The Biden administration: lying with impunity
What does it mean to lie with impunity? It means to lie with no bad consequences, with “freedom from punishment, harm, or loss.”
Commenter “physicsguy” writes of the Biden administration, the Democrats, and the left as a whole:
It is rather amazing to take an objective view and watch what is happening: Install a puppet as president through massive voting fraud. Then use the puppet as a means to initiate all the programs. The puppet can also distract from the real agenda by the comical bumbling that the puppet displays. Blatantly lie about everything, and keep repeating all the lies; no need to worry as the MSM is in their corner. An example: Raggedy Ann saying no need to be concerned with the vaccination status of all those streaming across the border as most of them will not be staying in the US, all the while shipping them all off to various US cities. Such a laughable lie, but never challenged.
They really have totally won, and continue to consolidate their power.
I have noticed this same thing about the administration’s lies: they are absurd and are not meant to convince. They are meant to do a number of other things, and the collusion of the MSM is the key to making it work. If the majority of our “journalists” were doing their jobs correctly, it would not be difficult at all for them to successful point out the lies and disseminate that information t the public. But they see their task as propping up the left and also keeping their jobs.
So what are the lies for, if not to persuade? They are meant to give the already-convinced – the Democratic rank-and-file voter – their ready-made excuses for not paying attention to whatever objections the right may make or point out. The Democratic voter can shrug off any concerns they themselves may have, too, in a shallow and facile way. They also give the many pundits on the left their talking points, and if the talking heads on TV and the columnists hammer them home enough, the repetition makes the lies sound more like truths. After all, if all these smart people agree, who is the listener to differ?
Lastly, these lies have a function that is similar to what was going on with the Soviets – the lie as mockery and insult and sadistic tease. In that regard, obvious lying is a feature, not a bug, and it helps that the lie is absurd. It’s a show of power meant for the opposition to view, a way to say, “we can state any stupidity we want as truth, things both you and I know are ridiculous, and will we say it with a straight face to illustrate the extent of our power over you. We don’t have to pretend to make sense. We’re in control and you’re not. We are laughing at you.”
That’s the point we have reached.
Let me add that not only was Psaki’s statement absurd because obviously most of the illegal aliens streaming across the border will be staying indefinitely, but also because even if they were to stay only a few weeks or so, if infected with COVID they could pass it on in short order. So her statement was absurd on several levels.
Allowing election fraud to stand eliminates accountability, and results in unlimited dishonesty and corruption. With no accountability, lies and fraud activities inevitably become clownishly absurd. The term “clown world” is trending lately.
The sheer audacity of the lying from every single prominent member of this illegitimate administration (Mayorkas being perhaps the very worst of an atrocious group) is, indeed, fully intended to fortify the faithful in their delusional embrace of a senile buffoon and a cackling hyena and, in shockingly Orwellian manner, to dare any dissenters and dissidents to declare, against the full power of the establishment and of the regnant ideology, that two and two do not actually make five. “Circle Back” Psaki would certainly fare very badly in an honest debate with Trump’s Kayleigh McEnany, although, in truth, few leftists are willing to engage in intellectual discussions based on facts, evidence, reason, and logic.
No crisis here, just “Biden” policy.
https://justthenews.com/government/security/bidens-first-border-chief-accuses-administration-destroying-security-misleading
(…and we’ll throw in this, too, as a bonus:
https://justthenews.com/government/security/border-patrol-union-boss-slams-psaki-media-false-story-about-horse-mounted )
Not to worry: the same is the case for COVID, the economy (e.g., that “transitory” inflation), education (i.e., CRT), housing, foreign affairs, etc… Oh, and of course the election.
French President Macron may have finally gotten the message, as may much of the E.U.
Quite possibly, so may the Brits.
While Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid—O Clever Man!! (just ask him)—appears to be positioning himself for a rather nasty surprise:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313817
…alas, poor fellow!
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/house-democrats-pull-1-billion-israel-iron-dome-funding-pass-measure-fund
“Lastly, these lies have a function that is similar to what was going on with the Soviets”
And how did that work out for the Soviets?
I don’t mean to dismiss how incredibly frustrating all this deceit is but the reality is that unless one is a genuine sociopath, and there are very few of those, it’s almost impossible to lie to others without lying to oneself at least a little bit. Lying is a denial of reality and that inevitably results in disaster.
On a practical level, this stuff shouldn’t make you angrier with Biden, the Democrats, the Left, or the traditional media. It should make you angrier with everyone in the GOP, the conservative movement, and conservative media who openly welcomed or promoted Biden as the alternative to Trump. You should be particularly outraged and intolerant of those expressing dismay or alarm over Biden but who refuse to say these simple words: “I was wrong. We would have been better off with Trump.”
Mike
Part and parcel with the comment I read (somewhere, dammit) about how Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comment “screw your freedoms” wasn’t about convincing the rubes, it was about displaying who is entitled to issue an insult and who is required to take it.
“…lying with impunity…”
Indeed.
Still, you gotta admit (perhaps with some shock and awe) that “Biden” is really good at it…as shown by the following extraordinary reasoning given by “Biden” for substantially reducing American liberties! (As good a rationalization for “fundamentally transforming” the USA as you’ll find anywhere!!):
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/09/21/at-the-un-biden-says-american-freedom-is-connected-and-dependent-on-the-rest-of-the-world-n2596227
Agree the bold face lies are because they know they can with impunity, Sundowner has done it his whole life and knows he never will be called.
