MSNBC

Why MSNBC is Last In Cable News Ratings (Soros vs. Koch Brothers)

Published by Papa Giorgio

~ Re-Posted ~

Had to post this from NewsBusters. The rhetoric from the media (MSNBC, CNN, and the like) has been mind-numbingly shallow. I also wish to say that I doubt Ball has ever mentioned any add as being backed by Soros. To wit, before getting to the NewsBusters piece, let me explain why people fear government via a post of mine answering a local writer:

And any person should acknowledge why someone should “fear” government more than business. In fact, I made this point on my FB outgrowth of this blog in talking to my liberal friend:

…this is to show how the Obama admin is stacking the books with GM. You see, when the government chooses winners-and-losers instead of getting contracts with private companies (like Ford, GM, etc.), they are invested to [i.e., forced to] only choose a government run business and stock their fish (so-to-speak) with GM fleets… leaving the non-government company to flounder.

This next audio deals with the differences of the Koch brothers, in comparison to the Left’s version of them, Soros. There are many areas that one can discuss about the two… but let us focus in on the main/foundational difference. One wants a large government that is able to legislate more than just what kind of light-bulbs one can use in the privacy of their own home. Soros wants large government able to control a large portion of the economy (see link to chart below), and he has been very vocal on this goal. The other party always mentioned are the Koch brothers. These rich conservatives want a weak government. A government that cannot effect our daily lives nearly as much (personal, business, etc) as the Soros enterprise wants. And really, if you think about it, what business can really “harm” you, when people come to my door with pistols on their hip… are they a) more likely to be from GM, or, b) from the IRS?

The possibility of them being from the IRS is even more possible with the passing of Obama-Care [i.e., larger government]. So the “fear” (audio in next comment) I think the Left has of “Big-Business” is unfounded, and the problem comes when big-business gets in bed with big-government. Here I am thinking of (like with the penalties that were found to be Constitutional in the recent SCOTUS decision) a government that can penalize you if you do not buy a Chevy Volt, or some other green car in order to save the planet. When this happens, guys coming to my door because of unpaid (hypothetical… but historical examples abound of the tax history of our nation) “fines” are likely to be IRS agents because of a personal choice made in the “free-market.”

Appendix: If the above example didn’t inspire any liberal fear (forced to go green or be penalized), maybe this one will?

…First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want. It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own. Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines. Which agency would do the best job? Hmmmm … I know! How about TSA? With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.

Don’t want to own a gun? Hey, no worries. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates. The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all. Isn’t choice great? Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own. Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway. Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t. Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership….

…read more…

This is why people fear government, to answer John’s question.

Back to the excellent NewsBusters response to “Krystal Ball” on MSNBC:

Honestly, how does this woman have a job in a news division?

Oh. That’s right. MSNBC isn’t a news organization. How could I have forgotten?

Saying Republicans don’t want young people to buy health insurance is preposterous.

What conservatives don’t want is the government to force young people to purchase something that morbidity tables show will likely have absolutely no benefit for them until the distant future so that others who likely will benefit much sooner can get it either for free or far more cheaply.

Irrespective of what Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts foolishly ruled last year, this is neither Constitutional nor ethical.

As for these young people dying if ObamaCare is not enacted, that asininely assumes that people won’t have the money to pay for their care if they get sick or won’t purchase health insurance when they reach an age when they believe they need it.

For example, Ball mentioned prenatal care and tetanus shots. As a person that owns an insurance agency, I certainly would be telling a client looking to have children to purchase health insurance.

As for Pap smears, the Mayo Clinic recommends women over 21 do them every two to three years.

The cost varies state by state. In New York City, you can get one for as little as $150.

As such, a woman in that city doing it even once every two years would save thousands of dollars paying for it herself rather than buying health insurance.

As for cholesterol tests, these are now available online for as little as $40.

…read more…

This great, short, update comes via The Lonely Conservative:

The short answer to the question posed above is “Not even close.” It’s not the Koch Brothers or ALEC. Nope. The biggest spender in the dark money game is the Tides Foundation. Oh and by the way, Tides is a big liberal group.

Whenever “ALEC” and “dark money” are mentioned in the media, however, there ought to be a third name given at least equal attention – the Tides Foundation. That’s because Tides, the San Francisco-based funder of virtually every liberal activist group in existence since the mid-1970s, pioneered the concept of providing a cut-out for donors who don’t wish to be associated in public with a particular cause. It is instructive to compare the funding totals for Tides and ALEC.

