Dave Rubin interviews David Horowitz
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DD_8SJKAjc

The interview is an hour and a half. There are other Rubin videos I can recommend, for sedate, relaxed, rational discussion about hot topics: especially those of free speech, Trump's presidency, and the New Left. The one with Dennis Prager (also a former liberal) is good, as are a couple with Milo (before his fall from grace, in full cock-of-the-walk form. He spouts a great deal of stupidity, but there are a few good points in there as well, lost amid the arrogant, flamboyant noise).

Bear in mind: Rubin is a liberal who has been disenchanted with the progressive left, which he calls the "regressive left" - a term he didn't invent but helped popularize. He's most definitely not an ideologue, and he's not waving any flags.

I think he's a model for people, like myself, who are instinctively left and liberal in their political thinking, who are a wee tad concerned about how things are going. On the right as well as the left.

I'm no fan of the far right either. Theocracies and/or militant states are obviously a great threat to humanity at large. Burning people in cages, sawing off heads, and stoning people: these are manifestly evil. I do not think the New Left is evil, only that there is obviously a trend towards political practices - such as demonizing, ad-homs, and acts of destructive and harmful violence - that will inevitably, if taken to their logical conclusion, result in further behavior and conditions/environments I would call evil.

Quotable quote at 35:00 Horowitz: "Corruption is far better than communism". Rubin knows it's eminently quotable. That comment was in reference to the Clinton administration. But you have to watch the whole thing to understand it all in context. By the way - for those who won't watch - Dave Rubin thinks very fondly of the Clinton administration, while Horowitz thinks exactly the opposite. And yet the two can converse peaceably and with good humor.

Time, patience, and a level head, instead of knee-jerk reactions and automatic outrage.

**Another great quote at 42:12: Horowitz: "I can't go to a university without bodyguards."

The reason I chose the Albert debate as a starting place, Bill, was that at least he doesn't identify the left with the neo-liberal drool. Though if yiou want to really go to the circus the debate between Horowitz and Zizek is better TV. Despite my large distance from Zizek on many issued, he makes it clear DH has very little idea what he talking about when he brings up things like Palestine, Iraq, Iran etc. The debate is moderated by Assange at it is total clown car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf72TQA0rjg

I wouldn't waste five minutes examining Horowitz except for the fact that powerful people like Sessions, who I believe is one of most practically dangerous people in the present administration, view him as an important thinker.


BTW I think Zizek is mostly out of his mind but he makes me laugh.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf72TQA0rjg

Horowitz, at his center, wallows in Hobbes. His view of man and the universe is a self-fulfilling nightmare. His view of the causes of inequality and his trust in free play to deliver a fair share of basic decency and simple life is historically untenable.

Thanks, Andrew, I'll watch the debate you linked to and get back to you. As it's Mother's Day, that won't be until much later in the day.

By the way, Horowitz did say a couple things I was actually surprised by. He has gone far more to the right since the book I read, that came out in 1998. I'll try to mention those things in my next post, later. I'm much more interested in Rubin, as he's younger and, from what I can see, very difficult to upset. Horowitz, judging by the vids I've looked at when he speaks on campus, is quick to indignation, whereas Rubin is extremely cool-headed.

The Albert thing on the other thread has at least some content. The Zizek bit isn't exactly a debate. It's...them. Take your time. Not that important.

I'm only ten minutes into the Horowitz/Zizek video and already I see DH getting aggressive, though Zizek is very animated as well. Dramatically different than the Rubin interviews. One problem is that they are not face to face but interacting online: they are at a "safe" remove from one another; another problem is Zizek is forced to argue in a second language, which puts him at a disadvantage. No language that isn't native comes "naturally", and his brain has to do extra work to keep pace. So, my sympathies are almost automatically with him, even though I won't agree with his views.

I doubt this thread will go anywhere. I wanted to initiate a discussion of free speech, along with the theory of rights, as well as touching on other things like Trump's presidency and the whole confusion and distraction of applying labels like 'left' and 'right', 'liberal' and 'conservative'; but using an hour and a half video as a springboard was a bad idea. Few people will want to sit through it.

