Introducing….Trud—esc—eau:
“Taibbi: Justin Trudeau’s Ceausescu Moment”— https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/taibbi-justin-trudeaus-ceausescu-moment
Key grafs (but RTWT):
“Ceausescu’s balcony will forever be a symbol of elite cluelessness. Even in the face of the gravest danger, a certain kind of ruler will never be able to see the last salvo coming, if doing so requires any self-examination….
“There may be no real-world comparison between a blood-soaked monster like Ceausescu and a bumbling ball-scratcher like Joe Biden, or an honorarium-gobbling technocrat like Hillary Clinton, or a Handsome Dan investment banker like Emmanuel Macron, or an effete pseudo-intellectual like Justin Trudeau. Still, the ongoing inability of these leaders to see the math of populist uprisings absolutely recalls that infamous scene in Bucharest. From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump to, now, the descent of thousands of Canadian truckers upon the capital city of Ottawa to confront Trudeau, a consistent theme has been the refusal to admit — not even to us, but to themselves — the numerical truth of what they’re dealing with….”
The Daily Wire is reporting that the Canadian government has secured a court order “freezing” the funds donated to the movement via GiveSendGo.
I saw no mention as to whether it applies to those giving “and and shelter” such as the food services and housing. The convoy’s lawyers are talking about Bitcoin. What’s the quote? “This is out of control and will not end well…”?
RedState.com has reported that givesendgo.com has responded to the Ontario fascists in the appropriate manner.
Back to birds. Those corvids are amazing. Here is a link about Fable The Raven, an internet influencer (sort of, Boop! Boop!):
Just another open-thread comment. Am I not a magpie?
According to the February 9th issue of the “Washington Examiner” (https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc62b), Putin has threatened nuclear war if NATO inserts itself into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Supposedly, Putin said this during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. Videos of the press conference, along with the translations from the Russian, muddy the waters a little, but I think that the Washington Examiner’s assessment is fair.
This follows a threat to deploy nuclear missiles in Latin America, close to the US border (https://tinyurl.com/2p8nawse). According to the BBC, this threat was made by Dmitry Kiselev, a Russian state TV broadcaster used by the Kremlin.
Biden administration officials have characterized these threats as bluffs, as part of the propaganda war surrounding negotiations over Ukraine. My knee-jerk reaction is to disagree with everything said by the US State Department, but I think they’re right about this. Still, I hate open threats of nuclear war. Even bluffs are a dangerous escalation.
The Canadian situation is fascinating and also a bit terrifying to watch unfold. The governments (plural as now Biden has sided with Trudeau) keep ratcheting up their hard lined response which causes the protestors to dig in more. As many of the protestors have said, it’s no longer about vax mandates, but about freedom.
As the article that Barry links to reveals, such tyrants always seem to resort to more repression and violence. The time when the government resorts on outright violence/killing of the protestors is coming closer and when that happens I’m not sure what the people of Canada, US, and global response will be.
Your blogroll needs to be updated.
Roger Simon left PJ Media years ago.
The Anchoress hasn’t posted since 2016.
I’m gonna keep bugging you until you do it.
Tiananmen seems as likely as Ceausescu.
Remember Rathergate during the election season of 2004 was followed by Eason Jordan in the early part of 2005. Hopes were high in the blogosphere that the web would improve the quality and honesty of the news media by holding them accountable. Didn’t work out that way.
Why? As one journalist said after Jordan went down, why are we helping these bloggers get us fired? Cooperation ended. Transparency ended. Bloggers could break stories and the news media simply refused to cover them. The lefties in the media just doubled down on corruption and dishonesty. They ramped up the propaganda commitment to the left by a factor of ten.
The lefties believe they are in complete control of every important institution in America. Covid will pass. I would expect they will react by doing whatever they need to weather this storm and return to their relentless march leftward.
Unless the angry citizenry connect Covid Lefty tyranny and abuse to other Lefty government tyranny and abuse, this moment won’t lead to anything other than a stronger resolve by the left to lie, cheat, and steal with more secrecy and to punish dissent more punitively.
Yeah, I read a similar story about some kid feeding a crow and the crow bringing shiny trinket gifts.
Sounded like fun, so I began throwing peanuts out on the lawn. Was rewarded with a gang of crows hanging out in my tree and dropping turds on my parked car.
Now, every so often, I toss the peanuts onto the neighbors lawn instead.. Never did like that guy.
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US. I did an Email to friends that they should really consider stocking up on things because it is going to get much worse. It seems the Tinpot Dictators here and in Canada do not understand what is happening and the consequence of their actions. They can’t start arresting the Truckers like they did the people from Jan 6.
