Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

You realize that countries with modern welfare states mostly have, right?

Research a bit about the yellow vests in France and unemployment in Spain and wage stagnation in England. I'll spot you Germany and Sweden, but as we've discussed ad nauseum, those are unique countries the policies used within which do not work in a nation as large and varied in population as this one.

They will be a lost less irked if they have the things they need. It's not jealousy - this country loves rich people.

I don't think that's the case anymore. I see more pitchforks than adulation.

UBI will work only if it's enough to allow people to afford food, shelter and health care. And yet if it is ever adopted, it's unlikely to be and many UBI advocates, including you, like it expressly because it can be used as an excuse to end direct provision of those things.

It's the reverse. UBI is direct money. It's more money, as well. The savings we acquire from elimination of administrative bloat become excess dollars directly to those who need them. My only concern with it would be a possible inflationary impact that blunts the positive goals of the plan.

I'm saying that you lie to yourself about your views on race (and gender). You dismiss other people's concerns about those issues, because you fundamentally don't care. They don't affect you, so you don't care. This is why "wokeness" bothers you. It's people asking you to care about things that don't matter to you. You view that as an imposition. You think not caring about those issues in neutral when it is not.

There's some truth to this, but you've taken it a bit too far. I do care because, as I've said, personal freedom is a paramount concern to me. So any policy that preys upon certain people, based on race, class, or any other illegitimate basis, is anathema and must be addressed.

This involves ending the drug war, ending our ridiculous obsession with over-jailing, and making "tough on crime" into a badge of shame. Larry Krasner, Philly's DA, is a good example of how to start fixing those things.

Where I get off the train is when you demand that I agree race is the most important issue at the heart of all of these problems. It isn't. It is one of many.

I also do not have a duty to empathize with anyone. You and most Woke folks seem to think this is incumbent upon us all -- that we must study the plight of others and put ourselves in their shoes. Well, where would that end? If we must empathize with one group, it would be unfairly discriminatory to not empathize with others. Ultimately, you either empathize with everyone or you empathize with none.

Do you have a 400 year lifespan in which this could be done?

I also do not agree with the lack of rational thinking in woke scholarship. Many of its underpinnings are logically weak. This is proven by its attempts to censor critiques of it. It is also proven by the attempts of its purveyors to argue (you can look this up) that rationality and logic are oppressive constructs, and that one's "own truth" or "narrative history" is more important. That is not thinking. That is emoting. That is what one sees in a classic moral panic. And moral panics are not something to be fed.

It do not wish to ignore any issue. I wish to have adult conversations about them. This would include the very resonant point that DiAngelo made about whites being reluctant to talk about race. I found that enlightening. This would not include the suggestion that this nation's real founding was 1619 (a claim the editor of that project originally made but subsequently had to walk back when she was mocked by scholars for taking such an unsupportable position). It does not include the Manichean ramblings of Kendri that seek to simplify a complex issue.

If you foist an idea upon a person (me or anyone else) you should expect to have it tested by use of logic and reasoning. If your ideas can only hold public attention by their proponents using them as cudgels, and seeking to censor or avoid all critique, people will view them as suspect. If wokeness wishes to be treated seriously, it should seek to engage seriously. That necessarily means it must invite and accept good faith critique. Not critique like Taibbi's, which I agree with you was offered in bad faith, but critique of thinkers acting in good faith, interested in flashing out the facts, as opposed to emoting grievance or denial of basis for grievance. And there are many such serious thinkers out there who would like to engage the subject but are afraid of being destroyed for having dared stood athwart the current moral panic around race issues.