Lifted from the comments, regarding recent scenes from Portland. Though it applies to the Mao-ling left more generally.
This is what happens when malevolent narcissists don’t get slapped and thrown to the ground. The kind of psychology we’re seeing, over and over again, overwhelmingly from the left, is an exercise in bad faith, a fundamental dishonesty. It therefore isn’t amenable to correction with facts or debate, or appeals to reciprocity or some higher purpose. Tolerating such behaviour – and worse, deferring to it – will only encourage an escalation of vanity, malice and sociopathy. It may, however, be discouraged with reminders of physical consequences. Ideally, physical humiliation. A reminder that nasty little egos can be publicly broken.
These are people who will lie as readily as breathing in order to excuse their antisocial urges. They aren’t being obnoxious reluctantly, in desperation, or under duress. They harass, provoke and delight in domination because it gives them pleasure. It makes them feel important and powerful. Power being conceived solely as power over others. It’s a focus for their spite. Anything else is a fig leaf, a pretext. Among Portland’s mentally uniform radicals, the ones exulting in the alarm and misery of others, there is no good faith. And so, you can’t engage with such creatures on their own ostensible terms.
Because that’s not what it’s ultimately about.
Update, via the comments:
In the video linked above, note the planning, the efforts to maximise the imposition and its somewhat menacing implications. Someone sat down and thought, “How can we really aggravate hundreds of random people, ordinary families, about whom we know nothing, and make them feel unsafe in their own homes?” And then, other, like-minded people agreed, presumably with enthusiasm.
This isn’t politics. This is recreational sociopathy.
The Mao-lings who obstruct and intimidate random motorists, or who harass random restaurant customers, scaring their children, or who, as seen above, scream amplified profanities at random people trying to sleep, while shining lights into their bedrooms – they don’t do these things because they care about civil rights, or policing, or whatever this week’s Issue Of Great Concern happens to be. They do it because menacing other people – and spoiling someone’s day, or night, arbitrarily – is gratifying. If, that is, you’re a certain kind of person. They are, as it were, pleasuring themselves.
It’s interesting just how often “social justice” posturing entails something that looks an awful lot like spite or petty malice, or an attempt to harass and dominate, or some other obnoxious behaviour. Behaviour that, without a “social justice” pretext, might get you called a wanker or a bitch. A coincidence, I’m sure.
And yet, we’re apparently expected to believe that these self-imagined warriors are only exerting themselves – selflessly, heroically – for the benefit of black people.
Update 2:
Inevitably, there’s more.
Update 3:
Comments
66 responses to “Shamelessly, He Quotes Himself”
Conveniently, I was just wondering what I could use as my QotD entry on Monday morning. “I’ll see what David’s been posting about lately, and … Bingo!”
Conveniently, I was just wondering what I could use as my QotD entry on Monday morning.
[ Admires self in mirror, licks own eyebrows. ]
Very well said.
They want control of others – but lack control of themselves.
They want control of others – but lack control of themselves.
That.
Common (and successful) parental advice now deemed too “controversial”.
They want control of others – but lack control of themselves.
Quite. What’s remarkable, I think, is how we’ve seen such behaviour being excused and indulged, often via elaborate contortion, as if the impulse in play were somehow well-meaning or the result of high principle. But the wokelings who obstruct and intimidate random motorists, or who scream amplified profanities at random people trying to sleep, while shining lights into their bedrooms – they don’t do these things because they care about civil rights, or policing, or whatever this week’s pretext happens to be. They do it because menacing other people – and spoiling someone’s day, or night, arbitrarily – is gratifying.
If, that is, you’re a certain kind of person.
As I’ve said before,
One more time. They are not good people. They do not mean well.
I don’t why this popped up in my recommended videos today … I couldn’t stop watching.
or who scream amplified profanities at random people trying to sleep, while shining lights into their bedrooms
I thought disturbing the peace was a crime.
They aren’t being obnoxious reluctantly, in desperation, or under duress. They harass, provoke and delight in domination because it gives them pleasure.
