Against Hate, You Say
Further to this unedifying exchange, more mouthings of the woke:
Some of us identify as queer, non-binary, asexual, femme, men, POC, etc. We are your neighbours, we are your co-workers, we are concerned citizens who feel that one does not need to be part of an organisation or pre-existing group to speak up and oppose oppression wherever it rears its ugly head.
So says Humans Against Hate, a group of anonymous Portland activists who rail against the “oppression” of ideas being discussed, and whose implied definition of neighbourliness is, shall we say, intriguing.
You see, if Jordan Peterson is permitted to speak to people who wish to hear him and wish to ask him questions, then the venue being hired will be assailed by a mob of ill-informed Mao-lings, for whom Peterson’s arguments exist only as caricature, and who promise to “disrupt” not only the event in question, thereby spoiling the evening of roughly 3,000 people about whom the Mao-lings know nothing, but also other, unrelated events, involving unrelated people, just because they can. “We will not stand for bigots coming to our city,” say these self-imagined warriors, these champions of the downtrodden.
Because harassing random people and ruining their evenings, while exulting in the thrill of mob coercion and intimations of thuggery, is what people who aren’t full of hate do, apparently.
Haters Against Discussion would be a better name for them.
Seeing as they’re making threats of violence in advance, they should be locked up now.
“for his controversial belief that gender is only binary and that gender fluidity leads to chaos.”
Note: “Controversial belief”. An old and obvious journalistic tactic, but one that still works.
It’s not oppression when they do it.
Oh wait, it is. Silly little fascists.
Peterson telling everybody “Do as a lobster would—clean your room!”=fascism!
Why do I suspect that they feel that one does not need to have a job, either?
Nothing new to this approach, really. I recall back when the Bosnia war was going on I was attending an outdoor Shakespear In The Park kind of thing and being accosted by anti-war protesters.
Some of us identify as queer, non-binary, asexual, femme, men, POC, etc. We are your neighbours, we are your co-workers, we are concerned citizens who feel that one does not need to be part of an organisation or pre-existing group to speak up and oppose oppression wherever it rears its ugly head.
So non-conformist.
Because harassing random people and ruining their evenings, while exulting in the thrill of mob coercion and intimations of thuggery, is what people who aren’t full of hate do, apparently.
As our host would say: lefties project.
Let Nurse Ratched run the asylum and you will get the orderlies she prefers.
It’s not oppression when they do it. Oh wait, it is. Silly little fascists.
The most generous framing I can come up with is that some of these clowns may have had unhappy experiences on account of their skin colour, sexuality or whatever, and consequently wish to inflict some kind of revenge on the world, even if it entails screwing over random strangers, all in the name of morality. It’s not exactly edifying, I know, but it’s more generous than other, perhaps more obvious, alternatives. Among which, the tendency of such groups to attract borderline personalities and outright sociopaths.
These people never seem to understand that I don’t want to be their neighbour or friend.
Anonymous to hide their numbers. Hoping to intimidate the venue into raising security costs and force cancelation before anybody notices the small size of the group.
An organization made up of folks who don’t feel the need to be “ part of an organization” to be heard. Funny.
“We will not stand for bigots coming to our city,” say these self-imagined warriors,
“Our city”? What about all the people who want to hear Peterson *and live there too*…?
The most generous framing I can come up with is that some of these clowns may have had unhappy experiences on account of their skin colour…
I think it is more like, “…some of these clowns desperately want to believe they have had unhappy experiences…”
“Our city”? What about all the people who want to hear Peterson *and live there too*…?
Well, quite. But apparently, only ill-informed leftists count as residents, as citizens, as people with rights too.
It’s rather like the clown show in London in 2013, when, following a mob of student Mao-lings laying siege to a building and trapping people inside, other student Mao-lings began vandalising property, setting bins on fire and trashing police cars, while chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” The fact that very few of the so-called ‘protestors’ actually lived anywhere near those streets or even in the same city – and that the Mao-lings were gleefully terrorising the people who did live there – didn’t seem to register.
Meanwhile, it the progressive halls of power, the Portland authorities are trying mightily to disclaim any responsibility for protecting Peterson, the venue or the attendees. Expect an announcement about them unable to insure the safety of the participants–so sorry–shortly.
BTW, this history of Oregon is not exactly unicorn farts when comes to racial relations. To this day, Portland is one of the most segregated cities in the country. It’s a fascinating story, and one is tempted to tell these “anti-Haters” to get their own house in order first, before harassing others for their ostensible sins.
