Caitlyn Jenner’s California campaign
Here’s that Caitlyn Jenner ad, in case you missed it:
There was a big discussion in this thread yesterday about Jenner’s candidacy. Here’s one of the many things I wrote in the comments:
That’s a brilliant ad. Of course, brilliant ads don’t necessarily win elections when the deck is stacked against you. But it really resonates. I’m not even talking about politics. In the last 50 years I’ve probably gone to California at least 100 times and maybe more. Lots of relatives and friends there and I lived there for a year as well. Each of my visits may have averaged a month ( usually summers and then over the holidays plus some of January). So you might say I’ve spent many many years there. I first went in 1960 but my regular visits started in 1970. So I remember it when it really was The Golden State, a wonderful place. And I’ve watched it change year by year.
I wonder how many people remember. After all, most voters are not my age.
I have a deep connection to California and have viewed its decline up close and personal. I can imagine that a lot of people who live there, and even some who vote for Democrats, are dismayed at what has happened to the state. Nevertheless, I don’t think Jenner has a chance of winning, nor does any Republican.
In the comments yesterday there was also a discussion about trans people in general and their mental stability. This was part of my answer to that:
Some trans people are very unstable. Some are somewhat unstable. Some are fine – I even know some personally who are fine and very stable and trustworthy. I wouldn’t generalize about one person by the category of people that person belongs to.
I’ll leave that to those who are into identity politics.
The first celebrity who ran for office that I can remember was Ronald Reagan, and he became the governor of California as his first general political office (he’d been president of the Screen Actors Guild prior to that). I’m not saying that Jenner is the least bit like Reagan except for being a celebrity rather than a politician, but since Reagan there have been a number of other celebrity governors, including Jesse Ventura of Minnesota (Reform Party) and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (nominally GOP). Neither of the latter two covered themselves with glory.
On the Democrat side, we have Senator Al Franken, who left ignominiously after a mild infraction that was seized on at the height of MeToo (remember MeToo? Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?). If you’re interested, you can see a list of actors and actresses who went into politics, most of them at a low level but some (George Murphy, Sonny Bono, Helen Gahagan Douglas) who rose higher. A lot of them are in California, which is no surprise.
It’s also not unusual for sports figures to go into politics. The one that came to mind for me was Bill Bradley, but there are plenty of others.
And then of course there’s Donald Trump, who was a highly successful reality TV star among many many other things at which he was successful in his life prior to becoming president.
Jenner has been both a reality TV personality and a huge sports figure, but in recent years has gained fame as a trans person. That last fact is somewhat unique, as far as I can tell, in the annals of American politics so far.
I don’t know enough about what the current state of affairs in California politics in terms of how electable a Republican really is. The consensus by those in the know seems to rate it as extremely unlikely, even for a “Republican-lite” sort (like a Schwarzenegger).
The electorate of California seem to be a truly confused lot. They seem to complain about all these obvious problems, so they’re clearly aware of them. But despite that they evidently keep voting in the same idiots who caused them. I just don’t get it.
Meanwhile people of means keep moving out in droves rather than attempting to actually solve the problems (and then move to another state and begin the slow destruction all over again). I don’t know how bad things need to get for a typical California voter to finally stop voting (D). Perhaps once LA starts to resemble a John Carpenter movie? It’s just insanity.
From an editorial in our Sunday local California paper, which was reproduced from the LA Daily News:
That would mean vote-by-mail ballots start arriving in homes between mid-October and early November, and because California lawmakers have extend the elections rules in place for November 2020 until January, a ballot will be mailed to every registered voter.
Boss Tweed is smiling in his grave.
Not to worry though. Only authorized ballot collection officials are allowed to do collections, individually, from the drop boxes.
I would say Jenner’s chances of success are around 10-20%. Low, but not inconceivable. Were I a resident of California, I would likely vote for her. The whole spectacle is faintly ridiculous, of course. But, California has become a ridiculous state. Jenner’s candidacy pushes back at the leftist narrative of identity politics and the cult of victimhood. No one can doubt her sincerity in being trans; nor can most doubt her sincerity in her political views (which are largely right-of-center). That is why the left detests her. Members of supposed ‘oppressed’ groups must not, not ever, deviate from leftist orthodoxy. When one does, and is outspoken about it, it causes leftists to go into fits of apoplexy. I like that.
From the other Jenner thread,
Again: ” He … has mutilated himself surgically into a caricature of what he thinks some seventies vintage Playboy centerfold should look like.”
