I was young, tall, and, I had been told, looked more imposing than I ever actually was: it was after dark, early evening, and I had brilliantly neglected to plan to get something for supper. No problem, there was a convenience store apart from my apartment complex where I knew I could buy a pound of cheddar cheese. Anyone who doesn't recognize that the ability of someone somewhere to imagine the very possibility of a grilled cheese sandwiches was a gift from God is so deficient in theology I rightly fear for the person's soul.
There were a couple of routes from my apartment to the street, and naturally, I took the shortest one. The area at the turn in the sidewalk which a few steps later would lead me to the door to the parking lot was unusually poorly lit. As I made it, a young woman was just coming in from the parking lot. As she turned, there I was, looming over her. She looked terrified.
"Hi," I smiled as I walked past her. Did I take it personally that she shrank back in a moment's terror when she saw me? Hardly. And did she phone the cops and beg their intercession to track me down and arrest me? If she did, she wasn't taken seriously, and of course, I am sure she did not.
That is how a civilized society works. I wasn't offended that she had that moment's terror. I understood it well. And after she realized I wasn't a rapist, only some dork on his way to the parking lot, she relaxed. A few seconds after it happened, I wished I had thought to say something to her, such as ? Yes, what exactly could I have said to her that would have been as comforting as my not slackening my pace?
We've all had moments which could be called the almost fender - bender. Fortunately, both drivers braked in time. My encounter with that woman was in the same category: the thing that could have happened but didn't, because in that instance, the two participants were morally sane. In our current time, she could have seen my presence as an aggression and I could have seen her reaction to it as a microaggression. That hurt my feelings! I couldn't help being a young male, 6'1", and broad shouldered!
In our current, more hair - trigger awful era there is another phenomenon which many readers will have noticed: the all - but disappearance of the greeting - in - passing of an adult and a child. Who, especially if male, hasn't long ago realized that you run a risk in saying "hello" to a child who doesn't know you? This is a miserable g*ddamned world we have on our hands. We should be executing convicted pedophiles so routinely that the evening news' reporting of each day's total should be no more remarkable than the next day's weather forecast.
I think if everyone lives, the moment should be a lesson, not an incident. Trying to score points against someone when there was ultimately no harm or foul done is pointless and will only make the situation worse. Humans have evolved to respond to provocation. They don't always, but the point is you should never gamble that they'll just walk away. Sometimes, tragedy has completely innocuous beginnings. I can understand people being angry, but escalation is a choice.
I think women can be irrationally fearful of men at times, but I think that's more due to the inconsistency with which they think. Men and women are supposed to be literal equals, yet women reserve the right to be suspicious, hostile, or downright cruel to men because of the danger disparity. Then, in the strangest of settings, they decide to let down their guard completely.
That all said, I'd always suggest women be more cautious than not around men they don't know. Biological reality trumps all, so I think women should never let down their guard, but they also shouldn't chastise a guy just for approaching and talking to them, either.
“If I stand for something, I'll fall for anything." Why do I have that 80's medical alert ad with the old lady ("I've fallen, and I can't get up") playing in my head now?
You had to link to the video, man? Are you trying to psychologically scar your readers, Max? Fat men shouldn't wear Speedos (and I am a fat man) and there's a corollary for women. The Twitter link is safe, but DO NOT watch the video!
When a law that was explicitly passed as a (correct) remedy for the legacy of Jim Crow somehow gets morphed into a 500 pound woman having an innate right to cram herself into someone else's Ford Fiesta... something went amiss along the way.
“If I stand for something, I'll fall for anything." LMAO She can't even say it right. People like that are exactly the type who talk about all the schooling they've had. And we're supposed to believe MAGA are the uneducated ones.
I linked to the video, but I didn't post any images of her for that very reason. Maybe I should've posted a "WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT", but that thought didn't come to mind. YOU decided to click the link!
Though both Lyft and Uber were quite vocally onboard with the Great Awokening, Lyft was far more enthusiastically so. I used to prefer Lyft over Uber, but Uber has gotten better and they've been far less vocal on the political front, so I deleted my Lyft app and stick to Uber whenever I need to call a ride.
The biggest problem with the Civil Rights Act is that it allows for the weaponization of race. That cannot be allowed to happen, even in a multiracial society. If a racial disparity turns what ought to be a person-to-person issue into a social outrage, then that's an argument for segregation, not integration.
Christopher Caldwell, one of the most insightful political theorists of the present time, wrote about this very thing in 2020s "The Age of Entitlement." It was the most eye opening thing I've read in the last 5 years.
The crux of the biscuit is that the root of all of our political discord is a fundamental divergence in constitutional first principles. Conservatives base their reasoning on the de jure Constitution of the United States circa 1788. For leftists, their Constitution is The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the myriad legal precedents that have emerged in its application. For virtually all U.S. leftists, THAT constitution, and its extension most recently to things like Gender Ideology and "Climate Justice" will always take precedence over any other legal or moral principle.
