Unbiased Experiment

Quick Update:
As some may notice in the previous critique, I've changed & added 5 things to increase the quality.​

1) I've invested more time into it. Before, I read through each article twice, but now, I read through each one 3 times.
2) The introduction to each critique is formatted better than before.
3) The hyperlinks within the original articles are now formatted into the critiques. Before the previous critique I posted, I did not click on any of the hyperlinks in any of the articles. Now I visit all of them and I at least skim through the whole page, therefore giving me a better understanding of the article I'm critiquing.
4) I'll wait until a paragraph is finished before I comment on anything.
5) I have attempted to convey my opinions and humor more clearly.

I believe this will help the growth of what I'm doing here. One of my goals was to have better understanding of politics and how people think, but the further down the rabbit hole I go, the more disconnected I feel.

 

88th Critique
Warning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content

Primary political issue:
Muslim immigrants
Primary pundit being critiqued:
Kevin D. Williamson - Correspondent for National Review

Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text below.

The Slander of ‘Blowback’

By KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON / January 22, 2015 9:00 AM​

Yes, Ron Paul et al. are blaming the victims.

Ron Paul is feeling some blowback of his own. He was roundly criticized — notably by a number of high-profile libertarians normally inclined to sympathize with many of the views he has helped to popularize — for arguing that the Charlie Hebdo murders were the result of “blowback,” i.e., that French jihadists murdered the staff of a satirical magazine in Paris infamous for its cartoons of Islamic figures in retaliation for U.S. and French foreign policy, rather than in retaliation for the contents of the publication. His argument is absurd on its face — the editors of Charlie Hebdo are not what you would call major players in the foreign-policy world — but Paul rushed to his own defense, which is for him an increasingly lonely task. “Those who do not understand blowback made the ridiculous claim that I was excusing the attack or even blaming the victims,” he wrote.​

The 2 problems I have with this article is the unjustified and assumptive use of the word intent and the inherent hypocrisy of the article itself. I’ll get to that later, but just keep that in mind while reading through.​

​

Is that claim actually ridiculous?​

​

Perhaps Ron Paul should read more of the work published by the Ron Paul Institute, an organization to which he has, if I am not misinformed, some meaningful formal connection. In an article on Wednesday bearing the headline “France Under the Influence” — no points for guessing whose influence — Diana Johnstone did precisely that: blame the victims. “The Charlie Hebdo humorists were a bit like irresponsible children playing with matches who burned the house down,” she wrote. “Or perhaps several houses.” That is not ambiguous. If Ron Paul rejects these ideas, why is he publishing them?​

​

“work published by the Ron Paul Institute, an organization to which he has, if I am not misinformed, some meaningful formal connection.” Haha, what a little smart ass, but that’s pretty funny.​

​

It gets worse: Johnstone suggested that certain nefarious forces — Jews prominent among them — might have intended to provoke such an attack. (Do read the whole ugly illiterate mess of an article in case you think I’m taking her words unfairly out of context.) She wrote:

The insult could be a provocation intended precisely to make the believers come out in the open, so that they can be attacked. This may be a secret motive for promoting such caricatures. Provoke Muslims into defending their religion, in a way that strikes the majority of our population as totally absurd, so that you can ridicule them still more and perhaps take measures against them — war in the Middle East (alongside Israel).​

I’m on Kevin’s side when basically saying that this article this woman wrote is completely idiotic for the most part. I do make a genuine attempt to see where she’s coming from, which doesn’t change my view on what she’s saying. Yeah, the artists at Charlie Hebdo were in risk of more danger drawing vulgar depictions of Muhammad than they would have been depicting any other religious figure. That’s just a fact. I’m sure we can all agree there’s a danger in bringing Muhammad into an offensive comedic light. People can disagree with the depiction and people can be vocal about their issues with it being tasteless, but that’s never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever an excuse to justify violence. Real violence shouldn’t even be a defensible a factor with any debate about comedic substance.​

There is a slightly more respectable version of the “blowback” theory, although it is so general as to be useless as anything beyond a counsel of prudence: The world is complex, and there is no way of knowing what the long-term effects of any given government policy are going to be. The favorite libertarian (and left-wing) foreign-policy example is the encouragement and assistance the United States gave to Afghan fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of their country, beginning in 1979 as a project of President Jimmy Carter and national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and later intensified under the Reagan administration. While the link between the Afghan mujahedeen and al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist movements is not nearly so straightforward as many in the anti-war movement portray it, it is nonetheless a real and sobering example of the fact that our enemies’ enemies might be ours soon enough, something that we should consider carefully before getting into bed with them. But to draw any larger conclusion than that — the scandalous libel that al-Qaeda is in effect a CIA creation, that X, Y, or Z act of terrorism would not have occurred but for U.S. actions A, B, or C — is intellectually indefensible. And of course no one of Ron Paul’s persuasion ever bothers to seriously consider the broader implications of their counterfactuals: What would have happened in world affairs if the United States had failed to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

Kevin hit the hammer on the head here (aka nail in the coffin) when it comes to the US assisting its allies in defending free speech and of course we should be very cautious despite the fact certain countries are seemingly on our side. A country can be our enemy despite having the same views regarding Muslim extremism. There’s something within this paragraph that I think highlights a major flaw in Kevin’s takeaway message from the article, but I’ll harp on that later.
With context to the hyperlink above, it’s not a surprise that CNN is so straightforward about this subject. That’s one thing I respect about Kevin’s articles. They’re not pandering to people who just want something straightforward.

I’m about to derail a bit, but hear me out. I don’t think the general population in the US is stupid; I just think the general population is gullible and most people are in their own little group bubble. Let’s be honest; politics can be pretty boring. People want straightforward news just to have a general idea of what is going on. For the people who are ignorant about politics, but still consistently voice their opinion, I believe most of them want to feel like they’re a part of something important without putting in much effort. It could be just laziness, and not stupidity.
A prime example of people who are in their own bubble and who are brainwashed are radical terrorists. They believe the craziest shit, but they’re obviously not stupid. They wouldn’t be such a problem if they were stupid. I know I derailed a bit, but I just wanted to address that I think a good portion of America is brainwashed and uninformed, but not stupid.
Oh and if you’ve commented something like this, “To be quite blunt, the general population’s intellectual capacity just doesn’t compare with the likes of world leaders and intellectuals such as myself,” just know that this comment will not only make you look retarded, but it will also make you look like an asshole. I’ll admit, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I try my best to be informed when giving my opinion, especially my political opinion. Yeah, so back to….What was this article about again?​

If the lesson of the blowback theory is “be careful,” then that’s all to the good, though one wishes that our friends on the left would apply that understanding of unintentional outcomes more broadly. (E.g., when the nation’s banking and securities regulators are doing their magic of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities while the economy-stimulators at the Fed are slashing interest rates, the blowback might look like a housing bubble and a worldwide credit crisis that nobody intended to create.)

It’s obvious that Diana Johnstone didn’t claim the artists at Charlie Hebdo intended to get fucked up by extremists, but the problem with what she was saying in her article is that the focus of her blame was directed at Charlie Hebdo and not the terrorists. It’s like placing the blame on the victim of a rape for walking through a dark alley alone at 2 A.M. Yeah, there’s an inflated risk for a woman to do that compared to alternative means of transportation, but that doesn’t justify the rape itself one bit. However, people should be vocal about the risks of doing so. Of course keep in mind that the rape analogy isn’t as black and white as the issue that the article is addressing. What I’m saying is basically an emphasis of Kevin’s point here, or maybe more like an extension.
​

But that isn’t really the lesson.

“Blowback” is about the apportionment of blame and opprobrium, and nothing more. Consider the cracked analysis of Justin Raimondo, a tireless defender of the Paulite worldview who does indeed want to blame the French — long-dead French — for the Paris attack:

None of the individual terrorists who struck that fateful day would’ve even been in the country but for the fact that France established an African empire in the 19th century.

Notice that Justin Raimondo isn’t blaming the victims like Diana Johnstone did.
​

That is the historical version of a just-so story. A great many things might have happened to France between the 19th century and the 21st — but he believes himself to be quite sure that this act of terror could never have happened but for French foreign policy in 1830.

Okay so Kevin’s really looking at Raimondo’s point of view in a very one-sided manner, which is very strange to me because all of the previous articles I’ve read of Kevin’s have been against Muslim immigration.
​

Raimondo, who is an intelligent man, knows full well that there have been many other sources of Islamic immigration beyond European colonial projects, prominent among them Islamic colonial projects. If we’re going to go back to the 19th century in our blame game, why stop there? There wouldn’t have been any Muslims in Algeria for the French to conquer in the 19th century — or Muslims to be annoyed with us in Iran, or much of the rest of the world — if not for a fairly brutal campaign of conquest launched under the caliphate of Umar ibn Al-Khattāb. Hell, there wouldn’t be any Frenchmen in France if H. sap. hadn’t cruelly driven the Neanderthals to extinction. Raimondo insists that Islamic militants would not be able to recruit violent jihadists “without pointing to Western intervention in the Middle East,” which ignores the history of Islam in most of the world. India has a problem with Islamic extremism, and it’s not because Mohandas K. Gandhi wasn’t a nice enough guy.

According to what’s displayed here, Kevin’s only political view which is contrary to Raimondo’s political views is the Paulite world view, which basically wants America to debase its military from other countries and focus on our financial prosperity. Even though Kevin might disagree with this, I don’t see the relevance of everything he’s criticizing Raimondo for. Obviously what Raimondo is proposing should have happened wouldn’t have stopped the attack, but would it have lessened the odds?

Okay, so Kevin is criticizing Raimondo for criticizing only a minute percentage of the Muslim foreign policy decisions made by France in the past, but at the same time Kevin has written at least 4 other articles criticising Muslim foreign policy for the US in the present. Basically, Kevin is criticizing Raimondo for not going over more foreign policy decisions made by France that involved Muslim immigrants, despite the fact Kevin is in line with the same political views as Raimondo with the exception of the Paulite world view, which is hardly even brought up. I will, however, address the fact that this is the oldest article I’ve critiqued so far written by Kevin.
What is the relevance of his points at all? It’s like a personal vendetta Kevin has with the guy or something. It has nothing to do with the avoidance of blame on the perpetrators, but has to do with keeping them out, which is what Kevin has been preaching in the last 5 articles I read written by him.
​

Ron Paul is more of a traditional political thinker than he lets on, in the sense that every story must have a villain in a black hat, and that villain is the United States and/or Israel. For example, he wrote:

The mainstream media immediately decided that the shooting was an attack on free speech. Many in the U.S. preferred this version of “they hate us because we are free,” which is the claim that President Bush made after 9/11. They expressed solidarity with the French and vowed to fight for free speech. But have these people not noticed that the First Amendment is routinely violated by the U.S. government?

True enough, and also a complete non sequitur in this context. But Ron Paul would have nowhere to go intellectually without tu quoque. He’s a surgeon with one instrument in his bag, what The Economist used to call “whataboutism.”

Here is the original recording of Ron Paul’s statements,
(Video does not appear in original article)

You have to listen very carefully to his word choice, because he is very good at twisting the shit he says to fit his agenda, contrary to what Kevin is doing in this article, which is contradicting his agenda. Ron Paul is very vague about the actions he’s proposing the US should take, which should immediately throw up a red flag. I see what he’s getting at, which I believe, is catered to a more enforced screening of people from certain countries up to a full on ban of certain countries, but he’s not clear on exactly what we should do.
The only difference I can see with the politics displayed by Ron Paul here is that Kevin doesn’t use the word “blowback.” Contrary to Johnstone’s article blaming Charlie Hebdo’s content, Ron Paul and Justin Raimondo seem to only blame foreign policy. Kevin feels a little SJWish here. “Blaming the victims! You will not divide us!”​

Does U.S. and European foreign policy — bad policy and good — play a role in provoking the enemies of the United States and Europe? Of course — how could it possibly be otherwise? But what is the conclusion to be drawn? Never do anything that might rub Mullah Mohammed Omar or like-minded men the wrong way? Give any entity willing to bomb pizza shops as a mode of political discourse effective veto power over U.S. policy?

But that’s not what Ron Paul and Justin Raimondo were saying at all from what Kevin displayed, though I will say Justin does write some questionable things in his article, but they’re not presented in this one. Is adjusting foreign policy to keep Muslim immigrants out the same as telling people not to satirize the Muslim religion? Absolutely not.
​

While we should not underestimate the role of foreign policy in motivating jihadists, we should not exaggerate it, either.

I actually agree with this statement, but it’s just bewildering the way this article’s arguing points compare to all of his other articles. Like I stated earlier, this is the oldest article I’ve critiqued of his out of the 6, but they’re all within a 3 year time span. ​

As Roger Cukierman of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France says: “They are not screaming ‘Death to the Israelis’ on the streets of Paris — they are screaming ‘Death to Jews.’”

I don’t understand the relevance, but okay.
​

COMMENTS
They aren’t writing “Death to Jews” over at the Ron Paul Institute. But what they are writing is simple-minded, dishonest, and, in the case of Johnstone’s hand-wringing over French leaders who are “closely attached personally to the Jewish community,” despicable.

Piggybacking off of my last comment, that seems like quite a stretch. Were they just stating a fact and is Kevin just triggered?
​

— Kevin D. Williamson is roving correspondent at National Review.

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON — Kevin D. Williamson is the roving correspondent of National Review. @kevinnr

My Response:

1st Impression: Agreeing with Kevin - To be clear, I don’t agree with how he handled criticizing some of the people whom he brought up, but I do agree with his overall viewpoints in this article, which is in part not to over exaggerate terrorism, which is also contradictory to his other articles.

So what I’ve decided to do is put on display multiple quotes from some of his other articles to further illustrate my point of him being a hypocrite. These are all taken out of the ones I’ve critiqued before.

1) Article titled, "Muslim Immigration -- after Paris, It's Time for the US to Get Serious..."
Quote: “Al-Qaeda’s specialty is terrorist spectaculars such as the atrocities it committed on September 11, 2001.”
Quote: “What an intifada needs is either easy passage across borders or a suitable domestic environment in which to hide.”

2) Article titled, "Terrorism & Muslim Immigration Connected - Let's Admit It"
Quote: “Terrorism Is Not Random”
Quote: “We must look at Muslim immigration with clear eyes.”

3) Article titled, “Donald Trump – Muslim Ban Struck Down"
Quote: “President Donald Trump’s second attempt at restricting travel from certain predominantly Muslim countries has been struck down for a second time, and for a second time, the courts are in the wrong.”
Quote: “My own view is that significant restrictions on travel and immigration to the United States from such countries as Yemen and Somalia is an eminently reasonable prophylactic against Islamic terrorism, and I’d put a few more countries — Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — on that list.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve changed some of my viewpoints as well, but it’s just strange how different this one is from the rest of his writings without explanation. I even searched online to see if some of his views on politics did change, but I couldn’t find anything.

Link to the original article,
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/01/slander-blowback-kevin-d-williamson/​

Let me know what ya think! Thank you!
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold

 

89th Critique
Warning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content

Primary political issue:
Muslim immigrants

Primary pundit being critiqued:
Matt Drudge - Creator and Editor of the "Drudge Report"

Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text below.​

Matt Drudge Slams Obama for Importing Muslims into the United States

I’ve noticed that right wing articles and videos have had very aggressive titles lately. “Ben Shapiro slams stupid bitch that can’t think for herself.” (Not actual title, but not too far off.) I’m like, whoa….Ben didn’t come off to be an asshole like this title does.​

by NEIL MUNRO 14 Nov 2015

Since 2009, Obama has admitted more than 250,000 Muslims each year, via family reunification sought by new Muslim citizens and government invites to Muslims fleeing wars in the chaotic Islamic heartland of the Middle East. In 2013, for example, Obama’s government admitted 280,276 people from Muslim-majority countries where the notion of jihad against non-Muslims is a conventional belief.

Regarding the last hyperlink in this paragraph, it gives 164 verses in the Quran that encourage violence against non believers. Some of the passages could possibly be interpreted differently, like this one, “Fighting is enjoined on you...fighting in it. Say: Fighting in it is a grave matter...persecution is graver than slaughter...strove hard in the way of Allah...fight in the way of Allah” Who knows, could be metaphorical. Experts probably know.

And then you see verses like this, “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned [Pickthall and Yusuf Ali have "exiled" rather than "imprisoned"]; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement, O you who believe!”
I mean goddamn, you know? I briefly researched Bible quotes similar to jihad, but it’s nothing to the affect of the Quran. Actually, it appears there’s more passages warning you about jihad than telling you to go kill non believers, for example, “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” John 16:2. Granted that is the New Testament.​

On the day Obama said ISIS was ‘contained’… #Paris​

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 13, 2015​

Muslims on track to exceed Jewish population in USA… #Paris​

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 13, 2015​

Obama moves to ‘increase and accelerate’ admission of Syrian refugees… #Paris​

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 13, 2015​

FBI Has 1,000 Active ISIS Probes Inside USA… #Paris​

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 13, 2015

I mean damn, Drudge just slams Obama here. This is like a reenactment of Trump fucking up Jeb Bush, but seriously, Breitbart has the most obnoxious titles.​

But many migrants have brought their belief in jihad into the United States.

Since 2011, more than 100 Muslim immigrants have been charged with jihad-related crimes in the United States, as domestic surveillance has expand to keep pace with jihadist plots. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center, a progressive advocacy group, admits that many Muslim migrants have gotten involved in terrorism.

Since 2011? That’s not a very good statistic if your goal is to portray Muslims as being dangerous. And all of those 100 Muslim immigrant terrorists listed were unsuccessful in their attempt.
​

The Washington Post has acknowledged this large-scale import of terrorism:

U.S. authorities have charged 66 men and women around the country with alleged Islamic State activities. Men outnumber women in those cases by about 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals — some have been charged, others have been convicted — is 25. One is a minor. The FBI says that, in a handful of cases, it has disrupted plots targeting U.S. military or law enforcement personnel.

How do you know the Washington Post wrote this Breitbart?….Wait a second, Breitbart, do you have a Washington Post subscription?
​

The Washington Post’s list includes some domestic converts, but the overwhelming majority of names on its list originate from Muslim countries.

So like 56% of them
​

Since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, he has established a policy insisting that Islam does not encourage terrorism, despite the widespread acknowledgement by many Muslims that jihad is part of orthodox Islam.

