Shellenberger: I Was Invited To Testify On Energy Policy; Dems Didn't Let Me Speak

No surprise.

Remember, the two most important principles of the PC left are:

1. Politically incorrect facts must be subordinated to leftist dogma.

2. Disagreement with that dogma is not permitted.

IANA climatologist, obviously. But since I busted out of the liberal/ progressive echo chamber and actually begun reading and thinking about it semi-seriously, I've moved further and further away from the lefty orthodoxy. As I understand it, there has been some global warming, but there's little reason to believe it's largely anthropogenic. There's no imminent tipping point--not even the IPCC thinks there is. It's not the biggest problem we face--by far. In fact, it's not even the biggest environmental problem we face. Even if it were, it couldn't be fixed by renewables--only nuclear could possibly do the trick. So, given that it's unnecessary and ineffective, $2 trillion spent on renewables would be mostly wasted money. And--not that there's every a good time to waste $2 trillion, but--this is not a good time for us to be doing that.

   One thing that's become extremely clear to me over the course of the last two-or-so years: even relatively more centrist progressives have been ensnared in the left's web of mistakes, lies and delusions. As conservatives are wont to say: what matters to progressives is the "narrative," not the facts. And the orthodoxy is enforced mostly via public denunciation and character assassination. Police and white people are indiscriminately murdering blacks! Point to data that falsifies that "narrative" and you're a racist, racist! The Earth is fast approaching a climate tipping point! Only a complete shift to renewables...and climate "justice," somehow...can save it! Point to the copious countervailing evidence and you're a "denier"--you're helping lead us to disaster. You're killing us all! Just do as we say! No time to explain! Point out the obvious fact that men can't be women and vice-versa and you're a "transphobe"! A brand new form of bigotry we just invented! We made up some other words, too! "Transwoman!" "Misgendering!" "Deadnaming!" Also, if you object to us shooting your kid full of hormones and sexually mutilating him, we'll take him away...

   These aren't just policy views to the left. They're moral crusades. If you express skepticism you're not just wrong, you're a bad person. Being right, of course, is not even a conceivable option.

So If You Think The WaPo Is Too Reasonable And Objective...

...then I've got some good news for you.

They're hiring a diversity kommissar!

That should be enough to mop up the last vestiges of pesky epistemophilia that might still be lurking about in some neglected corners of the organization.

"Diversity," like "social justice" really means leftist/progressive/PC politics. It's hard to see how the Post can get a lot more PC...but I guess we'll see.

Keeping College Closed More Likely To Stop The Spread Of Communism Than Of COVID

sigh

There's way more truth in this than I'd like for there to be:

Keeping colleges closed this fall is far more likely to stop the spread of communism than it is to stop the spread of COVID.

— CJ Pearson (@thecjpearson) July 23, 2020

Trump On Delaying Election Day

facepalm

Jeez that guy. 

Not only is this a terrible idea, it's a really terrible idea for the President of the United States to express out loud. 

Incidentally, it's also the kind of thing that the TDS crowd will throw into their teeming vat of Trump-the-fascist delusions. 

Heather Mac Donald: BLM Is Based On Falsehoods

The same information that she's been telling us about for years.

Ever heard the PMSM report it?

The Truth About Policing And Race Is Too Hot For YouTube

The left subordinates truth to dogma as a matter of principle.

Every movement does that to some extent. But it's a bug, not a feature.

The PC left is unusually dangerous because, in their case, it's a feature not a bug.

The longer they control the national conversation, the more truth they suppress, the more dogma they propagate, the more difficult it becomes to defeat them.

Beating the cult absolutely has to be job one.

[And with respect to this topic in particular: they're demanding that we radically remake the country on the basis of their blueprint...and their case for this revolutionary change rests on lies that have been conclusively disproven. But they have arrogated to themselves the power to make rules for the national conversation--and rule 1 is: if we accuse you of racism, you shut up. There is no possibility whatsoever for this road to end anywhere but disaster.]

Why Only In Liberal Cities?

Is America Entering Orwellian Territory?

Entering?

We entered, broseph.

The progressive left basically now tells us what we can and can't talk about, what words we can and can't use, which opinions we can and can't hold, and which science we can and can't accept. Oh and: which pseudoscience we must accept.

So anyway: yeah...we're already there.

Aliens?

Well, I'm with Reynolds.

This far into 2020, aliens would surprise me just a little bit less than they would have last year.

Woketarianism Is A Mental Disorder

Barr talked over US!!! ESPECIALLY DE WIMMINZ!!!!!!!!11111ONEONEONE!!!!!

He "was flanked by ten staffers..."....wait for it....wait for it...wait for it...."NOT A PERSON OF COLOR AMONG THEM"!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111WONWONWONWONWONWON!!!!!1111!!!!!1111

   They have absolutely lost their fucking minds.

   It's not even funny anymore. 

   They joined the cult, drank the Kool Aid, and now they have driven themselves outright insane.

Totally Peaceful Social Justice Riots For Peace And Justice: Totally Peaceful Except When It's WHITE SUPREMACISTS!!!!!1111

These people are unbelievable.

Speaking of their unbelievability:

   “The protest was promoted in social media and flyers to be destructive, ostensibly to support protests in Portland. We are concerned about groups that promote destruction and violence co-opting important social justice reform movements.”
   Rao went on to say: “VCU supports free speech and stands in solidarity with those peacefully expressing messages of social justice and equity for all people. VCU does not condone — under any circumstance — acts of violence or vandalism, regardless of the purported cause. Violence against people and deliberate destruction of property are contrary to the values of our community and will not be tolerated.”

Uh...on the bright side, at least VCU finally supports free speech...?

   They realize that this "important" "social justice" "reform movement" has been violent from the start...right? 

   So...if VCU really does "not condone"--though it apparently doesn't condemn...--"violence or vandalism" "regardless of the purported cause"...well, you see where I'm going with this...

   Note also that the pervasiveness of relativism in academia has left them with no way to express their condemnation--oh, sorry...I mean their not condonation...--of violence and vandalism other than the lame: they're "contrary to the values of our community"... Which community has some very extremely fucked-up values...so who cares that something is inconsistent with them?

   Note also that the more-or-less mythical "Boogaloo Boys" make an appearance, too...which I suppose means: some guys with guns and Hawaiian shirts, who the press didn't talk to, and who were inexplicably marching with their bitter enemies to support a left-wing cause... 

"One Voter, One Vote" Would Keep Cities From Controlling The Country

This seems like a great idea. 

It seems utterly nuts to me that illegal aliens count for apportioning seats in the House.

Ryan Streeter (AEI): "When The Culture War Comes For Affordable Housing"

This is interesting and (seemingly, at least) reasonable.

It reminds me that I don't have much right to speak on such policy issues. 

He writes:

In his rambling press-conference-cum-campaign-rally in the Rose Garden on July 14, President Trump said Joe Biden wants to “abolish the suburbs.” He was referring to Biden’s embrace of the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which would tie federal funds to how well local communities are desegregating neighborhoods and reducing inequality. On July 23, the administration terminated the rule. Trump defended his action in multiple tweets and public statements on the grounds that Biden’s goal is to force suburban neighborhoods to build low-income housing, thereby bringing down housing values.
   The Obama AFFH rule would actually do much worse things than that. It would give the federal government the authority to penalize localities if they were not diverse enough, according to however the feds define diversity. This is part of a longstanding plan on the left to make the suburbs more like the city, or at least penalize the suburbs for contributing to urban problems. Trump seized upon the rule as a way to appeal to suburban voters against the backdrop of his law-and-order initiative to send federal troops into American cities.
   The irony in these developments is that Trump’s administration, under his forgotten and invisible cabinet secretary Ben Carson, had been working on a rewrite of the AFFH rule into a sensible proposal aimed at increasing housing affordability by encouraging localities to increase housing supply. The rule was not perfect, but it was a sensible step to conditioning, not mandating, federal funding (that we are spending anyway) on how well communities are allowing more privately produced housing.
   There is broad agreement among economists and housing policy experts that restrictive local zoning and land-use policies drive up housing prices. Local governments, including in the suburbs, have a habit of restricting the amount of housing that can be built in a fixed geographic area. The winners are those with enough income to live in those areas. The losers are those who don’t — which often includes young families and workers without college degrees, many of whom are minorities.
   Tying federal funding to how well communities are matching housing supply with demand is sensible policy. One might argue the AFFH rule was not the right vehicle, but in principle, a federal rule along these lines would be a step in the right direction. Localities expect the federal government to pay for considerable social welfare costs in their communities. Asking them to do their part by not driving up housing costs on lower-income families is a reasonable policy goal. Even though the federal role in housing prices is relatively small, it can still support better local decision-making by awarding a greater share of resources to localities that implement more flexible building requirements.