Just keeps getting worse. My brain is overloaded, frozen. I started reading Conrad Black over at AG earlier this afternoon and I simply could not get through it. And I love his writing. Things are worse than even this cynic expected.
Time once again for the corrupt media and info-tech to step up.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/10-big-guy-politico-confirms-hunter-bidens-china-ukraine-emails-are-legit
(You’d expect these guys to be utterly exhausted at this point, but they seem to have incredible stamina. Either that or they’re on steroids. Or Coke. Or amphetamines. All of the above…?)
“…with impunity…”
But sometimes…they’re so incredibly smart…that they…make a major mistake….
A fascinating, edifying and perhaps even encouraging tale (which, if one may permit oneself to hope against hope, presents a prognostication of things to come):
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rep-nunes-wins-major-victory-defamation-case-against-ryan-lizza-and-hearst
Barry Meislin said:
“You’d expect these guys to be utterly exhausted at this point, but they seem to have incredible stamina”
They have two mutually supporting addictions, power & yuan. The addicted will continue their frenzied quest unto death as their fear of not getting that next fix overrides the fear of nonexistence. The spiral of lies will go on.
“…the lie as mockery and insult and sadistic tease…”. I’d have put that as the primary purpose. Their goal is the demoralization of opposition. Remember O’Brien’s torment of Winston Smith in 1984- the Party didn’t actually want you to believe that 2+2=5, he explained; you couldn’t really be of any use to the party if you were mentally incompetent. They just wanted to humiliate you and demonstrate their power over you by making you say you believe it. This is what the ruling class has become, and what their elected puppets are tasked with.
It should make you angrier with everyone in the GOP, the conservative movement, and conservative media who openly welcomed or promoted Biden as the alternative to Trump.
I’ll agree with you that Mona Charen’s a bucket of whale chum, but she’s too inconsequential to take up more than stray bits of rent-free space in my head. Who really gets my blood boiling is our worthless congressional caucus.
“lying with impunity” has an expiration date, which shall either arrive in the aftermath of the 2022 or 2024 elections. Either their political power ends or tyranny will no longer be able to hide behind “plausible deniability”. Upon either path lie profound consequences.
“They really have totally won, and continue to consolidate their power.” physicsguy
They only appear to have won. Either they will lose massively in the 2022 and 2024 elections or they will have stolen them through massive fraud again.
In the case of massive fraud, maybe we’ll get lucky and a military coup loyal to their oaths will occur.
Otherwise, another stolen election will prove to be the proverbial “straw that breaks the camels back”. That ‘camel’ being those citizens who love America and liberty abandoning the hope that anything less than deadly force can regain liberty. That the choice before them is now 1776 or 1984.
Many imagine that the military and the State’s ‘legal’ thugs will prevent widespread rebellion.
There will be no ‘set’ battles.
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated the efficacy of 4th Generation Warfare. Millions of combat veterans are not going to accept enslavement and it is not just jihadists who know how to make I.E.D.s…
The logistical supplies that support the blue cities will be cut off. Nor are there enough military personnel to defend those infrastructural supply lines.
It will not just be the woke Generals and Politicians and the Global Elite who will be attacked but the agents of the institutions who enable the left’s lies. It will be their staff, the upper echelons of the NIH and CDC, the ACLU and the lawyers, the media propagandists, Marxist academics, school board tyrants, progressive administrators and ‘teachers’ who will be in mortal peril. There are not enough police in the world to keep them safe if “politics by ‘other’ means” becomes the only thing left between liberty and enslavement.
Nor can we forgive them for they do know what they do.
Step right up! Tell ’em what they wanna hear!!
https://nypost.com/2021/09/21/biden-vows-to-get-texas-border-chaos-under-control-at-un/
Yep, he’ll put Kamala Harris on the case pronto! (Or maybe even Jen Psaki!!)
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Theodore.Dalrymple.Quote.B722
The Psaki lie about the Haitians only wanting to stay for a short time was amazingly stupid. Especially since she was trying to make a distinction between tourists who are flying in vs. illegals who are walking. Wasn’t she supposed to be leaving by the end of the year? I’ll bet she wishes she was already gone. She seemed to be getting quite flustered at the last briefing.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
? Theodore Dalrymple
“massive voting fraud”
No, you don’t need that, just target a few critical counties in a handful of critical states. No need to spread your actions and increase the chance that even a democrat voter will note the fraud.
I like your point about lying with impunity. I think you may be giving the liars more credit than they are due. The implication is that Ms. Psaki told the lie about Haitian illegals not wanting to stay with premeditation. I don’t think so. I think the questioner caught her flat footed with a question she was unprepared for and her stupid lie was all she could come up with. The administration seems two steps behind each new disaster as they come and they scramble to try and catch up. Most media are simply not interested in holding them to account, Anyway, I liked your piece and you might be right.
Except they have NOT totally won. Half the populace no longer sees the federal government as legitimate. No nation will last long in that condition. This will not end well, but of one thing I am certain: it will not end in submission. Dissolution probably, violence possibly. But not submission.
What is interesting is the mush heads repeating the lies with a defiant chin-jut as if to say, “You can’t make me admit this is bullshit.”
