Here is the Tavis Smiley video (thanks HOTAIRfor the h/t):
(Description from YouTube Channel) Via Hengler, this seems so off-the-grid stupid that it makes me paranoid that I’m misunderstanding it. Hirsi Ali’s talking about jihad here, i.e. religiously-motivated murder by Muslims, and his comeback is that, well, Christians kill people too. In fact, in America, many more Christians commit murder than Muslims do. Which is no doubt true since the ratio of the former to the latter is, um, like, 75 to 1. What that has to do with her view of each faith’s capacity to motivate its followers to kill is beyond me (and beyond even nonpartisan sites like Mediaite). Either he’s missing her point so wildly that they’re having two different conversations or he seriously believes that a guy who shoots up a post office after, say, getting laid off is necessarily committing an act of religious terrorism in the name of whatever faith he follows. Off the grid, I say.
Here is my upload dated the same, moved to my RUMBLE:
This is a FLASHBACK to May 2010 and is an exchange between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tavis Smiley on PBS. The interview was May 25th, 2010. Dennis Prager exemplifying how Leftism makes a person dumber.
Here are some excerpts of Thomas Sowell’s article, the TRICKLE DOWN LIE (emphasis added):
New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, in his inaugural speech, denounced people “on the far right” who “continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics.” According to Mayor de Blasio, “They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else.”
If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender.
While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the “trickle-down” lie is 100 percent lie.
It should win the contest both because of its purity — no contaminating speck of truth — and because of how many people have repeated it over the years, without any evidence being asked for or given…
[….]
…Back in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked what he called “an economic philosophy” which “says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.”
Let’s do something completely unexpected: Let’s stop and think. Why would anyone advocate that we “give” something to A in hopes that it would trickle down to B? Why in the world would any sane person not give it to B and cut out the middleman? But all this is moot, because there was no trickle-down theory about giving something to anybody in the first place.
The “trickle-down” theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories — including J.A. Schumpeter’s monumental “History of Economic Analysis.”
[….]
But, contrary to Mayor de Blasio, this is not a view confined to people on the “far right.” Such liberal icons as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Woodrow Wilson likewise argued that tax rates can be so high that they have an adverse effect on the economy.
In his 1919 address to Congress, Woodrow Wilsonwarned that, at some point, “high rates of income and profits taxes discourage energy, remove the incentive to new enterprise, encourage extravagant expenditures, and produce industrial stagnation with consequent unemployment and other attendant evils.”
In a 1962 address to Congress, John F. Kennedy said, “it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”
This was not a new idea. John Maynard Keynes said, back in 1933, that “taxation may be so high as to defeat its object,” that in the long run, a reduction of the tax rate “will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the budget.” And Keynes was not on “the far right” either.
The time is long overdue for people to ask themselves why it is necessary for those on the left to make up a lie if what they believe in is true.
Below are two short clips regarding “Trickle Down.” One is a clip from Sowell’s audio book, “Basic Economics A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy 2nd Edition” (left – 4:25 minutes). The other is the same info but during an interview (right – 3:08 minutes):
HERE is the entire “Uncommon Knowledge” interview discussing “Trickle Down” rhetoric and “Taxing the Rich.” BELOW is a Reagan myth exploded in an interview of Tavis Smiley by Larry Elder:
In this portion Larry Elder deconstructs Tavis Smiley’s view of Ronald Reagan and his impact on the black community in the 1980’s. In fact, even though Tavis promises to rebut Larry’s stats… to date Larry has received no such response. And Larry often notes this in his radio show and in writing:
…Smiley: Every stat you cited, vis-a-vis people of color, does not measure up when you talk to the people of color who had to live through the hell of those eight years of Ronald Reagan.
Elder: What do mean, “talk to the people”? I’ve just given you labor stats, census stats — these are facts, Tavis. Unemployment fell faster in the black community than the white community — it fell faster for teens, it fell faster for adults, it fell faster for Hispanics. And you’re telling me when you talk to people, they don’t like Reagan, so therefore stats go out of the window?
Smiley: Larry, your numbers are not true. When I get back to my office, later today or tomorrow, I’ll send you some more numbers. You know this — numbers don’t lie, but people do. The numbers are very clear.
[….]
And Tavis Smiley’s “more” numbers have yet to arrive.
The Political Intervention In The Zimmerman Case Is Un-American
“Both in the courtroom and in the media, educated and apparently intelligent people repeatedly said things that they seemed sincerely, and even fervently, to believe, but which were unprovable and often even unknowable.”…. The only real heroes in this trial were the jurors. They showed that this is still America — at least for now — despite politicians who try to cheapen or corrupt the law, as if this were some banana republic. Some are already calling for a federal indictment of George Zimmerman, after he has been acquitted” ~ Thomas Sowell
African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.
Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.
[….]
Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white….
I was interested in Cornel West’s description of himself as a socialist Christian. Two quotes/articles that may shed some light on this will be helpful:
A seminary level treatment of the “ownership” topic from the Bible:
Acts is a specific instance in time, and place. Richards explains
✦ “What Acts is describing is an unusual moment in the life of the early church, when the church was still very small. Remember this is the beginning of the church in Jerusalem.”
In addition, we know that other early churches had different arrangements. Take, for example, the Thessalonians. Peter taught that people who will not work do not deserve any wealth whatsoever, not even wealth in the form of food.
✦ “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” (1 Thes. 3.10-12)
(Proverbs 10:4 says, “Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.” Proverbs 14:23 says, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”)
Let me understand you correctly James. You are saying the Church (universal — all Christians) should privately practice this “helping the poor.” You are not advocating Christian redistribution, but that one should give from his ability, right? Are you agreeing with me that all Scripture teaches that government has no jurisdiction to redistribution of wealth, and Jesus neither compelled people to give accept out of one’s free will. We may agree more than you think?
One last note from a great article on this topic:
✦ “But did not the early Church of Jerusalem in Acts 4:32-36 sell all their goods and “distributed to each as anyone had need”? Yes, they did do this. But we must note again that their participation in this community was voluntary (Acts 5:4). This same communal Church of Jerusalem, incidentally, was unable to withstand the worldwide famine that occurred during the Roman Emperor Claudius’ reign. In fact, Christians in other cities, amidst the same famine, had to provide a “stimulus package” to the communal Jerusalem church (Acts 11:27-30). This is not to assert that communal living was the absolute cause of the Jerusalem Church’s fiscal shortfall. It is merely to say that their socialist structure was found to be insufficient in times of natural disaster.” (christiancapitalism.net/was-jesus-a-socialist-2/)
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: larryelder.com/
One may be interested to see also why I left a church of 12-years over similar issues; and my chapter from my book on this. Also this knock-out quote I love! Take note even in this day that Chicago was sort-of an epicenter to liberalism and Christianity:
… As Dr. Carl F. H. Henry pointed out: “The Chicago evangelicals, while seeking to overcome the polarization of concern in terms of personal evangelism or social ethics, also transcended the neoProtestant nullification of the Great Commission.” “The Chicago Declaration did not leap from a vision of social utopia to legislation specifics, but concentrated first on biblical priorities for social change.” “The Chicago evangelicals did not ignore transcendent aspects of God’s Kingdom, nor did they turn the recognition of these elements into a rationalization of a theology of revolutionary violence or of pacifistic neutrality in the face of blatant militarist aggression.” (Cf. Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, “Evangelical Social Concern” Christianity Today, March 1, 1974.) The evangelical social concern is transcendental not merely horizontal.
We must make it clear that the true revolutionaries are different from the frauds who “deal only with surface phenomena. They seek to remove a deep-seated tumor from society by applying a plaster to the surface. The world’s deepest need today is not something that merely dulls the pain, but something that goes deep in order to change the basic unity of society, man himself. Only when men individually have experienced a change and reorientation, can society be redirected in the way it should go. This we cannot accomplish by either violence or legislation” (cf. Reid: op. cit.). Social actions, without a vertical and transcendental relation with God only create horizontal anxieties and perplexities!
Furthermore, the social activists are in fact ignorant of the social issues, they are not experts in the social sciences. They simply demand an immediate change or destruction of the social structures, but provide no blueprint of the new society whatsoever! They can be likened to the fool, as a Chinese story tells, who tried to help the plant grow faster by pulling it higher. Of course such “action” only caused the plant to wither and die. This is exactly what the social radicals are doing now! And the W.C.C. is supporting such a tragic course!
We must challenge them [secular social activists] to discern the difference between the true repentance and “social repentance.” The Bible says: “For the godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret; but worldly grief produces death” (II Cor. 7:10). This was the bitter experiences of many former Russian Marxists, who, after their conversion to Christ came to understand that they had only a sort of “social repentance”—a sense of guilt before the peasant and the proletariat, but not before God. They admitted that “A Russian (Marxist) intellectual as an individual is often a mild and loving creature, but his creed (Marxism) constrains him to hate” (cf. Nicolas Zernov: The Russian Religious Renaissance). “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one…. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:10,23). A complete change of a society must come from man himself, for basically man is at enmity with God. All humanistic social, economic and political systems are but “cut flowers,” as Dr. Trueblood put it, even the best are only dim reflections of the Glory of the Kingdom of God. As Benjamin Franklin in his famous address to the Constitutional Convention, said, “Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” Without reconciliation with God, there is no reconciliation with man. Social action is not evangelism; political liberation is not salvation. While we shall by all means have deep concern on social issues; nevertheless, social activism shall never be a substitution for the Gospel.
Lit-sen Chang, The True Gospel vs. Social Activism (booklet. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co: 1976), 9.
Every American President Is A Terrorist: Cornel West and Rapper Lupe Fiasco Inspire a Clapping Audience of 13 to 18 Year Olds At Leadership Conference By Telling Them America is Biggest Terrorist in The World & Army Navy & Marines Only Kill People
