If the blue states won’t do it…

The New Neo Posted on by

…maybe the feds will:

For a while it seemed that Trump was going to send troops to places such as Seattle. He certainly has stated that he has the right to do it. But he’s desisted. Apparently, at least for now, he’s decided to give them enough rope, while sending other “troops” – legal ones – after some of the worst offenders. The optics just aren’t the same for the left, who must be disappointed at the failure so far to generate another Kent State.

For perilous times

The New Neo Posted on by

I realize that compared to many eras of history – even recent history, such as the 30s and 40s – it may seem like hyperbole to speak of our times right now as perilous. Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the fate of the American experiment in liberty hangs in the balance.

Maybe it always does. But right now the danger seems extremely acute.

I’ve been spending more hours than usual every day trying to read as much as I can about it and then write. But there are only so many hours in the day, and I have to get outside and take a break sometimes, socialize and even eat now and then (and now and then…and now and then…).

So in this post I’m going to resort to a roundup of highly recommended readings, each of which could easily be the subject for its own post:

(1) This Democratic data analyst got fired for retweeting this study:

“Buh-bye,” said Shor’s employer.

(2) They’re coming for Anna Wintour of Vogue, not for anything she’s said, but just for being Anna Wintour.

(3) One of the most depressing things about the current climate is how few Democrats or so-called “liberals” are willing to stick their own necks out and condemn the witch hunt. No surprise; I repeat, no surprise. But depressing nevertheless.

There have been a few exceptions right along. They are not even necessarily Democrats or liberals; some are more accurately described as libertarians. But they’re not on the right, anyway, and they are speaking out. I bring you three, in addition of course to Jonathan Turley, about whom I’ve already written: Matt Taibbi on how the press is destroying itself (I’d say that was accomplished a long time ago, but lately they’ve gotten even worse), Andrew Sullivan on the press dropping even the final pretense of their objectivity in favor of expressing and enforcing their own “moral clarity,” and this by Glenn Greenwald on the politicization of science and scientists in their differential treatment of demonstrations and other gatherings, depending on the cause.

(4) From the British Spiked, we have “Why Did the Protests Over George Floyd Turn Into Mass Hysteria”?. An excerpt:

One of the most distinctive things about the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests across the world is the speed with which they were endorsed by virtually every powerful institution and individual. From Hollywood to the churches, from big business to public-health officials, the word is out: support for BLM is essential, and in some cases mandatory…

There is something perplexing about the way that elite institutions and powerful people are falling over themselves to be on the side of the angels. It is almost as if they have concluded that unless they act with haste in relation to supporting BLM, they will be in trouble. In some cases, institutions and companies have gone so far as to attack other businesses and individuals who appear to have strayed from the party line…

In the current climate, there can be no ‘mistakes’. Your words will come back to bite you. Just about any gesture or statement can be branded as not only insensitive, but racist…

The climate of groupthink has now become a kind of mass psychosis among white people desperate to communicate that they ‘get it’. We have seen videos of groups of white people getting on their knees and begging for forgiveness for their sins. These disturbing images resemble a medieval ritual of self-abasement. All that is missing is actual self-flagellation.

The author blames it on the COVID lockdown accelerating previous trends, through a sort of pressurized isolation. I think the lockdowns increased stress, and the need to release that stress is at least partly a cause. But I think the trends we see right now had reached critical mass anyway, and something similar was planned to be unleashed at any possible opportunity prior to the November election. Floyd’s death provided the opportunity, but it would not have been the only one.

(5) This article by Lee Smith, entitled “Obama to the Rescue,” is both extremely chilling and spot on. I dealt with some of the same ideas a while back in this post from early May.

Jonathan Turley defends Professor Jacobson and criticizes Cornell

The New Neo Posted on by

Turley has taken up the cause:

Twenty-one colleagues at Cornell signed a June 9, a letter denouncing unnamed “commentators… attached to Ivy League Institutions” as calls were made to the Dean to have Jacobson fired. The professors lashed out against academic commentators who criticize the [post-Floyd] looting as effectively racists….