That's the one hill they absolutely must be willing to die on, or their whole project falls apart. Regrettably, it might actually come to that.
The behavior of the Jenkins couple demonstrates how severely the social contract has broken down.
The following happened to me about forty years ago, when I was young, tall, and, I had been told, looked more imposing than I ever actually was: it was after dark, early evening, and I had brilliantly neglected to plan to get something for supper. No problem, there was a convenience store apart from my apartment complex where I knew I could buy a pound of cheddar cheese. Anyone who doesn't recognize that the ability of someone somewhere to imagine the very possibility of a grilled cheese sandwiches was a gift from God is so deficient in theology I rightly fear for the person's soul.
There were a couple of routes from my apartment to the street, and naturally, I took the shortest one. The area at the turn in the sidewalk which a few steps later would lead me to the door to the parking lot was unusually poorly lit. As I made it, a young woman was just coming in from the parking lot. As she turned, there I was, looming over her. She looked terrified.
"Hi," I smiled as I walked past her. Did I take it personally that she shrank back in a moment's terror when she saw me? Hardly. And did she phone the cops and beg their intercession to track me down and arrest me? If she did, she wasn't taken seriously, and of course, I am sure she did not.
That is how a civilized society works. I wasn't offended that she had that moment's terror. I understood it well. And after she realized I wasn't a rapist, only some dork on his way to the parking lot, she relaxed. A few seconds after it happened, I wished I had thought to say something to her, such as ? Yes, what exactly could I have said to her that would have been as comforting as my not slackening my pace?
We've all had moments which could be called the almost fender - bender. Fortunately, both drivers braked in time. My encounter with that woman was in the same category: the thing that could have happened but didn't, because in that instance, the two participants were morally sane. In our current time, she could have seen my presence as an aggression and I could have seen her reaction to it as a microaggression. That hurt my feelings! I couldn't help being a young male, 6'1", and broad shouldered!
In our current, more hair - trigger awful era there is another phenomenon which many readers will have noticed: the all - but disappearance of the greeting - in - passing of an adult and a child. Who, especially if male, hasn't long ago realized that you run a risk in saying "hello" to a child who doesn't know you? This is a miserable g*ddamned world we have on our hands. We should be executing convicted pedophiles so routinely that the evening news' reporting of each day's total should be no more remarkable than the next day's weather forecast.
And so a society dies.
I think if everyone lives, the moment should be a lesson, not an incident. Trying to score points against someone when there was ultimately no harm or foul done is pointless and will only make the situation worse. Humans have evolved to respond to provocation. They don't always, but the point is you should never gamble that they'll just walk away. Sometimes, tragedy has completely innocuous beginnings. I can understand people being angry, but escalation is a choice.
I think women can be irrationally fearful of men at times, but I think that's more due to the inconsistency with which they think. Men and women are supposed to be literal equals, yet women reserve the right to be suspicious, hostile, or downright cruel to men because of the danger disparity. Then, in the strangest of settings, they decide to let down their guard completely.
That all said, I'd always suggest women be more cautious than not around men they don't know. Biological reality trumps all, so I think women should never let down their guard, but they also shouldn't chastise a guy just for approaching and talking to them, either.
Too many people like to watch too many murder sagas and guess what you get?
When you think everyone is a potential ***fill in the blank****, they are (in their minds).
OK, Max, I've got to go there...
“If I stand for something, I'll fall for anything." Why do I have that 80's medical alert ad with the old lady ("I've fallen, and I can't get up") playing in my head now?
You had to link to the video, man? Are you trying to psychologically scar your readers, Max? Fat men shouldn't wear Speedos (and I am a fat man) and there's a corollary for women. The Twitter link is safe, but DO NOT watch the video!
When a law that was explicitly passed as a (correct) remedy for the legacy of Jim Crow somehow gets morphed into a 500 pound woman having an innate right to cram herself into someone else's Ford Fiesta... something went amiss along the way.
“If I stand for something, I'll fall for anything." LMAO She can't even say it right. People like that are exactly the type who talk about all the schooling they've had. And we're supposed to believe MAGA are the uneducated ones.
I linked to the video, but I didn't post any images of her for that very reason. Maybe I should've posted a "WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT", but that thought didn't come to mind. YOU decided to click the link!
Though both Lyft and Uber were quite vocally onboard with the Great Awokening, Lyft was far more enthusiastically so. I used to prefer Lyft over Uber, but Uber has gotten better and they've been far less vocal on the political front, so I deleted my Lyft app and stick to Uber whenever I need to call a ride.
The biggest problem with the Civil Rights Act is that it allows for the weaponization of race. That cannot be allowed to happen, even in a multiracial society. If a racial disparity turns what ought to be a person-to-person issue into a social outrage, then that's an argument for segregation, not integration.
Trigger warnings, man. Trigger warnings.
Natural laws have never, and never will be held in abeyance to assuage your feelings.