When I was a small boy, one of the things my mother forbid me to do was to say I “hated” someone. I could say I was angry with them or annoyed with them or use some other word, but to hate someone is to wish they were dead, and I certainly didn’t want that, did I?
Nowadays I hear and read complaints from self-described progressives about un-vaccinated people who get COVID, and how wrong it is for these willfully ignorant Trump supporters to be given space in hospitals when decent, rational liberal people need the space.
The idea is that if willfully un-vaccinated people (although presumably not including un-vaccinated African-Americans and Hispanics, I presume) die of COVID, maybe they have it coming, maybe they should be allowed to die, because they had a choice to be vaccinated and didn’t take it. I’m guessing the people who talk this way don’t literally mean what they say, but still……
On the other hand, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the exterminationist rhetoric of a blogger named Chris Ladd, who wrote that democracy can only be saved my meeting radical Trump supporters with deadly force.
Ashli Babbit, the traitor shot by police during the attempted coup, deserved what happened to her. Every other traitor who mounted those steps that day deserved the same end. The only tragedy in that incident is that she was the only attacker killed.
No, her death wasn’t “unfortunate,” any more than every death of every living thing is unfortunate. Violence used to protect our most fundamental institutions was necessary, just, and in the service of a brighter future. Babbit’s death deserves just as much regret or discomfort as the death of one of the 9/11 plotters or some random Nazi.
The loss of any life is regrettable and also often necessary. If we cannot embrace what happened to Ashli Babbit, and make sure it happens to others like her, we will very soon live in a post-democratic, disintegrating former nation.
He called for the suppression of the Republican Party.
There’s little need to worry about what happens to hardened Trump cultists. There aren’t as many of them as it seems and they have minimal cultural and financial power. Faced with a real confrontation, with real material consequences, the number of them who will continue the fight will drop off precipitously, leaving the rest to be easily isolated and neutralized. ……
For now, isolate Republicans from every center of cultural influence by any available means. Make it expensive and risky for anyone to identify publicly with the GOP. When Republicans attempt their coup, as they will, make sure they have nothing to support them but their small band of idiot cultists and the financial backing of a handful of millionaire weirdos.
Bring whatever organized violence is necessary to blunt Republican attempts to destroy democracy. And don’t flinch. On the backside of that coup, rout them from every remaining position of public trust and jail as many of them as possible.
In a different post, Ladd said the founding myth of the United States is white supremacy. Americans, he said, defined ourselves as not being the non-white “other.” We need a new founding myth, he wrote, one in which we demonize the right-wing deplorables. In other words, we substitute one powerless minority for another as national scapegoats.
Ladd equated Republicans with Trump supporters, white evangelical Christians, white supremacists and terrorists, and people who take ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment—all, in his view, incapable of rational thinking.
If you created a Venn diagram of all the groups he mentioned, it would be complicated and confusing. Many Republicans despise Trump. On the other hand, a small but significant number of former Obama voters voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
White evangelical Protestants are not all of one mind and, as a group, they are not racists in any meaningful sense of that word, unless you think that religious and political conservatives are by definition racist. Actual white supremacists, whose works I read on the Internet, despise the Republican party and feel betrayed by Trump.
Although Donald Trump was anti-lockdown and anti-mask, he advocated vaccination and launched the successful Warp Speech program to develop vaccinations. While he was in office, many liberals warned against the possibility of vaccines being released before they were ready, then changed their minds right after the 2020 elections. Republicans are not the only ones who are politicizing medicine.
Certainly the Jan. 6 mob deserve to be punished for their acts of assault, trespass and vandalism. But most of them sincerely believed they were defending democracy, not attacking it, by protesting election rigging. There never was a possibility they would threaten the transition of government. And so on.
On the other hand, if you created a Venn diagram of those who are trying to suppress discussion of ivermectin, and a Venn diagram of those who oppose winding down the forever wars, I think they would pretty much overlap.
Sometimes I participate in a weekly on-line Zoom forum consisting of Republican pro-Trump men who belong to an evangelical Protestant church; I am their token liberal.
None of them fits the Chris Ladd stereotype. I never heard and never expect to hear a racially prejudiced remark from members of this group. They are likable, friendly to me, and well-informed, although their sources of information are different from mine.
Their favorite topic of conversation is the stupidity of liberals, pretty much the mirror image of how my Democratic friends talk.
Here in upstate New York, where I live, there is a stark division between urban and rural counties. I live in Monroe County, which is on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Everywhere you go, there are Black Lives Matter signs.
Going south to Livingston County, east to Wayne County or west to Genesee County is almost like crossing the Mason-Dixon line. There the yard signs are about protecting gun rights. Yet the people in the houses are not all that different from one another.
My liberal friends who live in the rural hinterland say their Trump-supporting neighbors are friendly, helpful, likable and not inclined to quarrel about politics. Neither are my friends (most of them).
I think most Republicans are decent sensible people who are misled by their leaders—just as most Democrats are.
LINKS
Stand Back and Stand By: Defeating White Supremacist Terror by Chris Ladd for Political Orphans.
Why Are Republicans Eating Horse Paste? by Chris Ladd for Political Orphans.
Summary of the Evidence for Ivermectin in COVID-19 by the Front-line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.
Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know by Scott Alexander Suskind for Astral Codex Ten. [Added 11/17/2021]
The Bizarre Civil-War Stoking Impulses of the Professional-Managerial Class by Yves Smith for Naked Capitalism. [Added 9/8/2021]
Tags: Deplorables, Domestic War on Terror, Hate Speech, Republican Party extremism
September 4, 2021 at 8:59 pm |
Hmm.
I guess I don’t tend to not trust most people (like Chris Ladd) who forget that the US is a republic and not a democracy (the pledge of allegiance says “the republic for which it stands”). I would also guess the mob thought it was defending the republic & not a democracy.
I had to reread the Ivermectin paragraph about three times to decide that I somewhat agree. I think there is a big group of relative pacifists that don’t want anything to do with Ivermectin. I am thinking of school teachers and similar people. The overlap might not be as much as you think.
I do think there are a lot of decent people out there in the US. Just because you disagree on some point doesn’t make them a bad person.
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 5, 2021 at 2:25 am |
Ivermectin isn’t horse paste. It is a medicine used mainly for tropical diseases caused by parasites. It is cheap, not protected by patents and has been proved harmless.
Some physicians think it has benefits as a treatment or preventive medicine for bacterial and virus diseases, including COVID. You can check out their arguments in the third link following the post. Using FDA-approved drugs for something else besides their original use is a common practice.
Ivermectin is also used as a veterinary medicine. So is penicillin.
There is a strong movement on to silence advocates of using this medicine for COVID. Here are some links giving background on this.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/ivermectin-can-a-drug-be-right-wing?
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-weinstein
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-ivermectin-critic
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 4, 2021 at 10:41 pm |
Heavy sigh! Sounds suspiciously life fighting for peace.
It seems that humans are still humans and some will always want to dehumanize and eliminate the “other.” Intolerance exists at all ends of any political spectrum. The end justifies the means.
LikeLike
September 5, 2021 at 6:29 pm |
We live in a divided world encouraged by so many to have no middle ground at all as that would require people to actually listen and then decide to agree or disagree without resorting to radical stances.
LikeLike
October 17, 2021 at 12:45 pm |
Hello from the UK
Thank you for your post. All these people who want to vilify those vaccinated people are quite frankly morons who haven’t bothered to research the issues properly.
Either that or they are trying to stoke up hate between two sides as it serves many peoples purposes to divide and rule.
In fact I would say both.
As regards Covid 19, it is the ‘flu, the internal toxicosis of the body, partly due to metabolism of food and partly due to the many poisons in our environment which can and do enter our bodies in the air, food and water.
So vaccines are pointless as they merely add to the toxic load in the body.
The true physical pandemic is vitamin D deficiency which is well documented.
Whilst I have researched invermectin in much detail, I concur with your findings and believe it does indeed help clear the toxins out of the system.
The fact it can be used to help humans as well as horses should be perfectly reasonable as often such things are merely a larger dose of something suitable for a larger body.
Again regarding vaccines I used to think they were of some use until I researched last year at 60 years of age. I put my research on my website. I attach a link if you are interested.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/v-is-for-vaccination/
Kind regards
Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
LikeLike
October 18, 2021 at 2:48 pm |
Just to be clear, I’ve been vaccinated myself and I recommend everybody be vaccinated unless they have a specific individual reason not to.
I don’t have a firm opinion on the medical benefits of ivermectin, but I do think physicians have a legal right and moral duty to use their own judgment on whether to prescribe it.
If you disagree, that doesn’t make you my enemy or you mine.
LikeLike
October 18, 2021 at 3:33 pm |
Dear Phil
I see I made an error on my comment and should have said vilify unvaccinated people, not vaccinated people, although one should not vilify either group.
However, the question is why do you recommend everybody be vaccinated? Have you checked my website and the evidence I put forward?
What research have you done yourself or do you rely solely on others.
I am not sure why you say your last sentence, it is the truth that matters and I have justified my stance. What is your justification for the position you take?
Kind regards
Baldmichael
LikeLike
October 18, 2021 at 5:04 pm |
I did not mean the last sentence in my previous comment to apply to you. I was referring in general to the controversy over the Covid vaccines.
The topic of the original post was not vaccines, but political intolerance—including intolerance of differing opinions regarding ivermectin.
Concerning vaccines in general, I accept the consensus of the medical profession and the historical record. Infectious diseases that once were common are now rare.
Some of this is due to better sanitation and overall health, but vaccines certainly played a role. I am old enough to remember the impact of the Salk and Sabin vaccines on polio, for example.
I have not done extensive research, but here are some links to information about vaccination.
https://www.britannica.com/science/infectious-disease/Immunization#ref900973
https://www.britannica.com/science/vaccine/Benefits-of-vaccination
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/21/17588074/vaccines-diseases-wiped-out
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/immunizations/Pages/Vaccine-Studies-Examine-the-Evidence.aspx
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/disease-eradication
This does not mean that there can’t be problems with particular vaccines. This is a topic for another time.
LikeLike
December 27, 2021 at 12:52 pm |
We cannot legislate “hate.” It’s not possible. And the only way to do that is to take our Constitutional Rights in a Totalitarian Dictatorship. We can only support our Constitutional Rights, protecting them and the citizens, and live life in freedom.
LikeLike