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The Know Nothings

calamity

calamity

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A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.

The Native American Party, renamed the American Party in 1855 and commonly known as the Know Nothing movement, was an American nativist political party that operated nationally in the mid-1850s. It was primarily anti-Catholic, xenophobic, and hostile to immigration, starting originally as a secret society. The movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, thus providing the group with its common name.

The Know Nothings believed a "Romanist" conspiracy was afoot to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States and sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in what they described as a defense of their traditional religious and political values.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
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You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
 
calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.



You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...


Not sure that is true. But don't go to vote and stuff happens, like 24% of the Electorate electing a President that is about a brick short of a Qanon enthusiast.
 
More history.

The Progressive Party was a third party in the United States formed in 1912 by former President Theodore Roosevelt after he lost the presidential nomination of the Republican Party to his former protégé, incumbent President William Howard Taft. The new party was known for taking advanced positions on progressive reforms and attracting some leading reformers. After the party's defeat in the 1912 presidential election, it went into rapid decline, disappearing by 1918. The Progressive Party was popularly nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party" since Roosevelt often said that he felt "strong as a bull moose" both before and after an assassination attempt on the campaign trail.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912)
 
calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.



You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...

I agree. Now the new Know Nothings believe in the Russian conspiracy instead.
 
veritas1 said:
I agree. Now the new Know Nothings believe in the Russian conspiracy instead.
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lol...not quite, but it's a free country to believe in anything you want.
 
calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.
You really cannot make this stuff up.
So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...

Indeed. Scariest thing about reading history when you realize all these “ distant things in the past that we have long since moved beyond” are actually still looking us square in the face.

As for the Fox News/ trump types who distort reason/logic..often in the service of wealthy donors...this has occurred since the discovery of logic and reason! From Ancient Greece.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist
 
calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.

The Native American Party, renamed the American Party in 1855 and commonly known as the Know Nothing movement, was an American nativist political party that operated nationally in the mid-1850s. It was primarily anti-Catholic, xenophobic, and hostile to immigration, starting originally as a secret society. The movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, thus providing the group with its common name.

The Know Nothings believed a "Romanist" conspiracy was afoot to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States and sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in what they described as a defense of their traditional religious and political values.
Click to expand...



You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...

The Know Nothings were little other than a mid-18th-century bunch of populists given to fanciful tribulation, turpitudinous tropes, conspiracy theories, and truculent temerity. Today's Trumpists, aping them, traduce the very virtues to which they attest their betrothal. Idiots then and now.

OP-er, you may find the following essays, some contemporaneous, of interest:





I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors [strongly rejects] the oppression of Negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy [corruption] appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a notion, we began by declaring "all men are created equal." We now practically read: "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read: "all men are created equal except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating [leaving the U.S.] to some country where they make no pretense [pretending] of loving liberty…
-- Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Joshua Speed
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calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.



You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...

The same kinds of people exist today that existed in the past. People prone to this kind of thinking are in every country.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
The same kinds of people exist today that existed in the past. People prone to this kind of thinking are in every country.
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True....though I do wonder if members of these types of movements really "know nothing", or is it an attempt to deflect?
 
Great minds think alike.

Bill Kristol Retweeted Andrew Lawrence

If Trump would just rename his party the Know Nothings, we could take back the honorable name of Republican for a non-nativist, non-authoritarian, liberty-loving party.
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Laura Ingraham: "The America we know and love doesn't exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don't like ... this is related to both illegal and legal immigration"

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1027380439420420101
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https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1027541775139913728
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calamity said:
A little history lesson to put things happening today in perspective.



You really cannot make this stuff up.

So, in a sense, we've changed very little over the past 160 years. Eh?
Click to expand...

We know know-nothings can start threads...Is that progress? See, I can use rhetoric just a well as you.:2wave:
 
cabse5 said:
We know know-nothings can start threads...Is that progress? See, I can use rhetoric just a well as you.:2wave:
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I may not agree with Bill Kristol very often, but I know enough not to call him a know nothing. And, since he agrees with the premise of this thread which I started, I'd say we both know something that seems to be escaping you.
 
calamity said:
I may not agree with Bill Kristol very often, but I know enough not to call him a know nothing. And, since he agrees with the premise of this thread which I started, I'd say we both know something that seems to be escaping you.
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You probably know Kristol is a Never-Trumper, an ideology based in irrationality. One can't be logical or fair if one is out to get Trump all the time.
 
cabse5 said:
You probably know Kristol is a Never-Trumper, an ideology based in irrationality. One can't be logical or fair if one is out to get Trump all the time.
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lol...the irony up there just jumps off the page.

Trumperism is an ideology based in irrationality. Obviously.
 
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