Dershowitz: on being ostracized because of politics
[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin.”]
This new piece by Alan Dershowitz is interesting to me for many reasons, not the least because he demonstrates his usual sense and yet continues to find it difficult to surrender his allegiance to the Democratic Party – despite disagreeing with most of what the party stands for these days. To me, his dilemma and its persistence illustrate how hard it often is to change a type of party affiliation that Zell Miller once likened to a “birthmark.”
It’s not difficult for everyone, but it often is, depending in great measure on the social, familial, demographic, and geographic context. I’ve discussed these things before, of course. But the reason I’m bringing them up again today is that for Dershowitz, for me, and I bet for a lot of other people, the price has become even greater lately in social terms as things have heated up.
The enmity can come at work or in clubs or other social groups, including relatives and friends. It can get very personal and even heartbreaking. Family and/or previously close friends can treat the person with increasing coldness, or engage in angrier and more frequent arguments, or outright shunning. Lucky is the person on the right – particularly the political changer – who doesn’t experience this and hasn’t experienced an increase in it lately. I certainly have.
Here’s Dershowitz:
I am on Martha’s Vineyard now where it is easy for me to socially distance because nobody wants to see me or talk to me — for the fact that I defended President Trump in front of the United States Senate…
As the result of taking that on — I thought it was patriotic and based on the Constitution — old friends of mine, people whose kids I recommended to college, people whose kids I helped bail out of jail at 3:00 in the morning, people whose fathers and mothers I helped represent pro bono [free of cost] when they were in trouble, will not talk to me, will not have anything to do with me. They are socially distancing from me without regard to the coronavirus, but that is the price you pay for principle today.
I am very happy living in my house with my family on Martha’s Vineyard, taking my walks every day, writing three or four op-eds a week, and I will continue to do that without regard to how I’m treated on Martha’s Vineyard. The idea of making a transition from the Democrats to the Republicans, I am not there yet. When Keith Ellison, who is now the Attorney General of Minnesota, was running to become chairman of the Democratic Party, I issued a public statement saying I would leave the Democratic Party if he had been elected — because he is a Farrakhan supporter, has a history of association with anti-Semitic causes. He lost the election, but he is now an Attorney General. It is an open question. Right now, as I sit here today, I am a liberal Democrat who is trying very hard to keep the Democratic Party bipartisan on the issue of Israel, and bipartisan on so many other issues of importance to all of Americans.
If I fail, if the Democratic Party moves even further away from where I stand, obviously I have an open mind on these issues.
I think that Dershowitz is fooling himself here. The Democratic Party already has moved so far away from where he stands that it is opposed to nearly everything in which he believes, and would destroy those things. But that’s very hard to acknowledge, after all these years, and Dershowitz is struggling.
Dershowitz is fortunate, however, in that his family still seems to be standing by him. Some people are not so fortunate.
How far are we now from the state China reached during the Cultural Revolution? [emphasis mine]:
“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart,” wrote James Baldwin, “for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.” This observation has been confirmed many times throughout history. However, China’s Cultural Revolution offers perhaps the starkest illustration of just how dangerous the “pure in heart” can be. The ideological justification for the revolution was to purge the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the nation more broadly, of impure elements hidden in its midst: capitalists, counter-revolutionaries, and “representatives of the bourgeoisie.” To that end, Mao Zedong activated China’s youth—unblemished and uncorrupted in heart and mind—to lead the struggle for purity. Christened the “Red Guards,” they were placed at the vanguard of a revolution that was, in truth, a cynical effort by Mao to reassert his waning power in the Party. Nevertheless, it set in motion a self-destructive force of almost unimaginable depravity…
… “[W]orking groups” of ideologues [were] sent to administer schools. Under their tenure, schools became centers of activism rather than learning. Students were encouraged to create big-character posters exposing their own teachers, officials, and even parents. The accused were humiliated in daily “struggle sessions” in which their students and colleagues interrogated them and demanded confessions. The viciousness of these sessions rapidly intensified. Students beat, spat upon, and tortured—in horrifically creative ways—their often elderly teachers and professors. In one case, students demanded their biology professor stare at the sun with wide open eyes. If he blinked or looked away, they beat him. Even middle and elementary school students participated in the struggle sessions, sometimes beating their teachers to death with sticks and belt buckles…
Amid the hysteria, teachers, professors, and intellectuals did not dare to stand up to the students or defend their colleagues lest they suffer similar fates. But they could not escape by being bystanders. With every word and action becoming potential evidence of capitalist sympathy, teachers and intellectuals enthusiastically joined their students in the struggle sessions and screaming rallies…
In order to avoid persecution during the Cultural Revolution, many were quick to accuse others, thereby creating a feedback loop of ever intensifying ideological fanaticism and violence. Inevitably, the accusers became the accused, and the torturers became the tortured.
No one was safe.
I see no reason at this point to think that we are any different, and that it couldn’t happen here. in 2014 I first likened our student movement to the Red Guards of China’s Cultural Revolution. At the time, I called them “embryonic” Red Guards, but added that the development was ominous. I would no longer use the qualifier “embryonic.”
Dersh can be proud of the enemies he makes.
To put it another way, the fanatics and anti-Americans have self-identified. They’ve no doubt done it to others as well, but now Dersh knows, too.
How devastating it is for this treatment to be coming from people whom he has helped in times past. I respect his principles.
“Struggle sessions” are coming, with this vicious “White Fragility” training scheduled for academic and corporate environments. I have advised my daughter to keep quiet if she can, and to take notes and keep documentation. It is still illegal to target people because of their race.
The need to “belong” seems especially strong in some people. Not all of them people we call modern liberals. There seems to be a subset of conservatives who have the same psychological trait, but identify with a different set of life-way’s.
It seems then, this membership, to constitute an important part of their identity.
I suppose that in a collection of minds which emphasize, “inclusion” and “acceptance” and “welcoming” and crap like that as the highest of human values, it might be suspected that the correlation reflects some level of inherent causation.
By the way, Neo, you were not on my mind as I wrote this; even though I now see that you mentioned yourself, somewhat generally, in this context.
We’re headed towards even tougher times, neo. At least there’s this upside: tough time makes for tougher men and women.
I used to wonder how an entire culture could embrace the Nazis. After reading The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff, I was convinced that it was the result of 140+ years of the German people having a steady diet on the limits of reason, the ethical demands of “duty”, the glory of the collective, and the insignificance of the individual. Once the culture was saturated with this intellectual poison, how cold the country’s politics have been anything other than totalitarian?
Our culture has been fed a steady diet of some of these same ideas for three or more generations now. Once again, we see that ideas have consequences.
It seems just bizarre to me to have that kind of an extreme loyalty to a political party when it evolves its positions in such an extreme and malign manner. It’s not a family, it’s not a nation.
I don’t get it.
The term hero is thrown about with reckless abandon these days; but, I believe that Dershowitz qualifies. Given his position, and his cultural ties, a backlash to his principled stand would seem inevitable; but, I don’t suppose we can ever know whether he anticipated the level of vitriol he has experienced.
The message is clear. No matter your history, if you deviate even momentarily from the dogma of the moment, you are at risk; and that isn’t limited to professional or social situations, because now you might be prosecuted for “wrong speak”.
I don’t suppose that it should be surprising, although I am still surprised, that there has been so little push back. Now, it seems almost too late. So many who should have held the line and fostered some solidarity in opposition have surrendered abjectly. Any voice in opposition will be very lonely, and very vulnerable. We used to think that this was limited to the coastal and elitist conclaves; but that is no longer true.
Alan Dershowitz needs to meet Leo Terrell 2.0.
See, e.g., https://video.foxnews.com/v/6172294542001#sp=show-clips
(It’s less than 5 minutes.)
He should also read,
http://www.danielpipes.org/19529/a-reluctant-but-unhesitating-vote-for-donald-trump
In the addendum to that article, Pipes wrote,
Democrats like to say that when it comes to racism, the Democrat and Republican parties switched outlooks sometime in the 1950s, 1960s.
Without getting into just how high the Democrats are piling the BS with respect to racism, let’s go with the idea of parties’ shifting outlooks. Professor Dershowitz is sufficiently experienced and wise to have noticed that conservatives and Republicans have been much closer to his world view for over a dozen years.
DNW…”The need to “belong” seems especially strong in some people. Not all of them people we call modern liberals.”
I read an interesting & depressing book by a woman who became a very dedicated Nazi at a young age. The desire to belong was clearly very important to her. She was also reacting against her mother’s snobbery and wanted to work with and to help the working class. In addition, she wanted to throw herself into activity to get over a bad breakup with a boyfriend at age 17.
She was a hard case. Even after the war, when she was arrested by the American (she was high enough up to be worthy of attention) and was shown pictures of the concentration camps, she refused to believe it for about 2 years, asserting that the pictures were American propaganda forgeries.
I’m not sure she ever got over the emptiness that stemmed from losing what in essence was her religion. It’s probably not coincidental that later in life she went to India in search of a guru.
The book is ‘Account Rendered,’ by Melita Maschmann.
Dersh puts his Jewishness at the top of the list of unassailables. Below that are the maybe unassailables, but his defense of Judaism is absolute.
For a Constitutional lawyer, that is bizarre. His Dems are in fact anti-Semitic and he does not seem able to see that. Has he willingly overlooked BDS?
I do not pay him any attention.
I hope he’s happy on the Vineyard. The thought of spending the summer among the monied Leftists on the Vineyard makes my skin crawl. Median home price is above $600 per sq.foot. When Barack Hussein shows up, on top of COVID-induced squelching, much of the island will have to shut down even more.
I wonder what the attitudes are on Nantucket. Median price there is $900 to $1000/ sq.ft., depending on source checked.
Ira….Pipes said that anti-Trump people feared that “He will disdain precedent and customs while challenging laws and authority. He will treat senators, justices, generals, and governors as personal staff who must fulfill his wishes – or else. He will challenge the separation of powers as never before.”
Maybe Pipes himself had these concerns…but most of the vitriolic anti-Trumpers, I think, don’t care at all about separation of powers or of precedent and customs. What they did and do care about is anything that challenges the power of the *specific institutions* of which they are members, such as the mass media and the Ivy League universities. Which are not, of course, enshrined in the Constitution.
I used to wonder how an entire culture could embrace the Nazis
In 1900 the Germans committed genocide on the Chinese Boxers and a few years later the Nama and Herero people. They were there the Turks during the genocide of Assyrians and Armenians.
You don’t have to be a Nazi to be a Nazi
While it would be cliche to say that he didn’t leave the Democrats, but that they left him, his problem is that his success led him to leave his roots.
Trumps support in the Orthodox community is possibly higher than any other demographic. Maybe he needs to return to his roots
The Republicans have been for some time an omnibus of people dissatisfied with the official idea in the Democratic Party (which has been the Official Idea in the commanding heights of academe and the media for about 70 years now, seeping relentlessly to previously untouched corners in those sectors). Our political parties as corporate bodies have taken different stances as the issues in dispute changed. If you believe in a social system of careers open to talents, in judging people by impartial standards, in the maintenance of law and order, in a common citizenship in which no segment of society is deemed pathological apart from criminal conduct, in free public discussion, in political competeition which respects certain procedural conventions, and in a stable balance between public and private allocation of goods and services, you’ve got one choice, you’re a Republican. Doesn’t matter what position you’d have taken on the Medicaid program in 1965; that issue may be salient later, but it isn’t right now.
You may remember that Napoleon used the army to destroy the power of the Paris mob and end the French revolution. Mao finally had the army put down the Red Guards.
This item is probably familiar to most of the readers of Neo’s blog, but I think it needs to be posted as a reminder every now and again:
https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/watchwomanonthewall/2011/04/the-45-communist-goals-as-read-into-the-congressional-record-1963.html
At this particular time, pay attention to 38 and 39. Defund police indeed.
What’s really shocking – it’s been a number of years since I’ve read it – is how many of their goals have been achieved.
SueK: Written in 1963, wow!
Unfamiliar to me.
Are we sure it is authentic?
If so, amazingly prescient.
Thanks for referring to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. IMO, we are approaching that dreadful situation here. Terrifying, dangerous, and beyond depressing.
Neo, here is the reason it won’t happen here (Red Guard style Cultural Revolution) once the pendulum swings too far.
Guns.
Nobody had guns in China but the army. When the thugs try their blue state tactics in red states, life will be different for them. If the mayors and governors don’t step up, the armed citizenry will.
If Dersh votes for Biden (and if people like him vote for Biden) it will be a tough November. If we can get a strong current that rejects Dem insanity, we might pull through.
Cicero,
Read all the way to the bottom:
“You may not find these 45 Communist Goals on the Web in it’s original form because in 1963 there were no digitized documents. You will find web sites that have copied them as I have. Call your local library and you can obtain an original copy there. Or ask your U. S. Congressional Member. They will be able to help you get a genuine copy of this Congressional Record of the 45 Communist Goals.” ? Donna Calvin, The Word Warriorette
As for being “prescient” – that’s no surprise .. it was the plan. And so far, they have been very successful. In other words, it isn’t prescient – it’s predictive. I don’t know if there’s anyway short of civil war to turn back their successes. Unless – like Alinsky’s “rules”, we adopt them with reverse goals. I think the primary concern I see is the loss of Christian principles that we had when the nation started – religion has to be eliminated in order to establish Communism – and they’ve been very successful in undermining it. Personally, I think the use of sex as a driver has been the biggest wedge between parental influence and the choices of young people. Although..I do recognize the fact that the concentration of population and the increase of population does have something to do with it. I suspect you’re old enough to have been exposed to the experiment done in the 60s with rats and overpopulation??
As a by the way…it’s been pretty interesting to me that the same people who have been a chorus of over-population seem to be the same people who are so upset with the number of deaths from covid…. Ya gotta wonder!
I see your description as very insightful, Neo, and for that reason, frightening. All of the political leaders that I would hope to count on to stand up and say “Stop! This is not how we do things in this country!” are not standing up and not saying this. All except a very few, and one of them is President Trump, whom I intend to vote for. I am depressed about the fact that we cannot get a fair shake due to the left wing narrative that is our media and our culture. I believe that many people would come around to our views if they were readily available, but the message doesn’t seem to get out and obtain the necessary repetition. I cannot help but fear the worst.
All of the political leaders that I would hope to count on to stand up and say “Stop! This is not how we do things in this country!” are not standing up and not saying this.
Almost as if Richard Burr is now the prototype of the Republican pol.
I used to wonder how an entire culture could embrace the Nazis. After reading The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff, I was convinced that it was the result of 140+ years of the German people having a steady diet on the limits of reason, the ethical demands of “duty”, the glory of the collective, and the insignificance of the individual. Once the culture was saturated with this intellectual poison, how cold the country’s politics have been anything other than totalitarian?
Peikoff is a philosopher, and his understanding of what motivates others is distorted.
A simpler explanation is that the German political class was discredited by a series of hammer blows at which point, the alternative was Hitler or the Communists. Over the six year period running from the beginning of 1933 to the end of 1938, the Hitler regime had a number of successes, most saliently the economic revival under the steady hand of Hjalmar Schacht (a capable man out of the German financial sector, who only joined the Nazi Party in 1937; Schacht was eventually dismissed and sent to a concentration camp. The Allies put him on trial at Nuremberg for stupid reasons). To add to that, the Treaty of Versailles was effectively abrogated. The Germany experienced robust growth in income and employment in spite of continuing to stiff the Allies on the reparations. The disarmament provisions of the Treaty were disregarded (something explicitly countenanced by Britain with the Anglo-German naval treaty in 1935). Germany, without firing a shot, had managed to acquire just about every piece of Germanaphone territoriy it was practicable to gain and hold. (The only exceptions were Danzig (a de facto German dependency after 1935; the German municipalities in South Tyrol, for which they’d have to deal with Italy rather than the Allies; and Memelland, which Germany did seize without incident in March 1939). They embraced the regime because it got practical results and reduced their sense of humiliation. The pity was that this was achieved by a disgusting fanatic who believed his own hooey about lebensraum. What Germany needed was a Franco or a Salazar – someone practical, sensible, and with circumscribed goals.
The country’s politics weren’t totalitarian prior to 1933 and they weren’t (outside the Soviet Zone) after 1945. Not sure why you fancy that state was determined.
I agree with Bill at 7:48. The corporate trainings and so on are distressing, and there are ways of hurting and controlling people that are not physical, but there will be no widespread personally directed, politically motivated violence. There are four guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition in my house, and based on what I know about the people on my street I suspect everyone else is similarly equipped. If someone comes for anyone in my house they might be successful, but they and their friends will have a lot of holes in their bodies first. Really, what would we have to lose by fighting back? A few shootouts and there would be a strong deterrent.
Remember, a lot of the foot-soldier support for the puppetmasters on the left is among people who are literally afraid to send their kids to school with a virus that is not remotely dangerous to anyone not of advanced age and with multiple health problems. Those people do not have the stomach for direct violence.
Dershowitz is showing that he’s really smarting from being ostracized. He’s a very socially-connected type of personality, and it would be important to his identity to have an ever-renewing social circle. He’s putting a brave face on it, but still I admire the man’s strong dedication to his principles. He’s got more integrity than I would have given him credit for 5 years ago. I still don’t like a lot of what he’s done during his career, though.
I can see why he’s now estranged from the Demon party, and I guess I can see why he still can’t bring himself to be Republican: There’s too many of them still out there with their old, evil ways, too many of the tired old frauds still being put into service – just look at how quiet they are right now, for instance, when they ought to be stepping up en masse with a good constructive message and showing some shreds of leadership.
One thing these strange times have wrought though: A whole lot more people are doing more of their own thinking these days. And that’s a good thing, whichever party you pin your vote on.
I’d be very surprised if Dershowitz votes for Biden in November.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he also felt he couldn’t vote for Trump. (He might, though, if he’s as rationale a person he thinks he is—see the reference above to Pipes).
But there’s no accounting for the decisions a person makes.
Even the best and the brightest.
Even the most heroic.
(To be sure, Dershowitz is human and has, of course, made some “questionable” decisions…. To be sure, he has always acted his conscience, as he sees it.)
In my view (I have no right to speak for him) Dershowitz may believe that for socio-historical and moral reasons—for family and tribal reasons—he is, and must be, a Democrat. His reasons may be impeccable (for him); but he is also likely fighting a heart-wrenching battle of denial: to deny the fact—the OBVIOUS fact—that the Democrats of today are no longer BY ANY YARDSTICK the Democrats of yore. And especially when it comes to the Zionist Entity.
” ‘Account Rendered,’ by Melita Maschmann.”
David, you might find this piece—written by a former, pre-war, Jewish Berliner schoolmate of hers—of interest:
https://www.jidaily.com/e4f9d?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=b5e28027fe-Insider&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-b5e28027fe-41162981
Correction: not “written” by the former schoolmate but a series of INTERVIEWS with the former schoolmate, written up by the interviewer and published in “The New Yorker” in 2013.
Sue K…” Personally, I think the use of sex as a driver has been the biggest wedge between parental influence and the choices of young people.”
Likely true…but “free sex” was just the advertising. As the Leftists have gained power, they have turned into the Sex Police.
Barry Meisler…thanks, looks interesting.
“…ostracized…”
The shunning, shaming and canceling of Dershowitz by his neighbors, colleagues, former friends (and no doubt many others) is proof of the extraordinarily grim effectiveness of the toxic campaign by the Left to demonize Trump and his supporters (and purported “supporters”—since Dershowitz, by no means a Trump supporter per se, has “become” one simply by explaining that a Trump decision is entirely Constitutional!!
(The corollary of this is, of course, that what is Constitutional is entirely immoral IF it in any way can be used by Trump in support of his actions, which is also why the Electoral College MUST be repealed…)
This malevolent, this evil campaign—the most grotesque achievement of Hillary Clinton’s long political career—has, by totally polarizing the nation, resulted in extraordinary destruction: of relationships (families, friends, colleagues), of government institutions, the social fabric, the body politic, the work place, higher education, journalism, in fact the entire range of human endeavor in the US.
Needing an excuse for her election loss, a target for her over-the-top vituperation, a pressure valve for her uncontrollable vindictiveness she decided it proper and fitting—fully appropriate and justified!—to launch an unprecedented, brazen “Vengeance-is-Mine” political farce (in many diverse acts) against her political nemesis and his supporters.
Dershowitz has paid the price for this wickedness, itself magnified to the nth degree by the total embrace and promulgation of her psychosis by the MSCM and many, many others.
The whole country is paying the price.
Moreover, with the furies she has unleashed, encouraged and nourished, it is not at all certain just how the overarching chaos and bewilderment—not just the violence—might possibly end.
When the Arthur Koestler was a Communist (he later very publicly broke with the Party), he was an apprentice of Stalin’s master propagandist, Willi Munzenberg. Here’s one piece of advice that Munzenberg passed on to him:
“Don’t argue with them, Make them stink in the nose of the world. Make people curse and abominate them, Make them shudder with horror. That, Arturo, is propaganda!”
That is clearly what the Democrats are doing in their communications strategy…don’t argue, demonize. That is why the political climate has become so toxic and so destructive of personal relationships.
Part of this may be a function of Hillary Clinton’s unhinged rage at her defeat…part of it, I think, is due to the excesses of ‘self-esteem building’, resulting in millions of people who can’t brook any criticism or disagreement…part of it is due to the nature of social media, especially twitter.
Part of this may be a function of Hillary Clinton’s unhinged rage at her defeat…part of it, I think, is due to the excesses of ‘self-esteem building’, resulting in millions of people who can’t brook any criticism or disagreement…part of it is due to the nature of social media, especially twitter.
Dershowitz is 82 this year. The median age of a working adult in this country is about 42 and I’d wager he’s now been ostracized by a body of people considerably older than that. These people were raised in and spent much of their adult lives and perhaps the bulk of their adult lives in a different cultural climate. The question is, why are they as awful as they are? People are enraged at Dershowitz and (to a lesser degree, Jonathan Turley) for taking perfectly conventional positions about the law and the constitution.
Democrats of my acquaintance believe in economic theories that seem nuts to me, but make perfect sense to them. They’d find it almost impossible to swallow free-market limited-government approaches no matter how upset they are by how crazy the D party leadership is acting. They genuinely believe free-market approaches are heartless and wrong, and that they impoverish and humiliate the common or vulnerable people for whom they have the strongest allegiance. They think free markets are the same thing as encouraging rule by the almighty dollar, at the cost of all virtuous feeling for duty, generosity, art, community, or the environment. These are hard things to let go of when the deadly chaos is confined to cities they don’t live in. Don’t discount the fact that they’re probably not watching videos of the chaos. Remember where they get their news from.
Art Deco…”Dershowitz is 82 this year. The median age of a working adult in this country is about 42 and I’d wager he’s now been ostracized by a body of people considerably older than that. These people were raised in and spent much of their adult lives and perhaps the bulk of their adult lives in a different cultural climate. The question is, why are they as awful as they are?”
An excellent question. I think a big part of the rage at Trump (and at Trump supporters) is that he shows disrespect to the institutions from which these people have gained their influence and whatever power and wealth they have…media, academia, big law, etc. In the Holy Roman Empire (‘neither holy nor Roman nor an empire’) there was a group called the Electors, they and only they got to choose the next Emperor. I think the people who are so furious at Trump and Dersh think they are the Electors in American society, and their position is being undercut.
An excellent critique and cri de coeur by Dershowitz.
If he wants to go to the wall against the Jacobins – he’s going to have to get over being snubbed by the swells on Martha’s Vineyard. Not quite a profile in courage (but he might be getting there).
In contrast to Dershowitz – get a load of this repellent drivel from Anne Appelbaum in The Atlantic.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-is-putting-on-a-show-in-portland/ar-BB176A0S
She was supposed to win.
She was a shoo-in.
There was no way she could lose.
She won the popular vote—officially (though I wouldn’t mind seeing a recount of the Democrat-run cities, myself…kind of Jill Stein’s “inspired” Michigan/Detroit recount.)
So she threw an “I wuz robbed” tantrum.
And proceeded to do her best (with POTUS44 and his legions) to destroy the country.
(She does throw a damn good tantrum, though.)
“I think that Dershowitz is fooling himself here.”
One of the things Dershowitz is fooling himself is that a lot of those now shunning him were never his friends. They may have been acquaintances at best, probably rich ones, who called on Dershowitz for help the same way they would a maid or a security guard.
The truth is that our atomized, hyper-individualistic, and mindlessly materialistic society doesn’t produce a lot of real friendships.
If you want to know how many friends you actually have, ask yourself “Who would help me move?” Moving someone else from one place to another is a measurable but not really significant bother, which benefits the person helping not at all, and is incredible easy to avoid doing.
And one of the reasons why people got nuts with Trump-hatred is that instead of actual friendships or familial bonds, they’re lives are filled with other associations and affiliations like politics. Even a fairly trivial thing like politics can seem all-important when it’s the only thing in your life. I’m pretty sure most of the people shunning Dershowitz do so because they’re afraid of being shunned themselves.
Mike
To be politically shunned is an interesting reality. I was in a conversation with a group of people, passively listening, when the University of Chicago economics department was brought up. UChicago’s department is world-renowned, being considered one of the finest departments of its kind. What’s more fascinating about it is does not follow the majority of economic departments that are “salt water.” One person was irritated. I wondered why, after all wouldn’t one be at least somewhat proud of having such an institution in the city of Chicago. The person expressed irritation that he couldn’t believe that such a fine institution like UChicago would be associated with such a backwards economics department. If anything, the department should declare independency from the university and be its own entity.
For Dershowitz, his recent outings have made him suspect in the eyes of Harvard undergrads. Upon learning that he taught at Harvard Law (though apparently not since 2013), one undergraduate student asked if anyone had “any interesting stories about him.” A doctoral student answered that his question implied that he was “scummy” because Dershowitz defended “scummy people”, and that because of this does not make one “scummy.” Another student replied –
“True but his flight records to the infamous island are extensive and when questioned about being present at a disgusting event his response was ” I kept my underwear on” My issue is not the state of his undergarments but his choice to associate on a private level. I wish the University would break the association. The law school deserves better.”
I am not sure what the student was referencing, but the tone wasn’t so much of a surprise given that anyone who does not march lockstep with The Left is seen as unfit to teach, regardless of what grade level, and especially at elite institutions.
LeClerc:
Why do people bother to read The Atlantic? The publication is itself repellent.
Appelbaum starts of with “It was sheer madness”, claims Portland experienced nothing more than “angry protests”, claims the Federals were patrolling the streets and seizing people (plural) in (awful) military getup, ignoring the fact that helmets and body armor are there for protection against the brick-throwers.
I don’t read this crap, have not for 25 years.. My brother the shrink on the Left Coast does. I have cut my ties with him.
Oldlflyer….”The message is clear. No matter your history, if you deviate even momentarily from the dogma of the moment, you are at risk; and that isn’t limited to professional or social situations, because now you might be prosecuted for “wrong speak. I don’t suppose that it should be surprising, although I am still surprised, that there has been so little push back.”
Indeed, you can be at risk even if you deviated from the dogmas of *today* at some time in the *past*. Boeing Aircraft recently pushed out its communications director because 30 years ago, when he was a Navy pilot, he had written a piece expressing the view that women should not serve in combat….which was certainly the common opinion then, and I believe official US policy.
Interesting that Boeing broke with this case of retroactive heresy a lot quicker than it tooks effective action against the MCAS problems with the 737.
(Speaking of the 737, I see that there is another Airworthiness Directive out against it, this one having to do with corrosion of engine bleed valves if the plane is left in storage for a prolonged period…’prolonged period’ being defined as 7 days or more)
Neo, I am glad you refer to the Cultural Revolution because hardly anyone other than you or Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon refer to the Cultural Revolution when discussing what’s going on in our country today.
About 5 years ago I reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer. I was amazed at the similarities between 1930’s Germany and the US 5 years ago.
A good book about the Cultural Revolution is Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Chang.
Read both of these books and start praying!
What startles me about our current situation is the lack of fight from the churches. If you are a churchgoer, your congregations need to stand strong because these Marxists are gunning for you.
Finally, read Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer was a genuine hero and was one of the few religious figures in Germany to fight back against Hitler. He paid for his activism with his life.
one of the few religious figures in Germany to fight back against Hitler. He paid for his activism with his life.
…
What startles me about our current situation is the lack of fight from the churches
First, the Christian, Jewish, etc. “Churches” are more progressive than faithful, and second, there has been an insidious subterfuge of their congregations. For example of the latter, consider the problem of trans/homo male pedophiles in the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, too, and the lawyers are profiting greatly from exploiting the collateral damage of political congruence (“=”), and funneling the proceeds to their Preferred Political (PP) party in a fascist revival.
CG
if you bring things up, you are accused of being political. I got in trouble for exactly that in “my” evangelical church.
I have to be very careful what I say, and who I say it to. Wisdom, and hearing what God wants us to say, and who to say it to is needed. We live in dangerous times. You see I use a cover identity on the web. I have for 20 years posted under this name, not my own. When I google my name nothing shows up. I am not on facebook.
If you want to know how many friends you actually have, ask yourself “Who would help me move?” – MBunge
That really is a good test, but it made me laugh a little bit, because helping members move is an institutionalized service project of our church, and our family has helped pack and load so many moving trucks I can’t remember them all. It’s a good activity for youth especially.
When we made our first “family” move (parents and 5 kids) from Utah to Texas, we called ahead to the local congregation and there were 5 or 6 men waiting to unload the truck when we arrived. We later became good friends with them, but on that day we were all total strangers.
“Moving someone else from one place to another is a measurable but not really significant bother, which benefits the person helping not at all, and is incredible easy to avoid doing.” – MBunge
It’s one of those benefits of the “casting your bread on the waters” or “what goes around comes around” genre. You help someone now, whether you know them or not, and someone else helps you later.
That said, I have also been helped individually by some friends, and they were not always the ones I would have most expected to chip in.
“For me, the real enemies of America are the extremists on both sides: the hard left that would bring America down, the hard right white supremacists and neo?Nazis…. People from the hard left do not even want to hear from people on the center left.”
I like Mr. Dershowitz, always have even when I disagree with him. I also understand why he put it in about “white supremacists and neo?Nazis….”. But….
I’m 72 years old and live in the deep South and in all that time I’ve never seen or been in contact with any Klan members or Neo-Nazis. One Sunday afternoon in Mobile, Alabama on a back country road I saw a caravan of ten to twelve pickup trucks and all were flying Confederate flags. But I wasn’t sure if they were really the Klan or just rednecks showing their butts. I also shook Jeff Sessions hand the day after he beat the Klan in court and effectively put them out of business.
I guess where I’m going with this is that nationwide I don’t see any real evidence that the Klan or the Neo-Nazis are causing a lot of problems. When they do do something they are for the most part, denounced by everyone on the right.
Not so on the left. In fact you would be hard pressed to find a democrat anywhere that is denouncing black lives matter and antifa. Both of which are mostly communist organizations.
Today there doesn’t appear to be too many liberals on the left but a lot of progressives.
I always thought it could, and always thought the left far more dangerous than the religious right that the Democrats were always going on about.
Neo’s link to the Quillette article on the Red Guards was scary enough (there were atrocities committed that were worse than anything I had ever heard of), but, reading through the comments (December 2018) in the light of Armageddon 2020, the general view that “things are bad but that can’t happen here” looks hopelessly optimistic and naive.
https://quillette.com/2018/12/18/the-children-of-the-revolution/
The immediately prior post is, on the surface, a personal account of how politics destroyed a good friendship, but in reality exposes the poseurs of the “liberal wokerati,” the “educated class,” the “literary elite,” or the “lazy bums” — your preference — and yet they have captured the market for literature and college indoctrinators (I hesitate anymore to call them teachers or educators).
That this group of people would willingly engage in the excesses of the Red Guard is, IMO, no longer in doubt.
https://quillette.com/2018/12/18/confessions-of-a-soulless-troglodyte-how-my-brooklyn-literary-friendships-fell-apart-in-the-age-of-trump/
The narrator, a writer living in New York, uses a pseudonym, even in 2018, to write about his beliefs as a “changer” (Obama voter turned conservative); “Jamie” is bi-racial.
A long explanation of their relationship follows the introductory paragraph and is germane to his points, but is not needed in this excerpt; the narration picks up about 2010.
“People are enraged at Dershowitz and (to a lesser degree, Jonathan Turley) for taking perfectly conventional positions about the law and the constitution.”
Alas “perfectly conventional” no more.
Since the “perfectly conventional” has been entirely erased by the righteously indignant mob in the name of the uber-moral crusade to dispose of Trump and his supporters.
Dershowitz, too, must be taken down because has not swallowed the Kool-Aid of Virtue (the Cherry Cola of Righteousness?) that so many of those other people—-many of them caring, moral, intelligent, achieving people—have.
He has said, “No” time and time again to their adamantine conviction that Trump—and everything he does, and everything he says and everyone who supports him—is pure, unadulterated evil.
With his resounding “No”, Dershowitz dares NOT to agree with the Righteous on this point, refuses to delegitimize the man—and by extension, refuses to delegitimize the office of POTUS—and by further extension the country itself, and its institutions.
He is saying to the Virtuous(TM), “About this you are wrong”. a prestigious impediment to their aims of taking down Trump. He is the person of prominence loudly proclaiming !No-Pasaran!, standing squarely in front of their tanks in Tiananmen Square.
And so Dershowitz is an Enemy of the People. The enemy of those for whom Trump’s destruction is the moral imperative for the Righteous of our time.
So much so, in fact, that they are—gasp!—prepared to sacrifice beloved Truth to make sure it will happen:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/05/05/the-mask-of-objectivity-is-torn-off-and-the-naked-bias-revealed/
…while the Virtuous are willing to put sacred #METOO on the back burner (or else change the name to “#METOO_BUT_NOT_THEETOO”…Sorry ’bout that Tara….):
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/05/08/the-democrats-reade-dilemma/
Dershowitz has transgressed against their “TRUTH”.
His reputation must be destroyed.
He himself must be squashed.
There are worse things than being ostracized for one’s political positions.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/07/25/black-trump-supporter-executed-in-broad-daylight-n2573120
And people wonder why there are “shy voters” not answering polls or posting signs in their yard.