Ben Shapiro Talks About Mitt Romney's Run as Defining Moment

[Mordecai]

I've been trying to uncover the meaning of Romney's run for President and what it should symbolize to us as members of the Church and feel I've come up with a good way for members to interpret it. This interpretation was partly inspired by Ben Shapiro's comment the other day on Mitt, something I had just recently decided was the case myself. Shapiro argued that when the left "castigated" Mitt as a "racist, bigoted homophobe," a man who was actually the "mildest, most milquetoast man in all of history," they broke politics in America, and civility was destroyed.

However, as we know, that was a process, with Mitt as the final straw. Maybe the third in a line of candidates that represented offerings of peace, perhaps parallel to the standards of peace discussed in the D&C: "And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them. And if any nation, tongue, or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue; and if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord..." (D&C 98, emphasis added). First we had GWB, who never defended himself against slander. McCain, similarly. Romney, the most "mild, milquetoast" candidate represented a final standard of peace. All for naught, as the radicals continued to ruin everyone that would not join their church. I suspect their rhetoric will continue to lead to more violence, especially their mantras that parallel communist and fascist rhetoric.

Jesus seemed to be in a type of war with the Pharisees. He constantly pushed to undermine their authority, by publicly labeling them as "hypocrites" and "vipers," as well as, more importantly, performing miracles while brazenly breaking their oppressive rules. Maybe we ought to look for a bolder candidate next time and stop thinking we can smooth things over by being nice. It won't work.
 

 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Mordecai
Added a link to Shapiro's comments.

[Gray]

6 hours ago, Mordecai said:

However, as we know, that was a process, with Mitt as the final straw. Maybe the third in a line of candidates that represented offerings of peace, perhaps parallel to the standards of peace discussed in the D&C: "And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them. And if any nation, tongue, or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue; and if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord..." (D&C 98, emphasis added). First we had GWB, who never defended himself against slander. McCain, similarly. Romney, the most "mild, milquetoast" candidate represented a final standard of peace. All for naught, as the radicals continued to ruin everyone that would not join their church. I suspect their rhetoric will continue to lead to more violence, especially their mantras that parallel communist and fascist rhetoric.
 

The right wing has embraced extremist, violent rhetoric, and what has it lead to? Dozens of domestic terror incidents. The right wing has an escalating violence problem that's only gotten worse since they alienated the gentlemen conservatives and embraced chekist Trumpism.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

The right wing has embraced extremist, violent rhetoric, and what has it lead to? Dozens of domestic terror incidents. The right wing has an escalating violence problem that's only gotten worse since they alienated the gentlemen conservatives and embraced chekist Trumpism.

Where does that leave Antifa, BAMN, and the like, with their deliberate racist violence?

[oremites]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Dozens of domestic terror incidents. The right wing has an escalating violence problem

CFR on that. 

I don't think there are dozens of domestic terror incidents or an escalating right-wing violence problem.  But I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you can point me to information on this.

[Calm]

If we are looking for a defining moment of gone too far politics, I think the birther movement was much worse.  Questioning the right of a citizen to even run for office.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Calm

[Gray]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Where does that leave Antifa, BAMN, and the like, with their deliberate racist violence?

Antifa is also chekist, but I'm not sure how a few knuckleheads on the left giving out bloody noses at protests compares to the rampant murder sprees of right wing terrorists.

[Gray]

6 hours ago, oremites said:

CFR on that. 

I don't think there are dozens of domestic terror incidents or an escalating right-wing violence problem.  But I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you can point me to information on this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-the-united-states-right-wing-violence-is-on-the-rise/2018/11/25/61f7f24a-deb4-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e88934b41973

 

Quote

Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on global terrorism. While the data show a decades-long drop-off in violence by left-wing groups, violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama’s presidency — and has surged since President Trump took office.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, oremites said:

CFR on that. 

I don't think there are dozens of domestic terror incidents or an escalating right-wing violence problem.  But I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you can point me to information on this.

Terror from the Right: 75 Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages since Oklahoma City, A Special Report from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project (Montgomery, Ala: SPLC, 2009).

“The Kehoe Gang: A Timeline,” SPLC Intelligence Report, #92 (Fall 1998), online at https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/kehoe-gang-timeline .

Some of the perpetrators are, unfortunately, LDS, and one was even arrested coming out of Church on Sunday in Hyrum, Utah, by U. S. Treasury agents  (he was armed with a Glock pistol, 40 rounds of ammo, and a switchblade knife -- he had threatened a firing squad for anyone trying to collect taxes from him and his wife)..

Chevie O'Brien Kehoe was raised in Cedar City, Utah, and, along with Andreas Strassmaier, and fellow Mormons Terry Nichols and Dennis Mahon, all helped plan and execute the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Bldg in Oklahoma City.  Chevie was head of the Aryan People's Army.

The Order – founded by Mormon Robert “Bob” Mathews in Metaline Falls, WA; who was killed in a shoot-out with federal agents in Dec 1984.

