At what point will liberal Democrats become alarmed?
That’s a question I’ve asked myself for quite some time.
I’m not talking about leftists; I’m talking about so many people I know who are not especially into politics; you might call them leftist-enablers. They tend to read the NY Times or the Boston Globe and listen to NPR, and vote Democratic Party almost reflexively. Their numbers are legion and they may even constitute the bulk of the Democratic Party, for all I know.
Years ago, I thought that they would become alarmed at some of the developments that alarmed me. The targeting of conservative groups by the IRS was one such thing. The promise Obama made – and broke – about “you can keep your doctor” under Obamacare was another. But there were so many more, each escalating bit by bit by bit.
But nothing seemed to upset them or act as a red flag. Either they didn’t read about the things that bothered me, or they didn’t believe it happened quite like I said it did, or they didn’t quite see what the big deal was.
So at what point will they become alarmed? Perhaps when they or someone they know and love is targeted by the left? Maybe not even then.
I am reminded of a post I wrote long ago about a writer who was originally from Iran. Although she was actually on the left, some of her story seems apropos. Here’s a portion of that post:
Nafisi married early, at eighteen, and attended college at the University of Oklahoma during the 1970s. Her plunge into political activism was as casual (and as literary) as it was leftist:
“I joined the Iranian student movement reluctantly. My father’s imprisonment and my family’s vague nationalist sympathies had sensitized me towards politics, but I was more of a rebel than a political activist–though in those days there was not much difference between them. One attraction was the fact that the men in the movement didn’t try to assault or seduce me. Instead, they held study groups in which we read and discussed Engels’s Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State and Marx’s The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. In the seventies, the mood—not just among Iranians, but among American and European students—was revolutionary. There was the Cuban example, and China of course. The revolutionary cant and romantic atmosphere were infectious, and the Iranian students were at the forefront of the struggle.”
So, revolution was a mood, an essence, something infectious in the air—rather like bacilli, as it turns out. Nafisi describes the group as markedly Marxist in philosophy and in style, sporting “Che Guevara sports jackets and boots…and Mao jackets and khakis.”
For Nafisi herself, romanticism and literature seem to have been the primary motives, passed somehow through the alchemy of her homesickness and transmuted into political activism:
“I insisted on wearing long dresses outside the meetings…I never gave up the habit of reading and loving ‘counterrevolutionary’ writers—T. S. Eliot, Austen, Plath, Nabokov, Fitzgrerald—but I spoke passionately at the rallies; inspired by phrases I had read in novels and poems, I would weave words together into sounds of revolution. My oppressive yearning for home was shaped into excited speeches against the tyrants back home and their American backers.”
Once in Tehran, Nafisi began to realize that the unsettling airport scene had been only the tip of the iceberg. She soon came to bitterly regret the mindless revolutionary zeal of her youth, and to realize that her revolutionary dream had turned into a nightmare, as they so often do:
“When in the States we had shouted Death to this or that, those deaths seemed to be more symbolic, more abstract, as if we were encouraged by the impossibility of our slogans to insist upon them even more. But in Tehran in 1979, these slogans were turning into reality with macabre precision. I felt helpless: all the dreams and slogans were coming true, and there was no escaping them.”
Although the revolutionaries back in Oklahoma and elsewhere had been decidedly leftist, the revolution they helped birth was a restrictive theocracy. One of the most interesting portions of the book describes how those leftists, at least in the early stages, managed to rationalize and excuse such clear signs that things had gone sharply awry as the imposition of the veil and the subjugation of women.
Nafisi was not one of those excusers, however; she describes her horror at the relentless approach of the suffocating clasp of the mullahs, a chill embrace undreamt of in her leftist days in Oklahoma.
And it got worse, much worse; there are many passages in the book that reminded me uncannily of what it must have been like for French revolutionaries to have watched the unfolding of the Reign of Terror (those who survived, that is), not to mention Stalin’s ex-comrades viewing the purges of their ranks:
“In later months and years, every once in a while Bijan [Nafisi’s husband] and I would be shocked to see the show trials of our old comrades in the U.S. on television. They eagerly denounced their past actions, their old comrades, their old selves, and confessed that they were indeed the enemies of Islam. We would watch these scenes in silence…I turned and ask Bijan, Did you ever dream that this could happen to us? He said, No, I didn’t, but I should have.”
“No, I didn’t, but I should have.” What quiet words of chilling despair! And indeed, one wonders how it was that smart people could have been so dumb; by the mid-to late-1970’s, when Nafisi and her friends were supporting a leftist revolution in Iran, surely the jury was no longer out on the fact that this was a road that would lead to the revolution swallowing its own as well as many others. But we see such a phenomenon again and again, as history repeats itself in its winding, twisting path.
In Nafisi’s case, she seems to have been mainly a romantic, interested in literature almost to the exclusion of other topics—such as history, apparently. Unfortunately for her, she had to learn the lessons of history the hard way, from personal experience. And so, too, did her revolutionary Iranian comrades-in-arms, unfortunately for them—and for us, and for the world as well. They could never have guessed at the trajectory their lives would follow from those long-ago days of sartorial playing at being revolutionaries, sporting Che and Mao jackets, to their final moments in the executioner’s chamber.
Alan Dershowitz is IMO a perfect example of a liberal in denial of the current and future nature of the party he supports.
I suspect the vast majority of liberals in the West will not become truly alarmed until it is far too late.
And when they do become alarmed, the majority will default to the familiar rationalization, ‘if only the right people had been in charge’. Better to play the victim than to face having been played the fool.
Although the revolutionaries back in Oklahoma and elsewhere had been decidedly leftist, the revolution they helped birth was a restrictive theocracy.
The governing spectrum is from anarchy on the right to totalitarianism on the left. Features like theism and secularism, nationalism and globalism are correlated but not determinative. Theocracy is a religious organization led by God, gods, and mortal gods and goddesses. Everyone has a religion (i.e. behavioral protocol): Judaism, Marxism, liberalism, etc. The left-right nexus is leftist.
Alan Dershowitz is IMO a perfect example of a liberal in denial
Liberalism is a divergent ideology, typically generational, tribal, sectarian, or factional. Dershowitz is a yesteryear liberal. For that matter, so are libertarians and conservatives, too. Judge a philosophy by the content of its principles.
All my liberal, Biden voting, friends are now acting like life is normal. Very few political posts since the inauguration, and more of the normal family and friends type posts on FB. The evil Trump is gone so life is back to the way it should be.
All the unrest, and radical EOs etc don’t seem to be on their radar at all. I suspect until the woke mob starts coming for them they won’t react.
Neo’s post is about more than just the trigger, or the straw that breaks the ideological back. But the trigger is interesting. I used to read the Robin of Berkeley blog until she shut it down. IIRC, her trigger was that relatively brief and minor (in my eyes, not hers) series of events during the Democrat presidential primary of 2008 where the Obama campaign operatives accused Hillary of being a racist.
It threw Robin’s political world into a tailspin. Seems so quaint now; and odd and unlikely.
physicsguy,
Yes, that has been my experience also. Several times I have got ‘oh, I don’t follow the news anymore’ or something like that or the amazing ‘politics is just too divisive’ from the same people that were daily railing on about Trump this and Trump that. And these are mostly normal people not crazy ass BLM or Antifa supporters.
So the answer to neo’s question is not for a long time if ever sadly.
I have to act like a monk around my mostly-liberal family, and hide most of my political feelings so that I don’t have to sleep by myself in the car. But, anyway, I do enjoy subtly baiting these relatives, and the latest is about “how do you feel about Caitlyn Jenner running against Gavin Newsom, being that he is a LGBTQ trans person and must have faced all that oppression and marginalization over his life?”
Then, almost as pre-programmed and instantly, they come back with exactly the CNN opinion. It is not a thoughtful answer. It is a religious reflective answer. “Gavin made a few mistakes but he is human and he is a good progressive.””Caitlyn is just going to follow the Republican line.”
The disengaged libs will realize their error when the equity they have in their houses and their 401ks are confiscated to pay reparations.
“If only Stalin knew!”
Do we know that Dershowitz actually voted for Biden?
“Dershowitz is a yesteryear liberal. For that matter, so are libertarians and conservatives, too.” n.n.
I agree that Dershowitz is a yesteryear liberal, if libertarians and conservatives are too, then wherein do the differences lie? Do they not, in the aggregate, subscribe to different policies and vote differently?
“Do we know that Dershowitz actually voted for Biden?” Barry Meislin
I certainly don’t know and briefly pondered that question. I decided that, given that he hasn’t disavowed the democrat party… how he votes doesn’t matter. Were he honest with himself, he’d have to conclude that the democrat party is now treasonous. And that he must, given his principled loyalty to the Constitution and classical liberal values and, being a notable public figure, publicly disavow himself from the democrat party. Unlike Reagan, up till now he hasn’t publicly admitted that the democrat party has left him. I wonder at what point he’ll become alarmed enough to do so… if ever.
Was it Robin of Berkeley who said she went to the right when she concluded that the guys who hassled her were left and the decent guys were on the right?
It’s an interesting question. I don’t have a sufficient sample but I get the feeling that almost all of my dem acquaintances would think, if someone brought it to their attention, that whatever bad stuff was happening, it was happening to people who deserved it. So not to worry. Why do these people deserve it? Word clouds and uneducated, Trump voters, racists, etc.
The others are oblivious. Or, sort of in between, a hand-waving change of subject.
pas d’ennemis dans la gauche, I guess. My French is long gone.
My Dem neighbors and family say things like “What a relief we don’t have to worry about watching the news every night and seeing that the President did something crazy!”
I did run into an old colleague about a year and a half ago who was very troubled by what was becoming of the Democrats. “I don’t recognize my party any more,” was how she put it. Who knows what she’s made of the events of the last year.
American liberalism is almost dead as a viable and influential ideology/worldview. And I define ‘liberalism’ fairly broadly, encompassing 90s ‘New Democrats’ on one end and ‘progressives’ of the Paul Wellstone/Ralph Nader ilk on the other (who focused on class issues, and corporate and military power, rarely referencing identity politics).
It is fitting that Walter Mondale just passed away; he was an exemplar of post-war American liberalism. It is also fitting, indeed almost deliciously ironic to have Joe Biden in the White House: a senile, doddering fool, as a thin veneer of a crumbling ideology.
I understand many ordinary voters still identify as liberals, and still espouse (perhaps yearn for) the philosophical principles and policy positions of yesteryear. But, they’re either fools or knaves; self-delusional, or disingenuous.
To answer Neo’s question: most of them will never wake up. The knaves are already cultural Marxists, no matter what they state publicly. Most of the fools will gradually and subtly be transformed into cultural Marxists, bit by bit. Indeed it is already happening. The few who do have an “Aha!” moment will move right, in the fashion of the ‘Walk Away’ movement.
OT, but I wanted to let people know what is going on in Germany.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/23/merkels-party-is-on-the-path-to-irrelevance/
I’ll give you more later about the Green party’s chancellor candidate.
BTW,My husband and his co-workers say they probably won’t vote.
I agree that Dershowitz is a yesteryear liberal, if libertarians and conservatives are too, then wherein do the differences lie? Do they not, in the aggregate, subscribe to different policies and vote differently?
Liberalism does not define sources, sinks, and paths, but is generally an ideology of divergence, rebellion, contrarianism, etc., which may be characterized as good or bad. For example, progress is an unqualified monotonic process, which is popularly characterized as good or functional. Conservativism is moderating, which with social progress has been associated with a negative denotation and connotation. While the reality is a diversity of individuals, minority of one, there is, in aggregate, an inevitable convergence or consensus through argument or force. Principles matter.
I’ve asked myself that question many times and I think for most liberals the answer is never. To become alarmed would be to admit a mistake and have their world turned upside down, something most people simply can’t handle. I think no matter how bad things get, they will be convinced that the real problem is with conservatives and the effect that their oppressive policies have had on marginalized people. Years ago a co-worker of mine (a liberal Democrat) got robbed at gunpoint and refused to call the cops because she didn’t want the gunman to have his life ruined. Bill Maher actually spoke the truth a week ago when he said, regarding obesity and Covid mortality, that some people would literally rather die than say something offensive.
The moderates are becoming alarmed, at least in my family.
I wouldn’t classify them as hard-core Democrats, though they have voted Democratic.
The pandemic stuff has gone too far for them. Mainly, vaccines not leading directly to a let-up on pandemic-related restrictions. And people going as far as to wear masks outside while walking alone, and refusing to see loved ones, has driven them nuts.
BLM has also gone too far for some moderates. Not that they don’t believe black lives matter, of course, but the hypocrisy and the abandonment of facts and reasoning has driven them crazy.
I guess I shouldn’t discount the number of moderates and liberal Democrats who are too afraid of “the mob” to say what they really think.
At what point will liberal Democrats become alarmed?
They won’t. Voting is an indicator of identity for Democrats and (among the haut bourgeois) something which differentiates in-groups from out-groups. If something happens which invades their domestic life, they’ll reconsider. Republicans are people who have a disparate set of complaints; they are people for whom the political world is an aspect of life, not a matter of identity. There is a small corps of swing voters who may be repelled by the Democratic Party, but they’re unpredictable. See James Neuchterlein on swing voters: they’re the sort of people who will vote against a candidate because ‘she reminds me of my first wife’. With some dumb luck you’ll get them. If the political world invades their domestic life, you might just get them if they identify the perpetrator correctly. Recall though, who ended up writing all that banking legislation in 2009. It was Barney Frank, the person in Congress most responsible for the train wreck balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
One thing that hits you about the current generation of institutional management (you cannot say ‘leadership’ without retching) is their lack of integrity compared to previous generations. Take a look at the reply Andrew Gutman received to his letter (penned by the school’s headmistress). What hits you is what an obvious weasel she is.
I knew people among my parents’ circle who had their dishonesties. One I can recall was an alcoholic; another was a woman with a shambles of a domestic life. Neither really wanted to own their problems in living (the woman had a great deal of help in making that shambles; the man was pretty much a sole author). I cannot imagine either of them penning the letter the Brearley headmistress sent. They wouldn’t have been capable of it.
What sustains the empire of lies is that our professional-managerial class is composed of people who are liars by default.
“At what point will liberal Democrats become alarmed?”
When their bank account says $0.00 and they are not getting any more gov checks.
n.n.,
I would assert that classical liberalism is the only authentic liberalism. I cannot agree that classical liberalism is an ideology of divergence, rebellion, contrarianism, etc.
Nor can I agree that classical liberalism views progress as “an unqualified monotonic process”. Instead it is viewed as at best, a process of 2 steps forward with one step back.
Principles do indeed matter and so does human nature, which is why progress is a stumbling forward, rather than an unobstructed, smooth road spiraling upward. Example: in the 20th century just past, over 160 million people died in wars, genocides, etc. A current example; the Xiden administration’s contempt for Constitutional governance.
I think it depends largely on their political predispostion and ALSO on which media they’re watching, listening to or reading, the latter usually a function of the former.
If none of the current catastrophe is being reported, revealed, discovered, or otherwise found out—while the usual lying and demonization of Republicans is being served up copiously—then the only “reasonable” reaction is “Huh, what are those Republicans even talking about? Lying again, as usual…”
(Though some of the more astute ones might just respond with a heartfelt “What, me worry?”)
As is the case with most authoritarian and/or third-world situations, you don’t find out about the problems until it’s too late. And even then, in the current case, ALL fault will be attributed to Donald Trump and his supporters….
But who knows? Maybe “Biden” ‘s across-the-board implementation of CRT in public education will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, as it will certainly be hard to hide that horror; though the usual suspects will be trying to perfume that pig for all it’s worth (even as they criticize America to the skies for being—and for always having been—a racist monstrosity). The question is, will it just prove too much for even the card-carrying members of the party.
Yes, there’s trouble in “the last best hope of earth”….
Leftism I think has sucked in the Liberals who don’t want to be tossed out of that society and turned them into Leftists Lite.
Related in that this is something that must be quashed, squelched, censored, burnt and otherwise ground to dust at all costs: An extraordinary article pushing back against the Climate Change “Science” Grifters (which would include the “Biden” administration and its controlling Politburo):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-physicist-became-a-climate-truth-teller-11618597216?mod=djemalertNEWS
H/T Powerline blog.
+ bonus:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pathetic-appeal-hysterical-media-frightened-voters-aussie-tv-anchor-unloads-loopy-left
The libs will never change their minds. A friend of my wife called a few weeks ago and immediately launched into a harangue calling Gov. DeSantis’ sanity into question. She’s never particularly rational so I didn’t point out that the death rate in Florida is 1600 per million compared to here in MA where it’s 2500 per million. Seems to me that he’s doing something right.
In any case, if your sole source of information is the NYT and PBS your view of the world is essentially like living in a darkened room and looking out into the world through a keyhole
Call me an idiot, but is there a link to the earlier blog post?
A leftist, literature major. Figures. The dress-up routine, be it clothes or journals, the affectations, the “signaling” as we now call it; all part of the same psychology and adoption of a fashionable morality.
Echoing several here regarding American liberals, and the role which their self-constructed ego identity has in filtering out discordant information and blocking any latent and belated realizations from surfacing: the answer is effectively, “Never”.
We should not dismiss too, the role which a more or less conscious self-interest plays in all of this; with the now documented sociological emergence of an insulated tax and endowment sustained Bugman Overlord class ( to use Neo’s hilarious term for the modern clerisy, or institution dwelling class, or whichever of the many proposed terms, you want to call it.)
Barry Meislin: “ If none of the current catastrophe is being reported, revealed, discovered, or otherwise found out—while the usual lying and demonization of Republicans is being served up copiously—then the only “reasonable” reaction is “Huh, what are those Republicans even talking about? Lying again, as usual…” Spot on.
The leftist media is the only source of info for most Dems (including my wife). So the narrative is all they get. They will not look at anything else. Being a good tribal member is all that matters. And the consequences of diverging from the narrative, even slightly, as exemplified by the left eating its own among the high visibility class, have become a strong deterrent for any critical thinking.
I wonder the same thing: when will my moderate Democrats friends get it? I have a few. I have many friends who are lefties, we can’t talk politics — but also a few moderate Dems who listen to NPR. I think the old style Dems won’t understand till they are in trouble for saying something out of line and not “woke”. Or, if the crime rate gets so high they just can’t take it anymore — in blue cities. People dislike having their worldview turned over. It is a painful process and most won’t deal with it till they have to.
You left out the WaPOO, Neo! The WaPoo is as bad as the ones you mentioned!!
Right. Not even then.
Wolf I have a relation who is as progressive as it is possible to be. He lives in a big city. His ideas about the crime rate are the inevitable and justified reactions to racism and….Trump. The worse the crime gets, the deeper he’ll be into his illusions. There isn’t any logical way to divert from his views just because things are getting worse.
For many right-leaners, the operative stance is “no enemies to the right” — or it would take something egregious in the extreme to declare an enemy to the right. Many of us know people who fit that description.
Okay, mirror image time. For many left-leaners, the operative stance is “no enemies to the left.” The problem is, the lefties are taking / perpetuating / excusing / enabling actions that are increasingly egregious in the extreme. The people neo describes seem to have no limit as to what they’ll excuse / enable.
Actions that only mere single-digit-years ago were unheard-of and beyond the pale are now mainstream and part of the Democrat Party platform (or may as well be).
Is it the frog in boiling water?
I’m afraid Ackler (3:33 pm) has it right: “The knaves are already cultural Marxists, no matter what they state publicly. Most of the fools will gradually and subtly be transformed into cultural Marxists, bit by bit. Indeed it is already happening.”
And Gregory+Harper (4:30 pm) as well: they [left-leaners] will be convinced that the real problem is with conservatives and the effect that their oppressive policies have had on marginalized people.”
. . . and the latter will be a direct consequence of left-propagandists’ unrelenting manure, blared out via all those omnipresent, megaphonic outlets now commandeered by the left.
shadow (4:39 pm) concludes, “I guess I shouldn’t discount the number of moderates and liberal Democrats who are too afraid of ‘the mob’ to say what they really think.”
Definitely. And just think (if you’ve forgotten), SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.
[snicker]
Of course, DNW (7:26 pm) sums it all up, in my view, very succinctly.
@GB:
I’m with you in liking what Classical Liberalism purports to offer. But I can’t see any way in which it doesn’t inevitably lead to where we find ourselves today. I cannot see any argument against this which isn’t the equivalent of ‘But True Capitalism/Communism/Liberterianism/Christianity has never been implemented!’
There is nothing in CL which can fight off metastases or competing swarms of them. A system which *can* do this is by definition not CL since the L has to be taken out back and put out of its misery as Step 1 in containing spread of malignant ideas — ideas which don’t compete in some mythical public square of debate but which aggressively colonise social host.
As far as the post topic goes. Neo asks about Liberal Normies. They’re just the same as Conservative Normies who vote slightly differently to about the same effect. Normies don’t change their thinking until someone or something forces them to do so. By definition Normies are what the Germans call ‘An Ox on a Mountainside’. They don’t move until dogs are snapping at their heels. Which, Children, is why Conservatives are such losers: they don’t put the Fear on their own people, let alone their opposition. How else do they expect to get stuff done?
Step One is forgetting the sanitized version of how the world works and studying how it really works. Almost nobody was ever persuaded by reason. That’s what we use after the fact to save our faces and tell ourselves that we weren’t pushed into a position by someone stronger than ourselves or by circumstances we were too dumb to see coming.
It’s early. Biden’s foolish policies have not started to bite – except at the border. Anyone who lives within a 100 miles of the border and many in cities or towns where illegals are being resettled know what’s happening there. We are being invaded. It’s a non-violent invasion. It’s being encouraged and helped by Biden’s policies. Schools and hospitals will soon be feeling the pinch. Also, who knows how much Covid-19 is being spread by these new illegal residents? Low wage workers will be competing with these people for jobs.
The energy policies are already beginning to pinch. Gasoline is now $3 a gallon here and probably going to $4 by summer’s end. Less exploration and production means less supply. Which means higher prices. Here in WA our legislature just passed a carbon tax and a five cent increase in the gas tax. A national carbon tax is coming. It will cost more to heat your house. It will increase the cost of everything. All these anti-fossil fuel policies are going to slow the economy and with prices rising we will have stagflation again. Of course, the Progs will blame it all on Trump and the MSM will push the line.
In the meantime, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are all testing Biden and the newly PC military. Most of the world is laughing at Biden and his climate change nonsense. China and India have no intention of cutting emissions. Africa has said no. The Muslin countries will do what they want. The whole deal (Paris Accords) is designed to weaken and beggar America.
If you only read the NYT and listen to NPR, you will know little of this. Things will get worse, but the Democrats will not understand why. Because they don’t understand how economic policy works. Few will; change their minds about Biden until things really start going in the toilet. That may take a while.
@JJ:
I can open my windows and inhale on days when wind comes from the North and rapidly ascertain that China is not cutting its emissions. The lies told by Western political and media classes are mind-boggling.
@MJR:
No Enemies to the Right? You think?
The whole apparatus of Normie Conservative Thinktank Grift Operations is to act as gatekeepers and head off anyone who might venture further right. They booted out Sam Francis, Joe Sobran, John Derbyshire, and a bunch of others. None of these were or are ‘Far Right’.
That awful creep Ben Shapiro is a classic case of a sock puppet put up to catch anyone drifting rightward and steer them away from ‘dangerous ideas’. Jordan Peterson another case in point. Forget changing society, go Tidy Your Room, Buckyboy!
People talk about their liberal friends. What they really mean is persons with whom they socialize amiably enough when there are no matters of self-interest or personal costs involved.
Know any of these people who would stand up for you in the face of criticism in order to correct the record?
If so they are either a friend or someone of serious personal integrity or conscience. For that stance may well cost them more than the disagreeable but calcuable inconvenience picking you up stranded on the roadside at 10 PM.
Do they considerately hear you out when you voice an opinion, and then demonstrably try to come to grips with it?
If not, they may be well disposed toward you all other things being equal; but it is clear that they don’t really take you seriously as a peer with morally considerable insights which mandate respect and a genuine hearing.
If you are used to people telling you that they had never before thought about this or that which you mention in the way you have nentioned it, then, you can easily tell when contrarily someone else is just waiting for you to finish responding to some matter they have broached, in order that they may then go on with what they were already saying while evincing some modicum of politness. Why politeness? Because, you are still useful to them as an audience or other resource which they are not yet ready to abandon or dispose of. Those people are not friends; and the fact may be that they are incapable of actually being real or dependable friends to anyone.
Nothing apart from great personal pain will convince these people they are wrong, because at a fundamental level they love and listen to no one and to nothing, but that which will advance their own domestic advantage.
Doting on a pet or a grandchild is no infallible indicator of virtue, a love of liberty, or of a principled good will.
“Doting on a pet or a grandchild is no infallible indicator of virtue, a love of liberty, or of a principled good will.”
*pats Blondi and nods agreement*
Zaphod, thanks for the on scene report. I’ve been to China (2009) and my lungs still remember the experience. Climbed the Wall north of Beijing – the air was even foul there. My lungs have never forgiven me. 🙂
LOL. Well … there is a kind of calculation involved that simulates what we call reasoning. Though some may consider responding to the goad, to be more of a reflex than even a rudimentary form of reason.
And a classical liberal society could exist, if whining mothers pleading for mercy for their offending mutant offspring were ignored.
But no, classical liberal equality is not compatible with trying to drive the square peg of diminished responsibility through the round hole of civic moral competence and responsible peerhood.
” Mercy itself murders in …. ” You know the rest.
Yes, but have we not in referring to he whose name must not be mentioned, mentioned he whose name must not be referred to?
From a movie, the name of which shall not be mentioned, as the snot and poop jokes ruined the genuinely funny parts.
“Liberal Democrat” is an obsolete tradename that doesn’t mean anything in current politics. I have taken to the web jargon, “Corruptocrat (D’Alesandro), Ghettocrat, and Commie-crat [Ideological Leftist]”). Unless they are/were in a public service (sic) union, most “labor” Democrats have gone “Deplorable” or silent, due to the small business shutdowns, off-shoring, and the flood of illegal labor. The “Big Boxes” and the techno-crats seemed tro have joined the parade. I sense, the attitude of, it will not be me in the cattle cars, besides there is profit to be made/
My family came from Eastern Europe, so I am more attuned to the Ideological component of the Democrat alliance. The Bolsheviks (root~Bolshoi, meaning “big” or majority) were not all that numerous, but they were the most ruthless. “Everyone” played along and made plans for wealth and power until the “knock on the door” well after midnight. The Corruptocrat ande Ghettocrats always paid off the competition, but there is no pay-off in the game of power. The “technocrats” think that they are too important to be threatened, but, according to Marx, “anyone can do that”. The Bolsheviks were believers in,”if you ain’t with us, you are agin us”. Besides, if there is no “competition”, who cares about doing “better”? The Soviet Army had a saying that “The best is the enemy of good enough”. The current CRT team denounces “merit” as “White Supremacy”, so getting someone in a position with the right skin color and loyalty is more important than “capability”. And loyalty is a perishable commodity. Trotsky was awarded the Order of the Peoples’ Ice Axe and his followers and those who didn’t understand the power-game got a chance to appreciate the sparse beauty of the Siberian Arctic.
If you are even thinking in terms of “Liberal Democrat”, you are too short for this ride. The only question is who will be the victims, and when. Both “speech” and silence are “hate” and will be punished harshly. Those burdened with the concepts of “Liberal Democrat” or “Democratic Socialist” will be the ones who turn you in and will be your neighbors in the next cattle car. It will all be for your own good.
“Liberal Democrat” is an obsolete concept that is irrelevant to the new social structure. Don’t waste your time.
Zaphod (7:52 pm) said: “@MJR: No Enemies to the Right? You think?”
Friend Zaphod,
What I wrote was, “For many right-leaners, the operative stance is ‘no enemies to the right’ — or it would take something egregious in the extreme to declare an enemy to the right. Many of us know people who fit that description.”
“For *many* right-leaners.” The qualifier “many” was not accidental.
I’ll stand by what I wrote, as written.
See ya . . .
The whole apparatus of Normie Conservative Thinktank Grift Operations is to act as gatekeepers and head off anyone who might venture further right. They booted out Sam Francis, Joe Sobran, John Derbyshire, and a bunch of others. None of these were or are ‘Far Right’.
Which others?
I don’t know where you got the idea that Heritage or AEI was responsible for the employment problems of the three individuals you named. None of them ever worked at such an institution.
Sobran was told by his employer that what he was writing in his syndicated column was injuring his employer’s reputation. He was told that repeatedly over a period of six years. He eventually made use of his syndicated column to directly challenge his employer. He was then fired. He then discovered the hard way that he was syndicated and granted a berth at CBS Radio because he had the imprimateur of Wm F. Buckley. Sobran was a fine stylist. That having been said, he was also a weird crank. His capacity to use words in an aesthetically pleasing manner masked the reality that what he was advocating was madcap. (He was also very strange on a personal level – in a way that injured him and injured his family).
Samuel Francis ended his days as the editor of a newsletter issued by the residue of the old white Citizens’ Councils. He derided ‘career conservatives’, but never set himself up in some other line of work. He never married and took terrible care of himself. The people you call ‘grifters’ actually gave him a berth at Townhall. Since Townhall wasn’t interested in propagating his race obsessions, they cut him.
As for Derbyshire, he was a contributor to NR, not a member of the staff. Derbyshire himself made the odd decision at the age of 56 to quit his computer programming job and take up life as a freelance writer. As it happened, one of his outlets didn’t want his work anymore. Richard Lowry had ample reason in 2006 to unload him. Doing so would have been an indication that the social conservative constituency was of interest to NR. As it happens, you don’t get cut from National Review for offending the National Right-to-Life Committee. You get cut for offending Ta Nehesi Coates. Mark Steyn was also cut from National Review for retailing an old Dean Martin joke. The place is run by tools.
@DNW:
“Yes, but have we not in referring to he whose name must not be mentioned, mentioned he whose name must not be referred to?”
Damn… I’ve gone busted out of Meta Academy.
I’d settle for a Metternich for that matter.
Art+Deco:
Be that as it may, would you go so far as to say that Francis, Sobran, Derbyshire writing in the 90s were more or less correct about where we were going to end up in Current Year than the supposed pundits of the Left or Right who stayed safely within the Overton Window?
I believe they *were* more accurate in their predictions.
Now some of their views were and are offensive to Jews, Blacks, Women, Leftists, National Review Phonies, Undocumented Mongolian Yak Herders, and doubtless others. It’s left as an exercise for the Reader to determine who got Francis and Sobran largely unpersoned. Clearly Blacks in the case of Derbyshire.
Point is that ‘No Enemies to the Left’ is pretty much true. Cthulu Always Swims Left (in virtue spiral) as Yarvin would have it. There is no way this pertains on the Right. The only non-milquetoast Right commentators allowed to exist in the Public Square (it is to laugh, again) are over the top cranks, snake-handling preachers, Q-Anon Nutters, etc… obviously because they discredit anyone who strays Rightwards.
Everyone claims to love free exchange of ideas. Nobody really does, when it gets down to it.
Zaphod,
“I’m with you in liking what Classical Liberalism purports to offer. But I can’t see any way in which it doesn’t inevitably lead to where we find ourselves today.”
Do you agree that America’s founding fathers were classical liberals? That those who influenced them, like Locke and even Burke were also classical liberals?
Exactly what mechanism acting in concert with classical liberalism’s underlying principles inevitably leads to today’s circumstances?
J.J.,
“Few will; change their minds about Biden until things really start going in the toilet. That may take a while.”
Biden if he lasts long enough will be seen as unable to do the job but the great majority of non-Marxists on the left will never question their beliefs. As their sense of self-worth is entirely invested in being “caring, good people”. When it gets really bad, reflecting upon the truism that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” will be a “bridge too far” for them. Not even considerations of their children and grandchildren’s welfare will be enough… for if it were, they’d be fiercely protesting the obscene impoverishment that the democrats imposing trillions upon trillions of indebtedness upon future generations will bring.
@GB:
Agree.
So how did Classical Liberalism *STOP* us getting to where we are today?
“We just didn’t do Classical Liberalism Hard Enough” does not answer this question, IMHO.
If you could get in a Time Machine and go back to the time of the Founding Fathers, please list the repressive and restrictive laws and social conventions you would need to institute and rigorously enforce in perpetuity in order to prevent a rhyming (not literal) replay when you pressed play button and ran the tape forward again. You could start with No Irish, No Jews, No 1848er Germans, no Scandicucks, no interfering in Southern Slavery, No Industrialisation, yadda yadda etc, etc. Wouldn’t be Classical Liberalism then, woodit? In fact you’d have gotten your posterior ejected from Leo Strauss’s seminars — which might not be a Bad Thing at all 😛
I don’t have the answer for this. But I beseech you in the Bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken :). Deliberately quoted a Very Unreasonable Individual here… one whom I don’t even like… perhaps to emphasize that historical world views always get changed the Hard Way. The Scots certainly did not succumb to Reason.
Be that as it may, would you go so far as to say that Francis, Sobran, Derbyshire writing in the 90s were more or less correct about where we were going to end up in Current Year than the supposed pundits of the Left or Right who stayed safely within the Overton Window?
No.
If you recall, Sobran was preoccupied with attempting to demonstrate that the 17th Earl of Oxford was the real Shakespeare (which incorporated telling the world quite explicitly that Shakespeare scholars don’t know anything worth knowing – something which requires some steep conceits). Among his other activities was promoting a very peculiar publication called Instauration, public encomiums for Mark Weber of the “Institute of Historical Review”, complaining about the Jews, and attempting to make the case for Osama bin Laden, the crew who bombed the USS Cole, and John Walker Lindh. He later took up promoting anarchism.
No clue what you though John Derbyshire was ‘predicting’ in 1995. I seem to recall he penned a volume of fiction which incorporated Calvin Coolidge in dream sequences. I think he also translated some Chinese poetry. Derbyshire himself lists not one publication on these topics from the period prior to 2000 and of the 27 publications on this topic over the period running from 2000 to 2005, all but four were in that grifter publication National Review (of the four remaining, one was in The New Criterion).
I seem to recall Francis ca. 1992 thought you could assemble some sort of movement on the foundation of Buchanan voters. That’s not what I’m seeing.
The people promoting immigration enforcement at the time were Barbara Jordan, Mark Krikorian, and John Tanton, but they appear to be beneath your notice. Also beneath your notice are Stanley Rothman, Robert Lichter, Alvin Gouldner, and Thomas Sowell, who were elucidating for us the mentality of the word merchant element.
Happened to reread Elkins “Slavery, an Institutional…..” Lots in there, some not worn well. Freud isn’t the go-to guy any more.
He does make an interesting point. Only in the west, which is to say England and the US, were there mass movements attacking slavery on a moral basis. We had to compromise even in the constitutional convention, which would not have been necessary without strong anti-slavery sentiments percolating up to the political sphere.
It was well done of the Brits, but it was to end slavery in the Empire. That was so contentious that they had to punt on various issues. And there were few or no slaves in England to be immediately a matter of concern.
So? Slavery had to be defended on a moral basis, a matter of some creativity. And it had to generate rationalization. You couldn’t oppose slavery in the South without ruining your prospects, whether you were a planter or an attorney who would lose his clientele. How to cover your guilt at not speaking up? Rationalization.
After the war, Ulrich Phillips wrote a lengthy apologia for slavery, coincidentally including all the rationalizations. Not that he meant to expose them. He believed them, or at least thought his target market would.
So. A dem/lib/prog who sees a catastrophic result of a policy he’s supported has a couple of choices. One is to assuage his guilt as the result of an objective review of the facts by rationalizing. IOW, you don’t have to apologize for slavery if you can convince yourself it was actually the best deal for the slaves. You don’t have to apologize for, say, higher energy prices hurting your neighbors if, 1, it’s for the climate and, 2, they probably deserve it being unworthy in a number of ways. That way, the efforts can continue and the dem/lib/prog does not have to wonder if maybe he was wrong. The problem is what happens when things get worse. The people to whom it happens must, then, be worse…and worse.
Liberal Democrats: For 4 years, they would regularly turn purple on the latest Trump Fake News and never were bothered that these things were being made up and often very quickly disproved. Some of them are still not fully aware of what fools they have been made of.
1. Indisputable facts are a source of great discomfort, and are the casualty when they conflict with emotion, as we have seen; Emotion rules. These days, the Fake News is comforting, and emotions are running low. There is no need to pay too much attention to what is happening at the White House or in Congress.
2. Liberal Democrats believe they’re more intelligent than average, and the median too. By at least a Standard Deviation, for the ones that know what that means.
3. When one combines the above two points, it does not point to a character with a reflective or inquisitive nature.
Add to this, an old quote from the Wild Bunch:
“A hell of a lot of people, Dutch, just can’t stand to be wrong”
As long as the Fake News keeps rolling in, they can’t be wrong – yet.
I would guess (as an example milestone) – judging from the Liberal Democrat Leftist mayor’s latest tough talk against Antifa – that the Seattle area is getting their no-longer-deniable wake up call. It was probably the incursions into the residential neighborhoods around election time that has triggered it.
Well, that much at least, seems reasonable.
You would still be left with the effen prototranssexual Unitarians, and the other abomination of slavery, but I suppose that if something could have been worked out in the way of compensated emancipation as Lincoln had hoped. Or maybe not.
I’m conflicted about the Irish. “Irish women are noted for their flashing eyes and vivacity” as the – slightly altered by me – saying goes. And it seems to me, based on some modest level of experience, to be true. At least insofar as the good looking ones go.
Now, could you be thinking that it might be somehow possible to be having the Irish women around … without yer be including the men too?
Tough one ….
@DNW:
I’d be a bit worried about the Irish Women: Matriarchal Societies are a worry. What do you think drove their menfolk to drink? 😀
Re Slavery. You and I would likely differ on solutions. In an alternate reality it were better had Blacks never been brought to the New World whether free or enslaved. But I don’t think that the Woke argument that Slavery is America’s Original Sin has much validity or bearing on the broader argument about What Went Wrong.
While I was off doing other stuff, occurred to me that in order to preserve intent of FF’s, Stern Republicans of Virtue would have needed to string up Thoreau (refusal to pay tax + Idiocy in the Athenian Polis Sense), Whitman (spouting onanism and corrupting the yoof), and a cast of plenty… so that takes care of the Unitarians.
But there’s still this nagging sense that Whiggery (for that is what ye fabled FFs were about) always runs to bad even without the help of outsiders — who then pile on. The answer to it all eludes me, but I sense pitch pots and gibbets within the fog of unknowing.
Zaphod,
“please list the repressive and restrictive laws and social conventions you would need to institute and rigorously enforce in perpetuity in order to prevent a rhyming (not literal) replay when you pressed play button and ran the tape forward again.”
“Repressive and restrictive laws and social conventions” are the antithesis of classical liberalism. Ancient Greece and Rome’s philosophical virtues, Locke and Burke’s ruminations and the principles the Founding Fathers promoted were and are not the seeds of decay hidden within classical liberalism.
The deep flaws inherent in humanity are what has led us to our current state. All of the above men, from the greeks to the founding fathers spoke of and knew of those flaws. Adams spoke of the necessary public temperament for our constitution to survive. Franklin was ambivalent as to the longevity of the Republic.
Reagan spoke of how liberty was but one generation away from extinction. Trump recognized the threat.
Men know good from evil but lack the ability to accurately discern when what appears to be right will in fact make things worse. That is not a reflection of a failure of classical liberalism but of mankind’s fallen nature.
I use a computer metaphor because it seems to me to fit best; mankind’s heart, mind and soul is like onto a computer with a serious virus, the hardware is not the issue, it’s the software and an infected computer cannot cleanse (heal) itself. It takes outside intervention to restore the ‘software’ to proper operation.
@GB:
Unnecessary to convince me of the Fallen Nature of Man. But good exposition and thanks for making it. I trust that in your first para you realized that I was pointing out that you can’t KEEP a CL Society without repression which immediately makes it a Non-CL Society. Why my sheer Hobbesian Genius can’t short-circuit Burkean Brains I have no idea. Must. Try. Harder., I guess.
You argue correctly that any political system will go rotten due to the above.
I argue (I think correctly, too) that Classical Liberalism is less resistant to Bit Rot (since we’re on a software analogy thing here) than other forms of government. E.g. Bad King — you just knock him on the head and stump up a promising relative. Monarch’s only real jobs are siring sons, dispensing justice, being damn careful about when he calls Parliament into sitting, and stringing up the merchant class any time they get 1688 ideas in their greedy little heads. Failure modes are far more easy to spot, describe, and head off than in a Republic or Democracy.
Zaphod,
I wasn’t trying to convince you of Mankind’s fallen nature. History presents overwhelming evidence of it. A King or Queen does indeed have the ability to quickly correct the ship of State when it loses its way. The problem with a single ruler was demonstrated by Rome. History records that only five of its many emperors were good emperors. The rest were either mediocre or bad emperors. It is in the nature of bad men to ensure that their power is not easily challenged. Saddam comes to mind, as well as Maduro. Fidel Castro died of old age.
I used to think that a requirement that a ruler must take a commoner as wife or husband would be efficacious. Meghan Markle has disabused me of that notion. Humanity’s flaws are universal.
Their constant badgering of the men of their own race – in the historical parlance of the Hibernians themselves – to act like serious and grownup males, instead of oversized and emotionally volitile juveniles.
That said, they got one hell of a raw deal for some time in their own land; with every avenue of potential success in life jealously appropriated by their colonizers. When you read that even their gathering of seaweed from the beaches was monitored and in some instances required permission from landlords …
Quite an irony if you stop to consider Biden’s role in spreading such a pernicious nothing-passes-notice mentality here.
That said, at least the Irish have not traveled so far down the road to self-extinction as the Scots. Though in mistakenly accepting Alex Salmond as a typical representative of the clan, you might be forgiven for thinking that that was potentially a good thing.
I have a whole different reason why they are not concerned. It has not hit them personally. Most are Keyboard professionals that didn’t lose any money during the lockdown. Their neighborhoods didn’t burn during the Anti-fa/BLM riots. They listened to the legacy media and thought Trump was just a bad man. As Gertrude Himmelfarb stated in a CSPAN video on her book “Three Revolutions” they are insulated from the consequences of their decisions. They can stand the current inflation of gasoline and food.
But put illegal immigrant kids in their schools and hear the howls. Restrict any single dwelling building in their fair city and only allow Section 8 (poor people) housing to be used just see the storming of the city council. The Chad’s and the Karen’s will not allow it. My mom who voted straight Democrat all her life was apoplectic when there was a proposed Section 8 housing development in HER city. There was no discussion with her on that.
And if their daughters have to compete or worse yet share a locker room with a transitioning male….that is when it will get real.
In Michigan they will have to perform a standardized test evaluation for student competency at grade level. Frau Whitmer’s administration petitioned to waive that requirement from the USG Education Department. To the USG credit, they said no. Imagine what Chad and Karen will think when they find out their precious child lost a whole year of education or more because if you don’t go forward you go backwards. In 2022 during a state election year? But then again the Republican Party is the “Stupid Party”. I am getting on the inside becoming a precinct delegate. Dang what a bunch of under achievers and I will leave it there.
So until they personally feel the pain they will virtue signal. They are on the slippery slope of losing their economic and social position and like the courtiers of the French and Russian aristocracy pre revolution will struggle to maintain it. See how it worked out for them.
Always remind them “You should be happy. You voted for this.”
At what point will liberal Democrats become alarmed?
Perhaps when they realize they’re in the grip of forces beyond their control.
By then of course, it will be too late.
“Restrict any single dwelling building in their fair city and only allow Section 8 (poor people) housing to be used just see the storming of the city council. The Chad’s and the Karen’s will not allow it. ”
Funny you should mention that. Here in deep blue CT, the legislature…err I mean the Ds, have a bill in motion to require all towns via a complicated metric to have a certain percentage of “multifamily housing”; ie ‘let’s build ghettos!”. If the town doesn’t have the required %, it must build such housing.
It has definitely got the Chad’s and Karen’s attention. All of a sudden they are talking about “town autonomy” etc. You’d think they were all Republicans. But I “gare en tee” they would all vote for the Ds on the next ballot.
Mike-SMO wrote, “If you are even thinking in terms of ‘Liberal Democrat,’ you are too short for this ride.”
This thread is lit.
.
Zaphod wrote, “Normies don’t change their thinking until someone or something forces them to do so.”
You need to get out more.
.
dnaxy wrote, “I have to act like a monk around my mostly-liberal family, and hide most of my political feelings so that I don’t have to sleep by myself in the car.”
Welcome to gray man boot camp.
The capacity of my (ever-diminishing) group of Dem/lib friends to reconfigure history and reality in order to accept and conform to the current conventional wisdom is endless.
One tactic of discussion which I use is to remind them of some specific event and how it played out-for example the Russian Collusion Hoax, or the now-current “Trump caused the COVID crisis” crap, and suggest that: “You are an intelligent person. You know what happened. You got lied to and played. Take a hard look-you are still being lied to and played.”
It doesn’t really change their positions. Maybe it makes them think. I don’t really know because most of them don’t talk to me anymore about anything remotely political. The hard-core simply double down on the lies.
physicsguy, it’s gonna happen. It was a major platform that the current Politburo tried to sneak in under the radar towards the end of the “Obama” (the pre-sequel) years.
And it was ripe for implementation under President Hillary…except for one small orange-haired detail…
Well, guess what! It’s baaack—and all those neighbors of yours are in for a sucker punch. Would be funny if they become raging Republicans (under the rubric that one is Conservative regarding that which one knows…)
And not just your neighbors. (It’s just another reason all those “New Americans” are being bused and planed around the country….)
FWIW, here’s the urban version:
https://nypost.com/2021/04/16/upper-west-side-is-too-white-and-jewish-city-council-candidate-manager/
Time for Bari Weiss to unsheathe her pen for another round…?
+ Bonus:
https://nypost.com/2021/04/25/epstein-and-maxwell-were-vip-guests-in-clintons-white-house-photos/
(Looks like Dorsey and Zuckerberg (et al.) are going to be really, really busy over the next few days….)
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The conclusion of Otto Friedrich’s book “Before the Deluge,” he wrote (and I paraphrase because my books are packed away), for every extra egg the people of Berlin ate from 1933-1945, they paid with hell of American bombers and Soviet occupation.”
And that is what I want here.
I want them to suffer for every time liberals railed against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, while not realizing NPR and NYT propagated more damaging and less believable conspiracies; for every denunciation of religion as a scam without realizing that BLM was a racket and that the Clintons ran an corrupt organization on an international scale (the people of Haiti alone ought to seek revenge on Democrats); and for every cry of “racism,” “sexism,” or “homophobia” used to manipulate and deceive (that is, nearly all such accusations).
Instead of being better than what they denounced, they were worse and were blind to it. The ugliness of the Democrat Party from Jim Crow to Critical Race Theory is exceeded only by the Communists they admired.
Years ago a co-worker of mine (a liberal Democrat) got robbed at gunpoint and refused to call the cops because she didn’t want the gunman to have his life ruined.
Mad Magazine made fun of this when I was child in (and of) the ‘60s: “I’ve been mugged forty-two times by good boys and that proves my point,” said the professor.
People are locked-in to their political positions at some point in their lives, then rarely change.