Why? As one journalist said after Jordan went down, why are we helping these bloggers get us fired? Cooperation ended. Transparency ended. Bloggers could break stories and the news media simply refused to cover them. The lefties in the media just doubled down on corruption and dishonesty. They ramped up the propaganda commitment to the left by a factor of ten.
And what happened to the size of their audience?
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US.
It’s doubtful Joey Softserve has much agency left.
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US.
I doubt the truckers are worried about Buttigieg either, what with his extended paternity leave and his uselessness in dealing with the Union Pacific train robberies in LA.
While that nice lady & her magpies is a cute story…that’s not all that unusual with Magpies. Ozzy Man will show you the swooping tendencies of those black & white bombers, but that’s a small percentage of them as a whole.
Many will respond to kindness & they absolutely love toys…shiny stuff & bright colours. I’ve never seen them do the laundry thing…that’s funny. But all fowl will tussle over “the best” thing…our chickens will chase each other all over the yard to steal a snail or bit of bacon rind from one another.
I’m delighted “Danielle” has found her vocation…true calling…among them. And, perhaps that’s a good step toward dealing in a healthy way with what appears to be Aspergers or some milder form of social anxiety disorder. She seems like a genuinely nice lady. Good for her and good for the animals she helps.
Marisa:
Consider that Neo may have other priorities that are higher in her life. Do you?
Marisa & Neo:
I like the old blog list. It elicits feelings of nostalgia for the old world before the social media swamp, back when we thought the internet would aid the cause of freedom. Yes, I was just a child, but those years were golden, and I treasure them all the more for their innocence, now that they’ve slipped away, down the drain, into the abyss … please let me pause a moment, while I reach for a tissue. There, I feel a little better now.
Cornflour; Marisa:
I do plan to get around to updating it one of these days. It’s time-consuming, though, because each site has to be looked up.
Marisa et al.
Looks like The Anchoress moved to https://theanchoress.com but last post was a year ago…
I like having the blogroll to discover new things, even if they are not most current; they are still worthy with much to consider.
I had a real “Ceausescu” feeling when I heard Trudeau’s speech in hiding that someone had juxtaposed over video of the truckers and their supporters having fun, feeding the homeless, dancing, drumming with descendants of natives…
Apparently, a lot of others felt the same.
I’ve had the same feeling regarding President Brandon and, again, it is obvious many, many others feel the same. The few times President Brandon has appeared in public folks openly, casually insult him and his caravan. The same for Vice President Harris.
I have no respect for either of these three grifting charlatans, but their ignorance and narcissism is not the main point. What gives me hope is that more and more people are figuring out that we simply do not need these people. They are such obvious, phony empty suits that more and more people are waking up to the reality that we do not need leaders. Nor do we need to be led.
If Justin Trudeau stepped down tomorrow and the Canadian Prime Ministership (Ministerium? Ministry?) remained open and unfilled, what would it matter? Not only would life for all Canadians not descend into a spiral of chaos, life would actually get better. We are capable of governing ourselves.
This has always been true, but technology makes it abundantly clear. We don’t need the AP, NYT, CNN, FoxNews. Millions of citizens worldwide publish video and text of current events every second of every day. We don’t need a schoolboard. Every July publish a list of choices of texts to be taught at the school in the upcoming year and have parents and guardians of attendees vote on them. Publish a list of policies and do the same.
In the fable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” everything is fine until the emperor steps out in public in a parade where rank and file citizens line a public street. The Emperor maintained the facade of his royalty when cloaked behind an enormous, ostentatious castle surrounded by fawning sycophants who worked tirelessly to promote the myth of his worthiness. But once out in public even a little boy could discern it was all an elaborate ruse.
Sunlight, as they say, is a great disinfectant.
As technology breaks down the barriers of entry to the world of reporting (Greenwald, Berenson, Taibbi, O’Keefe), punditry (Rogan, Poole, Beck), academia (Peterson, Shrier, Paglia, Niall Ferguson and his wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heather Heying and her husband, Bret Weinstein, Loury, Haidt, McWhorter, Lindsay, Pluckrose and Boghossian), and, most importantly the role of the court jester,* the ramparts of our elites’ castles are lain bare.
*Clowns like Colbert, Kimmel, Noah, Behar, Seth Rogan and Patton Oswalt can’t stifle Dave Smith, Dave Chapelle, Steven Crowder, Scott Adams, Sabo, Ace, Ryan Long, Mark Dice and thousands like them using humor to shine a light on the failings of those who desire to rule us.
