Raise your hands if you think any of these people will ever report back to the authorities again.
And why should they? After all, if the authorities show such contempt for the law and our safety, why should our new guests feel any differently? They’ve already shown a propensity to break the law in the manner of their arrival, and nothing they’ve encountered in this country since then would be likely to give them a new respect for it:
Whatever could go wrong?
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of an earlier post.]
This first time I ever read about the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was in one of the volumes from Will and Ariel Durant’s humungous Story of Civilization series, which I came across while feeling bored one day during a stay at my in-laws’ house while I was helping my husband recover from knee surgery. Until then I’d never even heard of the Lisbon earthquake, although I was in my mid-twenties.
Like WWI and the 1918 flu epidemic, it was a cataclysmic event—not just because it killed a lot of people, but because of what it meant to those who survived. It was a case of that overused word: the narrative. If WWI precipitated a loss of faith in human progress, the Lisbon earthquake had precipitated a loss of faith in faith itself. As I wrote here:
How many remember anything about the great Lisbon Earthquake, fire, and tsunami of 1755, which struck at 9 AM on All Saints’ Day and virtually destroyed a city that was one of the major capitals of the world at the time, collapsing churches filled with worshippers and filling Europe with horror? The earthquake struck not only at the city and its inhabitants, but at the attitude of optimism that had characterized the first half of that century, and caused many to question their previously unshakeable faith in divine providence, advancing the Enlightenment and the science of seismology.
There have been many disasters that have killed more people; the entire death toll from the earthquake and its attendant sequela (tsunami and fire) was probably “only” about 100,000. But its psychological effects were much greater than the numbers would dictate, because of the time and place:
In the morning of November 1, 1755, a large earthquake struck Lisbon – a great city legendary for its wealth, prosperity and sophistication. It was Sunday and the religious holiday of All Saints. Most of Lisbon’s population of 250,000 were praying in six magnificent cathedrals, including the great Basilica de Sao Vincente de Fora. Within minutes, this great thriving city-port of Lisbon, capital of Portugal and of the vast Portuguese empire and seat of learning in Europe, was reduced to rubble by the two major shocks of this great earthquake and the waves of the subsequent catastrophic tsunami. A huge fire completed the destruction of the great city…
The destruction caused by the earthquake was beyond description. Lisbon’s great cathedrals, Basilica de Santa Maria, Sao Vincente de Fora, Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, the Misericordia – all full of worshipers – collapsed, killing thousands. Lisbon’s whole quay and the marble-built Cais De Pedra along the Tagus disappeared into the river, burying with it hundreds of people who had sought refuge.
The psychological and philosophical effects were profound:
The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important church holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Roman Catholic city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgement. Most philosophers rejected that on the grounds that the Alfama, Lisbon’s red-light district, suffered only minor damage.
There are natural events that particularly resonate with the ethos of an age and help to shatter it. The flu and the war, and the Lisbon earthquake before it, had that effect. They are the quintessential Black Swans, the unforeseeable and uncontrollable events that help determine human destiny. And curiously, they are often forgotten (or nearly so) by posterity.
[NOTE: In this post I speculated on the reasons for what I call “the forgetting.”]
…has been looking pretty good during the border crisis, unlike nearly everyone else. Perry handled Obama’s visit with just the right combination of cooperation and challenge, courtesy and criticism. And prior to that, a couple of weeks ago he took matters into Texas’ own hands and stepped up local patrolling of the border, without waiting for the motionless Obama to do anything.
And speaking of looking good, I still approve of the eyeglasses.
And it’s fitting somehow that it’s happening in Berkeley:
The city of Berkeley will require medical marijuana dispensaries to give away two percent of the amount of cannabis they sell each year free to low-income patients.
The City Council voted unanimously at Tuesday’s meeting to amend the city’s medical pot rules, which would also allow for a fourth dispensary in Berkeley.
“Basically, the city council wants to make sure that low-income, homeless, indigent folks have access to their medical marijuana, their medicine,” said Berkeley City Councilmember Darryl Moore.
Under the proposal, at least two percent of all medical weed dispensed at a club would have to be provided at no cost to very low-income members ”” and it must be the same quality that’s dispensed to regular paying customers.
“We think this is the responsible thing to do for those less fortunate in our community,” said Moore.
It would be one thing if a significant portion of the people in California with medical marijuana prescriptions actually had a bona fide medical need for weed (hmm; is there a slogan there: “I Need Weed!”?) that could not be fulfilled by other medicines or treatments. There is some research, for example, that indicates this could be true for a small percentage of oncology patients, epileptics, and those experiencing intractable pain.
