The Unspanked Speak Of Points
Regarding the obstruction by activists of the Golden Gate Bridge, a not unfair observation:
My toddler’s new thing when I tell him to stop doing something is to respond, “I’m just <literally the thing I’m telling him to stop doing>, so I’ll be like, “get down off that chair” and he’ll say, “I just wanted to be on the chair.” These people are literally toddlers. https://t.co/JrJMgoQ1ZI
— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 15, 2024
And,
Reminder: these people arrive at thought-terminating cliches because their views are extraordinarily stupid and cannot be defended on their own terms. “I should get to shut down the economy any time I’m mad enough about something” sounds so retarded that they have no choice but…
— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 15, 2024
Note the lofty defence offered by our pronoun-stipulating champion of the obstruction – that “protests are meant to be disruptive. It’s the whole point.”
A protest, then, is not meant to persuade the general public, or to get them on-side, or to make others sympathetic with whatever this week’s cause may be. But simply to be disruptive. To gratuitously frustrate, and aggravate, large numbers of law-abiding people. To exert power. By doing random harm. That’s “the whole point.” A vision doubtless attractive to those with antisocial inclinations.
And those inclinations aren’t being indulged and given rein reluctantly or under duress. The screwing-over of others is sought out and chosen, over and over again. This is recreational sociopathy.
We’ve been here before, of course:
It is, I think, worth pondering why it is that these supposed displays of righteousness routinely take the form of obnoxious or bullying or sociopathic behaviour, whereby random people are screwed over and dominated, and often reduced to pleading. Pleading just to get home, or to children, or to work, or to get to the doctor’s surgery. Even ambulances and fire engines can be obstructed, indefinitely, with both impunity and moral indifference. Among our self-imagined betters, it seems to be the go-to approach for practically any purported cause. Which is terribly convenient. Almost as if the supposed activism were more of a pretext, an excuse, a license to indulge pre-existing urges.
And what kind of person would have urges like that?
Hence the need to consider other, less edifying motives.
Update, via the comments, where other illustrations come to mind:
The Mao-lings who obstruct and intimidate random motorists, or who harass random restaurant customers, scaring their children, 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 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.
Update 2:
In the comments, pst314 adds,
Alas, being incorrigible narcissists, I suspect that reciprocation isn’t a restraining factor, or a common feature of their thinking. See, for instance, this rather glorious illustration:
No, really. It turns out that Ms Lydia Gribbin, one of the five protestors, had assumed that only other people’s lifestyles should be curtailed, that only other people’s plans can be thwarted with impunity.
And from which, this bears repeating:
They’re the kind of unspanked little tossers who gleefully vandalise petrol stations, rendering them unusable, while applauding themselves, and who conflate “not being heard” with not being obeyed. The kind of preening dolts who film themselves pouring oil onto busy roads, an act morally analogous to sabotaging the brakes of random cars and motorbikes.
One more time. This is who they are.
[ Fondles tip jar in suggestive manner. ]
“…why it is that these supposed displays of righteousness routinely take the form of obnoxious or bullying or sociopathic behaviour,“
Simple answer – because they are carried out by sociopaths.
And now I’m going to quote myself quoting myself. Because, hey, I can:
They are, as it were, pleasuring themselves.
[ Post updated. ]
Part of the problem, I think, is that our justice system is now overly concerned with motivation. An example of this is the introduction of stronger penalties for crimes motivated by hate.
As a result, the justice system has become hesitant to punish those who they think are motivated by a sense of social outrage, thus embolding protestors to even greater heights of brattishness.
That.
Well, you can imagine the reluctance to be remotely realistic about their own likely motives. Motives that thinking might inadvertently reveal. The risk to their nasty little egos would be quite significant.
So much is staked upon the lie.
Not seeing the kinder, gentler world they keep saying they want…
Ah, but… that’s only because they aren’t yet in charge and don’t have All That Lovely Power Over Others. Once they do, I’m sure they’d suddenly become much nicer people.
And not just narcissistic monsters with lots of power.
It does tie in with the conversation at the end of the previous post – that it is not facts or reality which matter, but feelings, expressions or impressions.
Passing a law dictating a reduction in fossil fuel use is all that matters. It is irrelevant whether there is a plan, or even if such a thing is possible.
