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Well, if you want to lose faith in humanity and see the stupidity of hipster liberals in New York City, this is the video for you. Ami Horowitz took to the streets to talk about income inequality with some of the most insufferable people on the planet: progressives. Of course, they all felt it was a critical issue. One man was a member of the Working Families Party in the state. So, which country can we look to for guidance in solving this issue? How about socialist hellhole Venezuela? Its the nation with rolling blackouts, inadequate medical supplies, no toilet paper, no food, and rampant crime. Venezuelans are looting to survive, where people are eating pets and eating out of trashcans. With food supplies running low, government-run committees have been set up to assisted with distribution, but for those who have criticized the government, no food for you. Thats 21st Century Socialism.

Horowitz then asks the interviewees, all of whom no doubt are "still feeling the Bern," if they think that we should model ourselves on another country that promises "income equality": Venezuela, which, he explains, is in the midst of an economic death spiral to the point where it is experiencing dire food shortages and frequent violence between citizens and police forces. Despite the hellish reality of Venezuelas failed socialist state, all of his interviewees still thought Venezuelas day-long food lines would be preferable to the United States selfish, "undignified" capitalistic system.

Even though theres some downside, theres some violence there and some food lines," Horowitz says to bandana guy, "but still everyone has to do the same thing they wait in line equally."

Though the young man appears to be quite knowledgeable about Venezuela, nodding and agreeing with Horowitz' description of its crisis situation, he still agrees with Horowitz that its better to "wait in line equally."

"That is, I think, a fair system," says Horowitz.

"I agree," says bandana guy emphatically.

Interviewee after interviewee agrees that modeling ourselves after Venezuela is a great idea because America is just too unfair and "undignified."

"If you gotta wait in line for stuff, we should all wait in line together," says Horowitz.

Either these people dont read, dont care, or dont know. Regardless, slamming America while idolizing a left wing nation thats an economic nightmare; thats progressivism for you.

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Progressives On Socialist Hellhole Venezuela: Hey, It's Better Than The US - Townhall

Much of the country has demanded the elimination of references to, and images of, people of the past from Christopher Columbus to Robert E. Lee who do not meet our evolving standards of probity.

In some cases, such damnation may be understandable if done calmly and peacefully and democratically, by a majority vote of elected representatives.

Few probably wish to see a statue in a public park honoring Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the founding members of the Ku Klux Klan, or Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the racist Dred Scott decision that set the stage for the Civil War four years later.

But cleansing the past is a dangerous business. The wide liberal search for more enemies of the past may soon take progressives down hypocritical pathways they would prefer not to walk.

In the present climate of auditing the past, it is inevitable that Margaret Sangers Planned Parenthood will have to be disassociated from its founder. Sanger was an unapologetic racist and eugenicist who pushed abortion to reduce the nonwhite population

Should we ask that Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court? Even with the benefit of 21st-century moral sensitivity, Ginsburg still managed to echo Sanger in a racist reference to abortion (growth in populations that we dont want to have too many of).

Why did we ever mint a Susan B. Anthony dollar? The progressive suffragist once said, I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.

Liberal icon and Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren pushed for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II while he was Californias attorney general.

President Woodrow Wilson ensured that the Armed Forces were not integrated. He also segregated civil-service agencies. Why, then, does Princeton University still cling to its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs? To honor a progressive who did a great deal of harm to African-American causes?

Wilsons progressive racism, dressed up in pseudoscientific theories, was perhaps more pernicious than that of the old tribal racists of the South, given that it was not regionally centered and was professed to be fact-based and ecumenical, with the power of the presidency behind it.

In the current logic, Klan membership certainly should be a disqualifier of public commemoration. Why are there public buildings and roads still dedicated to the late Democratic senator Robert Byrd, former exalted cyclops of his local Klan affiliate, who reportedly never shook his disgusting lifelong habit of using the N-word?

Why is Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, once a Klansman, in the 20thcentury, still honored as a progressive hero?

So, what are the proper rules of exemption for progressives when waging war against the dead?

Do they tally up the deads good and bad behaviors to see if someone makes the 51 percent good progressive cutoff that exempts him? Or do some reactionary sins cancel out all the progressive good at least in the eyes of self-styled moral superiors to those hapless Neanderthals who came before us?

Are the supposedly oppressed exempt from charges of oppression?

Farm-labor icon Cesar Chavez once sent union thugs to the border to physically bar U.S. entry to undocumented Mexican immigrants, whom he derided as wetbacks in a fashion that would today surely earn Chavez ostracism by progressivesas a xenophobe.

