Did The Onlookers / Crowd Distract Chauvin?

Hm. That's a kind of interesting defense--apparently it's going to be one line of argument.

Honestly, one of the first thoughts I had after I could think clearly about the video was, roughly: Was Chauvin annoyed at the kibitzing by the crowd? Was he intentionally ignoring their admonitions because he was being contrarian? (Maybe I'm reading myself into the situation...)

   Anyway: distraction: maybe a valid defense. Cantankerousness: not so much. 

Russiagate Investigator Could Not Confirm ANY Claims In Steele Dossier

link

"Pronouns And The Philosophy Professor"

A little bit of sanity.

But will the "Equality" Act change this?

Margaret Harper McCarthy: "The Equality Act Is At War With Reality"

I'm not the world's biggest fan of religion. And many churches and religious institutions have been coopted by the cult. But, still, there's a lot of truth in this.

   And here's Chesterton, impossibly, absolutely, right on target:

Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face.

And a WSJ commenter adds some Orwell:

It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you --something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later . . . Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense

As I'm sure you remember, "math educators" (i.e.: not mathematicians...and not people who can do much more than add fractions...) are now insisting that the sum of 2 and 2 needn't be 4... Not on the basis of any fancy modal arguments...but just because they're stupid and because "social justice." 

Are You Ready To Start Showing Your Corona-Chan Papers Everywhere You Go?

You see, it's not that progressivism is totalitarianism...it's just that they happen to want a bunch of policies that happen to be totalitarian....  See?

CDC Director: The Important Thing Is That We All Stay Afraid

Not her words; my translation.

BLM Founders Are Radical, Revolutionary Communists

They seem considerably farther left even than the average nutjob in the vanguard of the progressive left. One of them has the following poem tattooed on her chest:

I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

My name is my own my own my own

and I can't tell you who the hell set things up like this

but I can tell you that from now on my resistance

my simple and daily and nightly self-determination

may very well cost you your life

 Wow, that's some really crap poetry.

No-Longer-Even-Vaguely-Scientific American

WHITE SUPREMACY WHITE SUPREMACY WHITE SUPREMACY GASLIGHTING GASLIGHTING GASLIGHTING!!!!!!!!1111111
Bullshit.

   Wow, progressives squeal like stuck pigs when they think they got done to them once what they do to the rest of us nonstop now.

   The left, having colonized all science that touches on politics or the culture war, basically lies and gaslights nonstop about what "the science" says about anything it cares about. This piece was such an embarrassment right out of the gate that, honestly, I barely skimmed the rest. It could be right for all I know...but it'd have to get an awful lot better pretty fast. If they want me to read their bullshit, they're going to have to stop shrieking "WHITE SUPREMACY" every other sentence. 

   Nonstop progressive Lysenkoism is just fine, you see. But anything that doesn't come out exactly the way they think it should is GASLIGHTIGGASLIGHTINGGASLIGHTING!!!!!!!!!11111

   Honestly, there's something very, very wrong with these people.

   [Oh, wait, I almost forgot: it's STRUCTURAL GASLIGHTING!!!  You people are a fucking joke, you know that? Ten bucks says that this thing gets torn apart by someone who knows what he's talking about in less than a week.]

FW-190 vs. P-51

 

Don't Forget That The Left Has Decreed The Lab-Leak Hypothesis A Conspiracy Theory! Bigots!

Wondering whether the Wuhan virus leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, causes stigma!!!

Stop wondering things! Bigot!

"Who Writes This Stuff??

Jesus Christ. Althouse, asking the important questions. Here's the this stuff in question:

"This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession. Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong."

Facepalmerific, that.

Greenwald: Journalists Attack The Powerless

Exactly right:

...the primary target of the Trump-era media has become private citizens and people who wield no power, yet who these media outlets believe must have their lives ruined because they have adopted the wrong political ideology. So many corporate journalists now use their huge megaphones to humiliate and wreck the lives of ordinary private citizens who they judge to have bad political opinions (meaning: opinions that deviate from establishment liberalism orthodoxies which these media outlets exist to enforce).

Puling about powerlessness is now the most effective way to gain power. What Greenwald sees and I hadn't is that the powerful and "progressive" now commonly use that power to attack the powerless--in the case headlining Greenwald's case, poor white mostly men who participated in the Capitol riot. Leftist journalists are now harassing them on fundraising sites and getting them kicked of so that they can't raise the money to defend themselves.
   Behold the "journalism" of the progressive left, champions of the little people.
   And when criticized for this, the NYT, WaPo, USA Today and other Provda clones lie about how young and powerless and vulnerable their so-called reporters are--hence how criticizing them is violence. Truly despicable.

Biden's War On Normalcy

Contra Henninger, Biden hasn't merely abandoned normalcy, he's declared war on it.

...many voters believed the Biden campaign was, as advertised, about rediscovering “normalcy.” It turns out the Biden presidency isn’t about anything very normal. Now it’s about “going big,” despite his minimalist election mandate.  
   Going big began with “Covid relief,” a euphemism to bury the bill’s non-Covid goals, such as rolling back Bill Clinton’s landmark welfare-towork reform law. The work part is being eliminated.
   Recall as well how last July many thought Mr. Biden was throwing a sop to the party’s defeated progressives when he tweeted that his administration “won’t just rebuild this nation—we’ll transform it.” In reply, Mr. Sanders said Mr. Biden could be “the most progressive president” since Franklin Roosevelt. Cynics snickered. Wrong again.

The Trump administration was downright stodgy by comparison to  this surreal train wreck.

George Floyd Trial

For the record: I don't know what to think. Seeing the video for the first time a year ago kind of short-circuited my brain. I almost couldn't figure out what I was watching, and I think I even said that out loud several times ("What am I watching?") 

   OTOH, the earlier parts of the video cast the latter part in a different light. And the coroner's report seems extremely weighty. (Then there's the fact that this evidence was suppressed while the nation burned...which...I probably shouldn't take into account for these purposes. Though they do seem to indicate that the prosecution knew which way they pointed. They're more relevant to the question Can Chauvin receive a fair trial? Obviously MN and the prosecution are more interested in a conviction than they are in justice....)

   I don't think someone like me can figure this out without hearing a lot from cops and, say, people to do training at police academies. Ordinary people have little idea what's normal or reasonable in such situations. I thought they should have zip-tied Floyd's ankles and gotten off of him. But what do I know?

   If I had to hazard a guess at this point, I suppose I'd say that there's pretty clearly reasonable doubt. But I'd rather not have to say.

Weather Girl Confesses To Mentioning Pet Named After Bad Person

Presumably it's the gulag for her, come the revolution:

My God pic.twitter.com/FepTkxsW5Q

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 27, 2021

Public Radio: No Longer Even Pretending To Be An Objective News Source

This is the next step in the replacement of rational methods of inquiry (e.g. seeking greater objectivity) with professions of faith and certainty in specific beliefs--e.g. "climate change is real." 

   Liberalism and reason are being replaced with a radical leftist political religion.

   So...at what point do you figure you might start taking this seriously?

Frank Bennett: The Meaning Of The Woke Military

No idea what to think about this.

Biden's Border Blackout

Worse than Trump.

He wrecked Trump's amazing progress, he's letting in a flood of illegals, and a flood of COVID cases...and now he's censoring news about his massive, disastrous, idiotic, ideologically-driven fuck-up.

James Lindsay: The Truth About Critical Methods

This is actually pretty good:

A Virginia University Goes Woke

No comment.

The Left Chased Sullivan, Taibbi, Greenwald, Weiss, et al. To Substack...Now It Wants Substack To Ban Them

We are dealing with totalitarians.

Libertarian PBS

 

Documentary Kickstarter: "Better Left Unsaid"

This looks like a really worthwhile project.

Ibram Kendi, "How To Be An Antiracist": The Non-Racist / Anti-Racist Distinction [Updated]

Got a free copy. Wondered what it really said, though I've seen many references to it. I've also seen references to reasonable things Kendi has said--he doesn't seem to be a stark, raving PC cultist. But, of course, we've all heard accounts of what I take to be his most important idea--the non-racist / anti-racist distinction. It took awhile for the problems with it to start becoming clear to me--but I'd never really read much of what he actually had to say about it. As it turns out, it's pretty confused: 

What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism. This may seem harsh, but it’s important at the outset that we apply one of the core principles of antiracism, which is to return the word “racist” itself back to its proper usage. “Racist” is not—as Richard Spencer argues—a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction.

