Mar 02 2021
Bi is big because it’s a sexuality of status for a certain stratum of young females. It is also a sexuality of refuge—if you’re cowering from woke Einsatzgruppen on campus patrol. It’s the mark on your doorframe so the angel of cancellation passes over your dorm room and harasses some hateful heteros instead.
“Bi, Bi, Miss American Pie.” By Peachy Keenan, The American Mind, 3/1/21.
Mar 01 2021
I was wasting time improving my mind, when I ran across a reference that took me to this page:
The Democratic Party came into prominence in the 1840s by harvesting three out of five uncast slave ballots to check the North’s attempts at abolition. When Northern Whigs and Abolitionists had enough of Democrat vote padding under the three-fifths compromise, they formed the Republican Party to finally stop slavery for good.
Now, I’m against the practice. It is a throwback to the Bad Old Days of the Democratic Machine of the big cities, when voters would be bribed/threatened to cast their vote for the Democratic party, by virtue of the fact that their choice was public. Either they cast a colored ballot (indicating which party they were voting for) into a publicly-displayed box, or they vocally indicated who they preferred.
This was shown in the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” in a scene that puzzled me, the first time I saw it. The saloon was closed, all the men (no women) voted on the representatives they wanted to go to the capitol of the territory to vote on statehood. It’s an open vote, by voice.
Before that, I’d just never realized what an improvement a secret ballot was.
Ballot Harvesting is a mechanism that allows party-affiliated representatives to go into homes, nursing homes, and other residences to collect a voter’s absentee ballot. There are many stories about collecting from easily intimidated elders, semi-coherent nursing home residents, and other people without the ability to insist on a private vote.
The Heritage Foundation (I know, I know) has a nice explanation of why it’s a bad idea. You can go to the link to download the full 10 page report.
CBS News had a story on the downsides of the practice – although it’s telling that the only example they used was the case of a GOP operative engaging in the practice.
The case heading to the Supreme Court this Tuesday is about just one small aspect of the practice, but an important one. It’s a law making it illegal for a non-related person to actually mail the completed ballot. Even if upheld, don’t expect it to change much – they still have to PROVE that the ballot harvester (another type of migrant worker) actually did that. Most people wouldn’t want to get someone in trouble over it.
Think of how dubious this process is by its very nature. You have someone show up to your house. They state they are there to collect your mail-in ballot for you. And you just hand over your ballot to a stranger who comes to your door. Government officials warn you about strangers coming to your door and trying to sell you anything from magazines to solar panels, but they legalize someone coming to your door with potentially ginned-up credentials to take your sacred ballot to the election officials.
Mar 01 2021
Do any Gentle Readers remember the 1991 Rodney King incident, and the trial that followed? Do you remember that, though provided with a complete video recording of the incident, Los Angeles news station KTLA chose to show only the most damning, easily misinterpreted part? Do you remember that once the whole video had been made available, three of the four policemen charged with assault / excessive force for that encounter were acquitted of all the charges?
Riots ensued that ripped Los Angeles asunder. Fifty-three people died, many others were injured, and there were many millions of dollars in property damage. The chaos and destruction were worse than the Detroit riots of July 1967, which had to be quelled by Army and National Guard troops.
One of the worst consequences was the nullification of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against double jeopardy. The L.A. policemen were tried a second time, this time on a bizarre, extra-legal federal charge of “violating King’s civil rights.” Two were convicted and imprisoned; two were completely acquitted.
Justice, if the video recording of the King incident can be believed, was of little interest to that second trial. It was held entirely to mollify the mobs that threatened to destroy California’s largest city.
It wasn’t long afterward that a second travesty of justice occurred in Southern California. The evidence for O. J. Simpson’s guilt in the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and bystander Ronald Goldman was overwhelming. The jury, which was predominantly black, acquitted him anyway. This time, the second trial was a civil one: a damage suit against Simpson by the families of Brown and Goldman, in which the plaintiffs prevailed despite the earlier acquittal.
Bizarre, eh? But it wasn’t unprecedented, at least not qualitatively. The 1922 Teapot Dome scandal, in which Interior Secretary Albert Fall accepted a huge bribe from oil magnate Edward Doheny in exchange for a federal-lands oil lease, resulted in Fall’s conviction…and Doheny’s acquittal. Thus, a Cabinet Secretary was convicted for accepting a bribe that, according to the court verdicts, had been paid to him by no one.
Yes, the above is plenty bad, but there’s more and worse coming.
No doubt all our Gentle Readers are familiar with the name of Derek Chauvin. His is a notoriety characteristic of our race-inflamed times. He’ll soon be tried for murder for the death of George Floyd. The facts in the case are sufficiently muddled that I can’t allow myself an opinion about how it “should” come out. Anyway, that’s why we have courts and juries, isn’t it?
The likelihood here is that, as with the cops involved in the Rodney King affair, Chauvin’s acquittal would touch off riots that would utterly destroy Minneapolis. That’s the way violence-inclined Negroes and their white supporters must be expected to react should Chauvin be exonerated. The probability is even higher than in the King case, owing to the rioting, looting, and vandalism that have already plagued Minneapolis this past year. The violence-inclined may be perfectly sure that the “forces of order” will do nothing to impede them, much less stop them and arrest them.
What, therefore, are the prospects for a fair trial – i.e., a trial whose outcome has not been decreed before it begins? If judges, prosecutors, and jurors face the specter of personal suffering for acting on their consciences – if the high officials of a city already crackling with racial animosity and barely repressed violence must anticipate that one possible verdict, however just and fair, would result in the demolition of their city – what future has justice?