Supporting a minimum wage bill is what’s important. No consideration needs to be given to its effects.
Judges and juries incapable of separating how they feel about an act rather than whether there was any objective criminality involved.
The Age of Stupid intersects the Age of the Feels.
Why can’t these wankers realise that the Gaza situation could end tomorrow. All it would take is for Hamas to.put down their weapons and release the hostages. Unfortunately, their leaders, living in luxury in Qatar, won’t let them, such is their hatred of the Jewish state, with the Palestinian people being acceptable casualties. Hamas must be the only current regime with policies designed to kill as many of their own people as possible
Look, all they’re demanding is a peaceful ceasefire so they can continue their rapes, murders and terroristic assaults. It’s the only loving, caring and inclusive solution.
Self-Defence is Violence!
By the way, our pronoun stipulator and champion of habitual wankery is very pleased about “shutting down airports & ports responsible for large chunks of our economy,” because this is “inconveniencing the 0.1%” Apparently, that in itself is a righteous goal, a justification for pretty much anything.
And hey, screw everyone else.
They care so much, you see, being such compassionate people.
Mary Harrington also takes aim at this kind of self-interestedly motivated reasoning.
She manages to crowbar in Jane Austen’s “It is a truth universally acknowledged“, but fails to include my favourite recent lampooning of this mindset – “It Is Known” from the charmingly vacuous ladies of the Game of Thrones.
The Hamas and Hezbollah flags convinced me.
Also why did it take FIVE HOURS to move them?
Good question. You’d think it would take mere moments to grab them by the hair, or indeed the eyelids, and then throw them into the sea.
Or would that be unkind? Answers on a postcard, please.
Garbage removal.
They would feel differently about protests that disrupted their lives:
Send mobs of aggressive-looking fit young men to their homes. Blockade their homes and places of work and play. Including mosques, even. Ignore pleas of “I have to get to work” or “to the doctor” or “catch a plane” and see how they react and how the press covers it.
Genocide, even.
from that link:
In my experience leftists spend their entire lives lying about their intentions.
Alas, being incorrigible narcissists, I suspect that reciprocation isn’t a restraining factor or a common feature of their thinking. See, for instance, this:
One more time. This is who they are.
They always concoct ideological “reasons” why no one should be allowed to do to them what they do to others. I have been noticing this since my youth, having known far too many leftists.
Reminder: these people arrive at thought-terminating cliches because their views are extraordinarily stupid and cannot be defended on their own terms.
What he said.
Right, anyone capable of independent thought and who as been anywhere near an airport since the 1950s actually knows it isn’t the 0.1% flying (especially now in the days of wifebeaters, shorts, and flip flops as standard passenger uniforms), the guy trying to commute isn’t the 0.1%, most of the goods held up at a port aren’t going to the 0.1%.
If the 0.1% were being inconvenienced the authorities would be on these jerkoffs like a duck on a June bug.
That.
[ Post updated again. ]
So . . . killing the protesters to disrupt the protest is a double-plus good thing then?
The reaction of the ‘social justice’ poseurs to being thwarted is also instructive.
Yes, well, you can’t punish people for wrong-think without focusing on motivation.
Those same Palestinian people celebrated the Hamas atrocities, dancing in the streets, handing out candies, and abusing the hostages being paraded through their streets.
Saying “good morning” is racist.
I am often unsure if these citters are sincere or are trolling for clicks. But sincerity would be in line with the decades-long trend in black “social justice” psychopathy.
To whom?
Surely there are odiferous substances that, while offensive, are harmless and can be deployed against these aspiring speed-bumps.
I’m feeling a bit nonplussed. I think.
Garbage removal
Also garbage removal…
Yet ultimately, this is why they win and conservatives…”conservatives” and even conservatives, lose. Passion inspires action. Logic and reason are all well and good but without passion, taking the necessary action that logic and reason lead you to is unlikely to occur. Tying into a side discussion on the previous post, the initial scene with Augustus in I, Claudius a Greek orator (Aristarchus) is introduced and he speaks passionately about the defeat of Anthony. As I watched that I thought how such a person would be torn to shreds today, especially by those on the right, for putting passion above accuracy. Logic and reason are all good in strategic planning but take passion away from the actual implementation, and/or mock those more passionate…well good luck finding anyone willing to fight your battles.
If I may quote myself as well…well not myself myself but myself quoting someone else myself…
My thoughts exactly.
It says a great deal about this country that I was surprised by today’s High Court ruling allowing a ban against prayer rituals in a British school.
The school instituted a ban on ritualistic praying after a gang of Muslim children began using their playground prayer-sessions as a springboard for pressuring their fellow muslims into increasing orthodoxy, and segregating themselves from non-believers.
Ah, that religion of peace. Coming from a bomb-factory near you.
What doesn’t surprise me is that “the pupil suing Michaela is being backed by what The Times estimates to be between £100,000 and £150,000 in legal-aid money.“
In gripping behind-the-scenes news, this blog has a bounce rate of 28%, which is apparently very good. A bounce rate being the percentage of visitors who arrive, read only the landing page, and then bugger off without poking about. So, the lower, the better. In other words, 72% of visits are from people who have a nosey while they’re here. Which is the general idea.
Hey, I’m just sharing my day.
[ Fluffs cushions, fetches air freshener. ]
My previous is in reference to a comment which appears to have been intercepted by the comment Nazis.
The student lost the case.
Freed. Comments with five or more links get intercepted by the spam filter and dumped in my ‘pending’ folder. Which I only check once a day or so, unless someone steers me towards it.
Because in far-Leftist cities, like San Francisco, those running it are sympathetic with the “annihilate the Zionist project” mob. Jews who are, you know, actually Jewish are viewed with suspicion if not outright hate for deviating from the Leftist religion.
California has laws that prohibit the blocking of traffic, even the blocking of sidewalks by “protests”. You can stand and picket to your heart’s content as long as people and vehicles are free to move through the area.
Five hours was probably considered long enough for the protestors to do their (well-funded, coordinated) Jewhate mating dance. Dollars to donuts, this time period was already negotiated and the LEOs ordered actually protect the protestors from being confronted by any normies on the bridge.
There is a fund of money already set up to bail-out and put up a legal defense for any arrested protestor from the usual sources.
This explains the ‘cultural and educational elites’ animosity’:
Dogs in a crowded, smelly manger they are.
[ Prepares dessert of strawberries, raspberries, double cream, and a dollop of cherry gelato. ]
You wish you had my glamorous life.
You wish you had my glamorous life.
Indeed! That dessert sounds amazing. I also wish the US had double cream. Our “heavy cream” just isn’t the same. I have found a few Brit products of the unspoiling variety, but dairy? Nope.
It’s probably for the best that the Spectator went behind an impenetrable paywall, because I kept trying to make Olivia Potts’ baking recipes and failing in my mass-volume conversions and UK-US ingredient substitutions.
[ Considers adding grapes. ]
I’d settle for anybody’s glamorous life!
Do you not have strawberries, raspberries, double cream, and a dollop of cherry gelato, possibly with sliced grapes?
Oh dear.
There, there.
Is that a reflection on the first-time visitors?
Try World Market if you’ve one in the vicinity
Likely no.
In other push-back news…John Cougar Mellonhead storms off stage after audience pushes back on his political speechifying. Just shut up and play your guitar.
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1780145183935320224
Part of the problem, I think, is that our justice system is now overly concerned with motivation. An example of this is the introduction of stronger penalties for crimes motivated by hate
No, that’s an example of the justice system using a fig leaf to criminalize behavour that targets the regime’s political enemies.
Mary Harrington also takes aim at this kind of self-interestedly motivated reasoning.
Whoa, whoa, whoa there. It’s almost like she’s saying that all this bollocks is just high school Mean Girls herd behaviour.
I was surprised by today’s High Court ruling allowing a ban against prayer rituals in a British school.
This is a “can’t they both lose” situation.
Surely there are odiferous substances that, while offensive, are harmless and can be deployed
“Administering a noxious substance” is classed the same as aggravated assault in most jurisdictions.
So is kicking a smug, seated git in the face.
Choose your response to such protestors appropriately.
[ Wipes cream from chin. ]
I’ve been drinking large volumes of Earl Grey waiting for just such an occasion so I can whip it out and piss all over one of these little bitch-ass wankers while he’s hopelessly glued in place.
Daniel,
Hey, I used to read LM. Don’t forget what it became after it went mams-up following a lawsuit.
The classic protest was meant to draw attention to an issue. Not to shut down bridges. The current crop of protesters DEMANDS that you stop whatever you are doing and free palestine, give up fossil fuels, assent to unlimited abortion, or whatever RIGHT NOW.
Do the Defenestrations of Prague count as protests?
It’s worth recalling that many sixties protests did involve shutting things down: Classes, university offices, etc. And those radicals were successful in their intimidation tactics as many in academia became silent in order to avoid harassment and assault.
That is one of the most deranged takes I have ever heard which is quite an accomplishment even for the afrocentrists.
However, speaking of deranged, witness this headline wherein a “trans” is at what never happens.
But unsurprising, if one assumes a linear progression from the deranged afro-centrist garbage of the 90’s. (Such as “Cleopatra was black” and “the Greeks stole everything from the (black) Egyptians”.)
Come to think of it, I was hearing “Beethoven was black” back in the 60’s. And if you were to browse the shelves of any “afro-centrist” bookstore you would find plenty of deranged theories for sale.
I feel sorry for Mary Lefkowitz, who had to waste so much of her limited time fighting back against the crackpot theories and the malevolent racist “scholars” who denounced her for debunking their crap.
“Crazy people are dangerous”, as the blog tagline goes.
The next question: What fraction of those who advocate for “trans rights” are themselves dangerously crazy? It is certainly true that a large fraction of the ones I know are kooky and/or malevolent.
Crazy People Are Dangerous: The New Age/Eclipse/Afro-Jew-Hatred version.
…John Cougar Mellonhead…
I thought I was the only one who called him that.
I saw him very early in his career when he was John Cougar. He was the opening act. He played Jack & Diane twice during the set because he didn’t have any other songs. In an attempt to “connect” with the audience he changed the lyrics to:
So cringeworthy, that I didn’t cringe when he became John Mellencamp.
Maybe he should try to put more sweet potato or pineapple in his diet. It got my dog to stop doing that.
More unspanked.
Update to an earlier comment about NPR sad trombonist Uri Berliner:
Subsequent to the appointment of trout-faced DeepState plant Katherine Maher to NPR CEO, Uri has been suspended for Wrong Write. Apparently NPR “journalists” are not allowed to express unauthorised opinions in public.
Matt Taibi describes Maher’s Twitter timeline as reading “so much like the Titania McGrath site spoofing overeducated nonsense-babbling white ladies that it’s difficult to believe she’s real — she even looks like the fictional McGrath, if Titania had more money to spend on personal upkeep.“
It makes Mr Berliner’s comment about her somewhat ironic really:
“She doesn’t have a news background, which could be an asset given where things stand. I’ll be rooting for her. It’s a tough job. Her first rule could be simple enough: don’t tell people how to think.”
That was only four links, SpamOmaticBot. FOUR!
Can’t you count??
[ Shakes comment box vigorously whilst screaming profanities ]
Calm thy tits. Freed.
Maybe the spam filter just doesn’t like you. Have you tried a different cologne?
But I’m not even German??
I have this blissful vision of a plane with all those protestors on board (and an automatic pilot: don’t want anyone else to suffer) suddenly Just Stopping Oil while over the Mediterranean or Arabian Sea…
You expect us to believe that with a name like Karl?
[ Whispers to self, “Don’t mention the war, don’t mention the war.” ]
[ Thinks: “Ha, little does he know my name is actually Karlos the Jackhole!” ]
Well, I can’t top that.
That’s what she said!
Recycling gone mad.
In dire need of spanking.
Bets on the likelihood of expulsion?
I disagree: Shoot the kid. Administer 100 lashes to each kid who laughed. If their parents object, whip them too.
I disagree: Shoot the parents. Administer 100 lashes to the kid and 10 each kid who laughed. 20 to each parent, 40 if they object. And 100 lashes to each school administrator for allowing things to get this far. Or something like that. We can quibble. Someone is going to get rather tired administering all those lashes so I suggest starting with the school administrators. This kid didn’t just suddenly become a problem overnight.
I seem to recall some 19th century philosopher inventing a whipping machine.
Not sure who needs spanking here.
Everyone.
Like, and yet unlike, Castle Anthrax.
The NYC police are fools for showing up to work today. If ever there was a time for a good case of the Blue Flu, this is it.