And that, gets to the crux of the issue in my view. And not because I have pointed out the implications of that observation myself in the past.
“The implication?” you ask. “What may we infer?”, you ask?
On my analysis, this: That what these people are engaging in – whatever the psychological impulsion or drives behind it might be – is a quest for a validation or feedback they experience as part of that social charade; one in which they require others to participate, in order to get their desires met.
They don’t need to be “female”, so much as to experience the feedback which they imagine being a female will gain them. It is a matter of display, and the desired reception of a particular social response and recognition: and not, the realization of some hidden sexual nature or essence, clamoring to escape from the wrong body.
Jenner does not want to “be” a woman so much as to display as one socially, to inhabit the niche, and to receive what he imagines is the attention and affirmations such a presentation – as clownishly exaggerated or campy or transparent as it might be – provides.
Yeah, they take the names Crystal, and Caitlyn and Brandy and Tiffany, because real women have those kinds of names, and not the kind poor old biological girls have to make do with, like Jane, and Sally, and Mildred … *****
Perhaps the weird claim of the gender-troubled who commonly assert that gender is a social construction, reveals more about their psychological dynamic and what it actually pursues than we realized.
No, it is obviously not true that male and female are arbitrary, socially accidental categories. But thinking for a moment, not about the absurdity of the claim, but why such persons might make it, reveals what their actual focus is: participation in a particular kind of social performance, a public granting of a particular social status, and a social validation of their choice.
Pretending to have been born with a vagina, and displaying artificial breasts alone and out in the woods would probably do most of them no good at all in satisfying that transgender itch.
No, they require your participation, witting or unwitting, in order to really feel the feeling.
****
https://www.transgendermap.com/social/name-choice/
What a pile of …..
DNW:
I have no idea whether Bruce Jenner, when he decided to come out as a trans woman named Caitlyn, matched the one-size-fits-all theory you seem to have generated. Jenner doesn’t seem particularly emotionally unbalanced to me.
As I’ve already said ad nauseam, I believe that trans people vary greatly in their psychological health and motives. I think that in recent years the medical and therapy professions have been hugely derelict in their duty to be cautious and try to sort it out in terms of each individual and give it time, and that social media has made transition somewhat of a popular trend, which it should definitely not be.
What I care about most in terms of Jenner is policy. As for trans activists forcing anything on anyone, not only has Jenner said that trans people who were born male should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports, here’s another quote: ” California has bigger issues than pronouns.”
Well, that’s big of him.
I guess we are only expected to participate in some aspects of the charade. Like calling him “Caitlyn” for example. Or pretending to believe that there is such a thing as a “trans people” category that is somehow morally analogous to a brown skinned people category, or a blue eyed people category, as opposed to a crazy people category, or a morally lunatic people category.
Not to deny that there are not sexually ambiguous births and various kinds of genetic defects.
Or … maybe we should not be calling them defects, but simply refer to them as natural expressions of an “alternate kind”. But, “alternate, or unlike kinds of what?” becomes the question: with the corollary being, what moral freight are “kinds” that are not actually coherent kinds of any kind expected to carry in such a universe?
Maybe we are trying to square the circle here, after all …
I share your love of California, Neo. I’ve lived there three times for a total of fourteen years. Once intended to retire there. Have family and friends there. I consider it to be the most geographically stunning state in the nation. Its economic potential, is so great that even under Democrat misrule it is still one of our richest states. But it is becoming a hard place to live. Taxes are too high, housing prices are inflated, welfare is rampant, crime is a problem, the infrastructure is crumbling, government “green” policies have crippled the electric grid, and government services are mediocre.
Why do the voters not see that Democrat policies are bad for the state’s economy and livability? Does living in the ever mild Mediterranean climate turn peoples’ brains to mush? Have too many people accepted that idea that government ought to take care of people? Why have personal responsibility and free markets been forgotten? I don’t know. My relatives who live there are raving lefties and always have been. Yet I have several friends there who are solid conservatives, but they are obviously in the minority.
As I said in an earlier thread, a new governor is going to have to figure out how to get the legislature to change its ways. Not likely, especially for a Republican.
The interview I saw with Jenner filled me with sadness. She/he is obviously well-intentioned, but naive about what can be done when the state is so strongly in Democrat hands. I wish there were other, better candidates available. Well, it’s early. Maybe a stronger candidate will emerge.
Only thing recall will accomplish is measurement of displeasure with Newsome.
Mail in ballots will be great because most of us realize Jenner has no chance , so we would not go through the effort of voting in person.
