Bad Souls And Bedlamites
“Are you willing to die for YouTube shit? That’s what’s gonna come, man. Death is coming to you, dude. Real shit. Feel that energy? That’s why your heart’s pounding.”
At an Antifa gathering in Seattle, Andy Ngo makes new friends.
The clip linked above is from this longer video, embedded below the fold:
“Open the borders,” shout the masked bedlamites, while shutting down the pavements and restricting the movement of anyone they suspect of being insufficiently woke and deferential. “Say it loud, say it clear,” they chant. “Refugees are welcome here.” All while harassing the gay son of Vietnamese refugees whose home and business were confiscated by communists before being sent to a corrective labour camp, and whom they denounce as “racist, sexist, anti-gay,” and, of course, a “Nazi.”
Note the unhappy lady, about five minutes in, the self-styled “anti-fascist,” who complains about the intimidation and provocation of her associates being filmed by a lone journalist who is effectively surrounded by her fellow goons and massively outnumbered, about 150 to one, and pinned against a barrier, before declaring her own bravery in the face of such trauma, and while shrieking sexually-themed abuse, via megaphone, directly into his face.
Update:
A hot and sassy take from the Guardian’s Jason Wilson, who claims that Mr Ngo was “stirring shit” and “provoking certain kinds of behaviour” by… er, well, just existing, apparently. As yet, no evidence of the alleged “incitement” has been forthcoming, despite repeated requests. And presumably, everything would be fine and not-at-all-sinister if people would just stop noticing mobs of masked, far-left bedlamites, whose lawbreaking and creepy behaviour is always someone else’s fault.
Hm. Sounds familiar.
Via Darleen.
Bad Souls
That.
That.
Well, it bears repeating that these are not otherwise ordinary people who happen to be misinformed and making bad decisions, let alone, as they pretend, heroes struggling bravely under enormous societal duress. There is no evidence, no argument, no glaring contradiction that would be likely to change their minds or moderate their behaviour. And attempts to that end would most likely be deemed a provocation, and somewhat hazardous. Movements of this kind tend to attract borderline personalities, people itching for an excuse to be malevolent, and to exult in it.
Hence the typical results.
the unhappy lady, about five minutes in, the self-styled “anti-fascist,” who complains about the intimidation and provocation of her associates being filmed by a lone journalist
Lefties project.
Lefties project.
Reliably.
Don’t you love it when ‘No Borders’ people say ‘You can’t go there, it’s not allowed, you’re not welcome, we control who goes where’?
As intimidating as these goons might be to any random person on the street, they are not the scary ones. What we “normals” need to truly fear are the enablers of these people who exist behind the scenes. Note the mayor of Portland and the police, nominally charged with enforcing laws and protecting the public from such assaults are conspicuously absent or, at best, neutral observers of the chaos. Indeed, one police officer blamed Ngo for “inciting” the violence against him.
This is not an accident. It is by design. They can’t have an official secret state police to rough up the rest of us, so they outsource the project to a bunch of masked goons. There are only two two ways forward, I fear if we continue along the current trajectory:
Submission or civil war
Note the “National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer” hat. A Communist front group from way back.
Also note that Woke Megaphone Lady, the one denouncing others as “racist, sexist, anti-gay,” is the same Woke Megaphone Lady who suggests that Mr Ngo has a “teeny-tiny-weeny-penis.” Actually, it occurs to me that venturing alone into a crowd of masked Mao-lings, knowing that you’ll be recognised and targeted for harassment, takes a fair amount of balls, if not wisdom.
”This is not an accident. It is by design. They can’t have an official secret state police to rough up the rest of us, so they outsource the project to a bunch of masked goons.”
This.
In news that will shock no-one, Mr Death-Is-Coming – also known as “Jamal X” – has a history of, shall we say, liveliness. Which rather lends weight to the suspicion that such behaviour is recreational.
Curious: Are bedlamites generally angry to the point of blaming the world and do their rants abruptly trail off into nothing?
https://www.glamour.com/story/now-that-im-divorced-im-never-making-dinner-for-a-man-again
Which rather lends weight to the suspicion that such behaviour is recreational.
He does seem a bit of a crisis actor, playing it up for the “press”.
Are bedlamites generally angry to the point of blaming the world and do their rants abruptly trail off into nothing?
It may be me, but that gives me the impression that her opinion of her culinary prowess might just be a tad overestimated, but I digress.
When you are so in need of institutionalization that you become angry at an inanimate object you ordered, in answer to the original question, yes, and yes.
‘Yesterday, a group called the Three Percenters had a permit for a rally in Seattle. They were met by the antifa who didn’t bother to obtain a permit, though the police don’t really seem to care… Ngo is headed off by two antifa carrying what appear to be some civilian knockoff of the M-4 and they tell him they will not let him pass. Then a cop intervenes and tells them to let Ngo through. The cop is less than six feet from the armed antifa, he seemingly heard them tell Ngo he couldn’t pass but somehow the blocking of passage on a sidewalk and the possession of a pair of semi-automatic rifles are never linked into one act.’
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/12/02/seattles-police-become-enforcers-antifa/
Submission or civil war
I keep telling you all: you can have helicopters now, or gulags later. Choose. We’re past the point of having the luxury of not caring.
It is creepy how much this parallels the rise of street violence in 1930’s Germany…
@[+}
I dropped in to post your link. As I said, this is by design.