‘Related’…
https://pjmedia.com/election/victoria-taft/2020/08/22/woman-who-stole-7-year-olds-trump-hat-is-arrested-for-that-and-a-lot-more-n827375
Thanks Darleen, cold, wet and miserable here today and I’ve been feeling a bit flat – I am now smiling 🙂
I thought disturbing the peace was a crime.
Assuming you have a mayor, and a wider political culture, that regards the law as something to be upheld, and upheld without favour. And again, note the planning, the efforts to maximise the imposition and its somewhat menacing implications. Someone sat down and thought, “How can we really aggravate hundreds of random people, ordinary families, about whom we know nothing, and make them feel unsafe in their own homes?”
This is recreational sociopathy.
I couldn’t stop watching.
[ Mood improves. ]
Because that’s not what it’s ultimately about.
Their ultimate aim is power: complete and unchallengeable power. And they use the tactics they use because they work; and they work only because a large percentage of the Establishment support their aims.
Your average antifa ‘soldier’ is a either a brain-washed student or a mentally ill, drug-taking weirdo, but the people who direct them are very smart, determined and ruthless: and they won’t stop until they are stopped by force.
They’re actually throwing shit at people now.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1297249506015285248
They’re actually throwing shit at people now.
But hey, don’t forget, they’re only doing all this, selflessly, heroically, for the benefit of black people.
Didn’t you know?
Remember how you asked yourself how any of that could happen when you watched Schindler’s List?
How is the guy kicking that truck driver in the head after the crowd beat him senseless any different than the camp commander randomly shooting the prisoners?
In a healthy society, sociopaths are handled as a matter of course. They are shunned, ignored, and left powerless. When they step outside of the law, they are charged, prosecuted, and punished. People of conscience are not victimized by these predators.
But now we have a political class that caters to these thugs, thinking it tolerant and virtuous, leaving law-abiding citizens to fend for themselves. It’s a shameful display of ignorance and cowardice, and those jurisdictions where psychopaths run free will likely be rewarded with decades of crime and poverty as those who wish to live in a productive society flee.
“It’s a shameful display of ignorance and cowardice”
How about “a conscious betrayal”?
Figuring out what’s going on in the mind of rioters and looters is relatively easy. Many are adrenaline junkies who enjoy vioence. Figuring out what their enablers are thinking is the real trick, and is probably quite varied.
But they are even more culpable than the rioters, as they are in a position of public trust. “Betrayal” is the correct word.
“they’re only doing all this,”
But they’re the anti-fascists because… er… they, the people breaking windows and kicking people in the head, say so.
Of course, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party wasn’t socialist. They were just… um… saying… they… were. Hmm.
People are breaking every window they see.
Need a phrase for that. How about “Night of the Broken Glass”, or Krystalnacht in German.
In a healthy society, sociopaths are handled as a matter of course. They are shunned, ignored, and left powerless…
And yet, as Daniel noted a while ago, many educational institutions seem hellbent on actively cultivating sociopathy, resulting in things like this. (And again, these creatures have been educated, most likely at some expense.)
Not unrelated:
https://quillette.com/2020/08/16/the-challenge-of-marxism/
“Not unrelated:”
The first few paragraphs are great. Then…
Uh-oh…
He then goes on to cite examples not in which Marxism is correct, but, like the Biblical serpent, some in which it’s seductively wrong. I see he calls himself a nationalist. In other words, a follower of a rival collectivism.
Wrong. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. They are of equal value in the eyes of their Creator, regardless of their unequal faculties in the temporal world. Furthermore, they may better themselves, or they may succumb to their base urges. But, in the words of Burns (contemporary with the Constitution), “A man’s a man, for a’ that”. “Equal” does not mean “identical”.
Now, it’s certainly true that one of the great dangers currently facing us from the Left is the absurd notion that it must, arising from the same misreading of the Enlightenment. But you’ll never counter Marxism by accepting its errors. You’ll just head off in a different wrong direction, as so many anti-Marxist collectivists already have, with disastrous consequences.