John Guilfoyle at 1:24 pm,
Glad you pointed that out. On the video she narrated their clothesline behavior as playing, but I saw it as greed or jealousy. But I don’t know anything about Magpies. That’s just how it appeared.
Neo should attempt to persuade Mike K., Maclin, Cornflour, &c to send her videos of themselves dancing.
Just to be clear, I really do like the old blog roll just the way it is, and would rather not see it edited down to an honest nub. I was making fun of my own feeeeelings, not Marisa’s, and certainly not Neo’s. My sense of humor is often and widely misunderstood.
As for Art Deco’s dancing request, what does that mean ???????? (Although I liked the video.) There must be a joke there, but I don’t get it. I’d guess explanations would ruin the fun, so probably better to let it be.
@ Rufus > “We don’t need a schoolboard. Every July publish a list of choices of texts to be taught at the school in the upcoming year and have parents and guardians of attendees vote on them. Publish a list of policies and do the same.”
Brilliant!
You are on a roll today!
Well, there is a bit of behind-the-scenes administrative work, but that’s not what our Celebrity School Boards are mis-handling with their CRT and other Leftist agendas.
A couple of accountants, some secretaries, and the District Superintendent is all you need for the essential work – and those already exist in most places.
It seems to me that it’s less a ‘calling’ and more a ‘lifeline’. She seems witty, intelligent, good-natured, interesting, and attractive. I wonder why she prefers loneliness when it causes anxiety and depression? Hope it works out for her.
Those birds, they are something else. Crow also fascinate me with their innate intelligence. Thanks for the story!
AesopFan,
About a year ago I had my political head turned around through listening to Michael Malice and Dave Smith’s podcasts. I don’t want to mislabel them, but I think they call themselves anarchocapitalists, but don’t hold me to that.
Although I found them engaging, hearing them throw around terms like “anarchist,” “government force,” etc. initially put me off, but I agreed with other things they spoke of, and at one point one of them said something that caused me to think about the problem of politics as I never had before.* I’m a fan of the Founders and think the Declaration and Constitution are brilliant documents, but even the Founders started with the premise, “Governments are instituted among men…” I had never stopped to ask the question, “Do governments have to be instituted among men?”
The Founders’ goal was to reduce government to its minimum. “The government that governs best is that which governs least.” Well, maybe they didn’t go far enough? I still don’t agree with what I think anarchocapitalists stand for (I haven’t bothered to research it. Political Science isn’t my bailiwick), but I now view political issues with a 180 degree perspective from my prior view. I now first ask “why?” If we truly are sovereign individuals whose rights come from a Creator, what authority do Justin Trudeau or Joe Biden or Mitch McConnel or Nancy Pelosi or the chief of my local police or the head of my local schoolboard… have over me?
I am fine with the concept that my local bookstore can refuse to sell me a book, or my local grocery store can refuse to permit me entry if my face is uncovered with a piece of cloth, or the owner of a private road can restrict my access. They own things they legally obtained and can therefore dictate how those things are used, accessed or distributed. But a President or Governor can prohibit me from working? A school official can administer puberty blockers or vaccines to my children? A truancy officer can put me in a cage if I don’t send my children to a school of their choosing, when they choose? Where does that come from?
(more in next comment…)
The logistics of the size of the U.S. and technology available at the time
*Which is odd, because I often use a reductio ad absurdum process when trying to identify problems.
The Founders had logistic problems we don’t have now.
Would they have chosen the representative structure they did if folks in Virginia, Maine and South Carolina could express their opinions instantaneously?
Would they have built a complex of buildings in a single district if folks managing agriculture could conference instantaneously with folks managing defense instantaneously, audibly and visually, in real-time, across the entire expanse of the nation?
Why do we need Joe Biden? Why do we need Mitch McConnel?
Start with the minimal, zero, and then add the least amount necessary to solve the political issue at hand.
Rufus, we know that Madison already addressed the issues of lack of angels, and of passions and factions, which you seem to be ignoring although I am confident you are familiar with it.
I have often wondered how the DOI language might have changed if Darwin had published his book in 1759 instead of 1859.
On school choice: my neighbor and I both have engineering PhDs. While I am a strong believer in evolution via natural selection*, as great and smart and friendly as he is, he is also a devout Evangelical Christian and almost a 6000 year earther. We might agree on many textbooks for our kids but not on all of them. Who decides? Send the kids to different schools? Perhaps.