Worse, the minorities of the continent are watching. If violence or the threat of it can predetermine the course of a criminal trial, violence-prone groups from coast to coast will draw the moral. Success, after all, breeds emulators. Precedents will be set. Incidents in other cities and towns will be used as a pretext for looting and vandalism.
But sooner or later there will be a reaction. Americans, the best armed citizenry in the history of the world, won’t sit idle forever. Citizen militias will take to the streets of the afflicted cities. Many persons will die…including, no doubt, some who deserved to live.
The great tragedy here is that, had the police of Minneapolis and other riot-torn cities reacted immediately and with their full powers to quell the rioting, far fewer persons would pay the ultimate price. We’ve already seen the cost of not acting swiftly and with decisive force in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.
Minneapolis is braced for impact. The evidence is ambiguous. There’s much fear abroad of what could follow the “wrong” verdict. Stay tuned.
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! — Thomas Jefferson
Mar 01 2021
It’s not as easy a task as “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (Disney version) made it seem.
Google, and its parent company, Alphabet, have their tentacles deep into just about every facet of online life. The former host company for this blog, Liberty’s Torch, was Blogger – a Google company.
When you sign up/into an online service with a Google identity – such as your GMail account – you will be tracked on any subsequent activity, whether you know it or not.
If you signed up with GMail, your Facebook account will be tracked.
The same with ANY service you sign up for, using that GMail account.
Now, since so many of us do that, what does this mean for your privacy?
You’re F****d.
It’s easy to do so. It simplifies the process. I’ve done so, in the past.
Full disclosure – my Facebook account is linked to Google. My phone will not work on most of my apps, if I limit Google’s privacy reach. That’s not uncommon. MOST of us find that smartphone use is just about impossible, without that access to my data.
But-but-but – didn’t Bill Gates LOSE that antitrust case, and have to break up that “evil empire” of Microsoft?
Technically, yes.
In reality, he just started buying companies that were “affiliated”, and would, by making the process easier, ENCOURAGE you to give up your privacy to them ALL. Some of the associated companies (Alphabet is the parent company):
So, what about Google’s claim that they DON’T sell your data?
Google never says “I am going to take your data for ads/nefarious purposes”. They say, “I’m going to make your life easier”.
Which, to be fair, they do.
It’s just that the cost is high. And, the tentacles reaching into every facet of our lives are becoming more enmeshed.
Take e-records, the part of Obamacare that was so insisted on – it would be a major savings, they said. It would prevent patient medication errors, they said. It would reduce the amount of tests that were made.
And, to some extent, that is true.
But, the cost is huge. Your privacy is at risk. And, the data industry is notoriously vulnerable to hacking.
You can act to turn it all off. However, the cost is high. Those apps you’ve been using? Most of them simply will not work without the data sharing.
I know. I tried it. It was difficult to make use of my phone or tablet. Ironically, your desktop/laptop computer is less likely to need to engage in as much data sharing as your mobile device.
Don’t think it’s a problem for you? Here’s a link to instructions that help you find out what Google and Facebook knows about you.
Mar 01 2021
It is important for all ethnic groups, even the smallest ones, to know that this is their Motherland with no other for them, that they are protected here and are prepared to lay down their lives in order to protect this country. This is in the interests of us all, regardless of ethnicity, including the Russian people.
~ Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation.[1]
Compare this view of the Russian nation with the determined balkanization of America. Who here lays it on the line for minorities that this is their Motherland, not Wakanda? That fouling your own nest is an act of supreme stupidity?
What leaders speak of protecting the country as opposed to pursuing will-o’-the-wisps of exceptionalism, regime change, democratic “values,” white supremacy, domestic terror, Russian dreams of world conquest, and life free of pain and effort? Compare and contrast our decaying polity and what Putin demands.
Notes
[1] “Escobar: Putin, Crusaders, & Barbarians.” By Pepe Escobar, ZeroHedge, 2/27/21.
Mar 01 2021
That moment you really get it that the American political class is something hostile and parasitic.
The destruction of savings, which perversely is the policy intention, is a consequence of interest rate policies pursued to their Keynesian endpoint with social implications too important to overlook. Because they are not on any central bank’s radar, the misery of the loss of income for small savers is ignored along with the damage to private sector pensions and the higher insurance premiums compensating for lower investment returns. The whole thing is a deepening morass, but it seems central bankers are determined to continue with these policies nonetheless.[1]
You know we’re toast when the financial leaders all believe in free money (see below). Have none of them heard of the “free lunch” insight into human economic behavior? I gather the Turks have a saying, “Nobody loves you for your baby blue eyes.” Or, stated in up-to-date terms a la Google, Facebook, and the rest, if something is “free” to the citizen it’s likely that it’s the citizen who will be footing the bill. And we are on board with this, make no mistake. The government does the most damage with its embrace of “free money” but we take the crumbs from that and don’t insist on “real” economic policy that focuses on production. There are obvious stirrings of great unhappiness. Hence the obvious, strong, but still rather inchoate appeal of “MAGA.” Tea Party anger but more.
Inflating the quantity of money in circulation has become the most important objective for monetary policy. The other stuff about interest rates, quantitative easing and yield curve control is little more than supporting flimflam, even diverting attention from the inflation objective which reeks of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is reinforced by the increasing dependency of the state on this form of financing. The fact it is apparently free money, justified by its alleged stimulative qualities, makes monetary inflation highly addictive. An understanding of the damage it causes is casually dismissed and along with it the painful alternative of cutting government spending to escape a downward spiral into the financial gutter. As an inflation addict, the US Government is edging closer to that gutter, now with the addition of an intensified socialistic modern monetary theory adopted by the Biden administration.[2]
The inevitable massive loss of small business and jobs that is just around the corner, on top of the sleezy, giant middle finger to American patriots in the form of Zimbabwe-scale election theft, will rip the face off of all of this. And the Democrats will, you may be certain, blame it all on “capitalism.” It’s not sure what kind of “reality” will take the stage. It won’t be anything like our current fairyland “Overton window.”