Occasionally, people like to point out the Hitler, unlike Lenin or Castro, was elected. Hitler openly campaigned on all the hate the Nazis later implemented. Biden was elected, too. Anyone who expected anything less than total subservience to the worst corrupt Communists and hate-filled anti-Americans in the Democrat party (e.g., Obama, Clinton, Jarrett…) is as responsible for every act of the Biden administration as every Nazi voter was for Hitler’s acts.
Boatbuilder – “It doesn’t really change their positions. Maybe it makes them think. I don’t really know because most of them don’t talk to me anymore about anything remotely political.”
You are doing the right thing by bringing up the contradictions. Change is a process and not a moment. Keep chipping away at their assumptions and eventually change will come for most.
And when they complain. Keep the “you voted for this” line going. Make then personally own what happened.
PhysicsGuy – “It has definitely got the Chad’s and Karen’s attention. All of a sudden they are talking about “town autonomy” etc. You’d think they were all Republicans. But I “gare en tee” they would all vote for the Ds on the next ballot.”
That is where the “You should be happy. YOU voted for this.” comeback should be used over and over and over. Put the ownership where it belongs, their vote.
You could start with No Irish, No Jews, No 1848er Germans, no Scandicucks, no interfering in Southern Slavery, No Industrialisation, yadda yadda etc, etc. Wouldn’t be Classical Liberalism then, woodit?
I’d like to think that biologically all humans are capable of liberal democracy. If not, then, well, political scientists should research the influence of genetics on politics. (There’s a forbidden subject.) It should be apparent to all the cultural background that permits liberal democracy has vanished.
Some on the right and all of the Left blame capitalism—and to the extent “capitalism” (as the Left categorizes it) exists—they’re right.
I think the collection of thinkers here could make a list of reasonable size and scope listing moral and psychological reasons liberal democracy is impossible now. For myself, I’d propose: “people are unable to accept that they don’t deserve everything. They cannot come to terms with their own natures, and too many people are willing to give them some of what they don’t and probably can’t have, leading only to more demands about how their social position and physical comfort are inadequate; hence Obama phones, free TVs, as well as EBT cards for food.”
They won’t become alarmed. They are the frog in the frying pan, and the temperature is being slowly increased. They will slowly be cooked to death by the fires of the left, but they’ll never know it.
In my old DC neighborhood (I still subscribe to the local listserv for ears to the ground reasons) the same stir is occurring with zoning. After a year of handwringing over the segregationist beliefs of the original developer of the neighborhood, largely focused on removing his name from a fountain on an inaccessible traffic circle (and renaming the high school from “Woodrow Wilson” to “August Wilson” so kids could still go to “Wilson”), they’ve discovered that government and big developers have huge plans in place, with a focus on density, diversity and “affordability”, and that it’s more or less a done deal. “But we aren’t racist NOW!” they’ve suddenly discovered.
Very highly connected and wealthy people live there, so we’ll see if it remains a nice Party enclave, or they suffer with the rest of us from the removal of the remedy of the ballot box. They have started complaining that communications with local council members now go unanswered.
The Obama AFFH is well advanced all over the country, with billions of federal dollars underwriting the mandatory “affordable” housing (with a guarantee of income to the developers) and the removal of downward pressure on market-rate properties.
Hyperpartisanship
A barbarous term for a barbarous age.
CRB
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/hyperpartisanship/
Interesting view on our current situation.
The comment about no enemies to the right is being proven wrong by George W. Bush.
There is so much gate keeping on the right. And if a conservative is to successful, or a threat, every possible means will be used to destroy them. Kavanaugh is an example, or all the false accusations thrown at Trump – Russian Collusion…
For the left, everything is political.
And if you show you are not politically correct enough, you may become a target and even lose your job. Object to CRT training at your work – obviously you are a racist and should be fired.
Nafisi’s book “Reading Lolita in Tehran” is superb.
I highly recommend that everyone read it. For me, at least, it was as gripping a page-turner as any mystery or Sci-Fi novel. That’s saying a lot for a non-fiction book.
Funny you should mention that. Here in deep blue CT, the legislature…err I mean the Ds, have a bill in motion to require all towns via a complicated metric to have a certain percentage of “multifamily housing”; ie ‘let’s build ghettos!”. If the town doesn’t have the required %, it must build such housing.
You notice how the Democrats reflexively generate compliance costs (so generate jobs for Democrats in corporate and public bureaucracies). Notice also how they generate patron-client relationships and administrative costs by manufacturing an ant-heap of programs.
It’s gratuitous to subsidize people’s mundane expenditures – i.e. goods and services which are frequently replenished and in regard to which consumption is sensitive to considerations of taste and amenity. Additional cash transfers would improve the beneficiaries’ material well being while allowing them to adapt their expenditure to their households preferences. For the elderly and disabled, you’d institute an additional increment in Social Security and SSI; for the rest, a simplification and extension of the EITC. Of course, you don’t get 16,000 HUD jobs with that, and however many more at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
And if an area’s housing mix distresses you, prune some of the discretion municipalities have over land use ordinances in favor of more discretion on the part of owners of private property. But that doesn’t allow you to harass people and scold them.
And rather than trying to move impecunious wage earners to glam suburbs, you could also work to improve the quality of life in slum neighborhoods and sketchy neighborhoods by debarring the collection of property taxes in any census bloc group with a personal income per capita below a certain % of the state mean and remove some of the pressure to abandon or neglect property. You could have streamlined procedures to evict deadbeat tenants. You could allow municipalities with such block groups in them to institute sales taxes to make up for lost revenue. You could add additional sanitation patrols in such neighborhoods. You could issue citations to property owners with broken windows and grafitti on their buildings or trash on their lots. You could set priorities in composing building codes, and remove some of the unit costs in providing rental housing in such neighborhoods. You could beef up police protection and punish school disorder harshly.
Of course, all that suggests there are problems in slum neighborhoods which derive from the disposition and behavior of certain of their residents. It also doesn’t provide you with an opportunity to make life difficult for people you actually despise.
Once your realize Democrats are malevolent, it all makes sense.
My brother fits your description. He isn’t radical by any means, just complacent and easily placated. He would quite literally have to have his property seized or be thrown in chains himself to take any note or change his mind, and I strongly suspect his attitude and mentality is common.
Maybe after some of them have been canceled for having “wrong views”? Purged? Gulagged? Physically attacked?
Gentlepersons, let the PURGEs begin!
https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-chief-medical-examiner-derek-chauvin-defense-testimony
I’d propose: “people are unable to accept that they don’t deserve everything. They cannot come to terms with their own natures, and too many people are willing to give them some of what they don’t and probably can’t have, leading only to more demands about how their social position and physical comfort are inadequate; hence Obama phones, free TVs, as well as EBT cards for food.”
And it would be a bad proposal. The people causing all the trouble are professional managerial types who aren’t signed up for any of these subsidy programs. The segment of the population most resistant to the Regime is the old, who are collecting Social Security and have Medicare coverage.
Does the severity of the “alarm” by itself change minds and voting habits? Or must some kind of direction be involved as well? Can alarm be triggered only by what happens to the individual? Or to the individual and his buddies and family? Can those like him but not known be harmed so as to generate alarm?
What about a West Virginia coal miner? Can anything which happened to him alarm a democrat?
Probably many readers here are more familiar with abnormal psychology literature than I am. I’ve been reading this essay about pseudo-reality. The author says that people who accept pseudo realities, all or in part, are no longer normal. This may be why it’s so hard to convince people by citing facts. True believers in false realities are functional psychopaths, and their useful idiots are headed that way.
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/12/psychopathy-origins-totalitarianism/
Kate. If you mean you don’t have to be an actual psychopath to do things a psychopath does if you believe in an alternate reality…spot on.
I don’t deal in the philosophy of the movements as much as I am interested in the individuals, particularly those I know.
The absolute, utter refusal to believe that which is inconvenient is amazing and…from time to time scary. It isn’t that they want to do bad things to others….as far as I can tell. It’s that they don’t mind, or do justify, bad things being done to the right kind of others who deserve it.
Or they don’t care. See the fuss about Justine Damond (aka “who?”). Or the Boulder shooting which, after the perp and his motivation were determined, turned out not to have happened. Or the DC cop run over by a follower of Farrakhan. Got less press than Officer Sicknick. For some reason.
Burned-out shop owners are part of the System so what happens to them is either justified or irrelevant.
Sure looks like psychopathic behavior, or tendencies. And this is from a group including nice church ladies.
Richard Aubrey, that seems to be the gist of the essay I linked.
Most leftist leaders are not clinically psychopaths, of course. But consider Nancy Pelosi, who spouts flatly false narratives routinely, for the purposes of maintaining power, and consider how many people parrot what she says even when confronted with facts to the contrary.
Kate – I have read and bookmarked that article. It explains much. Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Hillary, Ghislaine and Epstein are others too. And then the elephant in the room…Barack.
Other resources:
https://www.libertarianism.org/articles/partisan-brain
Then Feser is always worth a visit once a week.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/
If most of the people in a particular group, society, community or country are psychopaths, then the (relatively) sane are the ones that must be committed to the asylum, imprisoned or otherwise kept out of the way.
For THEY are a danger to society. Enemies of the people.
It’s happened in all the really “cool” societies set up in the 20th C.! Along with their successors in the 21st.
And it looks like the US may well be on the way to joining them.
But remember that it’s “for the good of the people”…. (keeping in mind that some people are more equal than others; and still others are so “uncooperative” that have to be gotten out of the away as quickly as possible—once again “for the good of the people”.)
Related: it appears that Comrade Manchin will have to be taken care of…is asking—begging—to be helped….
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/im-not-roadblock-says-moderate-dem-blocking-loophole-socialist-utopia
…and so “we” will have to help him…understand…. (It is, after all, “our” solemn, sacred and patriotic duty…. As proud Americans….)
In the wake of the discussions about “Liberalism” and (of all things) the Irish, here’s an “interesting analysis”, which some might even understand far better than I…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-04-25/what-does-yellens-global-corporate-tax-really-mean
While I find it tremendously disturbing (as far as I can even claim to understand it) and fully consonant with the belief (knowledge?) that the “Biden” administration (and controlling Politburo) have been busy—exceedingly busy—cooking up something (they always have, always are and always will be), one nonetheless must very much hope that the current Cassandra-esque concoction remains within the realm of colorful, well-wrought conspiracy theory only….
(Of course, it might be useful if the author got Janet Yellen’s name right—AKA, that “wise old owlita”?—and/or at least was consistent about this particular mistake—but it has been without a doubt intentionally(!)—cleverly(!!)—done to keep skeptics off the spoor.)
…or maybe it’s just proof of general nuttiness?
“…Maxine Waters…”…who, it appears, is doing what she does best—playing the victim. (That is, when she’s not slandering and inciting against others; when she’s not ripping apart the fabric of society; when she’s not checking the status of her rather remarkable bank accounts.)
All those nasty racists who were somehow offended that she felt it her national duty to lend her voice to the toxic, intimidating mob.
Who were offended by her following her conscience….
Who do they think they are? How dare they?
Short answer:
Never. They have always loved Big Brother.
Barry Meislin, I hope Sen. Manchin holds the line. There used to be more Democrats like him, who differed from Republicans in policy matters but who respected the American system. He’s one of the very last.
Hope so, but then there’s this, which is more than extremely discouraging:
https://news.yahoo.com/manchin-backs-pro-act-bill-204306658.html
So, who knows what he’s really thinking….
Speaking of “thinking”, here is something I truly cannot fathom – Joe Lieberman in a WTF moment:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/549662-joe-lieberman-to-push-senators-on-dc-statehood-report
After what his former party did to him—and as general Constitutional principle—I just can’t wrap my head around this…
Simply unconscionable and depraved (and utterly depressing) from every angle.
…And so, to try to reestablish some sense of goodness, of sanity (though that may be presuming a lot) I’m going to have to post these two (related) gems, previously unknown to me, which I somehow came across by a most fortunate instance of web serendipity – the stunning “My Octopus Teacher”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s0LTDhqe5A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05_7vRcggzg
Alarmed? Who? Us?
Compare and contrast:
https://carolineglick.com/the-thomas-greenfield-doctrine-of-u-s-foreign-policy/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/horowitz-on-the-chauvin-verdict.php
H/T Powerline blog.
At what point?
When it is way too late.
Liberals are so invested in their pseudo-religious political ideology that there really is nothing that will shake their belief.
When they see their friends and neighbors, or even their own family members carted off at midnight to the gulags, the liberal response will be, “well, they must have done something wrong, otherwise they never would have been arrested.”
Or, if their spouse gets arrested their response will be, ” Uncle Joe Biden would never allow this if he knew about this injustice. I’ll write him a letter to get this corrected.”
Like frog slowly boiled to death, unaware of its fate, the liberal will never dare face the reality they witness, but instead invent a reality that does not exist.
Just look at those folks who think the twin towers were brought down by Bush, et. al. Look at the hundreds of true believers at Jonestown.
As I have mentioned several times before, when I visited the Berlin Wall in 1977, the German student-resident of W.Berlin with whom I was staying, described to me while we were both standing at the wall in full view of the E.German guard towers, that the purpose of the wall was to prevent American and W.German spies from entering.
The readily available history in photos and newsreels of E.German escapees shot in the back and allowed to bleed to death on the (pre-wall) barbed wire, meant nothing to this 28 year old W.Berlin student.
He just believed.
People will believe absolutely anything if it is conveyed 24/7/365.
The demonkrats know this as do their MSM propaganda arm.
It is much easier for folks to stick their head in the sand – ignorance is bliss – than to have one’s life-long worldview shattered by facts contrary to their belief system
JohnTyler
I object. I think the timing is different. People don’t start believing the obviously bogus when they come to it without existing premises.
People believe this stuff and eschew the reality because they NEED, and the need came first, to believe. The NEED governs how they accept or reject what facts come their way.
What is the need? Self-image. Self-virtue signaling (I made that one up.). Belonging to the Right Sort of People Group. Feeling superior to others, the lower orders and other subhumans. They are easily led upstream against reality because the NEED is so powerful.
Meanwhile, Back at the Republican Party Ranch:
https://gab.com/JohnRivers/posts/106128593104829426
As every True Conservative knows, America is all about Sikhs and Trannies.
It’s good that they continue to focus on the Really Important Stuff.
Barry Meislin, it’s to be expected that Manchin will back some Dem boondoggle bills. The question is whether he is willing to break the Senate for them. We’ll see.
ErisGuy:
People like to point out that Hitler was elected? Then they know little of German history or how Hitler actually came to power.
The Nazis never got a majority of the vote while there were still normal elections in Germany. Hitler came to power in a backroom deal and was not initially elected. Instead, he was appointed Chancellor. Later, after the Nazis had gotten rid of competing parties and abolished the Reichstag (or got it to abolish itself), he then was able to consolidate his power and be elected president as well (see this), but he already was a dictator and had suppressed and terrified all opposition. You can find some of the story in this post. You can find more here.
“…to be expected…”
Yes, of course(!) but on this scale? One might say he’s protecting his back, I suppose. Others might feel he’s playing both ends towards the middle.
to be sure, the pressure on him must be intense…
In short, there’s more than enough room for worry here…
Admittedly, I had “high hopes” for him (naif that I am)…and am still waiting for him to cross the aisle (in my dreams, no doubt…. The truth is that I simply can’t understand how ANY of them can rationalize staying in a party that has evolved over the past dozen years into a gangster party of TREACHERY and CRIMINALITY—some will insist it’s more years than that; though I don’t believe Clinton, during his presidency at least, was actually treacherous; having instead to focus so much of his charm and attention on sleaze, he really had no time left for it).
Sinema, too, seems to be saying some of the right things but is, all in all, more bark than bite. She gave me (at least) the impression that she was more principled, more courageous, more of a maverick….
Oh well, plenty of room for dismay all across the board….
And yet….hope there is still…as Sarah Hoyt hits one out of the park…
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/446341/
Despair is a Sin.
The problem with Sarah Hoyt is that whilst she is a good person, she’s clearly a bit hormonally unstable and all over the place — anyone reading her blog quickly gets a whiff of that. She has this incessant shtick about her Portuguese childhood and Leftists. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is Pol Pot, the Carnation Revolution and what followed it was about a 2. The whole thing was pretty cute and cuddly by socialist standards — except for the Whites they abandoned in their African colonies + leaving the Timorese to the tender mercies of the Indonesians… but that’s another tale. None of this gives her any special insight into what is happening and is likely to happen.
Then it’s always back to Muh Adopted Land and Muh Constitution Piece of Hallowed Old Parchment and we’ll all get through this together in a historical jiffy if we hang tough and don’t over-salt the Bacalhau… or something.
What she thinks she knows about China is Not Even Wrong ™.
Of course in the end, things will right themselves. Gnon will not be mocked. That is optimism enough. Best not give people false hope that the War Will be Over by Christmas. We’re all in for a long and bumpy ride.
Portugal is an interesting case study though. If Salazar’s very enlightened Estado Novo couldn’t withstand the Poz for more than 50 years, what *can*?
@neo:
Yes, but he got nearly 90% in the 1934 Referendum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_German_referendum
Which obviously involved intimidation and voter suppression, but it seems unlikely that this was sufficient to flip the result or even come close to doing so.
There is a heavily weighted momentum term in any equation of power. Nothing breeds success like success because the rate of defection to the Strong Horse increases I guess by some factor of the perceived power-differential. Which is a problem faced by the Deplorables today — who have not really won *anything* in living memory except for a symbolic raspberry blowing Trump victory in 2016. We were brought up with quaint Queensberry Rules notions of how arguments should be settled. In reality you get a Pile On when one side is down on the mat. It’s no surprise at all that the Progs are just going to kick harder.
Back to something more relevant to the thread topic:
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/04/facebook-has-private-army-its-founders.html
The Tech Oligarchs funding Defund the Police and other policies which make life less tolerable for Joe Sixpack are not going to share the suffering at all.
Barry Meislin: “The truth is that I simply can’t understand how ANY of them can rationalize staying in a party that has evolved over the past dozen years into a gangster party of TREACHERY and CRIMINALITY.” Well, I posted a link on pseudo reality and how “useful idiots” are no longer mentally normal.
Every liberal thinks he or she will be the one holding the whip and the gun when the revolution is here and communism becomes the law of the land.
They can’t for a moment envision that they’re not going to be the ones in control, telling everyone what to do, stealing with impunity, killing the “counter-revolutionaries”.
They are incapable of comprehending that the bulk of people in the death camps will be them and people just like them, the little people who can’t be trusted because they’re too easy to indoctrinate.
GBritain, remember when I told you that the evil Cabal would make use of an emergency mass casualty event to take away your guns as a pretext for other things totalitarian?
The number I quoted was six figures.
How many did Cuomo mass murder already, 15k? What about the other Demoncrat mass murdering fake leaders?
The number just went up. It’s in the billions now.
What will it take to wake up humanity? Would a billion fatalities be enough? Or Do you all need more than that?
Nope, the number of massed (misspelled intentionally) casualities is actually 666 gazillion. But you humans never listen to …. It is the same old story. (sarcasm)
JTW wrote, “… will be them and people just like them, the little people who can’t be trusted because they’re too easy to indoctrinate.”
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.
“Zaphod on April 26, 2021 at 3:16 am said:
Despair is a Sin.
The problem with Sarah Hoyt is that whilst she is a good person, she’s clearly a bit hormonally unstable and all over the place — anyone reading her blog quickly gets a whiff of that. She has this incessant shtick about her Portuguese childhood and Leftists. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is Pol Pot, the Carnation Revolution and what followed it was about a 2. The whole thing was pretty cute and cuddly by socialist standards — except for the Whites they abandoned in their African colonies + leaving the Timorese to the tender mercies of the Indonesians… but that’s another tale. None of this gives her any special insight into what is happening and is likely to happen.
Then it’s always back to Muh Adopted Land and Muh Constitution Piece of Hallowed Old Parchment and we’ll all get through this together in a historical jiffy if we hang tough and don’t over-salt the Bacalhau… or something.
What she thinks she knows about China is Not Even Wrong ™.
Of course in the end, things will right themselves. Gnon will not be mocked. That is optimism enough. Best not give people false hope that the War Will be Over by Christmas. We’re all in for a long and bumpy ride.
Portugal is an interesting case study though. If Salazar’s very enlightened Estado Novo couldn’t withstand the Poz for more than 50 years, what *can*?
Zaphod on April 26, 2021 at 4:11 am said:”
Sarah is just going through my stage circa 2007. Although she did start calling me insane in public comments at her blog, then apparently blocked me from commenting for defending myself on my own sanity and status, which I know more than all of you combined together.
I triggered VoxDay, a leader of the Alt Right, in such a fashion, although he didn’t take that any further than just dismissing me as lower IQ.
John C Wright, another blogger/writter, also got triggered by me…. hrm I am detecting a pattern here. They are all writers and leaders of certain sub communities.
When I wrote “I got this”, what did people expect? Sunshine and roses? Knowing me… probably not.
“The Tech Oligarchs funding Defund the Police and other policies which make life less tolerable for Joe Sixpack are not going to share the suffering at all.”
Not unexpected for Tech Tyrants. Humanity was setup in killing Lincoln as a “tyrant that needed killing” but the real tyrants are always the ones promoting the killing of fake tyrants. Like Clinton killing Qaddafi.
Like JFK’s admin killing the Vietnamese President, Diem.
Meanwhile… oh look, Hunter and John Roberts is out and about. HRC is in jail? Nope.
Maybe Epstein not only hanged himself but he created a false death?
The real tools and shadow leaders, are protected from the masses. Know who your rulers are humanity, by those who you cannot criticize or touch.
Also, humanity has Om and others at that frequency level to thank for 2021. This test is designed to push the limits for the low, the middle, and the high.
The more backtalk there is amongst humanity and complaining about the test, the more T red’s cutting off the media will be employed. The consequences ramp up in their frequency and harshness. Until the resistance breaks.
Yammer is back with even more of the same, it is a feature. There is no pony under the pile.
“Nafisi describes the group as markedly Marxist in philosophy and in style, sporting “Che Guevara sports jackets and boots…and Mao jackets and khakis.”
…and I’m willing to bet that they thought they were finally the Cool Kids. That can’t be a self-identification easily surrendered.
I want to reiterate something Texan99 pointed out that illustrates why the average liberal believes everything is “back to normal” in the country.
Every single action Trump took, or didn’t, was framed as “crazy” and/or “evil” by the media. Take out the number one terrorist/terrorist supporter in the world? Crazy! The start of World War III! Negotiate peace accords between middle eastern muslim states and Israel? Wrong! Dangerous! Trump says Bloomberg is demanding to stand on a box during his debates? Let’s debate how much of a lie this is for two straight hours!
Nothing the current “administration” will do will get criticized and any difficulties the media is forced to acknowledge will be framed as the fault of Trump and something they wouldn’t have to clean up if not for Trump.
“…framed as the fault of Trump…”
Absolutely.
The country is so saturated with round-the-clock Democratic party/media/info-tech lies that we may well be past the tipping point.
So how does one claw back from so pervasive, so ubiquitous a cesspit of untruth?
How can one even function?
…as further lies, and ever more blatant ones, must necessarily be fabricated and disseminated globally and ceaselessly in order to cover up those lies that were broadcast before them, ad infinitum….
And when such an immense and intricate coverup can only be sustained by fomenting hatred and inciting civil war?
What happens when this belabored ship of grotesque mendacity collides with the iceberg of reality?
And how can one possibly avoid the necessary catastrophe?
Zaphod:
I am fairly sure it was sufficient. People were terrified, and rightly so. Hitler was in total control anyway. There was no legislature anymore. Political enemies had been killed or imprisoned. Other parties had been abolished.
That 1934 vote was a referendum, by the way. Hitler was already Chancellor and in complete control. The 1934 vote was merely to merge the offices of Chancellor and President. Here’s some summary info:
So it was a yes or no vote for that, not a vote about Hitler. Nor were any alternatives to Hitler left anymore. If you still think that 90% vote represented 90% support among Germans for Hitler, understand that the phrase “voter intimidation” is a euphemism for what actually occurred (which of course included fraud, too):
Voters in heavily Jewish districts were allowed to vote “no” in order for their votes to be used to justify further actions against Jews, who were stripped of citizenship not long after.
I suggest you also read a book entitled The Nazi Seizure of Power by William Sheridan Allen. It deals with how power was seized by the Nazis on the micro level of a single town, which was typical of how it was done elsewhere. It’s a very depressing but very important read.
There was nothing about that 1934 referendum that was valid. Yes, Hitler had support, but it had been about a third of the German people. The truth is that we can never know for sure what percentage of Germans ended up supporting him. My guess is that his support increased during the “he made the trains run on time” years, perhaps even to a majority. But my guess is that the war years ended that majority approval, if it even ever existed. As I said, no way to know. But never was he elected – not even in 1934. There was no official opposition left – it had been destroyed.
Surprise!!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/iran-foreign-minister-john-kerry-javad-zarif-israel
(Just kidding….)
+ 2 Bonuses:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-buried-bombshell-kerry-iran-israeli-operations
https://www.foxnews.com/world/irans-top-diplomat-leaked-recording-blunt-comments-russia-soleimani
Gambling in J. F. Kerry’s whore house (State Dept)? I’m shocked!
William L. Shirer has a brief discussion of the segment of the apparat whose task it was to discover who voted ‘no’ in Hitler’s referenda and what methods they used to mark the ballots so each could be identified with a given voter.
I wouldn’t doubt the Regime had majority support prior to the War. Growth rates in real per capita product in Germany during the period running from 1933 to 1939 exceeded those of every other occidental country. Hitler was also able to effectively abrogate the disarmament provisions in the Versailles Treaty and persuade Britain to ratify that with the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. In addition, Hitler was able by the fall of 1938 to successfully press irridentist claims and seize the larger of the Germanophone territories adjacent to the Reich practicable to hold. (Of the remainder pan-German sentiment was weak in Alsace-Lorraine and negligible in Switzerland; getting the Germanophone segment of South Tyrol required negotiating with Mussolini; Danzig was actually a de facto dependency of Germany by 1935; and Memelland was seized without incident in March 1939). As for the Regime’s abuses, it’s a reasonable wager 1/3 of the population was pretending it wasn’t happening and another 1/3 was pretending the victims had it coming.
Well it should certainly be “interesting”. Though no doubt all the usual suspects will blame Netanyahu, seeing that that’s the blame-game auto-reflex in such situations (i.e., if/when Trump’s not available to get blamed).
But might it just be a case of “Killer Vlad’s” vengeance served hot (with a dollop of smetana)?
And if thing’s weren’t awful enough, here’s something else from the “This-should-be-interesting” files:
https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1385841720672231424
H/T Lee Smith twitter feed.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-funded-scientists-compromised-china
Well, not to worry. That was Hitler!!! That was the bad kind of fraud and intimidation!
Although some similar claims have been made with regard to the recent U.S. presidential election we are informed by the most sincere and trustworthy church ladies of the press that the number of votes tallied did not exceed the number of registered voters – or maybe more accurately, the sum of names registered as voters on the rolls.
Though some scandal mongers do persist in looking at the supposed problem from another angle.
Well, whatever. There were no election illegalities and there was no election fraud. Or if there were technical illegalities as in Pennsylvania and Atlanta, it didn’t matter because the authorities Oked them and you did not see what you thought you saw.
And if there was any outright vote fraud, it was not widespread. And if it was widespread geographically, that which was proved was not enough to influence the outcome of the races, or at least presidential race. And if it did, it was a good thing.
And no one was or is threatening political violence, except maybe her …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_It7sZazC_I
… and maybe a few others
So, now that we all know how progressive law works, and that the parties involved who deserve to be listened to have declared it all nice and legit, shut up and obey as TC has aptly framed it; or we will burn your house down, in a mostly peaceful and not objectionably illegal fashion.
Did someone mention Danzig?
Related (though it might well put a dent in the old adage that history repeats itself as farce…):
https://www.eurointelligence.com/column/suwalki
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
“om on April 26, 2021 at 9:56 am said:
Yammer is back with even more of the same, it is a feature. There is no pony under the pile.”
I see your life is as miserable as ever for a human ai persona.
Do you wish for things to increase in difficulty for yourself, as a test to see where the pile is?
Yammer:
Do a search for the joke about the little boy (an optimist) and how he responds to the pile of horse manure. There is no pony under the pile that you spread.
You have been thoroughly “debriefed” (exposed) already.