These hyperlinks are all just making Islam look like a piece of shit religion to be honest. I understand why people wouldn’t like Breitbart, but to be totally real, they’re coming with a lot of back up and reinforcements in this article.
​

Obama has also repeatedly promised to aid Muslims worldwide. In his 2009 speech in Cairo, for example, he told his huge TV audience — including invited members of the Muslim Brotherhood — that:

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.) But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America…​

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

There’s an odd disconnect from the jihad verses in the Quran and the fact that less than 1% of people who are Muslims pursue terrorism. Keep in mind there’s 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. There is something missing here that I haven’t figured out yet.
​

Since then, he also helped the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya, and even in the Hamas-run territory of Gaza. In September 2012, he used a speech at the United Nation’s General Assembly to insist that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

But he did counter that by saying, if you believe that, you shouldn’t slander Jesus either.
​

Video in original article,

Pandering speech.
​

That speech came just two weeks after Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and Libya failed to block protestors who climbed over the U.S. Embassy’s wall in Cairo, or the jihadis who murdered four Americans in the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

It’s like this article is just throwing out some bad shit some jihadists had done which happened to be around the same time period of which this speech had taken place and within the same vicinity where the Muslim Brotherhood were located. That name must be pretty confusing to a radical SJW. “The name ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ triggers me when I hear ‘brotherhood,’ because it is sexist, but the trigger counteracts when I hear ‘Muslim,’ because it is anti-Islamophobic. Honestly, I’m pretty indifferent on this subject.”​

Since 2009, Obama has welcomed Muslim settlers, migrants, and immigrants, even though only about 10 percent are skilled enough to live without welfare. Obama has also suggested he wants to import many thousands of the Muslim Syrians whose own country has collapsed amid an Islamic civil war, where Islamic fundamentalists fight other Islamic fundamentalists.

Hmmm, I wonder if the food stamp conundrum has anything to do with these particular immigrants being refugees lmao. They do, however, need to cut a few prayers out of their day so it’ll give them more time to find a job.
​

Relatively few Muslims have successfully integrated into American civic life. In fact, many have retreated into Muslim districts where they maintain their own civic rules, sometime operating an Islamic legal system.

So now, instead of ‘death to America,’ it’s ‘Sharia Law to the Constitution.’ Kevin D. Williamson touched on the fact that Muslim immigrants weren’t assimilating very well with Americans. I mean, did they expect otherwise?
​

Obama has encouraged such segregation, partly by letting Islamic groups substitute for U.S. anti-terror forces in the nation’s growing Islamic enclaves. The substitution was described by the Washington Post in February 2015:

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in an interview that he and other leaders in Los Angeles are pursuing a strategy of “prevention, intervention and then ejection” in which civic leaders try to reach youths before calling in law enforcement as a last resort.​

“There’s a division of labor,” he said, adding that moderate Muslims need to elevate their profile to counter the message of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. “Our goal is to take back Islam and expose” the extremists’ “moral bankruptcy and religious exploitation.”

I would first suggest by taking some white-out tape and apply it to all of the Jihadi verses throughout the Quran, and lastly, republish it for a more modern appeal. And to piggyback off of what the ‘U.S. anti terrorist forces’ is all about, I understand where the Muslims are coming from. If a person who happens to be Muslim commits a violent act, but it’s not proven it is because he or she was Muslim, the Muslim faith shouldn’t take a hit in my opinion. If he or she does have any affiliation or criminal records involving terrorism, however, that’s a different story. The potential connections should not be taken lightly.
​

Obama has also welcomed Muslim advocates to lobby the administration without first demanding public opposition to the jihad doctrine.

Yeah and guess what they found out? At least go through that step. Dear god.
​

Many Muslims in America endorse the supremacy of Islamic sharia law over U.S. civic rules and the American Constitution.

For the first hyperlink, I swear to allah that the statistics for Muslim surveys are as divided as America itself, though they do overwhelmingly oppose radical extremists and I don’t mean overwhelmingly like in the 56% sense as stated earlier. And how does it make any kind of sense to post 2 hyperlinks, one of which has accurate Muslim statistics and one that’s complete bullshit, or at the least was intentionally and systematically biased against Muslims. Not only that, but the sentence itself is centered around the one that’s complete bullshit.
​

In the Middle East, Western ideas never became part of Islamic culture, partly because Islam declares personal belief in non-Islamic religious and political views to be justification for capital punishments. Also, the Islamic renaissance was crushed 1,000 years ago by orthodox theocrats who insist that the Muslim deity, Allah, directly governs humans’ lives, not the Western-style combination of personal choice and reason.

Hey, the author linked the same jihadi verse I used as an example at the top of this critique.
​

My Response:

1st Impression: Agreeing with Matt - Yes, I know Matt didn’t write this article. He was, however, featured as a cameo. It would seem to be common sense that the Sharia Law would be a problem if executed in the US, even in a contained setting. I just don’t understand why people who want equality also want ideals over that contradicts everything liberals try to stand for a lot more than the alt-right ever will contradict them. I don’t know. I’d want to hear a good counter-argument to this. I have to say that I’m really impressed with the facts this article presented. I guess all Breitbart articles aren’t bad.

Link to original article:
Matt Drudge Slams Obama for Importing Muslims into the United States | Breitbart
​

Thanks for reading! Thanks! LOL
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold.

 

90th Critique
Warning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content

Primary political issue:
Muslim immigrants
Primary pundit being critiqued:
Matt Drudge - Creator and Editor of the "Drudge Report"

Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text below.
​

Matt Drudge Calls Out Obama on Importing So Many Muslims

99 cent version of the Breitbart article on this story.​

He looks like a wannabe pick up artist.​

Barack Obama has admitted more than 250,000 Muslims into the United States per year since 2009 – that we know of.

After reading this, I respect Breitbart a lot more for the hyperlinks they embedded into their article to add credibility. ​

Many of these Muslims are “refugees” who are coming from countries where jihad against non-Muslims is routine. In fact, more than 100 Muslim immigrants have been charged with committing jihad-related crimes since 2011.