Lest anyone think I’m being hyperbolic, note well: There is no legal obligation for police to either prevent criminal behavior or to intervene to stop criminal behavior. This lack of duty emanates from the doctrine of “Official Immunity,” which was created by the judiciary ex nihilo. Thus, a police officer confronted with criminal behavior may remain passive and indifferent secure in the knowledge that he cannot be held criminally or civilly liable for failing to protect innocent citizens. I know whereof I speak as I’ve relied on that doctrine in my own practice.
As I said, submission or civil war.
Whiney, lame millenials trying to be malevolent.
Oh this is getting so boring. Can’t they just hare off to Guyana and drink the Kool-Aid alright already?
And then one night, as my daughter watched TV, my toddler screamed from the living room, and the water boiled, collecting steam on the windows, I broke.
It strikes me that neither a daughter’s television-watching nor the boiling of a pot of water are generally considered triggers for post-traumatic stress disorder. A toddler’s screaming can be fairly taxing, but I have it on good authority that tens of millions of women have faced this sort of adversity with the courage and endurance they are renowned for, and lived to tell the tale.
Which is to say: what is this woman’s problem? And how could she see a couple’s therapist every week without somebody observing that perhaps napping and crying for seven hours a day while the kids are at school is not healthy behavior? I’m thinking that couple’s therapists in Des Moines might not be very good at their jobs. Though perhaps not as bad as the people who publish the nervous breakdown of an Iowa housewife in a magazine called Glamour.
The cop is less than six feet from the armed antifa, he seemingly heard them tell Ngo he couldn’t pass but somehow the blocking of passage on a sidewalk and the possession of a pair of semi-automatic rifles are never linked into one act.
Meanwhile in Paris where real people are protesting real problems they turn on the water cannons, tear gas, and pepper spray. It’s nice to see some of the police, fire and EMT are refusing to take part.
Filming a protest on the street is “spying” now.
#DelusionsOfGrandeur
#DelusionsOfGrandeur
Quite.
But hey, they’re here to save the world, apparently.
Which is to say: what is this woman’s problem?
Not sure what her problem is, but apparently frozen food and takeaway are part of the solution.
Not sure what her problem is
I’d go with “Feminism”. Or possibly “estrogen”.
It strikes me that neither a daughter’s television-watching nor the boiling of a pot of water are generally considered triggers for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Anything can be a trigger for PTSD. Trauma plays hob with the brain, and the brain will often fixate on irrelevant details. I once knew a patient who would rearrange the chairs in the psychiatrist’s office before each visit, without fail, even after being asked not to and acknowledging the behaviour. He couldn’t explain the compulsion. It turned out that there was an aquarium behind the psychiatrist’s chair, and there had been an aquarium in the room when the patient was being abused as a child. His conscious brain wasn’t aware of the association, but it was there nonetheless.
Which is to say: what is this woman’s problem? And how could she see a couple’s therapist every week without somebody observing that perhaps napping and crying for seven hours a day while the kids are at school is not healthy behavior?
People with Cluster B personality disorders are very good at telling people what they want to hear. That includes psychiatrists. They may be mentally ill, but they’re not dumb; downplaying their dysfunctional behaviour to the psychiatrist because it gets them praise for conquering their problem, while exaggerating their behaviour to friends and family because it gets them sympathy, is entirely common.
Though perhaps not as bad as the people who publish the nervous breakdown of an Iowa housewife in a magazine called Glamour.
There’s a better than even chance the whole thing is made up. Although only that; people with Cluster B disorders lack the ability to comprehend how their behaviour appears to others, and so often will misjudge the effect that talking frankly about their behaviours actually has. For an example of how someone with BPD can obliviously describe behaviour that is transparently manipulative and dysfunctional while believing that it will garner sympathy, look at Penelope Trunk’s blog.
perhaps napping and crying for seven hours a day while the kids are at school is not healthy behavior.
If I take the writer at her word, it sounds like clinical depression. And yeah, how was this not picked up by the therapist?
Though perhaps not as bad as the people who publish the nervous breakdown of an Iowa housewife in a magazine called Glamour.
I’ve noticed that all the fashion rags that usually clutter the tables at the beauty salons have decided to be “woke”. They are running all manner of vegan/climate change/rape culture/glass ceiling/#metoo columns sandwiched within pages of glossy ads for high end consumption.
It’s really a strange mix.
WTF are the cops doing beside allowing this? Pathetic.
Pathetic
Sinister.
#DelusionsOfGrandeur
No, more like #Delusions of Adequacy.
more like #Delusions of Adequacy
It’s a signature of the new, woke age. We’re to be barked at and scolded by our moral inferiors.
There’s a better than even chance the whole thing is made up.
True story or made up, I’m still not sure it qualifies as glamour. Certainly not as I’ve always understood the word.
As our gracious host has observed on many occasions: it’s not just that these damaged people feel compelled to write these confessionals (which never paint them in as fair a light as they seem to think), it’s that editors edit them, and publishers publish them, and readers read them. One would think that at some point in the process, somebody would ask, “Is this really the sort of thing we want to share in our Who-Is-She-Wearing magazine?”
You know, there’s certain contexts where dressing up, yelling “fuck you” to strangers, and vigorously and obnoxiously arguing “my team good, you’re team bad” is acceptable: sporting events.
When applying (intentionally) simple football mob mentality to complex sociopolitical issues the only result is a war.
I’ll say it again – call off the police and let ALL the people with AR-15’s have it out.