Would not be surprised to see Dems cancel mail in for this special situation.
Demographics of voters, including party, race, age and income would be interesting
Policy, policy… we’re going to stem the tide with Policies now, issit?
Also, News Flash: All of Politics is hereby now Identity Politics. Don’t like this? Well should have had better Immigration Policies and no Civil Rights Policies back when.. amongst other epic policy fails.
Sounds like a major Policy Fail. Hmm…
I’m minded of the career bureaucrats at the Wannsee Conference having conniptions because this or that subsection of clause n of some obscure law got in the way or some obscure point of railway scheduling Gantt Chart wizardry needed finessing.
Coffee is for Closers. What Platform Policies are in 2021 is left as an exercise for the Reader.
Well-(de-)packaged Autogynephiliacs in Frocks or Pant Suits are not the answer. Even when they come with a passel of policies.
J.J.:
Apparently Grenell is thinking of running, too. But although I think he’s great, I don’t see him doing any better than Jenner would. Maybe even worse. Grennell actually IS conservative, and very smart, and also courageous. He also is a member of a favored identity group, being gay. But he was a big Trump supporter, and I doubt California would give him the time of day.
DNW:
My point is that Jenner doesn’t require you to do anything.
Ah, California. I fear that sensible people are moving out in such numbers that the remaining population will never vote for responsible leadership.
I have no opinion on how “stable” Jenner is in his new presentation. Apparently it’s something that has bothered him since childhood. As to “calling him Caitlyn,” that is now his legal name.
Even if Newsom is recalled and a Republican replaces him (which seem unlikely), it’s only a year until the regular elections. More traditional and perhaps more serious candidates might wait until they can also campaign to get some more sensible legislators.
I share my brother-in-law’s belief that this isn’t going anywhere.
“I wouldn’t generalize about one person by the category of people that person belongs to.” neo
It’s not a ‘category’. It’s a medical/psychological condition, one in which the mind and physical body are in conflict. That’s not an opinion, that’s a factual reality.
“One of the stranger things about the political system that has evolved since the end of the Cold War is the declining reality of politicians. No, not their declining grasp on reality, which is a real thing. It is the fact that our politicians are less and less like normal human beings and more like sketches of human beings. As the role of politician has become more of a role, performed by someone good at public performance, their back stories have grown smaller and less important.
.
.
.
Poorly written characters end up in poorly written plots. Conservative Inc. is now rallying around a man playing the role of a woman. Bruce Jenner is no longer the guy who won an Olympic gold medal fifty years ago. He is now a right-wing transvestite running for governor as a collection of ideas. He is the full expression of conservatism, in that the ideas are wholly divorced from the person. Just as America is just an idea, Bruce Jenner is just an actor performing for the conservatives.”
Excerpted from “America The Mini-Series” here:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=23711
Zaphod,
“our politicians are less and less like normal human beings and more like sketches of human beings.”
Our politicians reflect the mentality and world view of the public that elects them. That is why “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Pres. John Adams
By “religious”, I suspect Adams meant a people who believed themselves to be answerable in the afterlife for their actions in this life to a merciful and just creator.
@GB:
“Our politicians reflect the mentality and world view of the public that elects them. That is why “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Pres. John Adams ”
You’ll get no dissent from me on that. And agreed that it all only hangs together if there is an Outside Context Arbiter: i.e. a Vengeful toward Malefactors but otherwise Just and Merciful God believed in by all.
I imagine you’ll also agree with Chesterton that Religion never dies, it just gets perverted into misshapen forms.
The People are still a Religious and perhaps more Superstitious People — just that the various religions they now subscribe to are Dysgenic and very, very far from being Eucivic.
The Fall of Rome
.
.
.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep; <—Zaphod: Wot, no Catamites?
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
.
.
.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city. <———— Art+Deco would you like to fact check my newly-hatched theory that W H Auden was the reincarnation of Nostradamus?
Speaking of celebrity politicians, let me mention Jimmie Davis, the “singing governor” of Louisiana and the only governor in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
I recall reading somewhere that he used to deliver messages to the Legislature in song. His signature song was “You Are My Sunshine”.
Speaking of random neural connections, here’s Johnny Horton singing the Battle of New Orleans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7XS_8qgXM
Our Zulu housemaid Elizabeth was maximum bullish on my parents’ Fifties Hits compilation album so got to hear this song very often during my early formative years.
King Shaka the Great had a patent remedy for Miscreant Jenners which I’ll refrain from describing.
