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Where there’s Internet, there’s hope
(plus an invitation)

The news is dire, depressing, infuriating, terrifying, ominous, twisted, biased, and generally panic-inducing. As always.

Okay, it’s more than usually ominous lately, what with the country rather suddenly being ruled by a coalition of pandering post-Alzheimers proponents of the old order and a whole new class of juvenile Masters of the Universe.

The flick-of-a-switch “disappearing” of Parler and our then-present president from the ‘Net finally rattled us in a way that previous censorship, deplatforming, demonetizing, Twitter mobs, and disappearances of lesser ‘Net operations could not.

Scary, scary, scary, scary, scary. BUT.

Have you noticed that activist ‘Netizens (that good old word from the hopeful 1990s deserves a revival) are now very actively doing exactly what they always said the Internet was designed to do — routing around the damage?

This is why, as terrifying as our New Totalitarians are, I don’t believe they’re going to achieve their goals of either permanently occupying space inside our heads or expelling all conservative, libertarian, or dissenting liberals (ala Greenwald, Taibbi, Weiss, Rowling) from mainstream society.

Oh, they’ll give us all kinds of hellish hell as they attempt to “re-educate” us, “cleanse” us, outlaw free speech via “domestic terrorism” bills, or ban us deplorables from careers, relationships, financial services, and ultimately from life. (And by deplorables I mean what our new overlords secretly mean; not only Trump v*ters, but anybody who disagrees with whatever their ever-shifting party line is at the moment.)

Some of us may lose everything right down to our “lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Our country may collapse to its knees. And our monetary system surely will collapse, period (although on a timeline no one dares predict).

But I don’t think TPTB know what they’re up against, and online events of the past few weeks bear me out. Not only are millions of users (and thousands of stockholders) finally fleeing Big Tech for privacy-respecting rivals; suddenly everywhere, tech folk and non-tech folk are independently rebuilding, or proposing rebuilds, of the very structure of our online life.

—–

Some of these rebuilds are brand new. Gab, which already has its own browser (thanks, yachtsecurity, for the lead), is now working on a privacy-minded cellphone to route around the Apple/Google duopoly. Wendy McElroy linked this morning to a Bruce Shneier article about a possible means of foiling cellphone location tracking. New applications for distributed communication networks and cryptocoin payment options are springing up all over.

Much of this is way over my head and probably way over yours unless you’re a techie. All we can do is wait for some of these new developments to come to fruition, then investigate and adopt some of them.

Other rebuilds hark back to those halcyon days before billionaire brats and Deep State operators captured the Internet for their own profitable surveillance purposes.

—–

It’s a few of those old-fashioned (but not nostalgic) hopes I’d like to emphasize today. And this is also where the invitation mentioned in the post title finally comes up.

A lot of ‘Netizens are going back to basics — and showing the rest of us how to.

For example, Chiefio takes us right back to 1990s tech (updated for the present) of private mail boxes, pre-paid debit cards, and burner phones. (H/T Borepatch) You already know all this if you’ve been around Living Freedom for a while. But it’s interesting because it promises to be the beginning of a comprehensive series on privacy, anonymity, and security.

Brad, at Wendy’s place, has stepped up to do some of the best communication about alternates to Big Tech. The other day he revived a past post of his about how libertarians and other at-risk site owners can protect their websites from attack or censorship.

Today, Brad posted a back-to-the-future message concerning blogs and blogrolls. He notes, “Glenn Reynolds, and others at Instapundit, have been saying for years that ‘abandoning the decentralized Blogosphere for the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube was a huge mistake, particularly for conservatives.'”

Indeed. And how many times have you heard that blogs are hopelessly old-fashioned, a dying art, and contain too much long-form writing to be relevant in this age when 280 characters are supposed say all that ever needs saying?

Brad quotes a 2019 article by the equally excellent Reynolds:

In engineering parlance, the early blogosphere was a ‘loosely coupled’ system, one where changes in one part were not immediately or directly transmitted to others. Loosely coupled systems tend to be resilient, and not very subject to systemic failures, because what happens in one part of the system affects other parts only weakly and slowly. Tightly coupled systems, on the other hand, where changes affecting one node swiftly affect others, are prone to cascading failures. Usenet was one such system, where an entire newsgroup could be ruined by a spreading ‘flamewar’. If a blogger flamed, people could just ignore the blog; when a Usenet user flamed, others got sucked in until the channel was filled with people yelling at each other. As Nick Denton wrote, the blogosphere ‘routes around idiots’ in a way that Usenet didn’t, because the blogosphere doesn’t depend on the common channel that a Usenet group did.