And for whoever said that Weimar Germany did something similar I say this: stop fighting the last war. The sooner their bluff is called the sooner we can get this over with. There’s no more moving left without becoming socialist, and the right is finally beginning to refuse further compromise. The left has no concept of liberty or appreciation of our current standard of living, and the right allows their children to be molded by the left. War is inevitable.
I’ve noticed that all the fashion rags that usually clutter the tables at the beauty salons have decided to be “woke”. They are running all manner of vegan/climate change/rape culture/glass ceiling/#metoo columns sandwiched within pages of glossy ads for high end consumption.
Lashback in the time of an evil orange man with mystical powers.
In the author’s footnote Glamor Girl indicates that from within the stultifyingly oppressive patriarchal confines of pleasant, productive, blue-skied Iowa USA she’s courageously ventured a work she’s just as courageously titled God Land, which, if in character, is probably a scathing woke indictment of all of the above mildness.
Odd, since all of the above mildness is in sum the parochial, traditional*, and quite functional recourse to the human condition that tends to be bred in rural settings far from urban intellectual cancers and just as oddly, tends to be built on a gentle, civil, polite, and accountable morality that simply elects to regard a higher power and how to get from birth to death in the least unsociable or negative way possible: Vegetable stands, (unattended cash boxes), volunteer potlucks, community quiltings, looking in on the neighbors because you always have, charity and generally chipping in (ditto), ‘evening ma’ams and good day sirs, open windows and unlocked doors, and eventually, nice, thoughtful, respectful funerals.
Oppressive shit like never having to take the keys from the ignition (or apparently, having to deal with chapped nipples, that royal SOB your father).
Postmodernism enlightenment is as malignant as its functional religion and clinical condition Progressivism. They ruin minds. Either that or they are the hand-in-glove resort of a ruined mind.
* https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1069422483411894278
#DelusionsofAdequacy
Which is to say: what is this woman’s problem? And how could she see a couple’s therapist every week without somebody observing that perhaps napping and crying for seven hours a day while the kids are at school is not healthy behavior?
I think the answer lies in this, which required a little fixing:
People with Cluster B personality disorders
are very good at telling people what they want to hear. Thatincludes psychiatrists. They may be mentally illMoving on…
One would think that at some point in the process, somebody would ask, “Is this really the sort of thing we want to share in our Who-Is-She-Wearing magazine?”
Why not? Seems perfect for the intended audience. People significantly occupied with the clothes other people wear surely would be interested in what other people believe, so as to be more like those other people. It’s actually less superficial than the interest in their clothes.
As for #DelusionsofAdequacy, they’re not delusions if the side that they oppose simply surrenders. Or better yet, has the cops and so-called legal system on its side to look the other way and yet slice like a F#$#& hammer when appropriate.
It strikes me that neither a daughter’s television-watching nor the boiling of a pot of water are generally considered triggers for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Anything can be a trigger for PTSD. Trauma plays hob with the brain, and the brain will often fixate on irrelevant details.
Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War has a story about repeatedly going to his car and—as I recall—operating something, like opening a particular door or so, and at that point suddenly being aware that He Should Expect To Die Immediately . . . and then he would get to go off on whatever commute or errand run with that running through his head.
After some while the realization finally arrived about a feature of a particular helicopter used in the Vietnam War to delver Marines into combat. The pilot would flip a switch, the back hatch would swing down to deliver Marines to a very likely death in combat—and during that, there would be a very particular Whiirrr—which managed to be duplicated exactly by something in his car many years later in a totally peaceful civilian environment—except that the back of the brain just don’t do civilian vs military, it just knows that when the sound occurs, all hell is about to be expected . . . . . . .
One would think that at some point in the process, somebody would ask, “Is this really the sort of thing we want to share in our Who-Is-She-Wearing magazine?”
Why not? Seems perfect for the intended audience. People significantly occupied with the clothes other people wear surely would be interested in what other people believe, so as to be more like those other people.
There are a fair number of Brits here, right? Watch a few episodes of Keeping Up Appearances. That’ll tell you everything you need to know about why an article like this is in a women’s magazine.
Lyz sounds clinically depressed and in need of remedial spelling lessons.
Vegetable stands, (unattended cash boxes),
During the summer there’s one of those, unmolested, just down the road. Somehow the words ‘honesty box’ seem to do the trick. Across town, where I grew up, the thing would be stolen within minutes and probably on fire.
Watch a few episodes of Keeping Up Appearances.
Heh. Now there’s an unexpected cultural reference.
[ Shudders. ]
He does seem a bit of a crisis actor…
Those are some mighty dry cheeks he’s got there.
…during that, there would be a very particular Whiirrr…
For my father, a combat medic over there ‘70-‘71, the triggers are olfactory. Didn’t stop him from having a long and very successful career doing something manifestly productive.
Vegetable stands, (unattended cash boxes),
During the summer there’s one of those, unmolested, just down the road. Somehow the words ‘honesty box’ seem to do the trick.
Those of us who’ve used them can attest that it’s not free markets, supply and demand, or capitalism and the threat of a withdrawn abused user-operated fresh vegetable or fruit stand that keeps things honest…
Across town, where I grew up, the thing would be stolen within minutes and probably on fire.
…it’s a simple cultural referent rooted in morality. The Golden Rule. Because it’s right. Normals are advised this isn’t political. Nor is for not for keeps.