A search of non-profit grant databases reveals 139 grants worth a total of $5.6 million to ALEC since 1998. By comparison, Tides is the Mega-Goliath of dark money cash flows. Tides received 1,976 grants worth a total of $451 million during the same period, or nearly 100 times as much money as ALEC. But even that’s not the whole story with Tides, which unlike ALEC, has divided and multiplied over the years. Add to the Tides Foundation total the directly linked Tides Center’s 465 grants with a combined worth of $62 million, and the total is well over half a billion dollars. (Read More)

So there.

BIG versus SMALL

(You can enlarge the article by clicking it.) This is a local, small town magazine, and John Van Huizum writes a regular piece that I will critique here-and-there. Here is my first installment:

I wish to write a response to a recent Concepts article by John Van Huizum, entitled “What Does ‘Free’ Mean?” There are a couple issues worth responding to or in-the-least offering a differing viewpoint on. The first of Mr. Huizum’s positions that needs de”concept”ualizing is the idea of “greed.” Mr. Huizum spoke of history, something Dr. Sowell reminds us of in the telling of Richard Sears ferocious greed in wanting to overtake Montgomery Ward.[1] This type of greed leads to lower prices. Alternatively the Fords, Rockefellers, and the Carnegies found ways to offer goods at lower prices. This type of greed leads to Carnegie — for instance — becoming a “prodigious philanthrop[ist] – building more than 3,000 public libraries in 47 states…, founding Carnegie-Mellon University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (C.I.T.), establishing Carnegie Hall in New York, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and much more.”[2]

In a wonderful response to Donahue’s 1979 challenge to Milton Freidman on the issue of greed and if greed has ever caused Dr. Friedman to doubt capitalism. Milton Friedman responded that “the world runs on individuals pursuing their own interests, the great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory from an order of a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of the grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and free trade.”[3] So I wish to proffer another history that maybe, just possibly Forbes is taking into account and Mr. Huizum is not.

Another point worth politely rejecting is the definition given to Forbes by Mr. Huizum on freedom: “free from ANY government regulation.”[4] This is a fallacy of straw-man.[5] Mr. Huizum does not show a full knowledge of Forbes understanding on this matter. Nor does the facile dealing with this complex issue and the putting forth of a false definition as if-it-were Forbes do this topic justice.

One last point, the most important. Unlike big business when it makes mistakes, big government cannot go out of business. Unlike corrupt government, corrupt business cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency. Businesses cannot coerce you by force (tax liens, garnishing of wages, or armed IRS officials, etc) into an action. So the “greed” of the corporation pales in comparison to the greed of government.[6] Which is why our Founders stated that, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government” (Patrick Henry); “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master” (George Washington).

Footnotes:

[1] Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004), 361.
[2] Michael Medved, The 10 biggest Lies About America (New York, NY: Crown Forum, 2008), 132; see also, “What Did He Get for That Money?”
[3] youtu.be/RWsx1X8PV_A
[4] John Van Huizum, Agua Dulce/Acton Country Journal, Vol. XXII, Issue 21 (May 26, 2012), 19.
[5] a) Person A has position X; b) Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X); c) Person B attacks position Y; d) Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
[6] Dennis Prager, Still the Best Hope (New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2012), 35-36.

MSNBC Panel Admits Media Bias in “Cruz Cartoon”

Published by Papa Giorgio

(NewsBusters) There was surprising consensus on today’s Morning Joe concerning the Washington Post cartoon that depicted Ted Cruz as an organ grinder and his youngs girls as monkeys. From Mika Brzezinski to Joe Scarborough to Harold Ford, Jr., there was universal condemnation of Ann Telnaes’ foul image.

Willie Geist said it best: “people look for moments of bias in the media. Here’s one right here. You can’t be selectively offended by cartoons. If that had been a Democrat, or God forbid the President of the United States, they would have lit the house on fire. There would have been wall-to-wall coverage on it.”