Said it before. Will say it again. And it’s no original thought from me. I don’t do original thought, I just pick around here and there and cobble:
The Ruling Progressive Left Owns Us all because they don’t just control Morality, they Decide what Morality is. Of course they then act as if this Morality is derived from whatever is their version of Natural Law in any given week.
All you Christians and other Deep Thinkers just hold your Boomer Horses for a moment here and remember that we’re in the dirty rotten sordid real world. No sperging out on definitions, etc…
Setting the Moral Tone can be done in many ways, the crudest of which is just a media blitz of disapproving adult language abuse of ‘Miscreants’ until most of even the Miscreants are beaten down. Look at Jan 6 and aftermath. Ask me how I know after second half of 2019 in Hong Kong and watching the finely-crafted multi-pronged propaganda response once the machine got running smoothly — plenty of parallels in the way things have been framed.
It’s going to take a New Morality to deal with the Left in the West. And establishing one is not a Tea Party. Make no mistake that it will need to be imposed with great vigor on some to set an example for the rest. There is no way out of this via Socratic Dialog with the left when two opposing moral world views are concerned. As far as they are concerned, we are evil and despicable. Personally I like the Ed Dutton formulation that *they* are Spiteful Mutants. But there is no way out of this which doesn’t go through us (to use their language) Othering Them.
You need get with Pontius Pilate re the Truth Fetish. Truth in political discourse is a luxury for other times. Hit them with contempt and disgust. Don’t waste time pointing out inconsistencies in their arguments. Make them feel that you find them contemptible and rancid nasty people.
We don’t hate truth. We have more Objective Truth than the Left about observable reality. But that won’t sway them one bit.
Unless you like to feel all warm and fuzzy about yourself in your comfy cattle car or tumbril.
It’s been a long time… No Hugo Boss Frissons about ‘New Moralities’… please. How’s the present one been working out for you?
Zaphod:
Brother, I sense you are troubled. Let us pray together upon it.
@Huxley:
My box of runes is all jumbled up and the mistletoe has caught some fungus.
What do do? What to do?
But seriously.. This constant wonderment about how rational debate and laying out Truths and pointing to Objective Facts doesn’t get us anywhere with Left and how they are winding themselves up to cleanse society of our manifest evil ought to make (trigger warning) Folk wake up and smell the Ersatzkaffee.
Someone has to be It. Someone is going to be It, like it or no. I vote for the Left being It. That’s all there is to It 😀
Zaphod,
Except truth exists. There is Truth. I don’t disagree that we can’t also fight a war, even when the opponent is a front of lies, but you don’t change your own nature to that of your enemy’s, even if you are outnumbered.
If you become a Leftist to defeat the Left what have you won*?
*I seem to remember encountering a similarly worded question somewhere… “What profit a man who gain the world yet lose his mortal soul?”
Zaphod:
Perhaps you are ready to meet a dear friend of mine: Jesus Christ. He can be your friend too. He is everyone’s friend.
_____________________________
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
–Matthew 11:28
@Huxley:
That’s my least-favorite aria in the whole of Handel’s Messiah!
@Rufus:
I did say that I remain wedded to objective truth. And obviously agree that some truths are transcendent.
But none of these have anything at all to do with winning wars down on the plane of Base Reality. Do you really think that the USA and USSR defeated Hitler’s Germany because they served a Higher Truth? It is to laugh. They out-produced, out-numbered, and out-slaughtered him in the end, whilst engaging in every form of calumny and deception and ruse in prosecuting the war… That is how you win.
After you win, you compose paeans to yourself and publicize the enemies misdeeds and atrocities whilst papering over your own. You make your Morality.
The problem is that Last Season’s Morality justifying the last Victory can ossify or conditions can simply change sufficiently that it becomes counter-productive in the present. This is obviously the issue in the West where the Left can construe *any effective strategy* against them as ‘Fascist’ and therefore evil and beyond the pale. All you’re left with is forms of opposition which they allow you to have. It’s like going off to fight Hitler with pipe cleaners and candy floss for weapons. Insane.
Whatever God one professes, It is generally acknowledged in the West that He helps those who help themselves. Christian-Buddhist Syncretism is a recipe for suicide — not deserving the name of martyrdom. IMNHO.
Zaphod:
As you might suspect, I’m not being entirely serious here. (Though I’m not entirely unserious either. I do have unconventional faith in Jesus.)
Many of your comments remind me of the New Left activists of my youth, yammering in my ear about how corrupt and evil America is, how we are past debate and it’s time to take things to the next harsher level because it’s them or us, etc.
From what I can tell, half the people here, probably more, are in your camp. The Left is essentially evil and unable to be reasoned with, therefore this will likely end in violence.
My own view, as I’ve said, is that history doesn’t move in a straight line. There are cycles. The US has been through many. We haven’t become a right-wing or left-wing dictatorship yet. I’m betting the trend.
Personally I don’t think this Peak Left is sustainable. Check the polls. People are noticing that Biden isn’t all there, Afghanistan was a debacle, our Covid policy isn’t sensible, cancel culture is horrible and inflation is worrisome.
The fever could break without going to the barricades.