I certainly don't see the point of having a William/Andrew debate on this thread, if that's all it'll amount to, since we could always do that in private rather than take up public space.

Just one thing though:
Not true. Horowitz is deeply learned and highly informed about those areas. His books are full of scholarly material, and he's written many of them. He may have faults, but ignorance ain't one of them.

I don't know what to say about that William. Anything I have seen Horowitz write on the Middle East is gross oversimplification and, with the Palestinians, a total disregard for the general population and a total embrace of collective guilt and punishment. His opinions on any of the periods in Iraq that I am most well grounded in (historically) are usually pulled out of talking point style propaganda lists so I find it hard to believe that. I did a fair amount of public speaking on Iraq before the war and I usually pissed everybody in the audience off (except the few Iraqi ex-pats that would show up). I don't have the same grounding in post 2005 stuff but I find his approach to any area he mouths off about that I am familiar with fairly suspect. Of course, I find his basic worldview pretty foul and I don't much care for him as a person so I agree, I am a poor discussion companion. I am happy to bow out here unless something useful comes up to add to it. No worries about letting the thread slide. I am pretty buried in another project anyway. This is my way of procrastinating on that. Ha!

Sure, let's let it slide down.

Good luck with your project!

Never heard of Horowitz. But if he's a Hobbesian, then he's the right kind of guy. Bowing out, Andrew? Oh surely not. You're four times on this short thread already.

Actually....no thanks John. Enjoy the goat and the under-bridge.

I haven't read Hobbes very thoroughly, but the little I've read, I've liked. He seemed ahead of his time, like Spinoza.

I don't know if this is accusing John of trolling, or this thread. In either case, it's offensive.

But that's okay, I've got a thick skin, and I'm sure John's is way thicker.


Sessions is not dangerous. And Zizek doesn't know what he thinks. He's Derrida-warped, like many in the world.

Before putting Hobbes under your pillow I would suggest reading Arendt's work on the Totalitarian state. His place at the roots (whether innately or not) is an interesting idea and her work on sovereignty is compelling.

There are millions of non-violent offenders in cages in the US. Sessions wants to turn back from the trajectory that was making some headway against indiscriminate sentencing and vicious application of the law. Of course you don't find him dangerous. That is how the tough on crime propaganda works. It turns itself from the actual threat that it is into a sense of security.

It would be awfully nice if you could make an attempt to write clearly, but as usual your response leaves me wondering just what you're trying to say.

I don't care for your snide insinuations. What does this mean, for instance:

"Of course you don't find him dangerous. That is how the tough on crime propaganda works. It turns itself from the actual threat that it is into a sense of security."

Does that mean we shouldn't be tough on crime? And just what do you mean by the part I emphasized? As many of my posts as you've read, and you seem to assume something about me that is simply not the case. Or, and I find this more likely: you are trying to cast suspicion on me because I don't spout the kind of lefty lingo that you do?

Put Hobbes under my pillow? What the hell does that mean?

Arendt? Okay, I'll dig into her more. I've read a bit, but not much. I suggest you dig into somebody like Harold Bloom. It's always good to hear views you don't agree with. Keeps you level-headed.

You seem to want the freedom to argue and throw out loaded phrases but don't seem to be able to handle it when folks treat your arguments accordingly. I find that dull. I don't think you have a good grasp of Horowitz, Hobbes, or political theories in general. Normally, that doesn't bother me. I talk with people all the time about subjects I am new to. But I know when I am new. And I do my homework when I stick up for an idea or a writer. You don't. Which again, is fine. But I don't have time for your temper tantrum.

I wish you well in your Hobbesian world. I will not will not live in it with you, if it can at all be helped. I don't find my bit on Hobbes or Sessions that mystified.