But I have little doubt that most people receiving scripts for medical marijuana in California do not fall into those categories. There are prescription mills that cater to those who merely want to get marijuana legally and are very liberal in writing scripts for it, and the state is happy to oblige. So now poor people, including the homeless, will be getting theirs, too—for “free”—at least in good olde Berkeley.
Obamacare does not cover medical marijuana yet, nor does Medicaid—although in ten years or so I bet both will do so, and coverage might even be mandated.
Reading this story conjured up a memory from my ’50s childhood, of this ancient Tom Lehrer ditty—particularly the line “He gives the kids free samples, because he knows full well…”:
[Hat tip: Gabriel Malor at Ace’s.]
Megyn wins hands down, no contest:
[ADDENDUM: I noticed a discussion in the comments section about how it is that someone like Pelosi retains her power and manages to fool so many voters.
My impression—gleaned mainly from liberal friends of mine, particularly women but not limited to women—is that most people do not follow the topics closely and therefore take what Pelosi is saying at face value, as a fair statement of the facts of the SCOTUS decision or anything else she might describing. After all, isn’t she a woman? (These liberal friends are predisposed to trust women more than men, although I see no evidence of why that should be.) Isn’t she a liberal Democrat? (This likewise defines her as better and more trustworthy than a conservative Republican, although I see no evidence of why that should be.) Isn’t she a woman and liberal Democrat who rose to a very high position and is therefore particularly capable? (This defines her as especially intelligent, although I see no evidence of why that should be.) And if she were lying, wouldn’t the MSM point that out? (This defines the MSM as truthful, although I see no evidence of why that should be).
And Faux News? It can be discounted and never watched, and is only mentioned in order to be mocked.]
…appears to be a completely unreliable witness.
As I’ve said before, closing those open primaries would stop at least some of these shenanigans. I wish it would happen, because I think it’s all very destructive to the right, but I think it’s highly unlikely. I also happen to support McDaniel, but if Cochran remains the nominee I’d reluctantly vote for him if I lived in Mississippi.
And yes, I know that a lot of you disagree.
I happened to catch this on TV the other night. Powers is pure emotion on this issue. I’ve featured her talking about it before, here, but if anything I think she’s gotten more feverish about it:
Powers is no dummy; she’s an intelligent woman who can at times be very articulate. Something about this issue makes her short-circuit. This seems to be fairly common these days, and not just for Powers. Here are some of the things that seem to completely escape her and others who hold a similar position:
(1) Countries have borders for a reason, and they have a right and an obligation to set up rules and standards for immigrants in order to protect themselves.
(2) The US doesn’t have an endless supply of money.
(3) This is not a spontaneous refugee situation; it is a crafted and organized one.
(4) Christianity does not require that either a person or a country take on all comers and support them.
(5) If you take in huge numbers of people who’ve broken a basic and important law (we’re not talking about a traffic violation here) you will get people who are lawbreakers in other important ways.
(6) Rewarding a behavior encourages more of the same. If you want to see the floodgates really open, just keep on accepting these people.
People are wondering about Obama—even his supporters, or maybe especially his supporters. He seems distracted, confused, passive, and even more cool and aloof than ever.
I have no idea why any of that would be a surprise. But it is, especially to those who bought into and also encouraged Obama’s own narcissistic myth.
All of them could learn a lot by reading up on narcissism. If they did their homework, they would discover that narcissists are grandiose and have delusions of omnipotence, and that if the world doesn’t step up and acknowledge their wonderfulness they suffer a re-opening of the narcissistic wound. The pain that results is almost unendurable, and narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid facing it.
Obama is a special case even among narcissists, because the world has long surrounded him with the sort of adulation that has fed into his narcissistic feelings in a way that most narcissists can only dream about. Deserved or not, he’s grown so used to the constant adulation, success, and honors that he considers them his due and believes even more deeply in his own innate power, whether it be to make the oceans rise or to make Putin into a pussycat.
From the start, anyone paying attention would have had to have known that Obama was no happy warrior. His personality as projected in public appearances rarely seemed truly joyful and often seemed petulant, even during his first campaign. There was his tendency to blame others, one of the first things I ever noticed about him.
And there was perhaps the most telling, and certainly the most strange thing: the statement (which I wrote about three days ago) made by the woman who was and still is probably his closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, claiming that Obama has had a lifelong trait of boredom. Simply put, Obama has been disappointed with life, which bores him. And Jarrett locates the wellspring of that feeling in his narcissism, although she doesn’t call it that. She (and he) believes him too smart for almost anything he takes his hand to, and that leads to boredom.
Of course, it needn’t—except for the narcissist. For the latter, no deference can be enough and no reward high enough to satisfy. Obama is fated to be disappointed, because the locus of his problem lies in himself rather than in the world. The narcissistic wound, which underlies everything for narcissists and which they feel most acutely when they face failure and criticism rather than praise from the world at large, is experienced as so painful that it must be evaded at all costs:
The narcissist constantly consumes (really, preys upon) adoration, admiration, approval, applause, attention and other forms of Narcissistic Supply. When lacking or deficient, a Narcissistic Deficiency Dysphoria sets in. The narcissist then appears to be depressed, his movements slow down, his sleep patterns are disordered (he either sleeps too much or becomes insomniac), his eating patterns change (he gorges on food or is avoids it altogether).
He is be constantly dysphoric (sad) and anhedonic (finds no pleasure in anything, including his former pursuits, hobbies, and interests). He is subjected to violent mood swings (mainly rage attacks) and all his (visible and painful) efforts at self-control fail. He may compulsively and ritually resort to an alternative addiction ”“ alcohol, drugs, reckless driving, shopaholism.
This gradual disintegration is the narcissist’s futile effort both to escape his predicament and to sublimate his aggressive urges. His whole behaviour seems constrained, artificial, and effortful. The narcissist gradually turns more and more mechanical, detached, and “unreal”. His thoughts constantly wander or become obsessive and repetitive, his speech may falter, he appears to be far away, in a world of his narcissistic fantasies, where Narcissistic Supply is aplenty.
He withdraws from his painful existence, where others fail to appreciate his greatness, special skills and talents, potential, or achievements. The narcissist thus ceases to bestow himself upon a cruel universe, punishing it for its shortcomings, its inability to realise how unique he is.
When narcissism thus fails as a defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid delusions: self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others’ allegedly malign attention. The narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own, sometimes exclusive, source of narcissistic supply.
The narcissist goes into a schizoid mode: he isolates himself, a hermit in the kingdom of his hurt. He minimises his social interactions and uses “messengers” to communicate with the outside. Devoid of energy, the narcissist can no longer pretend to succumb to social conventions. His former compliance gives way to open withdrawal (a rebellion of sorts). Smiles are transformed to frowns, courtesy becomes rudeness, emphasised etiquette used as a weapon, an outlet of aggression, an act of violence.
The article goes on to describe what can happen if these mechanisms fail to adequately protect the narcissist. What can follow is not pretty, and can include severe depression leading to self-destructive behaviors such as drug addiction and suicide, and/or psychotic breaks. Short of that, though (and I don’t think Obama is even close to reaching that point), the other defenses work, albeit shakily.
Doesn’t this explain a lot? The last paragraph of the quote in particular certainly explains why Obama wouldn’t even do something as simple as a border photo-op during his trip to Texas, something that on balance probably would have scored political points, even though it would have put him on the spot in other ways. Obama would much rather surround himself with rich admirers, smiling and patting him on the back and getting out their checkbooks to give him vast sums of money.
Right now, to the rest of the world he is saying a big FU. At this point, his very equanimity may depend on shielding himself from too much exposure to reality, and the sycophantic worshipers who advise him agree.
Tired of reading about politics and the decline of the republic? Here’s a palate refresher, and something of a mind-blower:
The one and only known Pelagornis sandersi fossil’s wings stretch a whopping 6.4 meters (or 20.99 feet) ”“ about twice that of the royal albatross, among the largest living birds capable of taking to the skies. It sported strange tooth-like cones that protruded from its beak. The remarkable bones were actually discovered in 1983 near Charleston Airport in South Carolina, but they remained hidden in a drawer at the Charleston Museum until study author Daniel Ksepka, a paleontologist then at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, came across them about three decades later.
“I was not expecting this bird when I went down there,” said Ksepka, now at the Bruce Museum in Connecticut
Let us pause for a moment and contemplate the understated beauty of that sentence: I was not expecting this bird when I went down there.
Indeed. It was thought that such a wingspan was not possible in a bird, but apparently there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
The above article says 21 feet for the bird’s wingspan, but this one says it was 24 feet. The bird presented scientists with a problem: how did it fly?:
Even though it would have weighed up to 180lbs (81.5kg), the researchers said they have no doubt P sandersi flew.
Its paper-thin hollow bones, stumpy legs and wing shape made it similar to birds that fly today, and this would have made it awkward when on land…
But, because it exceeded the 15ft (4.5 metre) wingspan previous studies have claimed is the maximum for birds to fly, the researchers were unsure how it managed to take off and stay aloft.
Scientists think it took off by “taking a running jump downhill into a headwind,” and after that it flew like a glider.
But here’s a creature that makes Pelagornis look like a piker:
Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur that may have had a wingspan of at least 33-36 feet. Did it fly? Scientists are still duking it out on that one, but the majority answer in the affirmative.
You might say this is fulsome. But I think—well, modesty keeps me from saying what I think:
You’re the ideal web site owner. The positioning launching pace can be astounding. Them almost can feel that you’ll be doing every one of a kind trick. Furthermore, Your subject matter usually are masterwork. you could have carried out an incredible course of action during this topic!
You know, one thing I’ve always been secretly proud of is my positioning launching pace. I’m glad someone has finally noticed it.
And as for my tricks—why, they are all very kind. Or are they all one of a kind?
The BBC already had groupthink to a large extent. But I guess that wasn’t quite enough; they felt the need to stamp out the tiny bit of remaining time they gave to points of view that didn’t conform to the prevailing leftist ethos:
The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation’s science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues.
The report found that there was still an ”˜over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality’ which sought to give the ”˜other side’ of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.
Some 200 staff have already attended seminars and workshops and more will be invited on courses in the coming months to stop them giving ”˜undue attention to marginal opinion.’
It’s not just about global warming, either, although that was the focus.
As for groupthink, it goes like this:
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
The press does that to itself. It would like to do that to the British and American people in general, and to a large extent it has.
Hillary Clinton is smart, and she’s a lawyer. So of course she knows better than this statement she made about the Hobby Lobby SCOTUS decision:
It’s very troubling that a salesclerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer’s health care plan because her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.
Politifact rates Clinton’s statement as Mostly False. The WaPo‘s fact-checker gave it 2 Pinocchios.
But although both articles say Clinton is dissembling to a certain extent, they both give Clinton’s statement a more generous interpretation than it deserves, with the WaPo even insinuating that her error might have been inadvertent. Absurd; as I said, Clinton is a razor-sharp lawyer when she wants to be. She should have gotten the maximum number of Pinocchios and then some.
But I’m not writing this post to rail against Politifact or even the WaPo. I don’t expect them to do anything other than protect Hillary as much as they can get away with, and in fact I’m even surprised they criticized her at all. I’m writing to point out how pernicious her statement was, how purposely and cleverly duplicitous, shameless demagoguery of the worst sort. And the women (or men) who might fall for it are ignorant and manipulable. But that’s the way it went in 2012, and that’s the way Democrats hope if will go in 2012 and 2014.
Politifact and the WaPo rightly point out that Hobby Lobby offers 16 of 20 kinds of contraception coverage, and they base their criticism of Hillary’s statement mainly on that. What they fail to mention is another purposeful (and IMHO even more pernicious) lie Hillary tells in that same sentence, one that I have yet to see anyone point out. It’s contained in her phrase “her employer doesn’t think she should be using contraception.”
This not only incorrectly insinuates that all types of contraception were at issue here (they were not), but it incorporates the larger lie that the case was about employers judging their employees negatively for using certain types of birth control. But that obscures the actual issue in the case, which was that Hobby Lobby did not want to be forced by the government to participate in paying for, and therefore being complicit in, the use of particular types of birth control that violated its own religious beliefs.
Nowhere did Hobby Lobby express any interest in judging whether its employees should be using those or any other forms of contraception. And it was very clear that even IUDs and the morning-after pill, the methods being questioned, would in fact end up being provided cost-free to Hobby Lobby’s employees. Hobby Lobby merely asked to not be required to foot the bill itself for something that violated the religious conscience and beliefs of its owners.
But Hillary Clinton knows that opposing religious freedom—which is what she is actually doing here—is nowhere near as popular a stance as fighting supposed attempts to stop women from having contraception. Although no one is actually attempting that, it makes good copy for the fight against the War on Women on which she believes the success of her candidacy depends. She will lie shamelessly to manipulate the women for whom she obviously has a great deal of contempt into believing that’s what’s going on.