The pro-/non-/anti- distinction is, of course, a familiar one in general. Nothing new there, really. So it's not really the distinction that's central here. Rather, it's his argument that it's not possible to be non-racist--that non-racism is actually a kind of (pro-?)racism. That's not true if we're speaking of just the logic of the situation. Being anti-x is a way of being non-x. Hm. In fact, it's even a bit more complicated than I was thinking--and I don't want to mess with all the details. But, anyway: 'opposite' isn't specific enough to do the work he wants it to do. Both non-racist and anti-racist can count as opposites of racist--and the latter can count as one type of the former, rather than counting as opposed to it. There's some kind of complication added when we're talking about humans and their attitudes that isn't there if were talking about ordinary properties. It's certainly odd--under prevailing conditions, anyway--to be not a racist but not opposed to racism. But it isn't impossible. Suboptimal. Weird. But not impossible. Anyway, the argument really seems to depend on the claim that mere not-racism is a "mask for racism." Which I'd guess might be true in some cases, but not in all. It's clearly not true when you construe color-blindness as mere not-racism, and then insist that not-racism is racism. If those are the rules of engagement, then color-blindness would be anti-racist. Jeez, what a mess. And I don't mean just Kendi's paragraph, I mean this reaction to it. There's just too much complexity here to do in this half-assed way--and that goes for both of us. Another tangle of problems originates in his assumptions about "anti-racism." 

The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.”

No, no, no. Not right at all. First, being anti-racist doesn't necessarily mean that you're an activist out "confronting racial inequities." You can be against racism just by recognizing it's a bad thing--and, perhaps, acting accordingly if you find yourself actually confronting some racist situation. Analogously: I'm anti-murder, but I don't go out questing against murder. Though, if thrust into a situation in which i could stop a murder at reasonable risk to myself, I'd do so. Anyway, all this is especially clear if you realize that such pro-/non-/anti- points can be made about any bad thing--and you can't be an activist against every bad thing. But perhaps more importantly: even if you are someone who goes out in to the world to fight racism, you needn't "locate the roots in problems of power and policies." You can accept the traditional view that racism is mainly or largely a problem with individual attitudes. In fact, I think "the" problem is sometimes one kind of thing and sometimes the other. Much of the problem currently, IMO, is neither. Much of the problem is caused by persistent problems in black America that make unfavorable inductions about black Americans irresistible at least. It's irrational to think that all such problems come entirely from racist attitudes of non-blacks. And it's irrational to insist that people cease to reason inductively about race. In fact, there's at least some evidence that our thinking about race is pretty rational: we rely on tentative racial inductive conclusions about people people we don't know, and we tend to quickly override those conclusions (when appropriate) as soon as we have direct evidence about individuals. 

   Anyway. The PC/progressive left is largely irrationalist...and not generally made up of the very sharpest tools in the shed. Also, PC subordinates reason and truth to dogma. And: progressive orthodoxy is driven largely by fads (look at Google Trends for terms like 'structural racism.') So it's no surprise that they seem to have just accepted all this whole-hog and unreflectively. It's not that there's nothing interesting there--not at all. It's rather that it's way to complicated, and seems to contain way too many problems, to just accept it hook, line and sinker. 

[More importantly: even if it's unlikely that a person can be non-racist without being anti-racist, other things, e.g. disciplines face no such problem. To take the paradigm example, math is not racist--but it's also not anti-racist. It has nothing to do with racism one way or another. In fact, to do math correctly requires us to be simply non- all sorts of things without being anti- them. That is: qua mathematicians. Genuine inquiry isn't possible otherwise. To do e.g. epistemology correctly, you need to be able to bracket all sorts of important human commitments. This is one of the many things the intellectual left gets completely wrong. They just don't have the willpower and commitment to inquiry that's required to do it right--they can't bracket their political concerns. They're activists, not inquirers.]

NY Post: The AP's Orwellian Push To Change The News

This is repulsive and insane and it's absolutely appalling that the most powerful political faction in the country not only tolerates this but promotes it:

   President Biden’s Homeland Security secretary says migrant apprehensions are hitting a 20-year high, and record numbers of unaccompanied minors are already in federal custody — but the Associated Press is ordering its reporters to ignore reality and not call it a “crisis.”
   In an internal memo from “the Standards Center,” the AP told staff, “The current event in the news — a sharp increase in the arrival of unaccompanied minors — is a problem for border officials, a political challenge for Biden and a dire situation for many migrants who make the journey, but it does not fit the classic dictionary definition of a crisis.”
   A “crisis,” it explained, might be a “decisive or crucial time” or “a time of, or a state of affairs involving, great danger or trouble, often one which threatens to result in unpleasant consequences.”
   Biden’s reversal of his predecessor’s policies has led to a surge at the southern border, with 16,500 minors in custody as of Wednesday, including 5,000 in Border Patrol detention-like facilities not meant to house children. Most kids are held longer than the three-day legal limit. Those aren’t “unpleasant consequences”?
   “In theory, there could be a security or a border crisis if officials lose control of the border, allowing people to enter unencumbered in large numbers,” said the guidance, to which “the Washington bureau, the immigration reporting beat team and the inclusivity champions” contributed. Never mind that just 13 percent of family members were turned back to Mexico last week, even as the Homeland Security secretary declared “the border is closed.”

   This is about as dishonest and partisan as it's possible to get. Among the many unbelievable things about it: that the AP seems to feel that it's better to give patently absurd rationalizations of its decisions rather than none at all. I especially like the "in theory" bit. In theory this could be come a crisis. I mean, it's a logical possibility, right? You can imagine a possible world in which this could turn into a crisis... I realize that it strains credulity...but it doesn't contain an outright logical contradiction... You may not be able to see that right away, but I assure you that if continue to reflect on it you'll see that it really is possible--I mean in theory...

   But for really hardcore Orwellianism, it really is pretty damn hard to beat "inclusivity champions"... That one really does just leave me shaking my head with nothing to add.

Michael Goodwin: Biden Lies And The Media Doesn't Question It

What a disaster.

   We should never let anyone forget that Trump got the flood of illegals under control and Biden blew it. Now it seems to be worse than ever. 

   Not only were Trump's policies solidly in the national interest, but...and I usually refuse to make this argument because being in the national interest is justification enough...Trump's policies were also more humane. The most humane thing we can reasonably do is make it clear to potential illegals that they are very, very unlikely to succeed in getting in and staying in. God knows how much suffering Biden's on-again / off-again open borders policy has already done. 

   Jesus Christ. I just can't believe how insane the Democrats went so (seemingly, anyway) quickly. And this guy, remember, was their most moderate candidate...

The Left Floods Universities Not Merely With "Diversity" Initiatives (e.g. Preferential Hiring), But With "Diversity" *Propagandists*

Basically, such hires are leftists who teach courses designed to brainwash students, and publish papers promoting leftist theories. This insures, inter alia, that in futuro it will be easier for the left to say Well, hey, the preponderance of the experts believe that we're right, so...

   See, promoting "diversity" doesn't just mean hiring nonwhites (and non-Jews...and non-Asians...). It means e.g. hiring more "social and racial justice" "scholars." And that means: leftists. So long as schools can get away with this kind of scam, we have no hope of saving universities. 

   It's rather as if the right didn't just pressure universities to become more vocationally-oriented, but that wingnuts in universities started hiring tons of "vocational scholars" who taught in fields like business and engineering...but who were really right-wing ideologues guaranteed to write right-wing propaganda, brainwash students into becoming more vocationally-oriented and right-wing, and vote and agitate to move universities farther to the right.

   "Social justice" always means: the left-wing conception of a just society. Almost no one on the right every uses the term "social justice" non-derisively. If somebody's talking about and writing about and teaching about "social justice," they're on the left. And that probably means: they see their job as converting students to progressivism.

This Is Great: Andrew Sullivan: When That Narrative Replaces The News: How The Media Distorted The Atlanta Massacres

God bless Andrew Sullivan.

The lefties at my school are spouting the left's BS about the Atlanta shooting. Because, you see, facts don't real. If you point out to them that our only real, available evidence indicates that racism wasn't the motive, they immediately deploy their vast array of bullshit to argue that that simply cannot be true. It can't be true because it is in conflict with their vast, sweeping, insane theory. And that is what determines truth. Either that, or truth is racist, racist. 

   But here's the fact: "white supremacy" is not the source of anti-Asian violence. We know that because white people are not even close to being the main perpetrators of anti-Asian violence.

   One of my lefty colleagues angrily responded to my explanation of the facts by telling me that my problem was that I still believe that racism is something that is done by "people called 'racists'."

   Anyway.

The "Feminist Philosophers" Blog Is Dead

Wow, that's...oh, wait. I don't care.