Progressives sound crazy when they talk about this stuff--e.g. VA Dems bring to the conversation their bizarre, racialist zealotry. And since "diversity" is an open-ended, unpredictable progressive cover story for doing anything they want,  you definitely don't want to let them apply it to the zoning of your neighborhood. There's simply no doubt about that. But, if Streeter is right, and there are reasonable options short of that...well...I'm certainly willing to listen. 

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.: The NYT Disapproves Of You Knowing The Truth--But At Least It's Up-Front About That; And I Add: This Is PC Progressivism--It's Not About The NYT

It, like the rest of the PMSM, is still suppressing Russiagategate.

How did it report on the Danchenko revelations?:

   So how did the New York Times handle the outing of Mr. Danchenko this week? As if somebody definitely did something wrong, and it was whoever brought Mr. Danchenko’s identity to light.
   “Trump Allies Help Expose Identity of F.B.I. Informant,” went a headline over a 2,200-word story, exuding disapproval that Congress and members of the public were holding a previous administration to account when the Times had chosen not to.
   Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. The paper’s coverage of the Danchenko outing is everything a Freudian slip should be—a full-blown Technicolor revelation of neurosis. But that doesn’t mean the newsroom is not full of curious, persistent and hardheaded people who are trying to find out things. You can see it in much of their reporting. But in the perfumed ranks of senior editors, where this story was likely reshaped to meet institutional and political needs, something else prevails: fear. Fear of the loss of status, fear of being thrown to the wolves in the next social-media eruption.
   I might even be tempted to say that everyone involved in the paper’s pathologically revealing treatment of the Danchenko story should be frog-marched out of journalism on principle. Except for one thing: At least the Times reported the story, and even confirmed Mr. Danchenko’s identity after it was exposed by diligent volunteers on the web. Other news outlets almost uniformly ignored the latest revelation despite its centrality to the melodrama that engulfed the country for three years. If you think something is wrong with American journalism, you’re right.

And: some commenters suggest that this is a shot across the bow of the WSJ's news division for also not covering the story. Others say: if you want to know what's going on, you have to read the WSJ...but you have to read the editorial page...

   One other thing, to harp on the point:

This isn't about the NYT nor even the MSM generally: this is political correctness. This is the PC left--PC progressivism. The problem is the political view that has taken over the American left. Its central tenet--or, rather, attitude or commitment--is: facts must be subordinated to dogma. This attitude or commitment simply becomes most notable in its application to institutions that are supposed to be devoted specifically to finding and disseminating truth: academia and journalism. There the application of the view is most notable, in part because it requires the suppression of rational discussion and criticism, and in part because something more like an iron fist is needed to do that there. 

   But don't blame the Times. Nor the Post. Nor NPR. Nor the rest of the PMSM--blame progressivism and its central commitment: the idea of the politically correct and incorrect.

   Well, you can, of course, blame the media and those who comprise it for accepting such an evil, inhuman, antirational view... But don't fixate on the fact that they have the courage of their convictions.

Blame the convictions.

Bill Barr Is A Beast

I'm no lawyer...and many of the relevant matters have depth beyond what I understand...but so far as I can tell, Barr is a smart, honest guy. And that means, inter alia: he's head and shoulders above the Democratic Congressmen trying to show him up. The parts of the testimony I've seen make him look like a man among boys. Or, rather: reveal him to be.

U.S. Debt Clock And Related Info

Read 'em and weep

Possibly The Stupidest Essay On Political Correctness I've Ever Read

Some idiot at the Washington Monthly.

Tom Cotton thinking that the government shouldn't fund PC pseudo-history is....wait for it...wait for it...itself political correctness DUN DUN DUUUUUN

   Honestly, I just do not remember the left being this stupid about absolutely everything. Part of it is that they are dogmatically convinced that they're right about everything...that's a blueprint for stupidity if there ever was one.

   It's like they don't even make the most minimal effort to be objective anymore.

Pantyfa Are Disgusting And Dishonorable

This seem like pretty typical pantyfa tactics: girl shrieks hysterically in the fact of cops (or just normal people). Either they have to put up with it, or they respond. Her aim, so far as I can figure out, is to gradually escalate. If they respond, she starts screaming even more hysterically as if she's the one being attacked. Her aim is to do anything she can to gain some advantage, no matter how utterly disgraceful and debasing her actions. If they have to listen to her, it inflicts a certain psychological burden on them. If they respond--as they finally do when she physically attacks them--she might get lucky and her comrades--inevitably taping her tantrum--may get some footage of a cop using a tiny bit more than the absolute bare-minimum of force. I'm rather surprised that these people don't urinate on themselves or shit their pants or something, too. Hell, maybe they do. 

   People with genuinely noble aims and much more on the line than these fucking pathetic assholes don't even resort to such tactics, but, rather choose to win or lose with some measure of honor--even if it's lose. The eagerness with which these people adopt the most shameful and contemptible tactics tells you a lot about them. 

Turley: MSM Willfully Ignoring "One Of The Biggest Political Stories In Decades"

   If the shoe were on the other foot--if Pubs had done something like this to Dems--the coverage would be wall-to-wall every day. "bigger than Watergate" would be the new "new normal." The chorus of condemnations would be deafening. I doubt we've ever seen anything like it.

   But the shoe being on the foot it's on, it's not only not being covered by the MSM, they're actually helping to suppress it. They generally mention it only to ridicule it. 

   An MSM this stupid and this dogmatic and this partisan and with this little regard for the truth may well be more dangerous than even an extremely bad president--and Trump is not an extremely bad president. 

   I'm honestly astonished at how shameless and craven and perfidious the PMSM is. And yet they still have readers and viewers. Part of that isn't their (the readers' and viewers') fault--the information having been hidden from them, and suppressed, how could they know? Well...I have to say...I think they should have been able to recognize the PMSM's unreliability by now. It's not like it only became a giant, lying sack of shit last week. This has been clear for quite awhile now...and I say this though I myself was a bit, ahem, slow on the ol' uptake.

   The MSM's Russiagate coverage was laughable...and I wasn't even paying close attention. Worse was their immediate, automatic acceptance--as if it were the most obvious thing in the word--of full-blown transgender mythology. They didn't think about it, they didn't struggle with it, they didn't discuss it, they just simply accepted that night was day, and began writing stories about how some Neanderthals were hatefully suggesting that night might not be day...  And, of course, their move to all Orange Man Bad all the time--no assertion is too absurd, no accusation too scurrilous... And, in the case of the NYT: the blasphemy against truth that is the "1619 project." Anybody who can trust them after that piece of shit probably deserves to be lied to.

   Anyway, some highlights from Turley:

The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring the facts, following the release of yet another declassified document which directly refutes prior statements about the investigation into Russia collusion. The document shows that FBI officials used a national security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and his top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.
It is astonishing that the media refuses to see what is one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. The media covered Obama administration officials ridiculing the suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign and of improper conduct with the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking “wow” response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage.
…
   First, the Russia collusion allegations were based in large part on the dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Clinton campaign repeatedly denied paying for the dossier until after the election, when it was confronted with irrefutable evidence that the money had been buried among legal expenditures. As New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it and with sanctimony for a year.”
   Second, FBI agents had warned that dossier author Christopher Steele may have been used by Russian intelligence to plant false information to disrupt the election. His source for the most serious allegations claims that Steele misrepresented what he had said and that it was little more than rumors that were recast by Steele as reliable intelligence.
   Third, the Obama administration had been told that the basis for the FISA application was dubious and likely false. Yet it continued the investigation, and then someone leaked its existence to the media. Another declassified document shows that, after the New York Times ran a leaked story on the investigation, even Strzok had balked at the account as misleading and inaccurate. His early 2017 memo affirmed that there was no evidence of any individuals in contact with Russians. This information came as the collusion stories were turning into a frenzy that would last years.
   Fourth, the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and inspectors general found no evidence of collusion or knowing contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. What inspectors general did find were false statements or possible criminal conduct by Comey and others. 