Aside from those  prominent cases, "in 2017, ... most attacks in the US were committed by right-wing extremists. Out of 65 incidents last year, 37 were tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations."  https://qz.com/1435885/data-shows-more-us-terror-attacks-by-right-wing-and-religious-extremists/ .

Quote

Right-wing extremism in the United States appears to be growing. The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017. The recent pipe bombs and the October 27, 2018, synagogue attack in Pittsburgh are symptomatic of this trend. U.S. federal and local agencies need to quickly double down to counter this threat. There has also been a rise in far-right attacks in Europe, jumping 43 percent between 2016 and 2017.   https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states .

Quote

A new terrorism database analysis shows almost two-thirds of the terror attacks in the United States last year were carried out by right-wing extremists.   https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/study-shows-two-thirds-us-terrorism-tied-right-wing-extremists .

Quote

. . . the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that attackers with ties to right-wing extremist movements killed at least 50 people in 2018. That was close to the total number of Americans killed by domestic extremists, meaning that the far right had an almost absolute monopoly on lethal terrorism in the United States last year. That monopoly would be total if, in one case, the perpetrator had not “switched from white supremacist to radical Islamist beliefs prior to committing the murder.”

The number of fatalities is 35 percent higher than the previous year, and it marks the fourth-deadliest year for such attacks since 1970. In fact, according to the ADL, white supremacists are responsible for the majority of such attacks “almost every year.” The 2018 attacks include the one at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue by a man who blamed Jews for the migrant caravan, the mass shooting at a yoga studio by an “incel” obsessed with interracial dating, and the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, carried out by a student who wished that “all the Jews were dead.”   https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ , citing the ADL report on “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018,” online at https://www.adl.org/media/12480/download .

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

23 minutes ago, Gray said:

Antifa is also chekist, but I'm not sure how a few knuckleheads on the left giving out bloody noses at protests compares to the rampant murder sprees of right wing terrorists.

You are correct, but we need to bear in mind that the extreme Left now has a hammerlock on liberal arts college faculties in the USA and Canada, which are churning out Marxist and postmodernist ideologues at a very high rate -- and they definitely reject free speech and the U.S. Constitution in favor of a totalitarian leftist revolution.  As Dr Jordan Peterson likes to point out, the 20th century experience with that ideology gave us over a hundred million corpses (in pursuit of a Marxist Millennium of automatic harmony).

[Mordecai]

12 hours ago, Gray said:

The right wing has embraced extremist, violent rhetoric, and what has it lead to? Dozens of domestic terror incidents. The right wing has an escalating violence problem that's only gotten worse since they alienated the gentlemen conservatives and embraced chekist Trumpism.

The SPLC is a hate group itself. They lie or at least twist the truth. If you look at the actual numbers from unbiased sources, the only apparent hate crime increases have been against Muslims, and those have occurred only in Democrat-controlled areas, strangely. I just finished a long debate with my brother on this, and in the process, looked closely at the numbers and even how those numbers are gathered. Citing the SPLC is citing someone at war with conservatives, and they are among those who lie and distort without conscience.

The Atlantic is also far left. And if I am correct, and the radical left is at war, there would logically be a backlash. Do you think the pipe bomb guy, who harmed no one and who couldn't have harmed anyone, is as bad as the guy who shot Republicans for supposedly "killing people" by repealing Obamacare? Please. And the guy shooting up the synagogue called Trump a "Jewish schill." What was his motivation? I imagine it came from the anti-semitic rhetoric coming from Richard Spencer, who admits he's a socialist and sounds basically like a Wilsonian progressive. That's the opposite of right wing. We also hear enormous amounts of anti-semitic rhetoric coming from the left, of course. How about Ilhan Omar? Linda Sarsour? Are they right wing, too?

And what "extremist, violent" rhetoric are you referring to? You would think the left would embrace evolutionary biology, i.e. humans would not be prone to violence unless they #1 believed their survival or the survival of their family was at stake or #2 their status/reproductive opportunities were threatened. The left says, "Rich people have your stuff." Chimpanzees have been observed to go to war with other chimps over resources. War instinct. The left says, "Republicans are NAZIs," implying I'm planning on killing Jews. Never mind that I'm Jewish by ancestry. The left says, "Republicans are destroying the planet." Obviously, if we destroy the planet, you'll be dead. So you'd better fight me. I'll send you my address, so we can brawl. The left says, "You're a victim of white, male Republicans!" Low status? Few reproductive opportunities and few resource. Better fight! The left says, "Race defines you before individuality," which appeals to tribal instincts. Again, tribes war against each other for survival. The left says, "Republicans are standing in the way of progress!" Oh, no. You and your descendants will lack resources, thanks to Republicans. They say we are "evil," like we're predators. "Speech is violence!" Better fight me over my "dangerous" words. I mean, which of this stuff was not said by the NAZIs and communists who together, murdered well over 100 million people? Because of those words. Not words like Trump says, which are just chest thumping, posturing and positioning. Very different.