Stephen Miller: Biden's Monstrous Lie About Trump And Unaccompanied Minors

Look: Trump was largely full of shit. But he wasn't as much of a flat-out liar as Biden is. IF Biden actually knows what's goin on, that is. Maybe he's not the liar--maybe it's whoever is supplying him with cheat sheets. To some extent it may be because because Trump seemed to talk himself into believing his own bullshit... But when you can repeat the Very Fine People lie over and over and over...I mean there's really just no excuse whatsoever for such mendacity. Also Trump's bullshit often cut to the heart of lefty bullshit in a way no other political figure has been able to do. Oh, we don't have to pick a winner! What really matters now is that Biden is a lying sack of...POTUS.

Totally Racist And Insane Lab-Leak CONSPIRACY THEORY...May Well Be True

Look, the lab-leak hypothesis is either (a) less likely than the alternatives but still alive or (b) the more likely of the available hypotheses. Many progressives derisively dismiss it and (surprise!) accuse those of us who don't mindlessly dismiss it of being TEH TOTULY RAZIZT!!!!!111

   When even CNN is admitting that it's a live hypothesis...well...something something something.

   But, given the evidence available to laypeople...it's pretty damn likely.

The Great Heather Mac Donald *Contra* "White Supremacy" Rhetoric About Anti-Asian Violence

Anti-Asian violence and "hate-crime" is mostly perpetrated by blacks. 

   Of course this is irrelevant and something something structural and you're racist for knowing it and racism isn't about individuals called "racists," bigot, it's about structures didn't I just say that???? Thinking it's about people is racist, racist...unless, of course, you think it's about whites...

Biden Is A Radical: Episode MCVXIII

Um...toldja:

Biden met recently at the White House with a group of historians who, according to Axios, share his view that "It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected."

If you think there's any appreciable chance that going even bigger and faster than anyone expected is not going to be a catastrophe....well...I don't know what to say to you. You're wrong. We're talking about a controversial and likely-to-be-bad plan for America even in its more moderate versions, even implemented slowly and judiciously. And we're not talking about a moderate version. And we're not talking about slow and judicial implementation. 

Now's not the time to harp on this, but: it wasn't really all that difficult to see this coming from well before election day.

Blue State Voter "Suppression"

Rules are racist, racist.

Anti-racism requires ballot harvesting. Racist.

Dems have been fantasizing about the evolution of a permanent majority for, what, 35 years at least?

It never materialized in the way they predicted. So, now that the radicals are in charge, they're going to make it happen. Basically by declaring regulations to be racist.

Via Insty, here's the lowdown on all those racist racist racist voting rules the racist racist racist GOP is racistly promoting.

Biden Flip-Flops On And Lies About The Filibuster In Preparation For Ending It

Whelp. Here we are.

Gosh I hate being right all the time.

Day'Ron Sharpe Enters Draft

Bad news for us--but I wish him the best of luck. 

Sidney Powell: Election Allegations Not Statements Of Fact?

There must be something going on here I don't understand, because that sounds cracked. Or maybe it's just cracked.

"Herd Immunity Is Near, Despite Fauci's Denial"

WTF??? I had a disagreement with the provost about this many months ago. Not to impose this on everything, but this seems to have become another progressive commitment: that you have to get a vaccine, and natural immunity conferred by the actual disease somehow doesn't count. What the hell is up with this stuff? At first, of course, we heard claims that progressives wouldn't take the vaccine because it was produced under Trump. Now everyone has to take it...even if they don't need it. Our faculty is pushing mandatory vaccines for students.

   Everything which is not forbidden is mandatory...

The Pravdafication Of The Washington Post Continues Apace

It's important to start the brainwashing early...

   I assert again: this is not an ordinary cultural/political disagreement. This is sanity vs. insanity. Even liberals (such as remain...) who think that kids have traditionally been more-or-less brainwashed into "the sex-gender system," and who think kids ought to be raised without a lot of pressure to conform to it ought to object to this kind of creepy/crazy brainwashing of babies. There's plenty of room on the sane side of the fence for reasonable disagreement about...just about everything. I'm not speaking to those reasonable disagreements. I'm saying that this isn't about that. It's about those reasonable, though varying, views versus...well, read the piece.

The Boulder Shooter Was Muslim; Woketards Hardest Hit

Jesus these people.

   Imagine what it'd have been like if the cult's main bullshit drives had an opportunity to spin up to cruising speed. Jesus, we'd have been at WHITECON ONE by now... They'd be going back through the Army again looking for more people with Kekistani flags...making OK signs...watching Dukes of Hazzard... LOOK A WHITE SUPREMACIST OVER THERE BY THEM RUSSIANS!!!!!1111

My God these people really are a cult of stupid.

Walker Kessler Transferring From Carolina

Well that's just great.

Jeremy Devine: "The Dubious Origins Of Long COVID"

Interesting

So-Called "White Supremacy" Isn't Driving Anti-Asian Violence

link

Of course "white supremacy" is another progressive malapropism. White supremacists are Klansmen and the like--and there aren't many of them in the U.S. Progressives use the term when they mean racism by whites. It's hyperbole--yet another linguistic escalation, akin to their insistence that politically incorrect speech is violence. It's especially weird given that progressive orthodoxy says that only whites can be racist. But whatever.

Most racial hostility and violence aimed at Asians is apparently committed by nonwhites--blacks and other Asians. If progressivism were serious about its claims and terminology, their insistence on using 'white supremacy' here would make their claims particularly easy to refute. But apparently any kind of consistency at all is the hobgoblin of little, white minds... 

There's no sense grousing every single time about the fact that the progressive left puts dogma first, and then pretends that the facts either fit it or are irrelevant. One of their ad hoc hypotheses is that it's "white supremacy" or "structural racism' or whatever that causes non-whites to do any bad thing they do...  Such indiscriminate use of silly, untestable ad hoc hypotheses to save the main theory is exactly what makes pseudoscience pseudoscience. But this isn't science to start with...so...even worse.

Entertainment Pitches In On The Blue Propaganda Effort Re: H.R.1.

[eyeroll]

VDH: Progressives' "Follow The Science" Delusion

This is absolutely, positively, exactly right on target.

There's nothing I can really add, nor correct, nor anything else. 

   We are, in my opinion, facing a wave of utter insanity washing over the nation. I've seen more than a few political and social fads and developments and changes in my life--I won't try to list them all. Some, like the obviously dishonest dragging of the nation into the the second Iraq war, seemed utterly mad to me. The first bout of political correctness in the late '80s was such a tangle of lunacy that I could hardly believe my ears. The election of Trump struck me as a reductio ad absurdum of American democracy. (Not to mention the rise (and fall) of the "Moral Majority" and the religious right...and on and on...)

   But nothing that's come before can compare to the incomprehensible ascendency of the new wave of leftism / political-correctness. At least the paleo-PCs (being mainly postmodernist, with critical theory playing a merely supporting role) were honest enough to admit they had anti-scientific inclinations. Neo-PC puts critical (especially: race) theory at the forefront and relegates pomo etc. to supporting rules. Largely because of the Marxist roots of C(R)T, it tends to be pseudo-scientific rather than anti-scientific. But honestly rejecting science is far less bad (and less anti-scientific) than is the prope-Lysenkoist subordination of science to politics. And this time around they don't openly admit it; rather, they pretend that their pseudoscience is...just...y'know...The Science... That's the pinnacle of anti-science; it's the reverse (or, perhaps, inverse) of science. This is, IMO, the paradigm of David Burge's take on the left's M.O.:

    Identify a respected institution.

    Kill it.

    Gut it.

    Wear its carcass as a skin suit while demanding respect.

Well, anyway. 

I say VDH is right smack-dab on target, even by his elevated standards, and you should go read him.

Douglas Schoen: The Progressive Takeover Of The Democratic Party Continues

link

Indeed, Manchin and Sinema are the only two Senate Democrats who are blocking the wholesale move to the left and toward the unchecked liberal policies in the party. Though Manchin played a central role in scaling back the initial stimulus bill from Biden to make it somewhat more moderate by lowering the income threshold for additional stimulus payments as well as nixing the minimum wage increase, the final package is now still the most progressive domestic legislation enacted in modern history.

One would hardly believe the bill was proposed by a moderate president who clinched his party nomination and the White House with his promise to unite the country. But this final package is more akin to something we would have seen if Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had been elected to office. As Sam Stein had outlined in Politico last week, the influence of Sanders and progressive politics with the stimulus bill is evident, and his objective has been to move the window of discourse of what Democrats believe is tolerated, and Sanders appears to have done that.

The CCP - Progressive-Left Axis Of Evil: Criticizing The CCP Is...You Know What...Starts With An 'R'...

Progressives spent the last five-ish years seeing Russians behind every bush and repeatedly insisting--contrary to an avalanche of evidence--that there was some sort of alliance between Trump and his supporters and the Rooskies. It all turned out to be a hoax--and actual conspiracy--among the Clinton Campaign, the Obama/Biden administration, the MSM..and...the realio-trulio Deep State... Unbelievable...but, well, all too believable, as it actually turns out...