Chris Hayes (MSNBC) Pushing Bad Analogies and Non-Sequiturs

Published by Papa Giorgio

Congressman Steve King caught the first non-sequitur. But the second is worth elaborating on: If anti-Abortion persons killed over 27,000 Planned Parenthood workers in portions of — say — South America in the past 14-years, then yes… we would be closer to the correct analogy. And yes, Christians would support keeping these “factions of Christianity” (to support the hypothesis presented in the video) out of the country. But Dear did not quote a verse or section from the Bible supporting his actions, neither does he have examples of the founder of Christianity doing this (like we have examples of the founder of the Mooslems doing).

  • For a short comparison Chris Hayes glossed over that Steve King brought up ~ near the end of this post.

And the Catholic analogy – when compared to the violent acts of Islam – does not work either. But, in trying to make it work for Mr. Hayes... if you had 27,000 Catholics killed by southern Protestants… then yes, if you were a Norther state full of Catholics… then by all means be VERY weary of Protestants coming into your state.

One should take note as well that Rep. Keith Ellison ignored the question in regards to Sharia Law. But he would because he likes to visit radical Mosques:

In the wake of a radical Islamic terror attack in San Bernardino, California, that saw 14 people dead and a dozen others wounded, three Democratic Congressman will show “solidarity” with the American Muslim community by visiting a mosque once led by Anwar al-Awlaki, the deceased chief recruiter for Al Qaeda.

Awlaki is no more, but the mosque where he once served as Imam still stands openly and proudly just outside of Washington, D.C., in the Falls Church neighborhood of Northern Virginia.

Democratic Representatives Rep. Donald Beyer (D-VA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) announced in a letter: “We must show that we will not tolerate islamophobia and that those who propagate it do not represent the melting-pot America that we celebrate.”

“We invite you to join in this Friday to stand in solidarity with Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque — the mosque that received the hoax bomb — and with all our American Muslim communities, by attending Friday prayers and joining us for a short press conference against bigotry,” the Democratic House members said.

“Help us show solidarity with the American Muslim community be joining us on Friday,” they asked.

The Dar Al-Hijrah mosque was founded thanks to a $5 million dollar grant from Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in the United States, which allowed for the large facility to accommodate some 5,000 Muslims.

The mosque’s outreach director, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, who will speak to the public on Friday, has on several occasions announced his public support for convicted terrorists.In 2005, when a Virginia Muslim was found guilty of inciting jihad against the United States, Imam Malik said, “There is a view many Muslims have when they come to America that you could not be arrested for something you say. But now they have discovered they are not free to speak their minds.”

When in 2005, a fellow Muslim was convicted for plotting to assassinate former President George W. Bush, Malik commented, “our whole community is under siege.”

The mosque’s current Imam, Shaker Elsayed, has said in the past that the killing of a Jewish man was justified because he “adopted a position against all Arabs and Muslims.” Elsayed has also defended a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, saying that the FBI was involved in a “war on Muslim institutions.” In 2013, he called for armed jihad against the United States.

Major Nidal Hassan, who was responsible for the Islamic terrorist attack on Fort Hood, Texas in 2009, was a member of Dar al-Hijrah, praying under the guidance of Awlaki, who became Imam in January 2001.

Moreover, two September 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, were regularsat the mosque prior to carrying out the worst terrorist attack in American history….

(via Breitbart)

Could you imagine if a Mitt Romney went to a church that had a Klan leader who created disciples that killed as many as the disciples of Anwar al-Awlaki did? With current pastors still pushing segregation? That analogy is pretty close. Why hasn’t anyone (like Chris Hayes) asked Keith Ellison about that? (For other “church analogies,” read my conversation with a Democrat while on vacation.)

Sound analogies are key… you must apply them to yourself to see if they work. Here, for example, is a person on MSNBC (adub4ever) YouTube saying the following of Steve King:

  • How nice of Rep King to take his white hood off for the interview.

Here is a response to this by dibblydooda:

  • How nice for Ellison to put away his executioners sword…

This would be a proper counter to the position taken by adub4ever. Some other comments from the MSNBC video on YouTube are worth posting:

  • “The level of organization behind Islamic-based attacks are a far cry from a few isolated incidents of lunatics who regard themselves as Christians.” ~ by Situations103
  • “Is there a Christian death cult marching across the Middle East or is this moron full of crap?” ~ by Phil Hart
  • First half of this segment: Why are you and other bigoted slobs like you questioning the absolute shining beauty of Islam, Rep. King? (Pay no attention to the Muslim and non-Muslim bodies lying dead all over the world by people who swear by the Quran and Muhammad). Second half of this segment: How scary are bigoted slobs like Rep. King to you and every other Muslim in the world, Rep. Ellison? (Because they are much scarier than the people killing Muslims all around the globe in the name of Islam and Muhammad). ~ by Skidd333
  • “Liberals attack Christians cause we don’t fight back with violence. Liberals refuse to attack muslims for their atrocities on a daily basis, because they fear muslims being violent. Religion of peace? nope.” ~ by Dan Stevens

Here is a short comparison between Muhammad and Jesus:

Jesus Versus Muhammad by Papa Giorgio

An AWESOME National Review Video of Morning Joe!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Television gets it more right than the Obama admin! Hat-Tip to Cyril!

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/nationalreview/videos/10156321613335093/” width=”698″ height=”580″ onlyvideo=”0 or 1″]  

Aaand, ISIS is J.V., aaaand ISIS is weak… Clown Shoes is what the Obama admin is. And Bernie and the other Democrats aren’t any better.

NewsBusters:

  • About 20 minutes earlier, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta confronted Obama over his claim during the press conference that he “had not underestimated ISIS’s abilities.” Acosta pointed out that “this is an organization that you once described as a J.V. team that evolved into a force that has now occupied territory in Iraq and Syria, and is now able to use that safe haven to launch attacks in the other parts of the world.” He then asked, “How is that not underestimating their capabilities and how is that contained, quite frankly?…I guess the question is, and if you’ll forgive the language, is why can’t we take out these bastards?” 

Some Recent Ben Carson “Media Attacks” Scrutinized (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(The Above Cartoonist’s FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/60781325403/)

A Tweet about the Wall Street Journal’s story targeting Ben Carson as a liar, via Twitchy:

Ben Carson’s FaceBook incluides the Yale paper’s incident from that time:

On Saturday a reporter with the Wall Street Journal published a story that my account of being the victim of a hoax at Yale where students were led to believe the exams they had just taken were destroyed and we needed to retake the exam was false. The reporter claimed that no evidence existed to back up my story. Even went so far as to say the class didn’t exist.

Well here is the student newspaper account of the incident that occurred on January 14, 1970.

Will an apology be coming. I doubt it.

Take note how Hugh Hewitt [via Breitbart] responds to Rachel Maddow’s contention of the ROTC offering/not-offering Carson a “Westpoint ‘Free-Ride'” (Fuller video here):

I am not a fan of Carson being in the top office in our country, but these recent attacks are weak!

…Hewitt said the conservative media should “not engage in knifing our candidates” and should instead call on the mainstream press to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton more aggressively.

“You folks in the Manhattan, D.C. beltway media elite do not care to dive deep into the narratives of Democrats,” Hewitt said to Scarborough, who is a former Republican congressman.

[….]

Several parts of Carson’s autobiography, harrowing in detail, have recently fallen under scrutiny after news outlets have been unable to independently corroborate them with people from Carson’s past.

Last week, after Politico said Carson’s campaign admitted that something in his book wasn’t correct, Carson and his conservative allies fought back by saying the story was incorrect, prompting Politico to reshape the story.

(Washington Examiner)

Sex-Obsessed Media Versus Ted “the Missile” Cruz ~ UPDATED!

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is the Constitutional answer:

Do you have a personal animosity against Christians sir? Your line of questioning is highly curious. You seem fixated on a particular subject. Look, I’m a Christian. Scripture commands us to love everybody and what I have been talking about, with respect to same-sex marriage, is the Constitution which is what we should all be focused on. The Constitution gives marriage to elected state legislators. It doesn’t give the power of marriage to a president, or to unelected judges to tear down the decisions enacted by democratically elected state legislatures.

(Right Scoop)

 

Some commentary via Gay Patriot:

The Democrat Media Operatives (a.k.a. “journalists”) in the MFM love to hound Republican candidates on the most divisive issues they possibly can. No one in the MFM will ever ask Hillary to explain why she supports partial birth abortion or gun control, but Republicans are hounded constantly about gay marriage.

[….]

Most Republicans just try and play along with the game; vainly hoping that they can get away with the same anodyne, focus group tested non-answers that Democrats get away with. They naively assume that the press isn’t a Democrat propaganda machine staffed by Democrat operatives.