“… that the Mao-lings were gleefully terrorising the people who did live there – didn’t seem to register.”
Didn’t seem to, but perhaps it did, really.
“These people never seem to understand that I don’t want to be their neighbour or friend.”
Sometimes you need to use a bayonet for people to get your point.
An anonymous group …
There’s no way of knowing this for sure of course, but I suspect that the letter is an inside job and was written by a person or persons working from within one or more of the organisations to whom the letter was sent (i.e. “Portland’s5 Centers for the Arts, Metro, the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission and the City of Portland”).
My suspicions were aroused by the last paragraph of the article:
If Portland5 does not cancel the event, the group says it is prepared to organize protests and call-in campaigns, including disrupting the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Committee’s June 6 meeting at the Oregon Convention Center.
Why would the anonymous group want to disrupt that particular meeting? And why mention it?
Even today, journalists have a habit of occasionally slipping in hints of things they know, but are unable to state in print so I checked on the website of the Metropolitan Exposition and Recreation Commission and one of the first things I noticed on the sidebar there was that the Commission includes a Committee on Racial Equality.
Nothing wrong with that in and of itself of course – I think the vast majority of people can agree that racism is both iniquitous and harmful and that it is also an enduring presence in our societies. Unfortunately, there also appear to be a number of people who are determined to find it in places where it simply might not exist. I feel I can say with confidence that whatever else Peterson might be, he is not a racist.
In that light, the comments that the committee members have written to introduce themselves on their personal profiles are suggestive of people who strongly sympathise with that “anonymous” letter (if indeed they were not the letter’s actual authors):
Martine Coblentz, Clackamas County Resolution Services
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Equity hashtag: #StayWoke
#StayWoke?
Says Coblentz (amongst other things):
I know on both ends what it is like to be of privilege and to have committed micro aggressions toward my own sibling, processing that, humbling myself and working on my own implicit biases AND, I have had to process the discrimination I face in the outside world and micro aggressions toward me
Another member, Duncan Hwang, includes the following details on his career:
I was politicized while studying at the University of Michigan and on paper I received degrees in Political Science and Asian Studies. In reality though, I spent most of my time as a campus activist leader …
Didn’t the University of Michigan get a mention on this blog just yesterday?
Three other members’ profiles include Equity superpowers.
No really.
Pronouns: she/her
Equity hashtag: #AccessForAll
Equity superpower: My super power would have to be my Advocate shield. I really don’t know how to take no for an answer. When I see an injustice, I tend to stick with it until the opposition gives up.
Ummm …
Pronouns: she/her
Equity hashtag: #browngirlsresist
Equity superpower: I’m like Nymphodora Tonks in the Harry Potter world – the research/data voice in social justice spaces; and the social justice voice in research and data spaces.
Nymphodora Tonks? As someone who has not followed the Potter series, is that a real character? Nymphodora? In a children’s book?
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Equity hashtag/superpower: This #FierceJusticeDeva can maneuver hard conversations with strong differences of opinion on tough race topics to a solid engaged meeting of the minds – in one round.
I must stress that the idea that one or more inside members of the Commission wrote this letter is complete conjecture on my part – it is perfectly possible that a group of radical students wrote the letter independently.
However, the article also states that (my bold):
Portland5’s executive director Robyn Williams says she is aware of the “controversy regarding this upcoming event at the Keller Auditorium,” but that “Portland’5 Centers for the Arts may not legally refuse to rent our theatres to a group due to the content of a performance.”
If the Commission is therefore unable to legally prevent Peterson from booking the venue, then such an anonymous letter would certainly be a solution to their inability to control who gets to speak in the venues they preside over.
Presumably, that original rule was written in the 1980s or 1990s to allow people to throw crucifixes into buckets of piss or stage theatrical versions of 120 Days of Sodom and so on – you know, to support freedom of expression however offensive or objectionable that expression might be to some people.
The people who wrote that rule probably found the idea that a Christian and moderately conservative Canadian professor and clinical psychologist might one day be perceived to be a ‘dangerous’ radical with ‘harmful’ ideas absolutely inconceivable.
So if that letter was in fact authored by members of the Commission itself, it would have been as a way getting around their own rules in order to prevent Peterson from speaking.
If that were the case, then I would find that to be not a little disturbing
But again, I am just idly speculating here.