Twitter, Reynolds observes, is like Usenet elevated to a virus of the mind. Or a highly addictive designer drug. You could say the same about most corporate-controlled social media. They’re deliberately designed, and constantly tweaked, to hook you. Then their corporate pushers can make you go cold turkey any time the whim strikes them. They can even gaslight you by leaving your messages seemingly intact, but ensuring that nobody sees them.

Blogging has suddenly taken on new importance in the age of corporate censorship.

And I would add (as surprisingly few writers are) that if you have a blog it’s important to get it off WordPress or any other centralized blogging platform. (This site and a lot of others use WordPress, but are not hosted on WordPress, which for now at least, is some protection. How much protection remains to be seen, but it’s a start.)

Brad also asks (I paraphrase and elaborate), but in this era of Googlish control and easy-to-alter algorithms and the relentless will to censor, how do the decentralized, the marginalized, and the world of deplorables find each other? If search engines won’t find you or they downgrade you into page-10 invisibility, what then?

Brad’s answer — or partial, expedient answer — is: revive the blogroll. So once you find one simpatico blog, you can use its blogroll to locate others.

Boy, now that’s old-fashioned. I haven’t even looked at the Living Freedom blog roll in years. But I will now. I’ll be pruning dead sites, revisiting live ones, and adding new ones. Shortly. It’s one of many tasks to prepare to stay in touch despite the worst efforts of the Masters of the Universe.

—–

But now — finally! — to the invitation: come join the Living Freedom Forums (formerly Claire’s Cabal).

Talk about old-fashioned! If blogs are — were — passe, discussion forums are prehistoric. A couple years ago I asked two younger friends what I could do to attract twenty-, thirty-, and forty-somethings to the forums. Independently, each said pretty much: You can’t. You’re trying to attract younger people, who text and use Twitter and Instagram and other quick and trendy platforms, with OLD TECH. They’re not interested.

Well, dear people, the relevance of old, independent and distributed, tech is rising once again. And at The Living Freedom Forums you’ll find not only nice, sturdy old tech, but these added benefits:

  • Pretty decent privacy protection
  • Forums screened against trolls
  • Useful freedom information
  • Me (I post there more often than here)
  • A community of intelligent, respectful freedomistas
  • Well-screened news and some fairly bad jokes
  • Voices of experience on subjects from preps to politics to money to guns to farming to tech security
  • No Zuckerbergs, Bezoses, Microsofts, algorithms, or censorship (rules of civility and prudence, yes; censorship no)

I invite you to join. Or if you were a member in the past, to rejoin. If you ever had a membership and it’s lapsed, chances are good that admins can revive it.

New applicants: There’s a 10-question application. Enter through the above links to find it.

Former members, just contact me at memberships at clairescabal dot com, give me your name or registered username and unless you got banned for trollery or other misbehavior I’ll reinstate you.

Membership is free, but applicants are screened. The “price” to remain a member is your participation. Those who join but never, or seldom ever, post within their first six months are dropped. You don’t have to post every day, or make postosauruses; just be an active member of the community and your initial six-month provisional membership will be extended.

We need each other now more than ever. And we need private, independent meeting places our tech overlords can’t easily take away from us. Nobody is secure online these days, but better people than I are doing what they can to change that, and the rest of us can help make good things happen in these dark times.

48 Comments

  1. John
    John January 21, 2021 1:31 pm

    The workarounds are hopeful and promising, even exciting. The inability to reach the younger folks however, is deeply disheartening and I wonder if in a generation the founding idea of this nation; liberty, will be lost but to a very few monks in hidden away places. Perhaps replaced by a placid populace of pacified serfs? The thought leaves me cold.

  2. Steve
    Steve January 21, 2021 1:48 pm

    The millennials are dumb as bricks. I share your concerns.

  3. John
    John January 21, 2021 1:56 pm

    Steve, I don’t think they are dumb. Rather they are conditioned into ignorance, by design. Fed a diet of junk “truth” with alternative or dissenting ideas suppressed. Government schools and funds have largely made this possible I believe.

  4. Simon Templar
    Simon Templar January 21, 2021 2:09 pm

    The younger folks may be difficult to reach, but not impossible. The more “normalized” the ideas (liberty, privacy, security, anonymity, etc) become, the easier it will be to attract the younger folks. And once we start getting some on board, the snowball effect will begin to happen. We must think positively, and do what we can to get the snowball rolling. The recent boom in Signal users is a good start, and a good sign.

  5. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 21, 2021 3:04 pm

    I agree that we’re going to get through this. But I’m personally looking into offshore hosting (in Iceland) for my own sites, and considering “alt” domain names that the gummint can’t have redirected (“seize”) at will.

    Brad’s blogroll suggestion is an excellent one. I pruned my own blogroll recently, but I think I’m going to do so again, and also looking for sites to add. Back in the day, the ol’ blogroll was a major traffic source for what was then a reasonably popular blog. Maybe those days are coming again!

  6. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 21, 2021 3:41 pm

    I agree with John. I was a government school teacher for over 30 years. I did what I could as a ghost and mole including starting a marksmanship club, but the government is real good at getting compliance and lulling to sleep.You don’t know the half of it and you don’t want to.

  7. Toirdhealbheach Beucail
    Toirdhealbheach Beucail January 21, 2021 4:39 pm

    Claire, I am disheartened and somewhat heartened at the same time. Disheartened by the circumstances; heartened by the fact that people are already working on finding solutions (Long ago in a book I read a line “For every government regulation, there are twelve people working day and night to find a way around it”. I have found that to be true my whole life).

    The Social Internet (versus the Social Media) will become a thing again. It has to. More than ever, like minded folks needs places to go discuss, cogitate, and reason together. It is like there should be a place, an agora, something, where we could meet… (yes, yes, I know. I will be submitting an application shortly).

    Thanks for the information on the hosting off \a site like WordPress (or Blogger in my case) without having it on their sever directly. I had no idea it was possible but will have to see how I can do this.

  8. Jolly
    Jolly January 22, 2021 7:32 am

    Blogrolls are nice, and maybe we can re-introduce the “Webring” as well? The definition here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring . These were usually a linked-list of two sites with arrows in the footer…It could be updated to have anonymous out-of-country server provide the links, perhaps using straight IP addresses instead of / in addition to DNS name entries.
    Isn’t it pitiful that going out-of-the-US is a “thing” now?
    I have several rack-mounted linux boxes not being used. Wondering how I can utilize them. My bandwidth is pretty good, but I suspect we’ll be going back to 90s tech, so not a lot of pictures and videos, except as links ( transient though they may become ).
    I ran a mail server for a decade ( became a REAL pain with spam and so-on, became too difficult to continue with the small amount of money I was being paid ). Could do so again, I guess.

  9. JdL
    JdL January 22, 2021 8:23 am

    Yes, we the good guys will figure out ways to route around the obstacles the thugs in government and industry throw at us.

    I took a look at the application at the Living Freedom Forums, but lost interest when I realized I would have to answer ten essay questions just to apply. It sounds as if it’s a bit of an echo chamber, based upon the ideological purity screened for by the questions. I prefer the rough and tumble of a place like zerohedge, where the range of views is wide and the opportunity to shock with unpopular truths is greater. But, to each his own and I hope everyone at LFF has fun there.

  10. Claire
    Claire January 22, 2021 9:22 am

    JdL, no it’s not rough & tumble and therefore probably not for you. But we’re also not screening for ideological purity. Yes, the spectrum of membership tends to be conservative-to-libertarian-to-anarcho-capitalist. But we’re interested as much in how people answer the questionnaire as what their specific answers are.

    Anyhow, a good percentage of the discussion involves practical matters more than philosophical or political ones — prepping, opsec, health, tech, guns.

  11. Cube64
    Cube64 January 22, 2021 10:30 am

    JdL,

    I agree that the essay questions are a bit daunting. A few months ago, I answered them anyway because my membership had lapsed, but my answers were somehow lost in the void. I had a backup of my answers and would have resubmitted them, but as a former member, Claire reactivated my membership anyway.

