As It Turns Out, Philosophy Really IS Bullshit

Academic philosophy has more-or-less completely capitulated to the insane left.

We are an embarrassment to ourselves and the tradition.

Max Eden: Stop Gaslighting [All Of Us] On CRT

I took justified liberty with the title--it's not just parents that are being gaslit.

   Other than that, this piece is pretty much right on target.

   CRT is sometimes described as having clearly-defined boundaries--sometimes not. Those boundaries are sometimes located in one place, other times elsewhere. Eden wisely quotes Stefancic and Delgado...who give a list of four tenets of CRT...and then proceed to describe the theory in a way that makes it clear that it includes much more than those four tenets--and that also makes it clear that those boundaries are fuzzy.

Several points here deserve restatement: CRT defines itself in opposition to traditional civil rights and even Enlightenment rationalism. It defines itself not simply as a “Theory,” but also as movement of activists who seek to transform society. Many educators consider themselves to by Critical Race Theorists, and CRT ideology has had a profound impact on a wide range of education policy and pedagogical issues.
   Anybody who tries to peddle the line that CRT is just “talking about racism” is either gaslighting or being gaslit themselves. And anyone who maintains that CRT is simply an academic theory discussed in law school, at best, is ignorant of what CRT really is.
   By contrast, parent intuitions about CRT are spot on. Given that CRT informs so many aspects of education policy and pedagogy, the real crux of the issue for parents is, as Andrew Sullivan adroitly put it, “not teaching about critical race theory; it is teaching in critical race theory.” (Emphases in original.)
   Public schools may [not] be commonly assigning Critical Race Theorists like Kimberlé Crenshaw. But they have embraced a host of policies and practices that are rooted in Critical Race Theory. When parents hear terms like: “Equity,” “Anti-Racism,” “Cultural Competence,” “Culturally Responsive Education,” “Restorative Justice,” “Ethnic Studies,” “Equitable Math,” “Whiteness,” they would be fundamentally correct to go to a school board meeting and complain about Critical Race Theory. All of these practices are influenced by and have the same politicized purpose as CRT, which – to reiterate – defines itself not merely as a “theory” but also as an activist practice.
   School boards that are implementing CRT-infused programming should not follow the media’s lead and gaslight parents by claiming that they are “not teaching CRT” on the grounds that they are not assigning academic journal articles by self-avowed Critical Race Theorists. Because the more parents look into it, the more may realize that although their schools might not assign canonical CRT academic journal article, they are teaching “in” CRT.

   Though Eden is right about "parental intuitions," lots of parents (and other CRT opponents) aren't perfectly clear on what CRT is, nor on what the overarching problem is. But they aren't responsible for being perfectly clear on those things. The responsibility lies with teachers and other CRT proponents. And the problem is that they don't understand the view they're foisting onto children--and the rest of the country. They're intentionally transmitting a mind-virus that they themselves barely understand--in fact, a mind-virus that they clearly do not understand. They don't understand what it is and isn't. They have little conception even of its intended consequences. And, as is so often the case on the left: no conception whatsoever of its likely unintended consequences. This intellectual rot has been festering in academia--especially ed schools--for decades. And teachers have been indoctrinating students with it for God knows how long. And yet, even now, as they resist any pushback from parents, they obviously don't understand what it is that they're teaching. Parents and other opponents of CRT--like, e.g., Chris Rufo--already, in less than a year, have brought themselves up to a much better understanding of the view than  most of its proponents have generally managed in decades. Compare, e.g., Rufo's degree of  understanding to that of the execrable Joy Reid...who brought Rufo onto her show in order to talk over him while she held forth about a view she clearly doesn't understand. Progressives are despicable. Check out some of the videos in which teachers condescendingly try to explain what CRT is and why they must be allowed to indoctrinate children with it--they're generally woefully ignorant of and inarticulate about it. And infecting children with an abstruse, radical view that you yourself don't understand is pedagogical malpractice. Teachers should be fired for such a thing.

WSJ: The New Racial Discrimination: Biden Admin.'s "Equity" Policies Are Losing In Court

It seems that the courts are just about the only thing standing between us and the institutionalization of neoracism.

A Berkeley Institute Lies About America's Degree Of Segregation

I, for one, am shocked--shocked!--that something called "The Othering And Belonging Institute"--at UC Berkeley, no less!--would lie to make the USA seem more segregated than it actually is.

The left has become absurd. 

And, as I may have mentioned: it exists in a massive web of lies and delusions of its own creation.

And, as others have mentioned: the demand for racism outstrips the supply. Which is why we find progressives fabricating it. Over and over and over.

"Political Lexicon: Pandemic"

The fuck is this?

National Archives: Capitol Rotunda Is An Example Of "Structural Racism"

The 1/6 idiots came and went, leaving no lasting damage.

