A small sign of the times
The town at the foot of the hill had a crisis last week. It didn’t have to be a crisis. It began as a mere glitch — human caused, but easily human reparable, too.
The city expected a contractor to notify residents of several streets about a planned water outage. The contractor didn’t do it. When residents quite naturally began contacting city hall (aka the water company), city mucky-mucks proceeded to make things infinitely worse.
They spent an hour pointing fingers (“It’s the contractor’s fault! We have nothing to do with it! They lied to us! Go talk to them, not to me!”), Then, because city hall also had no water, they quit answering phones, packed up, and went home to extend their three-day Labor Day weekend into four — and left residents without water and without information or any form of customer service. Those who attempted to get an update from the contractor were treated rudely.
Water service came back on after nine long hours. Goodwill may never return. And this was completely avoidable. Had city mucky-mucks stepped up, managed the crisis, made the belated notifications, and offered water or other help to (disabled, elderly, or otherwise) housebound residents we’d be hailing them as heroes now. Instead they created their own crisis through their actions and inactions. Then whined that they’re the victims — not only of the contractor’s malfeasance, but of customers’ frustration and anger.
I mention this not because it’s anything unusual, but because it’s not. This kind of dysfunction is getting more “normal” every day.
I was talking about the mess with the head librarian — an ultimate local establishment person, not some “right-wing conspiracy-theory wingnut” — and at the end of our futile attempt to parse the problem she sighed, “This is just one more sign of how everything’s falling apart.”
No comparison
Yes, everything’s falling apart, and while the librarian has hopes that it’ll all turn around in six months or so, there’s no reason to be so sanguine.
Those who keep comparing our current Year of Discord to 1968 or 1969 have their heads up their backsides. In those sunny days of yore we had a relatively healthy economy and intact institutions. Now we’ve got a dysfunctional oligarchy or a plutocracy (take your pick) built on the sands of funny-money — or rather, quicksands of funny-money into which the working and middle classes are sinking. And that’s without even mentioning the happy (for politicians) tyranny of COVID and one very weird election year that might end up with civil war or a military coup. (Whether you like him or not, pray that Trump wins in a landslide; the alternatives are too ugly to contemplate.)
Here in the west, during historically catastrophic fire weather, we may even have coordinated arsons in rural and suburban areas. (H/T JW) If reports are accurate, these aren’t attacks on any “oppressive” establishment or hierarchy. They aren’t even profitable adventures in looting. They’re attacks on everyone and everything.
Still, life does go on. And on we go with it. We can either whine like petulant city officials five-year-olds about these dire times or step up to proactive crisis management.
Wisdom from the Commentariat
The comment section on last week’s part I post was particularly good. Thank you.
Napoleon (and Commentariat member Anonymous) said, “Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.”
However powerful and in control (or aggressively out of control) the enemies of freedom seem right now, they’re making a terrible mistake.
Various factions of our enemies (lump conveniently under “Socialist Democrat”) are alienating every sane person left in the country, including not merely business owners, the white working class, men who don’t appreciate being blamed for every bad thing that ever happened throughout history, but also black people who have to endure being exploited in the name of violent thuggery, immigrants whose American dream is going up in smoke or down under arbitrary COVID regulations, anyone who appreciates honest media, anyone who loves honest language, actually liberal liberals, Catholics who grok how dangerous President Kamala would be to them, other believers in religious liberty, anybody who doesn’t think street violence is a way to solve problems. Etc. etc. etc.
Let the destructors go on showing their real selves. Look forward to the day when men and women, blacks and whites, Hispanics, Asians, gays, lesbians, freedom-loving trans people, and all who simply want to live in goodwill and real tolerance with their fellow human beings can all figuratively join hands and sing “Kumbaya” for the cause of freedom. Except they won’t because that’s silly and because their hands will be too full of either arms or other tools to go around singing at people as if it meant something. (Public demonstrations are a silliness of the activist left. Far better just to create lives in harmony.)
Along with not interrupting our enemies while they’re shooting themselves in the foot goes another old, but too often neglected, bit of wisdom: Don’t fight on your enemies’ terms.
The temptation may be strong to travel to those mean urban streets and stand armed guard against the forces of crime and chaos. But what will that accomplish? It’ll get you possibly charged with crimes, possibly killed, and certainly defamed by the media (“Right-wing Trump supporters cause violence in Portland!”)
All of that might be worth it if you had a strategy of your own that has the slightest hope of overcoming the forces of chaos. But if you’re journeying, armed and unready, into the urban hellscape to meet Marxists or plain old criminals on their own terms and their own turf, you have no such strategy.
I’m not saying not to defend your own property or your own community. I wish there were more “rooftop Koreans” protecting their family businesses in besieged downtowns. I cheer for gun owners who turn out in the streets or in yards to defend their own property and communities against violent invaders. With the help of a friend I’m quietly hardening my own home turf and I believe my neighbors are doing likewise.
But do not journey onto Antifa’s or BLM’s turf, insert yourself into their criminal chaos, and expect to accomplish anything other than a martyrdom that will be distorted and misrepresented in every publication in the land.
Well, Bear Bussjaeger says it better than I.
The Samuel Adams option?
In late August, J.S. Winter wrote on American Greatness that it’s time to exercise the “Samuel Adams Option.” I agree with Winter in part — that is, the parts about freedomistas banding together in networks of communication, restoration, and self-protection. I disagree that we must somehow first beat back the current insanity or Marxism (but I repeat mystelf) of the establishment/crazy left.
J.S. Winter says, “The Samuel Adams Option has to be deployed at the ideological level first.” And goes on to detail how we must crush the media, the education establishment, etc.
Well, good luck with that. IF we actually had the power to do all that crushing we wouldn’t need those committees of correspondence and Boston Tea Parties.
We are guerrilla fighters, if we are fighters at all. Our job is to harry the enemy until the enemy falls under its own weight. We do not have the power to take over completely corrupted institutions, nor do we need to.