Kendrick Lamar, one of the favorite rappers of former president Barack Obama, had an album cover featuring a presumably dead white judge with both of his eyes Xd out, surrounded by black men celebrating on the White House lawn. Should such a divisive racialist have been honored with a White House invitation?

What is the ultimate purpose of progressives condemning the past?

Does toppling the statue of a Confederate general without a referendum or a majority vote of an elected council improve racial relations? Does renaming a bridge or building reduce unemployment in the inner city?

Do progressives have their own logical set of selective rules and extenuating circumstances that damn or exempt particular historical figures? If so, what are they?

Does selectively warring against the illiberal past make us feel better about doing something symbolic when we cannot do something substantive? Or is it a sign of raw power and ego when activists force authorities to cave to their threats and remove images and names in the dead of night?

Does damning the dead send a flashy signal of our superior virtue?

And will toppling statues and erasing names only cease when modern progressives are forced to blot out the memories of racist progressive heroes?

READ MORE: Our War Against Memory Destroying Symbols: Where Does It End? The Left Opens Fire on Columbus Statues

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing [emailprotected]. 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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The Double Standard in the Progressive War against the Dead - National Review

WYE MILLS After the events in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups rallied and clashed with anti-hate groups, Eastern Shore progressives gathered Friday night, Aug. 18, to denounce hatred, bigotry and white supremacy.

Thousands of cars heading to Maryland and Delaware beaches for the weekend passed sign-waving, anti-hate rally-goers asking for peace amongst humanity. Cars honked as they zoomed by, many times followed by waves and cheers. In some instances, though, middle fingers were shown.

Organized by Talbot Rising and Together We Will Delmarva, more than 50 people stood at the corner of U.S. Route 50 and College Drive near Chesapeake College and denounced all forms of hatred and bigotry.

The protests in Virginia, which have sparked national outcry and further protests against hate-groups, left one dead Aug. 12 after a vehicle plowed into a crowded Charlottesville intersection of counter-protestors acting out against the Unite the Right rally, which injured others, as well.

Many rally-goers said they felt a need to denounce bigotry, violence and other forms of inequality, and an obligation to speak out against the current administration.

Ann Turpin, 81, of Centreville said, Silence is compliance, and we cannot allow that.

Turpin, who has eight grandchildren, said it is important for people to voice their opinions by at every opportunity and to call their senators before we get to the crisis point.

White supremacists and neo-Nazi groups were protesting against the removal of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue from downtown Charlottesville.

Queen Annes County NAACP President Eric Daniels said the events in Charlotesville are a travesty that will bring us all together all over the country. In the face of tragedy, Daniels said, Americans form bonds and stand up for what they believe in.

He said having rallies and speaking up is important to remind people we dont want that in our neighborhood, we dont want that in our state, we dont want that in our country.

Hannah Eastman, 15, president of Queen Annes County High Schools Young Democrats Club, said she believes bipartisanship debates are key to moving forward, and if that is not achievable, theres no chance of curing this deep divide between people.

Denice Lombard of Talbot Rising said being silent would send out the wrong message.

The message we want to send is hatred, bigotry ... white supremacy wont be tolerated, and we will build an army of love to counter it if it does come up, Lombard said.

One goal, she said, is to complete the unfinished mission of Marylands native son Frederick Douglas in uniting people regardless of race or creed. Lombard said people have been enslaved, tortured, died and lived in fear to achieve racial justice, and we wont go back.

Deborah Krueger from Together We Will Delmarva said the peaceful rally was to show Eastern Shore residents support peace and stand against violence and hatred.

We just wanted to make people know that over here, the same as lots of other places, were not going to stand for that, she said.

Also a member of the Queen Annes County Democratic Club, Krueger said letting other Democrats in the area know they arent an island is a goal in hopes more people will stand up and speak out.

Were in remarkable times, not remarkably good times but remarkable times, Bozman resident Ridgely Ochs said. ... If not now, when? And if not me, then who? Its a hot day, but Im happy to be here.

Early Friday morning, a statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney was removed from the Maryland State House lawn, the same fate many statues of Confederate-era symbols have had in the past week. Taney, who penned the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling, stated black individuals could not be U.S. citizens.

Widespread debates have been held about the removal of such statues, with some saying it is revisionist history. Others say that though history should not be forgotten, statues of slavery sympathizers belong in a different venue.

Earlier in the week, monuments of Lee and Stonewall Jackson were removed in Baltimore.

Talbot Rising is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization run by progressive volunteers who use peaceful resistance, education and advocacy for a variety of issues, according to its website.