I am not you guy here, William. I think ideas that have violent or unfair outcomes in the world don't deserve good manners or gentle handling. I think my approach is pretty consistent and out in the open. If you don't like it, I can easily ignore your posts from here onward.

Fwiw I fundamentally agree with you, Bill, that terms like 'left' and 'right' have become divisive and counter-productive to reasoned debate. But that also makes me suspicious of people like Mr Horowitz who claim to have moved from 'the left' (because of it's terrible political correctness and tribalism and curbs on 'free speech') to the 'right'. Why move from one tribe to another?? It's all just book deals and internet noise.
What I know about Israel/Palestine you could fit on one side of A4 so forgive me if I make anyone spray their breakfast at my naivety. But. It's always baffled me that the left's default position is to favour Palestine over Israel. I know this is a dull point to make and probably means I haven't done my homework, but I thought the left were all in favour of freedom of speech, gay rights, women's rights, general freedom of religion/secularism. None of these ideals sound like they would come down much in favour of Palestine.

I know I'm being naive (deliberately so - I think I know some of the answers to my own questions) but someone explain it to this liberal atheist who just sees two Abrahamic religions kicking the shit out of each other. Don't tell me to read a book. Assume I'm really interested but very pushed for time...

Subsets of Palestinian society are highly educated, human rights proponents with many outspoken, strong women. It is society full of secular minded individuals, playwrights, poets, and others. It is also has other elements less open to those values. The question is what type of conditions encourage the former and what conditions the latter? You cannot collectively punish a people, deny their history, and the their connection to the land and not see all manners of resistance, honorable and less so. It is especially ill conceived to place a culture steeped (for good or ill) in machismo in a position of constant shaming and impotence. There is no Left with a capital L. There are people that support Palestine because they are anti-Semitic schmucks. I believe they are the minority. Others because they recognize in the occupation circumstances that they themselves would never surrender to and find the damage to the occupier as disturbing as the damage to the occupied. Some hate what is because of what could have been.

Nevermind.

It's pointless.

This is the type of thinking I was referring to when I said I don't take anyone who thinks Horowitz is worthwhile seriously. I am a Southerner old enough to have grown up during the climatic years of the Civil Rights Movement. Sessions is a Bull Connor-type racist. It's obvious to anyone not blinded by the racist pseudo-intellectualism of what passes for conservatism in the twenty-first century. He is an extremely dangerous man who has participated in the denial of the fundamental freedoms and rights to millions of citizens. He would like nothing more than to find ways to do that again.

There once was a tradition of conservatism that did not require one to lose all decency and self-respect in order to hold it as one's fundamental political belief system. But since WWII, and particularly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, what I think of as true conservatism has been swamped by a Southern-minded racist hysteria. The superficiality of current conservatism renders it unserious. The core of Paul Ryan's ideology comes from the rantings found within two of the silliest novels of the twentieth century, and he is the man who is held up as the keeper of the conservative belief system in Congress. He is constantly held up as a serious thinker when his ideas are derived from the shallow ravings of a woman who wanted to recreate the society that had given her family its privileged life style before the Russian Revolution. Her ideal was the Russia of poverty and serfs and Ryan makes all his aides read her. This is what has replaced Russell Kirk and John Adams and Edmund Burke. Horowitz is just another example, although a minor one, of the deterioration of American conservatism.

There are still a few worthwhile conservative voices out there. No one participating in the ravaging of American decency and democracy going on today pays them any mind of course. They have been run out of the movement as "Rinos" or "Cucks" or secret liberals.

There is more that could be said. A basic question, for example, is whether a guiding idea that cautions against rapid change is possible in an economic system--and the U.S. is first and foremost an economic system--that is predicated on rapid, constant change? I think the contradiction is unsustainable. I don't think Conservatism will ever exist in a hyper-Capitalist economic system that uses up all resources, particularly lives, in its unceasing drive for profit. But I suppose this is a question open for discussion and debate. Horowitz's rantings are not.

