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Elsewhere (224)

February 3, 2017 by David 149 Comments

Ian Miles Cheong on the mob thuggery at UC Berkeley and its ‘progressive’ cheerleaders: 

Vocal members of the progressive left took to social media to voice their support for the riot, dubbing it a legitimate resistance movement against the Trump administration. Feminist film director Lexi Alexander, who has directed episodes of Arrow, Supergirl and American Gothic, encouraged rioters to set the campus on fire. Her calls to “join the resistance” were echoed by comedian and actress Sarah Silverman, whose outspoken calls for violent insurrection have only escalated with each passing day… Polygon senior editor Ben Kuchera expressed support for the violence, saying it was okay to punch anyone who mocked safe spaces. And Arthur Chu, the perpetually “woke” male feminist ally, invited his followers to cheer about the brutalisation of a young woman who was assaulted as she conducted an interview.

See also this thread from yesterday.

Somewhat related, this screeching creature – apparently a professor – was rendered outraged and hysterical when some of her leftist associates were arrested following an unprovoked assault on the writer Gavin McInnes. She seems to believe that she and her comrades should be able to assault people, as they deem fit, with impunity.

Also related: Laurie Penny, who has yet to comment on the UC Berkeley thuggery despite being at the scene, is now letting her followers know just how brave she is – for – wait for it – mixing with conservative students. Because unlike masked far-left rioters who are armed with iron bars and who smash windows and punch women, conservative students and Trump supporters are “vicious and vengeful.” And she’s “fucking terrified of them.” *

Kyle Smith on the evasions of ‘progressive’ niceness: 

Not-nice Trump voters sometimes speak dismissively of immigrants and others who refuse to learn English; nice Clinton voters are shocked that anyone could hold such cruel views. It isn’t nice to point out that some people don’t have a very good command of grammar. Even teachers no longer make it a priority to teach others how to speak properly, as Theodore Dalrymple points out in his 2008 book Not With a Bang but a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline. To the nice people, “attempts to foist alleged grammatical ‘correctness’ on native speakers of an ‘incorrect’ dialect are nothing but the unacknowledged and oppressive exercise of social control — the means by which the elites deprive whole social classes and people of self-esteem.” Moreover, all forms of expression are equally valid, says the nice-ocrat… If people who can’t speak properly find themselves subsequently accruing little value in today’s job market, the nice-ocrat simply shrugs again.

And Victor Davis Hanson on fake news and narratives: 

A good example of such fake news is the Duke rape story of 2006. Over a decade ago, an African-American stripper falsely accused three Duke Lacrosse players of rape. The media eagerly consumed and enhanced the narrative fed to it by radical civil rights groups and a legion of progressive Duke academics: privileged white male students had predictably sexually abused a woman of colour, whose poverty had forced her to perform sexually demeaning acts for frat jocks. The three accused students were summarily indicted on rape charges and expelled from Duke, and the lacrosse team’s season was cancelled and its coach fired — all without reliable forensic or investigatory evidence that corroborated charges of assault. By the time the professional stripper was shown to have fabricated the entire charge, lives were ruined, but the narrative of racial exploitation had been firmly implanted. Jesse Jackson, for example, offered to pay the alleged victim’s college tuition and said the fact that she had concocted the story was irrelevant.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments. [ *Added. ]




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