   The, er, cooperative relationship between the American left and the ChiComs, however, is real. From the brainless shrieking against calling the Wuhan virus the Wuhan virus, all the way up through genocide-denial...and now accusations of racism against those who refuse to bend the knee to this newest set of progressive decrees: Thou shalt not criticize China.

   Relatedly:

Really wild stuff downtown. A Stop Asian Hate rally is clashing with a Pro-Uighur drive by. The pro-Uighur group is shouting “F— China!” The Asian rally is responding by calling them “racist.” pic.twitter.com/h8a2hB4Oqe

— Nic Rowan (@NicXTempore) March 21, 2021

Dems Vote To Make The 2020 Voting Mess Permanent

One hardly knows what to say.

Biden Speaks Truth About The Murderous Putin

Credit were it's due.

Good for Biden.

More Evidence That Lockdowns Were A Mistake

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Whiteness: The New Pandemic

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   These sorts of clashes are difficult, and people tend to dig in their heels, lose their objectivity, and, thus, give up any hope of agreement and rational resolution...

   And each side tends to be certain it's right, of course.

   But in this case, one side clearly has more-or-less completely lost its shit...

   Progressives have: accepted outright contradictions--e.g. some women are male. Accepted other provable falsehoods: e.g. police are mass-murdering unarmed black men in the streets. Become Lysenkoist while insisting it is the party of science. Endorsed and defended the sexual mutilation of children, endorsed laws that have taken children away from their parents for refusing to go along with this, and endorsed laws that institutionalize all this madness. Endorsed the widespread brainwashing of children and indoctrination of just about anyone with a job. Rejected crucial parts of the Enlightenment worldview almost entirely without argument. Pushed us closer and closer to open borders...which would be the end of the USA...but, then, their intelligentsia is clear about wanting nations--especially the USA--to cease to exist. And, of course: accepted overtly, radically, pervasive anti-white racism and anti-male sexism.

   And that's just a partial list.

  These sorts of disagreements often take place in the gray area between reasonable but opposing views. Reasonable people can see things either way.

   That is not the kind of disagreement that now consumes America.

AZ GOP Will Perform Full Hand Recount On All Presidential Ballots in Maricopa County

Great news!

I expect they'll uncover no major problems, and we'll take another step toward putting those kinds of doubts about the 2020 election to rest.

Of course the evil psycho MSM handed the election to the Progressitarian cult...but that's a different matter.

Brendan O'Neill: The Tyranny Of "Lived Experience"

Well, to start with: what other kind of experience do they think there is, anyway?

What they mean is: personal experience.

But "lived experience" gives it a kind of veneer of veracity. I lived it! It was real!

This seems ok.

But I'd add: basically, when they think they've got vaguely scientific evidence on their side, they appeal to that. When they don't, or when it's against them, they argue that science fails to capture the alleged facts that their "lived experience"...etc. etc.

But basically, the progressive left considers itself to possess the truth in every jot and tittle of its doctrine. Producing support for that doctrine doesn't even rise to the level of formality--it's just an annoyance. It's part of their view that their view is always right. It's dogma all the way down.

And I'm somebody who thinks that first-person accounts of stuff are useful. And that statistical evidence doesn't capture everything. So I'm, in general, actually sympathetic. Except: the evidential value of first-person accounts varies. When you're dealing with histrionic dogmatists, it's not of much value. 

And, as for the "trans" stuff: most of what's most important about the view isn't amenable either to statistical or to first-person evidence. What's central is really the recognition that the concepts man, woman, girl and boy are species/sex/age concepts. Men are adult, male humans, and so on. That's a matter of linguistic usage or conceptual analysis. It doesn't matter how many males feel as if they're female, it won't change those facts. 

Dalrymple On The Kavanaugh / Blasey-Ford Thing

He makes an interesting point about Blasey Ford. Specifically: he claims that how she claimed to remember the crucial even doesn't fit the usual pattern. I have no idea whether that's right. But I was more interested in his criticisms of Kavanaugh--e.g. the bit about his daughter allegedly praying for CBF. I found that way over the top, but didn't focus on it properly when this was all going.

Incidentally, I concluded--way back then--that CBF was lying. We now know I was right about that. There's simply no doubt that she's lied about almost every relevant thing. That doesn't mean that Kavanaugh wasn't lying, too. I think he was clearly being less than perfectly honest about his drinking. 

Anyway.

Progressive Propaganda Mills Go Into Overdrive To Insist That Atlanta Shootings HAVE To Be Racist

Because, see, if x is racist, then it's racist--and if it's not racist, it's racist anyway.

Some of this stuff is almost unbelievable even by the standards of the contemporary, fully insane MSM.

Jesse Singal And The Transgender "Cancellation" Tactic Of Accusations Of Sexual Interest

The PC left--and the transgender cult in particular--are winning the culture war so decisively that even this defense of Singal won't come right out and say what everyone who pays attention to this knows: that transgender culture warriors almost always deploy the same tactic against those who refuse to agree with their preferred "narrative." In particular: they accuse them of having sexual interest in or obsession with transgenders. Since (again, something everyone knows but no one can now say) most people find that thought repulsive, it functions as yet another method of deterrence: anyone who criticizes their wildly counterfactual beliefs will be publicly accused of sexual interests that they find repellant. This is the left's general ad-hominem/character-assassination tactic, of course--criticize any aspect of progressive leftism and you'll be accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, "transphobia," etc. etc. etc....the whole list, or whichever seems closest to whatever topic you're speaking or writing on. But it adds the a prurient sexual twist that makes it even more affecting and effective.

   This is what they did to Michael Bailey. It's what they did to Alice Dreger. It's what they do to everyone who questions them. There's no surprise here. The crazy left doesn't believe in reason nor rational discussion, they see free speech and open discussion as destructive liberal / Enlightenment / Western / male ideas. Hence they see all such disputes as power struggles in which they are always right and those who disagree are evil. They've thoroughly absorbed the approach of the hermeneutics of suspicion (often never even having heard the phrase...). Their worldview sees people like me and you as evil oppressors standing in their way, always motivated by the darkest motives they can imagine--or, anyway, it's convenient for them to pretend they believe it. (The doublethink is strong on the left.) 

   Blanchard's research indicates that many transexual men are homosexuals hoping that by representing themselves as women they will attract the attention of heterosexual(-ish) men. My guess is that the tactic described above is a kind of twofer for them: it's effective at silencing critics, and it conveniently coheres with their own sexual fantasies. But this speculation can be dropped and the above points all can stand on their own.

Tar Heels' Season Ends

 Congrats to Wisconsin. Too bad the Heels didn't make a better showing. I've been weirdly disconnected from hoops this year. Or perhaps not weirdly.

PC/Woketarian Presuppositions, Concepts And Jargon Have Taken Over American Public Discourse

I started to pick on this...but every single paragraph has something to ridicule, and life's too goddamn short.

President Of Milwaukee Drag Queen Story Hour Arrested On Seven Charges Of Child Porn

Well that is a surprise.

   Look, when I was young and stupid, I believed a lot of liberal fairy tales--that the world was certain ways because it would be nice if they were that way. All the repressed old guys who had repressed old ways of thinking were just uptight and afraid of unconventional ways of heterodoxy and change. Everybody should be allowed to do anything he or she wanted, and we should all resolutely, happily accept their quirky decisions and "lifestyles." In such a world, maybe it'd be true that men who liked to dress up as hyperbolic parodies of femininity and roll around on the floor with children are just like everybody else except for their atypical clothing choices. 

   In the actual world, however...I think you'd have to be a fool to expose your kids to such folk. It's like having cannibalistic neighbors who assure you that they're perfectly normal in all other ways and wouldn't hurt a fly...and letting your kids do a sleepover with them. ...even though see that they're in their back yard firing up the smoker and leering at your family. At some point, you have to grow up and realize that people give off warning signs. Not infallible ones. But conservatism is best in such cases. Sure, it's possible that the guys at DQSH are totally normal under their wigs and girdles and makeup. Some of them may well be. But such possibilities aren't enough when so much is at stake. There's a million things those guys could be doing in their dresses--but they've gone way, way, way out of their way to be around little kids. Now that I'm on the cusp of the cranky old dude portion of my life, I see--or think I see--that a lot of what cranky old dudes have been saying all along seems to have been a lot righter than previously thought.

Biden Administration: Leftist Indoctrination Of The Military

No institution may be spared.

