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Home » Saturday was the 12th anniversary of commenter FredHJr’s death

Saturday was the 12th anniversary of commenter FredHJr’s death

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The following is a somewhat revised version of a post that has appeared previously on this blog.]

Unbelievable that it’s been twelve years since commenter FredHJr died suddenly and tragically. As time passes, the number of readers here who don’t remember Fred must necessarily increase, so for those of you who don’t know who FredHJr was, please see this and this, as well as these.

Fred’s death was extremely tragic for his family. But it was tragic for this blog, too, because he was an invaluable and irreplaceable member of our community, a “changer” who knew a lot about the Left, and a keen observer of politics, history, religion, culture—of life itself. I still think about him often, wondering what he’d have to say about everything that’s happened in these last twelve years and in particular this last year.

Every year on the anniversary, I offer some excerpts from his many comments here.

This comment is from October 18, 2008, just a few weeks before Obama was elected president for the first time:

It’s the Marxist/Leninist ethics of expediency. No regrets. Whatever it takes to discredit anything the other side does and excuse the sins of your own side.

…this reveals a lot about who is about to take power and how they will wield it against the rest of us. They get away with it and many will not at all be troubled by it because they are shaped by the post-modernism, cultural Marxism that they imbibed during their formative and educational experience. If we as a people cannot name this accurately and expunge its corrosive influence over our lives, then down into the wages of perdition and disaster we go.

The comment is from October 28, 2008. The election was getting close:

Obama is part of a nexus of interests. What the American dopes who will put him in office are getting is a NETWORK of alliances and interests, running the gamut from Finance (Soros) to academia to media to law. Thus far, in order to appeal to the Middle Muddle he has been packaged as a moderate or centrist. But once in office the venomous swarm of this network will burst out of the nest and devour the host. You wait and see. And I’m not eager for the moment to say “I told you so.” I really would it be the case that it never happens at all.

This was a comment of Fred’s from the very beginning of the Obama presidency, but I think it’s worth mulling over today:

For me, Western Civilization is an incredibly complex work that has eclectically and also seamlessly borrowed the excellence and the virtues of Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, and the Enlightenment. The High Middle Ages and the Renaissance also made important contributions. In its totality it is a meritocracy and a liberation of humanity that has resulted in ever greater learning and material prosperity and health for most of the people who live under it. It is not an unblemished history. Yet in its totality it gleams with advancement when juxtaposed against civilizations which enslave humanity.

I think the beginning of the end of our civilization began with the French Revolution and The Terror. It was the beginning of the elaboration of totalitarian thought and throughout the 19th century this kept on finding newer permutations of elegant, intellectual terror. The 20th century was the culmination of the barbarity of totalitarianism.

These are chosen somewhat randomly, but so very much of what I looked at that Fred had written was on target.

RIP Fred, and may your family be comforted in their grief. We miss you.

There have been other commenters here who may have died, and I would like to mention them too, but for no one other than FredHJr did I actually get official word of that person’s death. One commenter who comes to mind is “strcpy,” who announced that he was very ill and then disappeared shortly thereafter, about ten years ago. I wrote him an email but never heard back, and I fear he’s gone. But I don’t know for sure. Another prolific commenter who disappeared many years ago was “Occam’s Beard.” I was never able to contact him after that, and so I fear something tragic may have happened. Something similar appears to be the case with commenter “parker.”

There may be others, as well. I wouldn’t necessarily find out what’s happened. Sometimes people just stop commenting because they get busy or they get tired or they get turned off. But it stands to reason some of them will have died. So I’ll take this opportunity to say RIP for all of them.

Comments

Saturday was the 12th anniversary of commenter FredHJr’s death — 54 Comments

  1. I remember FredHjr well and am surprised that he passed 12 years ago. If you had asked me, before this post, how long it had been since we saw him on this blog, I would have guessed 5 years at most.

    A nice post, Neo. Thank you for the fond memories.

  2. A lovely tribute to absent friends.

    I’m still around; I read every post you make. Unfortunately, I’m not able to comment as much as I’d like to.

  5. RIP FredHjr.

    I continue to miss the wise words of Ric Locke, a commenter from Protein Wisdom who passed many years ago.

  6. FredHjr is on point about the French Revolution. It dealt Western Civilization a blow from which we have not recovered. World War I too.

  8. The primary reason I have been a reader and commenter all these years is because Neo attracts people with experience and wisdom. It has been an education for me.

    That it has been 12 years since FredHjr passed is hard to believe. Time flies, the world turns, and when you’re engaged in watching the myriad events, it all passes much too quickly.

    To FredHjr and all the other commenters who may have passed on in these years, you are missed. RIP

  9. I recall arguing with FredHJr about calling Obama a Marxist.

    I was aware of Obama’s socialist background, but since Obama had moderated his views for public consumption and made his peace with generous corporate donors, calling Obama a Marxist seemed likely to boomerang — make the accuser sound like a rabid, discredited McCarthyite of yore.

    That debate continues with those today who refer to CRT as a form of Marxism. I’m aware of the continuity from Marx to CRT, but it’s still a long way between the two, and most Americans I suspect are quite vague on Marx beyond that bearded fellow who might have had something to do with the Communist Manifesto.

  10. Steph said: “I continue to miss the wise words of Ric Locke, a commenter from Protein Wisdom who passed many years ago.”

    Me too!

  11. Most Americans think Marx was a talented comedian from the 1930s? Nope, most Americans don’t know who Marx was at all? 🙂 Idiocracy..

    Some Americans are “trained Marxists” who Buy Large Mansions. Which is a comedian and which is a dangerous clown again?

  12. RIP
    It’s a pity to lose friends, even if they are virtual.
    I also encountered this on YouTube 🙁

  16. huxley: “That debate continues with those today who refer to CRT as a form of Marxism.”

    How about this:
    “But rather than abandon their Leftist political project, Marxist scholars in the West simply adapted their revolutionary theory to the social and racial unrest of the 1960s. Abandoning Marx’s economic dialectic of capitalists and workers, they substituted race for class and sought to create a revolutionary coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.

    Fortunately, the early proponents of this revolutionary coalition in the U.S. lost out in the 1960s to the civil rights movement, which sought instead the fulfillment of the American promise of freedom and equality under the law. Americans preferred the idea of improving their country to that of overthrowing it. The vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Johnson’s pursuit of the Great Society, and the restoration of law and order promised by President Nixon in his 1968 campaign defined the post-1960s American political consensus.

    But the radical Left has proved resilient and enduring—which is where critical race theory comes in.

    Snip **********

    There are a series of euphemisms deployed by its supporters to describe critical race theory, including “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell. Equity, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality. But the distinction is vast and important. Indeed, equality—the principle proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, and codified into law with the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is explicitly rejected by critical race theorists. To them, equality represents “mere nondiscrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression.

    In contrast to equality, equity as defined and promoted by critical race theorists is little more than reformulated Marxism. In the name of equity, UCLA Law Professor and critical race theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing land and wealth and redistributing them along racial lines. Critical race guru Ibram X. Kendi, who directs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, has proposed the creation of a federal Department of Antiracism. This department would be independent of (i.e., unaccountable to) the elected branches of government, and would have the power to nullify, veto, or abolish any law at any level of government and curtail the speech of political leaders and others who are deemed insufficiently “antiracist.”

    One practical result of the creation of such a department would be the overthrow of capitalism, since according to Kendi, “In order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.” In other words, identity is the means and Marxism is the end.”

    Read it all – https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/

  17. “But once in office the venomous swarm of this network will burst out of the nest and devour the host. You wait and see.”

    FredHJr told us so.

  18. Each year Neo celebrates Fred’s magnificent contributions and each year I marvel at how long it’s been since he’s been gone. One word for Fred: erudite.

    He was at the top of the visitors here. But I have to say the rest of you are no slouches. I once had a conversation with a good friend who was biologist. She and I were commenting how the best and brightest of the non-scientists could perceive so quickly social and political trends, and then comment so cogently. We (scientists) could catch up, but it took us a couple of hours to process. I feel that way every day here; and it’s a good thing.

  19. Now that CTH has entered the conversation, Sundance’s posts today might be of interest here. I am quoting commenters because they can’t be linked directly.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/06/28/the-solution-to-metastatic-dc-corruption-is-extreme-federalism-and-bidens-crew-knows-exactly-that/

    Let me be very clear… stop and hear the drums… Something is about to happen. Approximately 100 million American voters are considered dissidents now. Meanwhile the FBI is preparing for the American people to implement a grassroot solution to deal with a corrupt federal government; a solution I would call “extreme federalism”.
    …
    Extreme federalism is executed along the same concept of “sanctuary cities” or “sanctuary states” defying federal law. However, extreme federalism is the reverse scenario where the unconstitutional efforts are identified by states who create sanctuaries for law-abiding citizens who forcefully demand representative government and self-determination.

    Extreme federalism is a reaffirmation of the original intent of the United States constitution, and we do not need F-15s and nuclear weapons to achieve it. What we need is strong–will, brave state-level leadership and unrelenting citizen determination. We The People are the people we have been waiting for.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/06/28/an-open-letter-to-governor-ron-desantis-the-december-1st-collusion-between-ag-bill-barr-and-the-ap-provides-a-stark-warning/
    Bubby- “What is clear to me now is that we have absolutely no one of any significance in any position of consequence on the inside of the deep state who could help us by being an effective whistleblower! There are no Admiral Rogers left. The vetting process to become part of the deep state keeps patriots, moral individuals, practicing Christians, incorruptible individuals from becoming part of the “big club”! Change will only come from the outside! Bill Barr was on the inside”

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/06/28/president-trump-releases-a-statement-about-bill-barr-the-deep-state-attorney-general-who-conned-the-white-house/

    As one of the commenters says (it’s a general consensus there)
    aawlberninf350- “There never was a Trump Administration, only Trump.”

    The third post builds on this post from yesterday.
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/06/27/predictably-bondo-barr-covers-the-rot/

  20. Irene linked the same TakiMag article that Zaphod posted on Saturday’s open thread.
    Bottom line is that most people (not those who spend all their waking hours reading blogs and media posts, ahem) respond only to simple, direct language.
    They don’t care about the history of Marxism and CRT, or the deep weeds or either ideology.*

    The bottom line (which parents are throwing at school boards in larger numbers each day) is that teaching anti-white racism is bad and they don’t want it, especially since it also teaches a perverse anti-black racism (bigotry of low expectations) at the same time.

    *I think there is a need for attacking on both fronts, and any others we can legally and ethically advance on.

    “Nobody cares about some old washed up terrorist” – McCain was only half right in 2008; many of us cared, deeply, but most people didn’t want to hear about Obama’s history, they wanted to know how his presidency would affect them personally, and the GOP couldn’t come up with a convincing story, mostly because Obama and the Democrats were lying about his alleged moderate principles (Wilson and FDR and Clinton and JFK also prevaricated to get elected; seems to be a pattern here).

  22. There is at least one principled lawyer left in the country.
    https://nypost.com/2021/06/27/new-york-attorney-a-brave-devils-advocate-devine/

    Lawyers haven’t exactly been flocking to defend Trump voters charged in the Capitol riot. It’s an unpopular cause, and likely to lead to an attorney being shunned by colleagues or worse, and the defendants for the most part can’t afford to pay legal fees.

    But Joseph McBride is one of the heroic few attorneys who has stood up in the name of equal justice for the most reviled people in the nation. As a former Manhattan public defender, it’s what he always has done.

    McBride’s client today is the most reviled of the reviled: Richard “Bigo” Barnett, 60, the window installer from Arkansas who put his feet up on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office and has come to symbolize the “insurrection” that wasn’t.

    “I made my bones at Manhattan Legal Aid and the Innocence Project,” says McBride.

    “None of my colleagues from those places have supported my representing Bigo in any way. This is because … they fear being canceled by their own group more than anything.”
    …
    Not one of 510 people arrested over the Capitol riot has been charged with insurrection, says McBride.

    He spoke up in court about the inhumanity of jail conditions endured by his client and other January Sixers. He called it “torture,” and said they were “political prisoners.”

    “The guards want to hurt them, and … feel like they have a green light from the government to do whatever they like.”
    …
    He was raised in Brooklyn in the violent 1980s and ’90s. “I was lucky to have two good Catholic God-fearing parents … but everybody I grew up with — except for a handful — is dead or in jail.”

    His Irish father was from Flatbush and worked at Con Edison, and his mom was Puerto Rican, from Spanish Harlem. They fostered about 20 children, “the most damaged ones,” and ended up adopting a mentally disabled 6-year-old boy who had been born addicted to heroin.

    McBride saw his vulnerable adopted brother railroaded by the justice system, threatened into pleading guilty and spending 10 years in jail for a crime McBride said he didn’t commit.

    “It changed my world. I dropped everything to become a lawyer … to try to get him out.”
    …
    In Barnett’s case, prosecutors offered seven years in jail in exchange for a guilty plea, which Barnett rejected.

    The charges he faces include obstructing Congress, entering the Capitol while armed with a stun gun and stealing an envelope, which could see him jailed for more than 10 years if convicted.
    …
    On the charge of possessing a “deadly weapon,” McBride says the stun gun, which doubled as a flashlight and walking cane, was “disarmed” because there were no batteries in it.

    Barnett had been with friends in a DC bar the previous evening showing off the new gadget and had worn out the batteries, which he threw in the trash. He never replaced them before going into the Capitol, as evidenced, says McBride, by the fact that a white indicator light, which should be visible on the device if it is charged, was absent from every photo of his client taken that day.

    Barnett maintains he was pushed inside the Capitol in the second wave of protesters well after the initial violent breach.

    He went into Pelosi’s office through an open door looking for a bathroom because Mayor Muriel Bowser had ordered all porta potties removed from DC.

    An AFP photographer asked him to pose at the desk, which he stupidly did. A cut on his finger bled on an envelope, so he left a quarter to pay for it, and a rude note for Pelosi.

    No one condones Barnett’s actions that day.

    But he committed no violence and seven years in jail is disproportionate punishment in any language.

    The FBI circulated a notice labeling him a “Tier One” terrorist — the worst category.

    How, then, should we describe someone who kills thousands of people by flying a plane into a building or plants a bomb at the Boston Marathon?

    Last summer’s rioters were treated with kid gloves, although more than two dozen people were killed.

    The terrorism label is just used to dehumanize Barnett and his ilk and make it acceptable to shun them and everyone associated with them.

    “Before I took this case, I counted the cost,” says McBride. “I knew it would be difficult and that I would make enemies. That is OK. I know deep in my soul that we are on the right side.”

    Bravo to a good man.

  23. J.J.:

    I’m not disagreeing with the Marxism inherent in current progressive movements, but the effectiveness of calling them out as “Marxist” as conservative strategy.

    Our own Art Deco, surely the most knowledgeable commenter here, claims there is no Marxism in BLM, even when confronted with the “We are trained Marxists” quote from one of BLM’s founders.

    I suspect the paragraphs you quoted above would read as a combination of gibberish and right-wing conspiracy thinking to most Democrat voters.

    The genuine radicals would nitpick and smile, then say, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  24. @Huxley:

    “I’m not disagreeing with the Marxism inherent in current progressive movements, but the effectiveness of calling them out as “Marxist” as conservative strategy.”

    Agree.

    I know I harp on about this endlessly, but I’m convinced that it’s more important to describe in simple plain language what the Enemy *does* rather than go down epistemological and ideological rabbit holes.

    Progressives are Anti-White. They’re anti a lot of other good stuff and for a lot of other bad stuff and have a an absolutely fascinating taxonomy of motivations for being so. All that matters as a first order effect is that they are Anti-White. Sure it may be Anti-Black or Anti-Asian via some longer chain of causality. But neither of those are going to do anything about it because right now they’re mostly feeling either privileged or that it’s not their fight. And shortest chain of causality matters. Joe Public can just about follow A –> B. Anything more and forgeddaboudit.

    You want to win a War, you have to motivate the targets/victims with most to lose to fight back. The Rhetoric Practically Writes Itself — only the over-educated and terminally squeamish might beg to differ.

    RIP FredHJr. It seems just yesterday that Neo posted about his untimely death.

  25. Zaphod:

    Anti-white — I don’t disagree with that either. The problem as I see it, and maybe Chris Rufo as well, is that anti-white is such a third rail in American politics, that it’s likely to do more harm to the cause of opposing CRT etc. that it’s best Not To Go There.

  28. I remember Occam’s Beard fondly. I was amused by and agreed with most of everything he said. His references suggested he was a professor at a liberal college in California. He just stopped posting and I worried about it. I check in weekly but don’t post. Just want to know there is still some sanity out there.

  29. Didn’t Occam’s Beard show up for a comment or two a year ago?

    Or maybe it was a similar pseud…

  31. @Huxley:

    My thinking (very derivative and unoriginal on the Right) is that they rule over us with the non-trivial assistance of ‘Third Rails’. Again… conceding the power of Moralizing to them. How about we do something different for a change and rip up some Third Rails and impale those Devils on them?

    Why is it only the Left who get to create New Morals out of whole cloth?

    Just a Modest Proposal.

    Baby… Bathwater… all that… Yes yes, I know… The Enemy wants to abort the Baby and recycle the Bathwater.

  32. I recommend to anyone interested reading the entire Introduction to Mises’ Human Action, the part before Chapter 1, though I find the most relevant parts to contemporary discussion in Part 2 of the Introduction. Below are the direct links to each:

    Introduction

    Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, in 4 vols., ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007). Vol. 1.
    https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/greaves-human-action-a-treatise-on-economics-vol-1-lf-ed#lf3843-01_head_004

    Part 2 of the Introduction
    “The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory of Human Action”

    Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, in 4 vols., ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007). Vol. 1.
    https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/greaves-human-action-a-treatise-on-economics-vol-1-lf-ed#lf3843-01_label_290

    Note that Human Action was first published in 1949, but the German edition of its predecessor was published in 1940 or so. That is about the time Mises immigrated to the U.S., which is also about the time members of the Frankfort School immigrated, I believe, like Marcuse. I would discuss more, but parts I would want to quote from Part 2 alone might exceed length limits. But of particular note: “racial polylogism,” how Marxist theory applies also to the natural sciences (in theory, not in practice), and how economics is really the target.

  33. A vast over-simplification of the dialogue, to cut to the heart of the matter.

    “I’m not disagreeing with the Marxism inherent in current progressive movements, but the effectiveness of calling them out as “Marxist” as conservative strategy.” – huxley

    “Progressives are Anti-White. … You want to win a War, you have to motivate the targets/victims with most to lose to fight back.” – Zaphod

    “Anti-white — I don’t disagree with that either. The problem as I see it, and maybe Chris Rufo as well, is that anti-white is such a third rail in American politics, that it’s likely to do more harm to the cause of opposing CRT etc. that it’s best Not To Go There.” – huxley
    * * *
    I’m assuming (and may be wrong) that what huxley means is that opposing CRT because it’s anti-white (which it clearly is) can be narratised (is that a word?*) by its supporters as, “You only say that to assert your racist power and privilege so you can continue oppressing minorities.” And they will no doubt do that, and be believed by some people.

    *It’s a word now, because I say so – “narratise: to create a narrative, whether or not it is factually valid, out of someone’s actions or statements.”

    However, everything that is done to oppose CRT is going to be negatively spun by its supporters, and at least “it’s anti-white” has the advantage of being true.

    The kids making statements (and very well spoken ones) to their school boards are not claiming they are being hurt by Marxist dialectic; they are hurt by being demonized, and demoralized, because of their skin color.

    (What happened to the old liberal-progressive principle, supposedly held only by Democrats, that we shouldn’t judge people negatively because of some physical characteristic they weren’t responsible for?)

    “It’s anti-white” is the only formulation that appears to be getting any traction among the overwhelmingly (but not solely) white, upper-class, parents of the school-children being affected, which we’ve been seeing most in the news – Zaphod’s “targetsvictims” now being motivated to fight back.

    The Loudon parents, among others, were not previously outspoken about the affects of CRT on white, or black, children of the lower economic orders, although apparently it infiltrated most schools in various guises some years ago. If the parents of those kids fought back, it didn’t make the news, and it didn’t make much headway either.

    They may have as much to lose as the upper-class, but they don’t have as much in the way of weapons for winning.

    My highest commendation goes to the black parents who recognize the flip-side of the toxic coin of CRT, that separating kids by melanin and ancestry hurts all of them.

    “It’s best not to go there” is sometimes a valid choice (discretion is the better part of valor, in the common paraphrase of Shakespeare’s Falstaff), but it’s rhetorically the same reasoning the GOP uses as they seek vainly for The Right Hill to Die On.

    It’s the same reasoning establishment Jewish organizations used to back off from supporting the Refuseniks in Russian, until Reagan and Sharansky showed that courageous confrontation of the Soviets achieved a better outcome.

    I don’t believe that huxley, or anyone else here, is personally or ideologically in the same “camp” as those examples (quite the reverse), but it’s still the same argument.

    Nobody knows what’s most “likely” to come from any human endeavor of any complexity.
    Maybe sometimes you just have to grab the rail and find out.

    https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/discretion-better-part-of-valor/

  35. I’m assuming (and may be wrong) that what huxley means is that opposing CRT because it’s anti-white (which it clearly is) can be narratised (is that a word?*) by its supporters as, “You only say that to assert your racist power and privilege so you can continue oppressing minorities.” And they will no doubt do that, and be believed by some people.

    AesopFan, Zaphod:

    When I say “third rail,” I’m speaking of something much more visceral.

    America has known guilt over slavery since its founding. That guilt was real and it was right. The emotional shocks of the Civil War and a hundred years later the Civil Rights Movement went straight to our core.

    As Americans we can’t get near that third rail without dreading a terrible shock. To a point, good for us.

    However, we are now being cynically exploited for that fear by those I would call racists, only in the anti-white direction. What to do?

    I consider it a complex strategic question and I don’t have the answer. Maybe you don’t grab that third rail to find out.

  36. Hello. I’m glad for a post like this. It’s nice to have a little community of this sort. I used to feel the same way about the IRC channels I frequented, before EFnet went wonky, or seemed to. I haven’t been on Neo’s blog that long, but it’s nice to see this sense of continuity in its history.

  37. @Huxley:

    I’ve noticed that other Countries and Races get along perfectly well without Guilt.

    I can even think of one plucky little nuclear armed state which is doing smashingly well whose quite recent founding myths are sacrosanct and much storied and genuflected before. I don’t see them wracked with Guilt. I do see that copious attribution of Guilt to their various adversaries gave them a bit of extra zip and oomph when push came to shove.

    Strikes me that on this plane of existence at the level of Peoples and States, Guilt is a Useful Tool to be wielded. At the level of individuals, it’s another thing again. Maybe some languages have different words for these two different things. In fact I bet they do.

    So I wonder why it is that Whites must continue to wallow in White Guilt. If we’re going to be Guilty, then might as well do some self-preservatory stuff which (whilst not necessarily all that Bad) will be construed as Guiltworthy by our enemies anyway.

    Why is it always only Us who must be Guilty now?

    It used to be Them. But they flipped around the Arrow of Guilt and put it to work for them. Why can’t we learn from others? Are we such losers that X Million of us must go up the flu before we get to take our turn at not being prostrate cringing victims?

  38. The simple way to analyze CRT is to substitute black for white in its creed. See if that sounds racist. I can assure you that it does and you would correctly reject it as evil. And CRT is evil.

    However, it not only is openly racist, it also rejects meritocracy, capitalism, and the core family values of the West. So does Marxism. Underneath the racial animosity is a plan. To use the animosity to overthrow the existing system. In my book that’s Marxism, which they are trying to disguise with clever language.

    Whatever it is and how you see it, CRT is an evil brew.

  40. Huxley, sorry I didn’t answer your comment directly. I’m short of time right now, but will try to address it tomorrow. I admit I’m not following your rationale for not addressing the Marxism head on. I’ll have to think on it some more.

  41. huxley:

    No, Occam’s Beard hasn’t commented here since 2013, and although I’ve tried to reach him I never heard back and have no way of knowing what happened.

  42. huxley – your points are excellent, of course, and it’s right to fear grabbing that electrified rail (talking about the real problems and looking for some solution), but we can’t go on pretending that CRT is not a full-bore racist repudiation of all that we’ve accomplished since the Civil War (when the Republicans freed the Democrats’ slaves, as the Juneteenth meme says), and since the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed.

    A lot of black people are pushing back against CRT also, and they know that history as well as anyone else does.
    Maybe the third rail isn’t as bad as we’ve been led to believe.

    Also:
    The Left has to keep turning out race-hate hoaxes because there haven’t been enough real ones (if any) to feed their narrative. Actual “white supremacists” can be counted only in the dozens, and half of them are FBI provocateurs, apparently.

    But that will change if they keep pushing anti-white indoctrination onto the country to the point where some larger number decides that, if they’re going to be called Oppressors and Terrorists, they might as well earn the labels.

    I don’t think the shock of the rail grabbing could be nearly as bad as what would happen then.

  43. Some might be interested in this video, The March of History: Mises vs. Marx, from 2019:

    https://www.aier.org/article/marx-vs-mises-video-text-and-commentary/

    It is shorthand obviously and intended to be educational, but in an entertaining way I suppose. In videos below it, they interview subject matter experts.

    The article here, also from 2019, talks about number of views, including those in China on a different platform from YouTube apparently, that someone there had uploaded it to:

    https://www.aier.org/article/china-loves-aiers-video-on-mises-and-marx/

  44. ‘Maybe the third rail isn’t as bad as we’ve been led to believe.’
    ^^ This.