   While unable to say it was the reason for their decisions, they also found statements of animus against Trump and his campaign by the FBI officials who were leading the investigation. Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified he never would have approved renewal of the FISA surveillance and encouraged further investigation into such bias.
   Finally, Obama and Biden were aware of the investigation, as were the administration officials who publicly ridiculed Trump when he said there was spying on his campaign. Others, like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, declared they had evidence of collusion but never produced it. Countless reporters, columnists, and analysts still continue to deride, as writer Max Boot said it, the spinning of “absurd conspiracy theories” about how the FBI “supposedly spied on the Trump campaign.”
   Willful blindness has its advantages. The media covered the original leak and the collusion narrative, despite mounting evidence that it was false. They filled hours of cable news shows and pages of print with a collusion story discredited by the FBI. Virtually none of these journalists or experts have acknowledged that the collusion leaks were proven false, let alone pursue the troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration. But in Washington, success often depends not on what you see but what you can unsee.

Ted Van Dyk: "Why Do Democrats Defend Disorder?"

Not a difficult question to answer.

Most importantly:

   The Dems have been taken over by progressives. Progressives are antiliberal leftists. Being against violence and in favor of settling disagreements via rational discussion is a liberal value, not a progressive / leftist value. Mr. Van Dyk is distressed, in part, because he thinks that promoting such violence is wrong. antiliberal leftists do not agree.

   In fact, many of them are closer to communists than to liberals on the political spectrum. According to such people, the U.S.--and all of Western culture--is evil and ought to be destroyed. In that respect, they're actually to the left of most communists.

   Furthermore, progressives and Dems are afflicted by TDS. Because they refuse to assess Trump objectively, as a person with a bad demeanor but reasonable, not-even-very-conservative ideas / policies, they think he's more-or-less evil incarnate. Thus he must be defeated BAMN, as such people say.

   Finally, one of Mr. Dyk's arguments is that such promotion of violence and anarchy will lose the Dems support. Yes...but that's beside the point. He should want them to lose support in their current incarnation. Still, he may be right that such an appeal to self-interest will be effective in persuading the Dems so move away from the left. So I'm happy to use whatever arguments work to do that. Though the Dems seem to have  gained on Trump since the violence started. So I'm not too optimistic about persuasion in this case...

FBI Docs: Source For Federal Surveillance Of Trump Campaign Made Up Rumors With Drinking Buddies

Behold, Russiagate:

   As a former member of Britain’s secret intelligence service, Steele hadn’t traveled to Russia in decades and apparently had no useful sources there. So he relied entirely on Danchenko and his supposed “network of subsources,” which, to its chagrin, the FBI discovered was nothing more than a “social circle.”
   It soon became clear over their three days of debriefing him at the FBI’s Washington field office — held just days after Trump was sworn into office — that any Russian insights he may have had were strictly academic. Danchenko confessed he had no inside line to the Kremlin and was “clueless” when Steele hired him in March 2016 to investigate ties between Russia and Trump and his campaign manager.
   Desperate for leads, he turned to a ragtag group of Russian and American journalists, drinking buddies (including one who’d been arrested on pornography charges) and even an old girlfriend to scare up information for his London paymaster, according to the FBI’s January 2017 interview memo, which runs 57 pages. Like him, his friends made a living hustling gossip for cash, and they fed him a tissue of false “rumor and speculation” — which Steele, in turn, further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as “intelligence.”
   Instead of closing its case against Trump, however, the FBI continued to rely on the information Danchenko dictated to Steele for the dossier, even swearing to a secret court that it was credible enough to renew wiretaps for another nine months.
   One of Danchenko’s sources was nothing more than an anonymous voice on the other end of a phone call that lasted 10-15 minutes. Danchenko told the FBI he figured out later that the call-in tipster, who he said did not identify himself, was Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-born realtor in New York.
   In the dossier, Steele labeled this source “an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump,” and attributed Trump-Russia conspiracy revelations to him that the FBI relied on to support probable cause in all four FISA applications for warrants to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page — including the Mueller-debunked myth that he and the campaign were involved in “the DNC email hacking operation.”
   Danchenko explained to agents the call came after he solicited Millian by email in late July 2016 for information for his assignment from Steele. Millian told RCI that though he did receive an email from Danchenko on July 21, he ignored the message and never called him.

   “There was not any verbal communications with him,” he insisted. “I’m positive, 100%, nothing what is claimed in whatever call they invented I could have said.”

There's no alternative explanation for the extensive evidence of Rooskie collusion! The only possible explanation is that THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS A RUSSIAN SPY.

   Because that is the simplest explanation for...absolutely nothing, ever. 

The Nation: How To Move Biden Left

Bottom line:

It hasn't been difficult so far, and the left's going to keep up the pressure.

You'd think it couldn't get much crazier...but you'd be wrong. 

If "White Supremacy"--OR "White Privilege"--Were Associated With Actual Hypotheses, These Income Numbers Would Be Disconfirming Evidence

But, of course, neither actually is.

Such terminology is associated with quasi-religious moral commitments, not with empirical, testable theories. But if they were, those theories would not predict so many nonwhite groups doing as well as whites...not to mention their doing significantly better. 

But being a religion means never having to say you're wrong...

Biden's $2 Trillion Green New Deal Is Actually A Democratic Jobs Program

This is something I was convinced of--I think--almost a year ago. 

And I mean: somebody I was reading made the point. I didn't figure it out--I was convinced. 

As I've put it in the past, everybody thinks that "Green New Deal" means something like:

Like the New Deal in scope and importance...but directed at saving the environment, not at economic ends.

When in fact it means something more like:

Just like the New Deal--a big-ass jobs/economic/entitlement program--but using environmental projects as the means.

The bullshit "climate emergency"...the nonexistent tipping point...is just a way to get what the left wants. And what it wants, in this context, is: a mixture of semi-socialism and "social justice" nonsense. 

   This is how the extremist left operates: it makes up (if we're lucky) or creates (if we're not) a crisis, and then declares that its pre-existing preferences constitute the only way to avert or solve that crisis. The fictional police brutality crisis helped the left create the real crisis constituted by riots and decreased respect for the rule of law. And now--lo and behold--we are told that the only solutions are programs like depolicing and deincarceration (and, somehow: reparations...and all sorts of other stuff...) that they've long advocated.

   Neo-cons did the same thing in Iraq: somehow, mysteriously, an attack by a bunch of Saudi terrorists gave us reason to invade Iraq. Oh, wait...they uh...have "weapons of mass destruction" (a then-newly-made-up category)...and, um...we have just realized that we have "zero tolerance" for "WMDs! Thus was the neo-cons long-held desire to re-engineer the Middle East realized...or, y'know...not realized...

   I'm not necessarily against jobs programs--though I don't understand the economics of them. But I'm against dishonest programs of any kind. And against this practice of inventing crises to effect long-held goals. And certainly against programs based on crackpot science. Or, for that matter: crackpot intelligence. 

   And I'm really, really against the tactic--now most prominent on the left--of insisting that we always have to do what they say immediately and without discussion because either (a) discussion is violence! or (b) (as in this case) we're approaching some kind of tipping point! Do as we say! Not time to explain!

   In defense of Bush and the neo-cons: at least they admitted that they needed to produce evidence. They did insist that we had to act quickly... But they also did produce their evidence. It was shit evidence...but they didn't just tell us to shut up because discussion was terrorism. They did argue that being against he war was "objectively pro-terrorist"... So they were dumbass bullshitters aiming to illegitimately squelch criticism, too. 

   I don't necessarily think it matters who is/was worse--both are bad and dangerous. Although Biden's $2 trillion boondoggle is, at least, unlikely to make us worse off...and unlikely to produce a million excess deaths... So it's got that going for it.

[Incidentally, the authors of the GND admitted that it's an economic program intended to achieve progressive economic goals--e.g. socialism.]

Manhattan Contrarian: "The Left Has Turned Into A Crazed Maoist Cult"

"It's Time For The Sane To Exit"

Woketarianism Watch: "Racial Justice" Is The New Religion

yep

Progressivism In Another Nutshell: LePore Repeats Obviously False Claim About Police Violence...In An Extended Instance Of The Genetic Fallacy...The New Yorker Fails To Fact-Check It

This doesn't even surprise me anymore.

   I loved Lepore's These Truths...at first. (Confession: I was listening to the audiobook, not reading it. I still find that vaguely shameful...) And I loved hearing her read it. But, honestly, I didn't finish it. Though I may someday. Honestly, I thought her attention to slavery and racism was a bit lurid. At first I thought it was good: honest and unflinching. After a couple hundred pages, though...eh...I thought something was a bit weird about it. But it may well have just been a matter of taste, and a measure of how fed up I am with other people lying about such things and reveling in them. 