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Mordecai

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Mordecai said:

The SPLC is a hate group itself. They lie or at least twist the truth. If you look at the actual numbers from unbiased sources, the only apparent hate crime increases have been against Muslims, and those have occurred only in Democrat-controlled areas, strangely. I just finished a long debate with my brother on this, and in the process, looked closely at the numbers and even how those numbers are gathered. Citing the SPLC is citing someone at war with conservatives, and they are among those who lie and distort without conscience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNFNH0lmYdM

 

And Robert's sources?  Are they also a "hate group" in your view?  (Curious about your thinking, not challenging it though .I disagree with you, just want to know how far you take this)

Edited March 15, 2019 by Calm

[Robert F. Smith]

44 minutes ago, Mordecai said:

The SPLC is a hate group itself. They lie or at least twist the truth. If you look at the actual numbers from unbiased sources, the only apparent hate crime increases have been against Muslims, and those have occurred only in Democrat-controlled areas, strangely. I just finished a long debate with my brother on this, and in the process, looked closely at the numbers and even how those numbers are gathered. Citing the SPLC is citing someone at war with conservatives, and they are among those who lie and distort without conscience.

The Atlantic is also far left. And if I am correct, and the radical left is at war, there would logically be a backlash. Do you think the pipe bomb guy, who harmed no one and who couldn't have harmed anyone, is as bad as the guy who shot Republicans for supposedly "killing people" by repealing Obamacare? Please. And the guy shooting up the synagogue called Trump a "Jewish schill." What was his motivation? I imagine it came from the anti-semitic rhetoric coming from Richard Spencer, who admits he's a socialist and sounds basically like a Wilsonian progressive. That's the opposite of right wing. We also hear enormous amounts of anti-semitic rhetoric coming from the left, of course. How about Ilhan Omar? Linda Sarsour? Are they right wing, too?

And what "extremist, violent" rhetoric are you referring to? You would think the left would embrace evolutionary biology, i.e. humans would not be prone to violence unless they #1 believed their survival or the survival of their family was at stake or #2 their status/reproductive opportunities were threatened. The left says, "Rich people have your stuff." Chimpanzees have been observed to go to war with other chimps over resources. War instinct. The left says, "Republicans are NAZIs," implying I'm planning on killing Jews. Never mind that I'm Jewish by ancestry. The left says, "Republicans are destroying the planet." Obviously, if we destroy the planet, you'll be dead. So you'd better fight me. I'll send you my address, so we can brawl. The left says, "You're a victim of white, male Republicans!" Low status? Few reproductive opportunities and few resource. Better fight! The left says, "Race defines you before individuality," which appeals to tribal instincts. Again, tribes war against each other for survival. The left says, "Republicans are standing in the way of progress!" Oh, no. You and your descendants will lack resources, thanks to Republicans. They say we are "evil," like we're predators. "Speech is violence!" Better fight me over my "dangerous" words. I mean, which of this stuff was not said by the NAZIs and communists who together, murdered well over 100 million people? Because of those words. Not words like Trump says, which are just chest thumping, posturing and positioning. Very different.

Maybe all that you say here is correct on the planet Gorgon, but here on planet Earth the statistics are clear:  The totalitarian Right is on a killing rampage, as I pointed out above, and I'll repeat it here for you:

". . . in 2017, ... most attacks in the US were committed by right-wing extremists. Out of 65 incidents last year, 37 were tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations."  https://qz.com/1435885/data-shows-more-us-terror-attacks-by-right-wing-and-religious-extremists/ .

Quote

Right-wing extremism in the United States appears to be growing. The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017. The recent pipe bombs and the October 27, 2018, synagogue attack in Pittsburgh are symptomatic of this trend. U.S. federal and local agencies need to quickly double down to counter this threat. There has also been a rise in far-right attacks in Europe, jumping 43 percent between 2016 and 2017.   https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states .

Quote

In comparison to the 2000s, there was a sharp decline in the proportion of terrorist attacks carried out by left-wing, environmentalist extremists during the first seven years of the 2010s (from 64% to 12%). At the same time, there was a sharp increase in the proportion of attacks carried out by right-wing extremists (from 6% to 35%) and religious extremists (from 9% to 53%) in the United States.   https://bsos.umd.edu/featured-content/proportion-terrorist-attacks .

Quote

. . . the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that attackers with ties to right-wing extremist movements killed at least 50 people in 2018. That was close to the total number of Americans killed by domestic extremists, meaning that the far right had an almost absolute monopoly on lethal terrorism in the United States last year. That monopoly would be total if, in one case, the perpetrator had not “switched from white supremacist to radical Islamist beliefs prior to committing the murder.”

The number of fatalities is 35 percent higher than the previous year, and it marks the fourth-deadliest year for such attacks since 1970. In fact, according to the ADL, white supremacists are responsible for the majority of such attacks “almost every year.” The 2018 attacks include the one at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue by a man who blamed Jews for the migrant caravan, the mass shooting at a yoga studio by an “incel” obsessed with interracial dating, and the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, carried out by a student who wished that “all the Jews were dead.”   https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ , citing the ADL report on “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018,” online at https://www.adl.org/media/12480/download .

Edited March 15, 2019 by Robert F. Smith