I know on both ends what it is like to be of privilege and to have committed micro aggressions toward my own sibling
My brother pulled a carving knife on me once. Fuck your microaggressions, Madame Coblentz.
humbling myself
Why, I wonder, do I find that so hard to believe?
The article itself isn’t a news piece, but another bit of “advocacy journalism”. It editorializes against Dr. Peterson from the headline to the picture to the framing of the article.
Take the picture alone — The center focal subject is an attractive young woman passionately protesting and the caption is that this is part of the protest of President Trump’s inauguration.
AFAIK there is absolutely no connection between Trump & Peterson. But the writer wants to tie Peterson to Hitler-Trump in the reader’s minds as if they both have assaulted the young woman with their violent “infamous” views and words.
This is such transparent, Pravda-style propaganda it is no wonder there is no comment section on the piece.
The people who wrote that rule probably found the idea that a Christian and moderately conservative Canadian professor and clinical psychologist might one day be perceived to be a ‘dangerous’ radical with ‘harmful’ ideas absolutely inconceivable.
You’d have to be pretty hysterical to see Peterson as some ominous shadow of destruction, an existential threat. His political views, such as they are, are for the most part unremarkable. Crudely put, they boil down to advocating responsibility, reciprocation and a kind of stoicism; a preference for evidence and clarity, as opposed to begged questions and unearned conclusions; and a wariness of both vanity and the modish dogmas to which the vain are so often attracted. Keep things in proportion could easily be his motto.
And yet the Mao-lings behave as if Hitler’s brain had been implanted in the body of a giant robotic monster that fired lava from its eyes, and which was about to be set loose in the city, to stomp on all those poor “genderqueer” people. Especially the brown ones.
Related: On the great Awokening
…Hitler’s brain had been implanted in the body of a giant robotic monster that fired lava from its eyes, and which was about to be set loose in the city, to stomp on all those poor “genderqueer” people.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
Yes, I think that’s a large part of it. The fashionable Mao-ling stance is now so unmoored from reality, so teetering in its pretensions, that any sense of proportion or reminder of normal proprieties – not least regarding debate and the testing of claims – will tend to be unflattering.
That, and some people just can’t resist an opportunity to be spiteful.
I read the Harry Potter books. Nymphadora is a character therein. Instead of “Hello” or “Whassup” or “Yo” or “ Hola” she says “Wotcher.” What does “wotcher” mean?
Related – Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10948
“What does “wotcher” mean?”
I think it’s a corrupted contraction of something like “What are you up to?”, rather in the way “howdy” is clearly “How do you do?”. It’s a sort of cheery-chirpy-Cockney type thing. Apparently. Outside of authors and screenwriters indicating down-to-earth matiness in a character, I’ve never heard anyone actually use it.
Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
By now I doubt it needs repeating, but hey, what the hell.
Lefties project.
Related – Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
Of course it completely escapes this “professor” that it is entirely “their” fault. Yes their. You will all be surprised at “their” bona fides.
Some of the transcendently predictable and boring flummery one would expect from this sort of chucklehead:
Yes, the fierce struggle he has “not free” in a world where he can be a pantomime woman, hauling down probably six figures for spouting canned cant for a couple classes a year in a tenured position, there hasn’t been such a brave stand since the Warsaw uprising.
Considering I gained weight post-menopause, am I entitled to a Phd in Fat Studies?
In the brave new world, I hope we’ll all be free of nuts like Joelle.
a fierce but exhilarating struggle…
I’m reminded of a line from the protagonist (Vietnam vet Green Beret turned beat cop in a bad neighborhood) of Kent Anderson’s (ditto) novels:
“When was the last time you were really afraid?”
Wotcher = what cheer?
Considering I gained weight post-menopause, am I entitled to a Phd in Fat Studies?
Only if you are sufficiently leviathan that a grapefruit goes into orbit around you if someone throws it at you. If it hits you, you only get a masters.
For those with time to kill, there’s another Reddit Ask Me Anything with Peterson here. He mentions the recent exchange with Michael Dyson and Michelle Goldberg.
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html
Interesting, because the person writing actually knows Peterson, and because he does make some specific claims about Peterson’s behaviour which, if true, might be a little concerning (rather than the usual innuendo and question begging that form the basis of most pieces critical of Peterson).
Not that the innuendo and question begging (not to mention garbled logic and exaggeration) are entirely absent, as you’ll see.
Holy moly!