Mr. Macleod’s article is worth your time. If for no other reason that it serves up a heaping dish of what passes for normal in the world of banking, finance, investment, and government policy. That’s not a criticism of him just an observation that the “debate” among the uber technocrats is surreal, and he does a good job in describing it.
I don’t see any marker buoys laying out the passage to safety. Anywhere. And these fools lecture us about “climate change” and “Great Resets.” I can’t find the exact comment but I liked what a gent said to the effect that the political class has managed to destroy one of the most successful nations nations ever in two generations or so. Complete joke status achieved.
Fasten your seat belts. Some turbulence ahead folks. Even for the people in First Class.
Notes
[1] “Monetary Inflation: The Next Step….” By Alasdair Macleod, ZeroHedge, 2/28/21 (emphasis added).
[2] Id.
Feb 28 2021
In his defense of Christianity as a mystery religion, C. S. Lewis has told us that we must deal with the facts, and as John Adams has said, facts are stubborn things. Among the facts at hand, we have the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and His subsequent Resurrection.
The Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth are historical facts. The evidence for them, both sacred and secular, is so strong that it takes an act of willful rejection to dismiss the episode as “just a myth.” Jesus’s Resurrection – the key miracle upon which the Christian faith is founded – is almost as strongly supported by the available evidence. The recent movie The Case for Christ, which is based on investigative journalist Lee Strobel’s book of the same name, lays out these points in a simple and persuasive fashion.
(Yes, yes, yes: it is still intellectually defensible to say “I reject the evidence” and remain an atheist. The episode, after all, cannot be repeated, nor is it possible to go back to 33 A.D. and witness it for oneself. It will always be that way. It’s in the nature of a supernatural event. End of digression.)
But the evidence of the events leaves us with questions about the reasons for them. In particular, people – believers and skeptics both – have always asked “Why were the Passion and Crucifixion necessary?”
It’s a good question, one of the best of those relevant to Christian theology. God, after all, is omnipotent. He has no needs, as men understand the concept. Specifically, He had no need to allow His Son to be tortured to death. What’s that? He allowed it because it was necessary for the remission of our sins? He could have remitted them with a single act of His divine will. Chattering about “needs” and “necessities” when speaking of God is inherently self-deluding.
From the accounts of the Passion, it was plainly about as intense a period of agony as a human body can experience. One of the visions of the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich depicts the earliest part of it – the scourging of Jesus prior to His walk to Golgotha – in vivid fashion:
These cruel men had many times scourged poor criminals to death at this pillar. They resembled wild beasts or demons, and appeared to be half drunk. They struck our Lord with their fists, and dragged him by the cords with which he was pinioned, although he followed them without offering the least resistance, and, finally, they barbarously knocked him down against the pillar. This pillar, placed in the centre of the court, stood alone, and did not serve to sustain any part of the building; it was not very high, for a tall man could touch the summit by stretching out his arm; there was a large iron ring at the top, and both rings and hooks a little lower down. It is quite impossible to describe the cruelty shown by these ruffians towards Jesus: they tore off the mantle with which he had ‘been clothed in derision at the court of Herod, and almost threw him prostrate again.
Jesus trembled and shuddered as he stood before the pillar, and took off his garments as quickly as he could, but his hands were bloody and swollen. The only return he made when his brutal executioners struck and abused him was, to pray for them in the most touching manner: he turned his face once towards his Mother, who was standing overcome with grief; this look quite unnerved her: she fainted, and would have fallen, had not the holy women who were there supported her. Jesus put his arms round the pillar, and when his hands were thus raised, the archers fastened them to the iron ring which was at the top of the pillar; they then dragged his arms to such a height that his feet, which were tightly bound to the base of the pillar, scarcely touched the ground. Thus was the Holy of holies violently stretched, without a particle of clothing, on a pillar used for the punishment of the greatest criminals; and then did two furious ruffians who were thirsting for his blood begin in the most barbarous manner to scourge his sacred body from head to foot. The whips or scourges which they first made use of appeared to me to be made of a species of flexible white wood, but perhaps they were composed of the sinews of the ox, or of strips of leather.
This was plainly torture of the most intense variety, designed not just to inflict pain but to shorten the Victim’s time on the cross as greatly as possible, so His executioners wouldn’t have to keep watch over Him for more than a few hours. So why did He allow it?
A brief segment of the aforementioned movie comes to mind:
But that answer stimulates a fresh question: “What did love have to do with it?” And it is upon the only plausible answer to this question that a Christian’s faith must be founded.
The religious and social conditions that applied in first Century Judea constitute a critical context. First, Jesus’s message – His proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the requirements for admission to it – was a radical departure from the doctrines of the Jews. The Judaic faith incorporated a huge list of commands and demands; 613 discrete ones, by one enumeration. That made being a perfectly observant Jew a supremely difficult undertaking. It also made doctrinal compliance something of a competitive matter. Jesus’s prescriptions and proscriptions were blessedly few and brief. Consider the Gospel According to Matthew 19:16-19, and this famous statement from G. K. Chesterton:
“The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.”
Second, when the requirements for compliance are so many and so various, it can become a matter of argument which of the requirements “really matter.” Now, you’d think that the original Ten Commandments, handed by God to Moses during the Jews’ desert wanderings, would take precedence, but it appears that Judaic priests’ promulgation of ever more commands and demands, beginning with those in the book of Leviticus, muddled matters sufficiently to throw that notion into doubt. In consequence, acts explicitly forbidden by the Ten Commandments were placed on an equal footing with trivia such as the halakhic proscription against lighting a candle on the Sabbath.