But I do agree that we need the brilliant, subversive, freedomista sneakiness and theatricality of a Samuel Adams.
If we’re going to be activist at all (and some will, some won’t; respect that), we need to outwit, out-style, out-charm the statist loonies. We need to commit creative acts that are either going to be so cool that the media can’t just dismiss us as “right-wing violent militia white supremacist Trump supporters” (yeah, I know) or so cool that they zoom right past the media and into the viral heart of our countrymen.
Here’s an example. You may well have seen this. Ricky Rebel in a street performance of “MAGA”, a take-off on “YMCA” by the Village People. Now, I’m no Trump fan (unless you count thinking Trump is simply better than any other absolutely catastrophic alternative). But for a young, semi-famous, spangled LGBTetc-supporting rocker to perform grand street theater — adapting a very catchy gay anthem — in the cause of freedom and unity under Trump beyond all the pustulent hatred of the left … well, that’s pretty damn grand.
I’ve watched that linked video four or five times and it just makes me happy. It’s also gone viral, and lets hope it’s reaching beyond partisan territory.
Is this as “good” — that is, as tempting, as easy — as heroically wanting to dash off and risk life and limb? No. And obviously not everybody could do this, and who knows what effect it will have? But Ricky Rebel and his fellow Deplorables are most certainly not meeting the enemy on his own terms, but on unique terms of their own. Terms that the media can’t possibly distort as “violent” or “right-wing extremist.” Terms that are upbeat, lovable, and exemplary.
Back to the Benedict Option
J.S. Winter, with the “Samuel Adams Option,” was consciously addressing Rod Dreher’s proposal for the Benedict Option — that is, retreat until the madness passes, live according to values, and preserve what there is to preserve.
Dreher was addressing Christians and in a way that didn’t resonate with this agnostic and might not resonate with you. But if so that’s simply because we aren’t Dreher’s audience. Yet his concept has applications beyond religion.
“Society” right now is not listening to us. The audience for the principles or practices of freedom is miniscule. Propagandistic “schooling” has substituted so long for actual thinking that there is little market for principles of any kind, and certainly not for the deep (and risky!) depths of individual liberty and truly free markets. We’re not going to “crush” the inertia of stupid-brained statism and all its established institutions, no matter what we do.
We may be able to help keep threads of freedom alive with some glorious Samuel Adamsy theater. But the other way to keep freedom alive in times when no one’s listening is by preserving it, living it, keeping it apart from the ongoing cultural destruction — similar to the role played first by the Fourth Century desert fathers (and mothers), and later by medieval monastics.
And this secular version of the Benedict Option doesn’t have to be committed solely by principled freedomistas. Here’s a feature about 19 black families who’ve purchased land in Georgia to build an intentional community to keep them safe from today’s chaos.
Now, I don’t know where any of them stand, politically or philosophically. Or if they stand at all. I don’t know whether they’ll build a black-separatist community that hates all white people, be at peace with all humankind, or whether their effort will go the long, sad way of so many other intentional communities throughout history. No clue. But I do know that, if they succeed, or even make a good try at succeeding, they’ll learn something about self-sufficiency and independence. And that’s all to the good. Movements like this burst the urbanite bubble. Succeed or fail, they put participants face-to-face with the realities of getting by and dealing with your fellow man.
And that’s something.
Despite my personal failure with the Desert Hermitage, I still think community — intentional or otherwise — is key to our personal survival and the long-term survival of freedom. It doesn’t even remotely have to be a community of principles (beyond respect for the Golden Rule and hopefully the Bill of Rights). It merely has to be a community rooted in reality, not political fantasy.
Some communities of self-defense and self-interest have been large, intentional, and elaborate. Others, like my neighborhood of eight houses, are completely accidental. But they serve the purpose of keeping individuals and families bound to reality — and possibly alive, free, and effective in the long run.
Even if things don’t completely work out for your freedom community, you could easily end up with neighbors like these.
Retreating gives us time to prep and friends to prepare with. It gives us both protection and a community for our children. It may give us more.
There’s hope for more. As commentator Alpharius observes, once upon a time most of society was illiterate. We’ve risen above that. Still, every generation is born illiterate and has to learn anew. There is always a chance — just as there is never an end to the drive for liberty.
Don’t be rash. Don’t be stupid
But my lord, don’t get tempted into taking the easy and stupid way!
Here’s a person sitting at his keyboard telling all lovers of liberty to go out and risk their lives.
Risk them to achieve what? Risk them after giving what consideration to the potential outcome? Risk them in what specific actions? Risk them against what odds? Risk them for what strategic or tactical purpose? All unmentioned. Also unmentioned are the many, many times (I’m sure) that the writer risked dangerous confrontations himself, or laid his own life on the line in … um, some action or another that he didn’t care to think too deeply about, but boy oh boy, was he ever brave.
No.
Absolutely it may come to shooting. It already has, of course, though the shooting so far hasn’t accomplished anything except giving the media opportunities for propaganda. But make. Every. Bullet. Count. If it comes to that. Make every gesture count. If you’ve got to die for your cause (or, as they say, make some other SOB die for his), make it worthwhile. And if you can be clever and effective for freedom without anybody dying, all the better.
I’m going to go and quote Abbie Hoffman again: “Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?”
Certainly don’t waste your own life to produce random results.
Of course, it is not given to us to predict accurately the outcome of our actions; some foolish acts spark amazing consequences.
But as the sane world crumbles around us, as the West falls, as the historic darkness of statism returns, we can do our best by being as smart as we are brave and as brave as we are committed to the cause of freedom.
—–
And while you’re waiting, here are here’s some astutely funny stuff from the PowerLine Blog.
“…personal failure with the Dessert Hermitage…”
I tried to warn you about gingerbread houses.
HAHAHAHAHA, Bear. Now that you’ve caught me so wittily, I should probably leave my goof for posterity.