They basically plagiarized the Breitbart article, but I digress. Regardless of the fact this whole article should be in quotations instead of just the 3 paragraphs credited to Breitbart in the second half, there needs to be some sort of context for having “refugees” in quotations. Is this questioning the fact that they are refugees? I don’t get it.
​

It’s almost as if Islam is not a religion of peace, but a source for vicious hate-mongering and wrath.

If they follow Sharia Law, there is a problem, but according to this link with surveys catered to Muslims for statistical purposes - Muslim Americans - more than 99% of them do not support jihad. The Breitbart article is similar to this one, but they were aggressive and they gave cited facts.
​

After the attacks in Paris yesterday which left over 100 dead, Matt Drudge used his Twitter account to remind Barack Obama that his Muslims friends are coercing him and using the excuse of seeking refuge to instead propagate their ideas of jihad.

Yeah, I’m sure the refugees overcome by war and poverty are migrating over to the U.S. with the sole purpose to propagate their ideas of jihad. Fucking ridiculous.​

The repugnant and vile attacks in Paris are only the latest and bloodiest symptom of unchecked Muslim proselytizing. If Barack Obama means to at least make a show of protecting Americans, he should begin by reigning in the hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants that seek refuge in America.

What? Is this supposed to be just left to interpretation?
​

Matt Drudge took to Twitter after the attacks in Paris to call out Obama’s pro-Muslim policies.

“As jihadis murdered more than 100 innocents in Paris, Matt Drudge used his twitter account to focus attention on President Barack Obama’s policy of encouraging Islamic migration into the United States.​

Since 2009, Obama has admitted more than 250,000 Muslims each year, via family reunification sought by new Muslim citizens and government invites to Muslims fleeing wars in the chaotic Islamic heartland of the Middle East. In 2013, for example, Obama’s government admitted 280,276 people from Muslim-majority countries where the notion of jihad against non-Muslims is a conventional belief.

It is funny that they don’t even try to play devil’s advocate. It’s written as if literally most Muslims support jihad, which just isn’t the case.​

…

Since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, he has established a policy insisting that Islam does not encourage terrorism, despite the widespread acknowledgement by many Muslims thatjihad is part of orthodox Islam.

The 1% is quite spread out.
Oh my god, how did they fuck the spelling when quoting another article? It’s bad man.​

Obama has also repeatedly promised to aid Muslims worldwide. In his 2009 speech in Cairo, for example, he told his huge TV audience — including invited members of the Muslim Brotherhood — that:

“I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.) But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America…​

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a pandering speech, but would it be better to declare a quarter of the world your enemy? Have you thought about the consequential impact that would have on foreign policy and world trade? Oh wait, I’m living in the Trump era aren’t I?
​

Since then, he also helped the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya, and even in the Hamas-run territory of Gaza. In September 2012, he used a speech at the United Nation’s General Assembly to insist that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

To be fair, he also mentioned Jesus. ​

Source: Breitbart

It’s like they tried to write the Breitbart article without plagiarizing it, but half way through said fuck it and pasted the rest in.
​

All it takes is 2 brothers to fuck up years of any form of progression from Muslims. There’s other terrorist acts that do, but this one is one of most prevalent within the past few years.​

Islam is a religion of peace? Barack Obama has been all too eager to overlook the glaring issues which brought Paris to it’s knees yesterday and may result in similar tragedies in America.

Extremists brought the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo to their knees like Charlie Hebdo brought Muhammad to his.​

The sooner he can be replaced with a truly passionate American President, the sooner America can effectively seek safety from the scourge of Islamic extremism, if it’s not already too late.

“If it’s already too late.” Give me a break.
​

Condemn all you want, just don’t bring violence into the condemnation and try not to be a hypocrite.​

My Response:

First Impression: Agreeing with Drudge - This is all so tragic. It really does set us back years to witness something like this circulating around America. No, I’m not talking about the Syrian refugees; I’m speaking of this article. I disagreed with some of the Breitbart article, but it’s evident that there was time & effort invested into the quality & credibility. I try to do the same with this, but of course all one can successfully do with one’s received passion is continuously try.

Ummm….I believe we should help people from other countries and that’s speaking from the heart. We shouldn’t, however, give people handouts unless they are doing everything in their power to make things better for themselves. That is a hard thing to gage though.

I wasn’t lazy with this critique, but it reads like I was, so for that I apologize.

Link to the original article:
Matt Drudge Calls Out Obama on Importing So Many Muslims - Page 2 of 2 - Truth And Action​

Share your lazy thoughts! Thanks!
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold.

 

91st Critique
Warning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content

Primary political issue:
Muslim Immigrants
Primary pundit being critiqued:
Michelle Goldberg - American Blogger and Author

Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text below.
​

Why Is This Hate Different From All Other Hate?
Michelle Goldberg April 1, 2017

Never publish a serious article on April 1st, especially if it contains any wacky shit.​

A boy cleaned a headstone at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., after dozens of gravestones were vandalized in February. Credit Cristina Fletes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press

That is a beautiful photo. Props to the photographer.​

On March 23, a Jewish teenager was arrested in Israel, accused of being behind the wave of bomb threats that had terrorized Jewish organizations since President Trump’s election. For people alarmed about the uptick in religious and ethnic bigotry in the Trump era, this was a shock.

I don’t know if Michelle, the author, assumed people wouldn’t read the article she linked; or maybe, she didn’t even bother to read it herself. I don’t understand why she didn’t bother to mention a very critical factor in this bomb threat by this Jewish teenager, which is the fact that the teen had a severe medical condition. Even without the medical condition, you can’t necessarily blame Trump, but this makes it even less credible.
At least she linked it, because I would’ve just taken her word for it.​

Mr. Trump had been slow to condemn the threats, as well as several incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism. Pennsylvania’s attorney general said that Mr. Trump told him that this activity could be a false flag campaign intended “to make people — or to make others — look bad.” This theory had been floating around white supremacist circles, and much to the delight of the far right, it turned out to be partly correct.

You gotta love the Washington Post. The only news publication website which is cited by both the far left articles and the far right ones as well.​

As a result, the Trump administration is now acting as if it has been permanently absolved from addressing hate crimes. Last Monday, the journalist April Ryan asked the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, if the White House had anything to say about the murder of a black man in New York City by a white supremacist. In response, Mr. Spicer complained about how unfair it had been to ask “folks on the right” to denounce anti-Semitic bomb threats, when it turned out those threats hadn’t come from the right.