    There’s a trade-off between making it easy to join versus weeding out trolls and other people who wouldn’t fit in and who might diminish the benefit that other members might get out of it. I’ve never seen an application quite like this one before, but the short-answer/essay questions may be the best way of accomplishing that objective. A lot of it is the kind of stuff you might want to use in a post introducing yourself to the forum anyway. I think most of it, in one way or another tries to get at the question of whether you in some way believe that people should be generally free to live their lives the way they see fit and whether you are able to think for yourself rather than just echo the propaganda of the day. I’m sure the application keeps out a lot of people including possible undercover snoops who wouldn’t belong anyway. Unfortunately, it may also discourage some potentially valuable members as well. I don’t know the best way to handle it, but one possibility might be to be able to request an application waiver based on your post history on the Living Freedom Blog.

    I like to let a thousand flowers bloom, and appreciate both the rough and tumble of Zero Hedge as well as the more club/community-like atmosphere of LFF. But regardless, the forum has a definite “Claire Wolfe” flavor and contains some advice and commentary that you won’t easily find elsewhere. To me, it’s well worth the effort and self-reflection required to fill out the application.

  12. Claire
    Claire January 22, 2021 10:44 am

    Thank you, thank you, Cube64!

    This part, especially, is spot on:

    There’s a trade-off between making it easy to join versus weeding out trolls and other people who wouldn’t fit in and who might diminish the benefit that other members might get out of it. I’ve never seen an application quite like this one before, but the short-answer/essay questions may be the best way of accomplishing that objective. A lot of it is the kind of stuff you might want to use in a post introducing yourself to the forum anyway. I think most of it, in one way or another tries to get at the question of whether you in some way believe that people should be generally free to live their lives the way they see fit and whether you are able to think for yourself rather than just echo the propaganda of the day. I’m sure the application keeps out a lot of people including possible undercover snoops who wouldn’t belong anyway. Unfortunately, it may also discourage some potentially valuable members as well. I don’t know the best way to handle it, but one possibility might be to be able to request an application waiver based on your post history on the Living Freedom Blog.

    Yes, the questionnaire is very specifically designed to help spot both trolls and undercover agents. It’s not infallible of course, but so far, so good.

    It IS unfortunate that the questionnaire itself keeps some great people from joining. So I’m glad you mentioned what I didn’t; if somebody is known to me from comments here or can point to posts s/he makes on some other forum, and those comments look good I’ll be delighted to create a membership. Just contact me via memberships-at-hermit-dot-cotse-dot-net and I’ll start the process.

  13. Cube64
    Cube64 January 22, 2021 11:56 am

    “Wendy McElroy linked this morning to a Bruce Shneier article about a possible means of foiling cellphone location tracking. ”

    Bruce Shneier is normally a fantastic and reliable source regarding anything to do with tech or communications privacy or security. But if you read the comments under his article, there are a lot of people that seem to know what they are talking about, who cast doubt on his suggested technique.

  14. Simon Templar
    Simon Templar January 22, 2021 2:22 pm

    I noticed that, also. Seems like Bruce Schneier may have missed the mark a bit on this one, which is indeed unusual. He did say that this was just an idea that some researchers had come up with, so maybe he was just envisioning some possibilities, once some of the holes are patched up. But it seemed to me that some of the holes mentioned were likely un-patchable.

  15. Claire
    Claire January 22, 2021 4:35 pm

    Interesting short story, Comrade X.

    Cube64 and Simon Templar — Thank you for the reality check. It is unusual for Schneier to be off the mark, but trust you guys to catch him when he is.

  16. larryarnold
    larryarnold January 22, 2021 6:57 pm

    I remain cautiously optimistic, partly because that’s my nature, and partly because I read between the lines.

    As Day 2 of the Biden administration fades, the leaders of Mexico, India, Australia, England, Germany, and now Canada are angry at him. Iran and China are flexing their muscles.

    Because of the “Defund” movement, LEOs are retiring by the truckload. His administration totally disrespected the military. Tens of thousands of Keystone jobs in the U.S. and Canada just vaporized. Gasoline prices are already rising. Antifa is (still) rioting.

    There’s a good possibility that the Senate will put President Trump on trial, and spend months stalling any progress the Democrats have planned.

    There’s a push to investigate Trump supporters. The President had 88,700,000 followers on Twitter. (I wasn’t one of them.) There are currently 37,254 FBI Special Agents. It’s going to take a while.