Together We Will Delmarva is a liberal, politically driven group intended to facilitate communication and support amongst like-minded people, according to its Facebook page.

Follow Mike Davis on Twitter: @mike_kibaytimes.

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Delmarva progressives stand in solidarity against hate - My Eastern Shore

Todays progressive movement puts a premium on data-driven analysis and commitment to science and facts.

It stems from the early days of the Bush administration when Democrats mocked Karl Roves promise to create our own reality and instead demanded reality-based policies to solve problems, not wish them away. And its powerful politics aligning progressives with the 97 percent of scientists who believe human activity causes global warming or the RAND Institute experts who found transgendered military service has little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness.

But theres a catch. To be credible, progressives must also listen when the facts challenge their partisan pre-conceptions. When political opponents propose reality-based policies of their own, progressives must give the data its due.

Right now, for example, the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the Obama-era net neutrality rules that put in place a 1930s-era utility regulation framework for the internet.

When these Title II rules were passed under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, most experts warned they would discourage investment in broadband, eliminating construction and engineering jobs and making it harder to deploy new networks and close the digital divide.

And now two years later, the data are in and it makes clear that the skeptics were right. Title II is an investment killer that undermines key progressive values and priorities.

Overall, multiple economic studies have found the utility approach to regulation is a threat to network investment. One recent study found that capital investment at the 12 largest broadband companies has declined by $3.6 billion since 2014, a 5.6 percent shortfall. Another concluded the looming threat of heightened internet regulation has driven total network investment down by at least $150 billion since 2011. Overall, a comprehensive survey of these reports concluded that as many as 700,000 jobs may have been lost so far a lost generation of network jobs we will never fully be able to restore.

These data are backed up by expert reports from industries covered directly or indirectly by the Wheeler regulations. Small equipment and hardware manufacturers warn the Title II approach will have a negative impact on the economic well-being of the numerous small and medium size companies that make hardware and software used to provide Internet services.

Rural wireless companies have explained it inhibits our ability to build and operate networks in rural America. And nonprofit government broadband services have complained they must often delay or hold off from rolling out a new feature or service because of risks and uncertainty created by in Title II.

In response, supporters of Title II have released studies and fact sheets purporting to show the opposite that investment has been steady even after the rules were put in place. But being reality based means subjecting all arguments to reasonable scrutiny, and this one just does not hold up.

In part, the data are simply skewed. For example, the Title II advocates use data that includes billions in dollars invested in foreign countries and markets like video that arent even covered by Title II. And that depends heavily on predicted or forecast filler data that even the study author calls flawed.

Even more troubling, this approach is looking at the wrong question from an economists point of view asking only if total investment in broadband has gone up or down since the rules (a question it answers incorrectly due to the errors cited above), not whether investment would be even higher or lower if Title II were not in place. Some investment obviously continued, but the data show much more would have occurred under smarter rules.

For progressives, it is vital to continue to build support for data-driven policymaking and fair-minded analysis of issues and evidence. Its the only real defense against the demagogues and spinmeisters and outright liars that we have.

In this case, that means acknowledging that the Wheeler Title II rules are the wrong way to protect net neutrality because the cost in investment, jobs and deployment of the internet to connect all Americans is just too great.

Net neutrality remains critical, of course. Progressives will always stand for a free and open internet, where no website can be blocked for ideological reasons, and no one is discriminated against or abused online. Free expression everywhere including on the internet is fundamental and must be protected.

But the right way to do this is by pushing Congress to pass a law protecting net neutrality and making it permanent without the risks and harms of Title II. Such a law would ensure that net neutrality cannot be changed when administrations come and go. And that no one not even a president can override it, no matter what.

There is broad and bipartisan support for net neutrality in Congress. Leaders of both parties have already proposed moving forward with such a bill. Progressives should support them and push for a tough, smart and, above all, reality-based net neutrality to be passed.

David Balto, a public-interest, antitrust lawyer in Washington, D.C., is former policy director of the Federal Trade Commission in the Clinton administration.

Read more:
Progressives, listen up: Update the net neutrality law - Orlando Sentinel

Editors Note: This piece was originally published by Arc Digital. It is reprinted here with permission.

As the reality of Trumps election to the presidency first set in, analysts immediately began their frenzied search for an explanation. Within the social-media space, brimming as it was with ecstatic visions of our sudden national apocalypse, one factor in Trumps triumph became clear: progressive overreach.

A hashtag was used #ThatsHowYouGotTrump to capture the worst instances of progressive zealotry.

Although the label was gleefully applied after all, Trumps election represented an unmistakable rebuke to Democratic self-satisfaction there was a pedagogical component to pointing out examples of overreach.