But at least one Republican isn’t playing the game…. [as seen above]

Wintery Knight expands with his insights on Sen. Cruz and finishes up with a point about Bobby Jindal:

…My concern with Cruz is that he hasn’t got the experience of building consensus to move legislation and enact policies, the way others like Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker have done.

Here’s Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, for example, backing up his words with actions.

Defying state legislators who rejected a measure that sought to protect “the right of conscience as it relates to marriage,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal acted on his own Tuesday.

“I’m going to do anything I can to protect religious liberty,” the Republican governor told The Daily Signal in a phone interview on Wednesday.

His executive order, issued after state legislators voted down the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act, prohibits “all departments, commissions, boards, agencies, and political subdivision of the state” from discriminating against people or businesses with deeply held religious beliefs about marriage.

“My executive order accomplishes the intent of the [Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act]. It prevents the state from discriminating against people or their business with deeply held religious beliefs,” Jindal said.

The measure builds on a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was enacted during Jindal’s first term as governor. The state of Louisiana, under a Constitutional amendment, also defines marriage strictly as the union between a man and a woman.

[…]“Even if you don’t agree with me on the definition of marriage … you still should want those folks to have their rights—our rights to live the way we want,” he said.

Jindal, who is exploring a 2016 presidential bid, doesn’t shy away from his support for traditional marriage.

“I believe in the traditional definition of marriage,” he said. “Unlike President Obama and Hillary Clinton, my opinions are not evolving on this issue. But at the end of the day, this is even bigger than marriage.”

[…]“Don’t waste your breath trying to bully me in Louisiana,” he said. “It is absolutely constitutional to have religious liberty and economic freedoms.”

…read it all…

“Cancer” ~ Melissa Harris-Perry Kid’s First Words

Published by Papa Giorgio

(CNSNews.com) – MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry compared abortion to cancer treatment and hand amputation during a segment of her self-titled show Saturday on Alabama’s abortion law that requires minors to get written parental consent before an abortion or petition the court if they don’t.

And NewsBusters has this:

“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence…”

Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood (1997)

Tampons

Don’t be fooled by the deceptive labels and euphemisms. When it comes to “reproductive rights,” feminists have a very specific agenda—one that involves a lot more abortions, but not necessarily more choice.

Ashley Herzog, Feminism vs. Women (Xulon Press, 2008), 86.

…As Dave Andrusko (National Right to Life News) stated:

“At first blush, you might simply say, What?!” But remember this is the same woman who argued that superstar singer Beyonce could [should?] have promoted abortion at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards program where she spoke at length…”

(I’ll add a few more examples that will make people scratch their heads and say “What!?”   There was the time where she downplayed the role that radical Islam played shortly after the Boston Bombings.  The time she linked GITMO detainees to American slaves. The time she mocked (and then shamefully apologized) Mitt Romney on his newest grandson – who happened to be black.  Or the time when she said that parents shouldn’t raise kids, communities should raise kids: “Part of it is, we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”) 

McPhilips took Harris-Perry’s irrational comment in stride, and sensibly responded:  

“Well, you wouldn’t have to, because I presume you’re well over 17, but someone 17 or younger, especially 16, 15, 14, having an abortion or having a baby could have great consequences. And at their age and stage, they can’t enter into any contract legally in any state anyway, and the rules of civil procedure in Alabama and in most states allow for the appointment of a guardian ad litem to protect the property interests of an unborn child. And we reason if the property interests of an unborn child can be protected, why not the life interests, because without the life, you can’t have property. …

“But I will say this: I want to raise the consciousness of people out there that there’s much at stake, great life itself. The only problem with pro-choice is it’s absolutely no choice for the one life that’s really at stake.”

Melissa Harris-Perry once asked “When does life begin? I submit the answer depends an awful lot on the feeling of the parents. A powerful feeling – but not science”; and spoke of an unborn child as a “thing” that “might turn into a human.”