Here’s the statement Spicer gave, though keep in mind it’s cut to only show his response. I believe he could’ve answered that better, especially due to the fact that it indeed was a white supremacist who murdered the black man.
I will say all racism is stupid and wrong, but I believe there’s a certain level of empathy and understanding people should have for anyone racist against white people compared to white people who are racist against other races. There’s a dark history that just doesn’t apply to white people. We’re all starting to become a mixed bag anyways, so this retarded racism shit should die out soon enough.​

It was a bizarre argument. Normally, it is routine for presidents to offer sympathy to victims of high-profile crimes — without treating it as an opportunity to settle a political grudge.

That’s a valid point, though it would be empathy rather than sympathy most likely.​

All the same, the Israeli bomb threat hoax does force some reassessment. Perhaps we have given Trump-era anti-Semitism more emphasis than it deserves. This does not mean that, as Mr. Spicer suggests, we should see the president as the victim of unjust insinuations. Instead, we should ask why there was so much more pressure on Mr. Trump to speak out about apparent anti-Semitic threats than about other types of religious and ethnic violence.

And, speaking on the hoaxer, it is retarded to focus on a man who apparently has a mental condition.​

For example, while synagogues have been threatened, at least four mosques have been burned. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, there have been 35 attacks on mosques — including vandalism, break-ins and death threats — in the first three months of this year, compared with 19 over the same period in 2016. In the last week, a family of Pakistani origin in Virginia and an Iranian refugee in Oregon reported their homes broken into and defaced with anti-Muslim obscenities.

Here’s a quote from the Iranian refugee in the link, “You can hate me, that’s your problem, but we can go and sit and talk about it, why you hate me, and maybe you just change your mind.” I hope it goes without saying, especially for conservatives, that this isn’t how anyone should go about expressing their disagreements with Islam. The Iranian wasn’t even a fucking Muslim, but he was still mistaken to be one and it doesn’t make my point any less relevant.
I don’t want to just assume that these terrorists who had broken into these homes are republicans, (which they most likely are; let’s be real) but if they happened to be, they’re more disgusting to me than the radical left. It’s just gross to me, especially when people who share the basic similar views as I do, do repugnant shit like this.
(Photo not in original article)

(Source) ​

The Iranian was not even Muslim, and others who are not Muslim but may be suspected of being such have been targeted in hate crime incidents. In February, a white man demanded to know if two Indian patrons at a bar in Kansas were in the country illegally, and shot them, killing one. In March, a masked assailant shot a Sikh man in Washington State, reportedly telling him to go back to his country.

The overuse of naming specific hate crime incidents throughout this article is the same bullshit tactic Kevin D. Williamson used over and over in his article I critiqued - the Bogus Hate Crimes article. I still have mixed feelings with what I just stated, because it’s important to list specific examples of evil acts perpetrated by someone who’s a part of an overall identity that any article is biased against, but here’s a few issues I have when articles do this:
1 - Sticks strictly to one point of view and doesn’t present any counter arguments.
2 - Statistics are seldomly used, which is ironic since this is closely in relation to identity politics.
3 - The exploitation of identity politics are used on both sides to portray the motivations and the intentions for evil acts perpetrated as always being the direct result of the perpetrator having political views or having controversial religious beliefs which are opposed by the news source. The possibility of a disturbed individual isn’t even questioned; it’s always that specific ideology that the individual happened to be associated with blamed for the root cause in the manifestation of evil consuming the corrupt individual.
What I just wrote was pretty convoluted wasn’t it?
​

The various strands of renascent bigotry in Mr. Trump’s America are intertwined, and anti-Semitism is only part of the tapestry. Yet Americans, for good historical reasons, tend to have a particularly heightened sensitivity toward anti-Semitism. All 100 senators signed a letter calling on the Trump administration to take “swift action” against the anti-Semitic bomb threats. There has been no similar political urgency in demanding protection for other harassed minorities.

They just don’t want to piss off Ben Shapiro.​

The president and his associates mix anti-Semitic dog whistles with frank attacks on Muslims, immigrants and refugees. The paradox is that in today’s America, coded anti-Semitism is more of a political taboo than open Islamophobia. We spend a great deal of time and energy parsing the semiotics of Mr. Trump’s role in stoking anti-Jewish sentiment, while Muslims and immigrants can be defamed with impunity. The risk here is that we’ve been distracted by the anti-Semitism controversy from the ways in which other groups are being demonized as Jews once were.

This is so retarded it’s ridiculous. First of all, Jews are a part of a race. (culture/religion as well duh) The culture surrounding the Jewish faith doesn’t view women unequally, Jews do not have a subculture of people whose goal is to kill non believers, Jews do not have their own law-based system which is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution, and the Jewish culture does not conflict with everything the western culture stands for unlike Islam for the most part.
It’s ironic because I probably would seem like the asshole to her readers. If you want to use identity politics to fight “hate,” why in the fuck would you defend a religion that would, as a whole, be much more damaging to the values on the left than any damage the alt right could ever bring. I’m not claiming I hate Muslims; I’m just showing that what this article is defending is overall worse than what it’s demonizing.
​

In his definitive 1994 book “Anti-Semitism in America,” Leonard Dinnerstein describes American anti-Semitism reaching a high tide in the early 1940s. The country was traumatized by the Great Depression and apprehensive about war in Europe. Reactionaries imagined themselves squeezed between globalist Jewish bankers above and subversive Jewish refugee hordes below.

So they basically feared to be an average Jew?
​

The America First Committee, formed to keep the United States out of World War II, was full of bigots and Nazi sympathizers; Mr. Dinnerstein quotes the chairman of the Terre Haute, Ind., chapter saying, “Jews were now in possession of our government.” There were widespread assertions that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was secretly Jewish; anti-Semites insisted his real last name was Rosenfeld.

I agree, being against a race of people is horrible. Ugh...I mean, I see where she’s going with this and you can defend Islam, but acting like Islamophobia is the rebirth of Jewish racism is similar to acting like Trump is the rebirth of Hitler.. It seems like common sense. I….I just don’t know why it wouldn’t be.​

Demagogues found popular support for their demand to keep Jewish refugees out of the country. Mr. Dinnerstein describes an anti-Semitic speaker warning of “200,000 Communist Jews at the Mexican border waiting to get into this country,” adding that “if they are admitted they will rape every woman and child that is left unprotected.”