If we could educate the Left on the disastrous effects of their limitless moral posturing, perhaps they would temper their enthusiasm. We would reform society by defanging the reformers. A call for progressive self-deportation!

This was a remarkable development. We were offering the Left an Argument from Progressive Self-Interest. It was theirs for the taking. Heres the argument in formal terms.

(1) The pursuit of social change in accordance with progressive values is ethically desirable.

(2) Yet doing so fervently, or at least doing so beyond a threshold of broad social acceptability, leads to political backlash.

(3) The backlash often amounts to politically disastrous consequences for the progressivist cause.

(4) While fervently pursuing or promoting progressivism is ethically desirable, it is pragmatically detrimental, electorally speaking.

(5) Sometimes ethical considerations trump pragmatic ones, but in this case doing so creates a worse overall outcome, ethically speaking. To win politically is to win ethically, given that political power enables the social change we are looking for.

So, (6) We should sometimes take measures such as tempering our enthusiasm, pursuing incremental rather than wholesale change, and not demonizing rival ideologies in order to be most effective at securing our political goals.

We offered this reasoning not, mind you, explicitly laid out in this form in order to help the country.

We wanted to help the Left understand Trumps ascension was a symbol of American displeasure with militant progressivism; Trump was the embodiment of the nations very own #resistance.

Did it work?

It doesnt appear so. The overreach remains entrenched, like a permanent fixture, plaguing our media coverage and our public discourse, provoking reactionary postures that are often times even more morally compromised than the source of the original agitation.

Trump is a singularly offensive individual that much is undeniable. But that can be true while at the same time it is true that Trumps opponents regularly overreach in their attempts to delegitimize and ultimately displace our 45th president from office.

It is more than just bad analysis to conceive of Trump as Americas sole destructive force. It isnt both sides-ism to see Trump-exclusive criticism as misguided.

In an earlier piece in which I distinguished between Trump concern and Trump panic, I wrote:

Disaffection with Donald Trump can take many forms. At the extreme end of the spectrum is pure, panic-stricken hysteria, and involves conceiving of our 45th president as a world-historical threat to decency and civilization; a terrifying, norm-violating, culture-destroying, institution-desecrating madman....

[Its true that] Trump is a destructive force in American politics. But his is an opportunistic destructiveness he relies on a decay already there. [Many] see Trump as the original source of destruction; the defiler of Pleasantville. But the pathologies that enabled Trumps ascent were present long before he came on the scene.

The country notices when Trump is treated as the nadir of all evil. The Clinton campaign centered their message on Trumps unfitness rather than on offering workable solutions for the majority of Americans. Yet neither Clintons spectacular defeat nor really anything else seems to be capable of alleviating the fervor. So here we find ourselves, eight months into the Trump era, with little expectation that the Argument from Progressive Self-Interest will ever be accepted.

I struggle to understand why.

Its not as if this argument for progressive restraint is the product of inscrutable reasoning. Its not as if it was hard to understand why voters had a problem being portrayed as hopelessly inferior and incurably bigoted.

There was no way to foresee this, but it turned out that saying to a student, sitting quietly at her library desk, f*** your white tears, wasnt taken as an inviting gesture by the masses. It was impossible to know beforehand, but it turned out that the Obama administrations censorship of then-French president Francois Hollandes reference to Islamist terrorism, by muting the audio during that part of his speech for American audiences didnt evoke a sense that the White House had their priorities in order. You would have needed a crystal ball to predict that rolling out Lena Dunham to muse on the extinction of white men would not be received by ordinary Americans as a recovery of Eden.

Add to this the infinite explanatory power of white privilege. The sciences wish they could find causal accounts this definitive for anything well, progressives have discovered that white success is totally explained by unearned advantages. What a shocker these same cheaters didnt end up voting for them en masse.

Im being sardonic, I know. But at the same time, this is a serious problem. The progressive possession of an indestructible moral purity, and their sneering dismissiveness of any rival framework, fundamentally reveals an impatience with, rather than a respect for, pluralism.

I understand: When youre basking in the certitude of moral infallibility, theres no time to wait for those who just dont get it. But for the good of the country, even if it means Democratic victories in the years ahead, I would urge progressives to develop a new appreciation for reason and argument, rather than culture-war bulldozing, as the primary driver of social change.

What does it mean to utilize reason and argument rather than the kind of evangelistic zeal Ive been describing? Using two examples from just this week alone, Id like to model the sort of measured approach conservatives should be able to applaud.