…read more…

Foreign Policy: Even the Mainstream Media Called Obama’s Bluff

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes from a great post over at Gateway Pundit, and has to do with a previous post regarding Canadian special forces engaging in ground battles with the Islamic State. Can you guess where? In Iraq. IN OTHER WORDS, our allies (as well as U.S. special forces) are on the ground in Iraq. so to hear this critique from the mainstream media is refreshing… but as I will note, it is indicative of the worldview of the Obama admin:

Richard Engel in the above video got it exactly right… Obama is looking at the world as how he “wishes” it could be. The Left has a view of economics, politics, and world affairs that especially since the “new Left” of the 60’s has displayed a Utopian proclivity. While the following audio is long (and you can choose to skip it), the insight into how this new Left thinks outside of the real world is required listening for the person interested in political science:

The President’s SOTU speech on foreign policy was soo bad that even “thrill up my leg” Matthews got it, Wolf Blitzer as well. But the conservative (who is typically more religious, by far) has a belief that ONLY God can bring perfection to earth. The leftist (typically more secular, by far) believes that mankind can impose perfection by edict (e.g., government legislation). This is why Democrats in a majority think man can control weather by legislation as well as calling millions of years of Nature (or God, or both) honing the male/female species into question. It is hubris that knows no bounds.

Here is some Utopian ideals defined via Conservapedia:

A utopia is a fictional society considered perfect by its proponent, but whose implementation in reality is unrealistic. The term, greek in origin, was first used by Thomas More, for its 1516 eponymous book, which describes a fictional state whose laws and organization are purportedly ideal. However, More’s intent was, at least in part, ironical, as some ambiguities in the text clearly show: the word “utopia” can mean both “good place” or “place that doesn’t exist”, and the narrator’s last name, Hythlodaeus, literally means “purveyor of nonsense”.

Utopian literature was, however, not created by More; it comes from the fusion of several archetypes, which can be found in classical literature and mythology, religion, and philosophy. The most important influences were the Greek accounts of voyages in faraway, fantastic lands (such as Hyperborea or Thule), the narration of a fall from a privileged and carefree condition in religion and mythology (such as Hesiod’s Golden Age, or the Genesis’ Fall from Eden), and philosophical inquiries about the nature of the perfect state, of which the most influential was undoubtedly Plato’s Republic. More and Plato disagree on what makes a perfect society: for example, while both societies are socialist, Plato advocates the communion of women and families, whereas More, a Christian, could not agree with that. This shows that utopias are, by their own nature, subjective and arbitrary, as different individuals will have different ideas on what constitutes a “good” society. A utopia, seen from a different point of view, can become a dystopia, that is, the description of a society which claims to be ideal but which ends up being a nightmare.

It is also interesting to note that utopias, while having some similarities with religious paradises, are incompatible with them: to be perfect, a paradise only needs an act of will by a deity; man only needs to gain access to the paradise through his actions on Earth (the exact requisites change from religion to religion: in the old Norse religion only valiant warriors fallen in battle could access the Valhalla, whereas the Christian Paradise is reserved for the righteous) and no special laws or measures are required to keep that paradise perfect. On the contrary, Utopia is a man-made paradise; it is perfect because it is carefully engineered to be so, and constant human intervention is required to prevent it from declining or falling.

This, according to professor of sociology Krishan Kumar, reflects two particular Christian views of human perfectibility: utopianists believe in the Pelagian view that man can make himself perfect through his actions, whereas the dystopian view reflects St. Augustine’s doctrine: God can be the only source of perfection, everything that man does is doomed to fail, and only faith can save man….

“Arson And Looting Are ‘Not Violence'” ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

Published by Papa Giorgio

NewsBusters h/t

American Thinker has this commentary on the above:

Obviously, Professor Harris-Perry has never known anyone who has poured his or her life into starting and keeping open a business, such as a beauty supply store or cell phone outlet. The endless hours and sacrifice of family life necessary to make a business work through thick and thin constitute the very essence of a person’s life, and the loss of a business to arsonists and looters constitute an attack on that person’s life. When he or she loses the business, part of that person’s life is lost, too.

But how would she know that? She would have had to talk to such people and listened sympathetically to their stories. She would have had to understand that meeting a payroll when sales are down, or shoplifters have overwhelmed the retail margin, means sacrificing other important things, selling off precious possessions so that employees can be paid, or working a second job on the graveyard shift to put food on the table when the business is failing.

I would wager a substantial amount of money that Harris-Perry considers herself a caring and compassionate woman. But progressives have a way of dehumanizing people with whom they disagree, and regarding people who actually seek to create and maintain a business as exploiters, and therefore subhuman.

She is Al Sharpton with a PhD.

How bout when a cop-hating liberal progressive honky is punched in the face for trying to protect property? Via Gateway Pundit: