Last Fall, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released a poll surveying Americans’ feelings about their political opponents.

According to the poll, 80 percent of Biden v**ers and 84 percent of Trump v**ers believed that elected officials of the opposite party present a “clear and present danger to American democracy”; 78 percent of Biden v**ers believed that the Republican Party wanted to eliminate the influence of “progressive values” in American life, while 87 percent of Trump v**ers believed that the Democrats wanted to eliminate “traditional values”; 75 percent of Biden v**ers and 78 percent of Trump v**ers believed that the opposing party’s supporters were a “clear and present danger to the American way of life.”

These statistics are, of course, alarming. The popular theory these days is that willingness by both Democrats and Republicans to abandon democratic norms — e******n result acceptance, checks and balances, due process of law and all the rest — is purely the result of reactionary dislike.

If you fear your neighbor is going to abuse the process, you’d be a fool to stick to the process — and the more we dislike our neighbors, the more we fear that they’ll take advantage of us.

But is this theory correct? Is polarization actually the reason for increased willingness to ditch democratic norms?

According to a new study from political scientists David Broockman of the University of California, Berkeley, Joshua Kalla of Yale and Sean Westwood of Dartmouth, the answer is no. They write, “We find no evidence that an exogenous decrease in affective polarization causes a downstream decrease in opposition to democratic norms.”

In other words, Americans hating each other less does nearly nothing to reduce Americans’ willingness to override democratic norms in order to achieve their goals.

If polarization isn’t driving the undermining of norms, what is? Perhaps the answer is that the reverse is actually occurring: As we’ve abandoned democratic norms, we’ve come to despise our neighbors.

This makes a certain amount of logical and correlative sense. The Founding Fathers had a particular vision of human nature, believing human beings were capable of great things but were also rife with sin and corruption.

Given the variability of human nature, epistemic humility — a recognition that human beings are often wrong — would be necessary. And that epistemic humility would t***slate into a desire for liberty. High-level government, in this view, would be hamstrung from cramming down a unitary form of virtue on a pluralistic society, at least; subsidiarity, in which local communities governed themselves while the federal government maintained certain basic norms, would be the proper approach.

The federal government would be pitted against itself through checks and balances, creating obstacles that would necessitate broad agreement about the use of power to legitimize such use of power.

Today, however, most Americans seem to instinctively recoil from this vision of human nature and its concomitant governmental approach. Instead, human beings are held to be entirely malleable creatures of circumstance who can be molded by a better system into their highest selves.

Grant the “right person” with the “right principles” unending power, democratically or not, and watch virtue spring forth. The government isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.

The problem with this, of course, is that we all have different ideas of the right person and the right principles. And once we have agreed that the government ought to have the ability to fix all our problems, anyone who stands in our way becomes a heretic.

By abandoning the Founders’ accurate characterization of human nature and the governmental structure embodied in the Constitution, we set ourselves up for polarization and rage.

Perhaps the first step toward fixing our newfound dislike for democratic norms is to reinculcate not a love of neighbor, but an understanding of human flaws, human foibles and the limits of human understanding.

Perhaps we ought to start with some epistemic humility. From that source, perhaps a renewal of democratic norms and an embrace of our neighbors might spring.

The fact remains that as much a part of what the right believes constitutes a worthy supreme court judge, their religious beliefs should be absolutely irrelevant...except that they are not to the kind of religious oriented bias we have on it now.

I will go on the record about how I feel about the potential nominees being from a tightly mandated demographic group such as we are seeing now...a black woman.

To me this is unfair to any number of supremely qualified judges that have earned recognition and consideration. If a black woman can be sifted up from a group of ten or twenty qualified judges and rise above on equal footing I am all for it, but this notion of it having to be a black woman doesn't sit well with me.

Biden Nuclear Hire Is D**g Q***n Who Talks About 'Sex with Animals' and Has Called NIH Chief 'Daddy F***i'

The Biden administration continues to make bizarre recruiting decisions for top government jobs on the basis of toxic identity politics.

A recent addition to President Joe Biden’s motley crew of dubious hires is d**g q***n Sam Brinton, who was tapped last month as the “Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy.”

Rather than touting his qualifications for the job, Brinton — who lists his pronouns as “they”/”them” — bragged on Twitter about his unique status as the “first g****r fluid person in federal government leadership.”

In a biographical statement on an L**T website provided by Brinton, he boasted about having “worn his stilettos to Congress to advise legislators about nuclear policy and to the White House, where he advised President Obama and Michelle Obama on L**T issues.”

The bio continued: “He shows young men and women everywhere he goes that they can be who they are and gives them courage. Once, while he was walking around Disney World in 6 inch stilettos with his boyfriend, a young gay boy saw Sam with his boyfriend and started crying. He told his mother, ‘It’s true, Mom. WE can be our own princess here.'”

Brinton is an active member of the Washington, D.C., chapter of a d**g q***n society known as the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” the National Pulse reported Thursday.

The d**g q***n has referred to White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony F***i as “Daddy F***i” and even called him a “saint.”

There are also photos on social media where he displays his fondness for “pup play,” a sexual role-playing game.

In a 2016 interview with the L**T-focused Metro Weekly magazine, Brinton discussed his fetish in detail.

“Pup and I have what I feel is one of the most ideally perfect connections between our personal and kink life,” he said. “Both of us have other partners, so we come into this space, and then we come out of it, knowing the boundaries of where your kink and non-kink relationships begin and end.”

Brinton acknowledged that others didn’t understand his activities.

“One of the hardest things about being a handler is that I’ve honestly had people ask, ‘Wait, you have sex with animals?'” he told Metro Weekly. “They believe it’s abusive, that it’s taking advantage of someone who may not be acting up to a level of human responsibility. …

“The other misperception is that I have some really messed up background, like, did I have some horrible childhood trauma that made me like to have sex with animals.”

This is who’s helping Biden run the country right now, which is in shambles amid record inflation, soaring crime, race wars and ongoing border invasions.

People can do wh**ever they want in the privacy of their homes (provided it’s not illegal or hurting anyone), but the fact that the kinky sex life of a high-level Department of Energy executive overshadows his qualifications is truly alarming. This is how empires crash and burn.

Under Biden, we are witnessing the real-time destruction of America — economically, culturally and socially. And we’re only in Year 2 of his reign.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-nuclear-hire-d**g-queen-talks-sex-animals-called-nih-chief-daddy-f***i/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=CTBreaking&utm_campaign=breaking&utm_content=conservative-tribune&ats_es=489ee1ba734a5f1f055e6be09233f635

Why does Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party h**e this country and insist on embarrassing American citizens???????
Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition.... sounds like s**t to me.

I mostly agree, but one must be careful, VERY careful, about using the definition of a word as a means of concluding what the political party by the same name wants and stands for.
In addition, I disagree with your statement that
'In my opinion, "progressives" and "Progressives" are more willing, and more likely, to go to the root of a problem, than are "conservatives" and "Conservatives"'.
That has absolutely NOT been my observations over the decades. The political Progressives rarely offer anything to solve a problem. They prefer to put lipstick on the pig. Conservatives want to actually understand and SOLVE the problem. The Progressives do not like that, usually because they deem it 'mean' or 'unfair'. A current example. T***sexuals and bathrooms. A biomale girl might feel understandably uncomfortable using a guys bathroom/dressing room, and visa versa. Conservative solution? Put in one person only bathrooms, or install extra bathrooms labeled 'other', among other possible actual solutions. But the left thinks that is 'unfair' to the T***s. He/she should be able to use the bathroom of his/her g****r choice. Their solution? Let the t***s pick and choose which ever bathroom they want to use. Result: d*****ts using the excuse to photograph, molest, and even rape little girls in restrooms/changing rooms. The Progressives have caused untold thousands of individual tragedies in the name of 'fairness' and 'equity', through this and other Progressive 'solutions' that did not do a thing except apply lipstick. Does the rights of a t***s to use any bathroom they want override a woman or child's right to safety? I know what I think about that.

They don't want us to know what happen in 1781 and what didn't happen that should have.

They don't want us to read the 1783 Definitive Treaty of Peace aka Treaty of Paris because that tells us who was the victor.

Not to know they never created a document for We the People in 1787 defining what form of a Republic we were to have. Hence the breach of Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution

Not to know of the 1789 First Act of Congress made law just before Washington was sworn into office as POTUS on a Masonic Bible he would not take an oath to "this Constitution for the United States of America"

We are not to explore what Washington did siding with the King again by creating the "First Bank of the United States" in 1791 as a foreign entity with the King's Private English Bank with foreign stockholders.

This is not my account - it is the Founders and their English and Masonic buddies.

as far as g****l w*****g, thay don't want us to explore what Greenland once was and what Iceland once was. And maybe more important not to explore what happen in Alaska and the Antarctica plus Russia. the permafrost is melting because the animal and plant life trapped in it are decomposing from warming of the ground beneath the permafrost. This is emitting thousands of tons of carbon and methane gases daily. The waters are not rising the ground is sinking INTO THE CAVITIES OF DECOMPOSING MATERIALS. DON'T LOOK AT THIS, LOOK OVER THERE AS DIRECTED. Don't consider chemtrails as weather modification program could be an aid to warm of the planet and to pinpoint weather changes.

Excuse my rant, i don't expect any positive response.

