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jd_free

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Exactly. If you are under 35, there's a good chance you have literally no idea about anything bad Mandela ever did and believe that he was imprisoned for doing something Rosa Parks-like or something.

The fact that history can be rewritten like that is disturbing regardless of how it's used.

The above is an example of exactly what's wrong with politics: A person who defines his side as "anything good" and the opposing side as "anything bad". Obliviously, he insists that the millions on the other side believe things that they do not believe, and gets angry with them for denying it.

Now imagine that you are on the opposite side of this person. How do you feel? Would you even remotely consider switching to his side, when his argument for doing so starts with the presumption that people on your side cannot possibly have any good intentions at all, even though you know that you yourself do?

Exactly.

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings.

Read about a practice his group created while he was in prison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

We live in a society where people who use "diversity" as a buzzword are actively promoting policies that discourage diversity of thought and demand conformance. "Standards" dictated from on high are the bane of creative exploration.

At the same time, many "creative" ideas are actually just really stupid ideas. It's to be expected that the person with the stupid idea will accuse his critics of stifling his "creativity". That doesn't mean they're wrong.

"Loser Pays" is the convention in most of the rest of the world, but not America, due to opposition from American liberals who say that poor people will be afraid to sue anyone if they fear having to pay the other side's legal fees if they lose.

The problem with the American system, and it's a huge one, is that it allows TONS of legal extortion. Everyone pays their own legal fees even if they win, so all you have to do is threaten a lawsuit, then tell your victim that you'll "settle" for some amount less than it would cost them to go to court. No matter how baseless your lawsuit is, they still pay you because they can't afford to go to court and pay their own legal fees. Thus the poor suffer far more under this system.