But they don’t have a rule book which has over 160 verses that command followers to kill all infidels.
​

Today, these tropes feel familiar but in a new context. Mr. Trump started his political career by amplifying rumors that President Barack Obama was secretly Muslim. He resurrected the disgraced slogan “America First.” In October, he warned that Hillary Clinton was meeting “in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.” Mr. Trump called for refugees to be kept out of the country, smearing them as agents of a sinister foreign ideology. Breitbart, the website formerly run by Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has run a stream of alarmist articles about refugee rapists.

And I pretty much agree that Breitbart and Trump demonize refugees as a whole, but what this article is doing isn’t any better.
​

In the Trump administration’s conspiratorial nationalism, avowed anti-Semites hear their overarching narratives reflected back to them, their prejudices tacitly approved. Mr. Trump himself does not appear to harbor personal anti-Jewish animus: He has a beloved Jewish daughter and close Jewish advisers. Yet he and members of his circle have broken long-established social and political norms by mining the anti-Semitic far right for images and arguments.

Which shouldn’t be directly associated with Trump, just like radical SJW’s shouldn’t be directly associated with Hillary….well maybe.
​

During the presidential campaign, Michael T. Flynn, who would briefly serve as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, retweeted someone attacking CNN with the words, “Not anymore, Jews, not anymore.” (Mr. Flynn later apologized.) Mr. Trump himself tweeted an image, first circulated online by white supremacists, featuring Hillary Clinton’s face and a Star of David superimposed over a background of $100 bills and the message “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” (Mr. Trump insisted he’d done nothing wrong.) Under Mr. Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart defended online anti-Semitism as subversive good fun and published a column attacking the conservative writer Bill Kristol as a “renegade Jew.”

Regarding the first link, goddammit Milo you fucking idiot. Why the hell are you defending 4chan and even 8chan?
I will say Milo’s article in the first link is taken out of context. The article defended the anti-Semitism claiming that it was satire aimed at ironic racism perpetrated by the left when it comes to black schools and whatever. Also, it poked fun at every race. I’m pretty indifferent on it. I would just have to see the individual jokes to judge if they could be only targeted at Ben Sha….I mean Jews. Oh and don’t ever title your article “Renegade Jew.” You’re not cool; you look like an asshole.
​

In power, the new administration, too, seemed to be trolling the Jewish community. In January, the White House released a statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews. A spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, told CNN the omission was intentional, because the administration “took into account all of those who suffered” — echoing the position of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers who seek to play down the genocide of Jews.

Yeah, I agree, they’re assholes for downplaying that, but I thought the point of this article was to draw the similarities between Islamophobia now and anti-Semitism in the ‘40’s? I don’t see what this is accomplishing.​

At an inauguration ball, Sebastian Gorka, a Breitbart editor who was soon to become a White House adviser, wore a medal associated with a Nazi-collaborationist Hungarian group, the Vitezi Rend. The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported that Mr. Gorka was a sworn member of the group. (Mr. Gorka claimed he wore the medal to honor his father, from whom he “inherited” Vitezi Rend membership.)

Here’s Gorka’s response,
Video does not appear in original article,

She must have been forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel with this one. How low can she go?
​

This is where we are now: A senior administration official dons fascist paraphernalia, defends himself by saying he did so out of filial loyalty, and suffers no political repercussions.

I see where she’s coming from, but shouldn’t there be more substance to these anti right accusations? I want to understand her. I want to be against racism with the same point of view as her, but this kind of shit drives people further away. Instead of the boy crying wolf, Michelle Goldberg cries racism, which is sad, because it downplays real racism.​

Naturally, many Jews find this chilling, but we should not lose sight of the real import of Mr. Gorka’s appointment. He may flirt with anti-Semitic iconography for sentimental reasons, but he owes his career to his apocalyptic view of America’s war with radical Islam. The Islamic State, he claimed last year, “is already well entrenched on the shores of the United States.” When the National Cathedral hosted a Muslim prayer service in a gesture of ecumenical good will, Mr. Gorka published a Breitbart column headlined: “Muslim Brotherhood Overruns National Cathedral in D.C.”

Yeah, which is a very deceptive title. It’s like she’s nitpicking here. People shouldn’t nitpick in politics, except me of course.​

Last year, Michael Anton, now a White House national security staffer, wrote a pseudonymous essay arguing that “mass immigration has overwhelmed, eroded, and de-Americanized formerly American communities.” He was particularly contemptuous of Muslim immigration. Yes, he allowed, “not all Muslims are terrorists, blah, blah, blah, etc. Even so, what good has Muslim immigration done for the United States and the American people?”

I do believe that essay most likely helped Trump win.​

To be an American Muslim or a brown-skinned immigrant and know that people like this are in power must be terrifying. Mr. Trump and his appointees have consistently denigrated and dehumanized these minorities in ways we’d never tolerate if they were talking about Jews.

So you’re just going to keep blurring the line between racism and Islamophobia. Okay. Aren’t liberals supposed to be regarded as the progressive intellectuals? What happened?
​

The president and his cronies talk a lot about representing “the people,” but they don’t mean all Americans. “The only important thing is the unification of the people,” Mr. Trump said at Eugene, Ore., campaign rally last year, “because the other people don’t mean anything.”

That wasn’t even taken out of context. He actually said that last quote FYI.​

Naturally, a government that decides certain groups of people “don’t mean anything” shakes many Jews to the core. But the horror of the president’s vision isn’t that “the other people” might include Jews. It includes people. Even in this brutally tribal moment, that should be enough.

“Brutally tribal.” Jesus Christ, go suck a dick.​

Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn), a columnist for Slate, is the author of “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” and, most recently, “The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West.”

“The Rise of Christian Nationalism.” Jesus Christ Michelle, that’s very Christianophobic of you to write about that.
​

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook andTwitter(@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

I figured the least I could do is link the credits after taking a shit on Michelle’s chest.
(Photo not in original article)

(Source)
​

My Response:

1st Impression: Disagreeing with Michelle - I do not care whatsoever about the insults and language that I use. If there’s ever any repercussions in the future, I openly expose my chest to be shit on. Go ahead, do it.