Daniel Henninger: Biden And The Dems' Nonstop Parade Of Crisis And Hysterics Are A Means To "Transformation"

Or perhaps we should say: revolution.

link

Trump--qua person--had no business in the Oval Office. I've maintained that (almost?) all along. But Biden is far, far worse. If we were only voting for one of the two men, Biden would be the obvious choice. Or at least: he would have been when he was more centrist and closer to his prime. But we weren't just voting for one of the two men. We were choosing between parties/factions...choosing between:

(i)  A man who, personally unfit for the office though he was, was a bulwark against the wave of radicalism and insanity that's taken over almost all of our institutions;

and:

(ii) A man who is himself dedicated to advancing and further institutionalizing the madness--or, at best, who is no longer capable of opposing nor inclined to oppose those around him who are promoting that madness.

   Trump was just about the last monkey wrench in the machine that has geared up to destroy the heart of the American constitutional republic. If you think that's hyperbole...well, I hope you're miraculously right. But consider even just their view of the First Amendment and get back to me on that. Biden is a kind of central gear that Democratic voters dropped into place in the middle of the mechanism, replacing the monkey wrench; it immediately spun up into high gear and began cranking out crazy at an unprecedented rate.

   Again, reasonable people might doubt that. So I point you to the "Equality Act," which might as well decree that men are women and any refusal to accept that and act in accordance with it is unlawful. Or we could point to the border crisis. Trump stopped it. Biden and the Dems tore down his policies, opened the border up, and told people to come on in. There was no reason for a person or a party to do that unless they were dedicated to illegal immigration as a goal. To the Dems, it's a feature not a bug.

Jen Psaki Is A Lying Sack Of Shit: "No Question" Edition

To believe that there is "no question" that the following is true, you have to either be a complete idiot or a lying sack of shit. Or both:

"...some of the damaging rhetoric that we saw during the prior administration — blaming, calling COVID the ‘Wuhan virus’ or other things led to perceptions of the Asian American community that are inaccurate, unfair and … has elevated threats against Asian Americans."

These people are made of political insanity and shameless lies. We know...for a fact...with absolute certainty...that there is plenty of doubt about all of that--including the assertion built into the question that Trump's rhetoric was "damaging." In fact, there is absolutely no proof--and, in fact, no appreciable reason to believe--that any of that shit is true. The progressive left thinks things become true just because they're politically correct...and repeated over and over and over. To some extent they're lying--but the creepier thing is that they actually, to some extent, seduce themselves into believing this shit. 

   Oh, and: Wuhan virus Wuhan virus Wuhan virus. 

   Saying 'Wuhan virus' in no way blames anyone for anything. It "leads to" no "perceptions" at all about Asians. It only "leads to" the--true--perception that the damn virus was first discovered in Wuhan. You morons. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that any of this "elevated threats" against Asian-Americans.

   Probably what's led to more such attacks--if, indeed, there are more--was BLM / Antifa / progressive depolicing. In the end, it's going to turn out that what we're seeing is a general spike in violent crime.

Atlanta Shootings Not Racially Motivated (?)

I was going to express skepticism about the racism hypothesis and its variants--especially the Trump caused it by saying 'Chinese virus' hypothesis--but I didn't get around to it before this was (tentatively) announced.

   As for the Trump said bad 'China virus' hypothesis: the victims seem to have been Korean, not Chinese. That counts against the hypothesis. Of course you can add an ad hoc hypothesis of roughly this kind: The shooter didn't know the difference between Chinese people and Korean people. That works, if true, and weakens the objection to some degree, but involves a new unproven assumption about the shooter. The Trump's words caused hatred of all Asians hypothesis seems a lot weaker to me.

   Also: most of the victims were female--and at least initially all were said to be. The racism hypothesis doesn't predict and doesn't explain that. So it's too general. 

   The media leaped to the hypothesis because they're absolutely salivating to pin anti-Asian attack/"hate-crimes" on Trump, not because it was particularly plausible.

James Freeman: "Is Something Dying In The Darkness At The Washington Post?"

Trump asks for a careful review of the GA ballots; the WaPo and the rest of the MSM report that he tried to steal the election. 

   I don't even know what to say about this stuff anymore. 

Sheldon Whitehouse Is A Goddamned Idiot

And he still can't admit that Kavanaugh is innocent.

Al Gore Sucks, Too, Now

It's a plague of madness on the other side of the aisle.

BIden's Welcome-In / Open-Borders Message Increases Southern Border Crossings To Highest Level In 25 Years

No borders, no country...but, hey, no mean tweets!

Laurence M. Krauss: "Science Goes Rogue" (Better Title: Science Loses Its Goddamned Mind)

Political correctness / "social justice" is insanity.
Just one wee selection:

This week, Scientific American, once a rigorous scientific publication, published an opinion column by several young scientists known for their campaign to call a “scientific strike” against racism following the death of George Floyd. The authors advocate changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope because Webb, a former NASA administrator, was administrator when the federal government did not adequately respect LGBTQ rights. Webb is not incriminated as a racist or bigot, but as a servant of bigots. So who do the authors suggest that the telescope be named for? If encouraging diversity is the issue, perhaps it should be named the Vera Rubin Space Telescope, after the deceased astronomer who in the 1960s and ’70s provided some of the first compelling evidence of dark matter in our galaxy. Or perhaps the Jocelyn Bell Burnell Space Telescope, after the astrophysicist who, as a graduate student, help discover the first pulsars in 1967 and who some claim was overlooked when the Nobel Prize was awarded to her supervisor. Instead, the proposal is to rename the telescope the Harriet Tubman Space Telescope. Why? Not because Tubman might have made any contributions to astronomy, but because she was a conductor on the Underground Railroad that helped free black slaves in the South, during which she “likely used the North Star” to navigate to freedom. [my emphasis]

No one is actually dumb enough to think that last bit is a good idea.
   Science is no more packed with racism and sexism that is any other part of academia. An web of obvious leftist lies has captured the university, and most academicians are either (a) not smart enough to see through it or (b) willingly duped by it because they find progressivism pleasing, or (c) afraid to speak up about it. It's a reign of terror. Or, more accurately, a reign of cowardice. In some ways the worst part of all this--and see the bolded bit above, again--is that so many people in academia just aren't very smart.

The Pinnacle of Wokeness: Having Affection For People Of Other Races Evidence Of Racism

Remember back in the early days of this crackpottery, when having black friends was merely not evidence that you weren't racist?

   Well now it's apparently evidence that you are racist.

   Oh, brave new world that has such fucking idiocy in it...

Officiating vs. Florida State In The ACC Tournament

I tried not to complain about this, but then this video showed up on YouTube...:

Eric Kaufman: "The Threat To Academic Freedom: From Anecdotes To Data"

link.    The left has become a totalitarian cult. It's taken control of all our major institutions--including, it now seems, the military. It accomplished this by building its power in academia and using universities to spread its message, largely by indoctrinating the young and influential. It's managed this largely because the more moderate left has refused to condemn it. Kaufman's data suggests that the more moderate academic left--which is not actually very moderate--constitutes a plurality in the institution. It seems to confirm the view that the crazification of universities is led by a small group of radicals, and facilitated by a large group that's ambivalent and unwilling to oppose them. 

   Those who've said that this was all isolated to campuses turned out to be wrong. Among the many weird things about all this--it was obvious that they were wrong from the start. Now it is undeniable. How anyone could have actually believed it is beyond me. Basically that same group now says: political correctness will just spend itself and go away. But that, too, is false. PC has been around since the '80s. It made its assault on academia, won many victories, finally provoked a backlash. It lost some of its gains--e.g. illiberal prohibitions against free speech--but kept others. It was never really defeated, but just retreated into the faculty and para-faculty and administration. It did its foul work in the shadows until the time was right, whereupon it burst out, exploiting the influence it had been building behind the scenes for decades. Now it is, basically, the most overtly powerful religion in America. There's no reason to think PC will just spend itself and then go away. That's not what happened last time. It only stopped making gains when liberals stopped standing on the sidelines and opposed it. And it was never defeated, it just went into remission. 

   The country--and Western civilization--can only be saved by actively opposing PC illiberalism. It won't go away on its own, it must actively be pushed back, refuted, and destroyed. Stop pretending this will all work out just fine without you taking any risks nor lifting any fingers nor making any hard choices.

Ron Johnson: I Won't Be Silenced By The Left

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Also recommended: the WSJ video at the bottom of the page, Joe Biden's Rule-Of-Law Problem.

First, Do No Crazy

Nobody's asking the PC/progressive left to help solve problems. We've given up hoping that they can contribute to the great human epistemic project of the quest for truth via inquiry. We're past hoping that they might do their part to improve society. No reasonable person holds out such hopes anymore. 

   All we're asking is this, motherfuckers: Stop fucking everything up. You are the bad guys. You are the stupid guys. You are making everything worse. Just f*cking stop it. We'd be doing a lot better as a nation without a massive, insane political cult doing everything in its power to make things worse. 

   You suck. Stop it.

