Compassion has never been a Republican value. To them, empathy and kindness are weaknesses for "losers". Greed and power uber alles.
The great American tragedy is not enough voters have learned this basic truth. Without that foundation in reality their emotions are easily manipulated and Trump happens.
Last February, on the Joe Rogan podcast, Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
Another lesson from the ages - "“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” Thomas Paine 1776
Compassion means understanding that all, regardless of color, national origin, sexual preference, spiritual practice, or political alignment experience dissatisfaction and suffering. As well as recognizing we all are part of the vast web of interconnectedness that is, and that it exists throughout the cosmos. Therefore our individual actions ripple throughout our world and has effect on it.
So, the more sincere understanding, compassion, empathy, and kindness one shows all the better our world becomes.
Unfortunately there exists far too many who fail to understand these truths.
If something is shameful, why not point it out. IMO, Evangelicals supporting a man who serially cheats on all 3 wives, cheats contractors out of money he legally owes them, lies the way others breathe, and had a long and close relationship with a notorious child rapist and his female procurer — all that should be noted and pointed out as contrary to everything Evangelicals admire in a Christian.
-FJ, if one carefully presents facts (not opinions) for consumption, shows where one can gain an education for themselves, invites them in to discuss questions and misunderstandings and yet the person still doubles down on misinformation which causes harm, yeah, I'm here to ring the bell and call shame.
You are making an assumption though -FJ in that most humans who double down on their misinformed opinions (not facts) have no shame. The bell is intended as a wake up call for the person to do better, to educate themselves, and to hopefully learn to have the same compassion originally extended to themselves.
As a student of philosophy how is it that you don't know this? I ask because philosophy was how I learned to be how I am, so just wondering, you know, like one does.
Did Joe miss the part of the video that shows Trump while the narrator said "Compassion is weakness". He probably missed it when I said it, too. As I noted, there's no room for compassion at all in MAGA. Cruelty, lies, power, and hate are their drugs of choice.
Mercy comes from strength and power. It's empathy coupled with capacity.
Excerpt: Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (Act IV Scene iv)
What is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th’ event (A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward), I do not know Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,” Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do ’t.
"Pity IS a weakness" sounded better in the original German. Hitler certainly had the same notion.
Leave it to an authoritarian sociopath to claim the authority to redefine words. But I thank him for making my point.
"People often confuse 'pity' with compassion. Pity IS a weakness."
Merriam-Webster Pity: sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy
As he proves once again, empathy and compassion are alien concepts to authoritarians, sociopaths and narcissists.
I think what really bugs his ilk is the fact we understand them far better than they are capable of understanding us. Their inability to develop the noblest of human qualities is glaring. Self reflection and questioning their beliefs are of no use to them. They believe they already have all the answers.
AND Trump's word is their gospel. Can I get a "Sieg Heil"?
from Google AI: Nietzsche viewed pity as a harmful emotion that hinders personal growth and societal progress. He believed it fostered slave morality, perpetuated nihilism, and ultimately weakened individuals and humanity. Instead, he advocated for self-mastery and the overcoming of suffering, arguing that pity, while seemingly compassionate, actually encourages weakness and prevents individuals from facing life's challenges
Nietzsche - Pity makes suffering contagious" (A 572-73). Pity thus saps the power of the few strong and healthy types, destroying their confidence in man. It leads to an unhealthy preoccupation with suffering, rather than a joyful affirmation of life.
Nietzsche was a narcissistic asshole easily coopted by Nazis. No wonder -FJ/JC is so fond of him.
Nietzsche and the Nazis https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/summer-2008-saving-the-world/nietzsche-and-the-nazis The Nazis selectively used Nietzsche's concepts like the "Übermensch" and "will to power" to support their ideology of racial supremacy and authoritarianism.
Nazi thinkers picked selectively from Nietzsche’s vast and ambiguous corpus, but we must still reckon with the fact that many of the philosopher’s ideas did lend themselves to the Nazi cause. Liberal bourgeois existence—the very ideas of Christian morality, democracy, and rationality—filled Nietzsche with contempt. God is dead, he declared, and mankind must reinvent itself in a new image of greatness. The door was open.