Third, the ancient, pre-Christian religions, including that of the Jews of first Century Judea, all insisted that there can be no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. The blood shed for that dubious purpose was seldom that of the sinner. It was far more often that of a sacrificial animal, sort of a stand-in for the sinner himself. That was the pervasive belief of the era in which Jesus entered the world as flesh and blood.
It was within that context that the Redeemer sought to establish His New Covenant and persuade men to adopt it. To countervail the weight of the Judaic priesthood and the power of a millennium of tradition, He had to do something so dramatic, and so filled with certainty, that there could be no doubting His sincerity. His acceptance of death by the era’s cruelest forms of torture fit the need so perfectly that no other gesture could compare to it – especially when on the third day He returned from the dead, certifying His Divinity and authority irrefutably.
Yes: the answer to “Why?” is love – Jesus’s divine love for Mankind. He came as a liberator of several kinds. First, He came to proclaim the Kingdom of God and announce that the sins of Mankind would be remitted. Second, He came to replace the old, Levitical Covenant with His New Covenant, a simpler and far more easily comprehended set of rules. Third, He came to set at naught the authority of the Judaic priesthood, an important component in the matrix of oppression of that time and place.
Jesus had to perform His ministry among the Jews for many practical reasons. That requirement, and the conditions it imposed, made His Sacrifice of Himself unavoidable – but not because the sins of Mankind could be remitted in no other fashion! It was a demonstration of His sincerity, His authority, and His love that could never be improved upon. The contrast that it made with the demands of other, current and prior religious “authorities” drove the point home with irresistible force.
Meditation on the intensity of Jesus’s sufferings during His Passion should not evoke a desire to experience them personally – horrible thought! Rather, it should remind us of how great a price the Son of God was willing to pay to make it irrefutably clear not only that He meant what He said, but that He loved us enough to demonstrate it in so extreme a fashion.
He is not content, even Himself, to be a sheer arithmetical unity; He claims to be three as well as one, in order that this nonsense about Love may find a foothold in His own nature. [C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters]
May God bless and keep you all.
Feb 28 2021
These are just the ones that have caused me to pause, reflect, and adjust my thinking over the last week.
This has been a tough week for me, physically – nothing major, just the accumulation of a lot of little things:
On to the links.
I really hate that use of the word “distraction” that the Left have weaponized when called out on their blatant hypocrisy. This essay explains it better than I could have.
Clarence Thomas documentary pulled from Amazon Prime – during Black History month. I’m linking to a DDG (Duck-Duck-Go) page. If you scroll down, you will note that there is no mention of this in any of the ‘major’ news media outlets.
Does CNN think this worthy of mention? Don’t be ridiculous!
MSNBC? No mention of the balanced look at Thomas’ life, but plenty of links to a Pro-Anita Hill film.
I’ll give ABC News props for even MENTIONING the film – but, curiously, no mention of the de-platforming of the highly rated documentary.
On Amazon? In a search with the words “Clarence Thomas documentary”, the Pro-Left Anita: Speaking Truth to Power is the second film to come up. But, no mention of the Clarence Thomas documentary, at all. A search using the phrase “Black History Movies” also fails to bring up any mention of the film.
During Black History Month!
Ornery Dragon asks, “Cui bono?”. If you read the whole thing, you’ll also come across links to a full explanation of what constitutes Freedom of Speech. I’d suggest checking out the link, and bookmarking it.
One very good suggestion that the OD makes is this:
So, read. Watch movies. Pass those books and movies around to your friends (but make sure you get them back!).
May I add that you should either buy a hard copy of those books that are foundational, or, if electronic, make sure they have Loan privileges, to encourage information transfer? Or just send the person a gift of the book (don’t just give an Amazon gift card, buy a Kindle version of the book, and send that link).
This ‘cancelling’ tactic is not a one-off. The very popular book on ‘transgendering’, When Harry Became Sally, has also been made unavailable on Amazon.
The thing about electronic books is that, if you buy them from Amazon, you can try to read them, only to find that Amazon has PULLED THAT BOOK FROM YOUR KINDLE. It’s happened before, when a particular edition of 1984 was, so Kindle claimed, in violation of copyright. They not only pulled the book from the Kindle store, but also deleted copies that had been downloaded.
The electronic nature of e-books, and their dependence on the popular app from Kindle, makes them vulnerable to this deletion. On other e-stores, this is not a problem, as long as you get those books in a non-Kindle format (a powerful argument for using other means to access those books).
Feb 27 2021
There are days when the cleavages become all too clear…when the battle lines are too bold and bright for anyone to dispute that there’s a war on. Today is such a day:
La Mesa, California Trustee Charda Bell-Fontenot told fellow board members that in-person school learning is “a very white supremacist ideology.” She told the fellow board members who want to open schools that they should check “their privilege.”
To top it off, she claimed in-person learning is “slavery.”
One must wonder how the slaves would have felt about that comparison.
“I know what we are doing is wrong. That seems like a very white supremacy ideology to conform…privilege you guys….check it……I’m not gonna force anyone to do what they don’t wanna do. That’s what slavery is. I’m not gonna be a part of it,” Bell-Fontenot said.
This…person has just ripped the mask off the entire “white supremacist / white privilege” black-racialist campaign – and she’s too stupid even to realize that she’s done so. (Clearly belongs on a school board, eh what?) Think about it for a moment before I begin my explication de texte.
Statistically speaking, white kids consistently outperform black kids in school…when the schools are open and functioning normally. Today, it’s far too easy for any child to ignore the “remote learning classes” that substitute for classroom instruction, with the direct supervision of students by teachers that makes possible. In the “remote learning” context, the student’s incentives to slough off are large and the difficulties are few. More, the inability of teachers to check students’ work – if it really is their work – is near-total. Result: the white kids are no longer outperforming the black kids! Leveling is at last achieved!