"Failure To Correct" Is Now A Cancellable PC Sin

Now you can be "cancelled" for being "cancel-adjacent"--especially for "failure to correct" the originally "cancelled" person. This guy was pressured to resign from his position as adjunct law prof at G'town law because his colleague said something unPC, and was "cancelled"...and he did not "correct" her. 

   Oh, yeah, and: what she said was alleged to be racist...but wasn't. And, in fact, it's pretty likely that what she said is true. But, as we know: political correctness is the subordination of truth to leftist dogma. I have no doubt that I'd get mobbed for even suggesting that what she said could be true. In fact, one might get mobbed for even suggesting that the truth-value of what she said is a relevant consideration.

   But don't forget: there's no such thing as political correctness, and no such things as "cancellation"! It was all made up by Trump and his army of white supremacists...

The Woketarian Cult Goes After Bill Burr

I don't much like stand-up comedy, so I don't have any real opinion on this guy. But obviously the crazies are...well...crazy. I could point out that he didn't say anything horrible...nor even bad...but to even say that is to suggest that what the crazies are doing would be ok if he had said something bad. Whatever the hell "bad" even means anymore in such contexts. It wasn't even a joke. It was barely anything at all. Apparently the complaint is that he used 'feminist' in a context that was not entirely positive. In fact...he seemed to be suggesting...though obviously I'll eventually be sent to the gulag for even describing it...that...just maybe...feminists might occasionally complain about ridiculous things... Which..ha ha! Is utterly ridiculous! And which claim is certainly not verified by this very incident itself! 

   And so now they're even flinging racial slurs at his wife...because...God knows. They also seem to think that they get to use whatever racial slurs they want, even when using them as slurs. 

   The crazy cult just gets crazier by the day...and keeps getting away with it.

WaPo Corrects Itself Re: Trump, GA Sec. Of State, and "Find The Fraud"

I guess the election is far enough behind us that the WaPo can start admitting some things about the most egregious of its errors, lies and distortions... Y'know...kinda...

(via Insty)

Less That 8 Weeks Into Biden Administration, Military Launches Operation Tucker Carlson

The military is apparently going the way of the rest of our institutions: to hell in a woke handcart.

Sarah Silverman Redpilled?

BILL KRISTOL redpilled?

I mean, the more progressives that wake up and smell the gulag, the better. Obviously.

Of course it's not just the absolutism--i.e. the dogmatism--of the progressive left that's the problem. It's that it's dogmatic about really fucking terrible ideas.

As for Kristol maybe re-switching sides...kind of a warning sign for us since he's wrong about everything.

I agree with @SarahKSilverman. https://t.co/Rt43DDOcJT

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 13, 2021

Taibbi: The Sovietization Of The American Press

Taibbi speaks truth, as usual.

   Taibbi thinks it's bad that the American press used to only represent a narrow part of the political spectrum--from moderate Republican to moderate Democrat--as reasonable. I don't actually think that's a bad mistake--and maybe not a mistake at all. Those probably are our realistic options in practical terms. Anything more radical on either end is probably a huge mistake. The places to discuss more radical options on either end are classrooms and journals and bars. But anyway: he's clearly right that the current situation is much, much worse: the only reasonable options basically run the gamut from the Democratic center to the Democratic (far, I'd add) left.

   This is an extremely dangerous state of affairs IMO. A blueprint for disaster.

   At any rate, read Taibbi.

Refusal To Hold Press Conferences A Bad Sign

Just really not good at all.

And when he does talk he often sounds out of it, forgets things, etc. Poor guy. I'm pissed at him, but not that pissed. I hate to see this, and I hate to see it on national tv. And I hate it that he finally achieved the goal he's had in his sights most of his life...only to in a sense not quite make it that long. 

   I'm also, obviously, concerned about him making decisions about foreign policy...but mostly I'm concerned about him being manipulated by the Progressitarians that now control his party. Would old Biden--hardly a radical, and sympathetic to labor--have opened the floodgates at the border, for example? 

   I thought conservatives and MAGA folks were exaggerating Biden's mental troubles...but then he basically went into hiding. And his taped statements, usually with Jill flying wingman, started to be cause for concern. Things seem to have gotten rapidly worse. And the lack of press conferences...well...I can't think of any other plausible explanation... One thing righties were saying during the election was that people in Biden's apparent condition have good days and bad days, and his administration and staff may be waiting for an unusually good day... 

   Anyway. There's nothing good about this.

Bee: Pentagon To Allow Troops To Replace Camo With Colors Of Their Gender-Identity Flag

Powerful: Military To Allow Troops To Replace Camo With Colors Of Their Gender Identity Flaghttps://t.co/Pe8tQSpg7c

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 13, 2021

The Children's Climate Crusade

Grotesque.

   Purely a coincidence that children are easier to brainwash than their parents, and progressives have turned schools into indoctrination camps. Why waste your time trying to brainwash somebody who's 40? You're wasting 35 years, comrade! Brainwash them at 5! It's much easier. For one thing, you control them 6 hours per day most of the year. For another, they're small and stupid. Brainwash the weak ones not the strong ones. Then brainwash the weak ones to brainwash the strong ones. Children are the chink in the parents' armor. 

   I mean, look: why is this working on kids? Is it because adults aren't awash in the propaganda? Obviously not. Is it because kids are smarter? LOOOL More knowledgeable? LLOOOOOLL. The only plausible argument I've heard goes like this: kids care more because it's their future that's being destroyed. Which is utterly absurd. First, their future won't be destroyed in any even vaguely likely climate scenario. That's all part of the lie. Second, parents generally care more about their kids lives than their own. Any argument that turns on the hypothesis of parental indifference should be immediately shit-canned.

Canadian Father Faces Prison For Resisting His Daughter's "Transition"

Insanity.

This is the point at which some people I know say things like "Get off the internet--this isn't how things/people are in the real world..."

   Reminds me of: "This stuff doesn't exist in the real world--it's just on campuses." As if universities weren't part of the world.

   This and other progressive-left insanity has become a force in most or all of our influential institutions. People's lives are being destroyed by it. The country is well on its way to being destroyed. I don't want to be unnecessarily alarmist here...but it's hard for me to understand how people think it's unnecessary.

   Incidentally, notice at least three major leading-edge totalitarian progressive initiatives in this story:

•    The destruction of the nuclear family (in part via the elevation of teachers over parents)
•    The sexualization of children
•    The criminalization of speech and discussion

   Granted, Canada is leftier than we are--but that just means: they're slightly ahead of us on the trajectory of leftification.

   My God, I hope I look back on these posts in ten years with profound embarrassment, and think God, look at what a crazy alarmist I was...

   These kids' lives--and their families' lives--are being destroyed on the basis of a lunatic sexual-political superstition. It's weirdly reminiscent of the Satanic Panic...except this time children actually are being sexually mutilated and otherwise abused. Last time, the powers that be made it up, and punished innocent people for the absolutely, grotesquely fantastical, literally unbelievable fabrications--lies that anyone could see through. This time, the powers that be have made up another insane, grotesque, magical myth--but they're doing the mutilations themselves, and forcing parents and doctors to go along with it--or else.

Philippe Lemoine: The Lockdowns Weren't Worth It

This dude is a grad student, and one of the few people who's speaking out against the PC madness that's infected philosophy.

   He'll be lucky to get a job. 

   He'll probably be lucky even to get published.

   Anyway, everything here seems to me to be in the vicinity of the truth. Lockdowns weren't irrational at first. In fact, they may have been the smartest available strategy. But by late summer I think we were in a position to see that they weren't the right strategy.

Newsome Recall Petition: Signatures Must Be Verified; Voting, However...

link

The COVID "New Normal" Is A Progressive Power-Grab

Just one example--you can find any number of these. COVID, you see, is not a passing crisis...oh no! Never let a good crisis go to waste...and that now means: reuse and recycle it (by by no means reduce it!) The COVID SUPER-DUPER WORLD-ENDING CRISIS, it has been declared, will go on forever...AND it means that we must adopt the entire left-wing / globalist wish list of re-engineerings of society. Progressive sex/"gender" preferences, socialized medicine, globalization, intersectionality...even nuclear disarmament, somehow. Anyone who actually cared about COVID and the future would not use it as a political stalking-horse.

   Well, that's actually not quite right. One of the biggest problems is that progressives and progressive-controlled institutions sort of actually believe this stuff. Conservatives often say that, at root, the left just loves power, and loves controlling people's lives. The leading edge does love those things...but I think they're mostly secondary. As Orwell indicates, part of the problem is doublethink--extremists (especially leftist ones) don't have a very high wall between political preferences and beliefs. Their beliefs about the facts and their political commitments become mooshed together into a kind of epistemic/political stew. 