    There seems to be a chapter in the DNC Handbook about how to make enough voters angry at you to insure re-election.

    President Biden has been a follower all his life. He isn’t going to become a leader, but there are at least four people behind the curtain who think they are going to run the country through or over him. Ever see a circular firing squad?

    And so on. I’ll quit listing with this:
    You’re trying to attract younger people, who text and use Twitter and Instagram and other quick and trendy platforms, with OLD TECH. They’re not interested.
    How many female high school and college athletes, and their boyfriends, and their parents are going to be happy when a woman with a beard and flattop wins the athletic scholarship they were counting on for college.

    The times will indeed be dark, but buy popcorn.

  17. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 22, 2021 7:21 pm

    Larry – Great reply! I got the Jiffy Pop (remember that?) on the stove now!

  18. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 23, 2021 2:36 am

    “Because of the ‘Defund’ movement, LEOs are retiring by the truckload. His administration totally disrespected the military. Tens of thousands of Keystone [corporate welfare-workfare ‘jobs’] in the U.S. and Canada just vaporized …”

    So, is there a down side?

  19. Simon Templar
    Simon Templar January 23, 2021 3:00 am

    LEOs retiring by the truckload is a very positive development. More of this!

    Elected officials (and appointed and hired government people) are not *supposed* to be leaders. They are supposed to be public servants, doing the job they were elected (or appointed or hired) to do, competently. Cattle with metal rings in their noses need leaders, not me or other free citizens. The people are supposed to be the leaders of a free society. This is a concept that is sorely lacking these days.

  20. rcs010217
    rcs010217 January 23, 2021 9:05 am

    Have all human being become so incompetent and dependent that an unlikely threat to a single technology so, “dire,” and, “terrifying?”

    The Internet has only existed about 31 years. HTML didn’t exist until 1992. The first practical browser (Mosaic) did not exist until 1993. For most of the life of most of the people who have ever lived in this world (everyone living before 1990) there was no such thing as the Internet, and the world got along very well without it.

  21. larryarnold
    larryarnold January 23, 2021 10:29 am

    Val E. Forge, I do indeed remember Jiffy Pop. Much better tasting than microwave.

    LEOs retiring by the truckload is a very positive development.
    For libertarians, perhaps. But it’s a huge problem for a progressive administration who wants to enact all kinds of laws and rules and regulations and taxes and fees and fines that they’ll need someone besides them to enforce.

    Keystone [corporate welfare-workfare ‘jobs’]
    In the context of my post, “corporate welfare-workfare” workers canned for the progressive Green New Deal get just as angry as private sector workers. Then there’s the whole issue of a “California Model” of “Green” power, that doesn’t keep people’s lights on and refrigerator working, and which the California Assembly apparently thinks they can fix by requiring everyone to drive electric cars.

    Elected officials (and appointed and hired government people) are not *supposed* to be leaders.
    Perhaps we have a different definition of “leader.” Someone has to tell the Executive Branch how to fulfill the will of the people. In most organizations, that’s the person elected president.

    I learned back in the Boy Scouts that a true leader leads by example. Trust me, teen and tween boys have no rings in their noses. It’s a lesson Democrats seem to have missed.

    rcs010217, there’s a bit of difference in threat level between an internet that goes down, and one that runs 24/7 but actively suppresses half the country.

    Thanks for commenting.

  22. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 23, 2021 2:20 pm

    If all the good ones retire and leave us with only the bad methinks that is not gonna be a good thing, don’t ya know?

    IMHO the cops were just one of the smaller gangs in many metro areas so maybe people can call now upon some of the bigger gangs when they are being raped, robbed or beaten to death, I’m sure they would be happy to fill the void. Maybe the big gangs don’t shoot dogs?

  23. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 2:41 pm

    Comrade X – I share some of your views on cops. I have had my share of hassling (a jaywalking ticket among other things) and ineptitude (my wife was robbed while her car was ticketed for supposedly expired registration- it was current but the tag had been stolen because, yup, no cop was around). But remember this. Even if the ticketwritingdoughnuteaters don’t stop a lick of crime, they’ll punish you for doing it yourself. Read “Arrestproof Yourself” by Dale Carson.