…she’s courageously ventured a work she’s just as courageously titled God Land, which, if in character, is probably a scathing woke indictment of all of the above mildness.
That seriously sounds like an Iowahawk parody (but I’m sure she’s dead serious). Heart of Redness was his take on NY Times reporters venturing into the primitive hinterlands.
Also, my ex-girlfriend’s mother (RIP) absolutely adored Keeping Up Appearances.
Isn’t blocking somebody from walking down the street while holding a rifle felony kidnapping?
Those of us who’ve used them can attest that it’s not free markets, supply and demand, or capitalism and the threat of a withdrawn abused user-operated fresh vegetable or fruit stand that keeps things honest…
…it’s the fact that in most rural small towns, there hasn’t been a social safety net to fall back on until relatively recently and your neighbours are crucial to your ability to survive in lean times. Piss off your neighbours and you starve.
Ooh, hot take:
And,
The Guardian’s Jason Wilson claims that Mr Ngo was “stirring shit” and “provoking certain kinds of behaviour” by… er, well, just existing, apparently. As yet, no evidence of the alleged “incitement” has been forthcoming, despite repeated requests. And presumably, everything would be fine and not-at-all-sinister if people would just stop noticing mobs of far-left bedlamites, whose lawbreaking and creepy behaviour is always someone else’s fault.
@Sam
That was me.
And for whoever said that Weimar Germany did something similar I say this: stop fighting the last war. The sooner their bluff is called the sooner we can get this over with.
You get escalation when each side is certain that their own next step up the ladder will be the last one. I.E. the other side is weak and bluffing, and as soon as our side escalates, we win, game over.
It seems to me that your suggestion is more an expression of frustration (with which I sympathize) than a plan for action, but for the sake of argument:
Antifa currently looks like a bunch of wimpy losers with a fetish for violence, and that they will be dispersed by three angry men with calloused knuckles. This may be true now. But half the reason they look so pathetic is that they routinely fail to encounter force. For all we know, Antifa contains 5% strong men with charismatic leaders and a thirst for bullying and violence. When Antifa starts to routinely encounter forceful pushback, half the soyboys will melt away, but these 5% will emerge, thrive, take leadership, and recruit like-minded fellows.
Conversely, right-wing groups may now consist of law-abiding citizens who are fed up with lawlessness, but once their groups embrace lawlessness as a policy, these people will melt away, or change their attitudes. A taste for getting your way through force is easy to develop. You can get out-of-control street fighting from repeatedly escalating one more step because this time we’ll teach them a lesson.
Consider, also, some practical problems. You believe one forceful pushback will disperse them permanently, or weaken their appeal. However, forceful pushbacks don’t always turn out the way you expect. There is a lesson to be learned here from Israel’s struggle with Gaza. In operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), Hamas got its ass handed to it, tactically speaking. One might think that this would be a sufficient deterrent against launching missiles or digging tunnels, but no. The diplomatic repercussions, including the Goldstone report, was enough to convince Hamas that future provocations would not be met with similar force. Hence a series of little wars since then.
I’m not advocating passivity. But knee-jerk reactions born of frustration can and do backfire. The best response would be one which is restrained in its means, overwhelming in its force, and unassailably legitimate. This means using the existing institutions of the state. Sometimes they act slowly. But retrospectively, it’s better to have waited (even a few years) and acted successfully than the act prematurely. I can give you another example. When Ariel Sharon took in late 2000 after the start of the second intifada, you can be sure he wanted nothing better than to send the IDF in to smash everything remotely related to Arafat. Instead, he waited, making sure of American backing and popular (Israeli) support. When he finally acted in April 2002, he was able to do a proper job of it.
And presumably, everything would be fine and not-at-all-sinister if people would just stop noticing mobs of far-left bedlamites, whose lawbreaking and creepy behaviour is always someone else’s fault.
That.
That.
The extent to which a woke worldview is premised on not noticing things is quite remarkable, and increasingly so.
Mr Wilson seems to believe that he’s both righteous and heroic for “calling out” Mr Ngo.
Again, presumably, there are some things we shouldn’t be allowed to see.
…“provoking certain kinds of behaviour”..
” Look what you made me do.” is what the real crazies say.”
(from Larry Niven)
“Look what you made me do” is what the real crazies say.
As noted before, it’s interesting just how often leftist psychology evokes the wife-beater’s whispered lament: “Don’t make me hurt you, baby. You know I hate hurting you.”
…it’s the fact that in most rural small towns, there hasn’t been a social safety net to fall back on until relatively recently and your neighbours are crucial to your ability to survive in lean times. Piss off your neighbours and you starve.
Respectfully disagree. As I said, it’s simple morality, the outcome component of a functional society. It’s the good Samaritan on a highway even today. It’s a fundamental mindset largely or even entirely unrelated to survival. It’s how the stand down the road from David’s functions, probably not because he fears its loss threatens him, but because the conscious will do do the right thing prevails, in probably the same way that blogging about bedlamitism carries an important kernel of observational, rational objectivity at the same time as it’s a warning for society.
Obviously survival counts, but populations of fools and criminals survive too. In the case of simple honest charity and trust in one’s fellow the core is because it is a good thing.
I’ll never see the fruit stand in the north country whose cash box I enriched thirteen years ago and I knew it then. I had no motive except to swap X for Y, the contract being as real as it was voluntary and mutual. We simply understood one another and the transaction was, perhaps, a silent nod to not agreeing to descend into the mud, one dollar at a time.