You’ll just head off…
Speaking of which…
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/08/portland-rioters-wheel-guillotine-through-suburbs-execute-american-flag/
Trying to imagine how this will play out in the event of Trump being returned to the White House.
All. Of. That.
All. Of. That.
Given all of the conceivable ways in which a person might wish to highlight some social issue or solicit support for a cause, it’s curious how the Mao-lings’ go-to solutions always entail harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and screwing over others, very often arbitrarily, even the very people they claim to champion. The chosen course of action is invariably a violation of some kind, an attempt to frighten and dominate. Often with ingenuity and planned at some length.
If someone is unhappy about, say, policing policy, and then exults in spite, in obstructing ambulances, or in smashing other people’s businesses, other people’s homes, gleefully bent on terrorising entire neighbourhoods, this is a moral non sequitur. To do this or something similar by default, every time, even when it leaves the vast majority of onlookers repelled and unsympathetic, suggests that there are other, less savoury motives in play.
And by suggests, I mean, makes it bloody obvious.
The chosen course of action is invariably a violation of some kind, an attempt to frighten and dominate. Often with ingenuity and planned at some length.
Any means to the end, any tool that is useful.
https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/08/black-ribbon-day-2019-hitler-stalin.html?m=1
Imposing their misery on normal people seems to be their purpose in life.
And there’s a lot of misery to go around if Antifa mugshots are any indication. These people are hideous.
if Antifa mugshots are any indication.
They’re unhappy, damaged people. And they wish to damage you.
Some are outright sociopaths. And some may be teaching your children.
I never have been good at meeting the expectations of others.
‘Related’…
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1297921550226804737
I thought disturbing the peace was a crime.
It would be if the Governor of Wisconsin did not tweet a thread of support for “all those who have and continue to demand justice, equity, and accountability for Black lives in our country” on THE VERY EVENING OF THE INCIDENT. Calm? Investigation? Rule of law? What does he care for those things when there are rioters to be appeased?
It is one thing for political and corporate leaders to implicitly support the riots by not cracking down or by calling Saint Floyd’s death a murder. Tony Evers in Wisconsin boldly crosses that line by making a statement in support of rioters without even mentioning the destruction they cause. I don’t live within 1,000 miles of that state and its driving me a little crazy.
Tony Evers in Wisconsin boldly crosses that line by making a statement in support of rioters…
This behavior confuses me terribly. The rioters hate the State and its agents. They want to destroy the State and replace it with their idea of a Workers’ Paradise (never mind how that process always ends). They are doing their utmost to force the government to burn through resources chasing them down while simultaneously demoralizing cops and bureaucrats to make recruitment and retention impossible.
While this is going on, the leader of the State goes out in public to ingratiate himself to these mobs. He treats them as though they were the Cool Kids in the school cafeteria, and all he really wants is to sit at their table and hang out with them after school. Except they’re not just calling you “Poindexter,” Tony. They tried to set your house on fire and they’re loudly proclaiming that they won’t rest until they’ve chased you out of the school district entirely.
Also, you’re not a freshman in the chess club — you’re the goddamned Superintendent of Schools. Have some self-respect, for God’s sake.
I wonder if these modern, window-smashing morons have actually heard of Kristallnacht? I suspect none of them have ever studied C20 history and what actually happened to ordinary people, not just Jews, at the hands of the National Socialists of Germany. Perhaps if they had they would use different methods to make their message heard rather than copy the Sturmabteilungen of Hitler and co on Kristallnacht – if they actually have a message? To me they are a classic example of over-grown, self-indulgent toddlers enjoying the power of violent and destructive ‘mob’ tantrum behaviour inflicted on others who are civil and tolerant. Fascist is as fascist does.
This behavior confuses me terribly.