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here:
By “interesting piece”, I am guessing you mean smear and hatchet job.
Not that there is any evidence of this in anything online that I have seen, but proceed.
There you have it, his personal axe to grind. Much more on the “trans” farrago follows.
It wasn’t real Marxism. Oh well, at least he isn’t hiding where he is coming from.
Evidently he saw a different interview than everyone else in the world. Throw in the “alt-right” and the usual grab bag of leftist drivel in the rest of this piece and that about rounds it out.
Leftist professor no longer wants to be BFFs with right leaning professor. Got it.
Horace
What I get from that article is jealousy masked as concern-trolling.
Poor Bernard that, he of the better principles and demeanor than Jordan, and unburdened by eccentricities, isn’t getting the spotlight.
Tsk, tsk.
Bravo, Farnsworth, you got further in the article than I … I got to the
and wanted to throw a shoe at my monitor …
Also in Portland: http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-reparations-happy-hour-invites-white-people-to-pay-for-drinks/
I read the Harry Potter books.
Any twenty- or thirty-something identifying themselves as a character from Harry Potter is exactly as pathetic as a forty-something identifying themselves as Luke Skywalker. These people are emotionally arrested children and should be treated with the attendant respect and attention that deserves.
In the brave new world, I hope we’ll all be free of nuts like Joelle.
His bio makes it clear that he’s got a lot of deep-rooted issues around his identity, self-esteem and fantasy, and like many in the Clown Quarter and the mental health field, he’s using the academic gobbledygook as a coping mechanism in lieu of getting real therapy for his underlying problems.
I don’t blame the loons. That would be like blaming the old lady who talks to fence posts and thinks the Russians are sifting through her garbage. I blame their enablers, the people who are using mentally ill people as a weapon in their agenda. It’s like using children as suicide bombers.
Poor Bernard that, he of the better principles and demeanor than Jordan, and unburdened by eccentricities, isn’t getting the spotlight.
A great many opinion pieces can be summarized as “someone is getting rich and famous and it’s not me”.
Darleen
I had similar thoughts. There’s a strong sense of bitterness that this Peterson fellow, whom Bernard likes to think of as a protégé, turns out to be smarter, richer and more famous than the man to whom he clearly owes his position.
Farnsworth
Yes quite. I think the nub of the piece, though, is this:
He is not a free speech warrior. He is a social order warrior.
Point 1: It seems clear that “social order”, or perhaps more correctly, social stability and cohesion, is something that Peterson is concerned about, openly and unapologetically. But then, these days, even some lefties are coming around to the view that social stability is something that might be jeopardised by rapid change and should be considered as an important part of policy making. So what exactly is the point of such a statement?
Point 2: Why should he not also be a free speech warrior? Bernard cites Peterson’s exposure of far-left teachers in the Academy, and his criticism of them, as proof that Peterson is not really above censorship. Of course Bernard knows full well that criticising someone, even robustly, is not an attack on free expression, but he wants us to believe that Peterson wishes to, and is able to “effectively silence” those with whom he disagrees. I won’t insult Mr Thompson’s readers’ intelligence by labouring this obvious point any further.
All this fuss over a guy who goes around telling people to clean their rooms.
I wasn’t too impressed with the other prof’s article, and how do you get to be a college professor without knowing how to tell male from female? I hope he’s not teaching biology.
Gadfly Vox Day doesn’t like Peterson either.
I don’t blame the loons. That would be like blaming the old lady who talks to fence posts and thinks the Russians are sifting through her garbage. I blame their enablers, the people who are using mentally ill people as a weapon in their agenda. It’s like using children as suicide bombers.
This. And those of us who continue to fund this lunacy with our tax dollars and nary a public peep.
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here
I see the author is happy to insist on an allegedly vast and meaningful distinction between (a) being jailed for not paying a fine incurred for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees, and (b) being jailed for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
I’d say this also applies to the Clown Quarter generally, not least when hyperventilating at the prospect of a visit by anyone slightly to the right of Elizabeth Warren. If a speaking engagement by Heather Mac Donald, Christina Hoff Sommers or Janice Fiamengo results in weeping, hysteria and outright thuggery by the venue’s students – and it does, frequently – then perhaps something has gone wrong – seriously wrong – with the environment being visited.
What if I committed a microaggression but no one noticed?
I believe the new etiquette is to “speak out” with a confession and pledge never-waning self-surveillance and total commitment to inclusion and equality, except for those who disagree.
