Man Of Jackistan: Reason and Truth's Time and Place

This Black Conservative Didn't Own Anything But A Poor Argument Rant #21 ( Opinion ) April 1, 2020 This video just bugged me as soon as it began: https://www.facebook.com/thehodgetwins/videos/813591575818557/ Wow, the one Black Trump supporter in that state soo "owned" the liberal there... K, first off, the KKK may've been originally founded by somebody who was a Democrat. Ok. And? Lincoln was a Republican. The parties had a different alignment back then. By no means do the party divisions of the Reconstruction era some 150 years ago have much to do with where they stand today on most issues. As a rough generalization, the GOP came about as a party which supported urbanization and manufacturing (the legacy of Hamiltonian ideology), eventually giving way to representing big business. But before that, the Republicans--beginning with Lincoln--did things to encourage education, by establishing public colleges; fostering railroads so that it could connect t...

Radical Relationship Changes--Will They Ruin Society As We Know It? Rant #20 ( Opinion ) March 30, 2020 Homosexuality, birth control, children born out of wedlock, divorce, single mothers, casual sex, transsexuals--all sinful choices that will lead to a ruinous society, so say the right-wing, traditionalist, often religious voices. They've said this before. Radical shifts around sexuality and family structure rocked Western societies with the spirit of Enlightenment in the late 18th and early 19th century. It started in America and France (doesn't it always?) before it rocked the establishment conservatives of that time. What crazy, liberal, revolutionary new sexual and relationships started to become common then? Some people at that time began to practice the previously taboo act of marrying a person that they felt limerance towards. In other words, couples began to get married on the basis of infattuated feelings and love for one another. Which went against t...

The Fate of "Trumpism" Rant #18  ( Opinion ) March 23, 2020 The future of what reluctantly gets the label of 'Trumpism' has increasingly represented a topic of much speculation among those who spend their time thinking about politics. I have a few tentative thoughts on that, based mostly on sheer guesswork. Many have argued that after leaving office, the Republican Party will 'snap out' of its Trump-induced spell; politicians will write off their former support for him in one way or another to avoid association with that trainwreck. While that sounds like an appetizing outcome to me, that is very unlikely, in my opinion. The man has amassed too much popularity for him to just step off the stage and fade into the background. The vicious and aggressive tweeting he does will in and of itself continue to effect the public discourse and news cycles long after leaving office. If Trump loses in November, after a lengthy dispute about the integrity of the...

Black People and Conspiracy Theories, Plus Speculation About Biden's VP Pick and the Future of Trumpism Rant #17 ( Opinion ) Originally March 22, 2020; Posted March 23, 2020 Lately, I've thought a lot about something that confuses me. It seems that a lot of Black people  believe in conspiracy theories like New World Order, Illuminati, population control--a whole bunch of them.  Maybe that's a coincidence, and only overwhelmingly endemic among the Black people that I know. But it makes sense. As a White man, I can only speculate. On the one hand, I can totally see the roots of skepticism and distrust in the system: slavery, "separate but equal" segregation, Blacks being denied mortgages and credit through red-lining, the Tuskegee experiment, police profiling; there is a long history of this government and its elites quite literally conspiring to make life difficult for Blacks. What boggles my mind more than just a proclivity for belief in conspiracy theori...

"Good People On Both Sides?" Rant #7 ( Opinion ) Originally March 8, 2020 To whom it may concern, I get where you're coming from with this chart. It makes me cringe to say it like this, but "there are good people on both sides" who want the same endgame, that being a surviving and thriving America--their road maps just differ. At one point in time, I was a staunchly conservative person--a position which has since largely flipped. I was never a racist in my heart and soul when I felt that way, back in the Bush era. The vast majority of those who disagree with you have good intentions, just misaligned ideas on how things do and should work. Give those people the benefit of the doubt, until they say something that reveals any purely hateful sentiment (e.g. genuine racism). There do exist a large number of simply awful others, yet they make up the minority. Ignorance abounds in the rest. Remembering that is vital to maintaining the see...