   The stats on which Lepore reports are not even vaguely plausible. They should send up a geyser of red flags for anyone who's even vaguely objective. And there's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for The New Yorker not catching it.

[Oh yeah, sorry: this nonsense about the origins of policing being in slave patrols is a blatant instance of the genetic fallacy. Origins don't necessarily have anything to do with such things. Astronomy has its origins in astrology. Chemistry's are in alchemy. Origins are very commonly irrelevant.]

Brookings Was A Major Player In The Russiagate Hoax

Lawfare is a disgusting bunch of liars and hacks...I can't believe how influential they are. Their role is no surprise. There's basically nothing I'd put past those shits.

But Brookings...Jesus...

And yet most Dems still have no idea what went on. The PMSM manages the information that gets to them with an iron fist...and mentions Russiagategate only to ridicule it.

On The Basis Of Russiagate Alone, Progressives Must Be Kept Out Of Power

If you still haven't read the great Molly Hemmingway's summary of the Russiagate hoax / delusion, you really, really have to do it.

Ghost Of Prop 209 Haunts November Ballot in CA

Well, here's what we know for sure:

Universities et al. will only accept and act on the results if Prop 209 is defeated.

When it was passed, it produced barely a stutter in racial hiring preferences. Those preferences merely got translated into the language of "diversity." 

If it's repealed, the usual suspects in CA will immediately kick into high gear and implement even more draconian racial preferences--and then they'll have two weapons: quotas and "diversity." 

If it isn't, they'll simply go back to pushing "diversity." 

But it's Trump, you see, who's a threat to democracy...

Ward Connerly: "America Isn't A Racist Country"

If we’re going to have a national conversation, we need a bold, spirited defense of our progress.

God bless Ward Connerly.

Quoth he:

Yet in America, a nation that is increasingly testing the limits of incivility, justice for Floyd and his family was never the primary objective of those who took to the streets. Instead, the incident represents an opportunity for some to pursue an era of racial leveraging, the likes of which we haven’t seen in some time. For those who yearned to return to a time when race is at the center of the public-policy agenda, this is it.
Some say that America needs to have a conversation about race. I doubt that’s a good idea, but such a conversation is inevitable and already under way. In preparation for an even more intense exercise in American democracy, with race as the centerpiece, I suggest a few factors to guide the discussion.
First, let us acknowledge that there is pressure, spoken and silent, to accept without challenge the view that U.S. is a nation boiling in the juices of “systemic racism.” The response should be a bold and spirited defense of our nation’s progress as we have addressed the topic of race.
When certain Americans were denied the right to vote based on the color of their skin, that was systemic racism. When small children and college students had to be ushered to school by the National Guard, past defenders of state laws and policies that sought to maintain racial segregation, that was systemic racism. When black and white Americans were forbidden to marry, that was systemic racism—and a gross infringement on individual liberty.
Our history is the best proof that America is not a racist nation. A nation of white racists wouldn’t elect and re-elect a black man as president. Those who assert that the U.S. is racist must, at a minimum, address this historical fact.
What delivered us from the undeniable racism of the past to the election of Barack Obama? The American creed—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”—inspired the laws that changed our social and legal structure to make the aspiration real.
We are witnessing an all-out assault on America, not only as it was but as it is and as we seek it to become. As a society, we have been slow to respond to those who propose to transform the U.S. We have not asked, as we should have: Transform from what to what? The answer to this question may be found in the bluest of American states—among them California and Washington—where the transformation is in full bloom.
The operating thesis of a significant segment of the leadership in these states is that America is a racist nation, governed by a horde of white male supremacists who use the pretense of equality to maintain their superior position. When asked for evidence to support the claim of white supremacy,” the only response I have been given is, “Look all around.” They hold this untruth to be self-evident.

This basically couldn't be righter.

   One part I'll highlight is: "Some say that America needs to have a conversation about race. I doubt that’s a good idea..." 

   A better idea is: let's just try to move forward.

   The main idea of the Orwellian progressive left is: facts must be subordinated to "social justice"--which means: leftist political dogma. Currently, our "conversation" about race isn't a conversation at all--the left doesn't converse. It dictates. It spews out its dogma and shouts down the opposition--usually via accusations of racism. 

   Thus far, reasonable people have been too ignorant of the facts--withheld from them by the PMSM--and too cowed to state some central, extremely uncomfortable facts that utterly eviscerate the BLM/progressive position. The Orwellian left has managed, thus far, to badger people into conducting a fantastically fictional "debate" based on wildly false premises.

   Eventually, people will get fed up, and educate themselves...and then the debate will become a real debate..and then things will become much more unpleasant.

(Note that none of this het even touches on the radical left's inherent penchant for violence and destruction...)

   Connerly's right--as usual. 

   This is a nation in which there's still some racism--but not that much.

   It is, however, in no way a racist nation.

VA Dems Are Shit; Oppose Them At Every Opportunity

Like it says.

I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to oppose them and their anti-firearm legislation at every opportunity. 

Contribute to the Pubs if possible.

I say all this as someone who voted for these jackasses in '16.

Yes, I was an idiot. 

All there is for it now is to work hard to undo the error.

NRO: Wisconsin And National Media Ignore Anti-Trump / Anti-White Murder That Fails To Conform To Their Progressive "Narrative"

Curtis doesn't explicitly mention it, but: Navarro is Mexican-American.

   I said the same sort of thing when the right was fanning the flames of Obama hatred:

If you irrationally / unjustifiably fuel hatred against Smith to the point of making it plausible that killing Smith is a reasonable course of action, then you bear some responsibility for Smith's murder. In some cases: even if the person you inspire is crazy. I'm actually surprised that there was never a serious assassination attempt on Obama given how unhinged some right-wing criticism of him was. I mean...if A is the Antichrist...

   We already know that progressivism / BLM has instigated an enormous amount of violence--all of which has been covered-up, ignored, or minimized by the PMSM. (Well, in fact, the PMSM is part of progressivism, so, unsurprisingly, they're doing more than covering it up--they're helping to promote it.) See e.g.: "mostly peaceful protests"... And the academic left has been putting the theoretical piece in place for some time now ("whiteness is inherently racist"..."people may have to die" for "social justice"..."whiteness must be destroyed"...)

   So nothing in this story comes as too much of a surprise. When you make a concerted effort to mass-persuade people to accept something, many of them are likely to accept it. So it's no surprise that many people are accepting that most or all whites are racist, that they deserve to be harmed / discriminated against / retaliated against. and that hatred of whites qua whites and harming whites because they are white is not racist. Hell, a whole lot of white people have been convinced of such things...why on earth think that many non-whites haven't been? That would be an extremely unlikely outcome.
   If you think that helping blacks is what progressives really care about, I urge you to pay closer attention to what they say...and to take them at their word...

...and think about the fact that they've managed to impose on us rules of public discussion according to which even acknowledging that racism against whites exist is itself allegedly racist... And acknowledging that anti-white racism is a significant force on the left is even more racist.

Um...Yay?: Bill Would Prohibit Federal Funds For Teaching 1619 Project

So...yay then? 

   Or what?

   I don't want the gubmint micromanaging what's taught...but progressive-leftist brainwashing of kids has apparently become one of the biggest problems in education. The education establishment / industry barely even tries to hide its ideological bias anymore. 

      My usual approach to such questions is to opt for defending the general principle--in this case: academic freedom....and/or whatever the analog is in primary and secondary education. But totalitarian leftist nonsense is metastasizing throughout our institutions and across the nation, and I'm not sure that can be stopped even with government intervention. Intervention to oppose a very serious and possibly un-otherwise-stoppable problem is, on average, probably likely to be less harmful than non-intervention. I.e.: letting the problem continue to metastasize unopposed.

   Maybe this is being short-sighted. 

   Though sometimes the short-term problem you face poses a bigger risk than the possible long-term consequences of your proposed solution...

   I don't know.

   But I suppose my guess in this case is: go for it.

   If we could rely on the "1619 project" being balanced and including serious criticism, I'd be less likely to support Cotton's bill. But I doubt serious criticism is included in the (pre-prepared) curriculum. I'm pretty sure we can't even rely on universities facilitating genuine analysis / understanding. Even though that solution would leave the majority of indocrinees (a word I just made up) indocrinated...it's also unlikely to help the ones who go to college. 

   So long as the educational establishment continues to barrel leftward, unchecked by any commitment to truth, reason, evidence, fairness or institutional neutrality...well...I suppose I guess that government action is our less-bad alternative. This leaves the rot in education in place. And, of course, the Democrats will never go along with it. So I guess this is a purely academic question...as it were...