    “There is nothing that inept authority hates more virulently and punishes more mercilessly than an amateur practicing without a license showing them up by using methods other than their own. It is why police chiefs hate concealed carry permits, teachers unions hate home schooling, and married women hate the world’s oldest profession. Corrupt, inept, or unwilling monopolies hate competition.” – Val E. Forge

  24. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 23, 2021 2:50 pm

    “Police” as we know them are a modern innovation (the “police department” as we know it is only a couple of centuries old, and far younger than that outside densely populated urban areas), and frankly a badly failed experiment if the criteria involve keeping the peace and investigating real crimes against persons and property.

    Of course, the same thing can (and has) rightly be said of the entire Westphalian Model nation-state idea.

  25. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:02 pm

    Mr. Knapp – Some good points. Actually, in the United States, we did not have anything resembling a modern police force until the veterans of Washington’s army AND THEIR KIDS passed away. They rightly believed it was better to take your chances with the criminals than risk armed agents of your government riding herd on you. Towns had a constable. If you felt someone had wronged you, you went to the constable, explained your case, and then ASSISTED the constable in bringing the alleged wrongdoer to trial. Seems WAY more constitutional to me.

  26. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:08 pm

    Mr. Knapp – Just clicked your “modern innovation” link. Great article! My thoughts exactly!

  27. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 23, 2021 3:10 pm

    There are sheriffs out there that advocate conceal permits, know that first hand.

  28. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:16 pm

    Comrade X – Yes as law enforcement goes, sheriff’s tend to be the most constitutional. HOWEVER , our last three took that tack ONLY after we took ’em to rooms filled with LOTS of registered voters who believed that they should do so. If they hadn’t felt the heat they might not have seen the light.

  29. Simon Templar
    Simon Templar January 23, 2021 3:22 pm

    Comrade X: Where are these “good ones” that you mentioned?

    What I see are:
    1) The bad ones that sometimes make the news: the murdering, raping, assaulting, stealing, bullying, lying thugs.
    2) The bad ones that enable, defend, or do nothing about the bad ones in category 1).
    3) The bad ones that occasionally fire the bad ones in category 1), but only in the most egregious cases and when they view that action as politically expedient and necessary for them to keep their own jobs.
    4) The bad ones who re-hire the ones in category 1) that have been fired by other agencies.

    It seems that we are in a situation where few good people even try to become a cop because they know about 1), 2), 3), and 4), above. If a good person actually does try to become a good cop, they generally are weeded out prior to actually becoming a cop, are weeded out after becoming a cop, or they become assimilated and then fall into category 1) or 2) above.

    This leaves us with a vanishingly small set of cops that may accurately be described as “good ones,” unfortunately not enough to make a difference.

  30. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:25 pm

    Simon Templar – You got it.

  31. John
    John January 23, 2021 3:32 pm

    County Sheriffs (rural) v municipal police chiefs?

  32. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 23, 2021 3:38 pm

    To say there are no good cops anywhere might just have a little bias attached, you think?

    I have been in many towns, large and small, it does seem that the larger the burg the more of the them vs us there is, lots of politics too however in the smaller to medium I have found cops who where good neighbors and good people but those who eyes are blinded by bias most likely are incapable of appreciating that.

    I see no difference in someone who thinks all cops are bad than those who think all black, jews, rednecks, hippies, we can go on and on are bad. Bigotry is mainly someone that puts everything and everybody in the camp of the bigots choosing IMHO.

  33. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:45 pm

    John – Yes.

  34. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge January 23, 2021 3:53 pm

    Comrade X – You have a point. I did have ONE positive encounter with a sheriff’s deputy. Short version – Almost 40 years ago, my car was vandalized. I caught one of the minor aged punks and graciously applied “massage therapy” in front of witnesses. The deputy arrived, heard both our stories and said, “Tell you what, you don’t vandalize his car any more and he won’t beat the crap out of you anymore.” And that was it. I doubt I’d get such a just ruling today. (See previous post on inept authority).

  35. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 23, 2021 4:03 pm

    “All cops are bad people” and “being a cop is a bad thing to do” are not the same statements.

    I don’t assume that all cops are bad people, both because I’ve had encounters with cops who clearly were interested in doing the right thing and because my brother (now retired) was one of those cops.