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” — Winston Churchill
Zaphod @ 10:24pm,
Maybe this analogy can help you understand my viewpoint more clearly. I know you think you know my viewpoint, but I do not think you fully grasp it. I read what you write about human nature, tribalism, the corrupt nature of man, etc. Let’s take a subset of that attitude; women and men forming monogamous relationships and raising children. I’ve also read what you write about that, and I get it. It’s a tough row to hoe and the odds are against one. Men are wired for polygamy, women are wired for hypergamy. Western law treats men as second class citizens in marital disputes. Why bother? MGTOW and all that.
Well, sometimes it works. I gave it a shot and it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me and now the adult children of my wife and me are out in the world fighting the good fight against those same, long odds. I not only have no regrets, my life would be a fraction of what it has been without taking that risk. I know it doesn’t always work out this way for everyone (there but for the grace of God go I). I have some good, close, life long friends who had rough roads and will spend the rest of their lives supporting women that betrayed them. And, I also have friends whose marriages did not work out who still raised wonderful children with their ex-spouses, and those children are now out in the world doing great things.
Humans are a mess. We are strange animals with all kinds of hard-wired traits that don’t always serve us well, but do you look at the odds and throw in the towel, or do you roll the dice, and spin the wheel?
Said another way:
Me. Personally. I have to do one, or the other. I can’t abide a life of sitting in the theater box mocking the passing parade like the Muppets Statler and Waldorf. They’re funny. But when the klieg lights switch off, and they shuffle this mortal coil, my guess is they regret living in the peanut gallery.
Zaphod:
It’s awful to acknowledge, but I think you’re pretty much correct.
We may recognize reality and we may see we’re in a national crisis, but to Biden et al it’s not a crisis, it’s what was devoutly wished. When Biden was elected, I thought it was understood that what we had to worry about would be actions to consolidate power, e.g., set up the next election via restructuring voting laws, open up mass immigration, stack the supreme court, add more states to the Union, etc.
It doesn’t bother them that their lies are obvious, they simply don’t care. Their utter contempt for the rest of us plays out in covering one lie with the next and the one after that. They see no reason to fear us. They have all the levers of power, including the military. Biden will try to take away guns, but they have the ones that matter. There may be a red wave in 2022, but it’s hard to see how that is likely to be decisive.
You’re right. Facts, persuasion—none of that will shift opinion, when the ones who need to be reached are entrenched in their ideological cult. They are drunk with power.
I remember when so many of us were discovering Saul Alinsky, during the runup to the Obama election. Some said, why aren’t we doing politics like that, and others said, because that’s not who we are. I’m not sure that we can afford niceness any longer. What the GOP is doing now sure isn’t working.
Finally tonight, Tucker Carlson said plainly that the crisis at the border isn’t about mismanagement or lack of planning or poor policy—none of that. It’s what was planned, expected and achieved, as a guarantee of a Democrat victory for the next election. Sure, there’ll be a howl if all those people are granted citizenship just in time to vote, but will anyone do anything about it? I’ve wondered why that hasn’t been explicitly stated all along. Or have I just missed it? I suppose some will call that just a conspiracy theory.
Wherever we’re headed, it’s just getting uglier.
Zaphod:
“Every form of calumny”? Isn’t that a word that means slander? Do you think what the Allies said about Hitler and the Nazis was untrue defamation? If not, then I’m somewhat puzzled by your use of that particular word.
I agree, however, that war must be waged seriously, to win, or not at all. I think that WWII is the last war we waged that way. The Rules of Engagement in recent wars have helped make them unwinnable. It’s also true that guerilla wars and civil wars present special challenges.
However, I also think that it is sometimes the case that “evil will shall evil mar,” in terms of war. In other words, to take Hitler as an example, some of his decisions were counterproductive and were a result of elements of his evil – especially in the later years of the war. So there is some linkage there.
JanMN,
I was where you are when Obama won his second election. We are getting the government our fellow countrymen want. Damn shame. And it’s barely a majority, but a majority it is.
A free polity needs those who stand outside of the political, are insulated from the political, and whose commission is to tell the truth. This used to be the realm of judges, the academe, and reporters. All these have now been corrupted and dragged into the political but those in power still pretend that they are still the tellers of truth.
Their full exposure as political actors is happening more and more. The spiral of lies spins faster trying to salvage the former tellers-of-truths reputation. It will not work. The lying will tear apart the fabric of society as nothing will be seen by anyone as true except what they see themselves, in person. The past will become as variable, contingent, and unknowable as the future unless new trusted non-political truth tellers emerge.
Zaphod:
You write: “This constant wonderment about how rational debate and laying out Truths and pointing to Objective Facts doesn’t get us anywhere with Left…”
Who is wondering that? I’m certainly not. Is anyone else? I just re-read (quickly) the comments here and I don’t see a single person wondering it. Nor have I seen people wondering it on other threads.
So why the constant strawmen, Zaphod? It really is a habit with you. You construct a vision – shall we call it a “narrative”? – about the people here, and then you try to knock it down with clever little cynical witticisms. But the narrative you construct doesn’t usually fit.
People here deal with truth – or try to – but they certainly don’t think that truth will change the minds of most people on the left. A few in the middle, but unfortunately very few. Are you aware that my series on political change is called “A mind is a difficult thing to change”? I’ve written tons of verbiage on the subject, and I am well aware that it’s a small percentage of people – very small – who are persuaded by truth.
As Churchill said: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
Nor does telling the truth about something preclude other methods of attack, such as – just to take two you mentioned – contempt and disgust. Why would you think it is either truth OR contempt and disgust? They’re not the least bit incompatible. Mockery has also been advocated, and I think it can be pretty effective at times.
One person I really really miss in this fight, however, is Andrew Breitbart. He was very creative about ways to fight the left.
geoffb:
I want to believe that truth matters, but I fear it will be erased, along with history, as fast as it’s told. Maybe I’m too steeped in Orwell.
JanMN
Try this piece, and if the 19 pages are too MEGO as philosophy can be, just pages 15-16 gets to the modern mass media lying effects.
https://idanlandau.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/arendt-truth-and-politics.pdf
MBunge said:
“…And how did that work out for the Soviets?
I don’t mean to dismiss how incredibly frustrating all this deceit is but the reality is that unless one is a genuine sociopath, and there are very few of those, it’s almost impossible to lie to others without lying to oneself at least a little bit. Lying is a denial of reality and that inevitably results in disaster…”
Stalin died peacefully in his bed (well, maybe not, we don’t know; but he didn’t get a bullet in the back of his head begging for his life in a Lubyanka prison dungeon cell like so many of his political enemies would have though). Frankly, all those lies worked pretty damn well for a bunch of absolute psychopaths for 75 years or so.
What you say about sociopaths being rare reminds me of the statistics on grizzly bear attacks. On average your chances of being killed by a griz is virtually nil. But that’s a nationwide average. The odds of you being attacked by a griz at a Mets game in NYC are nil. They don’t live there. But take a hike in the wilds of Wyoming and the odds have just shot way up.
Psychopaths are harder to spot than sociopaths. They both seem attracted to D.C. Your odds of finding them have just shot way up if you visit their natural habitat.
“massive voting fraud”
“No, you don’t need that, just target a few critical counties in a handful of critical states.” HarvardR
No, ‘safe’ blue districts will not be safe for democrats in 2022 and even some blue States won’t be safe for some Senators. There’s a tsunami of anger and resentment growing and the democrats are certain to foment it to a fever pitch by 2022. The only way they can stop the tsunami from sweeping them out of the majority in both the House and Senate is through massive fraud.
Zaphod,
“The Ruling Progressive Left Owns Us all because they don’t just control Morality, they Decide what Morality is.”
Uh, that would be a NO. Only among the indoctrinated sheep does that apply and they are not in the majority.
JanNM,
“It doesn’t bother them that their lies are obvious, they simply don’t care. Their utter contempt for the rest of us plays out in covering one lie with the next and the one after that. They see no reason to fear us. They have all the levers of power, including the military. Biden will try to take away guns, but they have the ones that matter.”
It’s indisputable that they don’t care if we believe their lies. That they have utter contempt for Americans loyal to America. That many of them foolishly imagine that they have no reason to fear being held to account. Though they would not be beating the drum of “domestic terrorists” if they were entirely without fear. That’s not just about identifying armed opposition.
They appear to have all the levers of power. So too did Louis XIV and his supporters in France in 1788. Biden’s puppet masters may well try to take away Americans guns. Which would be a fatal mistake. Nothing will persuade patriots willing but hesitant to rebel, that the time approaches for rebellion. It’s a trigger wire.
Don’t be so sure that they alone have the guns that matter. A quiet study conducted by Sen. Cotton’s staff revealed that 94% of military personnel are not buying what the woke Pentagon is selling. Keeping ones head down is not necessarily a sign of agreement, nor an indication of a willingness to submit to enforcing tyranny.
neo, steve57, and Geoffrey Britain:
You are all on the ball tonight. Thanks.
Regarding Spiteful Mutants, Ed Dutton has a new book just out:
https://vdare.com/articles/are-feminists-and-female-immigration-enthusiasts-witches
“At the beginning of the Medieval Warm period, about 900 AD, Europe was in a chaotic state and thinly populated. For the next four hundred years, mild weather allowed rapid demographic increase and relaxed Darwinian selection. By the Late Middle Ages, however, and intensifying in the Early Modern Era, a more densely populated Europe experienced what climatologists call the Little Ice Age, meaning Europeans were forced to compete over scarcer resources.
Under such conditions, success went to groups which were internally cooperative, fought valiantly against hostile outsiders, and procreated most successfully. Religion acted to reinforce such adaptive behaviors by identifying them with the will of God. Society became far less tolerant of behavior and belief which did not contribute to group fitness, such as homosexuality and religious heresies.
“Patriarchy,” that bugbear of feminism, is especially favored under harsh conditions of group selection—not because it benefits men at the expense of women, but because it ensures procreation and investment in offspring, as well as promoting social peace. Dutton explains:
Groups were more likely to be internally cooperative if females were under male control. Males could be more certain that they weren’t being cuckolded. This would reduce the need to invest energy in mate-guarding and lessen inter-male conflict, thus elevating the cooperativeness necessary to win the battle of group selection.
This, Dutton argues, is why successful societies have never recognized any female “right” to do as they please sexually.
The patriarchal system also developed in part because women in colder climates (such as Europe) have evolved to demand paternal investment in return for sexual access. Patriarchy thus allows both sexes to get part of what they want, encourages young motherhood and large families, and raises fitness.
Witch hunting, irrational as it may appear, is no random phenomenon. Abundant evidence makes clear that a specific sort of woman was most likely to be accused: a childless spinster living apart from men, usually older and physically unattractive (according to popular belief, witches might be identified by “witch’s marks,” physical deformities by which Satan marked them for his own). Most were ill-tempered, unpleasant, and lived on the margins of society. And yes, some did indeed practice superstitious arts disapproved by the Church, such as magical healing or casting curses upon their neighbors.
Such women, like homosexuals and heretics, tended to weaken rather than strengthening group fitness. This is broadly true even of unattractive women, because they are usually high in mutational load. Since 84 percent of our genes relate to the brain, any woman whose physical appearance indicates unfavorable mutations is likely to have such mutations affecting her behavior as well: personality disorders, mental illnesses, not wanting children, etc.
Of course, one might observe that life is hard enough on homely women without adding in accusations of witchcraft: but evolution is sublimely unconcerned about fairness to individuals.
The true cause of the witch craze, then, was heightened group selection under conditions of scarcity. Note that convictions for witchcraft peaked around the 1640s, as the Little Ice Age entered its harshest phase. Within Great Britain, convictions for witchcraft were most common in Scotland, perhaps due to the country’s poverty and colder climate.”
It then goes on to look at modern feminism.
A little Reason goes a long way… but it only gets you so far. We won’t get to the stars or through the next few decades without Atavism making a comeback on the Cucked Right.
An organization of religious liberty lawyers is seeking to collect a million signatures opposing court packing, to present to the Biden Commission:
https://supremecoup.com/
@Wesson:
Not sure it’s a super smart idea to give TPTB names, emails, and phone numbers. Why make it easier for them?
Also signing up is giving another of bunch slick-looking Cuckservative Grifters a free direct marketing mailing list.
I know.. I’m a Cynic. Less so if pragmatic and measurable actions are being taken locally by Conservative groups. On the National Stage.. forgeddaboudit!
What Anonymous said.
Best thread evuh.
One more story about a lie, and what it really means, from Paul at Powerline.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/09/a-question.php
That was the lie. Here’s what it really means.
@ Barry > “But sometimes…they’re so incredibly smart…that they…make a major mistake….”
Durden’s post links to Turley’s blog for the story about Nunes’ defamation suit.
Of course, the Professor’s article is worth reading for the analysis & likely consequences, but I’m jumping to a comment because of the subject of Neo’s post.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/09/21/rep-nunes-wins-major-victory-in-defamation-case-against-ryan-lizza-and-hearst/#comment-2124112
@ geoffb > “A free polity needs those who stand outside of the political, are insulated from the political, and whose commission is to tell the truth. This used to be the realm of judges, the academe, and reporters. All these have now been corrupted and dragged into the political but those in power still pretend that they are still the tellers of truth.”
That gets to the kernel of the problem.
@ Bryan > in re Churchill.
I think Sir Winston is referring to lies of a different type, those intended to protect the truth of certain specific actions (such as the location of forces, intended strategies, tactical plans, etc) from untimely disclosure during a war.
The lies of the Left are of an entirely different character, being intended to destroy Truth as a viable human value.
@ Bryan > “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comment “screw your freedoms” wasn’t about convincing the rubes, it was about displaying who is entitled to issue an insult and who is required to take it.”
I also didn’t find that specific reference (and I think someone may have conflated multiple strains of punditry to get it, which doesn’t make it false, but does make it inauthentic).
However, the search uncovered a few gems along the “pendulum” swing.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/arnold-schwarzenegger-loses-corporate-sponsor-bodybuilding-event-dangerous-anti-american-comment
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/maskless-arnold-schwarzenegger-calling-people-schmucks-cigar
Collaterally (and in the same week as Arnie), this was from someone pushing the pendulum back to the side of freedom (and proper Christian comportment).
http://adventmessenger.org/a-prominent-nun-from-the-dominican-order-tells-those-with-reservations-about-the-covid-19-vaccine-to-go-to-hell/
Sweet Lord, another Brennan….
– – – – – – – –
Well, lying—brashly, brazenly, consistently, proudly—has ALWAYS served the Democrats’ purposes well, assisted immeasurably by the undivided allegiance of an extraordinarily mega-CORRUPT media.
Russiagate is, at its very essence, America’s jazzed up, hyped up, super-comprehensive version of the Dreyfus trial (alas with no “J’Accuse…!” of any real impact—in fact, the American, and global, media greatly helped to propagate the calumny!!):
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/clinton-lawyer-charged-russiagate-scam-now-under-indictment
America’s Dreyfus Trial hasn’t quite lasted 12 years, like the original (though it may yet—there are only about seven years to go); nonetheless, the most astonishing (and frankly despicable) thing here—for this “ASAJEW” at least, i.e., MOI— is that so many prominent JEWS are the proponents, supporters, believers and spreaders of the disgusting scandal.
(Though thank the Lord there are many, many others who have been ardently, passionately and loyally defending the target of the scandal, the Constitution, the Law and the USA in this indescribably sordid matter.)
Or maybe not so astonishing. I guess this signals that they’ve finally, finally “made it” in America!?…
One wonders, though, if having taken this abysmal position, they’ve reached the very apex of the current iteration of the “goldineh medineh”…signs of the rot and corruption having been indicated not just by Jewish groups advocating Israel’s dismemberment (usually, but not always, under the rubric of “peace with the Palestinians”) but by the disgusting campaign by the usual suspects to excommunicate and ostracize the “WRONG” kind of Jew from the larger community—the community of “THE RIGHTEOUS”(TM)?:
https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/29/atlantic-trump-supporting-jews-exile/
– – – – – – –
There. I’ve said it.
I’ll conclude with an exquisite quote the smooth, suave, supremely confident Mr. Sussman (himself referring, in an interview, to the Watergate break-in):
“Hopefully people are smarter than that now…”:
https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1439780168361521153
H/T Lee Smith twitter feed.
…this from a prime mover and shaker in what Lee Smith refers to as “electronic Watergate”
https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1440073209525587977
(though far, far worse than the original….)
No, you can’t make this up.
…And yet, this hugest scandal in American politics was itself merely a “dry run” for the theft of the November 2020 elections…even if one may make the case that it’s really the California State elections of the past several decades that were, in fact, the real “dry run”….
Should be “…with an exquisite quote FROM…”
Geoffrey Britain —
The only way they can stop the tsunami from sweeping them out of the majority in both the House and Senate is through massive fraud.
This is why the Vote Harder strategy is not stupid; it is in fact necessary.
If 2022 is marked by massive fraud, then the vast middle won’t be able to put it off with “but Trump”, and the Democrats will be exposed.
I certainly hope so, anyway. Beats going right into a civil shooting war.
Speaking of which:
AesopFan —
Yes, of course Churchill was talking about a different kind of truth and lie, and I was being a bit flip because it let me quote Churchill.
My great fear is that it will be necessary to break the social order in order to restore the social order, and we won’t have the moral courage to support an immoral act to do so. I don’t think that temporarily breaking the social order destroys it forever or makes it impossible to return to it. For “social order” you can also read “Constitution”.
One of our foundational American myths as seen in a hundred Western movies is: civilization must be defended from its enemies, but taking up the gun to defend it puts the gunman outside civilization. This sucks for the gunman, who must ride off into the sunset instead of staying in town, but the town doesn’t disappear or dissolve into chaos because they hired him. I guess in the metaphor, the gunman’s killings of the bad guys are the “lies” and civilization is the “truth”.
If I were a religious man, I would be praying every day that we wouldn’t ever come to such a point, but declaring something unthinkable and therefore out of bounds for consideration just means we won’t be prepared if and when the time comes.
And just to be clear, I have no desire or intention of being the gunman. Let this cup pass from me. I’ll be happy to do the hiring.
Bound to be some kind of lying going on here.
https://notthebee.com/article/former-headus-border-patrol-fired-by
“Secretary Mayorkas is choosing to ignore the sound recommendations of career government leadership despite his own admissions that he agrees with them.”
Indeed…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mayorkas-leaked-audio-border
Live not by lies.
https://notthebee.com/article/look-at-how-much-bigger-big-macs-used-to-be
@ Bryan > “Yes, of course Churchill was talking about a different kind of truth and lie, and I was being a bit flip because it let me quote Churchill.”
Never pass up an opportunity to quote Churchill.
Besides, it’s a good way to start a discussion.
Doc Zero (John Hayward) addresses some of the recent news, and it seems to me that his observations are at least tangentially related to the topic – because everything the Left aka Progressives aka Democrats do and say must be treated as a lie until independently verified by some pundit not inclined to take their word for it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1438121925633585155.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1435953596827414533.html
Well, AF, WTR to the CDC “misleading people” regarding COVID “vaccination rates”, it must be said in the CDC’s defense that they DID, at least—in their altruistic wisdom—CHANGE, if surreptitiously(!), the definitions of “vaccine” and “vaccination”…
“Why did CDC change its definition for ‘vaccine’? Agency explains move as skeptics lurk”
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html
Key graf:
“Before the change, the definition for ‘vaccination’ read, ‘the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.’ Now, the word ‘immunity’ has been switched to ‘protection.’
“The term ‘vaccine’ also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from ‘a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease’ to the current ‘a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.’ ”
…Paging Humpty Dumpty, paging Humpty Dumpty….
@BryanLovely:
“One of our foundational American myths as seen in a hundred Western movies is: civilization must be defended from its enemies, but taking up the gun to defend it puts the gunman outside civilization. This sucks for the gunman, who must ride off into the sunset instead of staying in town, but the town doesn’t disappear or dissolve into chaos because they hired him. I guess in the metaphor, the gunman’s killings of the bad guys are the “lies” and civilization is the “truth”.
But who green-lighted, financed, and distributed these movies?
These myths were manufactured out of whole cloth. To be entertaining yes… but to Instruct, too. One of the Instructions was to not take liberties with Bubbe or no.. scratch that… Shane! Come back Shane! Oh… forgeddaboudit… but if you think that Hollywood Westerns sprang fully-formed from the brow of the American People’s Soul, I’ve got a Bridge in Brooklyn of all places that might interest you.
We’re not talking Odysseus Rocks Up Back to Ithaca here. This is something else.
Again.. we have the problem that to break out of the Pavlovian Conditioning, it is necessary that I be uncouth. Believe it or not, but I almost regret that. However the most successful conditioning requires the conditioned to transgress the current moral code to even point it out to others inside the illusion. That’s why it works so well.
BTW you formulated the meme perfectly in that quote. Mimesis is Who We Are. It’s just a question of who writes the stories and who decides what is to be read.
When Humpty Dumpty gets too comfortable, it’s time to whip up an omelette.
Can’t mention the Queen of Hearts because seem to get the chop every time I propose executive actions.
I detect a certain…misprision.
I would suggest changing the focus to, “…puts the gunman outside ‘civilization'”…
Thing is.. that this alienation of any effective actions to right societal wrongs is perverse. I think I grok the understandable motivation to make host society safer by propagandizing against vigilantism (for example)… but Law of Unintended Consequences means that eventually it actually becomes *less* safe for all concerned.
And I maintain that there is nothing authentically Western (in both senses of the word) about banishing the Righter of Wrongs to the outer darkness — all Azazel-like. It comes from Elsewhere.
Besides, where’s Wyatt Earp in all of this? (Unless you want us all to believe that he changed his name—“Americanized” it—from “Velvel Epstein”?)
I’m the last person to go Full Aryan, but I don’t recall Arjuna hanging his head and riding off at the end of the Bhagavad Gita.
Smiting the bad guys and doing the *headwiggle* needful is Tradition. In the finest tradition of Ariel Sharon, I might add when it suits. In theory Morals are absolute. In practice they’re situational. Well the situation has changed, and in the new culture, Shane is going to have to re-script himself and run for mayor on a zero tolerance ticket… for the good of us all.
Re Wyatt Earp:
Earp was real. He existed. He was not banged up on typewriters by a roomful of ‘Communists’. Preponderance of those golden age movies were.
But now that you mention it, a bit suspicious about who was taking a cut from all comers at the OK Corral 😛
Having said that, always feel warm and fuzzy inside when I see a Chinese Laundry in old westerns. Leaving some easy pickings bait for AnOmYnous here.
Best send Prager or someone to drown me in a vat of finest quality Logos 😀
Won Hung Lo serves up the Pork Ptomaine again.
I think reason #2 is a little off. It’s not to laugh at us that the lie is made. It’s not to wave their power in our face. It is to oppress. They get to define reality as in Orwell’s 1984, and we will, to some degree, be forced to kowtow to it – or struggle to be heard about their lies (if we aren’t censored or cancelled) while they go on doing whatever they want.
Codevilla (in an article about the blatant lies re:Kavanaugh):
“The anti-Kavanaugh campaign’s power and significance lies precisely in the ruling class’s perpetration of an in-your-face hoax. Making someone pretend that your patent lie is true may be the most humiliating of assertions of power. ”
https://americanmind.org/salvo/our-revolutions-logic/
AesopFan said:
“Live not by lies.”
I’m so old I remember when a 3 pound can of coffee weighed 48 ounces not the 28 they turned into. Next up the 14 ounce 3 lb can.
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Mark Steyn on “A Hinge Moment of History”: “We are living in a blizzard of lies.”
It’s an address given at the Gatestone Institute followed by a question-and-answer period. Lengthy, but Steyn at his best:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17695/hinge-moment-history
A few years back when I was visiting my cousin and her husband we somehow got into a discussion of Rush Limbaugh; my cousin took offense at Rush’s term “Feminazis”. In the course of the discussion I brought up the lack of feminist condemnation of FGM. My cousin’s response: “Shut up, she explained”. A few minutes later they realized it was time to watch Keith Olbermann.
General Semantics and social psychology tell us that our perceptions are colored by our internal mental processes, and the degree of misperception varies from person to person. Another way to look at it is how in touch with reality one actually is. Science fiction author Joel Shepherd introduced in one of his novels a mass mental disorder called Compulsive Narrative Syndrome, Characters in the book explain:
“The human brain is trained to look for and identify patterns, but in abstract concepts, fixed and unarguable facts are hard to find. So the brain looks for narratives instead, stories that can tie together various ideas and facts in a way that seems to make sense, to make a pattern. And the human brain, always seeking a pattern as a basic cognitive function, will latch onto a narrative pattern compulsively, and use that pattern as a framework within which to store new information, like a tradesman honing his skill, or someone learning a new language. That’s why religions tell such great stories, the story makes a pattern within which everything makes sense. A synchronicity of apparent facts. Political ideologies, too. Humans are suckers for a great story because we can’t resist the logical pattern it contains.”
“When you’re learning a new skill, discarding irrelevant information and organizing the relevant stuff within that framework is good. But in ideologies, it means any information that doesn’t fit the ideological narrative is literally discarded, and won’t be remembered . . . which is why you can argue facts with ideologues and they’ll just ignore you. They’re not just being stubborn, their brains are literally structurally incapable of processing what they perceive as pattern-anomalous data. That’s why some ideologues get so upset when you offer facts that don’t match their pattern, it’s like you’re assaulting them.”
Sound familiar? In the book the problem is caused by devices implanted in everyone’s brain that connect them to the internet. Mike Finn has an interesting take on the idea at https://mikefinnsfiction.com/2016/04/04/compulsive-narrative-syndrome-if-it-doesnt-exist-it-should/
I’ve noticed, since the primaries, Biden surrounded by young female staffers. They seem to exert a good deal of control over his actions, physically grabbing his sleeve to pull him away from the press, now they scream at the press to leave before he speaks. They’re almost Manson family like in their behavior.