This means using the existing institutions of the state.
Therein lies the problem. What happens when the state refuses to act or discharge its responsibilities as we have seen repeatedly in places like Portland and Seattle? Or, given the nature of governance in places like Portland, what happens when the Mayor is on the side of the bad guys? When you have police standing around watching innocent passersby get assaulted or suggesting that the innocent provoked their own distress, you tend to lose your faith in the “institutions of state.” As a bit of hundred year old writing by some dead white guys noted, the purpose of government is secure unalienable rights of the people. That’s clearly not happening.
As I said, it’s simple morality, the outcome component of a functional society.
May I suggest, however, it is a morality which is not based upon a “social contract,” at least in total. What I mean by that is that contracts exist because they are beneficial to both sides. The question, however, is what happens when that contract breaks down. That is, when it becomes more beneficial to ignore the socially constructed morality than to comport oneself in conformance with it.
There are those, however, who believe that moral concepts, i.e. Thou shalt not steal, are transcendent. They exist independently of human creation or social give-and-take. For such people, refraining from stealing fruit or a cash box is inconceivable whether or not they derive any benefit from the existence of the fruit stand itself.
@R. Sherman
The state is not a monolith, and it is not immovable. How quickly do you expect the state to respond to a new stimulus? Any discussion about whether the institutions of the state have failed irremediably has to take into account the time-frame. It is not enough to say that the state is not acting correctly now; it is also not enough to say that it has not been acting correctly for a long time; it is also not enough to state that things are getting worse and worse.
What is enough? The citizen has a duty to raise an outcry, to force his politicians to act. To make them realize that not acting means losing the next election. To let other would-be mayors and politicians organize parties to take advantage of the new vote-attracting cause. To give them time to take power, and see if they betray the cause which bore them into office. If no outcry has been organized, you cannot say enough time has passed. Perhaps the citizens have been remiss in organizing themselves, and ought to blame themselves. Perhaps a large majority prefers to live in this chaos, and the rest should pack up and leave for Texas. That’s one of the advantages of a large, federated state. And, of course, perhaps an angry and uniformly-minded citizenry has been actively suppressed for years by the very machinery which is supposed to respond to it – in which case, I will have to say that perhaps you are right.
Now, I know very little about what is going on in Portland. Have there been demonstrations 40,000-strong protesting the current state of affairs? Have there been candidates promising to suppress Antifa? Why not? Has someone perhaps been actively suppressing such organizations? If so, perhaps an argument can be made that the failure is greater than what I have perceived. But if not, then what we have here is simply a clear-sighted individual (yourself) correctly identifying a problem and its solution. But if we allow small groups of clear-sighted individuals to suspend the regular machinery of political change, then lots of small groups of fanatically-minded individuals will also attempt to avail themselves of the same lever. And this will be much worse.
Perhaps the political process has not yet failed. Perhaps it has only just begun.
Re the Glamour story, I had an epiphany recently that might be of interest to other members of the feminists-are-bonkers-o-sphere.
Women love sob stories.
I can’t help noticing all those terrible-looking women’s magazines, the covers of which feature brightly-coloured logos, photos of smiling women, and headlines like “My husband made me watch as he and my sister ate my children”. Or the “painful lives” section in my local bookshop. Or the Rolling Stone “Rape on Campus” story, after which women on TV said it proved they lived in a culture that hates women.
And I remember watching a documentary about British comics. Back in the early 70s one of the publishers undertook some market research on what girls wanted to read, and the overwhelming response was “make us cry”. They responded by ramping up the cruelty, with stories like “The Blind Ballerina” and “Slaves of War Orphan Farm”. I remember one of the editors saying they tried it in boys’ comics too, but boys would only accept it if the hero overcame the cruelty and defeated whoever was inflicting it. For girls, it was enough for the heroine to endure it.
Now, why women love sob stories, I don’t know. But the fact that they do, I think explains almost all women’s media, and about two-thirds of feminism (the other third of feminism is explained by men’s impulse, whenever they encounter an upset woman, to either try and make it all better, or failing that, make her shut up).
Also note that Woke Megaphone Lady, the one denouncing others as “racist, sexist, anti-gay,” is the same Woke Megaphone Lady who suggests that Mr Ngo has a “teeny-tiny-weeny-penis.”
Wait, I’m confused — isn’t body-shaming meant to be wrong? Or does that only apply when the targets of your shaming are fat left-wingers?
@Zionist Overlord
Perhaps, I am overly pessimistic, but it seems to me that the political solutions are indeed failing. In a perfect world, the citizenry would express its dissatisfaction at the ballot box and there would be peaceable change. Sadly, it appears as though that option is being subverted. See, e.g. ballot counting shenanigans in Florida, California and other places last month. Or the attempts to sabotage the current administration’s efforts at border security. Or the demands that checks and balances on the unfettered power of the demos like the Electoral College be jettisoned. Further, the simple tasks of government, i.e. protecting citizens’ ability go from point A to point B in peace are being ignored. Rather, we hear from politicians that the bedlamites must be “given room” to engage in their tantrums, including blocking roads and assaulting random people for daring to ignore the miscreants’ extra-legal demands.
Space does not permit a recitation of the myriad of examples, but the archives of these pages contain quite a few of them.
What we’re seeing is a marriage of convenience between those like ANTIFA for whom ideology is the animating factor and those who view ideology as a means to the end of attaining and maintaining power over the rest of us. Both sides are using the other and both sides, for the moment, have the same motivation. They enjoy exercising this power for the fun of it and/or because they get some sort of onanistic gratification from it.