Agnes Callard: "Should We Cancel Aristotle?"

I'll be damned....this is pretty good.

I normally don't read "The Stone" because it's so cringey so often.

But this is an exception.

Of course professor Callard is likely in for an e-beating in response. The pattern is too familiar. First we'll probably get:

Strawman! Nobody is or ever will argue to "cancel" Aristotle! This plays into the hands of the right REEEEEEEE!!!!111

Then...if we even go through that first stage...as the left is further emboldened and empowered by the more moderate left's failure to stand up to them, some left-progressive idea entrepreneur will realize she can make her reputation, showing herself to be the wokest of the woke, by arguing--by which I mean shrieking:

CANCEL ARISTOTLE REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!11111

Every criticism is a strawman until it isn't...and since they're always careening leftward, it always won't be if you wait long enough.

Trump Was Right About Ventilators, Cuomo Was Wrong

link

Of course the media won't admit error unless it has no other option. They just erupt in anti-Trump spasms whenever they can, then move along before they can be fact-checked. And they're the ones that do the "fact"-checks anyway...which is why they've become a joke.

Trump: Penalty For Flag-Burning Should Be A Year In Prison

Idiotic and illegal.

If he weren't just about the only guy in D.C. willing to stand up to a progressive totalitarianism that wants to eviscerate the entire First Amendment, I wouldn't even consider voting for somebody who'd say such a thing.

Though, also, I'm not sure how much of what he says he actually means.

Dems Favored To Re-Take Senate

I can't believe Americans are this clueless...

But if so, we are screwed.

Second Round Of Trumpbux?

Seemed reasonable the first time...that deficit tho...

WaPo Settles In Sandman's $250 Million Defamation Lawsuit

link

That's in addition to CNN settling his $800 million suit.

The Covington kids case was yet another political turning-point for me. It was immediately obvious upon viewing the video that the progressives' story about Sandman harassing Phillips was bullshit--even though it had been edited to be maximally misleading. I still remember the vast majority of commenters at the WaPo insisting that it was obvious harassment, that there was no alternative, that Sandman had the most punchable face they'd ever seen, and on and on. I think there was even a petition to deny him admittance to college... Despite the obvious falsehood of the interpretation of the video, progressives became religiously committed to it, and refused to admit error. When the Post finally, half-heartedly printed a semi-correctly, many still refused to change their minds. Then they all just dropped it and moved on to the next target of the progressive e-mob.

James Casey: Portland Protests Aren't Peaceful, Officers Aren't Rounding Up Peaceful Protesters

Progressivism is a web of lies and delusions.

Peaceful Protesters Peacefully Attack Chicago Police With Peaceful Thrown Projectiles, Peaceful Fireworks

Progressive Depolicing In Action: Los Angeles

Antifa Can Only Maintain The Facad Of "Anti-fascism By Pretending Everything To The Right Of Anarcho-Communism Is Fascism

Anybody who hasn't figured that out by now probably can't be helped.

All 15 References To Whites In The Dems' Platform

Contrary to what the title of the piece says, they're not all "damning"...but they're all negative. 

   They're less negative than a lot of progressive claims about whites--FWTW. 

   In the Democratic platform, whites show up only as white supremacists (though, of course, that doesn't always mean what it really means--i.e. Klansmen etc.), beneficiaries of "privilege" (including breathing privilege / asthma privilege), and touchstones by which the disadvantages of other races can be measured. Whites are the problem--the message really couldn't be much clearer.

   People put up with this because the left has convinced people that any white person who objects to negative portrayals of whites is racist. Even when the left insists that "whiteness" conceptually entails oppression, you're not to object. Even when they proclaim that "whiteness" must be abolished--as clear a statement of eliminationism as you could get--you're not to object. Even when they absurdly insist that colorblindness itself is racist, you're not to object.

   MLK would object, of course. Any genuine non-racist would object. But they're racist--and they've half-convinced you to be as well. To have an irrationally negative view of any race is racism. But why do you think that they've gone through so many absurd gyrations to cobble together a ridiculous story according to which it's impossible to be racist against whites? That's so clearly stupid that you'd think no faction would argue for it--all it should do is discredit them. So why has progressivism spent so much rhetorical capitol to push that view?

   The drawing of the conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.

Conrad Black: A Decent, Depressing Summary Of Democrats' Ideals And Positions

link

Don't forget: throwing away $2 on green energy...

I wonder how many Democratic voters even know how much that really is. Do they, say, know what the annual federal budget is?

Libby Emmons: BLM Is Not An Equal Rights Movement

Yep.

   It's a movement based on propositions that are clearly falsified by the extensive available evidence. 

   Neither the police nor white people are gunning down black men with impunity.

   In fact, the opposite is much closer to being true: blacks perpetrate more violence against the police, against whites, and against other blacks.

   The movement has taken the country by storm on the strength of roughly six things:

First, the general insanity inherent in the progressive left.

Second, the progressive left's takeover of the Democratic party.

Third, the progressive left's penchant for seeking to personally destroy anyone who disagrees with it--generally via false accusations of racism and other methods of character assassination. (And, of course, whites' fear of such tactics.)

Fourth, the progressive left's general dogmatism and indifference to facts, evidence and arguments.

Fifth, the media's refusal to report on the actual data about police shootings.

Sixth, the media's hysterical promotion and distortion of a few unrepresentative cases of police and white-on-black violence. 

   The most astonishing thing to me has been how easy it has been to control and subdue Americans. Fooling them is one thing. But I never thought they'd roll over so quickly out of fear--mostly fear of being called mean names.

Progressivism Is Totalitarianism

   First, it goes after children--often very young children. See e.g.: the "1619 project." See also Loudoun county requiring that kindergarteners be taught about slavery. And, of course, transgender ideology and actual There's no doubt that this is indoctrination. The only reason to go after such young children is to brainwash them while they're more credulous and pliable. 

   Second, it subordinates facts and evidence to its political dogma.  E.g....well...too many examples to even make a start on...but the most salient now is the BLM indiscriminate police murder lie.

   Third it seeks to avoid the rational assessment of its views by shutting down all criticism via "cancel culture," character assassination, and absurd claims to the effect that disagreement constitutes violence. 

   What are you waiting for? Actual gulags? An official Ministry of Truth? Second-graders waving around that dipshit "invisible knapsack" article like the little red book? What?

   We defend liberal constitutional government or we end up with progressive-left totalitarianism. 

   Time to stop feeding the crocodile. 

   Even if you get eaten last, you still get eaten.

MosKos: Crime Skyrocketing In NYC Because Minor (And Major) Crimes Were Decriminalized

Largely in the name of "social justice." 

And remember, kids: "social justice" doesn't mean actual justice--it means progressive-left quasi-religious dogma.

Moskos: A Representative Officer-Involved Shooting

link

My suspicion is that BLM's judgment from 20,000 feet that the police are senselessly gunning down black men can't hold up when compared to the actual facts on the ground. And it's falsified by the aggregate data, of course. "Send in a social worker" sounds to me to be about as realistic as "Shoot him in the leg."

I'm certainly willing to have my mind changed about that. 

But that'd be my bet.

Dem Policies Will, Indeed, Wreck Suburbs

The Trump campaign should hammer mercilessly on this point.

It's exactly the kind of totalitarian nonsense that makes the contemporary Dems awful. And it's a way to swing suburban soccer moms.

BIDEN MAKES BLATANTLY RACIST STATEMENT

It's a stupid argument, but the statement isn't even a little bit racist, much less blatantly so.

I suppose Margolis is trying to make people believe that Biden says something on the order of "they all look the same to me." That's not what he said at all. Rather, he said that most people don't distinguish between Asian subgroups. So if you blame something on the Chinese, it's like blaming it on all Asians. 

   And, of course, this is an argument for the progressive Dem's only argument: Trump's a racist. 

   Actually, to mirror an insightful Trump meme: they're actual argument is You're a racist...but Trump is currently in the way...

   In fact, I think there's something to Biden's premise: a fair number of American's may not distinguish among Asian subgroups. But I'd have to see some actual evidence on that.

   Of course Biden's position is absurd. Even if most American's can't or don't distinguish between Chinese and South Koreans, that in no way entails that China--i.e. the CCP--shouldn't be blamed for their irresponsible or harmful actions. 

   Furthermore, Biden's argument seems to suggest that it's ok to blame Chinese Americans for the actions of the Chinese government--the only problem would be if you were to blame non-Chinese Asian Americans for them... 

   How long are centrist and left-of-center Americans going to let these idiots get away with screeching You're racist! in response to, well, absolutely everything with which they disagree? 

[oops, also: 

First, Trump isn't racist.

Second, even if he were, it would be preposterous to argue that he was the only one.]

Pantyfa Is Repulsive And Entirely Withoiut Honor

Even ignoring the fact that they're fighting against the world's most important Constitutional republic/democracy, and even aside from the fact that they're fighting for totalitarian, hard-left anti-liberalism...they're still really disgusting. They fight entirely without honor. They use girls to run interference so that the males can run out between then to attack when opportunities present themselves. The girls also confront people on the other side, getting in their faces and screaming, knowing that they're almost certainly safe from harm. When arrested in one of the videos here, one screams over and over in a way obviously planned...after all, there are dozens or hundreds of people recording, hoping an officer will go too far--or do something that an be represented as going too far. Of course if people record antifa, they are physically attacked. 

   Progressives will likely see in these videos what they want to see. But, objectively, what they show is that it is crucial to win this battle against the shrieking child-totalitarians. 

Kaine, Warner Propose VA's Gun Laws For The Nation

Nope.

But, then, my view is: concede nothing until the madness on the left passes.

They've finally been fairly upfront about their ultimate aims. Any concession just allows them to move farther to the left, and so moves the left edge of the Overton window closer to confiscation. 

I haven't always felt this way, and I might not feel this way forever. But for right now, at least, that's where I stand.

Yet Another "Mostly Peaceful" Protest: 49 Officers Injured; Why Is "They're Mostly Peaceful!" Supposed To Be A Valid Defense Of Protests, But Not Of Cops?

I've had a couple of different smart people say to me, in defense of the BLM "protests" that "they're mostly peaceful!"

My response is: encounters with policer are mostly peaceful, but that hasn't ever been publicly cited in their defense.

In fact, police initiate unwarranted violence much, much less often than the BLM protesters / Pantyfa have.

"They're mostly peaceful" isn't a f*cking valid defense in either case given that they're goddamn supposed to be peaceful. How is Not all our dumbshit protests are violent! supposed to be a legitimate defense? I've gone my entire adult life without ever having unjustifiably initiated violence against anybody. Does that mean it's ok for me to start randomly punching people in the face? 

It's just astonishing to me how many terrible arguments the left accepts these days. 

Did A White House Reporter Call Kayleigh McEnany A [Something] Bitch?

Meh.

Again, seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. 

   I mean, if our standards were the standards of the progressive PC left, it would be a hanging offense...because reasons...

   But they aren't.

   My own old-fashioned view is that people shouldn't call other people bitches on national tv. And you should avoid calling your colleagues such things period. But people get mad and things slip out. And if she did say it, she should apologize. And I'd think K-MAC would accept, and it'd be embarrassing and funny and that'd be that.

   I MEAN IT'S NOT AS IF SOMEBODY SAID "KUNG FLU"...

   Honestly, to me it doesn't sound like she calls her a "lying bitch," it sounds like she says "You fucking [something] bitch." But I really can't tell. The 'bitch' part does seem pretty clear, though.

   Normal people would approach such a situation by asking her what she said, giving her the benefit of the doubt, and moving on. 

   I do agree that we should turn some of the psychopathy of the left back on them...but let's not go hunting monsters too assiduously, how 'bout it?

[Also, the press is probably sore from their daily beating... So we can cut them a little slack when they hate on Kayleigh... ]

Conrad Black: "When The Sensible Take Leave Of Their Senses"

Somehow I had gotten the idea that this was VDH, and thought that the whole time I was reading it. It's bad form to quote more than half of someone's post...so do try to find it in your heart to give him a click--it's worth reading the rest, too:

   The New York Times, appropriately to its status for over a century as the country’s leading newspaper, led the way with a 2016 declaration that its goal was not to report impartially on national affairs, but rather to contribute to Trump’s defeat.
   In some respects, the Times’ candor is welcome and commendable, but it is also disgraceful. It has been followed by virtually all of the influential traditional media, all of whom are guilty of unprofessional conduct. Whether they win or lose their war with this president, all polling indicates they have forfeited the credibility that the sound functioning of a democracy requires the press to retain.
   In systematically destroying the believability of their craft, the press is undermining democracy and reducing the likelihood of an electorate adequately informed to vote as sensibly as the national interest of a great nation requires. Trump gains considerable support for holding his own against such a barrage of malicious disinformation from the media.
   More worrying than the abrasive groupthink of the national political media are the failings of today’s commentariat. The modern and edgy, the woke and provocative, are not people from whom much could be expected and so their failure is more complete than it is disappointing.

Read more »

The Progressive MSM In A Nutshell

How the NYT framed Tea Party protests vs. how they framed the riots in Portland: pic.twitter.com/T8FAv7VMWF

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) July 21, 2020

Witches Hex The Moon

Can anyone explain these people to me?

Taibbi: "The Left Is Now The Right"

"We laughed at the Republican busybody who couldn't joke, declared war on dirty paintings, and peered through your bedroom window. Now that person has switched sides, and nobody's laughing."

God bless Taibbi.

He's so right I thought I was going to burst into tears.

A couple of niggling disagreements:

   First: I urge caution about such arguments. For a long time the left has only permitted two types of criticisms of itself: (a) your ends are right, but your means could be counterproductive--i.e., they could drive people into the arms of the right; (b) you are become like unto the right. 

   Look, what Taibbi writes is right. And given how insane and powerful the left has become, rhetorically effective arguments against them are needed, even if they're suboptimal in other respects. Still, I feel compelled to make the point. In the longer run, if the left is ever to stop being insane, it's going to have to accept that it is sometimes wrong simpliciter. 

   Incidentally, much of the craziness of the left can be traced back to its failure to realize the above point. A corollary is its acceptance of the No enemies on the left dictum. So long as the left accept these ideas, it is doomed to extremism. And extremism is the political analog of insanity.

   Second: though the intelligent design analogy is apt, and I've used it myself, I think Taibbi doesn't quite give the analogy its full force. What happened was:

A small segment of the religious right wanted their view (basically) mentioned in certain college classes. In the modest form of the request, they just wanted students to be told about the view and its major arguments. Academia and all the other powerful cultural institutions (other than religion) immediately rallied against them. They were mercilessly ridiculed and kicked out of the house. They never really had a chance of achieving even the most modest version of their aims.

   Contrast the intelligent design stuff with today's progressive-left totalitarianism--which demands virtually unlimited control over broad sectors of our lives, and which took over universities with hardly a shot being fired, as it were. It now controls them to such an extent that it can demand the expulsion of anyone with the temerity to question even its most insane diktats. Far from requesting inclusion in one kind of class, it demands--and has largely been granted--control over every aspect of the university. And its power grows with frightful speed. ID was a bunch  of religious, conservative outsiders, against which academia circled the wagons. The progressive left controls the university from inside; the only wagon-circling today is against anyone who objects to the progressive hegemony in academia. Any administration that refuses to accede to even the most outlandish and faddish progressive demand will find itself besieged by faculty and students. But administrations generally don't refuse. Because administrators, on average, are more radically leftist than even professors. 

   I fought in the creationism wars, and was probably too zealous and dogmatic in my anti-creationism efforts. For it, I got frequent praise even from colleagues I'd never met. My questioning of Progressitarian religiosity has not been similarly popular--though I assure you, my tone is much more measured on campus than it is on this blog. 

   Creationism/ID never represented a broad nor a deep threat to the University. Progressitarianism has already half-destroyed it--and faculty and students are begging for more. The destruction of open inquiry and free speech just is the destruction of universities. What remains is a collection of publicly-funded leftist brainwashing camps devoted primarily to the dismantling of the United States and Western civilization generally. 

That's an exaggeration...but it's a damn sight less of an exaggeration than one should wish it were.

Portland Goes To Hell: The Death Of An American City

Radicalism destroys everything it touches.

Thing is, I could be convinced to let cities, counties and states try out just about whatever crazy stuff they want to--so long as it's constitutional. If Seattle, Portland, NYC, California...wherever...want to implement as many insane, hard-left policies as they legally can...well...let the states (and the cities) be the laboratories of democracy. They can do it, the rest of us can see how it turns out. There's no substitute for empirical evidence...and this approach would be better than risking the entire country.

   Some problems:

   First: in actual fact we already know how such experiments will turn out. I mean, you have to be pretty clueless to think there's any real chance of non-terrible outcomes. We already know how mob rule, speech restrictions, and communism turn out. How much evidence do you think we need?