But I presume most of us here would agree that some form of legal requirement for “universal” education on some core curriculum is beneficial to all of us in our complex modern society, partly to reduce the prospect of anarchy that you are exploring/ contemplating. It seems that literacy and some core knowledge is necessary, if not sufficient, to obtaining intelligence and critical thinking in our daily and political lives.
R2L,
Who decided locking kids in concrete rectangles for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and forcing them to sit still in desks was optimal to instill knowledge? Plato didn’t learn that way. Aquinas? Galileo? Newton? Edison? Tesla? Shakespeare?
Our culture tends to spend 90% of its time arguing about the 10% of issues where there is disagreement. How long would it take for you and your neighbor to devise a school curriculum that occupies 8 hours that focuses on the 90% you agree on?
People are far more agreeable than our politicians and media want us to know. That’s because, if we get along we don’t need them.
R2L,
Regarding Madison, where did he write about a huge police state and military industrial complex?
I’m not an anarchist, but as we are seeing in Canada, the police can too easily become the military arm of despots. Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau sound a lot more like Mafia Dons than better angels. I’d rather take my chances I could work things out independently with your neighbor than rely on Justin Trudeau to settle our differences.
The government has a monopoly on force in the United States. Is that good? Is that what Madison envisioned?
You have a PhD in Engineering. Some of the greatest leaps in Engineering occur when you start with a blank sheet of paper. Don’t think about fixing the current system. Think about what system is necessary.
R2L,
You and your neighbor get along fine. You respect one another’s property and families. Are you doing that because there are thousands of laws inscribed in books at the County Court house and there are armed, uniformed men and women who answer to the Chief of Police in your jurisdiction?
If the law texts were destroyed in a flood or fire would you treat your neighbor differently? What if the Chief of Police goes on vacation?
Magpies can get kinda nasty, actually. (Part of the reason is their intelligence).
(And noisy too…)
Rufus, are we merely talking past each other? I doubt we disagree all that much except perhaps over the language we are using to discuss or describe these situations. I was reacting to your seeming naivete about the need for governmental powers to control a populace, balanced against the need to control that government in turn – as Madison clearly laid out. Your position seemed to mirror that of the unconstrained vision, where people could be “perfected”, while I certainly adopt a constrained vision. But your comments and contributions herein over the years shows you definitely are not a naïve person.
If we already agree on 90% of the issues [and we here on this blog thread do], then we are best served by confirming that with 10% of our attention, while directing the remaining 90% of our time to trying to resolve those more difficult final 10% of the issues.
The physical rectangles of our schools are incidental to the constraints we put on the minds and interests of the students and on the teachers responsible for conveying a set of core knowledge to them. Can’t speak to the others you mention, but I am pretty sure Plato and Shakespeare were taught in formal school settings. I once visited the school room in Strafford claimed to be where Will learned his basic language and history. That core knowledge is necessary for our kind of virtuous citizen dependent society and government to operate successfully. Vouchers, home schooling, and charter schools can all contribute to that, if the indoctrinated educrats can’t be converted back to rationality. They are the people with whom we don’t get along, and from whom government power needs to be rescinded “by the people”.
My neighbors and I get along very well because we have already been educated and acculturated with that set of core knowledge and beliefs needed to retain our citizen virtue and thus our mutual acceptance of the Constitutionally defined balance of powers under which we still will demand that we live. That includes the heritage of Western Civilization from Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Scottish and American Enlightenment influences, plus appreciation for the Rule of Law and a reliance on the 2nd Amendment should the warnings GB keeps giving us were to clearly come to pass.
It is obvious that Rousseau, Locke, Hobbs, et al. were either wrong or incomplete in their discussions of a “state of nature”, which has never existed under any level of primate development over the last 7+ million years, and certainly for homo sapiens over the last 300,000 years. Some form of parental to monarchical control has always been necessary, at least until those 55 smart educated men met in Philly in 1787 and they started with a nearly blank sheet. We know the result from their long and dedicated efforts was really pretty amazing, even if not perfect for all time. We can certainly agree that we need to use that foundation and then “build back better” to reduce the size and impact of government as we find it today, but not extinguish it. Since you are not an anarchist, you presumably agree that extinguishment is not on the table either.
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Introducing….Trud—esc—eau:
“Taibbi: Justin Trudeau’s Ceausescu Moment”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/taibbi-justin-trudeaus-ceausescu-moment
Key grafs (but RTWT):
“Ceausescu’s balcony will forever be a symbol of elite cluelessness. Even in the face of the gravest danger, a certain kind of ruler will never be able to see the last salvo coming, if doing so requires any self-examination….
