Update 02/05/25: I deleted the first paragraph after it was pointed out in the comments that it was unnecessary, and I agreed, as it was a last-minute addition I attribute to writer insecurity :)
And therein lies the difference.
Being able to reflect, take on board the views of others, and be prepared to acknowledge that ‘your’ view has the potential to change.
Not demand that others change to be in line, and demonise if they don’t.
Where did this ability (seem to) disappear for the last 15 or so years?
Pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses went absolutely berserk in the Fall of 2023 and all through 2024 They definitely behaved how you described young people in Communist China behaved during the Cultural Revolution! No dissent of any kind was accepted and Jewish and Zionist students were targeted for “supporting genocide and settler colonialism.” Never mind that the civilian to combatant killed ratio of the IDF in this war is the lowest in history or that the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land of Eretz-Israel and have had a consistent presence there for over three millennia. Archeology, history, the Bible, and the Koran are all proof of this. Nonetheless, Jewish and Zionist students were harassed, attacked, singled out, and were physically assaulted by Pro-Palestinian students and faculty. They also set up illegal encampments on public land on university grounds. Any student or reporter who tried to enter or walk through it to get to class was accosted and attacked. They also set fires, chanted for the destruction of Israel and terrorism against Israeli civilians, vandalized buildings, graffitied school walls, and fought the police and national guard. There were attempts within the independent media to claim what we were all seeing on camera with our own two eyes wasn’t an accurate portrayal of what was going on in those encampments. Columbia student Jonathan Ben-Meacham for example went on Glenn Greenwald’s show and protesters posted propaganda videos on TikTok showing protesters holding hands, dancing and playing ring around the rosey with a caption under it that read “what the media isn’t showing you.” But no one bought any of that nonsense. The protesters in these encampments were like brainwashed puppets. All they knew was the talking points they’d been taught by their radical professors and outlets like Al-Jazeera and AJ+. They often wouldn’t talk to the media or outsiders who approached them, were hostile and rude and had a “media attaché” who spoke for everyone. Classic cult like behavior! The Presidents of the universities where this was going on were extremely weak and did nothing to put a stop to the violence other than strongly worded letters. They couldn’t even condemn calls for the genocide of the Jewish people as against their school’s code of conduct. Claudine Gay, Sally Kornbluth, Liz Magill, Gene Block, and Minouche Shafik all had to resign as a result of their failure to take action to put a stop to the campus craziness. There even one incident where a Jewish student Sahar Tartak was poked in the eye with the tip of a flagstaff. Luckily, she was okay and her eye wasn’t badly damaged. Though this didn’t stop Pro-Palestinian folks from claiming she made it up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKJus4bUxw Nonetheless, their was violence against Pro-Israel students, racial profiling of Jews on college campuses and protesters formed human chains to block them from leaving. Could we see things get worse and these protests for Palestinian liberation start to get even more violent and torture and even murder of Jewish and Zionist students happen? It’s very possible! That’s why Donald Trump must do much better than Joe Biden did dealing with these campus uprisings. Are there legitimate criticism to be made of Israel’s conduct in the war? Sure. The IDF should’ve fought a targeted ground campaign not an air campaign which was overly broad and maximally destructive and was prone to mistakes. Are there legitimate criticisms to be made of the current Israeli government? You bet there are! But there’s a huge difference between legitimate criticisms of Israel and concern for the Gazan people’s well-being and acting like a mindless feral mob of Zombies and refusing to hear any dissenting points of view.
I just hope Trump doesn't fuck it up like he did the immigration returns. I don't have a problem with him returning them, but don't take American citizens even if they're Muslim, even if they're terrorists (esp since he pardoned a bunch of them from Jan 6th - and these were people who'd committed *criminal acts* including violent assault), and don't (if this is true, not sure) include any Indigenous.
Anyway. he's got good ideas but he's too much of a narcissist to ever think anything through or consider how to do it. All his projects require more thought than he gives it. I mean, last week it was tariff war on Mexico and Canada. Before that it potential invasion of Panama and Greenland. Last night he decided he was taking over Gaza. Not a goddamn thought to, first of all, whether any of these are good ideas or how to go about them. So, I kind of like some of the job he's doing but TDS has its origins in some very realistic fears.
And with the campus protesters, someone DOES need to come down hard on them, but please, let's not have another Kent State or Jackson State (I'm a Kent State grad although eleven years after the National Guard shootings). My huge problem with Trump is he's not very bright and has the attention span of a gnat, as does the Muskrat. If we could get someone smarter than Trump in there who could do things more strategically, the country would be much better off. It really is going to be a rough four years.
Listen, Noah, *you should be publishing here yourself*! You are always full of history and attention to details and you should share your wisdom with others! Think about it! Even if it's only once in awhile. You are the History Dude. Maybe you could write about history and connect it to current events, or do cool stuff like What Thomas Jefferson Would Have Said To the Pro-Palestinians or something :)
Your first paragraph is entirely unrelated to the rest of the article and likely to deter more right-leaning readers checking your content on Radha's recommendation from sticking around to continue reading. It's a really good article, but would be better without the unnecessary and irrelevant Trump-bashing at the start distracting from the actual argument. It's also a bit ironic that even in a piece largely critical of tribalism and the evils it can lead to, you nonetheless apparently felt the need to signal your leftist tribal membership an extra time in the text before introducing the real subject you wanted to talk about.
You know what? I think you're right. I actually added it in last-minute, like a couple of days ago, because I was afraid the article didn't stand on its own. But I'm going to delete it now, I agree with you.
