Come One, Come All
Speaking of “diversity” and its wonders, Heather Mac Donald ponders Germany’s ongoing experiment in self-annihilation:
There follows a horror-show catalogue of incompetence, dishonesty, and inassimilable monsters, with criminal records of prodigious length, pious newcomers calling for the murder of “every critic of Islam,” and in which the word machete crops up quite a lot.
A dark surrealism ensues, not least with regard to the convoluted ordeal of deporting uninvited visitors bent on one’s destruction. All set against gushing media coverage of a “Techno Parade für Toleranz,” and cheery posters reminding viewers of the approved attitude:
In terms of ideology, “diversity” seems to be the belief that the less we have in common, and feel we have in common, the happier we will be. An unobvious proposition, to say the least. Yet the word is mouthed as if it were a self-evident good, a “strength,” a moral imperative, a thing of which one could never have enough.
Update, via the comments:
Dicentra adds,
It seems to me we’ve strayed very far from the idea that an attractively developed society should – and must – be discerning about which kinds of newcomers it welcomes, lest it be flooded with incompatible tribes and the trash of the world.
The idea that the locals, the voting citizens, might want a good deal and ask, “What’s in it for us?” seems anathema to Our Betters. Likewise, the notion of a civilised society implying, quite strongly, “You’re lucky to be here. Behave accordingly.”
And so, instead, we get the routine airbrushing of crime news, and instructional videos in which ludicrous progressive women film themselves performing please-don’t-rape-me dances.
It’s a mental world in which everyone is expected to pretend that everything is fine and no grave mistakes were made, despite all available evidence. And in which the only real problem is not the ongoing, quite rapid degradation of German society, and other European societies, but those who dare to notice this unhappy transformation.
Ccscientist notes the please-don’t-rape-me dance, above, and adds,
The unrealism of such people and their peers, Our Betters, created a problem on a vast scale and which is dire in its implications – a problem that they are unwilling to fix or even clearly identify. And so, they retreat further into unrealism and absurdity, while expecting others – those on whom they’ve inflicted the problem – to become unrealistic and absurd too.
It’s the progressive way. In this and so much else.
Update 2:
Regarding the pretence above, Dicentra replies,
There’s also a weird air of displacement, of vehemently resenting those who notice the problem. And so, we get claims like this one here, in which BBC broadcaster Dan Snow denounces as “stunningly racist” even the suggestion that incompatible tribes exist. Because Mr Snow feels they shouldn’t exist, that they somehow ought not to.
And so, magically, they don’t. And only Very Bad People would say they do.
From the linked piece:
Mr Snow, since you ask, is married to the philanthropist Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor, daughter of the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of the country’s richest landowners, with an estimated fortune north of £7 billion. Needless to say, Mr Snow does not live in, or anywhere near, the kinds of “diverse” neighbourhoods now being trashed and terrorised by competing tribes.
Tribes that apparently shouldn’t exist.
And the above, this farce, is pretty much a standard pattern.
Regarding Mr Snow, his practised obliviousness, and his rush to deploy accusations of racism, Dicentra adds,
Well, this is a pretty good summary of the phenomenon. It does rather capture the recurring dynamic:
Of course, reality is not always congenial, and what one might wish to be the case may be preferable to what actually is. I can see the appeal of a world in which everyone just rubbed along nicely with endless reciprocation and common ground. But pretending that’s the case, when it clearly, vividly, isn’t, isn’t a wise or moral way to behave.
Especially when the consequences of that pretence are imposed on others, who then, in addition, get badmouthed and vilified for daring to object. Say, people not entirely happy about the sudden ubiquity of Congolese and Somali borra gangs, whose modes of expression involve machetes, or people who discover their doorsteps literally being shat on.
Update 3:
In the comments, EmC quotes this,
And adds,
Thing is, it’s by no means a trivial point. The fact that some – the Dan Snows of this world – might find the wording scandalous and gaspworthy is very much part of the problem, a measure of the decay in national morale. A nation whose inhabitants are no longer allowed to feel that their home is offering anything of value to newcomers, something for which one might expect appreciation and an eagerness to assimilate, is not on a happy trajectory.
This blog is kept afloat by the tip jar buttons below.
‘I’ve had exchanges with people who are wary of abandoning the fashionable narrative about enrichment and vibrancy and so forth…’
I suspect that wariness is going to fade pretty quickly in the future; just as ‘racist’ has lost its power to compel obedience to groupthink, so ‘far right’ is going, thanks to TwoTierKier’s abasement of the term.
Well, it was a little odd to be having a chat with someone who, it turns out, is choosing to move far away from the kind of vibrant and enriched environment that they claim is so vital and uplifting, and it being understood that you’re not supposed to acknowledge any dissonance or to infer anything politically untoward.
And that you’re definitely not to mention those whose neighbourhoods have been similarly transformed, without their consent and with great rapidity, but who lack the means to up sticks to somewhere less degraded.
[ Checks tomorrow’s Ephemera, clicks schedule. ]
[ Checks tomorrow’s Ephemera, clicks schedule. ]
We have a forecast of about 6″ of snow coming in tomorrow. The Ephemera will be a welcome diversion.
The right column was stacking under the main content on two different computers, but now it’s back to normal.
British police want this woman to stop tweeting about the Muslim rape gang scandal. It would be a shame if, instead, her tweets when viral around the world.
[ Returns from rock-salting duties. ]
OK, Denmark basically abandoned Greenland in WWII, we saved it from the real Nazis, but gave it back with no negotiations, so there is no reason we shouldn’t annex it and turn it into a rest home for our Democrats and your MPs who seem to be confused about responses to sex crimes.
The theme will do that if your browser tab isn’t wide enough to accommodate the sidebar and still be legible – say, if you’re reading this on a phone or in portrait mode on a tablet. But I haven’t noticed it do that except when it’s supposed to.
Just blue skying now, but I don’t think this is going to turn out as he thinks.
Yes, I would guess that those mental health problems, all that practised racial neuroticism, will tag along too.
But it was happening on a 27″ and a 43″ monitor with the browser windows almost full screen. Oh well, it’s all better now.
Good, because my ability to fix things of that kind is referred to, laughingly, as somewhat limited.
Except . . . I haven’t changed the width of my browser tab window in yonks & I noticed the same issue.
Have you tried not wearing quite so much polyester?
[ Waits for Muldoon to appear. ]
I don’t wear much if any – it itches.
[ Puts down rubber matting. ]
My current theory is that Muldoon generates some uncanny electrostatic aura that up-buggers whatever technology he approaches. Like the formatting toolbar of wpDiscuz comment software, for instance.
It’s like a really shit super-power.
You’ve not been standing close to him, have you?
The theme will do that if your browser tab isn’t wide enough […]
Aye, but it did that to me twice yesterday on a widescreen desktop monitor. But as others are saying, it’s back to normal today.
Wish I could say the same of the rest of the topics at hand. This fear of upsetting Islamics, this bending over backwards to not set a foot wrong, especially by the same feminists who shriek about Teh Patriarchy to me has the same energy as that danged photo of the female teachers fawning over that honking large bloke-in-a-frock tennis coach. They’ve invited their destructors in – and worse are trying to force the rest of us to do the same. The US people are finally getting brave enough to say no, and have gotten some change at the top, but the UK people are stuck with TwoTierKier for how many more years?
Arsonists caught on camera in Los Angeles.
I favor the Mayor Daley solution: arsonists and looters will be shot on sight.
There was that furtive character lurking about the produce section but I don’t think it was him.
Back in the 90’s and earlier there seemed to be plenty on the left who talked openly about the problem of Islamic fanaticism and intolerance.
The left has done this before: Recall what happened to the communists in Iran once the Islamists were in power. I assume that the same process is at work in the West: The left thinks it can use Islam as a convenient tool to hasten the Revolution, but the opposite is far more likely.
Given the ‘social justice immunity’ Musselmen in the West operate under, the demonstrated propensity of said Musselmen to murderous violence when faced with opposition, and the disdain of the ‘justice system’ for ‘disproportionate’ response to said violence, don’t count on it.
I distinctly recall watching an episode of Mork and Mindy where Robin Williams pick up a shawl and taunts, “Shawl, Shawl (Shah, Shah), I Atollayou so.” Good times, good times.
My current theory is that Muldoon generates some uncanny electrostatic aura that up-buggers whatever technology he approaches.
Sure, blame me for the charges that build up while you are scooching around on your silk cushioned throne while wearing naught but your leopard print velour blogging thong.
I’m surprised Starmer hasn’t connected you to the grid so the UK can reach net zero by February.
[ Watches paper clips and several small spoons slide across bar towards Muldoon. ]
It’s not exactly Avengers: Infinity War, but it’s what we’ve got.
A “He/Him/They/Them” gets upset.
You don’t expect to waste their valuable gifts on doing the washing up do you?
Paging Mrs. Jellyby.
It is worth noting just how often spluttering and theatrical exasperation can be prompted by statements of the obvious and readily verifiable.
I was once having a chat with a then-teenage nephew about pretty much that supposedly offensive subject, the various stages of life, in which I said something to the effect that what matters a lot when you’re a teenager or in your early twenties may be quite different to what matters in your thirties, forties and onwards. I mean, you don’t want to be that sad and creepy fifty-year-old bloke hanging around in nightclubs.
Said nephew, to be clear, didn’t feel a need to gasp or faint with indignation.
Of course I am at the far low end of of a bar made by carpenters who evidently confused a spirit level with a banana and it is common for the untutored to confuse magnetism with gravity – I have seen plates slide around on a mess table in 15 foot seas less than they do here.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess “Pride” is missing the irony in their logos.
I will pass on the obvious joke, though.
A couple of Adam Carolla rants. This one interviewing Newsom a dozen years ago. Also this from the UK disgrace…unless I got it from here.
Is it any wonder the Musselmen feel triumphant? I fear the rot is ineradicable.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess “Pride” is missing the irony in their logos.
Wow. Just wow.
But I guess if the sum total of your existence is summed up by what you prefer to do with your naughty bits, then I guess this makes sense. Except even then, it doesn’t.