“without knowing how to tell male from female”
A US Forestry Service biologist told me that they are now hiring mostly “urban kids” to fill vacancies.
For these newly minted civil service “wildlife biologists” being unable to distinguish male from female is a positive job qualification.
All these people are calling Dr. Peterson “conservative,” “right-wing,” and “alt-right.” I believe they are completely wrong. Peterson mostly agrees with the left creep of society. It is merely the egregious abuses that he objects to.
I see the author is happy to insist on an allegedly vast and meaningful distinction between (a) being jailed for not paying a fine incurred for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees, and (b) being jailed for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees.
It’s so naughty of course for people to use victimhood to strengthen their arguments.
It’s so naughty of course for people to use victimhood to strengthen their arguments.
The rules of the game, such as they can be determined, change frequently and without warning, and are almost always non-reciprocal.
All these people are calling Dr. Peterson “conservative,” “right-wing,” and “alt-right.”
All part of the “othering” of him. At least they haven’t called him a Nazi.
Yet.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10948
Shortly after the event, Dr. Joelle Ruby Ryan gleefully tweeted that “we were able to disrupt this man’s hate speech as much as possible,” declaring that “‘civil discourse’ with him is impossible.”
If you’ve never heard Dave Rubin talk on YouTube, you should know that he is one of the most thoughtful, polite, and intelligent people anywhere…
So non-conformist.
I remember a bumper sticker from way back: You Non-Conformists Are All Alike. If it’s not still for sale these days, it should be.
“Civil discourse” means that Dr. Joelle Ruby Ryan gets to make unfounded, wild assertions and accusations and no one else is allowed to object or ask questions.
Just a guess.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
There’s also an unspoken benefit of such ludicrous exaggeration. First, the Mao-lings frame the event as some existential threat to their delicate selves. This excuses their own hysteria and vindictiveness, in the guise of retaliation, and the urge to exert power over others while feigning victimhood. Then, given this allegedly existential threat, in which words are somehow “violence,” they can escalate their ‘protest’ in lots of lively physical ways and beyond the event in question, to include thousands of random people and other, entirely unrelated events.
Because making sweeping, grandiose threats and disrupting the evenings of strangers on a seemingly random basis, and harassing random people with mob behaviour, and then doing it again, and again, is actually quite satisfying. If, that is, you’re inclined to something approaching sociopathy.
As so often, Peterson himself is much less interesting than the reactions to him. To borrow a phrase, he acts as a kind of plaque discloser.
I remember a bumper sticker from way back: You Non-Conformists Are All Alike.
I used to Walter Mitty the idea of starting a bumper sticker business. One was to be “Be different, be normal”. A friend of mine latched onto that one and would bring it up when we would be discussing teh crazy. We’ve had a falling out because he thinks I’m a white supremecist. He recently married off his daughter in what appears to have been a Game of Thrones themed wedding. There is no hope.
Calling Marxism, a respectable political and philosophical tradition, “murderous” conflates it with the perversion of those ideas in Stalinist Russia and elsewhere where they were.
The word ‘elsewhere’ is doing an awful lot of lifting there.
And that other word, respectable.
This.
This.
Noted from your link:
Shot:
Chaser:
Why, it is almost as if the leftists are not entirely coherent on this point.
To quote Marx,
Why, it is almost as if the leftists are not entirely coherent on this point.
It’s rather like eavesdropping on the pronouncements of a cult member. Someone who’s internalised, and then regurgitates, a bizarre conspiracy theory. She’s so presumptuous, so adamant, so incurious. And these eerily uniform creatures are churned out by the thousands every year.
He recently married off his daughter in what appears to have been a Game of Thrones themed wedding. There is no hope.
Good Lord, none of the weddings in that show went off without at least one, and occasionally several, gruesome deaths. Not exactly what I’d’ve chosen, but to each their own.
Have you heard from your friend since the wedding by the way? It went off without any unexpected expirations I hope?
Not exactly what I’d’ve chosen, but to each their own.
At the reception following his wedding, during the first dance with his new wife, my brother-in-law arranged for the DJ to play U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
This.
Further to that, this:
Who. They. Are.
Have you heard from your friend since the wedding by the way? It went off without any unexpected expirations I hope?