  45. Related:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jason-whitlock-dear-black-america-we-are-being-lied

    Would seem that the following indicator is pretty reliable:
    A person, group or institution that uses the language of “anti-racism”, “civil rights”, “ethics”, “morality”, “caring” and “goodness” (and we’ll throw in the redressing of “historical wrongs” or the payment of “historical debt”) to slam and slander individuals and groups, to sow and incite antagonism, hatred and division, and to implement a policy that promotes even greater racism and societal breakdown means one thing only—that that person, group or institution is manipulating language to foment the politics of personal, social and national destruction.

    There are goals. There are words. There are actions.
    If there’s a consistent disconnect—or a systematic inconsistency (or constant contradiction)—between any of these three then watch out.

    To put it more plainly, we’re talking about ABUSE—whether emotional, situational, institutional, physical/violent or sexual (some or all of which are related)—played out on the national level. Perpetrated by people who are masking this ABUSE by using the words cited above: “ethics”, “morality”, “goodness”, “caring”, “anti-racism” and “civil rights”….
    FWIW.

  46. I have said this before, but I believe that CRT should be exposed by simply stating what they are teaching children.

    It is evil to teach any child that they are worse, or better than another because of the color of their skin.

    Period.

  47. @BoatBuilder:

    You’re giving too much credit to your fellow man. Self-Interest >> Altruism —> Make Joe or Karen Sixpack fearful for his/her skin. Yes, in Theory, healthy people should ‘Think of their Children’. In practice, Joe/Karen Sixpack are so far gone in degeneration that they have already delegated virtually all responsibility for their offhand afterthought offspring to the State. Maybe the next generation of Joes and Karens can operate the way you wish they would — after current generations do the unpleasant needful stuff.

    Simplify, simplify, simplify!

    In Practice, Theory is Bunk. The Left get this. They Do first and then dress it up in Theory and beat us over the head with both the Practice and the Theory. The Arrow of Useful Fight Back Causality goes from What Works no Matter How Crude to Demoralising an already-prostrate Enemy with Beautiful Post Hoc Theories in order to further rub their faces in the mire and inspire our fighters to carry on the fight.

    Strauss and all the other Wonderfully Inscrutable Hand Wavers go on the back burner for the duration or we lose. The book to read is Machiavelli. It really is that simple.

  48. I’m old enough to have seen various Third Rails lose their juice. At one, post McCarthy, point/period calling a communist a communist would get you laughed out of town. Today, someone might contest the label but, if convinced, would take it seriously.
    Been in group discussions where some people actually seem to fervently believe one or another item which could be called a third rail, while others, eyes blazing, deploy it quite cynically to, with luck, destroy a point someone is making along with the person’s place in decent society. This only works to the extent we don’t call bullshit, and point and laugh.
    To call this sort to thing a Third Rail as a metaphor leads to thinking there is a fatal and unlimited amount of juice in the rail. Not so. Ground it, it dies.

  49. Trust Zaphod and his melanin-centric world view Joe Sixpack; he isn’t after power, no, not like those Criminal Racist Theorists.
    Zaphodists will graciously and quickly relinquish their power and control once all those “others” are “removed” or put on their place. He’s the George Was
    hington of our times. (sarc) not – 🙂

    ZRT, the anti-CRT, with the same goal, power.

  50. I remember FredHJr, which tells me I’ve been around here longer than I realized. I don’t comment much, but I definitely follow the comments, because there’s so much good stuff going on here.

  51. This is kind of CRT-adjacent.
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/leo-terrell-professors-standard-english-racist

    Fox News contributor Leo Terrell on Tuesday slammed a Towson University professor’s claim that “standard English” is racist, saying that it’s insulting to minorities to claim that correct grammar is somehow discriminatory.

    “Let me just be very clear because I find it insulting. They are asking or basically trying to present the idea that Black English or let’s call it what it is, ebonics, is being taken away from the Black community,” Terrell told “Fox & Friends.”

    Terrell said that the Black community rejects Black English because it is “improper.”

    “But these far-left professors are somehow claiming that teaching proper English is racist and that we should embrace ebonics, poor English, improper English. In essence, they are trying to claim that improper English is proper and I find that absolutely insulting and it calls for lower expectations of Black kids. It’s very racist in and of itself.”
    …
    Terrell said the professors themselves speak “proper English,” yet they apparently don’t want to hold Black students to the same standard.

    “I can’t say this clearly enough. There is absolutely no systemic racism in this country,” he said, adding there is “no data” to support the liberal professors’ views in this case.

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