Robert, I must say that I enjoy your posts. Unlike many on OPP, they are logical and well researched and nicely presented. Congratulations, and thank you. Of course, that is not to say that I necessarily agree with you. But I will throw out one very general thought. Our society has been VERY successful over the last hundred and twenty years. Sure, a lot of ups and downs, and some very bad things too, but also a lot of INCREDIBLE accomplishments, including some amazing social advances.
But I, like most conservatives, are interested in what works best. Do we need change? Sure. But the proposal should make sense, it should be provable beyond a reasonable doubt, and it should be tested using alpha, beta, and probably gamma trials before full implementation. Societal change should NEVER be done lightly, quickly, or because it is "the only way to prevent a crisis". That is the progressive way. And there are too many lives and livelihoods in the balance.
So new ideas should be carefully analyzed before kicking our current bucket over.

Facebook, other tech giants censor inconvenient facts about c*****e c****e
By Bjorn Lomborg
February 7, 2022 4:14pm Updated

The online world has become a free-speech battleground. Tech platforms have sided with illiberal regimes to censor posts while f**gging “misinformation” in free countries. We all share a legitimate interest in avoiding outright falsehoods, but much censorship today — whether at dictators’ behest or in the name of eradicating “misinformation” — ultimately is about restricting discourse to a narrow corridor of the politically acceptable. That makes it harder to identify smart policies.

This is especially troubling for important issues like c*****e c****e. G****l w*****g is real and man-made. However, social-media giants — Facebook in particular — are going far beyond censoring people for denying its existence.

Facebook monitors what people say about c*****e c****e in 100 countries and uses third-party fact-checkers to identify misinformation for f**gging or removal.

Here’s something Facebook’s censors deemed unacceptable: I wrote a comment using the latest peer-reviewed research from the medical journal Lancet on deaths caused by heat and cold. The paper is the first to show that globally, every year, half a million people die because temperatures are too hot, while 4.5 million people die because it is too cold. In other words, nine times more people die from the cold than the heat.

I ran afoul of Facebook’s fact-checkers for noting that over the past 20 years, our higher temperatures, which we would expect from g****l w*****g, have increased heat deaths and decreased cold deaths. I calculated the net effect in terms of saved lives every year and was f**gged for “misinformation.”

To avoid social-media censorship of this article, I bizarrely have to cite one of the study’s lead authors instead of putting it in my own words. As that author stated, from 2000 to 2019, “Earth’s temperature increased by 0.26 degree Centigrade per decade. This reduced cold-related deaths by 0.51% and increased heat-related mortality by 0.21%, which led to a reduction in net mortality due to hot and cold temperatures.”

It’s worth considering why this is deemed “misinformation.” Clearly, it cannot be c*****e-c****e denial to highlight the effects of increasing temperatures. It rather seems that the facts are muzzled because they don’t fit into activist-approved talking points, which frame c*****e c****e as an overwhelming, always-worsening crisis everywhere, with no exceptions.

By labeling this evidence “misinformation,” Facebook suppresses crucial facts that could help us identify the best policies to reduce future heat and cold deaths while reining in g****l w*****g effectively — which surely should be the goal.

Another example of censorship occurred when I wrote on electric vehicles. A recent Nature article reaffirms that electric cars emit less CO₂ than conventional cars. Unfortunately, large batteries also make electric cars much heavier, and heavier cars are more likely to k**l the occupants of other vehicles in traffic accidents. The Nature piece weighed the benefit from less CO₂ against more accident deaths. It found that the climate benefits outweigh accident costs in countries with very g***n e****y, like Norway and Canada, but not in less-green countries like America, Germany, Japan, China and India.

This is an interesting study. Facebook f**gged me when I noted the authors had curiously measured CO₂ benefits at $150 per ton — higher than almost any country prices any (let alone all) emissions. The current average global price is $2 per ton. At any realistic price — or even at the still-sky-high price of $100 — the study would show traffic-death costs outweigh climate benefits everywhere.

How this point is “misinformation” is extremely difficult to fathom. The inevitable conclusion is that it did not fit an acceptable narrative to reveal that even if the entire world had 100% clean energy, electric-vehicle climate benefits would be outweighed by additional traffic deaths.

Disturbingly, Facebook’s vice president has admitted fact-checkers are not necessarily objective, and the company even acknowledged recently in a lawsuit that fact-check tags are “opinion,” not factual assertions. That certainly fits my own experience.

Yet some activists want even more censorship. They’ve praised researchers for inventing an artificial-intelligence tool allowing social-media platforms to delete c*****e-c****e “misinformation” in real time. Absurdly, the AI tool has such a narrow view of acceptability that many mainstream scientific findings would be deleted.

Tellingly, all this censorship is focused on one side: Activists can claim c*****e-c****e effects are far worse than they really are, with little or no suppression. In other words: Inconvenient facts get blocked, but convenient mist***hs and exaggerations thrive.

This is disturbing above all because it makes identifying good policies harder. Bank of America has found current global action to achieve net-zero emissions will cost the world $5 trillion every year for the next three decades — more than all nations and households spend on education every year.

Consistently silencing inconvenient t***hs leaves us all less well-informed and risks us walking blindly into spending a fortune without sorely needed perspective.