The Zulus are currently under the yoke of a no doubt amply-proportioned Queen Regent. Will have to check back in a few months to see if they’ve sorted themselves out a new King.
Glenn Reynolds has an interesting post up about the California election.
I hope his optimism is well-placed.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/06/caitlyn-jenners-anti-newsom-ad-previews-big-challenge-for-dems/
Forget the Freak.
Read Codevilla’s latest:
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/03/oligarchy-and-remedies/
The sad fact is that of course we can elect celebrities, pretty faces, and senile old men. The power lies in the bureaucracy and not in anyone we elect.
}}} in the annals of American politics so far.
He he he…. you said “annals”. he he he…
Sorry, channeling my inner Bevis.
}}} Does living in the ever mild Mediterranean climate turn peoples’ brains to mush?
No, being a LIBERAL means your brains ARE mush… at least, once you are old enough to HAVE experience to learn from.
I assert, once more, for consideration:
IF there is ANY defining quality at all, the one which identifies “liberals”, it is the absolute inability to learn from experience — the lack of the quality of overall intelligence we refer to as “Wisdom”, as opposed to Intellect, which is what IQ measures.
If there was, in fact, a “WQ” to match “IQ”, then people who self-identify as “liberals” would consistently rank in the bottom 3rd tail of the resultant bell-curve.
They need not be “stupid” — this is a matter of IQ, not WQ, though it is often conflated. No, the term for someone lacking in Wisdom is “Fool”. And you can be “Brilliant” — another IQ term — while still being unwise — a “Brilliant Fool” is actually fairly common on this planet, as is a wise idiot.
For the poster child for Brilliant Fool, I give you Noam Chomsky.
Many of the very talented in Hollywood are equally qualified. Some are quite smart and/or brilliant at their craft, and have the brains to understand seriously complex problems. This does not stop them — esp. in the light of Hollywood sycophancy — from being total fools on the subject.
This low WQ==Liberal concept also explains the endless fascination with Marxism in various forms — both the economic and identity based abortions — no matter how many times it so abysmally fails. To recognize what happened in the past, to learn from it, would require the ability to learn from experience.
Then there’s the innately wise. You can spot these early, when they are young and not liberal:
“Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.”
— Otto von Bismarck —
They see the failures of others, both personal and historical, and manage to process that information into useful life rules for their own living, well before they have any real experience of their own to draw from.
The freak is the one who is talking sense in this particular fight. Here’s some more Auden:
Behold the manly mesomorph
Showing his bulging biceps off,
Whom social workers love to touch,
Though the loveliest girls do not care for him much.
Pretty to watch with bat or ball,
An Achilles, too, in a bar-room brawl,
But in the ditch of hopeless odds,
The hour of desertion by brass and gods, [Cf. Housman’s “the hour when earth’s foundations fled…”]
Not a hero. It is the pink-and-white,
Fastidious, almost girlish in the night
When the proud-arsed broad-shouldered break and run,
Who covers their retreat, dies at his gun.
Where are our “proud-arsed broad-shouldered” heroes, the manly enforcers of those necessary societal taboos and hypocrisies? Nowhere to be found, or (more likely) positioning themselves to get in on the grift. In the ditch of hopeless odds, that leaves Jenner. And Grenell. Good for her/him.
And while baseless the cynic in me sometimes wonders if the real reason he is running is to split the republican vote so Newsom is not voted out
Michael:
Indeed, what you say is baseless. Jenner publicly discussed being a Republican many years ago, and has taken some stands that are highly disapproved of by much of the trans community, inviting ridicule and rage.
It is certainly possible that the effect will be to split the vote on the right, however.
Jenner can’t prevent Newsome’s recall by spitting the Republican vote. The ballot has two separate questions: (1) should Newsome be recalled? (2) who should replace Newsome (assuming he is recalled).
Eva Marie,
“The power lies in the bureaucracy and not in anyone we elect.”
That is so only because not enough of the electorate possess common sense, much less wisdom. In the aggregate, had we such an electorate we’d have a Congress made up of Ted Cruzs, Jim Jordans and Lynn Jenkins with Trump as President being advised by actual conservatives… the Deep State bureaucracy could easily be purged and pruned back.
OBloddyHell,
” IF there is ANY defining quality at all, the one which identifies “liberals”, it is the absolute inability to learn from experience”
I think it a bit more complex than that. They say that experience is the best teacher. That is only true if the individual draws the correct lessons from their experiences.
At least as often as not, people draw erroneous conclusions from their experiences. One example might be the argument regarding withdrawal from Afghanistan, many concluding that we never should have engaged in our many “police actions” around the world. In each engagement, a plausible rationale was advanced for doing so, one that the majority in Congress found persuasive.
Hindsight is 2020 and that historical perspective reveals that all of these failures were primarily due to not fighting to win, rather than because we had no business fighting offshore. Add to that a failure to know thy enemy. From Korea to today… Afghanistan’s 8th century Islamic culture was never going to be amenable to the “winning of hearts and minds” nor see the advantages of a democratic republic.
Hubert,
Neither brawn nor brains equate to wisdom. Which is the offspring of a triune marriage consisting of common sense, reasoned principle and deep insight.
“The power lies in the bureaucracy and not in anyone we elect.”
Who controls those who set the budgets? Who controls those who are appointed to the courts? Who elects the governors of the states? It ain’t the bureaucrats, those barnacles or tumors on our republic.
That said, it will take a lot of voting to change the power exerted by the bureaucracy and many voters don’t want to change that. Geoffrey will undoubtedly opine that voting is no longer a method to extract those GS-xx and other civil servants from the flow of money that feeds their wont for control. Civil wars are nasty things and hardly predictable.
You want instant results? Stick to your microwave oven.
“My point is that Jenner doesn’t require you to do anything.”
He does not require anything, explicitly, but voting for him implicitly and effectively legitimizes absurd and evil ideas and practices, which distort reality, offend truth and put even children in the hands of crazy ideologues ready to destroy their life for good.
And this crap spreads all over the world.
Paolo Pagliaro:
But if you believe that to be the case, it also needs to be acknowledged that voting for Jenner’s liberal/left opponent would spread those ideas even faster and more efficiently, and abstaining from voting does the same thing.
My hope is that some other Republican will run as well, maybe the former San Diego mayor, so that voters will have another alternative.
I had to look up Auden. I briefly got him confused with Christopher Isherwood, another of those Dick Cavett interviewees … some kind of famous homosexual writer from the 1930’s, with whom educated people were supposed to be familiar.
I wonder, based on those quoted lines, what experience Auden had with men in battle. Where was it that he saw those men with biceps flee, while the wan and timid bravely manned their Lewis guns in the last ditch, or crouched at the mountain pass, and fended off the fascists to their last bullet and breath.
Maybe he saw it in a movie somewhere. Though, I did read in Wiki that he spent a few weeks in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
WWII battle he is possibly less familiar with. A 33 year old British citizen at the time war broke out with Nazi Germany, we read he was in Hollywood at the time with his pal from the Berlin cabaret days.
But more generally, where are the manly men? Well, in the public square, they have been ruled out of court by the sensitive and knowing knowers of the left. For a time, their place was partially taken by some aggressive conservative females. They soon enough found that the consideration and respect accorded to the progressive woman did not really extend to white or black conservative females any more than it did to black conservative men.
I have actually seen progressive males excuse, and even celebrate physical assaults on conservative white women. “The beotch deserved it, walking around with an anti-abortion sign like that””
So now, the conservative movement is down to deploying homosexual males and transsexuals as persons who they hope will considered by the popular culture as retaining enough moral standing to be heard in public without prejudice; and to thereby possibly make the case for liberty and limited government.
Hell of a thing. But if the crazies insist on entering your house or taking your property, and you are loathe to just start tomahawking them in the forehead one after another, I guess it does not hurt to let your crazy neighbor who is better disposed to you than they are, to try speaking up.
We bear this in mind as we ponder the reported statistic that 56% of progressive white females have admitted to being diagnosed with an emotional or mental illness.
How do you reason with people who have no use for reason? Perhaps using biceps – your own or other’s – if you are left with no other choice.
By the way, I have never killed a man. But two of my older cousins with whom I spent a great deal of time did. One, who counted four, was hell on wheels in a bar fight. And if you know what a bar fight is, it is taking a cue stick and hitting the drunk who is threatening you across the face, kicking him in the neck when he is down, and getting the hell out of there. Which is how you avoid getting stabbed in the throat with a broken bottle.
The other one, still shouts in his dreams at night, and I would not trust him in deer camp since he sleeps with a Beretta. Whether the dreams are from pulling his buddy’s body parts out of a deuce and half, or from wasting villages in the Delta, I am not sure.
[edited for language by nn]
“The other one, still shouts in his dreams at night, and I would not trust him in deer camp since he sleeps with a ***Beretta***.”