The ubermensch emerges through struggle, not welfare benefits and pity-parties. Not affirmative action or DEI. What does not kill him makes him stronger. So what is 'compassion' again?
He's the product of his environment, not some Master Race genetic breeding project. Hitler's book..."My Struggle". WWI - soldier, son of a bureaucrat... yep. He definitely could have embraced some of Nietzsche's ideas like "will to power". And Nietzsche would have more likely seen Adolph as a "Last Man" that blinked a lot.
The change that is made, the linguistic change, is not merely a swapping out of terminology. It's not one word concept superseding another. It's a transformation in the very operation and the very structure of language. That is the form that legislating values takes in Practical terms. It's a revision, or in this case a full reversal, of the way that language operates. The very goals of language are altered. Language in the previous era was this act of mutual recognition and jubilation in oneself, and one's own goodness, and in the goodness of everyone in the group. The Pauline intervention reverses every one of those aspects.
...after all, the Christian G_d was dead. So why not go back to praising yourself as the Pre-Socratic Greeks had done? Why do we always have to be humble and praise a dead G_d?
Within our modern social etiquette it is far better to be self-deprecating, which most people would find disarming, or even charming, than it is to be self-aggrandizing, which most people find off-putting. It is impolite, it violates the rules to eulogize oneself in that way.
There's honesty in self-aggrandizement. Quite different from the "I am a victim" culture so prized by cultural Leftists today.
Such a reversal would immediately free of of the phony guilt-pride (aka kollektivschuld) so prevalent on the Cultural Left today as influenced by Eduard Said and the Post-Colonialists in the Western Academy. As Slavoj Zizek said, “Postcolonialism is the invention of rich Indian guys who wanted to make a good career in the West by playing on the guilt of white liberals”
I watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, laborers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box- yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed- and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault-or ever had been.
And with all that he won. Does that say much for him or does it say how horrible his opponents are. Six months later the opponents have yet to figure out we hate trump is not a winning platform. They thing hoping America failing will make them stronger but now that many of the things trump promised are happening. Fewer illegals crossing, low inflation, solid job market, wage increase higher than inflation so real wage growth. Now their strategy is to embarrass him instead of doing something for the country. Ask the poor if the want you to feel sorry for them or would they ave compassion and an opportunity.
You are WRONG, Anonymous @12:41, July 24. WRONG!!!!
The annual inflation rate accelerated for the second consecutive month to 2.7% in June 2025, the highest level since February, up from 2.4% in May and in line with expectations. Prices rose more for food (3% vs 2.9% in May), transportation services (3.4% vs 2.8%) and used cars and trucks (2.8% vs 1.8%).
Does compassion include marching the ignorant through the internet streets ringing a bell and repeating the words, "Shame... Shame... Shame..."?
Joe Con brings to mind the quote from Louis Armstrong on jazz: “If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”
Shame and compassion are alien concepts in fanatic MAGA authoritarians, narcissists, sociopaths, neo-Nazis, and racists.
We need to revive and encourage these human traits in the remaining duped masses who mindlessly support Trump. They are not all evil fascists gleefully celebrating MAGA cruelty.
There's a lot of dissatisfaction and suffering in all people within our culture. Much of the dissatisfaction is legitimate but could be alleviated if folks understand the interconnectedness of all things, the impermanence of all things, and the emptiness of all things.
To clarify emptiness is NOT nothingness.
None of the organized monotheistic traditions teach the inner technologies that lead to the understanding of dissatisfaction and suffering let alone cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering.
Perhaps in another millennium if we are still exist as a species of life.
While studying far eastern religions, I had a guru who would point out error. Sometimes he came across as harsh but I came to realize he was trying to help me, trying to make us better. It was done out of love and kindness. Compassion IS taught and learned. This hit home when my first wife was afflicted with dementia. To suggest that compassion is solely innate is a bit simple...the snarky "shame, shame, shame" can be dismissed for what it is...especially when someone is not shy about shaming others he disagrees with. ("marching the IGNORANT through the streets..." not too judgemental huh,) Shining light on falsehood is NOT hypocrisy. Marcus
I've been noodling about compassion/empathy/pity while laid low this week.