Um … nope. Fixed.
“Whether you like him or not, pray that Trump wins in a landslide; the alternatives are too ugly to contemplate.”
Claire, you’re far from stupid. So I’m just going to assume some hacker compromised your site and inserted that idiocy into the post.
Well Tom, given that I lived in a gingerbread house in a desert, I may be stupid, after all.
Then there’s the fact that I’ve wasted half my life on politics. That probably confirms my stupidity. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said. A Trump landslide (and it must be a landslide, not an ambiguous result or only a mildly comfortable margin) is the least worst outcome possible from the upcoming elections.
My word Thomas Knapp, you are a piece of work, a worsted-stocking knave. How many times do you intend to insult your gentle hostess? Is that all you’ve got? Pathetic.
In a few weeks, TPTB will select whichever figurehead clown they want to play the role of the “leader of the free world” Then one group of people will rejoice claiming the world is saved, while another group begins sobbing hysterically claiming that the world has ended, and whoever was placed in “power” couldn’t have possibly won an election.
It has been said that The Powers That Be will always be in power so long as they can convince around half the people to hate and want to kill the other half, which we all know the bad guys are that other half, you know those faggots, libtards and commies that think they should oppose the government, (can you imagine?! Those people want to defund the gov-goons who murdered Levoy Fincum, Sammy Weaver and the Branch Davidians!)
Or perhaps the “bad guys” are those whiter trash Racist, deplorables, foolishly clinging to their guns and bibles, (can you imagine!? Those people want to defund the gov-goons who murdered Levoy Fincum, Sammy Weaver and the Branch Davidians!)
And it goes
Claire,
If you realize that your time on politics was wasted, you should also understand why: What follows the election will not depend on who wins it or by how much. The other side will declare the result illegitimate, and the fighting in the streets will continue and escalate.
If there’s any “stupidity” involved, it’s in the assumption that the statist “right” is either less or more responsible for what’s happening, and what’s going to happen, than the statist “left.” They’re both death cults and either one will be happy to add your head to its pyramids of skulls.
If there’s any practical positive effect to be had on that at all in terms of voting, it’s in sending an incumbent packing so that perhaps his co-partisans ever so slightly, and for a very short period of time, at least pretend to have been chastened and act like it while in opposition. The winner always perceives a “mandate.” A re-elected incumbent more so, and with a more fragmented opposition trying to counteract that.
Anonymous Coward “-s” —
If our hostess considers herself insulted, she’s quite capable of saying so. And if I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head.
Myself — I don’t think “least-worst” implies rejoicing over, or even endorsing, anybody.
[…] https://www.clairewolfe.com/blog/2020/09/10/fear-and-loathing-in-the-hinterlands-part-ii/ […]
Claire, no prob. You still have “dessert fathers”. -grin-
And I see Knapp is back to gratuitously insulting people on their own blogs.
Thomas Knapp, I am a gentleman, and if I hear some ill-mannered oaf insulting a lady, I will speak up, and you will answer to me. If you were a gentleman you would have already apologized to Claire. As for squeezing my head, you are welcome to attempt that at any time.
-s,
I’ll answer to you when and if I damn well please.
I’ve never claimed to be a member of the English peerage. Forgive me for doubting that any such claim on your part is true, if for no other reason than, based on your incorrect use of the term “insult,” you clearly haven’t mastered that country’s language yet.
“Claire, no prob. You still have “dessert fathers”. -grin-”
See? Proof. I’m really as stupid as Tom hesitates to say I am.
“worsted-stocking knave.”
All right. -S (and his buddy William) already won the insult-slinging competition, and my heart, with this elegant bit of wordsmithing. But we’re done now. Everybody knows that personal insults and name-calling aren’t allowed here. So stop. Please. Now. And let the Living Freedom Commentariat return to the high level of discourse it’s capable of.
Perhaps the explanation for Thomas Knapp’s extremely poor manners is his mistaken belief that being a gentleman is a matter of birthright. Knapp, you are no gentlemen, and that is a product of upbringing and your choice, not genetics.
Enough. I will wrestle this pig no longer.
“-S (and his buddy William) already won the insult-slinging competition”
True as far as it goes, insofar as the next insult that I issue in this thread will be the first insult that I issue in this thread.
But the pig is content to cease wrestling with over-matched opponents 😉
Okay. We’re done now. I have no intention of closing this comment thread because I’m hoping for better. But I WILL delete comments and place the writers of out-of-line words into moderation.
Hey, it’s your blog.
I’ve addressed — non-“insultingly,” I hope — the substance of your claim as to “better” or “worse” potential outcomes. Consider that response if you care to, don’t if you don’t. And have a great weekend.
I agree with you (and with commentor Myself) on all the broader issues — though I do think a landslide for one candidate or the other is the only hope, however slim, for avoiding revolution-level violence in 2021. And a landslide for Biden (or rather, effectively for President Kamala Chameleon, as my friend Furrydoc calls her) would bring horrors of a different kind. Trump’s harms are at least known. And not as immediately dire as what the newly insane left proposes to do — and is doing right now in cities across the land.
To be clear, I don’t endorse Trump, admire Trump, think Trump’s any sort of savior, swamp-drainer, etc. etc. I do think he hasn’t been as terrible as most presidents, he’s done some quietly good deregulation work, and deep inside that ghastly exterior there does lie a heart. Of sorts. And one that appreciates something about middle and working-class people despite his life of NYC privilege. Again, though. Not. An. Endorsement. Plenty of people can have a heart and do terrible evil with it. And all presidents do evil.
You and Myself make good points, but you’re both arguing against positions that I have not taken.
After listening to this bickering I can only say in the immortal words of Rodney King…”Can’t We All Get Along?”