“There may be no real-world comparison between a blood-soaked monster like Ceausescu and a bumbling ball-scratcher like Joe Biden, or an honorarium-gobbling technocrat like Hillary Clinton, or a Handsome Dan investment banker like Emmanuel Macron, or an effete pseudo-intellectual like Justin Trudeau. Still, the ongoing inability of these leaders to see the math of populist uprisings absolutely recalls that infamous scene in Bucharest. From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump to, now, the descent of thousands of Canadian truckers upon the capital city of Ottawa to confront Trudeau, a consistent theme has been the refusal to admit — not even to us, but to themselves — the numerical truth of what they’re dealing with….”
The Daily Wire is reporting that the Canadian government has secured a court order “freezing” the funds donated to the movement via GiveSendGo.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-canadian-court-freezes-freedom-convoy-givesendgo-donations
I saw no mention as to whether it applies to those giving “and and shelter” such as the food services and housing. The convoy’s lawyers are talking about Bitcoin. What’s the quote? “This is out of control and will not end well…”?
RedState.com has reported that givesendgo.com has responded to the Ontario fascists in the appropriate manner.
Back to birds. Those corvids are amazing. Here is a link about Fable The Raven, an internet influencer (sort of, Boop! Boop!):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3dOam9Hg4
Just another open-thread comment. Am I not a magpie?
According to the February 9th issue of the “Washington Examiner” (https://tinyurl.com/2p8sc62b), Putin has threatened nuclear war if NATO inserts itself into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Supposedly, Putin said this during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. Videos of the press conference, along with the translations from the Russian, muddy the waters a little, but I think that the Washington Examiner’s assessment is fair.
This follows a threat to deploy nuclear missiles in Latin America, close to the US border (https://tinyurl.com/2p8nawse). According to the BBC, this threat was made by Dmitry Kiselev, a Russian state TV broadcaster used by the Kremlin.
Biden administration officials have characterized these threats as bluffs, as part of the propaganda war surrounding negotiations over Ukraine. My knee-jerk reaction is to disagree with everything said by the US State Department, but I think they’re right about this. Still, I hate open threats of nuclear war. Even bluffs are a dangerous escalation.
The Canadian situation is fascinating and also a bit terrifying to watch unfold. The governments (plural as now Biden has sided with Trudeau) keep ratcheting up their hard lined response which causes the protestors to dig in more. As many of the protestors have said, it’s no longer about vax mandates, but about freedom.
As the article that Barry links to reveals, such tyrants always seem to resort to more repression and violence. The time when the government resorts on outright violence/killing of the protestors is coming closer and when that happens I’m not sure what the people of Canada, US, and global response will be.
Your blogroll needs to be updated.
Roger Simon left PJ Media years ago.
The Anchoress hasn’t posted since 2016.
I’m gonna keep bugging you until you do it.
Tiananmen seems as likely as Ceausescu.
Remember Rathergate during the election season of 2004 was followed by Eason Jordan in the early part of 2005. Hopes were high in the blogosphere that the web would improve the quality and honesty of the news media by holding them accountable. Didn’t work out that way.
Why? As one journalist said after Jordan went down, why are we helping these bloggers get us fired? Cooperation ended. Transparency ended. Bloggers could break stories and the news media simply refused to cover them. The lefties in the media just doubled down on corruption and dishonesty. They ramped up the propaganda commitment to the left by a factor of ten.
The lefties believe they are in complete control of every important institution in America. Covid will pass. I would expect they will react by doing whatever they need to weather this storm and return to their relentless march leftward.
Unless the angry citizenry connect Covid Lefty tyranny and abuse to other Lefty government tyranny and abuse, this moment won’t lead to anything other than a stronger resolve by the left to lie, cheat, and steal with more secrecy and to punish dissent more punitively.
Yeah, I read a similar story about some kid feeding a crow and the crow bringing shiny trinket gifts.
Sounded like fun, so I began throwing peanuts out on the lawn. Was rewarded with a gang of crows hanging out in my tree and dropping turds on my parked car.
Now, every so often, I toss the peanuts onto the neighbors lawn instead.. Never did like that guy.
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US. I did an Email to friends that they should really consider stocking up on things because it is going to get much worse. It seems the Tinpot Dictators here and in Canada do not understand what is happening and the consequence of their actions. They can’t start arresting the Truckers like they did the people from Jan 6.
Why? As one journalist said after Jordan went down, why are we helping these bloggers get us fired? Cooperation ended. Transparency ended. Bloggers could break stories and the news media simply refused to cover them. The lefties in the media just doubled down on corruption and dishonesty. They ramped up the propaganda commitment to the left by a factor of ten.
And what happened to the size of their audience?
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US.
It’s doubtful Joey Softserve has much agency left.
Yes, just read about Biden telling Trudeau to get tougher with the Truckers. A tell on what Biden would do with the Truckers here in the US.
I doubt the truckers are worried about Buttigieg either, what with his extended paternity leave and his uselessness in dealing with the Union Pacific train robberies in LA.
While that nice lady & her magpies is a cute story…that’s not all that unusual with Magpies. Ozzy Man will show you the swooping tendencies of those black & white bombers, but that’s a small percentage of them as a whole.
Many will respond to kindness & they absolutely love toys…shiny stuff & bright colours. I’ve never seen them do the laundry thing…that’s funny. But all fowl will tussle over “the best” thing…our chickens will chase each other all over the yard to steal a snail or bit of bacon rind from one another.
I’m delighted “Danielle” has found her vocation…true calling…among them. And, perhaps that’s a good step toward dealing in a healthy way with what appears to be Aspergers or some milder form of social anxiety disorder. She seems like a genuinely nice lady. Good for her and good for the animals she helps.
Marisa:
Consider that Neo may have other priorities that are higher in her life. Do you?
Marisa & Neo:
I like the old blog list. It elicits feelings of nostalgia for the old world before the social media swamp, back when we thought the internet would aid the cause of freedom. Yes, I was just a child, but those years were golden, and I treasure them all the more for their innocence, now that they’ve slipped away, down the drain, into the abyss … please let me pause a moment, while I reach for a tissue. There, I feel a little better now.
Cornflour; Marisa:
I do plan to get around to updating it one of these days. It’s time-consuming, though, because each site has to be looked up.
Marisa et al.
Looks like The Anchoress moved to https://theanchoress.com but last post was a year ago…
I like having the blogroll to discover new things, even if they are not most current; they are still worthy with much to consider.
Jimmy Dore and Kurt Metzger tear Neil Young’s hypocrisy to shreds:
https://youtu.be/VRMSl7_zPSU
Barry Meislin,
I had a real “Ceausescu” feeling when I heard Trudeau’s speech in hiding that someone had juxtaposed over video of the truckers and their supporters having fun, feeding the homeless, dancing, drumming with descendants of natives…
Apparently, a lot of others felt the same.
I’ve had the same feeling regarding President Brandon and, again, it is obvious many, many others feel the same. The few times President Brandon has appeared in public folks openly, casually insult him and his caravan. The same for Vice President Harris.
I have no respect for either of these three grifting charlatans, but their ignorance and narcissism is not the main point. What gives me hope is that more and more people are figuring out that we simply do not need these people. They are such obvious, phony empty suits that more and more people are waking up to the reality that we do not need leaders. Nor do we need to be led.
If Justin Trudeau stepped down tomorrow and the Canadian Prime Ministership (Ministerium? Ministry?) remained open and unfilled, what would it matter? Not only would life for all Canadians not descend into a spiral of chaos, life would actually get better. We are capable of governing ourselves.
This has always been true, but technology makes it abundantly clear. We don’t need the AP, NYT, CNN, FoxNews. Millions of citizens worldwide publish video and text of current events every second of every day. We don’t need a schoolboard. Every July publish a list of choices of texts to be taught at the school in the upcoming year and have parents and guardians of attendees vote on them. Publish a list of policies and do the same.
In the fable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” everything is fine until the emperor steps out in public in a parade where rank and file citizens line a public street. The Emperor maintained the facade of his royalty when cloaked behind an enormous, ostentatious castle surrounded by fawning sycophants who worked tirelessly to promote the myth of his worthiness. But once out in public even a little boy could discern it was all an elaborate ruse.
Sunlight, as they say, is a great disinfectant.
As technology breaks down the barriers of entry to the world of reporting (Greenwald, Berenson, Taibbi, O’Keefe), punditry (Rogan, Poole, Beck), academia (Peterson, Shrier, Paglia, Niall Ferguson and his wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heather Heying and her husband, Bret Weinstein, Loury, Haidt, McWhorter, Lindsay, Pluckrose and Boghossian), and, most importantly the role of the court jester,* the ramparts of our elites’ castles are lain bare.
*Clowns like Colbert, Kimmel, Noah, Behar, Seth Rogan and Patton Oswalt can’t stifle Dave Smith, Dave Chapelle, Steven Crowder, Scott Adams, Sabo, Ace, Ryan Long, Mark Dice and thousands like them using humor to shine a light on the failings of those who desire to rule us.