   Second: a large percentage of their flagship ideas and policies are unconstitutional. E.g., y'know, evisceration of the First Amendment--with the exception of freedom of the progressive press. But beatings for politically incorrect journalists like Andy Ngo...

   Third: it would mean subjecting the sane folk of such states and cities to illiberal lunacy.

   Fourth: people in less-insane states will also pay the price. E.g. if California opens its southern border, illegal aliens will flood into other states pretty much immediately. 

   And, on a more self-interested note: those of us in second-best Virginia are in danger of becoming one of the lunatic laboratories, now that the blue meanies are in charge...

   

Progressivism In Yet Another Nutshell: 'Black' Is To Be Capitolized, 'White' Is Not

This bit of typographical idiocy only came to my attention a couple of weeks ago...and now the AP has incorporated it into their stylebook. Their reasons are so idiotic and inconsistent that they would have been much better off not giving a justification at all. Or just saying "because we say so." 

   If you want to know what a progressive future would look like, imagine a whole society and government re-engineered by the kinds of people who think 'black' should be capitalized and 'white' should not. 

   Oh and: I hope it goes without saying by this point that progressives have no interest whatsoever in racial equality...

   And just because I can't resist, here's their reason:

   “AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic and cultural senses,” Daniszewski wrote. “This decision follows our move last month to capitalize Black in such uses. We consulted with a wide group of people internally and externally around the globe and considered a variety of commentary in making these decisions.”
   “There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world,

Aside from all the other stupidity here, there is no "cultural sense" of white. But if there were, whites would probably have more of it in common than blacks do--given that whites are only 9% of the world's population and blacks are 30%.

Everything Is Racist: Trader Joe's Is Racist

You could say this is trivial. 

But that's kinda why you should be concerned about it.

Nothing is too trivial to escape the notice of the Gleichschaltung...

The progressive left will not rest until absolutely everything is brought into accordance with its vision. And since that vision is revised leftward more-or-less constantly...and since their judgments are more like free-form aesthetic judgments of taste...they will never be satisfied.

Progressives are just the latest incarnation of C. S. Lewis's "inveterate moral busybodies"...

Cathy Young: In Defense Of The (Harper's) Letter

I've read a fair bit of this and skimmed through much of it. 

  It's good, as usual.

  Look, this argument about PC thought-policing is over. The good guys won it long ago. The PC left has never had good points. Most of their points are textbook fallacies--ad hominems, tu quoques and ad miseracordiams predominate. 

  This is not a disagreement between groups of rational people who disagree. This is a conflict between core commitments of liberalism, broadly construed, and the most ridiculous ideas of a totalitarian cult.

We argue with them not in order to figure out who's right and who's wrong--in this case, that has been obvious from the beginning. We're still arguing with these people only for rhetorical / tactical reasons: if their points aren't publicly refuted, they're emboldened. And there are a few people stuck in no-man's land who are undecided. Best to keep them from going over to the Dark Side.

   "Cancel culture" is a dumb name for a well-known aspect of political correctness--the left's tendency to lie about and personally attack those who hold or express ideas deemed politically incorrect. 

   Note that the left deploys one of its favored strategies: "cancel culture doesn't exist!" To some extent they must know this is false--but they generally devalue the truth, so they don't think that lying in the service of their utopian view is all that bad. But also these tools are not among the sharpest in the shed...so I'm pretty sure there's at least a bit of genuine cluelessness involved. The fallacy of the continuum seems to confuse them often, and part of their argument seems to be that there is no bright clear line between PC "cancelling" (again: stupid term) and the ways ordinary people act when they disagree. Their premise is true, but their conclusion doesn't follow. Their nuttiness isn't something new under the sun--it's a particularly nutty and concentrated form of something present elsewhere:

First, the views they are defending are crazy.

Second, they launch attacks (sometimes physical, but more often verbal) against people who disagree.

Third, these attacks are commonly unhinged, and out of all proportion to the "offenses"--even were we to accept that they are offences.

Fourth, even tiny deviations from PC orthodoxy can trigger such attacks.

Fifth, these attacks usually take the form of personal attacks, not arguments about the dogma.

Sixth, they're typically dishonest, and typically involve character assassination--typically unjustified accusations of racism or something similar.

Seventh, the point of all this is not inquiry / discussion--it's to shut down legitimate debate--it aims to take the critic in question out of public debate...and pour encourager les autres. 

   Anyway, all or most of these things do show up outside the loony left--but what's characteristic of the PC left is that they tend to show up together, in exaggerated form, all the time.

[Forgot to mention: the letter does exhibit one common feature of such centrist or center-left stuff: that is, the obligatory shots at conservatives. The general idea is that the right is always worse than the left, and that you have to establish your anti-right bona fides. Usually, people feel obligated to reduce their criticisms of the left to criticisms of the right: the loony left is bad because it will help the right! 

As I've said before: Trump is not a threat to democracy. The left has made it clear that it's a threat to democracy--but it's as if Russiagate never happened...  Trump's the output of democracy. (Though, of course, something can be both output of and threat to.) We hear over and over: Trump might refuse to leave office! Hence he's a threat to democracy! Maybe. But the blue team has spent the entire time since the '16 election working feverishly to overturn its results. Trump might do something...the blue team already has done it, and is continuing to do so.]

TNR: I Am Hysterically Overblowing COVID-19, But My Parents Are More Rational And Want To See Their Grandchildren, So I Let Them And Everybody's Healthy But I Wrote This Hyperventilating Article About It Anyway

Progressives are losing it.

If we’re going to make it through, it’s on us. Everyone should wear a mask, and wash their hands, and stay at home. But it is impossible to expect everyone to follow suit, not only because some people will cheat for selfish reasons but because we are human beings who aren’t meant to live cut off from the people we love. There’s a fairly effective argument both for and against my granting my parents’ wishes to see the kids, and it is the primary reason I haven’t been sleeping as much. How do I live with myself if I deny them memories with their grandchildren? Then again, how do I live with myself if my indulgence leads to an illness?

[eyeroll]

Does 'we' there mean America? Or humanity? Or their family? Seems like one of the former... But, see...we in that sense are not in danger of not "making it through." Stop being a freaking drama queen. Even though the NYT...and TNR...are telling you to be. It's in no way clear that everybody should wear a mask. Ditto staying at home. All that shit is progressive hysteria. People aren't so much "cheating for selfish reasons" as not believing your bullshit anymore. See, not all of us get all our news from inside the web of lies and delusions that make up contemporary progressivism. And, yeah, there's not really any argument for preventing your parents from seeing your kids. I mean, you could all wear masks...you seem to have great faith in those... If you're all basically cowering in your houses as you suggest, then there can't be much chance any of you has caught it. It's not your "indulgence" that might lead to an illness, but your parents' assessment of risks and benefits.

   Honestly, Progressives have turned this into another way to virtue signal. And they've yet again fanned the flames of hysteria until they're panicked. Again. Jesus, now they've elevated the COVID up the danger hierarchy until it's just below WHITE MEN and WHITE PRIVILEGE and GUUUUUUNS!!!!! and GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   These people have problems.

Systemic Racism: Is There Anything It CAN'T Do?

link

They Want To Abolish The United States "As We Know It"

Hey, would an afro-indigenous nonbinary local organizer lie about something like that?

We're told that she wants to be referred to pronomially with 'they' and 'them'...but they is...uh...they are?...nuts if xir thinks that's going to happen.

Also: there's no such thing as a "gender pronoun." Not in English, anyway.

She also says:  "We’re here to dismantle, defund and completely destroy the police.” So at least she's not runnig the standard motte-and-bailey exploiting the slight unclarity in 'defund.' She's whole-hog anti-pig.

And speaking of mottes and baileys: that's the whole point of the phrase "as we know it."

Keep Doing Cringey Stuff Like This

You gotta hand it to 'em--they have a knack for coming up with stupid chants.

Neo-Jacobins Come For 'Tar Heels'

I kept meaning to predict this, but kept forgetting.

Of course it's such an obvious prediction that it doesn't matter much.

It's ridiculous to try to hold out against this stuff selectively. Once you've granted the general principles of such historical eliminationism, you're committed. Let the mob tear down Silent Sam, I don't see much justification for defending 'Tar Heels.' 

Grant stupid principles, suffer stupid consequences.

(I'll note for the record that these guys assembled in Durham...)

Leftist "Diversity" Indoctrination Flourishing In Government Even Under Trump

Leftist indoctrination--pretty much pure and simple.