A man of taste and refinement, yet.
Touched a nerve that W. H. Auden. Puzzling. Well, anecdotes from two cousins certainly removes all doubt about who will be courageous when SHTF.
DNW:
Language warning for that last paragraph of yours, which I’ve removed.
In addition to a short stay in Spain during that country’s civil war, Auden apparently also was in China during the Sino-Japanese War. However, I find his observations in that poem to be puzzling and they don’t ring true to me, although I freely admit I have zero personal knowledge of combat.
@om:
The problem with Defectives is that they tend to Defect when the going gets tough.
This has been observed often enough throughout history for it to be a truism. It takes a particular type of educated obtuseness to blind oneself to this.
In the immortal words of some mafioso in the movie Casino, “Why take a chance?”
@ Zaphod,
Haha. Yeah, but you don’t want to shake him awake. There is medication for it which he gets from the VA, but if he forgets …
Some here have wondered aloud about what they might do for themselves – apart from flapping their hands like little wings and running panicked in circles while shouting – when their woke kids’ schoolmates arrive at their door to burn the old farmstead down – and mom and dad inside along with it.
And in so wondering, did not know where to even start.
Well, if they can screw up the courage, they can start by following a link.
You could start your research journey here for instance …
There is much to be said for the Italian sense of design. Not that I would personally know of course. But, not knowing personally, I would pay the extra 30 for the best hand select of 10, and have it shipped to a local FFL after checking how much a couple of them charge. If I were to do such a thing.
Even with the extra costs, it is one heck of a deal, or I have been told. Wouldn’t know personally, of course.
The .32’s were great … absolutely beautiful condition in hand select. Almost like new. So they tell me..
@DNW:
On a totally unrelated note, on the dissident blogs I follow there seems to have been a rash of gun safe thefts, regrettable boating accidents in deep water, etc. of late.
I’d be the first to admit that there is a difference in beating a man senseless in a parking lot on the one hand, and sitting passively while high explosives are being dropped on your head on the other. One is for yourself, one for “the community” for whatever that is worth to you.
But perhaps you had something else in mind … as is so often the case, there is no telling.
@ Neo, yes, I figured that my contemptuous reference to Auden as a fellating fraud, might stretch the limits.
I happen to value and appreciate Hubert’s contributions to your blog. And as a hypothetical, as opposed to an observation, I suppose Auden’s verse has whatever value it has.
Frankly it reads as though he just doesn’t like hale and hearty types, and has set up a waspish little fantasy where the milquetoast is not only the hero, but gets the pretty and desirable girls too. As if a homosexual male could judge that.
No, all deference to Hubert aside, the content of the verse just does not ring true.
Zaphod on May 7, 2021 at 10:59 pm said:
@DNW:
Easy to understand. The stainless Mini14 for example, was virtually designed for sport fishermen. Defense against sharks and all manner of saltwater menaces. A thrashing swordfish brought aboard, chaos ensues, and “Oops!”
@DNW:
Nice touch there with the swordfish. Swordfish steak is something tangibly real for the Ruling Class. Has the most amazing internal marine parasites, too.
DNW:
I don’t read much poetry, military history mostly. Your reaction seemed over the top (not in the WWI sense). Combat fatigue (now PTSD) eventually gets everyone who is in combat long enough, even the manly men who were Achilles in High School or stand up, stand out killers in bar room fights. Michael Yon is one of the bar room killers BTW, in North Carolina, but not with a pool cue. That got him bounced out of the Army Rangers or Special Forces IIRC.
Too good not to share.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/loose-ends-131.php
“A lot of our commenters expressed great doubt if not opposition to Caitlyn Jenner’s candidacy to be governor of California. It seems to me a classic case of he-said, she-said.” – Steven Hayward
AesopFan:
Hayward name-dropped his old prof Harry Jaffa. Old Growth CivNat Brisker-o-matic Esoteric Name Dropping much?;)
Incitatus for Governator!
DNW: “I happen to value and appreciate Hubert’s contributions”. As I value and appreciate yours.
My point was simple. Jenner is showing good sense and a certain amount of grit in this case. Whatever you think of his/her transformation, that deserves recognition. As for Grenell–a homosexual with a husband (or, depending on your views, “husband”)–he showed a willingness to take on the IC during his too-brief tenure as DNI. Again, grit. Would that others had shown half as much.