Update 02/05/25: I deleted the first paragraph after it was pointed out in the comments that it was unnecessary, and I agreed, as it was a last-minute addition I attribute to writer insecurity :)
And therein lies the difference.
Being able to reflect, take on board the views of others, and be prepared to acknowledge that ‘your’ view has the potential to change.
Not demand that others change to be in line, and demonise if they don’t.
Where did this ability (seem to) disappear for the last 15 or so years?
🙏
Oh, I kind of knew it was wrong. I just needed someone to call me out on it, I guess!
Pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses went absolutely berserk in the Fall of 2023 and all through 2024 They definitely behaved how you described young people in Communist China behaved during the Cultural Revolution! No dissent of any kind was accepted and Jewish and Zionist students were targeted for “supporting genocide and settler colonialism.” Never mind that the civilian to combatant killed ratio of the IDF in this war is the lowest in history or that the Jewish people are the indigenous people of the land of Eretz-Israel and have had a consistent presence there for over three millennia. Archeology, history, the Bible, and the Koran are all proof of this. Nonetheless, Jewish and Zionist students were harassed, attacked, singled out, and were physically assaulted by Pro-Palestinian students and faculty. They also set up illegal encampments on public land on university grounds. Any student or reporter who tried to enter or walk through it to get to class was accosted and attacked. They also set fires, chanted for the destruction of Israel and terrorism against Israeli civilians, vandalized buildings, graffitied school walls, and fought the police and national guard. There were attempts within the independent media to claim what we were all seeing on camera with our own two eyes wasn’t an accurate portrayal of what was going on in those encampments. Columbia student Jonathan Ben-Meacham for example went on Glenn Greenwald’s show and protesters posted propaganda videos on TikTok showing protesters holding hands, dancing and playing ring around the rosey with a caption under it that read “what the media isn’t showing you.” But no one bought any of that nonsense. The protesters in these encampments were like brainwashed puppets. All they knew was the talking points they’d been taught by their radical professors and outlets like Al-Jazeera and AJ+. They often wouldn’t talk to the media or outsiders who approached them, were hostile and rude and had a “media attaché” who spoke for everyone. Classic cult like behavior! The Presidents of the universities where this was going on were extremely weak and did nothing to put a stop to the violence other than strongly worded letters. They couldn’t even condemn calls for the genocide of the Jewish people as against their school’s code of conduct. Claudine Gay, Sally Kornbluth, Liz Magill, Gene Block, and Minouche Shafik all had to resign as a result of their failure to take action to put a stop to the campus craziness. There even one incident where a Jewish student Sahar Tartak was poked in the eye with the tip of a flagstaff. Luckily, she was okay and her eye wasn’t badly damaged. Though this didn’t stop Pro-Palestinian folks from claiming she made it up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKJus4bUxw Nonetheless, their was violence against Pro-Israel students, racial profiling of Jews on college campuses and protesters formed human chains to block them from leaving. Could we see things get worse and these protests for Palestinian liberation start to get even more violent and torture and even murder of Jewish and Zionist students happen? It’s very possible! That’s why Donald Trump must do much better than Joe Biden did dealing with these campus uprisings. Are there legitimate criticism to be made of Israel’s conduct in the war? Sure. The IDF should’ve fought a targeted ground campaign not an air campaign which was overly broad and maximally destructive and was prone to mistakes. Are there legitimate criticisms to be made of the current Israeli government? You bet there are! But there’s a huge difference between legitimate criticisms of Israel and concern for the Gazan people’s well-being and acting like a mindless feral mob of Zombies and refusing to hear any dissenting points of view.
I just hope Trump doesn't fuck it up like he did the immigration returns. I don't have a problem with him returning them, but don't take American citizens even if they're Muslim, even if they're terrorists (esp since he pardoned a bunch of them from Jan 6th - and these were people who'd committed *criminal acts* including violent assault), and don't (if this is true, not sure) include any Indigenous.
Anyway. he's got good ideas but he's too much of a narcissist to ever think anything through or consider how to do it. All his projects require more thought than he gives it. I mean, last week it was tariff war on Mexico and Canada. Before that it potential invasion of Panama and Greenland. Last night he decided he was taking over Gaza. Not a goddamn thought to, first of all, whether any of these are good ideas or how to go about them. So, I kind of like some of the job he's doing but TDS has its origins in some very realistic fears.
And with the campus protesters, someone DOES need to come down hard on them, but please, let's not have another Kent State or Jackson State (I'm a Kent State grad although eleven years after the National Guard shootings). My huge problem with Trump is he's not very bright and has the attention span of a gnat, as does the Muskrat. If we could get someone smarter than Trump in there who could do things more strategically, the country would be much better off. It really is going to be a rough four years.
Listen, Noah, *you should be publishing here yourself*! You are always full of history and attention to details and you should share your wisdom with others! Think about it! Even if it's only once in awhile. You are the History Dude. Maybe you could write about history and connect it to current events, or do cool stuff like What Thomas Jefferson Would Have Said To the Pro-Palestinians or something :)
Your first paragraph is entirely unrelated to the rest of the article and likely to deter more right-leaning readers checking your content on Radha's recommendation from sticking around to continue reading. It's a really good article, but would be better without the unnecessary and irrelevant Trump-bashing at the start distracting from the actual argument. It's also a bit ironic that even in a piece largely critical of tribalism and the evils it can lead to, you nonetheless apparently felt the need to signal your leftist tribal membership an extra time in the text before introducing the real subject you wanted to talk about.
You know what? I think you're right. I actually added it in last-minute, like a couple of days ago, because I was afraid the article didn't stand on its own. But I'm going to delete it now, I agree with you.