Well, because I frequent “white supremacists web sites” (ahem) he is, for the second time in five years…this time I think it’s permanent…not talking to me/unfriended me. This was a friend of over 25-30 years. I only heard about his daughter’s wedding through a mutual friend. And I’m guessing on the Game of Thrones thing but judging from the pictures shown to me, there was a lot of large-animal-fur clothing. Might have just been a cave-man theme?
my brother-in-law…
OK, you can’t leave us hanging here. You sister or your better half’s sister? Or, umm, something else? Inquiring minds and all that…
At the reception following his wedding, during the first dance with his new wife, my brother-in-law arranged for the DJ to play U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
Heh. Top trolling.
Your sister or your better half’s sister?
The Other Half’s brother.
Top trolling.
And they’re still married, before you ask.
As so often, Peterson himself is much less interesting than the reactions to him.
As the ersatz-Orwell quote suggests, telling simple truths in a time of universal deceit can be revolutionary. David French was recently puzzled by the same disproportionate hostility to what is, or should be, a very ordinary message.
It merely goes to show, once again, that an organization dedicated to a mission will invent new rationales or new threats in order to continue the mission rather than voluntarily dissolve. If you’ve made a rewarding career out of finding racists, sexists and homophobes lurking in every shadow, you’re never going to reach a point where you say, “Well, I guess we’ve taken care of the worst of them; time to find something more constructive to do now.” You’ll use smoke, mirrors, jazz hands, and Halloween soundtracks to turn a mild-mannered psychology professor into the epitome of evil. The devil’s snares are everywhere, even under the most anodyne disguises.
And they’re still married, before you ask.
Awwww. (That’s the sweet kind of “Awwww” by the way – the one made when looking at, for example, a cute kitten, not the “Awwww” made when you’re disappointed at something).
As so often, Peterson himself is much less interesting than the reactions to him.
By the way, I don’t mean that I find Peterson dull. He can be very entertaining. As with his comments on erotica for women. It’s more that his political views and opinions on life in general don’t, for the most part, strike me as particularly outlandish or deserving of outrage. Cultivating stoicism, gratitude and self-possession, and a sense of proportion, for instance, are fairly prosaic values, albeit seemingly out of fashion.
The reactions to him, however – and to him daring to draw attention to Things One Isn’t Supposed To Notice – are more striking, and convoluted, and often pathological. For example, during his exchange with Cathy Newman, it was Newman’s fashionable contortions that caught my eye, and her apparent inability to process certain facts and fairly obvious lines of thought. Ditto Michael Dyson, whose grip on reality, and ability to give anything approaching an honest answer, were, at best, intermittent.
Again, a plaque discloser.
“Two circles and a triangle!”
My parents have been married for over fifty years. Dad requested, but was vetoed by the vicar, for the hymn “fight the good fight” to be played as they walked up the aisle.
Wedding trolling has an ancient history.
fight the good fight
Heh.
Related. Or, “The Worthies Have Spoken.”
I remember a bumper sticker from way back: You Non-Conformists Are All Alike.
A friend of mine has a story of when he was living in Washington D.C. and had gotten caught being the person to send into and sort out convoluted event issues. In this instance a collection of very loud and vehement We Are Anarchists!!!!! had camped out apparently right in front of the White House, and whatever else was going on that day, my friend was sent in to see that everything could be kept nice and peaceful, or at least not escalate past mere mumbling and posturing.
He says that he didn’t actually blurt it out, but when he arrived at the location, his immediate thought was Ooooh, let’s Seee. Totally identical t-shirts, totally identical belts, totally identical pants that are totally identically tucked into totally identical boots, why, you must be the anarchists!!!
To quote Marx,
I don’t know what they have to say . . . .
Also works with the music.
There’s also an unspoken benefit of such ludicrous exaggeration. First, the Mao-lings frame the event as some existential threat to their delicate selves. This excuses their own hysteria and vindictiveness, in the guise of retaliation, and the urge to exert power over others while feigning victimhood. Then, given this allegedly existential threat, in which words are somehow “violence,” they can escalate their ‘protest’ in lots of lively physical ways and beyond the event in question, to include thousands of random people and other, entirely unrelated events.
And, of course, there is also the right wing doing the same over on the other side. Over on the right wing we are informed that Trump Is Under Spiritual Attack From Luciferian ‘Advanced Beings’ Who Control The World and told of The Luciferian Elite And The Destruction Of America. From the exact same sort of right wing mindset and merely a change of inspiring text for the local version of Dungeons And Deacons, we are told about Islamic Iran’s Loud and Clear Message to Great Satan. We are asked Would Evangelicals Elect Lucifer?
Happily, the assorted squawking from the left wing and right wing extremes can remain ineffectual. Surreally annoying if it gets loud or energetic enough, but given the complete lack of reality, quite ineffectual.
As the quite established alternative to both left and right, being the conservatives that are flanked by the two will remain and always has the benefit of just being what just is . . .
Heh.
Today’s words are competitive race-baiting.
It occurs to me that when your attempt to find hidden racism, and thereby assert your own status, entails demanding that a white woman publicly prove that she’s the mother of her own daughter, who happens to be black, and accusing said mother of “white privilege,” and disdaining anyone who notes your presumption as obviously being a Trump supporter, and therefore racist, then you may want to ponder where your life went off the rails and crashed into a ditch.
Via Damian.
https://audioboom.com/posts/6047678-tattoo-john-finnemore
Surreally annoying if it gets loud or energetic enough, but given the complete lack of reality, quite ineffectual.
Funny that you would write such a thing.
“We enable everyday white supremacy to take root by abdicating nice and well-intentioned white people of their responsibility to deal with the dangerous messages they believe about people of color…”
I thought we did it by raising our kids to be happy and productive members of their communities, instead of sullen self-destructive dependents of the state. Silly me!
Funny that you would write such a thing.
Do tell. Any example?
No, frantically denying something when reality just is doesn’t count, that’s what the Mao-lings and their right wing counterparts do.
We’re looking for an actual example.
@Hal, how effectual do you believe your rantings here to be in convincing others to your way to thinking?
Richard, perhaps a better question is what Hal actually believes to be the definition of “conservative.”
One time (well, more than once), it’s a link to a long screed at The Curia, in the course of which a “conservative” is defined as someone who doesn’t think things have to be banned “for your good” (as contrasted with the “right wing” and “left wing,” both of whom want to do so, albeit for different reasons). How that definition yields that Nancy Pelosi or Emma Gonzalez, to take two recent examples in comment threads, are “conservative” – I’m not real sure.
Another time, it’s that a “conservative” is anyone not at either of the extremes. Well, of course, all you have to do then is define one or both of the extremes as something off the charts – say, for example, that one extreme is that your political opponents should not only be killed but should be eaten – and presto, almost anyone is “mainstream” and “conservative.”
@Hal, how effectual do . . . . is “mainstream” and “conservative.”
Oh, please, really . . .
You have the declarative skills and efficacy of an utterly stock variety zampolit or struggle session ringleader—Albeit you may take that as a compliment.
If there’s any issue, it’s not in any “convincing”, or even trying to, given that the closest to there being any issue is utterly the political equivalent of noting that, Why Yes, the direct route between San Francisco and India just is straight over the north pole. You are perfectly free to demand the equivalent of all of us sharing a belief in only going to the east or west, and the math is still going to continue to fail you.
I haven’t invented a thing, I’ve only been taking notes on what people just do politically, and have been doing, and will keep doing.
If you want to fantasize that there is only the right wing OR the left wing, you really are going to have to also explain away, oh, Blue Dog Democrats and Main Street Partnership and The New Democrat Coalition and The Tuesday Group—And that cluster of conservatives is only the handiest example that comes to mind. According to the dogmatic fantasy doctrine of only right/left, absolutely none of those groups have ever existed or will exist . . . except that not only do they exist, their existing has nothing to do with me . . .
Oh, and as far as that floundering bit of yours of . . .a “conservative” is defined as . . . is anyone not at either of the extremes. Well. . . that mental blaring noise you were hearing as you typed was indeed your realization of Fail, Fail, Fail, complete and utter fail . . . And you even tried to pull that off with something that anyone on the internet can assess in person, without having to rely on you or blindly follow your rather open distortions . . .
Soooo, either you actually have zero idea of how political reality and related commentary is—and you therefore have some reading to do—Or, your intent is to be the return of Minnow. Either way, David’s following thread has very concisely summarized you: How Dare You Not Perform Our Fashionable Contortions.
And as I’ve reminded over there;
Indeed.
Fascinating. So Hal, apparently you’re under the impression that all of your critics are the same person, thus “You have the declarative skills” to something that Richard said, and straight from there to “that floundering bit of yours” to me. Are you that divorced from reality?
I notice, too, that despite the “mental blaring noise” of “Fail, Fail, Fail” from you, you haven’t found it appropriate to address my point about your earlier definitions of Nancy Pelosi et al as “conservatives.”