   And: as is so often the case, though this happens on the right as well, it's so central to leftism that it is elevated to principle: the personal is political, everything is political, objectivity is impossible, everything reduces to political power...  Conservatives and (actual) liberals slide into such bullshit often enough...but they don't elevate it to a principle. Thus you can still reason with them--still leverage their cognitive dissonance against them. They haven't come completely unmoored from facts and logic. 

Coulter: Rule By Left-Wing Lunatics

As Reynolds might say: we've entered some bizarre hell-world where Anne Coulter is the voice of reason...  She's pretty much exactly right. You could also talk about the Kyle Rittenhouse case here: crowds of leftist criminals are permitted to commit assault, arson and theft on a massive scale--but fight back (even in defense of yourself against known violent criminals) and you go to jail. Everything is radically slanted in the leftist's favor.

   There's no reasoning with the contemporary left. Its leading edge is basically a cult. The trailing edge seems to be made up of former liberals who can't shake the presupposition that the left is good and the right is bad. So, even as the nation descends into utter madness, the trailing edge keeps making excuses. All it takes for this to happen is an inclination to spin everything 5 or 10 percent in the favor of the left (or whichever faction). 

   However much you may dislike Coulter and similar folk--and I've been furious at them for decades--they are, currently, by far, the more clear-eyed of the observers and commenters. The progressive left constitutes and inhabits a tangled web of lies and delusions. It's held together by innumerable strands of semi-logical assertions, arguments and theories...and by the emotional allegiance of former (once and future?) liberals...and by threats of rabid social sanctions for apostates. No one of these things is sufficient to keep it all together. But together, they've turned out to be more than sufficient to keep the cult unified--or unified enough, anyway. 

   I don't have any use for the farther reaches of the right, nor for the hard-core religious right. But people like Coulter are much more clear-eyed than, say, your average progressive. Clarity and honesty are basically sins on the progressive left. Political correctness is a massive system aimed exactly at preventing objectivity and its lamentable offspring, truth-telling. Truth-telling is hate-speech. Especially if it's done in a Coulteresque tone of righteous anger. If you are so foolhardy as to speak the truth, it's supposed to be in apologetic, groveling tones. You won't be hanged quite as high if you beg obsequiously for the freedom to speak the truth--but you'll still be hanged. I, of course, prefer a Coulteresque inclination to sin bravely. If you are reduced to mealy-mouthed groveling, the cult still wins that aspect of the battle.

Biden's Pledge Of Unity "An Absolute Fraud"

This survey data doesn't prove that in any way. But it's true. Implementing the entire array of far-left policy fantasies is exactly the opposite of an attempt to unify. The progressive left thinks that doing what it says--and everything it says--constitutes unification. 

University Of Manchester's Loony "Language Guide" Instructs People Not To Use 'Mother,' 'Father,' 'Brother,' etc.

This is pure progressive dogma. Though conservative critics tend to say that such words have been "banned," when that's not clear. The "guide" is careful not to say it's banning them. The tone, however, indicates that it is issuing dicta, not suggestions.

Thomas Klvana: "The GOP And Conservative Media Resemble The Communists Of My Youth"

Seems to me like a mote/beam problem...but could still be true. Politics makes everybody dogmatic.

No Borders, No Country

Simple as that, really.

Dems Attempting To Steal A House Seat

The Iowa Second could become the new Indiana Eighth. Dens have apparently decided that, in this case, it's important to scrutinize ballots and get everything right. Or "right." 

Trump's Acting Defense Secretary Blames Him For Capitol Riot

link

Of course it wouldn't have happened without Trump. He did everything but come out and say "stop the certification." You have a rally on the day of the certification vote, you've been saying for months that you actually won, but the other side stole it. Adding one line admonishing the crowd to be peaceful doesn't count for much in my book. Or any reasonable book. It doesn't rise to the legal standard of incitement. But that doesn't matter much.

Will School Shutdowns Affect Student Learning?

Prediction: school shutdowns will affect students' intellectual development less than we would expect if schools were actually doing a decent job. I'll predict that there'll be significant immediate effects on little kids--who will be worse at e.g. reading and math. But effects on graduates will be relatively insignificant for those graduating soon. And there's be little or no effect on people who are kids now, but who graduate in ten years. 

   In fact, they'll miss a year of indoctrination. And if there's enough pushback against PC brainwashing, so that it diminishes or disappears by next year, kids may be better off for having missed a year--or, rather: this particular year.

WSJ: Lockdown Made The Pandemic Far Worse Than Necessary

Agree.

   WSJ is, of course, right to say that the pandemic became politicized. I'd say: mainly by the left, as usual, with the right pushing back--and, at times, going too far. And, yet again, non-progressives were right. Because: progressivism politicizes everything. That's not to deny that every faction tends to do that to some extent. But it's the hallmark of the PC left. And the more radical a faction becomes, the more it tends to do this. And progressives have gone whole-hog PC. They've turned it up to 11.

   Nobody blames people for honest errors. But the contemporary American left has gone far beyond excusable degrees of political blindness / dogmatism.

   This is yet another test case: it has seemed clear for quite some time that we should have put a strong emphasis on protecting the vulnerable (people who were less-healthy on account of age, weight, and co-morbidities)...while younger and healthier people mostly lived their lives as normal, making efforts to do things like distancing. Shutting down schools was probably the worst single error. Now kids may be irrevocably behind in school, and young adults' efforts to build wealth have been radically set back. 

   Needless to say, ten years from now we might conclude that this view is wrong. But that won't do much to excuse the left for using its cultural and political hegemony to force the country into a seemingly suboptimal course of action on the basis of avoidable bias. 

   So, again: non-progressives seem to have been right about a major social and political issue--and progressives seem to have been wrong. (I keep meaning to write on big ways conservatives and other non-progressives have been wrong, but haven't done so. The biggest thing having been: election fraud madness. But I haven't done so.)

G'town Law Prof Under Siege Over "Racist" Comments About Black Students' Low Grades

Nowhere does anyone here ask whether what she said was true. Because, you see, it's racist even if true! Because that's the country we live in now... 

Predictable Train Wrecks On Crime And Immigration

link

Brendan O'Neill: The Weaponization of Suicide

This should have been predictable from a cultural faction that has adopted the strategy of winning via imperative ad miseracordium: do as I say, or it will harm me. Exaggerating your weakness is the winning tactic by the rules of the PC left. But it's worse than that. The most dangerous thing in this vicinity is the prevalence of doxastic/epistemic versions of the fallacy: you must pretend to believe--or, preferably, actually believe--what I believe / want you to believe, or it will harm me. And, of course, the pinnacle of all this is: you must believe as I tell you to believe or I will harm myself... A kind of weird combination of ad miseracordium and ad baculum...

Andrew Doyle: Free Speech And Why It Matters

link

Is "Social Justice" Meaningless?

No.

   That's my take, anyway.

   You often hear people on the right say that it is. I think Hayek says it. I think Sowell may even say it. But I think they're wrong.

   The problem isn't that it's meaningless. The problem is that the left has co-opted the term and--as is their wont--have spun the meaning so that it presupposes that the left is always right. It's now just another piece of lefty cant. It's only slightly less overt than "politically correct." That phrase has fallen out of favor, and now the left--as is also their wont--claims there's no such thing. They don't merely repudiate the term, they relegate it to the realm of the nonexistent...along with Antifa and cancel culture. Oh, sorry. I meant: "Antifa" and "cancel culture"...what with neither being real, you see... Man, the tactical use of scare quotes bugs the hell out of me... 

   Anyway, whereas describing their own views as "politically correct" was so transparent that it was too easy to ridicule, identifying their own views as manifestations of "social justice" is a bit less overt. 

   To cut to the chase (though I've said it before), the problem with the term isn't that it's meaningless, it's that it's only used by the left, and the way its actually applied means that it actually means: socially just according to the progressive-left's conception thereof. Taking people's property and giving it to the less-well-off: social justice! Lowering taxes and "letting" people keep their own wealth: not social justice. Anti-hate-speech measures: social justice! Free speech: not social justice. And so on.

   So the problem isn't that the phrase is meaningless--it's that it's politically non-neutral. It carries a leftward valence. Thus it tends to gently skew every debate in favor of the progressive left. 

   My view of the matter, anyway, in brief.

"Social Justice" Indoctrination In CA Schools Encourages Students To Clap And Chant To Quetzalcoatl, Tezkatlipoka

The latter, with which I was unfamiliar...on account of his not being listed in D&D Deities and Demigods...is apparently somehow associated with human sacrifice. (He's also apparently known as "enemy of both sides".)