This is going to come across terribly snarky, arrogant, whatever, and do not take this specifically personal, and I know I’ve said this here time and time again, more and more frequently now, but…I told you so. Maybe not you specifically, not to start anyway, and certainly not loudly because I myself didn’t want to believe it, nor did I really want to stick my neck out. But again, some 25 years ago, I saw this day coming because no one wanted to admit that the PC culture had us on a road to perdition. Oh, don’t worry about it people told me. You take these things too seriously, they said. My f’ing ‘conservative’ Presbyterian doctor questioned my sanity. Fuck it. I need a drink and it’s only Monday.
“I wonder if these modern, window-smashing morons have actually heard of Kristallnacht? … Perhaps if they had they would use different methods…”
No, because It’s Not Fascism When We Do It.™
@ WTP: Your post has reminded me of the allegorical tale “Biederman und die Brandstifter” [Biederman and the Fire-starters] written in the 1950s by Max Frisch. In the book Biederman chooses to ignore the obvious and threatening behaviour of the fire-starters who make no attempt to hide their long-term intentions until it is too late, just as AH never hid his intentions as he rose in power.
“Biederman und die Brandstifter”
An excellent play. I never dreamed when I read it long ago that I would find it so starkly applicable to the America around me.
A comic touch: the play has a Greek Chorus of policemen.
An excellent play
Not the Readers’ Digest condensed version but just as well for the uninformed…
https://youtu.be/U9lZGkZTe3w
Apologies for the rant. I went for a walk. I’d like to say I feel better. I’d like to. Different, yes. Better? Not really.
“I’d like to say I feel better. I’d like to. Different, yes. Better? Not really.”
I’ve reached the point in life that I’m glad my life will be over in the next few years as I am old and frustrated by the shear arrogance, divisiveness and stupidity of the lazy, self-indulgent left who never build anything good, but only destroy, all the while proclaiming themselves as the most virtuous beings ever. The Chinese virus forces and also allows me to remain isolated on my small farm where I can enjoy my retirement in honest labour, hoping that I will just drop dead out in the paddocks and never have to enter a retirement home where I would likely become infected and suffer a miserable end.
Not the Readers’ Digest condensed version but just as well for the uninformed…
I was hoping for something like what the Immediate Shakespeare Company did to Hamlet and Othello, but I suppose for objective passing of information your choice was better. 🙂
I am old and frustrated by the shear arrogance, divisiveness and stupidity of the lazy, self-indulgent left
For me it’s similar but different. I am (getting) old and am definitely frustrated by the arrogance and stupidity of virtually everyone I know. About 8 years ago, due to much of this sort of thing affecting me in many ways, especially in my work life, partly into my personal life, my inability to pretend “this is fine”, I was on the edge of suicide. It’s (hopefully) obviously much more complex and complicated than that, but at the time a number of things that I had more or less predicted would happen were finally starting to happen. I’ve since gotten better. Ironically, somewhat, I am processing much of this idiocy better than many people I know. Though I do have a sick desire to find my former doctor’s grave, dig his ass up, prop him up in front of the tv news and scream “SEE!? SEE!? SEE?!” in his ear as I flip through ever station. But seriously…I’m ok now.
I wonder if these modern, window-smashing morons have actually heard of Kristallnacht?
Of course they have. It’s their model.
“This isn’t politics. This is recreational sociopathy”
One flavour of sociopathy invites another. I hope they’re as receptive when they’re on the receiving end. I suspect they won’t enjoy the new civil war as much as they expect.
A workplace proximity acquaintance, who did his National Service in the RSA, swears you can pocket both balls, if you bounce a baton round off the road just right.
Only saying…
For me it’s similar but different. Man, I thought I was the only one. It used to drive me crazy, but I realize there is almost nothing I can do, except vote.
It’s interesting how this is only able to happen where the authorities give the sociopaths space to operate but don’t actively attack their patrons.
CHAZ/CHOP stopped after the thugs attacked the mayor’s House and Lightfoot in Chicago got cross that BLMers threatened her house.
“Biederman und die Brandstifter”
The Guardian approves . . . .
A comic touch: the play has a Greek Chorus of policemen.
. . . albeit the chorus is actually firefighters, but then the play does have arsonists . . .