Leveling has always been the Left’s goal. The black racialists and grievance mongers are a key part of its coalition. It cannot placate them in any other way – and the black racialists’ resentment over their enduring inferiority is their strongest motivator. But leveling never raises those “below” to parity with those “above.” As I’ve noted in a previous piece, mediocrity cannot be stretched:
[I]t is just as impossible for Leftists to admit an unpleasant fact about one of their coalition-constituencies – in this case, Negroes – as to admit to having made a mistake about crime and justice. The typical Negro public-school inmate studies far less than his white and Asian counterparts. He has, on average, a lower degree of innate intelligence with which to approach scholastic material. Perhaps worst of all, his home situation is frequently indifferent or antagonistic to concentration and study. But these facts cannot be permitted to intrude into a discussion of why Negro youths are “under-represented” in elite schools. It’s much more profitable politically to blame it all on “racism.”
It has not been proved impossible that the intellectual gap between the white and black races might somehow, someday, be eliminated constructively. Neither is it impossible that the study habits and home situations of black children might someday rise to parity with those of their white counterparts. But we must deal with the state of affairs of today – and that state of affairs, a consistent and objectively verifiable pattern of white / black differential achievement that’s uniform from coast to coast, is the fodder that the black-racialist movement, with all its cant about “white privilege” and its unceasing demands for “reparations,” subsists on.
Compare this foofaurauw with the relatively new “mathematics is racist because it demands correct answers” cant that’s entered the national discourse.
Feb 26 2021
Simply put, the Fed is not going to fight inflation. It is going to keep stoking the inflationary fire until it’s burning out of control.
“Peter Schiff: The Reality That Nobody Wants To Acknowledge.” By Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, 2/25/21.
Feb 26 2021
Today’s miseries are founded on a single central problem. It’s not a new problem, even for the United States. We’ve seen it in many contexts and guises, here and elsewhere. It’s the problem we must solve if we’re to restore any semblance of normality to American public discourse.
I once ranted about it in this critical essay. Here’s the foundation of the matter:
Truth is an evaluation: a judgment that some proposition corresponds to objective reality sufficiently for men to rely upon it. The weakening of the concept of truth cuts an opening through which baldly counterfactual propositions can be thrust into serious discourse. Smith might say that proposition X is disprovable, or that it contradicts common observations of the world; Jones counters that X suits him fine, for he has dismissed the disprovers as “partisan” and prefers his own observations to those of Smith. Unless the two agree on standards for relevant evidence, pertinent reasoning, and common verification — in other words, standards for what can be accepted as sufficiently true — their argument over X will never end.
An interest group that has “put its back against the wall” as regards its central interest, and is unwilling to concede the battle regardless of the evidence and logic raised against its claims, will obfuscate, attack the motives of its opponents, and attempt to misdirect their attention with irrelevancies. When all of these have failed, its last-ditch defense is to attack the concept of truth. Once that has been undermined, the group can’t be defeated. It can stay on the ideological battlefield indefinitely, preserving the possibility of victory through attrition or fatigue among its opponents.
It cannot be put any more plainly: the unwillingness to accept that there is an objective truth renders a disagreement irresolvable. That makes assaults on the concept of truth the most dangerous of all threats to human society. And the refusal to accept objective truth is at the core of all the Left’s campaigns today.
Let’s start with a proposition that was once uncontested: Human beings come in two sexes: male and female.
You’d have to be Rip van Winkle not to know that today there are many who decline to accept that proposition as true. Yet it conforms to objective reality: we come out of the womb either male or female, and nothing else. Cosmetics and surgery can change an individual’s presentation, but they cannot change his genes.
Now, as it happens I number two transwomen among my friends. I, being a courteous sort – enough with the smirks and cackling, you in the back rows – treat them as they present themselves. As they’re both decent people, responsible, self-supporting, and (as far as I know) law-abiding, nothing else really matters.
This is not new. It’s been going on for decades. Until it became a political cause celebre, it was entirely tolerable. We often take appearances as “of a tactically higher priority” to reality, for the sake of social peace. And to be perfectly candid, there are many counterfactual beliefs and convictions we tolerate to minimize social discord. Consider all the folks who think 9/11 was an Israeli plot, or that America never landed men on the moon. The rest of us, when we encounter such persons, smile and change the subject, or excuse ourselves to use the rest room.
Allow me once more to present a snippet from The Wise and the Mad:
Walsingham nodded. “It is a disorder, you know. A man once born cannot become a woman in truth.”
“Agreed,” Holly said. “Yet it is not impossible for one born a man to present as a woman. Hormones, minor surgery, cosmetics, and diligent study of the personalities and mannerisms of women will suffice for those who already have feminine inclinations and aspects of appearance. For example, you just referred to Heidi as ‘her’ without any apparent tension. That suggests that my portrayal of her in Unashamed was convincingly feminine. I gave her the appropriate appearance, personality, and manner to persuade others to take her as a woman and to treat her as such. I had her respond to such treatment as a woman would respond. An American woman, at any rate. Thus, despite her Y chromosome and male genitalia, she was able to pass in common society as a woman, as was her preference. Only if she had chosen to announce her birth sex to those around her, or to bare her lower body in public, would there have been any conflict about it. Any necessary conflict, that is.”
He blinked and set his glass on the table.
“What about love?”
Holly smiled. “Didn’t Heidi and Roland solve that puzzle adequately?”
“Yes…yes.” He looked briefly away. “It should not have startled me. We have those on the other side of the Atlantic, as well.”
Holly took a moment to choose her next words.
“I’ve been told that a wise man once said that ‘love laughs at hardware.’ I know the sort of love Heidi and Roland chose to enjoy isn’t to everyone’s taste. It’s not that long since it was illegal, both here and in the U.K. Oscar Wilde went to prison for it, did he not?”
“He did,” Walsingham said.
“Is sodomy still against the law across the water?”
“That law was overturned quite some time ago,” he said. “There have been attempts to have it reinstated, but all have failed.”
“It’s the same here, and just as well,” Holly said. “There can be no pretense of autonomy or personal privacy in a land where the private bodily conduct of consenting individuals is a fit subject for the attention of the police.”
Walsingham’s face worked. “That is the usual argument. Yet there are many who regard the maintenance of society’s moral standards to be of greater importance.”
“I know. It’s unclear to some how utterly impossible it is to have both individual freedom and legally enforced sexual standards at once. The Constitution was the touchstone for reform here, particularly the Fourth Amendment. But America has groups demanding the return of the old laws, too.”
She drained her glass. Walsingham gestured at her with the bottle, and she nodded. As he poured she said “As you know, a law that specifies permitted and forbidden modes of sexual conduct would pose a huge problem for Rowenna. Given her bodily configuration—”
“Her alternatives are celibacy or functioning as a man,” he said. “I’m aware. But it doesn’t appear a problem for you and Rowenna. You are lovers, are you not?”
Here it comes.
Holly inclined her head. “Yes, we are.”
“And it would seem that the tension that arises from making love to what seems a woman but having her function sexually toward you as a man has caused you no difficulty,” he said. “Or no amount you could not surmount.”
She smiled and saluted him with her glass.
“I do present rather convincingly as a woman, don’t I, Sir Thomas?”
He paled.
Holly, my transwoman protagonist, is candid about her own state. She has “the dreaded Y chromosome” in every cell. Yet she presents as a woman, convincingly enough to win treatment as such from those around her. While a presentation that convincing eludes many real-life transwomen, the rest of us are (mostly) generous enough to make allowances…once again, for the sake of social peace.
It’s not transgenderism per se but the politicization of transgenderism – making it into an evangelistic campaign that demands complete acceptance from the rest of us, including the denial of the genetic realities – that has shattered that peace.
We now pass to the supreme controversy of the day: the 2020 presidential election. Here is the evidence that supports the proposition that the election was stolen:
To me and to many others in the Right, this looks conclusive. The Democrats, accordingly, are doing their damnedest to prevent the discussion of this evidence, or of the unwillingness of election officials and courts at various levels to examine the evidence and rule on it. To this date, no court has been willing to look at the evidence. Only one has issued an order compelling election officials to grant access to the ballots and counting machines – and the results favor the conclusion that massive fraud, well beyond the margin of victory, took place.
Now, I could be wrong. I could be completely misinformed about all the above. But whatever the case, there is an underlying objective reality…and the Left doesn’t want it to be examined or discussed.
This is a truth crisis that could result in the destruction of the Republic. It’s already persuaded at least 40% of the country that the presidency was stolen. What reason, therefore, do those four-in-ten Americans have to respect the “president” or to pay the slightest attention to his many decrees? Yet the Left and the media tell us that demanding an inquiry is what will make people distrust federal authority and destabilize the country.
A campaign by Smith to silence opponent Jones is a reliable indicator of fear: fear that what Jones will say will be damaging to Smith. It certainly doesn’t suggest that Smith is confident in his position. And if there are facts available to be examined that Smith resists examining, the case against him goes from damaging to damning.
More anon.
Feb 25 2021
It’s a very un-American thing to focus on class (the more nuanced Elite will, sometimes, but point out that this is just an artifact of our bigoted system, and if we just give the lower classes access to a stable income, that will all go away). The term “socio-economic class” is used, again, with the idea that money is somehow a pivotal part of it.
Which, it really isn’t. Even with money, the Clintons are never going to be fully accepted by the Elite. And, no matter how many little money a child of an Elite makes, they will retain the ability to call in a few favors, and use connections to get their way out of trouble.
But, don’t neglect this interesting dissection of class in America by a person who did manage to move upwards out of his class.
Feb 25 2021
Tragically, [the refusal to deal with obvious problems in the electoral system is] not inexplicable. It’s very explicable. It’s that the explanations are chilling and uncomfortable. Our Supreme Court is now part of the Washington Swamp, and the Washington Swamp is now totally divorced from any understanding of or caring about the rest of the nation. Roberts surrendered to the Swamp shortly after being seated. Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett have done so even quicker.
Our Supreme Court is now no more an agent of a free people than similar courts are in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua. Our nation is becoming ungovernable, because there is no reason for a thinking person to have any respect for our institutions like the FBI, The Justice Department, or our courts on any level. We are facing dark days indeed.[1]
Not to mention astonishing dereliction of duty in defending the borders, preserving citizenship, and maintaining basic public order. Public officials who take a stand for the American nation and the rule of law are in short supply.
Notes
[1] “Our Supreme Court Goes Full Nicaragua in PA Election Case.” By C. Edmund Wright, American Thinker, 2/23/21.
Feb 24 2021
One time I saw a clip of a reporter trying to interview Kanye West asking him to remove his MAGA hat because “it made him feel unsafe”. West basically told the guy to fuck off.
Statistically you have a higher probability of being killed by your own furniture than an act of terrorism, let alone being attacked by anybody in a MAGA hat.
“Deconstructing ‘WokeThink’.” By Mark Jeftovic, ZeroHedge, 2/22/21.
Feb 24 2021
I’m regaining a little dexterity in my hand, even though I still have a splinted finger, so let’s see how this goes…
I’ve ranted before about the insidiousness of licensure. In effect, it reduces a right to a permission that can be denied at the government’s whim. It’s usually introduced under the rationale that it’s necessary to ensure “order” and / or “public safety.” And regardless of any evidence that might emerge subsequently to challenge that “necessity,” the licensing regime never, ever goes away. Power, jobs, and graft have their own logic, don’t y’know.
Right after right has been reduced to a permission in this manner. Most Americans have accepted it as “just one of those things.” The flacksters of “American democracy” tell us that as long as we have the right to say whatever we think and vote for the candidates we prefer, we can always change such things to suit our preferences…and that “that’s what freedom is all about.” But as of today, the process has finally reached the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression:
Two Congressional Democrats sent letters of demand to thirteen prominent cable and streaming services, including Amazon, Roku, Hulu and Apple streaming services attempting to shred what is left of free speech….
The final demand comes with an ominous tone;
“Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV both now and beyond any contract renewal date? If so, why?”
Behind those “demand letters” stands the implied threat of regulatory constriction of the threatened streaming services. In this fashion, the Democrats hope to extend Washington’s stranglehold over traditional broadcasting onto the Internet. Their rationale: combatting the spread of “disinformation and extremism.” The probable mechanism would be the use of the Commerce Clause to impose federal control on the Net, with all that implies.
Feeling a chill yet?
The fear I’d harbored was that the late, unlamented Fairness Doctrine would return. This is plainly worse: an attempt to censor streamers if they carry disfavored content. It begins with intimidating inquiries such as the ones cited here; it will end with draconian regulation. I should have been more paranoid, not less.
Consider: the “disinformation” the Democrats are most determined to suppress concerns the blatant theft of the 2020 presidential election. They don’t want any further propagation of the evidence for that theft. A fair number of Republicans would unhesitatingly support them in that goal. It’s all about “order” and “public safety.” Can’t have the peasants marching on the palace with torches and pitchforks, now can we? Too may rice bowls are at stake!
Your vote has already been neutered. Your right to keep and bear arms, as heavily restricted as it already is, is likely to be restricted even further. Now your access to channels through which to receive and further disseminate important information – information the Usurper Regime doesn’t want you to have – is under attack.
We have well and truly arrived at the last hill.
Feb 23 2021
And “our” best thinking got us here:
When a world already in trouble was hit by a severe financial crisis in September 2019, the dose of debt was already excessive. But as the Fed and the ECB opened the money spigots fully, they filled the world with poisoned or fake money. The BY team (Biden & Yellen) will now be certain to finish this process with their profligate spending plans.
MAJOR CENTRAL BANKS BALANCE SHEETS UP 6X SINCE 2006
The financial system has been poisoned for decades by governments’ excess spending and central banks’ prodigal printing of toxic and worthless money.[1]
It’s amazing how so many incredible fortunes are made now by just moving pieces of paper or digital bits around. The notion that the financial world is focused on the fundamentals of a productive economy is absurd. Mr. Von Greyerz publishes a graph showing the take of total income that the tip top 10% enjoy. On the eve of the Depression, it was 50% and now it’s the same. From 1940 to 1980 their take went down to the mid 30s, a period Von Greyerz labels the American Dream. But it’s gone. People today hang by a thread.
I emphasize that “capitalism” is something amazingly productive and creative but that it can only operate correctly in a symbiotic relationship with government. Ordered liberty if you will but with a focus on production and growth.
What is wrong with the current approach is not “capitalism” but the failure of the political class to concern itself with anything other than cashing in, short-term gain, gaming the system (electoral as well as economic), or pandering to minorities for political leverage and, now, control. Every last significant act of the federal monstrosity since the start of the Great Society has been utterly without regard to long-term consequences — creation of a dependent welfare class, consequent destruction of the nuclear family, hyperfeminism, absurd censorship, mass surveillance, Glass-Steagal repeal, “climate” anything, off-shoring, mass third-world immigration, fiscal lunacy, monetary panic, and pointless, ruinous war in pursuit of our dumbass notion that the world needs and hungers for our, so help me God, leadership. Because . . . wait for it . . . “our democratic values.”
This is the perfect formula for the creation of a crisis of legitimacy that the Tea Party and Donald Trump only hinted at politely. Congress strains at a gnat (Russia!!, vindictive impeachment of Trump, Capitol Hill “insurrection”) but swallows a camel (National Guard around the Capitol, year-long AntiFa criminality, alliance with terrorists in Syria, sanctions against naughty foreigners, unbelievable lockdown destruction blithely ordained, fiscal hemorrhage, spit-in-your-face plutocracy).
But the political class are oblivious and, as an earlier post showed, have in their infinite wisdom embarked on a strategy of currency debasement as a way to fiddle their way out of the predicament caused by their abysmal stewardship and utter lack of fidelity to the Constitution and the nation. Unlike the socialist and progressive morons, I don’t want to fiddle with “capitalism” by adding more cars for its magnificent engine to pull or throwing sand in the gears. I do think that major changes are in order that are premised on pure populism, namely, reducing the inordinate economic and polical power of a tiny class of humans who seem to think they are gods and can determine the fortunes of mere human flotsam and jetsam. Great Reset anyone? And we all know what that entails, don’t we? No. No Great Reset. Kcuf that. The Great Devolution, is more like it. Dumping Citizens United and gutting the federal government like a hog. For starters. Then deporting every last illegal alien with a vengeful fury that would make Sam Jackson turn pale.
Then there’s this kind of poison:
Protests premised on baseless claims of alleged voter fraud and irregularities were to blame for President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat have rocked state capitol buildings and election centers at a regular pace since the November 3 election. These so-called “Stop the Steal” rallies have often attracted far-right elements, including militia movement groups, pro-civil war “Boogaloo” supporters, violence-prone Proud Boys members, white nationalist activists, and conspiracy theory driven extremists. A handful of far-right figures, including white nationalist podcaster Nicholas Fuentes and conspiracy theorist broadcaster Alex Jones, have received top billing at a handful of Stop the Steal protests. Other events have featured speakers who are notorious for creating and spreading disinformation online.[2]
Thus are the great issues discussed in the public square.