"You cannot collectively punish a people..." Yeah, that's right. Both Andrew's and John's last contributions make this thread worthwhile. I wasn't familiar with Horowitz before this thread. What an ass.

Well I'll be willing to agree with you, given some examples of what you mean by Sessions participating "in the denial of the fundamental freedoms and rights to millions of citizens." I read the Wikipedia article on him, as well as several other articles in various places, and found accusations of racism, leavened by many saying those accusations aren't merited - but no concrete examples of him denying rights or freedoms to millions of citizens. Unless you mean his opposition to gay marriage. I'm personally all for gay marriage, as it happens. Wikipedia has this para with respect to his alleged racism:

I'll be the first to admit, often Wikipedia is remiss and leaves some things out of their articles, but I've found them to be pretty objective, and considering your certainty on the subject, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and suspect that you have information that can enlighten me, in which case, I'll be happy to change my tune and agree that Sessions is dangerous.

I've read his book, The Politics of Bad Faith front to back, and re-read much of it, and found nothing I would call "ranting", just a reasoned, fact-based account of the failure of communism and the subsequent hysteria of the radical Left in trying to deny that it was (and is) a failure. Not only that, if you strongly disagree with someone's ideas, then all the more reason to debate them. Hand-waving and dismissal is good for nothing.

I'd have to watch the interview again to put the remark in context, but taken on the surface, "You cannot collectively punish a people..." sounds like something I might agree with. It all depends on how he meant it.

I'm much more interested in Dave Rubin than Horowitz, anyway. Here's another good interview, again on the subject of the regressive left, with Larry Elder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrfV-y_VC8&t=214s

Hey Andrew,

Thank you for accepting the challenge to explain this to me. I remain unconvinced and sceptical. Of course there are Palestinians who fit the description you give: secular-minded, poets, strong women etc. Why wouldn't there be? People are wonderful creatures individually. Ideologies, however, can be dangerous. I want a world of freedom of speech, of expression, of equal rights for women, for gay people, of freedom of and from religion (I know. I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one). I just don't think that if Palestine got their way in the Middle East the result would be anything remotely resembling these ideals. Do you? Really?
As an atheist and refusenik to any form of group-think I can only say what I see and what I honestly think. I have no more respect for religion than I do for any other idea. And I think the current form of Sunni Islam — along with fascism, Mao-style communism and fundamental Christianity — is one of the world's Bad Ideas. I don't think this about Judaism, Buddhism, the Church of England or even Western-style benign capitalism. Why is this? Does it make me an Islamophobe? (answer: no) Right wing? (certainly not) A bad person? (I don't think so). You say that 'There are people that support Palestine because they are anti-Semitic schmucks. I believe they are the minority.' I'm sure that's true. Aren't there also others on the left who support Palestine because they are knee-jerk anti-American imperialism at whatever cost, who ignore the fact that the ideology of Sunni Islam is pretty much the antithesis of progressive liberal values? I realise that I probably sound like some 'alt-right' cheerleader to you now but I absolutely refuse that label. And wasn't that Bill's original point? That to have opinions that fly in the face of some prescribed, acceptable way of thinking immediately gets you labelled? All I know is that the left (whatever that means) does seem a little confused.

But just in case anyone doubts my leftist credentials, let it be known I shall be voting Labour in two weeks time as I have in every election for the last twenty years, despite Mr Corbyn being a Hamas loving terrorist sympathiser (thank you Daily Mail). So. Go Jeremy!

Cheers.

Edit: Cross posted with Bill. I still haven't watched this Horowitz guy. Sorry.

I may be wrong, being no authority on Islam, but I'm pretty sure Sunni Islam is generally more progressive than Shia Islam.

Yes, that was my entire point of starting this thread: NOT to raise Horowitz, or even Rubin (though I do think of Rubin as 'heroic' in his ability to be utterly objective, a trait which Horowitz may have had when he wrote the book I cited, but has since lost due to years of being attacked and ridiculed by the people he 'betrayed') up to hero status, but as a springboard for a discussion on the futility of political labels in today's world.

I like the interview with Larry Elder even better than the one with Horowitz. Elder is so plain speaking and so eloquent, and seems to have a much thicker skin than Horowitz.

I probably seem to a lot of my peers here as an alt-right cheerleader myself. I got into hot water for defending Milo what's-his-name a while back, and now I'm in it again for defending David Horowitz.

I wonder if I'll be in it even deeper for thinking Larry Elder has his thoughts well in order? ** Edited in: And is, at least statistically, correct on most things.

Ultimately - who cares. If you care about ideas, and you feel passionately that something is terribly wrong with the world - and that's probably all of us here, though for different reasons - then you should be able to take some heat.

Bring it!

About Israel/Palestine. I'm no Zionist, hell I'm not even Jewish, and I wouldn't call myself a passionate defender of the State of Israel, but I do know one thing: if I had to jump out of a plane with a parachute over the area, I'd sure as hell hope I landed in Israel.

Yeah, maybe. This thread is probably an object lesson in why I shouldn't talk about politics or religion ha.

When we're to a point of needing concrete proof of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions' efforts to deny African American citizens' Constitutional rights I question the seriousness of the discussion. He was denied a Federal judgeship because of his racist political efforts back when the nation still had some decency on these things and has since becoming Attorney General directed Federal attorneys to put low-level drug users in prison for a long as possible. He has been active in the GOP effort to deny African American citizens their voting rights ever since the Supreme Court make racist gerrymandering and franchise denial legal again.

This is tiresome. If someone feels it is necessary to have David Horowitz protect the country from the radical Marxist left-wing that is on the verge of taking us over than so be it. Clearly, Horowitz's perceived threats are so much more dangerous than out of control bankers and having Donald Trump controlling the nuclear codes. Let's focus on the Marxist professor while Jeff Sessions fills the prisons back up with Americans who are addicted to the opioids the pharmaceutical companies make billions from flooding into medicine cabinets.

I usually stay out of these circular political discussions here and always end up feeling foolish when I don't. That I'm having to make the obvious point that Jeff Sessions is a threat to the human rights of millions of Americans more explicit reminds me of how hopeless humans have always turned out to be when it comes to governance. The U.S. is collapsing fast. It can be interesting I suppose to think on when it began. It seems clear to me that ever since WWII we have made tragic mistake after tragic mistake in our dealings with the rest of the world and in the process drained the wealth we were fortunate to possess on maintaining an arsenal. This is always eventually destructive to city-states or kingdoms or nation-states. The economic system that depends on the rapid use and even more rapid dispersal of all resources, including human resources, is ultimately unsustainable and all efforts to alleviate this are either stopped or eventually repealed. The corporate system devised to attack and ridicule those who point out the unsustainability of the economic system, which Horowitz is an active participant in, and the use of racism to convince people to vote against their interests, mean that this has little chance of changing. I know this but still can find myself talking about radical professors and such if I'm not vigilant. I must do better.

John

If Sessions literally tried to deny voting rights to blacks, then there must be some concrete proof of that available. It isn't that I don't believe you - just that if such is the case there must be some documentation to that effect.

Newspaper articles, journal articles, interviews of people who are in the know? Can you link me to something so I can assess the information and come back here to publicly agree with you and apologize for saying Sessions is not threat to the nation?

Thanks in advance.

**Edited in: Link to a video about Sessions here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b099cdb0ffb10a

Well, this article mentions him "gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013." THAT sounds nasty - I will look into it.

I'll investigate further into this, and after I read more confirmation of his alleged attempts to deny voting rights to blacks - I will most certainly retract my defense of him. Give me a few hours.

By the way, I do not agree with most of his political views, as I understand them, since I am a classical liberal. I definitely DO NOT agree with the ridiculous push to give prison time to drug users. In fact, I'm for legalization of all drugs, in order to shut down the dealers and force those assholes to get real work.

What do you think of Larry Elder? He's a black conservative who also identifies as a classical liberal (or at least he did in the interview I linked to), but is hard on the Left, as Rubin is, and many others.

I knew I should stop this. I posted this comment in an old thread about poetry volumes I was browsing by mistake. Politics makes one dumb.




https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...ices/97572474/


https://www.thenation.com/article/je...voting-rights/


http://www.salon.com/2017/02/27/jeff...of-litigation/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/m...cape.html?_r=0


https://www.usnews.com/news/the-repo...-voting-rights



I'm sure these sources can be knocked down. Liberals for sure or some such but I feel silly looking for proof Sessions would like to deny the vote to blacks and other groups. That he is a sworn enemy of the rights of gay and transgender people. Water is wet and Sessions is a bigot.

You're not a Southerner I assume. White segregationists are the ones who taught the right-wing to speak in precise-sounding gobbleygook that obscures the real goal of their actions. I've come to evaluate people by their willingness to accept what they say as true or worthwhile or not immoral. You can use these links or google. If you need to hear Sessions say "I want to deny black citizens the vote" before you believe it than you won't have to believe the truth.


As I said above I'm done. Thought I should follow through to provide you a few links. Do with them what you will.

Best,
John

Thanks very much, John.

I will certainly say that Jeff Sessions is what I would consider pretty much far right in his political thought, and, as I've said plenty of times, I dislike and disapprove of the far right as much as I do the far left. I hate to keep repeating myself, but things get lost in the shuffle, and I don't expect anyone to remember what I've written in this thread or that, or in this post or that.

From what I've seen, I think it might be safe to say he has some racial bias. That's certainly a contemptible trait, especially in a person who holds such a high office.

But, while I was reading one article you linked to, I clicked on another link, and I see this para, from this article

***

No, John, I was not raised in the south. I was born at West Point and raised in Upstate New York. There was a lot of blunt, angry racism all around me in my formative years, and I grew to despise it at a young age. I'm an individualist. I have never understood the idea of making judgments based on groups or collectives. I am stridently opposed to any political idea or movement that subordinates the individual to the collective.

The only way to protect the group, is by protecting the individual.

It looks to me that the Sessions-led prosecution against Albert and Evelyn Turner and Spencer Hogue was idiotic and disgraceful. I'm glad the defendants were acquitted.

Were I the POTUS, I would certainly not appoint Sessions as Attorney General.

That being said, while bigotry in high places is indeed dangerous, the US is not Germany or the USSR in the 30's. We're a long way off from death camps, gulags, and mass-graves on United States soil.

To compare Trump and Sessions to Hitler and Goebbels, as if they are guilty of the same level of atrocities, is perhaps remotely passable as an expression of indignation, fear, and outrage, but is also a huge dishonor to the millions of innocent people who suffered and died because of those abominations.

Hahahaha! Is this thread for real? The complaints of left-wing assaults on free speech are especially funny in the context of a guy whose entire right-wing career has had a political purge of left-wingers from campuses as a central motif. Horowitz is a red-baiting scumbag of the first order, and Rubin is an illustration of how a variety of new atheism can cover for some pretty dodgy politics.

Go on, Quincy. Say it. You think it's "highlarious," don't you?

Putting Horowitz aside - because as I've repeatedly said, I agree he's gone quite a lot farther right since the book of his I've read. I'm not terribly interested in defending him or his views, since he does that well enough himself, in numerous books.



So what's "dodgy" about Rubin's politics? I've listened to him in quite a few videos and he seems right on the money about most things.

Yes, this thread is for real.


***

Howzabout we try a video by Sam Harris: a liberal atheist, a neuroscientist, and a hardline scientific determinist no less, who doesn't even believe in free will, and see what he thinks of the regressive left?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHf3hbQIpfw

Quotable quote - 10:20 - Sam Harris: "...this is how the Left will die..."

Linky to the man who was instrumental in Horowitz' conversion, Lezek Kolakowski:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Ko%C5%82akowski