What really frustrates me about this article is that it doesn’t give me any reasons not to be Islamophobic. I don’t agree with how Breitbart portrays Muslims a lot of the time, but they presented me with reasons to be skeptical of the religion. They presented a whole bunch of reasons, such as Sharia Law conflicting with American freedom, 164 Jihad verses in the Quran, and instances where it’s affecting America now.

If Michelle went through why the Sharia Law would not be a problem conflicting with our Constitution, why the 164 Jihad verses were taken out of context, and why, according to her, she seems to be more against Christianity despite the fact that Christianity is about love and mercy, where Islam is usually argued not to be about that as much.

Maybe people like Michelle are used to write pro Islam articles like this to give 1.8 billion people the perception that all of us are not against them, even though the people behind some of the articles like this actually are. It has to be scary for the rest of the world to know that if America was a human, it would be a bipolar transgender with an assault rifle. It wouldn’t be very perplexing if we were only democrats or only republicans. Why do you think every political view for one is the complete opposite from the other? Because it was designed to be that way to make other countries fear and love us at the same time no matter what political views another country may have dude. Or maybe not.

Link to the original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/opinion/sunday/why-is-this-hate-different-from-all-other-hate.html​

You’re welcome.
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold.

 

I'm going to start posting them this way, because the way I've been posting them is ridiculous to navigate through, especially for the Grasscity app. This is the same critique as the one I posted previously.



If you're on the Grasscity app on your phone, the PDF probably doesn't work. Down below is the same content, though the link isn't formatted as well.

1 Article titled, "Why Is This Hate Different From All Other Hate?"- Agree

 

92nd Critique



If the PDF file above isn't working, below is the same content.

2 Article titled, "'If You Want to Live Here, You Need to Live by the Rules Here'”- Disagree​

 

I've made 2 adjustment with my critiquing process. First off, I've made sure to save all of my long rants for my closing summary. Each individual comment throughout an article will always be addressing the one paragraph before it. Also, when the article cites another article using a hyperlink, I'll read that cited article in its entirety. (If the hyperlinks are statistics or videos, I'll read or watch those in their entirety as well) This is for me to be more informed with the subject and add more value to any idea I'm trying to convey at the time. I believe these 2 things will make me seem less impulsed to make brash and uncalled for criticisms. Yours truly; LTSold.

93rd Critique



If the PDF file above isn't working, click below. The format is a bit altered.

3 Article titled, "Burqa Politics in France"- Agree​

 

Haha I feel stupid; I should've known that. Thanks.

Well right now it's kind of like playing catch up, because before I started doing these, I didn't have much of an interest in politics. However, that doesn't mean I haven't learned a lot.

One thing I've noticed is the main differences in reporting in the right wing media compared to the left. I've noticed the republicans tend to use more fear mongering approaches to fight against leftist politics. For example, Bill O'Reilly would say something like, "Mexican cartels come to America illegally to bring chaos, drugs, and anarchy. They rape our women and they'll kidnap and father your children." Something like that. In contrast, the democrats would focus more on any sort of minority being victimized. For example, someone on CNN would say something like, "The alt right's goal is to split up women and children. The 1% hate the poor!" Of course, that's generalizing.

The phrase, "I see where they're coming from" pops up in my head more consistently the more I do this. Admittedly, any left leaning article is much better at storytelling compared to the right, evidence being Hollywood. When a feminist article writes about a woman who was victimized, they do a great job at making the reader invest and care for that woman. My point being, it's made me understand more why there's radical SJW's and these wild identity politics. Most of it is fantasy land and the left is really good at sucking people into that. This has made me realize to try and see where people are coming from before I impulsively react.

My politics are still right leaning, but not alt right leaning haha. I will say, the writers at Breitbart are complete assholes to the politics they disagree with. They try their best to be as extra as possible, labeling Muslims and immigrants as terrorists. I'm an asshole, but I'm an asshole to everyone I critique quite evenly.

In conclusion, there's a lot of information I've learned, but this is just the beginning. I hope people don't believe I think what I post is groundbreaking or even intelligent, but I believe it's something I'm supposed to do for some reason. One thing I will do though, is try my best to be as real and open-minded as possible.

 

94th Critique


If the PDF file above isn't working, click below. The format below is a bit altered FYI.

4 Article titled, “'This Evil Is All Around Us'”- Agree​

 

95th Critique



If the PDF file above isn't working, click below. The format below is a bit altered FYI.

5 Article titled, "Protests, Confusion, and Fear at JFK Airport on Day One of the Muslim Ban"- Agree​

 

96th Critique​

Here is my first video. It's the same structure as the last 95, but this time I made a video out of it. The narrator is me lol.

​

 

I had a relatively well structured step by step process I went through when conducting my research and giving my opinions for the written article critiques, but not so much for my video critiques since I used to review both differently. Because of this, my last video was quite sloppy in every aspect. It also didn't help that it was my first video where I actually recorded my voice with a studio microphone. All in 1 take haha.

So I decided to make a more detailed checklist so I can be as detailed as possible and overall increase the quality for each article and video critique. I'm posting this to give some insight to how I do these.

Since I will spend more time working on these, I'll post less frequently. It might take me days to do some and weeks to do others. I want to hit the threshold of quality content in my original pursuit to find truth. Anyways, here's the checklist I was talking about. I typed it out specifically for me, so it's displayed in very, very detailed way. Not very attractive to read tbh.



If the PDF above isn't working, here's another link, though the format is a little different.

Rules for critiques

For my next critique, I'm going to have GTA III playing in the background in between segments in the video where I'm speaking. It's just hilarious to me to watch smug people sit around a table at MSNBC talking about Syria and the video suddenly cuts to a video game made 17 years ago where you murder people and steal cars, while some random dude is simultaneously talking about politics. Maybe it's just me; I don't know haha.

 

I accidentally deleted the PDF files for the 4 critiques previous to the last one I posted, but the web pages are still linked.

 

Interesting, why would you say that?

 

You could be right. I'm not ruling that out, but I do believe most people have good intentions. We have 2 opposing political parties to keep each other in check. Hopefully I'll be more aware about what everyone's intentions are the deeper I dive. I'm a skeptical optimist.