As illustrations go, this one is worthy of note:

There are many things to dislike about progressivism, even just from a purely aesthetic point of view, and so we spend a lot of time on here ridiculing it on that basis, but it’s important always to remember that the main problem with progressivism is that it’s not true.

It’s… https://t.co/Wqs5FaS6JZ

— wanye (@xwanyex) April 7, 2026

Readers will note Mrs Newsom’s assumptions of accidental criminality – among occupants of San Quentin, a maximum-security prison – and her obliviousness regarding how much effort is required – how many accidents – to actually end up in a prison of any kind.

Such wildly inaccurate conceptions of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves, have been noted here before, with corrective – one might say eye-widening – statistics and illustrations.

Update, via the comments:

Among the scrupulously progressive, there’s also a failure to grasp that criminal and antisocial behaviour is rarely confined to one sphere.

We might, for instance, revisit the outpourings of Nora Loreto, who insisted, quite emphatically, that habitual car theft is a “victimless” crime. Ms Loreto was far too busy applauding herself for mouthing the approved attitudes to consider what it is that stolen cars are very often used for, and by whom, and the rather significant overlap of car theft with getaways and other untoward activities, including human smuggling.

In the case mentioned here, a trio of burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – also amused themselves by stealing cars, endangering other motorists in truly alarming ways, and assaulting and mugging the elderly and bedridden cancer patients.

But hey, accidents happen.

And among progressives, contrivance and obvious falsehoods function as luxury goods, as markers of in-group status. Like rhetorical jewellery.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Via the comments, and from the land of unfinished thoughts:

Housing is a human right and evictions are an act of policy violence.

My HELP Act would give a lifeline to families facing eviction and vital resources during this time of crisis. pic.twitter.com/RyU1dkBe05

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) April 3, 2026

Ms Ayanna Pressley, a congresswoman with gratuitous pronouns, and mouther of the words above, acknowledges that the most common cause of eviction, by far, is the repeated and habitual non-payment of rent. Efforts at eviction generally being a last resort, a desperate and costly attempt to limit further loss or damage. To limit further theft and trespass.

Ms Pressley then complains that this behaviour – behaviour warranting eviction – has “stigma” attached to it. Which, of course, it should.

As Egino adds in the comments,

Adding further costs and complications to the process of evicting problem tenants seems likely to result in higher rents and a contraction of supply. And then there’s the claim – baldly asserted and seemingly unchallenged – that “housing is a human right.” A claim that, if enacted, would entail the compelled labour of others. For which, I believe we have a word.

When claims of this kind are made, there’s a recurring reluctance to complete the train of thought, to acknowledge certain, fairly basic, practical and moral details. Instead, we often get something not unlike a child’s shopping list, in which little thought is given to what costs might be involved.

And so, we arrive at the very modern impulse to frame almost any kind of personal shortcoming, including moral shortcomings, as some state of blessed victimhood. In which, normal consequences for delinquent behaviour become violence, something to denounce and inhibit. With the result that the functional and law-abiding are faced with ever more obligations to indulge that dysfunction, and ever more difficulty defending their own interests.

Inevitably, in the subsequent replies, we learn that Ms Pressley has an extensive property portfolio of her own, including several residential rental properties, from which she earns around a quarter of a million dollars a year. Readers may wonder how Ms Pressley might feel if her tenants decided that “housing is a human right” and that “eviction is violence” and therefore abusive and illegitimate, and so, hey, screw paying the rent, despite our promises.

And that $250,000 a year is only outstanding rent and so, by Ms Pressley’s moral calculus, of no importance.

Via Pst314.

Devil Himself to pass within mere miles of council staff workplace, sandbags deployed, weeping ensues:

Although Mr Farage’s brief presence in the city will have “no direct impact” on Council staff, Leeds City Council human resources chief, Mr John Ebo, has assured pre-emptively traumatised employees that they will be comforted with “wellbeing network chats.” “Safe space conversations” will, of course, be “enabled.”

Council employees are urged to “be vigilant.”

I’m just going to leave this here, for no reason whatsoever.

Readers may detect an implicit gulf, both political and psychological, between much of the electorate and the people who spend their money.

Canada, I mean.

Following this eye-widening farce, in which a mentally ill woman claimed to be crushed and psychologically violated by a haircut booking form, I bring you a vision of things to come:

And thus a pretext for legislative punishment and financial ruin.

Because you must defer to the claims of people whose perceptions are wildly unreliable, at least regarding themselves. And because you mustn’t notice the overlap of cross-dressing and unsavoury phenomena, as Mr Neufeld did. Lest it bruise the egos of the Officially Downtrodden, who must be spared any whisper of contradiction or exposure to statistics.

And so we arrive at compulsory question-begging. No other possibilities being permissible, it seems.

Oh, and gloating, vaguely threatening cross-dressing men:

Threaten me all you like. I still won’t pretend to believe in gender identities. https://t.co/xkPFJZTGWL

— Mia Hughes (@_CryMiaRiver) February 21, 2026

Mr Oger, quoted above, spends his time campaigning to financially cripple women’s rape shelters, on grounds that said shelters don’t also cater to cross-dressing men, i.e., men much like himself. A preoccupation that possibly tells us quite a bit about the kind of man he is.

Presumably, absurd and sweeping rulings of the kind seen above will inhibit questioning of the motives in play, and will deter people from acknowledging distinctions between autogynephiles, transvestites, opportunists, and people with sexual dysmorphia, and deter them from considering the possible causes of that dysmorphia, including, quite often, childhood sexual abuse.

Which is to say, it will stupefy. It will make dishonesty mandatory. Because you mustn’t be allowed to determine for yourself what it is you’re looking at.

It will also give enormous leverage to spiteful bedlamites.

Which doesn’t strike me as an entirely utopian scenario.

Lifted from the comments, on a theme we’ve touched on many times – namely high-trust societies and those who struggle with the concept:

This is not what “high trust” *means*. High trust is not something that you can personally manifest. It doesn’t care about your emotional reaction to events. You cannot instantiate a high trust society by being nicer and nicer and nicer in the face of fraud and theft and graft. https://t.co/OGSh2IDugO

— wanye (@xwanyex) January 27, 2026

A thread ensues. With relevant illustrations.

Readers may wish to ponder the implication that a high-trust society can somehow be maintained unilaterally, simply by not caring about the number of people who violate that trust, and who do so repeatedly, whether in ways that are audacious or just wearyingly routine but nonetheless degrading.

As if pretending not to mind the evaporation of civilised, reciprocal standards – and pretending not to be alienated by primitive behaviour – somehow means that said behaviour isn’t there and didn’t happen. And that it won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after. And with ever greater boldness.

As if a high-trust society means letting antisocial fuckers act with impunity.

Such are the wonders of the progressive mind. In which, noticing routine and shameless thievery, the screwing over of others, is apparently much worse than indulging in it.

There is, I think, an assumption, most obvious among progressives, that in a civilised society you should just stand around impotently and demoralised, carefully averting your eyes, so that the bedlamites and ferals can do whatever they like, over and over again. As if the civilised aspect of the society will never require maintenance and enforcement of a kind one might call vigorous. As if it all just happens automatically, for free.

The idea that you shouldn’t want a society in which people just stand around pretending not to notice a young man with Down syndrome being mugged, for instance, is, for some, quite troublesome, ideologically. And perhaps psychologically. There being a great deal staked upon the pretending.

But it seems to me that this learned impotence – this cowed affectation – is much more corrosive and demoralising than a world in which the degenerate and predatory – say, those who choose to mug the disabled in broad daylight – know that they run a risk of being given a good kicking.

A good kicking that they deserve. And upon which, the gods would smile.