   Anyway...at what point does this shit become too crazy for the trailing edge of the left to keep going along with it?:

This religious concept is fleshed out in the model curriculum’s official “ethnic studies community chant.” The curriculum recommends that teachers lead their students in a series of indigenous songs, chants, and affirmations, including the “In Lak Ech Affirmation,” which appeals directly to the Aztec gods. Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka—whom the Aztecs traditionally worshipped with human sacrifice and cannibalism—asking him for the power to be “warriors” for “social justice.” Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking “healing epistemologies” and “a revolutionary spirit.” Huitzilopochtli, in particular, is the Aztec deity of war and inspired hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices during Aztec rule. Finally, the chant comes to a climax with a request for “liberation, transformation, [and] decolonization,” after which students shout “Panche beh! Panche beh!” in pursuit of ultimate “critical consciousness.”

   Oh, and: "healing epistemologies" LOOOOL. Fuck "healing epistemologies." Anything that could accurately be described by that phrase is bad epistemology. Lysenkoism. The politicization and theraputization of inquiry. 

Whenever I Look In To See What's Happening At The Washington Post And The NYT, I Regret It

It just confirms my view that progressivism has lost its mind.

Can Anyone Deny That The Biden Administration WANTS To Increase Illegal Immigration?

Undocumented Democrats are pouring across the border. Biden has done everything but encourage more to do so. They've dropped agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvadore and Mexico...in fact they've changed many policies that were working. And they've let in 100 people who tested positive for batflu, basically sending them around the country. (Because, of course, we all have to huddle in our houses, but COVID hysteria is strategically suspended if Democrats approve of the activity--(leftist) riots, illegal immigration...  

   My question has long been: will the Dems have the guts to do what they really want to do and tear down the fencing that's already been built?

   Anyway. I hate to say I toldja so, but: our move toward open borders is proceeding apace.

   Of course Dems will say that they don't want illegal immigration...they're just against draconian measures to mitigate it. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can believe that anymore. They have several motives for increasing the flow of illegals. Among them, of course: most of these will ultimately vote Democrat. And don't forget: they're on the verge of passing H.R.1, which will make it much more difficult to prevent illegal voting. 

   Your blue future, my friends. Comin' right smack atcha.

The PC Left Doesn't Aim To WIN Debates, But To Shut Them Down

I've been saying this for quite awhile. Here's something on their various tactics, most of which I've discussed--though it hadn't occurred to me that the ploy of calling debate "violence" ought to be characterized as emotional blackmail. 

   More interestingly: I was completely unaware that declaring "no debate," in so many words, was a thing. Actually, I can't seem to confirm that it is. But it'll be pretty funny if it turns out to be true.

Majority Of House Dems Vote To Lower Voting Age To 16

[facepalm]

I am incapable of expressing in anything like coherent terms how idiotic this is:

"A sixteen-year-old in 2021 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2021 challenges, 2021 hardships, and 2021 threats," Rep. Ayanna Pressley, one of the members of Congress behind the amendment, said in a statement on Monday. "Now is the time for us to demonstrate the courage that matches the challenges of the modern-day sixteen- and seventeen-year-old."

You really, honestly, just cannot be that stupid. I mean, what is going on? How can I be underestimating the lunacy of the blue team? I never worry about underestimating it! I just assumed I must be over-estimating it! How can so many allegedly at least quasi-respectable people go so insane so quickly?

The COVID Stimulus Bill Is A Pork-Laden Disaster

Or so it seems...

Pour One Out For Cocaine Bear

RIP

Bari Weiss: The Miseducation Of America's Elites

In short: the PC virus enters the body politic via rich, elite educational institutions. But rich elites are afraid to stand up to it because it will go after their kids, and they might lose some small portion of their rich array of stellar hyper-advantages....

Pretty pathetic all around, seems to me.

More On The Academic Freedom Alliance

At WSJ

Biden Is Not In Good Shape

At least he's more of a bulwark against Crazitarianism than KH will be. He's got to hold on until the '22 elections--in fact, until early '23. Even the Republitards should be able to win back either the House or the Senate after another year and a half of the insanity we've seen thus far.

The PC/Progressive Left On Words

PCPL: Why do you care that "trans" "women" want you to say that they are women and call them 'she'? It's only words, bigot!!!!!111

Also PCPL: HOW DARE YOU USE THE JARGON WE TOLD YOU TO USE LAST WEEK, BIGOT?!?!??!?! THIS IS THIS WEEK!!!!111  OUR JARGON BECOMES HATE SPEECH WHEN SLIGHTLY OUT OF DATE!!!!!!111! REEEEEEEE WORD VIOLENCE!1111!!!1

The Counter-Moonbat Term-Offensive Hitting Its Stride?

So ya gotcher 'BlueAnon.'

And ya gotcher 'superstraight.'

(Though I, myself, an hyperstraight...)

Ya also gotcher slightly more serious 'neoracism,' meaning, roughly: the bizarre new leftwing/identity-politics/Woketarian, almost-always anti-white racism of the blue team.

Let's start cranking this stuff out...  How about 'micro-regression': a small anti-liberal act like using loaded Woketarian terminology or expressing a progressive view in a situation in which fear of the shrieking Woketarian banshee mob prevents non-progressives from disagreeing...  Hm...this is actually pretty easy...

BlueAnon

QAnon is a crazy, super-fringy conspiracy theory.

BlueAnon basically controls the country.

So it's actually worth paying attention to.

Body Count Climbs At Border As Biden Policies Bring Of Illegals

 link

H.R. 1. Is A Partisan Disgrace

Unfuckingbelievable.

Wikipedia Co-Founder: NPOV Is Dead

So, I've been harping on this for years. There's no doubt it's true. Wikipedia has an extreme left bias. In this respect it's basically the same as most other major information sources and elite institutions: it's been taken over by a radical, illiberal, leftist ideology that does not value objectivity. In fact, according to many "advance thinkers" on that side, objectivity is bad. ITZ TEH RAZIZT!!!!111 is the latest lunatic view. For 30 years the main lunatic views in that region have been (a) it's impossible!!!, (b) it's male!!!, and (c) it's Western!!! 

   Anyway. I just want to point that I really have been going on about this for years, and at this point, it's undeniable that I've been right. I'm wrong a lot--no doubt about it. But, as with our slide closer and closer to open borders, I was right about this one from early on.

Schools Are Brainwashing Kids With The Doctrines Of The Cult

Dunno how common this is. But I'm hearing an awful lot of awfully bad stuff. And not just from froofy private schools.

Bari Weiss: Stop Being Shocked

Yes, yes, Orange Man bad... But that's a rather minor part of the essay. The rest is largely on-target.

Carolina 91 - Duke 73

The d00kies are having an even rougher season than the Heels, obvs. Congrats to Carolina, who found its normally MIA offense last night. Sterling Manley with a dunk and a block at the end! But we'll hear about those for years. Ordinarily, they'd be bad form...but I think an exception should be made for Manley, a redshirt junior whose knees will probably never let him really return to the court. 

Even The MSM Is Concerned About Biden's Lack Of Press Conferences

Even Spud!

Andrew E. Busch: Why Trump Lost (...But Almost Won)

Reasonable.

Paleo- and Neo-PC On Offensiveness and Danger/Violence

I made endless fun of the paleo-PCs for calling everything they didn't like "offensive." That was their favorite thing to say "that's offensive." I said many times that the neo-PC version of that is to call things "problematic." But it just dawned on me that the paleos' conception of offense actually also evolved into the neos' violent and dangerous. The neos upped the shrillness/hyperbole/crazy factor by characterizing things that would formerly have been characterized as merely offensive as dangerous or even violent. Saying unPC things now is alleged to bring violence down upon anointed / preferred minority groups--or even to constitute violence against them. The paleos declared 'black' unPC--the PC term was the then-novel 'African-American.' Their campaign was very effective--and the after-effect lasted for years. They so completely won on that issue that no one used 'black' for many years. Even I eventually gave in on the issue for a year or so at one point--they just won, and ordinary people had changed their habits. You'd no more say 'black' at that time than you'd say 'colored' now. But then, slowly, both became acceptable in polite society again.

   Anyway...the real point was the first one. I don't know why I started talking about the 'black'/'African-American' thing.

Natan Sharansky & Gil Troy: The Doublethinkers

link

To preserve our integrity and our souls, the quality of our political debate and the creativity so essential to our cultural life, we need a Twitter Test challenging bottom-up cultural totalitarianism that is spreading throughout free societies. That test asks: In the democratic society in which you live, can you express your individual views loudly, in public and in private, on social media and at rallies, without fear of being shamed, excommunicated, or cancelled? Ultimately, whether you will live as a democratic doublethinker doesn’t depend on the authorities or on the corporations that run social media platforms: it depends on you. Each of us individually decides whether we want to submit to the crippling indignity of doublethink, or break the chains that keep us from expressing our own thoughts, and becoming whole.