I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not. I’d be perfectly happy to regularly cast my ballots at the firehouse down the road in my bucolic corner of Flyoverlandia and live my life in peace. I’m not sure that I will be able to do that for much longer given where the trajectory of current events seems to be headed.
Regards.
May I suggest, however, [that trust and just regard for trust] is a morality which is not based upon a “social contract,” at least in total. What I mean by that is that contracts exist because they are beneficial to both sides. The question, however, is what happens when that contract breaks down. That is, when it becomes more beneficial to ignore the socially constructed morality than to comport oneself in conformance with it.
The upshot of a benefits-based trust – a contract presumably by law – is that compliance is predicated on choice (or involuntary circumstance) become an enforceable instrument, whereas only true individual choice in the abstract – here, as a moral effort and extension regardless of benefit of external outcome – is not. Obviously, even altruism doesn’t describe what can be sheer goodness – yes, morality need not be based in the social contract.
There are those, however, who believe that moral concepts, i.e. Thou shalt not steal, are transcendent. They exist independently of human creation or social give-and-take. For such people, refraining from stealing fruit or a cash box is inconceivable whether or not they derive any benefit from the existence of the fruit stand itself.
Correct, and those same people can be inclined toward a rights-based social contract as well, where rights are seen as transcendent.
I’d question that. The individual may extend goodness without either practical motive or concern for the result, but a right is a public concern and claim temporized by the powers that be. We can claim a right is transcendent, but only a goodness – owing to its incontrovertibly individual element – actually is.
Rights are a claim against power as the social contract is an appeal to it or a regard for exigencies. A will of mind may however be transcendent. When the social contract breaks down the individual choice need not.
@R. Sherman
But there is another world in between the ideal world in which casting a ballot once every four years is all that is necessary to ensure peaceable rule, and the one you describe, in which the only option is to shoot antifa thugs in the face. This is the world in which vacillating, power-grabbing politicians are slowly coerced by the general populace into doing their duty via peaceful means. This, I think, is the world the founding fathers envisioned, which is why they bothered to include in the first amendment the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. They had no illusions about an ideal world. They knew perfectly well that government would tend to be derelict in its duty, and would have to be corrected by the people.
This has to actually be attempted seriously before you resort to vigilante groups. The Antifa-enabling mayor of Portland is probably not supporting them through deep conviction. He sees them as representing the people, so he rushes to their side in order to appear popular. Get 40K voters marching through the streets over and over again, and the same man will rush to the front of each protest to denounce the current lawlessness – all through the faults of his predecessor, naturally. Once the worm turns, the police will change their tune, and the thugs will be rounded up, all the while everyone in power pretends that this was always their policy.
Get 40K voters marching through the streets over and over again
Did that in 2010, and the middle-age soccer moms were labeled “racists” and the overly polite “Tea Party” protestors were called “terrorist groups” by the Democrats and virtually every media outlet, although they helped the GOP regain control of Congress. But that appears to have been a one-off. Getting ordinary workaday conservative or moderate voters out on the street to protest is no easy task. For one thing, they have jobs and bills to pay, and taking time off for repeated street protests is not a attractive option. When “Antifa” intimidation and street thuggery is limited to leftist bubbles like Portland or Seattle, actual working people just avoid them, especially when it becomes apparent that law enforcement has no intention of helping them.
But there is another world in between the ideal world in which casting a ballot once every four years is all that is necessary to ensure peaceable rule, and the one you describe, in which the only option is to shoot antifa thugs in the face. This is the world in which vacillating, power-grabbing politicians are slowly coerced by the general populace into doing their duty via peaceful means.
I don’t disagree, though I cast my ballot at least twice a year, if you include various municipal elections for the water district, school board, miscellaneous elective offices for my county and tax proposals. In fact, in my corner of the hinterland, things function rather well. In truth, I’m not particularly affected by the insanity on the coasts. For heaven’s sakes, I’ve gone on a two week vacation and accidentally left my front door unlocked to no ill-effect. (See discussion of morality with “Ten” above.)
The problem as I see it, is that that those of us of like mind–those of us who had “civics” classes in elementary school and grew up revering the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and an idealized view of the U.S. find ourselves in a world we never imagined. I’m a lawyer. (Forgive special pleading.) I know about the First Amendment. I’ve defended people who’ve attempted to exercise their rights under it. Sadly, what we’re seeing is a suppression of those rights of free speech, assembly and exercising religion when the assertion of those rights conflicts with the Progressive program. It happens regularly now across the country because those who have sworn to protect defend those rights, as I do every year when I renew my law license, honor their oath in the breach thereof. When politicians say that one groups demonstration is “provocative” or “inciting” of violence and therefore unworthy of protection while allowing actual assaults by a different group to go unpunished or while celebrating those same actual assaults and property damage as holy and pure, we have a significant problem which peaceful civic institutions can no longer solve. In fact, those peaceful civic institutions exist only in memory.
I may be misreading your remarks, and if so, I apologize. But it seems to me, we’re in the midst of a power play of lasting significance if it is allowed to continue. I’d like to think otherwise. I’d like to believe that reason and logic will carry the field. But it won’t, if it is suppressed by masked thugs running amok in the streets, aided and abetted by politicians who use the mayhem for their own advantage and who manipulate the civic institutions which we revere for their own nefarious ends.