John Guilfoyle at 1:24 pm,
Glad you pointed that out. On the video she narrated their clothesline behavior as playing, but I saw it as greed or jealousy. But I don’t know anything about Magpies. That’s just how it appeared.
Neo should attempt to persuade Mike K., Maclin, Cornflour, &c to send her videos of themselves dancing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMO26Qmlgg
Just to be clear, I really do like the old blog roll just the way it is, and would rather not see it edited down to an honest nub. I was making fun of my own feeeeelings, not Marisa’s, and certainly not Neo’s. My sense of humor is often and widely misunderstood.
As for Art Deco’s dancing request, what does that mean ???????? (Although I liked the video.) There must be a joke there, but I don’t get it. I’d guess explanations would ruin the fun, so probably better to let it be.
@ Rufus > “We don’t need a schoolboard. Every July publish a list of choices of texts to be taught at the school in the upcoming year and have parents and guardians of attendees vote on them. Publish a list of policies and do the same.”
Brilliant!
You are on a roll today!
Well, there is a bit of behind-the-scenes administrative work, but that’s not what our Celebrity School Boards are mis-handling with their CRT and other Leftist agendas.
A couple of accountants, some secretaries, and the District Superintendent is all you need for the essential work – and those already exist in most places.
It seems to me that it’s less a ‘calling’ and more a ‘lifeline’. She seems witty, intelligent, good-natured, interesting, and attractive. I wonder why she prefers loneliness when it causes anxiety and depression? Hope it works out for her.
Those birds, they are something else. Crow also fascinate me with their innate intelligence. Thanks for the story!
AesopFan,
About a year ago I had my political head turned around through listening to Michael Malice and Dave Smith’s podcasts. I don’t want to mislabel them, but I think they call themselves anarchocapitalists, but don’t hold me to that.
Although I found them engaging, hearing them throw around terms like “anarchist,” “government force,” etc. initially put me off, but I agreed with other things they spoke of, and at one point one of them said something that caused me to think about the problem of politics as I never had before.* I’m a fan of the Founders and think the Declaration and Constitution are brilliant documents, but even the Founders started with the premise, “Governments are instituted among men…” I had never stopped to ask the question, “Do governments have to be instituted among men?”
The Founders’ goal was to reduce government to its minimum. “The government that governs best is that which governs least.” Well, maybe they didn’t go far enough? I still don’t agree with what I think anarchocapitalists stand for (I haven’t bothered to research it. Political Science isn’t my bailiwick), but I now view political issues with a 180 degree perspective from my prior view. I now first ask “why?” If we truly are sovereign individuals whose rights come from a Creator, what authority do Justin Trudeau or Joe Biden or Mitch McConnel or Nancy Pelosi or the chief of my local police or the head of my local schoolboard… have over me?
I am fine with the concept that my local bookstore can refuse to sell me a book, or my local grocery store can refuse to permit me entry if my face is uncovered with a piece of cloth, or the owner of a private road can restrict my access. They own things they legally obtained and can therefore dictate how those things are used, accessed or distributed. But a President or Governor can prohibit me from working? A school official can administer puberty blockers or vaccines to my children? A truancy officer can put me in a cage if I don’t send my children to a school of their choosing, when they choose? Where does that come from?
(more in next comment…)
The logistics of the size of the U.S. and technology available at the time
*Which is odd, because I often use a reductio ad absurdum process when trying to identify problems.
The Founders had logistic problems we don’t have now.
Would they have chosen the representative structure they did if folks in Virginia, Maine and South Carolina could express their opinions instantaneously?
Would they have built a complex of buildings in a single district if folks managing agriculture could conference instantaneously with folks managing defense instantaneously, audibly and visually, in real-time, across the entire expanse of the nation?
Why do we need Joe Biden? Why do we need Mitch McConnel?
Start with the minimal, zero, and then add the least amount necessary to solve the political issue at hand.
Rufus, we know that Madison already addressed the issues of lack of angels, and of passions and factions, which you seem to be ignoring although I am confident you are familiar with it.
I have often wondered how the DOI language might have changed if Darwin had published his book in 1759 instead of 1859.
On school choice: my neighbor and I both have engineering PhDs. While I am a strong believer in evolution via natural selection*, as great and smart and friendly as he is, he is also a devout Evangelical Christian and almost a 6000 year earther. We might agree on many textbooks for our kids but not on all of them. Who decides? Send the kids to different schools? Perhaps.