    Oskar Schindler was obviously a good person who was also a member of the Nazi Party. It does not follow from that that being a member of the Nazi Party isn’t a bad thing.

  36. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 24, 2021 6:28 am

    Val E Forge you just need to move to a better county. That kind of ruling is common where I live even today.

    Bravo Thomas. Everything IS about the individual!

  37. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 24, 2021 8:26 am

    I believe this to be true for anyone who believes in free thought;

    …………It’s Lord of the Flies, and conservatives are Piggy. It’s “Chinatown,” Jake, but we can’t just forget it and walk away. There’s no place to go. And, increasingly, it looks like there’s no viable opposition party. Conservatives are an occupied population in their own country.

    So now it’s rightists who dream of revolution—or restoration. For those who are serious, take a tip from the Trotskyites of 1976. Organize, network, plan, but keep it quiet. Tough talk is cheap. It might make you feel better, but the cost will be high if things get real. Even yard signs and bumper stickers are unnecessary giveaways. Yes, we know you support the Second Amendment, but shut up about it. Purchase lists and background checks notwithstanding, the whole world doesn’t need to know what you have or don’t have.

    Be careful about who you trust. Avoid idiots, loudmouths, and blowhards. Assume three-letter agencies will penetrate your organizations. Your own government will try to sting and entrap you. Expect agents provocateurs and false flag operations. As much as possible, keep everything face-to-face. Retain good lawyers.

    They’re coming after you. Don’t make it easier for them.

    We’ll get through this somehow. We have no choice.”

    https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/19/thoughts-on-a-conservative-resistance/

  38. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 24, 2021 8:32 am

    Seeing as how conservatives continue to constitute the bulk of both major parties and a near-unanimous composition of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of both the federal and state governments, the “occupied population in their own country” seems somewhat hyperbolic. I suppose it might be possible to torture up a caricature of Bernie Sanders in the Senate or AOC in the House as a whisker to the left of center, but it wouldn’t be easy.

  39. larryarnold
    larryarnold January 24, 2021 8:34 pm

    So I did a bit of research, looking for trends.*
    The last three U.S. House of Representative reapportionments from the Census (2000, 2010, 2020 projected) resulted in:
    States currently with Republican trifectas (Governor and both Legislature houses) gained 10 seats.
    States currently with Democrat trifectas, and states where government is divided, both lost five seats.
    The big winners, Texas with +9, Florida with +6, Arizona with +4, gaining seats each census.
    The big losers, New York with -5, Ohio and Pennsylvania with -4, losing seats each census. Illinois and Michigan also lost a seat in each census.
    Total House seats 435, average House seats per state 8.7.

    *Spreadsheet available on request.

  40. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 25, 2021 9:16 am

    With all the new voters being put on the voters rolls cheating won’t be needed no more.

    And you can bet the groups ( a money making venture for sure) that will be placing these new voters will be placing them in places it will help TPTB stay in power, don’t ya know? How many new voters will it take to turn every state blue?

    And we still have the silent majority (check your graveyards for them).

  41. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 25, 2021 9:55 am

    “With all the new voters being put on the voters rolls cheating won’t be needed no more.”

    Where are these new voters you speak of coming from? Non-citizen immigrants can’t vote.

  42. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 25, 2021 10:24 am

    You’re funny.

  43. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp January 25, 2021 10:30 am

    Well, I’ve heard tales of states in which non-citizen immigrants are supposedly smuggled onto the voter roles … somehow.

    And all of the states I’ve heard those stories about were already deep “blue.” Which means that there’s no effect on presidential elections, since electoral votes are state-winner-take-all except in Maine and Nebraska. It doesn’t matter if the Democrat wins California by 10 votes or 10 million — same number of electoral votes.

    Speaking of California, non-citizen-immigrants not being able to vote might be what keeps that state deep “blue.” Migrants from central America tend to be socially conservative.

  44. Comrade X
    Comrade X January 25, 2021 10:42 am

    This is just my opinion so of course I can be wrong but I believe those coming into the USA from South America will do to the USA something similar to what all the Californians coming to TX will do there; make it more like where they came from.

    Of course I could be wrong and the proof will be in the pudding somewhere down the road but when you are just looking at one issue like 2a, methinks you will find these new members of that state (soon to be voters) not pro.

    There will be changes methinks.

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