1) I was not trying to equate the Communists with modern day American Liberals. I was just saying that this particular view about why the poor don’t support the left, has a history rooting it within Communism and it has sneaked itself into modern day center-left thinking.

There is an ugly history on the left to this whole notion of “people acting against their self-interest.” During the Russian Civil War, when the Red Army faced off against the White Army, many within the Communist Party wondered why so many peasants were opposed to them. They concluded it was because the peasants were…

I have always found this argument: that voters are “stupid” because they vote for someone other than who you would like them to vote for, really problematic. Its patronizing and its elitist (since it assumes that only you have seen the light and the rest of the people suffer in darkness)

Fivethirtyeight has an excellent analysis of why Bernie Sanders does so well in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has a lot of support amongst white liberals, but when it comes to minorities and moderates his support rapidly deteroriates. Since, these states are overwhelmingly white and since there are many liberals whitin…

So there have been reports that ISIS has threatened to cut off the tounges of people who call them Daesh claiming that it shows disrespect. But aside from that there isn’t a lot to go for. I mean maybe they are annoyed by the term. But, the clamor to change the terminology isn’t so much based on the fact that ISIS…

Yes I read the link. What you have is people who are not ISIS claiming that ISIS doesn’t like the word. They don’t really provide any evidence for it. Its a hypothesis with a plausible cause. But lets not pretend that it has a lot of evidence for it.

Its a myth that ISIS cares one iota over whether people choose to refer to them with the Arabic acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the English acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

So if abortion access is restricted, gun access should also be restricted?

So you are in favor of racial and ethnic profiling, if experience and context show the number of a particular crime commited by a racial/ethnic group far exeeds those commited by other groups.

What do they mean by “symmetry?” Are they saying that since they took down the statue of a President from the Confederate States of America they would also have to take down a statue of a President from the United States of America.

I don’t think there are any historians who would disagree with you that many of the Founders and many of America’s presidents were racist, sometime blatantly. And while there may be places that teach otherwise, this particular fact about American history isn’t by any means “hidden.” Its out in the open. Many schools…

“This imperfection ruined millions of lives.” So what you are saying is that if there wasn’t this particular imperfection on the part of Woodrow Wilson, millions of live wouldn’t have been ruined? because I think a few thousand historians would disagree with you.

It is ultimately the acts that count. People can say a whole lot of things, but the measure by which we judge them is their actions, and not what they say. Saying great things does not make a person great.

Its well known that Lincoln didn’t free the slaves out of any morality. It was economics and politics.

The reason Churchill is so celebrated around the world, and especially in Britain, is because he guided Britain during its darkest time with exceptional skill and leadership and moral fortitude. Nobody doubts that Britain alone wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Nazis, or the instrumental role played by US or…

One of things that you have to look at with the Lincoln Douglas debates is the difference in Lincoln’s position when the debates are in Northern Illinois and in Southern Illinois. In the North he is more pro-equality than in the South. When you compare the speeches he makes in Peoria vs the ones he make down South, it…

The interesting thing about that is that not just the German Jews but many Germans thought that Hitler wouldn’t win. They thought Nazis were a passing fever. When in the July 1932 election the Nazis got 38% of the vote, and in the next election in December 1932, the vote dropped to 33% many thought the fever was…

Of course he isn’t going to win. The most troubling thing about Donald Trump isn’t that people like him exist, or that he chose to run for President. The most troubling thing about this is that no one in the “sane” and “responsible” section of the Republican party is willing to stand up to him. It is troubling when…

At the University of Minnesota, a proposed moment of silence remembering 9/11 was defeated 36-23 by the Student Union. Why? because remembering 9/11 is “Islamophobic and racist,” according to the students of UM.

When you have different cultures interacting, it is inevitable that many cultural practices will infuse from one to the other. It is inevitable in a pluralistic society. Trying to segregate cultures is going to go nowhere.