Since Auden was referenced as a latter-day Nostradamus upstream in this thread, I thought those stanzas were on-point. It was mischievous of me to throw them in here, I admit. Won’t do it again. And yes, I think he was putting his thumb on the scale for the home team.
On the question of courage in combat or SHTF situations generally: we have at least one Vietnam combat veteran on this forum. His opinion would count for something. Mine does not. However, I would cite Hector MacDonald, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen as counter-examples to the pansies-have-no-guts school of thought. I’m sure there are similar and more-recent examples from our own armed services. I’ve known a few combat veterans personally, but mostly from the WWII generation. (One of them, a highly respected university professor who had served as a captain of a heavy weapons company in Europe, was known to be bisexual.) They were as a rule reluctant to discuss their experiences with people who hadn’t been there. I did hear one say that you never know how people will behave in combat until they are in that situation and that you can’t make assumptions based on external characteristics or affect. That seems about right.
Beretta: too bad Parker isn’t here to weigh in. A good friend of mine swears by the CZ 82 or CZ 83. Ugly, but extremely compact, capacious (12 rounds!), well-made (Czech machining skills), and accurate. Excellent carry guns. Or so he says. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Anyway, sorry to have stirred things up. These are dangerous and uncertain times. My view, for what it’s worth, is that we can use all the allies we can get.
@Hubert – please continue stirring; it keeps the conversation lively and mitigates the Silo Effect.
“I did hear one say that you never know how people will behave in combat until they are in that situation and that you can’t make assumptions based on external characteristics or affect. That seems about right.”
Having a quiet demeanor and a reluctance to engage in frivolous fisticuffs is not the same as “being a pansy.”
See “The Quiet Man” movie (the short story is a wee bit different).
John Wayne’s best role, IMO.
Even more important (per Wikipedia)
Hubert:
I second AesopFan’s encouragement of your contributions to Neo’s forum.
AesopFan and Om,
Thanks. By “stirring things up” I meant inadvertently but in retrospect foreseeably provoking a valued commenter into making comments that apparently got him in Dutch (am I allowed to say that?) with the host. Regret that I contributed to that spot of trouble on the playground. Otherwise, I’m happy to mix up it up on substance. I disagree with some of the perspectives represented on this forum–sometimes vehemently–but I don’t want to see anyone censored or sanctioned. And everything posted here makes me think. It is not a bad thing to be made to consider, in the bowels of Christ or one’s deity of choice, that one may be mistaken and that one’s worldview may be wobbly.
Happy Mother’s Day. As Bear Bryant used to say: “Call your Momma. Wisht I could still call mine.”
Some people have to get a grip here.
The country is under concerted attack FROM WITHIN by venal, unscrupulous, power-hungry thugs, who lie with abandon, have deeper than deep pockets, who will NOT stop and who have the total backing of the mainstream media as well as the tyranny-supporting, multi-billionaire info-tech sector.
Who are currently in power—illegally so—and who have NO INTENTION of relinquishing it BUT every intention of “legalizing” what is blatantly illegal.
Many of these people just happen to be heterosexual. Many of them hide behind their (so-called) religious/moral affiliations.
A few thoughts:
1. Patriots come in all shapes, colors, sizes and creeds, etc. (cf. MLK’s “judge them by the content of their character.”)
2. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
3. People are not always(!) consistent.
4. God works in mysterious ways.
5. Alan Turing (for one—if huge—example).
As Hubert said, “we can use all the allies we can get.”…All the good and/or decent and/or talented and/or dedicated and/or right-minded people.
The country can’t afford to pursue perfection or rely strictly on angels.
Rather, it must rely on “the better angels of our nature”. Of ALL our natures. All of us.
Otherwise, the Manhattan Project to save the country will NOT be able to get off the ground.
FWIW.
Well, Barry Meislin, the whole field for the recall election is not yet set, and it may be that a front-runner will yet emerge, identity to be determined.
Plus, Caitlyn came out today in favor of amnesty for illegals, apparently failing to understand one of the underlying causes of California’s problems.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/05/09/caitlyn-jenner-backs-amnesty-illegal-aliens-absolutely/
@Kate:
“Plus, Caitlyn came out today in favor of amnesty for illegals, apparently failing to understand one of the underlying causes of California’s problems.”
Oh… It understands all right.
That’s a Witch Burning Offence right there. Game Over.
“She” turned me into a Newt (Gingrich). I got bitter! …. science takes over
“Fair cop.”
“Burn her! Burn her!”