Lots of folks spouting about what 'the poor' want. Not sure how they know if they've not walked the walk. How do I know they don't know what they are talking about? Well, like all demographics there are as many different sorts of poors as there are grains of sand on the beach.
Compassion and empathy, at least for me, mean I see my fellow human, understand their journey and the challenges they encounter. Through empathy I feel their pain. Through compassion I want better for them.
Pity, while technically defined as compassion, has a layer of social meaning which for me has always been slightly condescending. Like one pities everything under one's shoes but one walks over them anyway. Compassion would be to take a different path altogether.
Personal story time. I was accosted the other night as I entered my apartment building. A couple tried to sneak in behind me, people I did not know. It has been told to me many times that if I let people in who do not have a key card or do not know that I can lose my housing. So I resisted and for my trouble I was accosted, manhandled, my life threatened.
Needless to say they got in. I went up to my apartment, didn't really start crying until I was in the elevator.
Last words the man said after he told me I was risking my life if I didn't get out of his way was to do what I needed to do. They are Black. I am paler than pale. Sure. Even though there were threats I could see with the eyes of compassion, specifically it looked like they were wearing all the clothes they owned. One doesn't threaten the life of an old lady if one isn't on the edge themselves. I saw them, the man and the lady, through empathy although I wouldn't have committed violence, not since I took DBT classes.
Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. Elijah Cummings. George Floyd.
I am a witness to their deaths even if it was on video. I carry the memories of their souls inside my heart. I couldn't call 911 because I wasn't about to have that couples death on my head. I did call the nonemergency number and hours later the police reported that they swept the building but didn't find any trespassers. Good.
Compassion/empathy/pity
I did what I had to do, alerted those I could of the events that night. Hopefully some good will come of it. What didn't happen was me looking at the couple with pity and calling out the big guns because I was inconvenienced.
As someone who is and has been poor for more than a minute all I've ever asked for was an equal shake, for those who made specific promises to WeThePeople back in the day to live up to them. Instead We've been treated to the Robber Baron idea of 'fair' aka I've got mine, FU even as they made bank by stepping on those they proclaim to pity. As for those who claim to speak for The Poor? Walk the walk before you claim to know because, at least to me, ignorance stands out like lint on dark velvet.
This was my favorite piece of truth, Gots... "Well, like all demographics there are as many different sorts of poors as there are grains of sand on the beach"
The same goes for other categories, including whites, blacks, and asians. And understanding between them is only possible on a human basis. For humaneness, IMO, is the "essential unit" for measurement, not race or culture. It's why I disagree with "Cultural Marxism" (aka Post-Colonial Studies) that posits an "essence/ essentialism" in the race and cultural categories that is other than the universal human essence.
My only question to you becomes... why then obfuscate that truth with "Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. Elijah Cummings. George Floyd." and create a totally new sandbag (beyond the couple)?
Compassion and Empathy for an individual or pair? Fine. I totally get it. But now a widened compassion for a group, when within that group are as many sorts of different than grains of sand? Sounds a bit more like your definition of pity, "slightly condescending". Sounds a bit "stereotypical" and therefore "expedient". I prefer "justice" to "Social Justice". I see social justice as the civil equivalent of a class action lawsuit, where the family of a person killed get's the same settlement as the person who suffered a mild scratch. I don't see THAT as 'equity".
ps - I don't see my idea as "We've been treated to the Robber Baron (RB) idea of 'fair' ". I see that RB position in the idea of "social justice"... a "class action" way to sue for justice that robs "the poor of category A" and gives that surplus to "the poor of category B", allowing their RB "representatives" to pick winners and losers.
Shaw hates this, but I love to quote Hesiod "Works and Days" on this.
[11] So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.