But I presume most of us here would agree that some form of legal requirement for “universal” education on some core curriculum is beneficial to all of us in our complex modern society, partly to reduce the prospect of anarchy that you are exploring/ contemplating. It seems that literacy and some core knowledge is necessary, if not sufficient, to obtaining intelligence and critical thinking in our daily and political lives.
R2L,
Who decided locking kids in concrete rectangles for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and forcing them to sit still in desks was optimal to instill knowledge? Plato didn’t learn that way. Aquinas? Galileo? Newton? Edison? Tesla? Shakespeare?
Our culture tends to spend 90% of its time arguing about the 10% of issues where there is disagreement. How long would it take for you and your neighbor to devise a school curriculum that occupies 8 hours that focuses on the 90% you agree on?
People are far more agreeable than our politicians and media want us to know. That’s because, if we get along we don’t need them.
R2L,
Regarding Madison, where did he write about a huge police state and military industrial complex?
I’m not an anarchist, but as we are seeing in Canada, the police can too easily become the military arm of despots. Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau sound a lot more like Mafia Dons than better angels. I’d rather take my chances I could work things out independently with your neighbor than rely on Justin Trudeau to settle our differences.
The government has a monopoly on force in the United States. Is that good? Is that what Madison envisioned?
You have a PhD in Engineering. Some of the greatest leaps in Engineering occur when you start with a blank sheet of paper. Don’t think about fixing the current system. Think about what system is necessary.
R2L,
You and your neighbor get along fine. You respect one another’s property and families. Are you doing that because there are thousands of laws inscribed in books at the County Court house and there are armed, uniformed men and women who answer to the Chief of Police in your jurisdiction?
If the law texts were destroyed in a flood or fire would you treat your neighbor differently? What if the Chief of Police goes on vacation?
Magpies can get kinda nasty, actually. (Part of the reason is their intelligence).
(And noisy too…)
Anyway, for all you Corvid lovers…(but not only):
“…Swedish firm trains crows to pick up cigarette butts.”
https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/swedish-firm-trains-crows-to-pick-up-cigarette-butts-read-full-story-here-1909179-2022-02-05
+ Birder Bonus:
Hey, ever seen a yellow cardinal?!
https://www.theepochtimes.com/man-spends-500-plus-hours-filming-extremely-rare-yellow-cardinal-who-visits-his-backyard_4174049.html
Rufus, are we merely talking past each other? I doubt we disagree all that much except perhaps over the language we are using to discuss or describe these situations. I was reacting to your seeming naivete about the need for governmental powers to control a populace, balanced against the need to control that government in turn – as Madison clearly laid out. Your position seemed to mirror that of the unconstrained vision, where people could be “perfected”, while I certainly adopt a constrained vision. But your comments and contributions herein over the years shows you definitely are not a naïve person.
If we already agree on 90% of the issues [and we here on this blog thread do], then we are best served by confirming that with 10% of our attention, while directing the remaining 90% of our time to trying to resolve those more difficult final 10% of the issues.
The physical rectangles of our schools are incidental to the constraints we put on the minds and interests of the students and on the teachers responsible for conveying a set of core knowledge to them. Can’t speak to the others you mention, but I am pretty sure Plato and Shakespeare were taught in formal school settings. I once visited the school room in Strafford claimed to be where Will learned his basic language and history. That core knowledge is necessary for our kind of virtuous citizen dependent society and government to operate successfully. Vouchers, home schooling, and charter schools can all contribute to that, if the indoctrinated educrats can’t be converted back to rationality. They are the people with whom we don’t get along, and from whom government power needs to be rescinded “by the people”.
My neighbors and I get along very well because we have already been educated and acculturated with that set of core knowledge and beliefs needed to retain our citizen virtue and thus our mutual acceptance of the Constitutionally defined balance of powers under which we still will demand that we live. That includes the heritage of Western Civilization from Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Scottish and American Enlightenment influences, plus appreciation for the Rule of Law and a reliance on the 2nd Amendment should the warnings GB keeps giving us were to clearly come to pass.
It is obvious that Rousseau, Locke, Hobbs, et al. were either wrong or incomplete in their discussions of a “state of nature”, which has never existed under any level of primate development over the last 7+ million years, and certainly for homo sapiens over the last 300,000 years. Some form of parental to monarchical control has always been necessary, at least until those 55 smart educated men met in Philly in 1787 and they started with a nearly blank sheet. We know the result from their long and dedicated efforts was really pretty amazing, even if not perfect for all time. We can certainly agree that we need to use that foundation and then “build back better” to reduce the size and impact of government as we find it today, but not extinguish it. Since you are not an anarchist, you presumably agree that extinguishment is not on the table either.