As I said, I’m a pessimist. Still, I hope to be proven wrong. Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.
@Zionist
You’re correct that I’m exasperated by these people, and itching to give them the fight they say they want.
You also make convincing points that the slow mechanism of government is far better than civil war, and that the electorate is largely to blame for our situation.
But my general feeling is civil war is inevitable, so let’s get it over with. It’s inevitable because one “side” believes very strongly in attaining and using power to achieve their ideological goals, while the “other side” is simply not that interested in political power. The people who make up Team Sane’s base are interested in wiving and thriving, largely wishing to be left alone. That, coupled with the great material wealth of our age unfortunately guarantees apathy. So the slumbering hordes of normies will be indifferent until they are surprised to find themselves having to choose sides in an imminent fight over the very meaning of our modern states. And in the meantime people like me will dutifully petition our government (who will ignore us) and ponder that value of our vote vis a vis the value of good marksmanship.
Here’s hoping you’re right and I’m woefully wrong.
So the slumbering hordes of normies will be indifferent until they are surprised to find themselves having to choose sides in an imminent fight over the very meaning of our modern states. And in the meantime people like me will dutifully petition our government (who will ignore us) and ponder that value of our vote vis a vis the value of good marksmanship.
Good points, well made.
I think you’ll find that in the U.S. the slumbering normies don’t care about the meaning of the modern state. As long they have sportsball, SUVs, and shopping they’ll submit. And why shouldn’t we? Resistance is futile.
As long they have sportsball, SUVs, and shopping they’ll submit.
You might be right, but the left is coming after sportsball (NFL protests, woke basketball players), SUVs (global warming etc), and shopping (internet sales tax – admittedly not a leftist initiative, the war on the gig economy, plastic bag banning, etc).
My point is by the time they have their bread and circuses banned and/or regulated beyond enjoyment it will be too late, and they will have to pick sides in a war they didn’t want.
The problem is not that there are violent sociopathic tards willing to don the cape of political righteousness in order to destroy property and bash heads. Such people have always been among us.
The problem is that the police are often reluctant to arrest and prosecute law breakers, and that main stream journalists are willing to dismiss their antics as inconsequential. There is no adult supervision.
I don’t know, Sam, today’s Americans are pretty domesticated. I can’t see an uprising.
Y’all are missing the point. None of this would be happening if not for the simple fact, as stated very succinctly by Breitbart himself, that politics is downstream from culture. The fight is in the schools, in the media, in the churches, in the movie theaters, even now in the sports arenas, etc., not the streets or even the mayor’s office. Though at least the latter would be something of a start. The vast majority of “conservative” people, even many pro-Trump people, may express one or two little aspects of frustration with what is going on but on the whole are indifferent and/or afraid to say, let alone do, anything about the situation. I would guess that a good number of Trump supporters are totally unaware of what has been going on in Portland and in this specific issue in Seattle. Very few of them have any idea that there’s a Lenin statue in Seattle. Every time I mention it to a “conservative” person out here in meat space, they are incredulous. Then they write it off as a one-off. Fox News is the most “conservative” news outlet and even they don’t cover a lot of this sort of thing. Thus it gets dismissed as Alex Jones or similar crackpot news. Not that many people know who Alex Jones is. This is still significantly true of criticisms of our education system. It is a sacred cow. Most people, again even “conservatives” know next to nothing about what goes on at many of our universities. They presume Missouri or Berkeley are one-offs. And this is especially strong in many “smart” people. They have tremendous faith in their own smart-ness and thus are sympatico with other credentialed smart people, thus their faith in the various Keynesian and such economic gurus and other charlatans like Jonathan Gruber at MIT and then presume criticisms of academia are simply jealousy and ignorance.
That said, the next time the Police Benevolent Association calls me for anything, they’re getting an earful about this sort of crap. I no longer consider myself a supporter of the police. I’m pretty sick of their excuses. I understand how they got to this point but until I see more cops like the one in Milwaukee (or wherever he’s from) standing up, loudly and consistently, in unison to push back on this pensions be damned, they’ve lost me.
… today’s Americans are pretty domesticated. I can’t see an uprising.
That sort of sentiment has been repeated going back to before 1776, usually to the chagrin of those who tried to act on it. It doesn’t take all Americans to make an uprising, and “anti”fa has no particular real will to fight as evidenced by their lack of performance when even mild resistance is put up. Their antics are confined to shitholes like Portland, Seattle, and DC because they know the people of East Overshoe, Alassippi won’t put up with it at all.
Rarely, if ever, is an uprising pulled off by a majority of a population. There are some 65 million people in France, among the most domesticated people on the planet, yet a comparative handful of “Yellow Vests”, certainly less than 1% of the population, brought the country to a screeching halt and had Macron about to soil his pants.
The nitwits of “anti”fa”, despite their exposure in the press, are a minority that control nothing of note compared to real people. A handful of truckers and electric linemen, OTOH, could shut down Portland, and I don’t care if even the 5% of the “anti”fa bozos estimated above think they are savages, there are far more normals who actually know what it is like to be a flesh colored pop-up target and aren’t going to run in fear and terror from some fat chick in camo wearing a red scarf (a handy aiming point, BTW).
WTP, I couldn’t agree more on conservatives, especially in regards to K-12 schooling. How many rightwingers reflexively slurred Obama as a socialist and recoil from feminism’s more prominent excesses only to turn around and vigorously defend public schools – a cesspit of leftist feminist indoctrination (yes, even the “good” ones) that’s taxpayer funded and administered by government officials who are left of Mao?