Not a word about academic freedom or free of speech; not a suggestion that critics of these protests could have anything other than racist motivations. It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education. Rather than address the merits of arguments, you attack those with opposing views personally and viciously. That has become a standard approach to critics on our campuses. Unless you agree with the actions of the movement, you are per se racist…

…[I]t suggests that the presence of conservative (which they seem to view as synonymous with racist) scholars have no place at such schools. That last point is unfortunately the view of many faculty at top schools which are overwhelmingly if not exclusively liberal…

The message for other faculty by these Cornell clinicians is both clear and intimidating. Disagree with the BLM movement or the protests and you will be labeled a racist. Indeed, the letter ends on a menacing note: “And we will continue to expose and respond to racism masquerading as informed commentary.” Thus, if you attempt “informed commentary” on the costs of looting and the need for great law enforcement, you are a per se racist….

That last paragraph is especially important, and describes the larger purpose of leftist campaigns like the one against Professor Jacobson: to serve notice to others about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable speech, and what the penalties are for the latter.

Turley’s letter also mentions other anti-free-speech actions on campus, against both professors and speakers. As we know, this has been going on for years, but I think they’re now emboldened by the Floyd killing and the widespread demonstrations and riots that have followed. The want to strike while the iron is hot, as it were.

One of the cases mentioned in Turley’s letter was unfamiliar to me, but this is an astounding example of the “logic” involved:

CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech.

The mental gymnastics involved must be painful, but to the leftist they have become second nature.

Here’s what Turley had to say about Bilek:

While Bilek says that the heckler’s caused only a “limited” interruption, Blackman says that it was prolonged and prevented him from being able to give his full speech.

The protesters reportedly chanted things like “legal objectivity is a myth” and called him “a white supremacist.”…

[Bilek] added “this non-violent, limited [8-minute] protest was a reasonable exercise of protected free speech,” adding that “it did not violate any university policy.”

Some of that is defensible, but Bilek lost me in the end. First, students clearly have a right to protest outside of the event. Stopping an event is not an act of free speech. It is the denial of free speech and should be punished by the school as such. For Bilek to say that it is not a violation of CUNY policy is alarming. Particularly in an academic setting where a variety of views and values should be allowed to be voiced, the shutting down of a presentation or speech is to deny the choice to others in exercising their rights. It is an act to prevent others from even hearing someone with whom you disagree.

And in particular, the broader aim is to discourage other conservative speakers from even trying to be heard and to get them to think: Who needs the aggravation? If the administrative won’t protect your right to speak, why bother?

And that, my friends, is a victory for the left.

I think it’s time to send people this Loury and McWhorter video

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t send people links to articles or videos, ordinarily – and by “people,” I mean liberals, because most of the people I know fall into that category. I learned many years ago that (a) they were unlikely to look at them (b) if they did, they weren’t receptive to the content; and (c) they tended to become angry that I’d sent them the material in the first place.

In other words: it was counterproductive, and I stopped sending such emails over fifteen years ago.

But lately I’ve been thinking that things have gotten so bad in this country that it’s time to resume some of this. My idea is to send just one or two links to a small number of people carefully selected as the most potentially receptive and open-minded of the group.

You may want to formulate your own policy, or choose not to do it. But if you are going to send anything, I suggest this video by Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. It’s not only thoughtful, intelligent, and deep, but it’s a courageous discussion about what’s happening right now in America vis a vis race and police. Because of who these two men are, it might be hard for liberals to dismiss them out of hand. Loury and McWhorter are black, and both are intellectuals – professors at Brown and at Columbia.

So without further ado:

People are afraid – and rightly so

The New Neo Posted on by

Ever since I’ve been blogging, I’ve periodically received emails from people in academia about their fear of disagreeing with the herd of leftists. In the past few years it’s gotten even worse in academia, as well as the entertainment world and business and the MSM.

In fact, it’s everywhere, and it’s been everywhere for many years, but the New Red Guards are like sharks in the water now, smelling the blood and in a feeding frenzy. For years they slowly took over those areas, but even the last vestiges of thought that goes against the Party line – however minor the infraction, however earnest the mea culpas of the supposed culprits – must be stamped out.

It’s not just about getting rid of certain people. It’s about power and it’s about sending a message to the rest: we are in control, and you must obey in word and deed. And Silence is Violence, so you will be made to speak out in the ways we see fit.

I think sometimes of the bravery of Soviet dissidents, who were facing a more brutal system than we are at the moment. Could it get that bad in the US? Yes.

What it took to achieve the present situation in the US was to stop teaching children why it is so vitally important to protect liberty and how our Constitution was designed to do that, as well as why all those old-fashioned virtues that sound so boring are of the utmost importance. But we ceded our educational establishment to people who thought otherwise, and were dedicated to relentlessly – and through mendacity if necessary – achieving the indoctrination of generations of young Americans.

The left does not tolerate dissenting views. One reason is that they are drawn to power and control, but still another is that they know they can’t win in the forum of ideas so it’s best not to expose people to them. Therefore, they give to dissenting views labels that trigger revulsion – for example, racist – and then they summon the mob.

And they are masters of useful slogans. For example, “Black Lives Matter.” Of course black lives matter. Whoever says otherwise these days, except perhaps for a group of neo-Nazis so tiny and so rejected by both sides that they lack all influence? But one effect of the use of “Black Lives Matter” as a slogan is that one is no longer allowed continue to say, proudly – as was the ideal in my younger years – that all lives matter, and that the color of a person’s skin also doesn’t matter in that equation.

But people have lost their jobs merely for saying “all lives matter” (or even “all buildings matter,” about the buildings the rioters torched). This is madness. But though it be madness, yet there is method in it. Leftism has always been especially involved in language policing – as Orwell knew and described brilliantly over 70 years ago. Language is an easy way to indicate what is allowed and what is not allowed. But far more importantly, enforcing obligatory leftist language allows (or makes) people signal their conformity – or at least, intimidation into displaying the semblance of conformity – of thought.

“You will not tell me what I can and cannot say” became an act of bravery quite a few years ago. Now, with the death of George Floyd and the elevation of Black Lives Matter to a position that is quasi-sacred, statements that are defined by the left as being against it (although the “all” in “all lives matter” is inclusive rather than exclusive) are sacrilege and blasphemy.

And so we have a host of professors and others who are in trouble for not exhibiting sufficient obeisance to the Black Lives Matter religion. Note that there is no assertion that these people have displayed any racist behavior outside of forbidden language, or that they don’t think that in fact black lives matter. They have not been rude to anyone of any race, nor have they discriminated against any person, nor even spoken harsh words about members of a race. They have merely spoken forbidden words that are deemed to be racist code words.

And for that they must be shunned and shamed, and perhaps have their livelihoods taken away, as a lesson to them and even more importantly as a warning to the rest of us.

What are many of the people who acquiesce in this afraid of? That it will happen to them, of course. Shunning is effective among the Amish, but it’s effective everywhere. We are for the most part social creatures. How many people have the strength to go it alone? How many will take the risk, both financial and social?

I will close with something I was reading today, and not coincidentally. It is from the book Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner. The author was a young man in Germany during the 30s and ended up escaping to England, but the book is his memoir of the Nazi takeover times in Germany. Among other things, he wrote this on the subject of why a great many Germans joined the Nazi Party in March 1933::

They did it for many reasons, often for a whole tangled web of them, but however hard one looks, one will not find a single, solid, positive, durable reason among them – not one that can pass muster. In each individual case the process of becoming a Nazi showed the unmistakable symptoms of nervous collapse.

The simplest and, if you look deeper, almost always the most basic reason was fear. Join the thugs to avoid being beaten up.

Haffner adds that too many Germans were devoid of the following:

…a solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures and forces, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour of trial…At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed. They yielded and capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown.

Haffner’s book is a great one, and I recommend it highly. But I think he’s too hard there on the Germans – or rather, I think he may be too hard on the Germans in particular. I wasn’t there and he was. But there certainly were Germans who didn’t go along. And sadly, I think the Germans were not as unique in their capitulation as I once thought. In the last two decades in particular, and accelerating rapidly in the last couple of years, I have entertained increasingly grave doubts as to whether Americans will pass the test that the German people failed.

I hope so.

Judge Gleeson’s brief in the mandamus case

The New Neo Posted on by

In his defense of Judge Sullivan’s bizarre actions in the Flynn case, Judge Gleeson has apparently written something that just might be one of the worst documents ever submitted by a judge. For example:

You know a lawyer’s bluffing if he inundates the court with case authority for an ostensibly simple principle. The amicus brief that Judge Gleeson filed with Judge Sullivan in the Flynn case has those string cites. Gleeson’s bluffing. Worse, he’s lying.

It’s typical for dishonest attorneys to use fake citations – cases that do not stand for the principles asserted — in their endless string sites, hoping no one will check. This what Judge Gleeson did in his brief: Every one of his 14 citations in footnote two on page 1 is a lie. That’s all you need to know about his brief.

See also this, this, and this.

That last one is from Jonathan Turley. Here’s an excerpt:

Thus, according to Gleeson, the Court should first sentence a defendant on a crime that the prosecutors no longer believe occurred in a case that prosecutors believe (and many of us have argued) was marred by the own misconduct. He would then punish the defendant further by treating his support for dismissal and claims of coercion as perjury. That according to former judge Gleeson is a return to “regularity.” I have been a criminal defense attorney for decades and I have never even heard of anything like that. It is not “regular.” It is ridiculous.

That’s what we’re talking about here.

Paul Mirengoff, who has listened to the oral arguments today, seems to think the court will not rule for Flynn, and will decide that it is okay to let the thing play out and see what happens. Astounding, and incredibly depressing, if that comes to pass.

Even if you put aside the injustice that’s been perpetrated on Flynn, this sets a tremendously dangerous precedent for our entire criminal justice system. If a judge is allowed to do this, no defendant is safe.

Reporting on the second COVID wave

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve noticed a smattering of headlines lately in the MSM that seem to be saying that ending the lockdown has produced a spike in cases. I haven’t done more than skim a couple, because spikes in cases are meaningless to me, as I’ve said many times. The important stats involve hospitalizations and deaths.

So I was pleased to see this:

Democrats cite a spike in cases in Florida, Arizona and Texas as evidence of a virus resurgence. But more testing, especially in vulnerable communities, is naturally turning up more cases. Cases in Texas have increased by about a third in the last two weeks, but so have tests. About a quarter of the new cases are in counties with large prisons and meatpacking plants that were never forced to shut down…

Liberals and the media demanded more testing before states could reopen, yet now are criticizing states because more testing has turned up more cases. Keep in mind that New York has reported about the same number of new cases in the last two weeks as Florida, though it ramped up testing earlier so the relative increase appears less significant.

A more important metric is hospitalizations. In Arizona the weekly rolling average for new Covid-19 hospitalizations has been flat for a month. Emergency-room visits for Covid-19 have spiked this week, but the number of ER beds in use hasn’t changed since late April. Hospitals in Arizona (and California) have reported an increase in cases from U.S. citizens and green-card holders returning from Mexico where hospitals are overwhelmed. But with 22% of ICU beds and 62% of ventilators available, Arizona hospitals should have capacity to manage an increase in patients as it reopens.

Texas has also recently reported an uptick in Covid-19 hospitalizations, mostly in the Houston and Austin areas. Current Covid-19 hospitalizations are up about 20% since the state began to reopen, but Gov. Greg Abbott says hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and much of the increase is tied to nursing homes.

The above is actually from an article in the WSJ, to which I don’t have access. If you do, you might want to read the whole thing.

It doesn’t sound alarming, although I suppose that could change. And opening up business is the right thing to do, and in fact it was overdue.

But at this point I think very few people are paying attention to these statistics anymore. The medical authorities and the politicians who did what they said no longer have much if any credibility. They richly earned our lack of trust, and next time they won’t be believed. It’s possible that may even end up backfiring on all of us, I suppose. But that’s the way it is.

Seattle’s mayor is looking forward to the Summer of Love in CHAZlandia

The New Neo Posted on by

Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan:

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan downplayed the six-block autonomous zone in the city on CNN last night after President Donald Trump demanded she restore order to the city.

Durkan claimed the zone is “not an armed takeover” and “more like a block party.”

Yet, the police chief said their “calls for service have more than tripled.” Videos show tension within this zone.

But it’s a block party – a rather large one that encompasses six or seven blocks, but a block party nonetheless. More from Mayor Jenny:

The best part came when Cuomo asked Durkan how long she thinks this will last in Seattle.

Her answer: “I don’t know. We could have the summer of love.”

Video at the link.

Durkan a lot of time railing against Trump; that’s really the most important thing, isn’t it? She also said this:

We will make sure that we can restore this. But we have block parties and the like in this part of Seattle all the time. It’s known for that.

Lest you think Durkan is simply an ignorant stupidhead, she’s nothing of the sort. She went to Catholic schools and graduated from Notre Dame, she’s a lawyer who spent five years as United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington – appointed by Obama, of course – and was a favorite for the post of Obama’s AG when Holder left, although she obviously didn’t get the job.

My point is, this woman is no dummy, and she’s well aware of the law. I doubt she stayed away from Property class. But she’s obviously a leftist (as all Democrats seem to have become), although in Seattle she actually was considered the more conservative establishment candidate for mayor when she ran. That says more about Seattle politics and the choices there than it does about Durkan.

Need I even waste time writing about the differences between what’s going on in the Seattle takeover zone and an actual block party? It’s so obvious that even a child ought to be able to list the differences, but let’s just say this: it doesn’t even matter if they’re just wearing flowers in their hair and happily smoking dope together while eating ice cream and dancing in the park to 60s tunes. That’s not what’s happening, but it doesn’t matter because even if it was, we’re taking about taking over part of a city without the permission of every single person who lives there. There was no process here by which such a takeover is okay. It’s not a street fair that lasts for a day and for which people ordinarily get a permit. There’s a little something called the rule of law, and it’s rather important.

Even Chris Cuomo managed to get out the following question for Durkan. Note the way he says “the counter will be,” disclaiming the question as not actually coming from him but as coming from other people who might try to challenge her wisdom:

Host Chris Cuomo then asked, “The counter will be, block parties don’t take over a municipal building, let alone a police station and destroy it, basically thumbing their nose at any sense of civic control. Do you believe that you have control of your city and that you would be able to clear those streets? Because you haven’t.”

Durkan’s answer is essentially that they’re taking it slow, and of course this:

You know, we’re here because the nation saw Mr. Floyd murdered. And that lit a match across this country. And we have to acknowledge and know that we have a system that is built on systemic racism and we have to dismantle that system piece by piece. We have to empower the black community and communities of color. And we have to invest in their health and their safety and their education and opportunity.” She later added that people are protesting “a system of domination.”

Durkan goes on to talk about protecting the right to protest, as though what’s happening in CHAZ is simply a protest. She hits all the buzzwords here, and her listeners in Seattle will nod in agreement. “Systemic racism” – everyone knows that’s the way it is, right? “Empower” the black community. And “invest in their health and their safety and their education and opportunity” – as though that hasn’t been happening in the 60s. And of course, whatever the flaws in Seattle in these respects, wouldn’t it be the fault of the Democrats who have run the city for something like half a century, and the leftists who have run it in more recent years?

I don’t think Cuomo asked her that question.

As for the “summer of love” – Durkan was about nine years old when that happened. That’s about the mental age her response here reflects. It was a fun time, right?

Sixties nostalgia, Sixties envy, but with a twist: the people in charge are the ones who have it, combined with a populace steeped in leftist instruction and MSM lies and propaganda. The last few weeks, although depressing, have been revealing as to the depth and width of the divide between red and blue America, and what it portends.

The takeover of Capitol Hill in Seattle: Just one big happy family, according to the AP

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “MBunge.]

AP stories get very wide circulation. And today, the takeover of a Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle by radical anarchists and other far leftists is covered by the AP as though it’s a party. The headline goes like this: “Trump fumes as protesters stake out festive zone in Seattle.”

If you don’t already know, please get up to speed on who this group really is and what they’ve done and what their goals are: see this as well as this.

If you Google that headline, you’ll get a host of articles (all the same AP piece) appearing in outlet after outlet: ABC, the LA Times, and US News, just to list a few. If it’s covered at all, that’s the way it’s covered. How many people even read past the headline? They get the message: it’s the Summer of Love returned to a “festive zone” that’s been “staked out.”

Please read; here’s the beginning [emphasis mine]:

Following days of violent confrontations with protesters, police in Seattle have largely withdrawn from a neighborhood where protesters have created a festival-like scene that has President Donald Trump fuming.

Trump taunted Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Jenny Durkan about the situation on Twitter and said the city had been taken over by “anarchists.”

Words are used there with great subtlety and economy. To those of us who are accustomed to looking for and spotting such things, the twisting of the truth may seem obvious. But it is unlikely to be the least bit obvious to the casual reader.

In the article, the police are the ones having the “violent confrontations” with protesters, not the other way around. The atmosphere of the occupation is light and happy, and yet mean old Trump is fuming. Maybe he just doesn’t like to see people having fun. Not only is he fuming, but he is “taunting” in his tweet, which suggests a nasty sort of teasing about something that’s probably petty. And oh, how silly he is, saying it’s been taken over by – scare quotes – “anarchists.” Pretend anarchists. What a taunting name-caller that Trunp is!

And that’s just the first two sentences, and they’re not especially long sentences at that.

The article goes on for some time, quoting the wonderful leaders of the festive group and criticizing Trump, and suggesting that it’s only an assertion by police that they were being assaulted with projectiles. The truth of that assertion is left unexplored, but the insinuation is that it probably didn’t happen.

It is really quite a document; I suggest you read it, and as you read it please recall that the AP sets the tone and the message and the narrative for nearly the entire nation.

The group’s actual demands? Nowhere to be seen. The article reads as a press release for the occupiers. Those who think an event like this takeover could serve as a wakeup call to America probably haven’t bargained on the propagandists of the AP.

[NOTE: Again, I apologize for my pessimism. But that’s the way I see it at the moment.]

[ADDENDUM: I want to add that the article barely mentions the fact that this is a residential area that has been taken over without the consent of the residents. The assault on liberty is ignored, except for a single sentence that goes like this: “[The police chief] said protesters have set up their own barricades, which are intimidating some residents.” Again, the trick here is that the authors don’t check out the truth or falsehood of the assertion. In fact, the entire story is treated as a “he said, she said” type of thing in which the happy peace-love statements of the occupiers are contrasted with the “claims” of the police, rather than about facts that could actually be verified. Reporters used to do things like actually go to the scene and see for themselves whether there are such barricades and such intimidation. But the AP story merely repeats, uncritically, the sunny descriptions by the occupiers (minus, of course, their actual demands, which would give the game away if the public were to know those), and contrasts them with the claims of the police. Local politicians quoted are on the side of the occupiers. The entire episode is treated as though the occupiers have merely set up a pleasant street fair.]

The demands of the Collective Black Voices at Free Capitol Hill

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are the demands of the radical leftist group that has taken over a neighborhood in Seattle.

The operative word in their document is demand. They demand this and they demand that. To list just a few demands, they demand the abolition of the police and the “attached criminal justice apparatus” (that would be the court system, jail system, prison system). No ICE in Seattle, and the police won’t be getting any pensions, either, when they are prematurely fired.

I’m not going to list all the group’s demands, because the document is long; I’ll just list some of the more interesting. One is that all people of color currently in prison for violent crimes be retried by juries in their own communities. It doesn’t mention whether there will be judges, or lawyers, and who they might be, or whether the rules of evidence will be followed. Pretty easy to guess, though.

Another especially interesting demand is the “de-gentrification of Seattle.”

And then there’s this: “We demand the hospitals and care facilities of Seattle employ black doctors and nurses specifically to help care for black patients.” Note that they haven’t consulted their fellow black citizens, although that omission should come as no surprise.

I’ll skip the rest, but you get the idea.

Some of the responses to the document in the comments are pretty sarcastic. A sampling:

You forgot the demand for separate water fountains for blacks only.

I thought the whole point of being an Autonomous state was to make your own laws / culture? Why are you making demands to a foreign nation (the usa)?

But this is the one that expressed the question I’d like to tackle here: “Or else what?”

How can they demand anything of anyone? What power do they hold over the rest of society? I believe they think their power comes from the following:

(1) They’re used to using accusations of racism to demand things of people who feel guilty and who will acquiesce. We’ve seen a lot of this lately, so I don’t think it’s delusional for them to expect it to work.

(2) They are in Seattle, and they know that a lot of people employed in local government are very sympathetic to them.

(3) Because of (2), they don’t think the police or even the National Guard will be called to clear them out, nor will other sensible approaches such as cutting the electricity be used.

(4) Many of the local residents are sympathetic as well.

(5) What’s more, even if draconian measures were to be used by the Seattle government, it will be documented by the group and word (and photos) will be sent around the world showing them to be the victims of Seattle’s terrible and oppressive leaders.

(6) Likewise, if federal troops are sent in, the same. Plus, in that case, the group can demonize Trump and they know the entire Democratic Party and MSM will leap to their aid.

(7) The minute any violence is used against the group (they have weapons, by the way, which they will claim they only use in self-defense), they’ll spread the word that “the whole world is watching” (Chicago, 1968), and they think the world will be on their side. And perhaps it will, the way things have been going these days.

Right now, government at all levels seems to be waiting. And yet how can this be allowed to go on? Perhaps the idea is to allow the area to descend into chaos, hoping the group will self-destruct. However, I think this sets an absolutely horrendous precedent.

If you want to read the whole story of how the group managed to secure this area in the first place, please see this.

[NOTE: Even though the method and scope were very different, I am reminded of the kidnappers of Patty Hearst, the Symbionese Liberation Army, who made some demands, too, when they first held Hearst hostage in 1974:

According to testimony, the group’s main intention was to leverage the Hearst family’s political influence to free two SLA members who had been arrested for Marcus Foster’s killing. Faced with the failure to free the imprisoned men, the SLA demanded that the captive’s family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian – an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. In response, Hearst’s father took out a loan and arranged the immediate donation of $2 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area, in an operation called “People in Need.” After the distribution descended into chaos, the SLA refused to release Hearst.

You have some of the same elements: a demand for prisoners to be released, another demand couched in social justice language, and resulting chaos.

But the SLA was small, and society as a whole hadn’t yet been sufficiently radicalized to consider them heroes. In the end – although it took a long time to play out – most members of the group lost their lives in a gunfight with the government.]

The war on STEM: when post-modernism says that there is no real truth…

The New Neo Posted on by

…then why not erase history, ignore facts, and create your own truth? Especially in the cause of fighting whatever is defined as racism these days. The definition has become extraordinarily broad amidst the paroxysms of rage and the demands for special treatment that we currently see.

I’m not just talking about pulling down monuments. STEM is a focus at the moment:

Professors, researchers, and students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics field from around the country are taking part Wednesday in the #ShutDownSTEM movement to combat what they say is systemic racism in academia. They argue that the STEM field itself creates technology that is “weaponized against black people.”

One scholar and self-proclaimed “leading expert on wokeness,” James Lindsay, who is best known for his participation in a project that exposed the faulty review process of academic journals by submitting hoax papers that were ultimately published by such publications, tweeted, that “one point of #ShutDownSTEM is to find out who doesn’t do it (maybe they’re working on a Covid-19 vaccine?) and to use that against them later, just like happened at Evergreen State College with its Day of Absence.”…

Members of the science academic community are “call[ing]on people who are not Black to spend a day undertaking discussion and action that furthers this work, while providing Black scientists with a day of rest.”

It will be a day where they “#ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives.”

Scientists and researchers subscribing to the movement will not do any work for the entire day, and any class or research group meetings “should be cancelled [sic] or replaced with discussions with colleagues about anti-Black bias in the world and in academia.”

I don’t know how big this movement is, but it will probably grow if it’s not big enough right now to get what it wants. One of the goals – as was the case at Evergreen and so many other schools (such as Harvard against Larry Summers as far back as 2005), and not limited to academia – is to make you come forward and declare yourself part of the movement, as well as to serve as a warning about how science can be used and how it must not be used. Join the movement or a campaign might be mounted against you. If not today, then at some future date when it’s more useful to the left.

The crocodile gets fed periodically, but then it gets hungry again. After all, silence is violence, which is one of the most pernicious mottos of the movement so far.

It’s ironic – but again, not at all unexpected if you study history – that the universities that once championed (or pretended to champion) liberty and freedom of speech as vital values stopped teaching that some time ago, and have become centers for tyranny. Someone my age has seen the enormity of the change from a time when it really was the basic stance of almost everyone in academia to defend different points of view, to a time when expressing a view that wasn’t to the extreme left could get you fired. That’s why freedom of speech and liberty are so important to guard and nurture – because the human race has a strong pull in the other direction, a force that must be resisted actively or people will succumb to its siren call.

The Founding Fathers knew this. They knew it in their bones. But our generation either forgot to teach it or didn’t even know that it was being so heavily undermined right along. I saw the signs when I returned to school about thirty years ago and they alarmed me, and I did speak out against them in class. But I was met with glazed stares from my younger classmates; they couldn’t be bothered already, that early on. They just didn’t care what the old dinosaur was saying, so I didn’t even have to be answered. I could just be ignored.

I’ll close with this:

[NOTE: Please see Havel’s Greengrocer.]

[ADDENDUM: I’m not the first one to say this, but it’s an important thought: one of the reasons the trend towards closing down free speech often goes unnoticed is that initially the left seems like it’s championing free speech. The leftist does this as long as the left is the beneficiary. When leftist thought is unpopular, the right in the US (not everywhere) lets it have a forum, in the interests of free speech. The left pretends that it would return the favor. Maybe even some people on the left at that point think that really would be the case. But they are sadly mistaken, and when the left has gained majority and control, those people will be shouted down and ostracized themselves if they fight free speech’s curtailment for the right.

It’s a clever game. And it’s the one that’s been played.]

Legal Insurrection: Professor Jacobson’s job at Cornell Law School is threatened by cancel culture

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE: Professor Jacobson will be appearing on the Laura Ingraham show on Fox News at approximately 10:45 Eastern time.]

Professor Jacobson of Legal Insurrection (a blog for which I also write periodically) has announced that there’s a campaign to get him ousted from his post as a law professor because of his critiques of Black Lives Matter:

There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I’ve worked since November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school.

Ever since I started Legal Insurrection in October 2008, it’s been an awkward relationship given the overwhelmingly liberal faculty and atmosphere. Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce…

The impetus for the [current] effort was two posts I wrote at Legal Insurrection regarding the history and tactics of the Black Lives Matter Movement:

—Reminder: “Hands up, don’t shoot” is a fabricated narrative from the Michael Brown case (June 4, 2020)
—The Bloodletting and Wilding Is Part of An Agenda To Tear Down The Country (June 3, 2020)

Those posts accurately detail the history of how the Black Lives Matters Movement started, and the agenda of the founders which is playing out in the cultural purge and rioting taking place now.

From Saturday, June 6, through Monday, June 8, over 15 emails from CLS alumni were received by the Dean of the law school, demanding that action be taken against me ranging from an institutional statement denouncing me to firing. I don’t know whether and to what extent that number has increased since Monday. The Dean properly has defended my writings as protected within my academic freedom, although he strongly disagrees with my views…

My clinical faculty colleagues, apparently in consultation with the Black Law Students Association, drafted and then published in the Cornell Sun on June 9 a letter denouncing “commentators, some of them attached to Ivy League Institutions, who are leading a smear campaign against Black Lives Matter.” While I am not mentioned by name, based on what I’ve seen BLSA and possibly others were told it was about me. The letter is absurd name-calling, distorting and even misquoting my writings, to the extent it purports to be about me.

Please read the whole thing. Another article to read is this one.

This is not at all surprising, but it’s tremendously disturbing. If you would like to spread the word, that would be good. Also, letters to Cornell would be good, particular from Cornell alums – but Professor Jacobson has strongly requested that all letters remain polite and kindly. If you’re not going to be polite and kindly, please don’t write.

Thanks!!!