MP&THG
“inadvertently but in retrospect foreseeably provoking a valued commenter into making comments that apparently got him in Dutch (am I allowed to say that?) with the host. ” – Hubert
People are responsible for their own actions and reactions.
And Neo has an edit button.
Don’t pull your punches, but keep the fisticuffs civil on your end, and let responders take the same care of their own replies.
Words are not violence.
But a picture is worth a couple of words. https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/05/IMG_2675.jpeg?w=500&ssl=1
I glanced at some of the comments referring to the episode in which I derisively and vulgarly labeled Auden as having a contemptible habit of osculating male sex organs the other day, but did not have time to respond. This thread is now lost in the wake, but a few points should be responded to.
I do not deny that. Even the mentally disturbed can speak the truth on some topics. And to quote a somewhat more esteemed poet than Auden, even, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” Not that Jenner is the devil, a devil, or even one of the imps.
And, of course, Bruce Jenner was at one time incontestably [pun intended] a man of relentless determination and some grit. That is not the problem. The problem is, what I will call here, “the problem of [ now needing] walls”. Cite the Spartans [or us at one time] and all that jazz. We once were better than that. Better than lotteries, better than listening to mentally ill young females ululate on stage boasting of their mental disorders, better than listening to clowns like Fauci lie to us and then tell us why the lied, and our just accepting it; better than allowing masked crazies wearing black tactical gear to assault people and burn our cities down because neurotic enervated crazies of both sexes, get the vapors just thinking about … not being invited to the prom; hence all life is “inclusion”.
Or as I described it earlier, the underlying problem – is our national social victim charade – which has solidified into the canon that only victims now legitimately have “a voice” – using here the parlance of the communitarian termite-folk.
I did not know who Grenell was 2 years ago. I eventually saw an image of him and read of some point he made. I thought to myself, ‘Makes sense; and heck, he looks a lot like like cousin X !” Or, David Purdue, as I could not decide which, more.
But then I heard Grenell talk. My take is that it is a damn shame. If reconstructed, he’d probably make a good hetero family man in another life.
That occurred to me after I hit “send”
Don’t stop on account of that fall-out. One of the problems with some conservatives is their stolid clockwork-like predictability.
At the least. I think he was uh … fabricating.
I would agree that boxing or wrestling, or the “gridiron”, or hunting don’t tell you what you can inevitably expect from a man under pressure, although they might tell you something about emotional reactions to unexpected or unjustified aggression.
But traditional combat has also required a certain kind of passivity and compliance, or even indifference, which in some situations could look like heroism … whatever that might be. Getting out of the way of a barrage may not be seen as heroic. Firing rifles from behind trees as you target officers, instead of standing in ranks daring the other to mow you down, was certainly not seen as heroism.
I’m not sure I know what heroism is if it takes place when one’s blood is up. But when some petty officer goes down into a flooding engine room, or a fireman goes up the twin towers, then I guess that in those cases I know what it looks like.
But my overall point, is that forbearance, tolerance, long-suffering, sympathy, understanding, and self-sacrifice are part of what has gotten us into an almost indefensible position in the first place. It is a position where we need men who are literally or figuratively castrated to speak up, because now, even our women are attacked as illegitimate.
But, you know, inclusion, and love knows no boundaries, and all that crap.
No, no, no, no. I don’t agree with Zaphod on a lot. But what I do agree with him on, is that we need more stirring up, not less.
Which is why I deliberately pushed the limit.
More’s the pity, as I have been saying.
On the subject of California losing their governor (we hope) – from J P Sears:
https://patriotpost.us/videos/79693-satire-gavin-newsoms-job-placement-specialist-2021-05-06
DNW,
Thanks for your response. It appears that our views overlap to a large degree.
“But my overall point, is that forbearance, tolerance, long-suffering, sympathy, understanding, and self-sacrifice are part of what has gotten us into an almost indefensible position in the first place.”
Sadly true. We have tolerated and even mainstreamed behaviors and identities that used to disqualify people from full participation in public life and the law’s protections. I don’t want to see homosexuals, the gender-confused, and other vulnerable minorities persecuted or treated as outlaws and legitimate targets for socially sanctioned forms of gratuitous cruelty. On the other hand, excessive tolerance and the weakening of societal norms have undermined our civilization and left it to open to conquest by Zaphod’s bioleninist hordes. I think you and I would agree that a restoration of some of the old taboos is long overdue. How we restore them, at this late date, is the problem. I fear that the attempt will be brutal for all concerned.
To reverse Blake’s proverb: Bless Braces, Damn Relaxes.