Morning Roar: Defending Rioting, Politics Mixing With Thanksgiving, Dumb Statements By Anti-Gun Politicians
Welcome to your Thanksgiving edition of The Morning Roar! While the rest of the world is taking the day off (unless you work in restaurants, retail,air traffic control, hospitals, gas stations, or football) we here at Lions of Liberty continue to bring you the best content, even on holidays!TIME Contributor Defends RiotingYou read the headline correctly. Someone is actually defending the act of rioting as a means to effect social change.Darlena Cunha, a contributor to the Washington Post and TIME, defended the violent rioting as “part of the American experience.” In this controversial article, she was referencing the riots that took place in the aftermath of the decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for his role in the death of Michael Brown. Cunha claims, “peaceful protesting is a luxury only available to those in mainstream culture.”Did you hear that Ferguson, Missouri? You’re not mainstream, so burn baby burn.The entire article can be found at TIME, but I wanted to highlight two of the more confusing passages in the article.First Cunha addresses the need to riot:
Riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society. Unfortunately, we do not live in a universal utopia where people have the basic human rights they deserve simply for existing, and until we get there, the legitimate frustration, sorrow and pain of the marginalized voices will boil over, spilling out into our streets. As “normal” citizens watch the events of Ferguson unfurl on their television screens and Twitter feeds, there is a lot of head shaking, finger pointing, and privileged explanation going on. We wish to seclude the incident and the people involved. To separate it from our history as a nation, to dehumanize the change agents because of their bad and sometimes violent decisions—because if we can separate the underlying racial tensions that clearly exist in our country from the looting and rioting of select individuals, we can continue to ignore the problem.
There does not need to be a “utopia” in order to have a society that respects and defends individual rights. We do not need to reach perfection to have justice in our society. To claim that the defense of individual rights is a characteristic of an unattainable utopian society insinuates that human beings are inherently barbaric. A utopian society will never exist, thus it is an unrealistic goal. But a society that defends individual rights is possible and must be an unwavering goal.Cunha claims that basic human rights are not afforded to all individuals and I largely agree with this stance. Unfortunately, she does not elaborate or definitively explain what she believes to be a basic human right. She could be referring to healthcare and education as basic human rights for all I know. If this is the case, she’s way off base. On the other hand, if she’s referring to natural rights that have been infringed upon by a coercive government, then we could reach a consensus on that front.Like a good socialist, Cunha then manages to get a few blows in against capitalism:
Because when you have succeeded, it ceases to be a possibility, in our capitalist society, that anyone else helped you. And if no one helped you succeed, then no one is holding anyone else back from succeeding. Except they did help you, and they are holding people back. So that blaming someone else for your failures in the United States may very well be an astute observation of reality, particularly as it comes to white privilege versus black privilege. And, yes, they are different, and they are tied to race, and that doesn’t make me a racist, it makes me a realist. If anything, I am racist because I am white. Until I have had to walk in a person of color’s skin, I will never understand, I will always take things for granted, and I will be inherently privileged. But by ignoring the very real issues this country still faces in terms of race to promote an as-of-yet imaginary colorblind society, we contribute to the problem at hand, which is centuries of abuses lobbied against other humans on no basis but that of their skin color.
First of all, we do not live in a capitalist society. Let’s get that out-of-the-way immediately. We live in a crony capitalist society. In reality, the US government is a form of a fascist rule, where the government has intimate relationships with corporations and dictates the parameters in which they are able to operate. They alter these parameters and choose winners and losers in the marketplace.The rest of Cunha’s argument is so convoluted I’m not even sure how to address it. She skips from capitalism to white privilege. She calls herself a realist, and then admits to being a racist. It’s all very confusing really.If you're going to endorse rioting at least make an argument that clearly defines pros and cons. This article reads like it was written on the downside of a cocaine binge.Head on over to TIME and draw your own conclusions.Politics Mixing With ThanksgivingA lot of families frown upon discussing politics around the dinner table, especially around the Thanksgiving dinner table when everyone has already had a few cocktails. With that in mind you may want to refrain from printing out the below infographic and distributing for discussion around this Thanksgiving.
(Data via Open Secrets, Graphic via US Prig)(h/t Economic Policy Journal)Dumb Statements By Anti-gun PoliticiansI found this video over at the Daily Paul. It lists eight of the dumbest statements ever made by anti-gun politicians. This video would be funny if these quotes weren’t spoken by actual politicians that are “leading” this country. Check it out below!The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday right here at Lions of Liberty!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