[25] Perses, lay up these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the court-house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's grain. When you have got plenty of that, you can raise disputes and strive to get another's goods. But you shall have no second chance to deal so again: nay, let us settle our dispute here with true judgement divided our inheritance, but you seized the greater share and carried it off, greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing lords who love to judge such a cause as this. Fools! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel [poor man's fare].
...or human universalism. Tell me Les, what is the "material essence" of white supremacy that differs from black supremacy? Melanin? It's what makes eye's brown (lack makes them blue). I must be a blue-eyed supremacist then. If my biology serves me, melanin simply blocks UV radiation and affects the bodies production of vitamin D. Am I hording the world's vitamin D supply?
...and what is the "material essence" of bigotry then? Isn't there no 'material' essence'? Isn't it an idea that describes no material quality?
So what's the material essence of humanity? It's everything, including the melanin (cuz we all need vitamin D). So why would I treat others differently based soley upon their ability to produce vitamin D? That wouldn't be rational.
Compassion has never been a Republican value. To them, empathy and kindness are weaknesses for "losers". Greed and power uber alles.
ReplyDeleteThe great American tragedy is not enough voters have learned this basic truth. Without that foundation in reality their emotions are easily manipulated and Trump happens.
Last February, on the Joe Rogan podcast, Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.
Delete“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
Empathy, he said, has been “weaponized.
Another lesson from the ages -
ReplyDelete"“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” Thomas Paine 1776
Does compassion include marching the ignorant through the internet streets ringing a bell and repeating the words, "Shame... Shame... Shame..."
ReplyDeleteCompassion means understanding that all, regardless of color, national origin, sexual preference, spiritual practice, or political alignment experience dissatisfaction and suffering. As well as recognizing we all are part of the vast web of interconnectedness that is, and that it exists throughout the cosmos. Therefore our individual actions ripple throughout our world and has effect on it.
DeleteSo, the more sincere understanding, compassion, empathy, and kindness one shows all the better our world becomes.
Unfortunately there exists far too many who fail to understand these truths.
If something is shameful, why not point it out. IMO, Evangelicals supporting a man who serially cheats on all 3 wives, cheats contractors out of money he legally owes them, lies the way others breathe, and had a long and close relationship with a notorious child rapist and his female procurer — all that should be noted and pointed out as contrary to everything Evangelicals admire in a Christian.
Delete-FJ, if one carefully presents facts (not opinions) for consumption, shows where one can gain an education for themselves, invites them in to discuss questions and misunderstandings and yet the person still doubles down on misinformation which causes harm, yeah, I'm here to ring the bell and call shame.
DeleteYou are making an assumption though -FJ in that most humans who double down on their misinformed opinions (not facts) have no shame. The bell is intended as a wake up call for the person to do better, to educate themselves, and to hopefully learn to have the same compassion originally extended to themselves.
As a student of philosophy how is it that you don't know this? I ask because philosophy was how I learned to be how I am, so just wondering, you know, like one does.
Nah... compassion is like punk rock! You don't have to understand it. You just have to do what's right! And shame's got no part of that!
Delete:)
DeleteDid Joe miss the part of the video that shows Trump while the narrator said "Compassion is weakness".
DeleteHe probably missed it when I said it, too.
As I noted, there's no room for compassion at all in MAGA. Cruelty, lies, power, and hate are their drugs of choice.
People often confuse 'pity' with compassion. Pity IS a weakness.
DeletePity implies guilt. And self-pity is a vice, not a virtue.
DeleteMercy comes from strength and power. It's empathy coupled with capacity.
DeleteExcerpt: Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (Act IV Scene iv)
What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event
(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part
wisdom
And ever three parts coward), I do not know
Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do ’t.
...and the fool that is pity'd is ALWAYS ungrateful and resentful! For the pity-er lacks real power.
Delete"Pity IS a weakness" sounded better in the original German. Hitler certainly had the same notion.
DeleteLeave it to an authoritarian sociopath to claim the authority to redefine words. But I thank him for making my point.
"People often confuse 'pity' with compassion. Pity IS a weakness."
Merriam-Webster
Pity: sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy
As he proves once again, empathy and compassion are alien concepts to authoritarians, sociopaths and narcissists.
I think what really bugs his ilk is the fact we understand them far better than they are capable of understanding us. Their inability to develop the noblest of human qualities is glaring. Self reflection and questioning their beliefs are of no use to them. They believe they already have all the answers.
AND Trump's word is their gospel. Can I get a "Sieg Heil"?
from Google AI: Nietzsche viewed pity as a harmful emotion that hinders personal growth and societal progress. He believed it fostered slave morality, perpetuated nihilism, and ultimately weakened individuals and humanity. Instead, he advocated for self-mastery and the overcoming of suffering, arguing that pity, while seemingly compassionate, actually encourages weakness and prevents individuals from facing life's challenges
DeleteNietzsche - Pity makes suffering contagious" (A 572-73). Pity thus saps the power of the few strong and healthy types, destroying their confidence in man. It leads to an unhealthy preoccupation with suffering, rather than a joyful affirmation of life.
DeleteNietzsche was a narcissistic asshole easily coopted by Nazis. No wonder -FJ/JC is so fond of him.
DeleteNietzsche and the Nazis
https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/summer-2008-saving-the-world/nietzsche-and-the-nazis
The Nazis selectively used Nietzsche's concepts like the "Übermensch" and "will to power" to support their ideology of racial supremacy and authoritarianism.
Nazi thinkers picked selectively from Nietzsche’s vast and ambiguous corpus, but we must still reckon with the fact that many of the philosopher’s ideas did lend themselves to the Nazi cause. Liberal bourgeois existence—the very ideas of Christian morality, democracy, and rationality—filled Nietzsche with contempt. God is dead, he declared, and mankind must reinvent itself in a new image of greatness. The door was open.
The ubermensch emerges through struggle, not welfare benefits and pity-parties. Not affirmative action or DEI. What does not kill him makes him stronger. So what is 'compassion' again?
DeleteHe's the product of his environment, not some Master Race genetic breeding project. Hitler's book..."My Struggle". WWI - soldier, son of a bureaucrat... yep. He definitely could have embraced some of Nietzsche's ideas like "will to power". And Nietzsche would have more likely seen Adolph as a "Last Man" that blinked a lot.
DeleteNietzsche's project was to reverse the "Pauline Intervention"...
Deletefrom a video describing a Peter Sloterdijk article:
The change that is made, the linguistic change, is not merely a swapping out of terminology. It's not one word concept superseding another. It's a transformation in the very operation and the very structure of language. That is the form that legislating values takes in Practical terms. It's a revision, or in this case a full reversal, of the way that language operates. The very goals of language are altered. Language in the previous era was this act of mutual recognition and jubilation in oneself, and one's own goodness, and in the goodness of everyone in the group. The Pauline intervention reverses every one of those aspects.
...after all, the Christian G_d was dead. So why not go back to praising yourself as the Pre-Socratic Greeks had done? Why do we always have to be humble and praise a dead G_d?
from the Sloterdijk video:
DeleteWithin our modern social etiquette it is far better to be self-deprecating, which most people would find disarming, or even charming, than it is to be self-aggrandizing, which most people find off-putting. It is impolite, it violates the rules to eulogize oneself in that way.
There's honesty in self-aggrandizement. Quite different from the "I am a victim" culture so prized by cultural Leftists today.
Such a reversal would immediately free of of the phony guilt-pride (aka kollektivschuld) so prevalent on the Cultural Left today as influenced by Eduard Said and the Post-Colonialists in the Western Academy. As Slavoj Zizek said, “Postcolonialism is the invention of rich Indian guys who wanted to make a good career in the West by playing on the guilt of white liberals”
DeleteThere's honesty in self-aggrandizement. Quite different from the "I am a victim" culture so prized by cultural Leftists today.
DeleteThose are two of Trump's favorite topics propelled by constant streams of lies.
I am the only one!
The fact is, no President has ever done what I have done for Evangelicals, or religion itself!
No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.
— Donald J. Trump
No president has ever cried and lied about losing a “rigged election”.