Andrew McCarthy: "The Revolution Is Winning"; And: Sol Stern On Ed School Radicalism

Ed schools are notorious for two or three things, depending on who you talk to. Two are pretty uncontroversial:

1. Low intellectual standards.

2. Pervasive far-left politics.

Some add:

3. Bad teaching.

   Low intellectual standards make it easy for charlatans to move in--which is obviously how people like Bill Ayers take over the joint. 

   Even if you don't read the McCarthy piece, you shouldn't miss this link to the Stern piece. It's long and angrifying, but you really ought to read it. 

Jonathan Allen: "Five Decades Later, Trump Is Still Pushing Segregationist Policies"

This is utter bullshit from beginning to end.

   Incidentally: I don't live in the suburbs and never plan to do so. So there's no personal stake here.

I'm not going to go through this bullshit thing in detail. I'll just say:

   First, "abolish the suburbs" is a perfectly reasonable way to put it, and well within the ordinary parameters of American political discussion. Trump's claim is much closer to being true and accurate than is Allen's claim that Trump is "pushing segregationist policies." What Trump is doing is rejecting the left-progressive project of radically re-engineering and micro-managing American ways of life. There's no racial barrier to living in the suburbs. There is, in some sense, a financial one. But that's a completely different matter. Trump's not pushing anything that most conservatives--indeed most people--don't agree with.

   But progressivism basically only has like three arguments--bullshit rhetorical ploys, actually--and That's racist / You're racist is their flagship accusation.

   Second, note that left-progressive bullshit of this kind can't even mount a cursory defense of itself without leaping to pseudophilosophical mumbo-jumbo like their fave-rave: "social construction." Which wildly ambiguous and confused phrase never does anything but confuse things. What the academician in question means is just that suburbs--like the majority of such social and human things--has no clear, single, precise definition or characterization. But then Allen goes on to offer a perfectly serviceable characterization. So the detour was useless after all...

   Then Allen concedes that suburbs are actually becoming less "segregated"...but that's not good enough, we're told, because some areas are still "segregated." As if only a perfectly uniform, progressive-approved distribution of races everywhere is permissible. 

   For the love of God, how hard is it to understand that humanity and society are not generally uniform, and can't rationally be expected to be? 

   Why go on? 

   This is basically another progressivism in a nutshell case. Progressives will not be satisfied until they control every aspect of our lives and bring them all into accordance with their utopian, quasi-religious presuppositions about race and the rest. Though suburbs are open to anyone who wants to move in and has the means, and though there are few white people left in the country who would object to good neighbors solely on the basis of race...and though the objection is not that non-whites will move in, but that multi-family housing would be moving in and would ruin the very character of the neighborhoods people moved out of the city to find...still, any deviation from progressive ideals is racist. Trump is basically George Wallace, you see... Which is one of the stupidest goddamn things I think I've ever read.

   Progressives seek to use the coercive power of the state to destroy everything that can even be implausibly spun as inconsistent with the cult of Woketarianism. Even if you think their ends are good, you ought to think they're too meddlesome by well more than half, and that they should mind their own goddamned business and leave us alone.

   And this is why liberals--or former liberals--like me will be voting for Trump. He's suboptimal to put it mildly--but at least he is indeed standing between our ways of life and the unhinged ravages of Woketarianism.

Peter Savodnik: "Woke America Is A Russian Novel"

Kinda interesting.

Maybe some insights in there.

The Great Glenn Loury: Race And Equality

This dude is so reasonable it shames me for being like I am.

I'm Sure I Don't Need To Tell You About Esoteric Hitlerism...

What, I ask you, could be more than (a) woo + (b) HITLER!?!?!?!?!?!?*

That's right: NOTHING.

I really wish I'd have thought to exploit this amazing nexus in fiction. But Raiders of the Lost Ark and Charles Stross beat me to it by a light year.

Incidentally, if I haven't badgered you into reading The Atrocity Archive yet...well...DO IT. There's some absolutely great shit in that little book. The series crapped out later, getting all soap-opera-y and SJW-y...basically the two worst things something can get... But the first book and even the first couple of books are great. I re-read TAA until I almost ruined it for myself. 

Incidentally, on the American Edition of TAA, there's a typo on the cover of the book if you can believe that. It reads "The Atrocity Archives," plural. 

[Also...why is it that the supernatural shit makes the fucking Nazis seem even more sinister? I mean...they're the fucking Nazis... How much more sinister can you really get??]

[Also also: if you haven't played Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army, I highly recommend it. Sweet, cool, inexpensive little game that is pitched at a good level.]

*That's right. Just more...

Anti-Racism And Why Progressivism and BLM Aren't

'Anti-racism' is one of the newest buzz-terms of a political faction built almost entirely out of buzz-terms.

The ideas about race that were current when I was young were much, much more anti-racist than the ideas of the current progressive left--which are about equal parts anti-racism and "reverse racism"--i.e. anti-white racism. Progressives like to say that there is no such thing as reverse racism...which is, of course, one of their known rhetorical strategies: anything that becomes a ground of criticism against them doesn't exist: political correctness doesn't exist, "cancel culture" doesn't exist, Pantyfa doesn't exist, reverse racism doesn't exist... Conservatives outmaneuver them on this one by faux-conceding the point and explaining: because "reverse racism" is just racism...

   Real anti-racism was and is the ideal of color-blindness--roughly the MLKian idea of being judged on the content of your character not the color of your skin.

   Progressivism--a mockery of anti-racism--is largely "reverse" racism against whites. 

   The hard thing about genuine anti-racism is: if you look too long into the abyss of white racism...uh...you uh...end up hunting white monsters...or...however that all goes... But seriously: the trick is to stare openly and comprehendingly at the history of white racism without becoming so angry about it that you merely reverse the polarity. Some people--mostly those of a more liberal bent--can manage that. Others--e.g. those of a more left-progressive bent--can't. 

Now, if I were them, I'd say: 

They're naturally or inherently racist, and they can't get over that. Their only leeway concerns who they'll be racist against. Having decided not to be anti-black racists, the most natural alternative was to be anti-white racists...

That's got a pleasing ring to it, from a rhetorical perspective, and it leverages the power of accusations of racism against those who typically wield them so indiscriminately and to such great effect...

Hell, there's probably even some truth in it...

But, one way or another: progressivism and BLM, in virtue of having given in to antiwhite racism, aren't genuinely antiracist. They are, in large part, pro-racist and anti-white. And also: creeping ever closer toward anti-Jewish and anti-Asian. (Jews and Asians are sometimes said, by the left, to be "white adjacent.")

Anyway. If liberals and conservatives make an alliance against left-progressivism, and we win, then this country can again have a serious discussion about race. If the progressive left wins...well, that discussion won't happen. Not only because the time of serious discussion will have come to an end, but also because there won't be a this country around anymore, really.

San Francisco Pretended Homeless Were "Emergency Front-Line Workers" To Move Them Into (Often: Luxury) Hotels; Gave Them Booze And Drugs; Results Predictable

This is the stupidest timeline.

The Cornerstone Of BLM Is An Empirically-Disproven Falsehood--But The Media Keeps This Hidden And Progressives Don't Care About Facts

The cornerstone of BLM is the open season claim: 

Police in the U.S. indiscriminately murder blacks.

This has been conclusively disproven, and the disproving information is well-known and widely-shared by and among conservatives. And yet progressives remain (willfully?) ignorant of these facts--their passionate, yet false, beliefs protected and kept in place by the forcefields of progressive groupthink, political correctness, and the progressive media.

BLM is basically the world's biggest "hate-crime" hoax. 

Utter this politically incorrect truth in public, however, and the shrieking e-mob will come for you. You are likely to lose your job. You could be physically attacked--and if you are, and you defend yourself, the law may well come for you. 

It's probably not possible to reduce progressivism down to a single axiom. But if we were to try to do so, one of the best candidates would be something like:

Some facts are hatefacts--and hatefacts will not be tolerated.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: 

Mobs of mindless leftists are rioting and looting and attacking and murdering, largely at the direction of anarcho-communist Blackshirts, and with extensive support by massive progressive-left organizations. This is being done on the basis of conclusively-disconfirmed falsehoods. And this massive leftist front is demanding the erasure of much of American history, its replacement with politically correct falsehoods, and the fundamental restructuring of American society in ways guaranteed to undermine the rule of law, increase violence, and, consequently, increase the power of leftist mobs. Furthermore, having co-opted megacorporations and tech companies, the left can now destroy the reputation--and the livelihood--of anyone who criticizes it.