Notes
[1] “Von Greyerz: How Will It All End?” By Egon von Greyerz, ZeroHedge, 2/22/21.
[2] “#StopTheSteal protest website tied to extremist-linked activist’s digital marketing firm.” By Jared Holt, Digital Forensic Research Lab, 12/3/30 (emphasis added).
Feb 22 2021
…because earlier today, one of my dogs – Precious, the Pit Bull mix – mangled my right hand. I have a cast on one finger and two others swollen from a “crush” injury.
I’ll give you the whole story when I can type again. I’m sure Linda, the Colonel, Margaret, Historian, Dystopic, and Pascal will keep you diverted until I return.
All my best,
Fran
Feb 22 2021
Here’s the list – Democrats all.
Let’s put some effort into backing their opponents in the next election, shall we? Perhaps Mrs. Limbaugh can get a fund set up, and give it a little seed money, as a memorial to her husband’s life’s work. I think he would have appreciated that.
Those POS’s need to go home – ASAP.
Feb 22 2021
…you’ve lost the battle – maybe, even, the war.
The Left looks at the Cancel Culture, the Deplatforming, and the stranglehold they have on the televised news, and thinks, “We’re WINNING!”
Because so many in that group are unacquainted with any of the Normals, except as 2-dimensional characterizations, they miss the essential point:
Not cowed and fearful.
Angry.
Not stupid enough to posture with weaponry in public venues.
But, I’ve had many conversations with people who are not activists, nor unusually hardcore NLD. Just regular folks, trying to live a decent life.
And, they’re getting no help from government. In fact, the government seems to be going out of its way to hinder that goal. And, it’s starting to make them angry.
Angry enough to:
First, secure their own responsibilities (family, friends, neighbors). Prep. Install those security features on the property. Arm up. Start a Bug-out stash – both money and supplies. Get fit. Learn skills that may come in handy in any economic/political disruption.
Second, start connecting with each other. On the QT. Offline. NOT plotting sedition, but preparing for the other side to strike first. The same plan that the Minutemen (the original ones) had. Don’t start nothing, but don’t back down.
Prepared. For whatever comes their way.
Feb 22 2021
Cue one of the many great Billy Joel songs:
Where was I going with this?
Oh, yeah.
I have asthma. One of the common issues with it is that coughing and breathing episodes tend to cluster in the early morning hours – literally, in the middle of the night.
I used to think of this as a bad thing. However, since I developed asthma, in my 40s, I’ve used that late night wakefulness to read, plan, and write. Attacks involve needing to sit up in a chair, take my meds, and get my breathing back to normal. Then, often staying awake a while longer, just to get my racing heart to slow down – the meds used in an attack are chemically very similar to adrenaline.
I used to think of this all as a BAD thing. Tonight, for the first time, I wondered whether I would have ever start writing without that happenstance.
So, maybe my late night quiet alertness is a GOOD thing..
It made me think about the connection between Leftist adherents, and the fact that so many of them are WOMEN.
Now, despite their cherished view of themselves as independent thinkers and non-conforming, STRONG women, unlike those wishy-washy stay-at-home moms, in reality, the females who are most outspoken in promoting SJW/CRT/Leftist Dogma are generally those unwilling or unable to act alone.
They are the ones who feel most alive in the company of others who think, talk, and act as they do. They are what were called the “Woooo!” girls on an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
Groupthink.
Conformity.
Inability to act/think/talk independently.
I wonder whether, in ages of promiscuity, many a virginity has not been lost less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the caucus. For of course, when promiscuity is the fashion, the chaste are outsiders. They are ignorant of something that other people know. They are uninitiated. And as for lighter matters, the number of people who first smoked or first got drunk for a similar reason is probably very large.
It is likely that this desire to fit in – to act in ways that the crowd deems worthy – that fueled many of those involved in the actions of January 6. Normally, most of them were average in their activities – these were not the ones that met with fellow revolutionaries in quiet places and plotted sedition. No, they were those who enjoyed gathering with others, the kind of crowds in which they didn’t have to watch ever word or facial expression, where they could let fly those forbidden thoughts about liberty.
It’s not just extroverts that fall prey to this; even introverts sometimes yearn to be a part of a valued clique. In fact, the geeky outsider may be even more vulnerable to the lure of inclusion.
I’ve enjoyed speculating on future events. I will continue reading and touching base on the political situation, and that includes local, national, and international happenings.
But, I’m not going to make that my major focus in the future. I have a life, however limited at the moment, and I have plans for how I want to spend it.
I started writing again this weekend (on my stories and books), and I liked it. I got a satisfaction that I’d been missing.
The same with other parts of my life. On Friday, I reorganized the office area, moving furniture, and cleaning behind the cabinets and shelves (Lord, it was disgusting!). Sitting in my desk on Saturday, I experienced a pleasure I’d been missing. I was able to find things, work on my projects, and just feel less stressed.
I have a large house that needs weeding out. I’ve been putting off tasks, lured as I’ve been into following the Rabbit down the Hole.
I’m planning to broaden my local connections. I need to re-attach to the physical world, and lessen my time online. I will be re-engaging, focusing on the here and now, and making sure that, in my desire to keep the country intact, I don’t lose myself. Part of that determination is to make sure that, for at least a set period of every day, I focus on the day-to-day tasks that have been piling up – taxes, paperwork, necessary phone calls, and my own writing (not blog-type).