No president has ever been a convicted felon.
No president has been indicted for multiple felonies then granted immunity by his toadies on the corrupt Supreme Court.
No President has ever asked for, never mind been given, a $400 million gift from a foreign nation.
No president has ever been so obsessed with threatening and punishing people he hates.
And never before has a criminal president written a birthday note to pedophile Jeffry Epstein saying, "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey".
So many reasons for the Paulines to vote for him... poor Donald! Pity him!
DeleteFrom “Southern Man” by Greg Iles:
ReplyDeleteI watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, laborers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box- yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed- and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault-or ever had been.
And with all that he won. Does that say much for him or does it say how horrible his opponents are. Six months later the opponents have yet to figure out we hate trump is not a winning platform. They thing hoping America failing will make them stronger but now that many of the things trump promised are happening. Fewer illegals crossing, low inflation, solid job market, wage increase higher than inflation so real wage growth.
DeleteNow their strategy is to embarrass him instead of doing something for the country.
Ask the poor if the want you to feel sorry for them or would they ave compassion and
an opportunity.
You are WRONG, Anonymous @12:41, July 24. WRONG!!!!
DeleteThe annual inflation rate accelerated for the second consecutive month to 2.7% in June 2025, the highest level since February, up from 2.4% in May and in line with expectations. Prices rose more for food (3% vs 2.9% in May), transportation services (3.4% vs 2.8%) and used cars and trucks (2.8% vs 1.8%).
Does compassion include marching the ignorant through the internet streets ringing a bell and repeating the words, "Shame... Shame... Shame..."?
ReplyDeleteJoe Con brings to mind the quote from Louis Armstrong on jazz:
“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”
Shame and compassion are alien concepts in fanatic MAGA authoritarians, narcissists, sociopaths, neo-Nazis, and racists.
We need to revive and encourage these human traits in the remaining duped masses who mindlessly support Trump. They are not all evil fascists gleefully celebrating MAGA cruelty.
There's a lot of dissatisfaction and suffering in all people within our culture. Much of the dissatisfaction is legitimate but could be alleviated if folks understand the interconnectedness of all things, the impermanence of all things, and the emptiness of all things.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify emptiness is NOT nothingness.
None of the organized monotheistic traditions teach the inner technologies that lead to the understanding of dissatisfaction and suffering let alone cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering.
Perhaps in another millennium if we are still exist as a species of life.
While studying far eastern religions, I had a guru who would point out error. Sometimes he came across as harsh but I came to realize he was trying to help me, trying to make us better. It was done out of love and kindness. Compassion IS taught and learned. This hit home when my first wife was afflicted with dementia. To suggest that compassion is solely innate is a bit simple...the snarky "shame, shame, shame" can be dismissed for what it is...especially when someone is not shy about shaming others he disagrees with. ("marching the IGNORANT through the streets..." not too judgemental huh,) Shining light on falsehood is NOT hypocrisy. Marcus
ReplyDeleteMay the cookie crumble -
ReplyDeletehttps://leavingmaga.org/they-left-maga/
I've been noodling about compassion/empathy/pity while laid low this week.
ReplyDeleteLots of folks spouting about what 'the poor' want. Not sure how they know if they've not walked the walk. How do I know they don't know what they are talking about? Well, like all demographics there are as many different sorts of poors as there are grains of sand on the beach.
Compassion and empathy, at least for me, mean I see my fellow human, understand their journey and the challenges they encounter. Through empathy I feel their pain. Through compassion I want better for them.
Pity, while technically defined as compassion, has a layer of social meaning which for me has always been slightly condescending. Like one pities everything under one's shoes but one walks over them anyway. Compassion would be to take a different path altogether.
Personal story time. I was accosted the other night as I entered my apartment building. A couple tried to sneak in behind me, people I did not know. It has been told to me many times that if I let people in who do not have a key card or do not know that I can lose my housing. So I resisted and for my trouble I was accosted, manhandled, my life threatened.
Needless to say they got in. I went up to my apartment, didn't really start crying until I was in the elevator.