I enjoyed the blog as usual and found the “Astutely Funny Stuff” at the end of the blog to be outstanding! I’m still having difficulty in deciding which one’s the best, and it’s a tie between The Subway pic, the 1st Day of School, and the Snowflake Meltdown. Thanks for bringing a little levity into a trying situation.
Be well
Thank you, Fred M. You’re a ray of sunshine. 🙂
Claire,
The last time I noticed the Mercatus regulation tracker working, the number of federal regulations was ALMOST (but not quite) back down to the number when he took office, after a steep climb in the six months after he issued his “must identify two regulations to repeal (not necessarily actually repeal them) for every new one” executive order. If it actually back down to that number, then his administration will have erased its own increased regulation, without having actually reduced the overall number of regulations. QUALITY of regulations may be a different story, of course.
And that’s the same kind of bait and switch he pulls with pretty much everything:
Increase US troops in Syria from a few hundred to several thousand, then reduce the number of troops back to the few hundred which were already there and pretend that he’s “withdrawn from” or “ended the endless war in” Syria. Increase US troops in Afghanistan from 3,500 to 12,000, then announce a “peace deal” in which the US “withdraws” from Afghanistan by reducing its troop level back to 3,500. All the while, more drone strikes than Obama.
Announce “middle class tax cuts” that are temporary if you actually look at them (personal exemption eliminated permanently, standard deduction doubled for a few years and then reverting) and that don’t reduce your taxes as much as his tariffs raise them.
As for appreciating middle- and working-class people, yes, he does, in the same way and for the same reasons a caged boa constrictor appreciates that rabbit you throw in its cage every couple of months.
Trump is, like most presidents, just a wee tiny bit worse than his predecessor in some ways, and business as usual in most. The only real difference is the pro wrestling kayfabe theatrics.
“QUALITY of regulations may be a different story, of course.”
This is true.
“Trump is, like most presidents, just a wee tiny bit worse than his predecessor in some ways, and business as usual in most.”
So is this.
“And that’s the same kind of bait and switch he pulls with pretty much everything:”
And this is true, too, and also applies to every politician on the planet. (I’ve never forgiven Reagan his combination of stirring small-government rhetoric and huge expansions of federal power.)
We agree. Nothing to argue about. I am Not. Endorsing. Trump. I’m only saying that I hope he wins in a landslide because all the alternatives are worse. By all means continue to feel free to post against Trump, against politics-as-usual, or whatever. But I probably won’t be responding to those comments because you are arguing against points I’m not making and positions I’m not taking.
I don’t agree that all the alternatives are worse.
Jo Jorgensen would not be worse.
Biden would likely be worse in the same ways that every president is worse than the last … but a second Trump term would probably be worse than a first Biden term in those same ways, because:
After the “wall controversy” shutdown, Trump publicly declared himself a dictator versus Congress’s power of the purse and got away with it.
Then he violated multiple articles of the Supreme Law of the Land in the form of the US-Ukraine Treaty on Mutual Assistance in Investigations and got away with that too. Not by not getting caught, but by jury nullification on the part of the Senate.
After the shit he’s pulled, re-electing him would constitute a strong confirmation message that yes, he really can do anything he damn well pleases without fear of any consequences whatsoever.
While I don’t necessarily trust congressional Republicans to hold Biden to much account, they’ve proven over and over again that they’re completely unwilling, and congressional Democrats have proven over and over that they’re completely unable, to bind Trump down with the chains of the Constitution even an eensy teensy bit, ever.
If I may digress to the actual point of the article for a moment…
I agree that we (freedomistas, that is) are not going to win this one through warfare. If this actually flares into warfare, we’ll lose no matter who wins. In fact – since I consider actual civil war extremely unlikely – we’ll lose even if it doesn’t because there’s no path likely to diverge from this mess that doesn’t lead toward more authoritarianism.
🙂 Therefore yeah, it might actually be our fate to become “dessert fathers.” Stop waiting for freedom to be imposed on us, or allowed to us, and just start living freedom, teaching it to children, demonstrating it to non-crazy neighbors, and generally keeping our heads down and the lamp lit.
As I’ve gotten older, I realize some are so busy trying to live other People’s lives, they’ve forgotten to live their own. A simple adage I suppose which still goes largely unheard.
Purity challenges, especially for the mere sake of pedantry, would seem a particularly unconstructive use of brain power. It’s difficult enough to see so many people truly abandoning principle and embracing the statist borg, without having to imagine it in people who aren’t.
I dunno, Claire, I found your comment easy enough to understand–both what it was, and what it wasn’t. (What can I say? You’d really suck as an actual Trumpist. 🙂
In any sort of realistic sense, we simply don’t even have access to a truly sane option for this forthcoming shitshow anyway. The puppeteers have crafted their gamespace with meticulous brilliance over much time and space, and as I see it, the only way to actually beat the con on everyone–just as with “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”, by refusing to legitimize it with a response of any kind–is vanishingly unlikely on any useful scale.
As it ever was: no, it really doesn’t matter who “wins”. All the puppeteers ever really need from us, year over year, is to continue to legitimize their demonic system with sufficient participation…and FFS, they’ll get it again this time around, even with the insanity kicked into hyperdrive.
As to these ideas of “the Samuel Adams option” and “the Benedict option”, I hadn’t seen the terms before, but they both seem like part of a greater discussion worth having. Personally I share the preference for backchannel world-building over Pyrrhic confrontation or theatricality, but I sure as hell see the potential emotional value of other choices in a despairing time, too.
Tiresome people.
Eyes and ears open; set Condition Yellow; live as freely as possible, as carefully as you must.
Keep observing, Claire, as it’s healthy for you. The sharing helps.
As someone who follows and respects both Claire and Tom: You have a difference of opinion and you are talking past each other.
I disagree with both of you. Claire, even if Trump (or Biden) win by a landslide the other side will never accept that it wasn’t due to fraud/ Russian interference/ Chinese manipulation/ etc. So in this I think you are mistaken. Massive unrest, far worse than what has already occurred, is coming, no matter who “wins”.
Tom, with all due respect no 3rd party is a viable option in the US at this point. I wish it was different be it is not. As for Trump’s record, yes, you are correct, BUT (and I realize this is an incredibly low bar) he has not started any NEW wars whereas every president since Regan has. Biden has promised to start NEW wars.
This is a case of “heads I win, tails you lose.” Or worse “You can’t win, you can break even, you can’t quit the game.”
My view is simple. In my living memory every single president, EVERY single one, has been worse for liberty than the previous (I’ll listen to an argument that Ford wasn’t). I was happy when Clinton was elected thinking he would be better than Bush, was happy when GW Bush was elected thinking he would be better than Clinton, was happy when Obama was elected thinking that he would be better. I was wrong EVERY single time. Each one has been worse. In my opinion Trump has also been worse. Biden, or ghods help us Harris will be a lot worse.
But you know, given my record, perhaps Trump II will actually be worse than Trump I, not just a continuation.
Bottom line for me is that chaos is coming. Stay alert, be prepared. Vote if you think it will do any good.
Good luck to us all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobsworth
But we also need a pejorative term for voters who accept that situation; the apparatchik and jobsworth wouldn’t exist if the voter didn’t hire them. Remember what happened in Connecticut in 2014, when 250,000 presumed gun owners were mailed registered letters warning them to register their presumed guns, and 90% didn’t comply? Nothing. Nothing happened. So why haven’t millions of you organized to stop paying the taxes which employ those apparatchiks and jobsworths?
My guess is revolution-level violence in 2021 would only occur in the big cities, which are full of the voters who encouraged the problem to escalate that far. Wouldn’t it be nice if numerically most of the guilty people all eliminate each other? That sounds like Hobbs’ war of all against all. Maybe that can actually occur if all the participants are mentally ill members of a death cult.
Yes, I am claiming millions of people in major cities are mentally ill. In the past a high percentage had syphilis and tuberculosis; why can’t as many have a disease of the brain software? Call that disease some mixture of self-loathing plus envy plus communism. Like a silicon computer virus, this brain computer virus has an infectious unit composed only of information, and is transmitted through video, speech, and writing.
Have to disagree with the Rude-One – Thomas. The threats of non-acceptance of the election is primarily -almost exclusively- coming from the Left. This is not a trivial observation. The Left, and its media lackeys, constantly rile-up their, erm, “minions” to violence, and non-acceptance of outcomes, and so-on. The so-called “right” – does not.
Now, part of that may be because Big-Tech is actively CENSORING the Right, but as a rule, I haven’t seen much violent rhetoric emanating from that direction – and I’ve been actively looking for it.
This kind of equivocation is dangerous and superficial. THEY ARE NOT EQUIVALENT. And, to say so, is to willfully blind yourself, and an attempt to blind others.
Finally, virtually all the anti-Trump points Mr. Rude Dude pointed-out – how much was attempted by the Trump Administration, and how much was actively blocked by his opponents? How much has the “Right” actively undermined Trump, as well as the Left? The fact that Trump could accomplish ANYTHING while under constant investigations, not to mention impeachment, is amazing to me.
“The threats of non-acceptance of the election is primarily -almost exclusively- coming from the Left.”
Even assuming that by the “left” you mean the (center-right) Democrats, and that by the “right” you mean e.g. standard-issue progressive Democrat Donald Trump, if you haven’t seen prospective non-acceptance of election results from the latter, then you need to sharpen your “actively looking for” skills.
I do, however, agree that the left (especially the far left, aka libertarianism) is not equivalent to the right (including the Democrats and Republicans).
Anon 12:01:
Respectfully, although I can seriously appreciate this point:
“…the apparatchik and jobsworth wouldn’t exist if the voter didn’t hire them…”
I nonetheless cannot go down the “need a[nother] pejorative term” and “mental illness” pathways, nosir. For me at least–I do not presume to speak for others–this is not mere semantic pedantry; if history has taught me anything it is that the “become what you behold” problem is real, and in order to have any chance of peaceful sleep at night, I have to stay as far away from that pit as humanly possible. Ditto the engaging in the whole “mental illness” tactic; that just smells too much like weaponizable dehumanization to me, and so I just can’t go there.
I also see both of these as falling into the “don’t fight on your enemy’s terms” category, too; especially the “mental illness” thing. I find it painful to see fellow gunnies, for example, attempt (in vain) to somehow curry favor by ceding “mental illness” as an acceptable infringement, even while the puppeteers work tirelessly to establish that merely wanting a gun is ipso facto mental illness.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand both impulses–seriously. And I think you are dead nuts on about the “if the voter didn’t hire them” idea. We need SO much more of that. I just don’t think it’s necessary–or particularly constructive–to go past the pejorative terms we already have, or to try to ascribe to mental illness what really is simply outsourced empathy.
That latter is a big one with me; I think it describes perfectly what is going on in most of the cases I’ve ever seen. And most importantly: anyone can reclaim his own empathy, at any time; it is absolutely a fixable problem.
How to make the so-affected thus-aware is of course not a trivial question, especially given the surprising resistance to any sort of historical cautionary-tale reasoning–but it’s worth remembering, as we work on building the world we want to live in from the ground up.
I find it interesting that people seem to feel that their vote matters, i doesn’t, this election like every other election, is a sham, just like am WWF wrestling match, Biden, Trump, Clinton, Obama, Bush, Reagan and the rest,are all on the same team, actors whose job it is to keep people divided, and those who really hold the power, in power.
Like I wrote above they want around half the society hating and wanting to kill the other half.
Claire wisely wrote “Don’t fight on your enemies’ terms.”
Your enemies terms are to see some other person as your enemy, the way to win is, walk away live and let live, find your place and your people, (or your solitude) and live your life.
Who cares what people in a city you don’t live in, never plan to visit do?
Who cares what people in a city you don’t live in, never plan to visit do?
Valid point, until they decide to visit you.
“We considered the reality that even in Atlanta, with an exceptional black woman like Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, there was still no respect for the humanity of blacks,” Scott continued. “Even with Erika Shields, a black woman chief of police at the helm, there was the murder of Rayshard Brooks. We can see there is something much deeper happening. Politics, as usual, isn’t the answer. Something new has to happen.”
City government runs the police department. They hire the chief, cut paychecks for the officers, set law enforcement policy, and establish procedures. If your city government has been promising to “reform the police” since the long hot summer of 1968, and nothing has changed, your problem isn’t the police department.
Reading between the article’s lines, I doubt the 19 Black families understand that.
…urges people to stay away from the evacuation zone to prevent looting, spokeswoman Ashley Keehn said
That isn’t how you prevent looting.
I agree with you, Claire, that a Trump landslide is the best scenario to hope for. Not because it will stop the “peaceful protests,” but because it will demonstrate that “loud” does not equal “popular will.”
The danger is that a landslide will energize Republicans to focus on the things they want to prohibit, like abortion, instead of taking care of business.
Not much light at the end of the tunnel. But then I never thought I’d see Israel sign a treaty with the UAE and establish relations with Bahrain.
The end of last year there were 18 million licenses to carry a handgun. How many are there now? I’ll add seven more with my class tomorrow.
@Kevin Wilmeth
the “become what you behold” problem is real, and in order to have any chance of peaceful sleep at night, I have to stay as far away from that pit as humanly possible.
You have identified an undesirable region of your personality, and work to avoid putting yourself in a situation that triggers that weakness. For that I commend you. But that insight is completely independent of the question, will your war plan achieve victory? It could simply be that you are not the correct person to serve as a fighter for this particular battle. Don’t hire an alcoholic to be a wine taster.
I once called L. Neil Smith a pacifist because he was unwilling to accept into his moral theory any collateral damage whatsoever during a fight for liberty. In practical terms this means the gun battle on Concord green could not have occurred, because defenders’ bullets that missed soldiers will hit the noncombatants in the edge around the green. His response was, if we approve of killing innocents it’s historically a slippery slope; to which my response was, moral behavior can’t be simplified down to a flowchart for a child to follow. You notice we’re still paying taxes despite decades of his publishing? His plan isn’t working.
Ditto the engaging in the whole “mental illness” tactic; that just smells too much like weaponizable dehumanization to me, and so I just can’t go there.
All sorts of groups from the Soviets to Gitmo have clothed torture of innocents in fake mental health wrappings, nevertheless, it can still be a medically true result. You wouldn’t call the present leftist self-loathing death cult of relinquishing civilizational features one hoax doom at a time, a worldview likely to succeed in Darwinian terms, would you?
I don’t find these results unexpected. After all, if every human was as aware of game theory as computer people are, then the whole world would be libertarian; but they aren’t. We get the political results we see because most humans can’t, due to mental limitations, effectively defend against the attacks.
anyone can reclaim his own empathy, at any time; it is absolutely a fixable problem.
‘Freedom through education’ is a Big Lie libertarians tell themselves. What successes did Spooner or Mencken achieve? Most humans don’t have enough of that empathy; what most have is great ape genetic instincts to obey the loud, colorful, dominant-acting monkey.
Technology is a force multiplier. Due to diminishing returns, a 2X advantage given to an individual causes more of a shift in the predator/prey equilibrium than 2X the nuclear bombs given to governments. What I predict will happen is that fed-up individuals will surround themselves with a fence made from drones with night vision, land mines, remotely operated guns, and cryptography. When tax collection collects less than it costs, most organized crime will end. Just like how Britain found the Atlantic ocean too expensive to cross with armies to rule North America.
“I once called L. Neil Smith a pacifist because he was unwilling to accept into his moral theory any collateral damage whatsoever during a fight for liberty. In practical terms this means the gun battle on Concord green could not have occurred, because defenders’ bullets that missed soldiers will hit the noncombatants in the edge around the green.”
I guess it comes down to what you mean by “accept.”
Is your revolution important enough to you that you’re willing to accept civil or criminal liability for your “collateral damage?” If so, good on you. If not, either don’t pull the trigger or admit that you’re a thug. If you fire a bullet, you are responsible for where that bullet goes and who it injures, full stop. “My cause is just” doesn’t cancel that responsibility.
@Thomas L. Knapp
You mean, “civil or criminal liability” as defined by the present government? You’re saying if I don’t obey the rules of the concentration camp, I have totally earned and deserve the consequences the government will do to me? Because 100% of the humans actions which led to this particular situation were done by me, and 0% were done by the Nazis? If you don’t blame the concentration camp victims, then don’t blame only me for collateral damage. Instead, consider the totality of my options and the total costs of those options.
Anon 15:15:
Well, unsurprisingly, holding my comments to your standards and objectives doesn’t wash out too well, against your conception of “victory”. I’m not quite sure where you managed to infer a “war plan” from anything I said here, and I actually thought I was rather clear on what my sense of any sort of “victory” might be. Clearly, YMMV, and did. 🙂
I’m not quite sure what your intention is, either, in criticizing the moral principles of individualists, for failing to produce the peculiarly ironic result of dominating a society. You seem eager to jump to…rather substantial illusions, about others, to establish your point. Are you truly suggesting, for example, that LNS really would find the Colonial response at Lexington Green indefensible on the grounds that someone might miss? Or that any morality that refuses to engage in moral relativism is inherently and unavoidably infantile?
Or that anyone who isn’t as resigned to the presupposed fait accompli of an all-out Hobbes-ian mêlée as you may be, is easily brought into the fold with a little ridicule and “black-flag, slit throats” marketing? With extra points docked for outward attempts to find common ground with others during a trying time of division and agitprop?
Enjoy your certainties, while they last.
It appears I may have misread you, originally. Now, though, you have effectively “removed all doubt”, with the same garden-variety, retread strawman arguments that NAPpers / ZAPpers have had to endure for years. Not creative, by any means, but clear enough. Perhaps I should have seen that coming sooner, but I didn’t.
Duly noted.
@Kevin Wilmeth
I’m not quite sure where you managed to infer a “war plan” from anything I said here
We’re talking in the context of an apparent runup to a civil war. How can this discussion not be a plan about war? Making war, or avoiding war, but in any case war is the subject?
Are you truly suggesting, for example, that LNS really would find the Colonial response at Lexington Green indefensible on the grounds that someone might miss?
Yes, missed shots at Concord was my actual example to LNS in my email. No, I don’t have those emails anymore, it was in the 90’s. His response was phrased something like, once you unbar that door anything and everything will come through. I agreed it will all try, and we must just our judgement on a case-by-case basis, because no Lexingtons is a military loser.
Or that any morality that refuses to engage in moral relativism is inherently and unavoidably infantile?
Let me replace the words “moral relativism” with “internal inconsistency”. Now I can explain the law of physics called natural selection is the judge of a moral model. Therefore I am not being inconsistent, because the actual moral value which I am consistent about is Might Makes Results. Not Right, Results. When Hitler says 2+2=5 it’s still wrong, but he might succeed at killing anyone dumb enough to be seen disagreeing. Any morality that doesn’t recognize Darwinism as the final judge is inherently and unavoidably immature.
“We’re talking in the context of an apparent runup to a civil war.”
Where did you get that? Certainly we’re talking in the context of uneasy, crazy, volatile times. But for my part, at least, I was talking primarily in the context of freedomistas taking actions in hopes of avoiding a civil war. Several others here (Joel explicitly and others implicitly) seem to be on the same page with me. Not sure where you derived “runup to … war.”
Also, I think Kevin Wilmeth’s responses have been very reasonable and astute.
“Any morality that doesn’t recognize Darwinism as the final judge is inherently and unavoidably immature.”
Ah, but Darwinism turns out to be a very different thing than we’ve often envisioned it to be. “Survival of the fittest,” for example, has never implied survival of the physically strongest or the most ruthless, the most willing to crush or disregard the welfare of others. We increasingly recognize that it’s more likely to mean survival of the most cooperative or the best organized. Or possibly the cleverest or those with the best leadership or the longest-living grandmothers to help care for the young. One recent argument even makes a semi-convincing case for the true motive power behind Darwinism being “survival of the friendliest” (e.g. the most sociable), at least when it comes to humans.
Since we don’t even have a fixed definition of what Darwinism actually is within the great complexity of nature, it’s presumptuous to say that any morality that doesn’t recognize Darwinism as some “final judge” (as if evolution stood in the stead of some Jehovah-like deity!) is “inherently and unavoidably immature.”
OTOH, we can safely say that anyone who is so certain of his own rightness that he can judge strangers and their views as “inherently and unavoidably immature” is being impressively arrogant and is speaking about things he doesn’t truly grok.
Regardless of the totality of your options, you’re responsible for the options you choose. Other people’s lives don’t belong to you. If you kill someone who’s not initiating force, you’re responsible for doing so. You may consider that needful, but you’re responsible anyway. You don’t have to like it. That’s how it is whether you like it or not.
Claire,
Interestingly (given that L. Neil Smith’s name has already come up in this thread), Neil wrote a great piece on “Social Darwinism” quite some time ago (IIRC, the 90s), in which he pointed out that it’s not “survival of the fittest,” but rather “survival of the fit” — and that leaving people free figure out their own ways to be fit (i.e. to survive and reproduce) creates the greatest variety of solutions that might prevent extinction of the species, while not doing so is likely to get the “I won’t let you be free” specimen killed and thereby improve the species.
Anonymous writes:
We’re talking in the context of an apparent runup to a civil war.
Claire writes:
Where did you get that?
From your original post, where you wrote:
and one very weird election year that might end up with civil war or a military coup. (Whether you like him or not, pray that Trump wins in a landslide; the alternatives are too ugly to contemplate.)
[…]
I’m not saying not to defend your own property or your own community. I wish there were more “rooftop Koreans” protecting their family businesses in besieged downtowns. I cheer for gun owners who turn out in the streets or in yards to defend their own property and communities against violent invaders.
[…]
Absolutely it may come to shooting. It already has, of course, though the shooting so far hasn’t accomplished anything except giving the media opportunities for propaganda. But make. Every. Bullet. Count. If it comes to that. Make every gesture count. If you’ve got to die for your cause (or, as they say, make some other SOB die for his), make it worthwhile.
Since we don’t even have a fixed definition of what Darwinism actually is
We don’t know of a single best moral strategy for humans; I suspect there is no single best strategy because the options are too complex. But as biologists we can observe the outcomes of natural selection such as population count, geographic range, and material lifestyle of competing human groups. The Western Enlightenment group is losing.
Anon of the now various times, but still conspicuously “anon”:
“…Let me replace the words “moral relativism” with “internal inconsistency”. Now I can explain the law of physics called natural selection is the judge of a moral model. Therefore I am not being inconsistent, because the actual moral value which I am consistent about is Might Makes Results. Not Right, Results.”
and…well…the rest. I’ll not dispute consistency, there.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect. I’ll just do my best to avoid falling victim to one of the classic blunders.
Anonymous — Acknowledging the possibility of war, amid other possibilities, isn’t the same as being in a “runup to war.”
Thoughts for the day:
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.” — H.L. Mencken
@Claire
Acknowledging the possibility of war, amid other possibilities, isn’t the same as being in a “runup to war.”
“Runup”, as with an airplane just before takeoff. Move controls through full range to make sure they move free and unhindered, engine to full power. What Kyle Rittenhouse was doing. He went looking for trouble, and found it.
Here’s an opinion on our run up to war today, mainly that it’s no run up, it’s happening;
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/09/11/weather-underground-terrorist-bill-ayers-suggests-the-civil-war-has-already-begun-n917703
Is another Bleeding Kansas taking place in some of our inter cities right now?
IMHO any round you put down range is your responsibility just as much as Mike’s catechism of protecting innocents is methinks.
Here’s something to fear: getting a COVID test. In Ohio, people testing positive are entered into a police database:
https://ohiostatehousenews.com/2020/09/covid-positive-test-results-entered-into-statewide-police-database/?fbclid=IwAR0bG1DCNsaIKV9kk0GOrOXbYFw2FDE8130q03gunDVa1K-KJyoHhhN_UMk
Noah Body, yeah that’s not good, the entire federal alphabet soup of police agencies need to eliminated, and the locals need to be scaled way back (should they exist at all)
Pretty interesting trying to follow along on this thread. Thomas Knapp, passing along something I learned in 11th grade English composition, never use words like “stupid” or “idiotic” when referring to people, their opinions or ideas. When you use such judgmental words it turns off the reader, and everything you say after just gets dismissed or laughed at or both. You’ve given us all both here, but here’s a hint for you, if you ever want to be taken serious as a writer or even just have people hear the message you’re trying to convey, you ought to grow up a bit and quit name calling.
But like Joel tried, let’s get back to the post and the pertinent comments:
As guerilla fighters, aren’t freedomistas in constant Benedict mode? We all want to be left alone and live NAP, but woe be it the demonstrators bent on destruction should they come marching down our street.
I’m a big fan of Sun Tzu also. The Art of War sits on my table next to the US Citizen Handbook (Constitution, DoI, etc) and the tide chart. Master Sun also taught that we should never rush into a battle, but choose our time of entry to assure victory. As I look around I see that yes, as Comrade X commented, we are at war. But we are not currently in a battle. Night after night the enemy (I call then neo Mansonites, Charlie would be sooo proud that a new generation of white people know what the black people need) depletes valuable resources trying to light buildings on fire and sow seeds of unrest. And every morning America wakes up and sees the results and 10,000 more people decide to vote for Trump.
I used to envision worst possible outcomes and try to prevent them for a living. On sheer scale alone, I can see where we might have crossed the Rubicon already, but even if we haven’t I
can’t envision how this ends.
The only one to use the word “idiotic” in this thread is you. I’m not the only one to use the word “stupid,” but my only use of it was to explicitly note that someone isn’t stupid.
As for being taken seriously as a writer, I’ll try to remember to ask the newspaper editors who publish my op-eds more than a thousand times a year whether they do so or not.
Sorry Thomas, but never heard of you and except for here I’ve never seen any of your work. Guess I don’t read the papers you’re in.
I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of me. I’m not famous. And most of the papers that pick up most of my columns are smaller ones.
JW — Thank you for the defense. Thomas is the editor/publisher of Rational Review News. He often picks up my work and I respect him greatly for his work.
OTOH, Thomas, your comment that I wasn’t stupid was cleverly backhanded. You implied that the “hacker” who wrote my post was stupid. So, me being that “hacker,” and me having done some embarrassing misspellings, I embraced the suck. And you do have a reputation for being harsh and harshly persistent in any disagreement. I appreciate you anyway, but well, you clearly did bassackwardsly call me stupid. No biggie. But.
JW is also my dear friend-I’ve-never-met.
Can we now go back to talking about the actual TOPIC?
“Can we now go back to talking about the actual TOPIC?”
Absolutely. I stopped pushing the insult cart the instant you so ordered. But if anyone else wants to keep pushing that cart my way, I’m happy to tip it over and kick its contents back at them. I’m harshly persistent that way.
“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.” — H.L. Mencken
+1
Here I was gonna comment on both grandpa’s, in WA and OR, being evacuated, during these so-called “climate fires”, (and an aunt and uncle that were told to, but never do, staying awake all night to fight off approaching flames), and yet… I wade through the comments to get a feel for the room and wonder what happened to the place? Squeeze a head to get shit from another… and the comment stays out of respect for the author?? Well, that’s new…
The room took a different direction then I care to go, but I would suggest you all go find some of the great examples of individuals refusing government orders to evacuate, or running road blocks to return, to save their homes and neighborhoods and in some cases entire towns. Loggers, farmers, homemakers and auto mechanics adding value to this world! And which some mismanaging smuck in D.C. or Salem didn’t have an army big enough, fast enough, (or willing enough), to stop them. Hah! The value these people now put on that which they saved may well set the usurpers back a 100 years.
But, okay, I get it. I’ve been informed the crisis of this election is more important than the last one, (even on these pages…). But to say I peaked long ago, would be an understatement. When a lone 17 year old can stand against these “end times” and walk away, the vapors really subsided for me. Maybe I will catch the next civil war, but for now, I see a forest of green calling me to gather up the kids, the dog and the guns for another adventure in adding value to this life.
As always, Claire, you are loved, lovable and lovely. Peace out.
Since people are discussing the possibility of civil war in the US, my biggest fear is how China or Russia would act in such a situation. Specifically of one of them launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US’s nuclear arsenal in order to prevent it from falling into unstable hands. That is a worse case scenario situation of course and not that likely. But I still find it disturbing to think about.
Don’t discount the youth just yet. Saw a kid couldn’t have been more than 10, in the food store today. Proudly had his mask on his forehead. I stopped him to read it and it said “This mask is as worthless as my governor”
Some of them are still worth us fighting for
To reply to FishOrMan – how about this –
When going to Walmart, over the past three visits, *I* was the only one not wearing a mask. That was a bit distressing.
However – when I went to Walmart on Monday, with the store population at about half of Walmart – there were eleven sans mask. The policy here in New Hampshire is the same for both stores.
Maybe people who actually work for a living have the same attitude?
Here’s hoping, anyway..
Jolly