It is terrible to see the scourge of anti-semitism displayed in such a nakedly brutal way. I do and always will stand with Israel, which has existed for thousands of years and must continue to provide a homeland for a people who have been persecuted everywhere else. I've been trying to educate my daughter, too, who likes lots of far-left influencers who are more or less, pro-Palestinian. Thankfully, though, she had lots of Jewish friends when we lived in NY, and she is very aware of and sensitive to anti-semitism. I have made sure that she hears about the horror, and she, too, is properly horrified. She could still use more education about the actual situation in Palestine, but at least she doesn't defend Hamas. No one should. They must be driven out of the Gaza strip and destroyed as a terrorist organization. Love and solidarity to you and the whole of the Jewish people, Mrs. Miller!
The one "silver lining" of these last few days is that we now see clearly the answer to that question repeatedly asked since the Nazi horrors were revealed to the world: How could this happen?! We now see who are the modern day "Nazi sympathizers," who are the moral cowards of the moment. And we can understand, even more clearly, the power of propaganda to warp the sight and understanding of the average person. Now we know what happened all those decades ago, and "Never Again" takes on urgent meaning for every right-thinking, clear-minded, guardian of the civilized world's moral order. I stand with you, and Israel. And your daughter rocks. What a proud moment amidst the craziness of the last couple years.
Did we need this as further proof of the sickness of Progressivism? Their perverted vicarious thrills writ large on their signs and their faces. Little people, moral midgets, glorying in the slaughter. Little realizing that only an ocean in between kept the horror from striking them.
There have been people from all over the world, including that region, pouring across the US southern border for years now, including people on terrorist watch lists who have been intercepted scarily often...but how many were missed and got through? The idea that something similar couldn't be organized to happen in cities around the U.S., especially while our security state is laser focused on MAGA citizens as "domestic terrorists," is not far-fetched. Combined with fact that the woke Left is obsessed with "decolonization" (hence their Palestine flag-waving and excuse-making) and the fact that by their twisted logic white people are irredeemably "colonizers" by nature, I don't think we should be too quick to presume an ocean separates us from such potential barbarism.
I say it as someone who has quite a few liberal values.... The far left is so anti-life that I am a bit surprised most of them are against the death penalty. They just worship death in all of its forms, from glamorizing suicide to supporting murdering innocent people. I wonder why they disrespect and hate life so much. You know, when I read about Palestinians being killed by Israel, I feel sadness and shame, not joy in retaliation. I can't imagine ever taking joy in a death of an innocent person, even if they are members of a different tribe. Normal people value life.
"Left" and "right" have changed meaning so much that I don't even know what any given person thinks they mean when they use the terms.
Originally, the term referred to royalists (right) and liberals (left), who opposed the monarchy and favored a republican form of government, in the pattern of the American Revolution a few years prior.
By that definition, America's founders were radical leftists, and certainly liberals, without a doubt. Their belief in the sovereignty belonging to every person, the idea that all men are created equal, was radical in its time. They believed that a government is best which governs least, and that power should be distributed outward from the center to prevent any one group or person from accumulating too much of it. They believed in the importance of free expression so that the voters could be informed of the issues so they could perform their important role in self-government properly.
Now the people who believe what the founders believed are considered right wing, and while those who are considered left wing sometimes call themselves liberals, they are actually anything but.
Liberalism, which is to say actual liberalism, is about liberty, and all liberty starts with the individual. Liberty-minded people are individualists, and they have an inherent distrust of that which takes away liberty (government). They are near absolutists when it comes to free speech, even if that speech is hateful, offensive, or false. None of us truly has a perfect enough view of reality that we can be certain all our beliefs are 100% true, and only reasoned, open, good-faith debate can expose the actual truth to us all. This means all ideas, no matter how offensive, stupid, senseless, or wrong, must be welcomed as a part of that debate. It could be that one of them is actually the closest thing to the truth, and we won't know that unless we have the debate and let the ideas duke it out in the ring with other ideas.
Consider the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. It's common knowledge. People of all religions understand this. The Pope, surely, understands this. But a few hundred years ago, to say such a thing was not only labeled "misinformation," but offensive and blasphemous-- which could be said to be the "hate speech" of the day. The Catholic Church would tolerate no disagreement, since to say that the Earth went around the Sun meant one was contradicting the Bible (which, of course, it doesn't), which is hate speech against God, the most offensive kind of speech there could be.
Everyone with an opinion can spin an argument where the other guy's ideas are misinformation, hate speech, or offensive speech. The left today believes it has the right to regulate speech to eliminate those bad things... with the assumption being that it will always be them who get to decide what the definitions of those words will be. They don't seem all that concerned that saying "I stand with Hamas" is hate speech, or that "MAGA are terrorists, seditionists, and traitors" is hate speech (as well as being misinformation).
The people who call themselves leftists, progressives, or (increasingly, in the US) socialists, think that kind of hate is fine, that offending those kinds of people is fine, because they deserve it. They intend, it would seem, to use the power they seek to control the narrative to make sure none of us not on the left ever get the power to define those terms again. If they would look to history, they would see that no one has ever had that kind of permanent power.
When I was discussing these things not long ago, someone pointed out that it was not that long ago that someone who thought these things (the various things I have attributed to our founders and/or true liberals) would have indicated someone on the left. Now, they're considered right wing, even far right. That's kinda funny, given that they also think fascism is far right, and they accuse those of us who denounce collectivism, authoritarianism, centralized government, high taxes, extreme regulation, censorship, etc., as being fascists, without a hint of irony.
I don't know where this idea that fascism is right-wing came from, but it is actively being practiced, right now, by the global left. If you have a single-dimensional scalar value, you define one extreme as one end of that scale and the other extreme as the other, so that everyone else falls somewhere in between the two, in a smooth gradient from -x to x.
That's not how the scale looks when presented as it usually is. Fascism and communism (as practiced) are peas in a pod, slightly different approaches to the same end, and the greatest opposite of each of them is not the other, but the center point, the greatest distance one can have from both of them at the same time.
That's the ridiculous "horseshoe" idea, where the one-dimensional scale gets a second dimension so that communism and fascism can be next to each other but also polar opposites. A much better explanation is that the premise of the two being opposites is faulty. It's collectivism vs. individualism, authoritarianism vs. liberalism, and the policies those who call themselves progressives, socialists, and communists advocate are clearly collectivist and authoritarian. They call themselves leftist, so I will concede that point; you are indeed leftists, in the modern sense of the word. I will further conclude that as one who is equally opposed to fascism and communism, I must be somewhere on the right end of the spectrum, far from where they are. That makes "right" the opposite of fascism, not the same as fascism.
In another time, or even not that many years ago, perhaps I would be left, but that would only be true when left actually meant liberal, not the faux "liberal" of American and British use of the word, one who is really a collectivist authoritarian. There is nothing liberal about them.
Thank you for this. Truly educational. The arrogance of current democrats to blithely vilify today's conservatives boggles my mind. They have no idea what liberalism is.
I treasure your stories and insights, Mrs. Miller. Thank you! Im weathering some storms of my own here and thank goodness I read your story tonight because it reminded me of a Leonard cohen lyric/insight: “there is a crack in every thing / that’s how the light gets in”. And that is what I really needed to end today with. God bless you. Xx
Sending love and comfort to you and your family Mrs. Miller. So glad you got through to your daughter with the truth. I have friends in Israel and lived there myself on a kibbutz when I was 19. Only 5 miles from Gaza. Maybe this horrible, horrible crisis will start some cognitive dissonance with young people, bring in a crack of light.
I was flying back from a wedding out west yesterday and a guy in front of me in line had a t-shirt on advertising "The Chosen". I told him that I guess you are glad you aren't in Israel right now. His wife said that they were there just a month ago and he said I know we are supposed to love our enemy, but I'm so mad I want to go over there now and do anything I can to help and fight Hamas!
I was so glad to hear him say that. I am mad as well and will always stand with Israel!
It is terrible to see the scourge of anti-semitism displayed in such a nakedly brutal way. I do and always will stand with Israel, which has existed for thousands of years and must continue to provide a homeland for a people who have been persecuted everywhere else. I've been trying to educate my daughter, too, who likes lots of far-left influencers who are more or less, pro-Palestinian. Thankfully, though, she had lots of Jewish friends when we lived in NY, and she is very aware of and sensitive to anti-semitism. I have made sure that she hears about the horror, and she, too, is properly horrified. She could still use more education about the actual situation in Palestine, but at least she doesn't defend Hamas. No one should. They must be driven out of the Gaza strip and destroyed as a terrorist organization. Love and solidarity to you and the whole of the Jewish people, Mrs. Miller!
The one "silver lining" of these last few days is that we now see clearly the answer to that question repeatedly asked since the Nazi horrors were revealed to the world: How could this happen?! We now see who are the modern day "Nazi sympathizers," who are the moral cowards of the moment. And we can understand, even more clearly, the power of propaganda to warp the sight and understanding of the average person. Now we know what happened all those decades ago, and "Never Again" takes on urgent meaning for every right-thinking, clear-minded, guardian of the civilized world's moral order. I stand with you, and Israel. And your daughter rocks. What a proud moment amidst the craziness of the last couple years.
Amen! I thought the same thing. And thank you Leah! 🥰
Did we need this as further proof of the sickness of Progressivism? Their perverted vicarious thrills writ large on their signs and their faces. Little people, moral midgets, glorying in the slaughter. Little realizing that only an ocean in between kept the horror from striking them.
There have been people from all over the world, including that region, pouring across the US southern border for years now, including people on terrorist watch lists who have been intercepted scarily often...but how many were missed and got through? The idea that something similar couldn't be organized to happen in cities around the U.S., especially while our security state is laser focused on MAGA citizens as "domestic terrorists," is not far-fetched. Combined with fact that the woke Left is obsessed with "decolonization" (hence their Palestine flag-waving and excuse-making) and the fact that by their twisted logic white people are irredeemably "colonizers" by nature, I don't think we should be too quick to presume an ocean separates us from such potential barbarism.
Agree. I keep thinking WW3.
Yep. I can't help wondering if this massacre will prove to be our assassination of Archduke Ferdinand...
I say it as someone who has quite a few liberal values.... The far left is so anti-life that I am a bit surprised most of them are against the death penalty. They just worship death in all of its forms, from glamorizing suicide to supporting murdering innocent people. I wonder why they disrespect and hate life so much. You know, when I read about Palestinians being killed by Israel, I feel sadness and shame, not joy in retaliation. I can't imagine ever taking joy in a death of an innocent person, even if they are members of a different tribe. Normal people value life.
Legit. The global left has become a death cult. This past weekend showed us again & again.
"Left" and "right" have changed meaning so much that I don't even know what any given person thinks they mean when they use the terms.
Originally, the term referred to royalists (right) and liberals (left), who opposed the monarchy and favored a republican form of government, in the pattern of the American Revolution a few years prior.
By that definition, America's founders were radical leftists, and certainly liberals, without a doubt. Their belief in the sovereignty belonging to every person, the idea that all men are created equal, was radical in its time. They believed that a government is best which governs least, and that power should be distributed outward from the center to prevent any one group or person from accumulating too much of it. They believed in the importance of free expression so that the voters could be informed of the issues so they could perform their important role in self-government properly.
Now the people who believe what the founders believed are considered right wing, and while those who are considered left wing sometimes call themselves liberals, they are actually anything but.
Liberalism, which is to say actual liberalism, is about liberty, and all liberty starts with the individual. Liberty-minded people are individualists, and they have an inherent distrust of that which takes away liberty (government). They are near absolutists when it comes to free speech, even if that speech is hateful, offensive, or false. None of us truly has a perfect enough view of reality that we can be certain all our beliefs are 100% true, and only reasoned, open, good-faith debate can expose the actual truth to us all. This means all ideas, no matter how offensive, stupid, senseless, or wrong, must be welcomed as a part of that debate. It could be that one of them is actually the closest thing to the truth, and we won't know that unless we have the debate and let the ideas duke it out in the ring with other ideas.
Consider the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. It's common knowledge. People of all religions understand this. The Pope, surely, understands this. But a few hundred years ago, to say such a thing was not only labeled "misinformation," but offensive and blasphemous-- which could be said to be the "hate speech" of the day. The Catholic Church would tolerate no disagreement, since to say that the Earth went around the Sun meant one was contradicting the Bible (which, of course, it doesn't), which is hate speech against God, the most offensive kind of speech there could be.
Everyone with an opinion can spin an argument where the other guy's ideas are misinformation, hate speech, or offensive speech. The left today believes it has the right to regulate speech to eliminate those bad things... with the assumption being that it will always be them who get to decide what the definitions of those words will be. They don't seem all that concerned that saying "I stand with Hamas" is hate speech, or that "MAGA are terrorists, seditionists, and traitors" is hate speech (as well as being misinformation).
The people who call themselves leftists, progressives, or (increasingly, in the US) socialists, think that kind of hate is fine, that offending those kinds of people is fine, because they deserve it. They intend, it would seem, to use the power they seek to control the narrative to make sure none of us not on the left ever get the power to define those terms again. If they would look to history, they would see that no one has ever had that kind of permanent power.
When I was discussing these things not long ago, someone pointed out that it was not that long ago that someone who thought these things (the various things I have attributed to our founders and/or true liberals) would have indicated someone on the left. Now, they're considered right wing, even far right. That's kinda funny, given that they also think fascism is far right, and they accuse those of us who denounce collectivism, authoritarianism, centralized government, high taxes, extreme regulation, censorship, etc., as being fascists, without a hint of irony.
I don't know where this idea that fascism is right-wing came from, but it is actively being practiced, right now, by the global left. If you have a single-dimensional scalar value, you define one extreme as one end of that scale and the other extreme as the other, so that everyone else falls somewhere in between the two, in a smooth gradient from -x to x.
That's not how the scale looks when presented as it usually is. Fascism and communism (as practiced) are peas in a pod, slightly different approaches to the same end, and the greatest opposite of each of them is not the other, but the center point, the greatest distance one can have from both of them at the same time.
That's the ridiculous "horseshoe" idea, where the one-dimensional scale gets a second dimension so that communism and fascism can be next to each other but also polar opposites. A much better explanation is that the premise of the two being opposites is faulty. It's collectivism vs. individualism, authoritarianism vs. liberalism, and the policies those who call themselves progressives, socialists, and communists advocate are clearly collectivist and authoritarian. They call themselves leftist, so I will concede that point; you are indeed leftists, in the modern sense of the word. I will further conclude that as one who is equally opposed to fascism and communism, I must be somewhere on the right end of the spectrum, far from where they are. That makes "right" the opposite of fascism, not the same as fascism.
In another time, or even not that many years ago, perhaps I would be left, but that would only be true when left actually meant liberal, not the faux "liberal" of American and British use of the word, one who is really a collectivist authoritarian. There is nothing liberal about them.
Thank you for this. Truly educational. The arrogance of current democrats to blithely vilify today's conservatives boggles my mind. They have no idea what liberalism is.
I treasure your stories and insights, Mrs. Miller. Thank you! Im weathering some storms of my own here and thank goodness I read your story tonight because it reminded me of a Leonard cohen lyric/insight: “there is a crack in every thing / that’s how the light gets in”. And that is what I really needed to end today with. God bless you. Xx
Sending love and comfort to you and your family Mrs. Miller. So glad you got through to your daughter with the truth. I have friends in Israel and lived there myself on a kibbutz when I was 19. Only 5 miles from Gaza. Maybe this horrible, horrible crisis will start some cognitive dissonance with young people, bring in a crack of light.
That’s what I’m hoping!
I was flying back from a wedding out west yesterday and a guy in front of me in line had a t-shirt on advertising "The Chosen". I told him that I guess you are glad you aren't in Israel right now. His wife said that they were there just a month ago and he said I know we are supposed to love our enemy, but I'm so mad I want to go over there now and do anything I can to help and fight Hamas!
I was so glad to hear him say that. I am mad as well and will always stand with Israel!
If Hamas laid down its arms, there would be no more violence.
If Israel laid down its arms, there would be no more Israel.
💯
I'm not surprised the same people who excuse Hamas violence against Israelis will (and do) excuse trans/TRA violence against women.
Makes so much sense. Just heard a Judith butler recording of her excusing and describing hamas and hezbollah as progressive left wing groups.