Both examples contain (a) the presence of a position not currently accepted by many on the right, and (b) a sample way to articulate it in such a way that conservatives might at least not be turned off by it.

The first example comes from a piece published on Monday in the Washington Post entitled Why Are People Still Racist? What Science Says about Americas Race Problem.

In it, were treated to the following claim by Eric Knowles, a New York University psychology professor:

An usthem mentality is unfortunately a really basic part of our biology. Theres a lot of evidence that people have an ingrained even evolved tendency toward people who are in our so-called in group....Most if not all people carry implicit biases and unexamined prejudices.

Knowles is correct.

Yet this insight has implications for how we should deal with manifestations of certain kinds of racism. My colleague, Ryan Huber, has offered a taxonomy of racism at Arc Digital. One of his reasons for doing so was he noticed, as America has noticed, that a sector of country is too quick to grab the pitchforks, call employers, engineer shaming campaigns, etc.

The reality is there are gradations of racism, and each type calls for a different response. For an orientation so emphatically committed to the value of diversity, its striking that progressivism has such a hard time underwriting differentiated responses to diverse phenomena. More significantly, lumping all offenses together strips the most egregious instances of racism of their capacity to incite universal condemnation.

So what constitutes a measured response to Knowless insights? A willingness to be judicious, and patient, and ultimately winsome, when pointing out a persons implicit biases and unexamined prejudices. If Knowles is correct then many of these instances stem from natural, unchosen perceptual habits. And when it comes to addressing wrong beliefs or predispositions of a more natural kind, the best response is guidance rather than chastisement.

Also in the Washington Post, and also on Monday, Catherine Rampell published an article entitled Trumps Lasting Legacy Is to Embolden an Entirely New Generation of Racists.

Except that wasnt its original title, was it?

The Post changed the headline from this: White Millennials Are Just as Racist as Their Grandparents. The article remained the same, and no explanatory note was offered at the bottom, but the headline was altered.

To her credit, Rampell herself tweeted that she agreed the original headline was misleading. But whats utterly remarkable is that the original headline was proposed in the first place. It is so obviously misleading that only someone predisposed to seeing whites in the worst possible light could authorize it. Look at the headline again: Assuming it wasnt intentionally chosen for its explosive nature, someone conjured up that headline and actually thought it innocuous and helpfully descriptive.

The articles main source of support cites the following data point: Over 3 in 10 white millennials believe blacks to be lazier or less hardworking than whites, and a similar number say lack of motivation is a reason why they are less financially well off as a group.

3 in 10?

Does it strike you that the original headline White Millennials Are Just as Racist as Their Grandparents makes it seem as though white millennials and their grandparents are overwhelmingly racist?

Try it this way. If I say American whites are just as incapable of finishing high school as Asian Americans, what would you think? If you believed me, youd think these two groups were flunking out of high school by the droves.

While the statement is literally true (both groups passing rates register in the high 80s), it is obviously misleading.

Reading only the original headline, one would assume the article is promising to marshal evidence for the thesis that most white millennials and their grandparents are racists.

I happen to think the revised title Trumps Lasting Legacy is to Embolden an Entirely New Generation of Racists is true, but still misleading, albeit to a lesser degree. How might it look stripped of its misleading character? Try this: While most of his supporters reject racism, one of Trumps legacies will be to embolden a new generation of racists. Or this: While a majority of Americans categorically denounce racism, the number of white millennials who exhibit racist attitudes is perhaps surprising.

These, admittedly, would function as a kind of anti-click-bait. But most serious outlets accept that click-attraction does not justify misleading headline creation. If youre fine with giving away the main data point within the headline, you could always go with the safe: 3 in 10 older white Americans exhibit racist attitudes. It turns out white millennials do so at the same rate.

None of these are headlines Id be excited to use, but Im trying to fit into the skin of what an editor for Rampells piece might plausibly wish to use, were he or she committed to describing the contents of the article more accurately.

The Washington Post is one of my favorite publications. Ive written for them, and I have no interest in picking on them. What I am pointing to, fundamentally, is a constellation of interconnected institutions the academy, the media, the grassroots, the hyperpartisan denizens of social platforms each engaged in self-escalating and mutually reinforcing ideological aggressiveness, resulting in the sort of overreach that leads not just to Trump but ultimately to a sort of public dissonance that is corrosive to our democratic norms.

And I would say stop. Please just stop.

READ MORE: A Profound Tension Point for Conservatives The Breitbart Presidency Resignations Plague the Trump Administration

Berny Belvedere is the editor-in-chief of Arc Digital.

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Progressives Against Trump Helps Trump, Hurts Everyone Else ... - National Review