Anyway, enough doom and gloom. We are the people who produced Butt Pillows. We will fight. And we will win.
politics is downstream from culture.
When prisoners lost their concert party privileges because of escape attempts, Solzhenitzen said, “Because culture is a good thing. But culture must serve oppression, not freedom.”
How many rightwingers reflexively slurred Obama as a socialist and recoil from feminism’s more prominent excesses only to turn around and vigorously defend public schools
The public school is only the beginning. The complete list of rightist authorities is no shorter and no less entrenched than the left’s. Given the rightist’s dependence on order, structure, and especially commerce, it’s probably longer and certainly no less well defended, starting with the very foundations of the national establishment.
When prisoners lost their concert party privileges because of escape attempts, Solzhenitzen said, “Because culture is a good thing. But culture must serve oppression, not freedom.”
Umm..so we agree, right? I’m so confused anymore. Especially when I’m sober.
The public school is only the beginning. The complete list of rightist authorities is no shorter and no less entrenched than the left’s. Given the rightist’s dependence on order, structure, and especially commerce, it’s probably longer and certainly no less well defended, starting with the very foundations of the national establishment.
Well one might think so. But the rot has seeped into the private schools as well. Especially the parochial ones, excluding the most extreme, thanks to the hard left turns many of the churches have made. A fault I lay at the feet of the religious right for their dogmatic refusal to acknowledge that there was much about the world that they simply refused to even try to understand because they already had their answers.
Umm..so we agree, right?
Yes @WTP we agree. Culture gets used as a bludgeon. You’ll have to excuse me, I have a Solzhenitzen fetish.
I’m so confused anymore. Especially when I’m sober.
Let me buy you a drink to take the edge off. I think I know where David keeps the good stuff.
Let me buy you a drink to take the edge off. I think I know where David keeps the good stuff
Hollowed out floor under the dishwasher. Don’t ask how I know but let’s just say that trailbike rack on the henchlesbians’ Subaru wasn’t factory equipment.
Solzhenitzen said, “Because culture is a good thing. But culture must serve oppression, not freedom.”
Translation: The status quo controls culture. And the status quo is hierarchical.
Politics is downstream from culture
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/12/james-ostrowski/what-america-has-done-to-its-young-people-is-appalling/
@Ten
The article you link makes observations which have been made before, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less accurate, especially the bill of goods feminists sold to women. While there are no doubt women who have had successful careers outside the home, the majority toil away in lower end jobs and wind up spending most of their wages on additional taxes, childcare, transportation and healthcare when your kid is exposed to some other kid’s illness because his/her parent can’t take a day off from work to care for a sick child. Further, those daycare costs encourage parents to stick their children in public schools at an earlier age to get out from under the expense.
My wife and I sacrificed a lot compared to our peers by forgoing a second income and refusing to send our kids to “free” public schools. Given how they turned out, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Ten,
Agree with much of that article. We could get into a chicken/egg argument there in its intro argument that politics influences culture. It definitely can to some degree, but even then it was the culture that leads the politicians or rulers or whatever to make the cultural impacting laws. Government is a mostly reactive element. Things happen, government does something. When government tries to lead it only makes things worse. It was the culture that changed, that’s why it took from the approximate 1916 timeframe until the 1970’s for it to truly f things up. The forces of evil in this bozo nightmare had to first take over the universities, the news and entertainment media, the primary schools, and even the churches before they could get the traction to get into power in government to really solidify their hold.
the bill of goods feminists sold to women
wind up spending most of their wages on additional taxes, childcare, transportation and healthcare
I know a staggeringly large number of families where the wife has a diploma in
glorified babysittingEarly Childhood Education and works at a day care for barely above minimum wage, while their children are placed in another day care at exorbitant rates.More than once, I’ve done back-of-the-envelope calculations that show conclusively that this nets out to cost them money rather than making it and that they’d be better off financially if the wife just stayed home with the kids. The response, inevitably, is that the wife would never agree to that because she had to have her job.
@Sherman
@Sam
And others.
I think we understand each other, even if we disagree on certain points.
Allow me to post an illustration of the process, as it unfolds before our eyes in the UK. Here we have a video of Tommy Robinson updating his followers about a pro-brexit demonstration planned in London on Dec. 9th… and then the camera pans to show Gerard Batten, leader of UKIP, who gives a short (ha) speech.
What’s happened here is that Gerard Batten is reinventing UKIP as an anti-islamization populist party, publicly aligning himself with center-right figures such as Tommy Robinson (and Paul Joseph Watson and others). These people are usually called far-right racists in the left-wing media, and this is giving Gerard no little headache. There are quite a few videos of interviews with him defending this decision. The only reason he’s made this decision (well, apart from the dire situation his party found itself in, but never mind that) is the large online following which these people evidently hold – a following strong enough to generate six duffel bags full of letters over 2 months, and hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations.
This cooperation has been half a year in the making, if not more, starting when Gerard and Lord Pearson spoke up for Tommy right after his imprisonment in late May. Gerard tried to get Tommy into the party as a member, but ran into difficulties, so now he’s got him as an unpaid advisor, which sounds to me like little more than a public announcement of mutual trust and cooperation, but this announcement is significant. It’ll be interesting to see what happens on Dec. 9th, and how UKIP does in the next elections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAxRjtMpMmc