In the wake of CNN personality Jeffrey Toobin’s video conference Zoom in, and Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive revelations, the men of Right Angle, discuss the final death of shame.
Has the force that used to drive moral behavior in public and private abandoned these fruited plains, leaving us with characters like Toobin and Joe Biden?
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Bill Whittle Network · #MeToobin Zoom In: Jeffrey Toobin, CNN, Hunter Biden and the Final Death of Shame
15 replies on “#MeToobin Zoom In: Jeffrey Toobin, CNN, Hunter Biden and the Final Death of Shame”
Excellent perspective guys.
Somebody has to say this & I am the idiot to do it!
Instead of:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper;
We have
Tommy Trumpeter took a toobin of tobascoed tomatoes.
I will let myself out.
I was going to comment on Bill’s spot on explanation of shame and Scott’s wonderful response. But as a father it was Steve that at the end, that brought tears to my eyes.
Manly tears mind you. Like when your dog dies or your son wrecks your 64 Mustang.
Just saying…
I thought there was too much censorship on YouToobin…Oh, wait…
“Nothing to see here”
Ahem
Steve Bannon thinks Hunter dropped the laptop off intentionally and is trying to get out of the family trap. I suspect Hunter thinks jail time may save him if he plea bargains. He may have gone walk away and covert whistleblower. He knows too much and he knows Seth Rich’s killer is still out there.
Great close Steve, been there and fortunately didn’t do that. Now he’s a Marine, Ooh rah! A little bit of discpline can go a long way
What’s the word for ‘beyond disgusting’? I’m referring to his not being fired.
Bill at 7:22: Shame is inherently part of us to prevent us from doing “bad” things … transgressing civilization norms…destructive behavior.
Shame, guilt, morality: this supports a view I have come to some years ago, that morality is a combination of inherent genetically defined psychic or psychological characteristics and a set of cultural norms. The psychological elements include the feeling of shame, the feeling of pride, the feeling of guilt, the feeling about “fairness”; feelings of empathy and sympathy, and presumably several more. The cultural aspects are principally derived from successful social experience (survival and prosperity — in a family/ clan/ tribe/ city state, kingly realm, or nation state — that establish for a group what is considered “normal” and not transgressive or destructive behavior. We do not give enough attention to just how these cultural contributions influence what we define as moral. We think they just come out of the air and are “self evident”, but that is because whether we want to be or not, we are immersed in a given social cultural milieu. I won’t belabor the point with a lot of examples but simply mention that the outlooks of people in a Judaeo-Christian society are rather different from those in an Islamic or Chinese one.
I could carry this comment into the realm of memes and cultural evolution, or along several other tangents, but instead let me simply emphasize that to the extent our views and morals are derived from cultural influences (rather than genetically innate), to that extent they are somewhat fragile and must be continually reinforced via our own logical analyses, reflections on successful past experience, and through the education of our children. The Gramscian March Through the Institutions has been as successful as it has been because we did not pay sufficient attention to this cultural source of “morality”, believing that the power of “self evidence” would keep the impact of bad ideas (and thus bad behavior) away.
Nothing I have said above is in conflict with Lionell’s adage: “Reality Is Not Optional”. Liberty requires facing reality (such as I describe above) and then accepting responsibility (which we do in part via our memberships in BWDC).
So you really think he knew he was on camera? Just asking… because, I just can’t grok that.
It’s the Human Condition writ large. In general, people on The Right see it for what it is and call it out even it involves someone on their side, sometimes even more so if it’s someone on their side. Because Conservatives are not blind to the fact that there’s an innate depravity that lurks in the hearts of us all. There are degrees of it, thankfully, but that’s because of the Grace of God. The Left believes that people are actually good, and it’s only the Oppression put on people through their circumstances that cause anyone to misbehave. Giving Oppressed Peoples, through government intervention and control, everything they think they want will just naturally cause them to live happy lives. They believe in overlooking the kinds of things Toobin and the Bidens do because their Cause is so just. By the same token, someone on the Right is far more likely to extend forgiveness and mercy to anyone who fails because we know none of us is immune to doing the wrong thing. There is no mercy or forgiveness on the Left, only a terrible sense of purity of motive and righteousness of action. The inevitable tragic results of their motives and actions mean nothing to them, except as proof that they need to double their efforts.
It seems though that on the Left, for some certain people at least, you can perform a Catholic style penance and be welcomed back. Otherwise, you’ve said exactly what I’ve thought (and said to a few people) especially regarding our expectation of the failure of socialism (humans are lazy and selfish, also referred to as the tragedy of the commons.)
I agree, and it seems to be tied to how much the Left has to lose if they enforce the rules on their own people. Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton are seemingly two of a kind, but one is in jail and the other is still living off his past laurels as a Hero of the Left. It’s true that his dispensation is weakening because he was in power in the 90’s, and the current Woke Brigade was either not born yet or was too young to know what was happening, but he still has enough clout that he is not going to suffer any consequences in this life. But Harvey Weinstein was only a celebrity. He couldn’t guarantee abortion rights would stay in place, he just raised and contributed money for those who could. Bill Clinton was in a place of influence and power. People who raise money can be replaced. So Mr. Weinstein was expendable.
The unspeakable evil of politicians will go unpunished. They will make sure that happens and will destroy themselves IN THE LONG RUN. Unfortunately we will all pay the price for trying to fake reality.
It is ballots or bullets. There is no in-between. If ballots cannot fix the situation, then it is bullets that will be used to quiet the opposition. The result is a very good civilization that will go down the drain along with the blood of far too many good people.
History may not repeat itself exactly but it does rhyme. Similar causes have similar effects no matter how many wish things were different. Fail to learn from history, you are doomed to suffer the consequences of that failure.
It will not end well!
Of course, one of the difficulties in dealing with Leftists is that because they are incapable of accepting responsibility for the actions, they are also incapable of feeling shame. I wrote about this four years ago, and thank you Steve, for linking me on Instapundit back then
http://www.floppingaces.net/2016/02/03/the-left-has-two-huge-advantages-and-i-have-no-idea-how-we-overcome-them-part-2-of-5/