Last words the man said after he told me I was risking my life if I didn't get out of his way was to do what I needed to do. They are Black. I am paler than pale. Sure. Even though there were threats I could see with the eyes of compassion, specifically it looked like they were wearing all the clothes they owned. One doesn't threaten the life of an old lady if one isn't on the edge themselves. I saw them, the man and the lady, through empathy although I wouldn't have committed violence, not since I took DBT classes.
Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. Elijah Cummings. George Floyd.
I am a witness to their deaths even if it was on video. I carry the memories of their souls inside my heart. I couldn't call 911 because I wasn't about to have that couples death on my head. I did call the nonemergency number and hours later the police reported that they swept the building but didn't find any trespassers. Good.
Compassion/empathy/pity
I did what I had to do, alerted those I could of the events that night. Hopefully some good will come of it. What didn't happen was me looking at the couple with pity and calling out the big guns because I was inconvenienced.
As someone who is and has been poor for more than a minute all I've ever asked for was an equal shake, for those who made specific promises to WeThePeople back in the day to live up to them. Instead We've been treated to the Robber Baron idea of 'fair' aka I've got mine, FU even as they made bank by stepping on those they proclaim to pity. As for those who claim to speak for The Poor? Walk the walk before you claim to know because, at least to me, ignorance stands out like lint on dark velvet.
This was my favorite piece of truth, Gots... "Well, like all demographics there are as many different sorts of poors as there are grains of sand on the beach"
DeleteThe same goes for other categories, including whites, blacks, and asians. And understanding between them is only possible on a human basis. For humaneness, IMO, is the "essential unit" for measurement, not race or culture. It's why I disagree with "Cultural Marxism" (aka Post-Colonial Studies) that posits an "essence/ essentialism" in the race and cultural categories that is other than the universal human essence.
My only question to you becomes... why then obfuscate that truth with "Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. Elijah Cummings. George Floyd." and create a totally new sandbag (beyond the couple)?
Compassion and Empathy for an individual or pair? Fine. I totally get it. But now a widened compassion for a group, when within that group are as many sorts of different than grains of sand? Sounds a bit more like your definition of pity, "slightly condescending". Sounds a bit "stereotypical" and therefore "expedient". I prefer "justice" to "Social Justice". I see social justice as the civil equivalent of a class action lawsuit, where the family of a person killed get's the same settlement as the person who suffered a mild scratch. I don't see THAT as 'equity".
ps - I don't see my idea as "We've been treated to the Robber Baron (RB) idea of 'fair' ". I see that RB position in the idea of "social justice"... a "class action" way to sue for justice that robs "the poor of category A" and gives that surplus to "the poor of category B", allowing their RB "representatives" to pick winners and losers.
DeleteShaw hates this, but I love to quote Hesiod "Works and Days" on this.
[11] So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.
[25] Perses, lay up these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the court-house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's grain. When you have got plenty of that, you can raise disputes and strive to get another's goods. But you shall have no second chance to deal so again: nay, let us settle our dispute here with true judgement divided our inheritance, but you seized the greater share and carried it off, greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing lords who love to judge such a cause as this. Fools! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel [poor man's fare].
A fancy way of sugar coating white supremacy, racism, and bigotry.
ReplyDelete...or human universalism. Tell me Les, what is the "material essence" of white supremacy that differs from black supremacy? Melanin? It's what makes eye's brown (lack makes them blue). I must be a blue-eyed supremacist then. If my biology serves me, melanin simply blocks UV radiation and affects the bodies production of vitamin D. Am I hording the world's vitamin D supply?
Delete...and what is the "material essence" of bigotry then? Isn't there no 'material' essence'? Isn't it an idea that describes no material quality?
So what's the material essence of humanity? It's everything, including the melanin (cuz we all need vitamin D). So why would I treat others differently based soley upon their ability to produce vitamin D? That wouldn't be rational.
As I said, I no longer respond to your comments. The floating debris cluttering your head is of zero interest.
Delete^^Response to comment^^. Your perpetual hypocrisy shines through once again.
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