So one must conclude that it’s not just “the right wing” and “the left wing” that are at the extremes, but also “liberal” and “conservative,” at least your type of “conservative.” Meanwhile, many of us are going about the business of making things work, rather than talking and writing endlessly.
. . . my point about your earlier definitions of Nancy Pelosi et al as “conservatives.”
Weellll, Let’s do have a look at Pelosi, shall we?
The right wingers are ticked off because of her, the left wingers are ticked off ’cause of her, and therefore, between the right wing and the left wing, that leaves her being . . . what now?
—and then for anyone else who you may have on a spectrum placement shopping list, yes, at this point you know how to apply the same math.
Meanwhile, many of us are going about the business of making things work, rather than talking and writing endlessly.
Why, yes, we are aren’t we.
A wise man once pointed out, back in the day when all transport was animal-powered:
Walk down the street. You see people walking on the left; you see people walking on the right. Who walks in the middle? Horses.
So no, I’m not terribly impressed with someone who is being attacked from both sides, and that somehow this makes them “conservative.” It may be simply that they’re a horse, or the rear end thereof.
Weellll, Let’s do have a look at Pelosi, shall we?
OK, Hal, now you are either just trolling, or lost what little you had to begin with.
Calling Pelosi “conservative” because she is one millimeter to the right of the rest of the California extreme left lunatic fringe means you have now anointed yourself the resident Carrollite Humpty Dumpty, no matter how much you link to the logorrheic flight of ideas hot mess “The Curia”.
From now on the best course of action, and one I would recommend to everyone else, upon seeing one of your posts is to just smile, pat you on your head, and drive on. If, and that is a big if, at anytime in the future I ever want your opinion, I’ll be sure to give it to you.
Farnsworth, I don’t know that I’d call it trolling. Seems to me more wishful thinking than anything else.
Let’s stipulate that Hal is conservative, or at least aspires to be so. Consider, though: he lives in one of the most left-wing states of the Union, in one of its most left-wing areas, and is represented in the U.S. Senate by San Fran Nan, one of the most left-wing denizens of that area. What’s a fellow to do, then, but deal with that dichotomy by constructing a world in which said senator is actually a fellow conservative? Not really all that different than the goings-on chronicled on this very site, where pasty-white cosseted rich kids reimagine themselves as poor oppressed blacks heroically fighting dictatorship, men “identify” as women and women as men, both as domestic animals, etc.
Alex,
You are far more generous than I. He has also labeled Bernie Sanders, Obama, and Clinton as “conservative”, so I really don’t think his poor choice of residence and having to reconcile suffering the foolishness of Nan is the real issue. As has been pointed out by many others, his words mean what he wants them to mean, regardless of what they actually mean, and not just on political subjects.
The options then are a) trolling, b) contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, c) just plain lost in the sauce, d) any combination of, or all of the above.
Regardless, as I said, smile politely, and march on past.
A wise man once pointed out . . .
. . . regarding transportation.
And we’re not discussing transportation, are we?
Hal, the various posts here about Laurie Penny and her methods of “argument” – one of them being, as you just did, to refer back to something you wrote as though it were a self-evident truth – are meant to be minatory, not something for you to be emulating.
. . . to refer back to something you wrote as though it were a self-evident truth – are meant to be minatory, not something for you to be emulating. . . .
Ahhhhhsoooo . . . Got it.
So you are stating that the process David uses quite recurringly and on many occasions is utterly and absolutely wrong.
Well then.
Clearly you need to take this issue up with David, so that you can properly entrench in him the benefit of your inherently superior and intrinsic understanding.
And then after that, once the two of you have straightened that out, do feel free to then report to me the results of your discussions . . . . . .
Oh, and, if you had actually read any of David’s posts about Laurie, he keeps pointing out patterns of intermittent relationship with reality, her ongoing struggles with logic . . . rather than . . . taking notes on what people just do politically, and have been doing, and will keep doing.
No refunds. Credit note only.
Hal, do you really not see the difference between referring back to previous posts and their links _as showing that someone said or did such-and-such_, versus using one’s own previous opinions _as a mic drop_ that should end all discussion? “We’re not discussing transportation, are we” is not an argument. “No refunds. Credit note only” is not an argument. “Fail, fail, fail” is not an argument. Nothing in all of the goalpost-shifting, irrelevant links, and other simulacra of debate here is an argument.