The Woketarian cultists aim to bring down the whole system, and might just do it. They seek to inflict permanent damage--mortal damage.

This shit's an example of institutional stupidity.

WSJ: Biden's/Dem's New Entitlements Will Be A Disaster

Of course this isn't in the vicinity of any expertise of mine; but, according to my current view of such things, the editors are right on the money with this: such new--and practically irrevocable--entitlements would be catastrophic.

Glenn Loury Interviews Charles Murray

Unfortunately, this interview kind of got sidetracked in a weird way IMO. Still good, tho. 

   One thing Murray brought up is a thing I've been fretting about for awhile now.

   The left used to bitch and moan because--allegedly--whites didn't recognize themselves as a race. I was never exactly clear on why that was bad. Aside from the fact that everything whites do is bad, of course... And, well, I guess if we don't really dwell on our raciness the left's constant denigration of whiteness loses some of its impact...can't have that!

   But, as the left hyperbolically "valorizes" (to use a favorite paleo-PC term) all other races*...and unreservedly demonizes whites...eventually whites are going to start seeing themselves as a race for real. And I mean: normal whites. Not the Aryan Brotherhood and shit. 

   I don't particularly want whites to develop a "race consciousness." I don't think that tends to work out well. I'd rather we just continue thinking of ourselves as more-or-less raceless. If we even really do that.

   However--if the insane left continues to be insane in these particular ways, whites will develop a race-consciousness--and should. It's the only way to survive in the future the left has planned for us.

   Incidentally, it also matters that whites are very, very much a global minority. That matters in particular because the left is insisting, basically, that whites must change the demographics of countries in which they are currently a majority so that they reflect the demographics of the world. Which means: the left insists that we become a kind of super-minority--a global minority that minoritizes itself even in its own home countries. A minority that is a minority everywhere. 

   They--the progressive, IDPOL left--also openly says that whiteness must be destroyed. But, when challenged, they say: Oh, hai, we don't mean killing people! We mean...gibberish gibberish gibberish! See? Totally different thing! Totally innocent! Don't fret about genocide! We don't do that stuff anymore! 

   Ha ha! Yes! I'm sure this is all perfectly innocent...

*Except, y'know, the Jews...

   

Olympic Hammer-Thrower Turns Away From Flag As National Anthem Plays

Meh.

   It's a free country.

   Unfortunately, though, it looks like the left's strategy of sowing racial discord is working. We've now got what's billed as "the black national anthem," and black "national independence day." And at least one suggestion that we need a new flag...

   Why does the left oppose National Socialism anyway? I mean, they obviously don't oppose the second part...

   The left is globalist. It opposes--inter alia--nations. And--as they've made obvious--they oppose one nation most of all... Tearing the nation apart into tribes is not a bug, it's a feature.

Chris Rufo On The Joy Reid Interview

 

Behold, The Left: Joy Reid Monologs Over Christopher Rufo

They don't want to debate, because they know they'll lose.

But this is a new low: this Reid person invites Rufo onto her shows so that he can sit there while she monologs.

She has a small, virtually worthless point: the tangle of insanity being pushed by the left is bigger than CRT. But that massive tangle of bullshit doesn't have a name. CRT is the flagship lunacy of that absurd bundle of bullshit--so calling it all 'CRT' is perfectly acceptable.

She's really proud of herself for having thought of 'Christopher Rufo Theory.' 

She also repeats the idiotic argument the lefties are now trying out: CRT was formulated by a law professor, ergo it is impossible to teach it anywhere other than law school. Therefore CRT is not being taught in K-12 anywhere in the country...

Intellectual giants these people are not.

What an ignorant, smug asshole she is.

Your Blue Future: Dodge Street, San Francisco Edition

At some point, a completely lawless state becomes preferable to this. What progressivism is working toward is a bifurcated justice system in which the Holy Downtrodden can do whatever they want with no fear of punishment, and people like you and me will be punished to the fullest extent of the law if we so much as raise a finger in our defense. Violent mobs are fine--Kyle Rittenhouses are not. I guess the new tech Masters of the Universe and other gazillionaires will always be able to pay off the system. But who knows? Speaking of the MoUs...maybe we'll have an actual Bonfire of the Vanities "moment"... Wouldn't that be interesting? Wonder what our tech overlords would do if the pomo-progs were so foolish as to go after them? It'd be pretty interesting...

You Still Can't Buy *The Camp Of The Saints* In English At Amazon

link

At least they stopped pretending that the Kindle version was unavailable because they were "checking it for accuracy" or whatever it was they were saying.

Best make sure you stock up on thoughtcriminal novels while you can.

Some Idiotic NBC Talking Head Whining About Bill Maher

Blah blah blah "power," blah blah blah "privilege," blah blah blah "white supremacy," blah blah blah "old white dudes," blah blah blah "stay in your lane." That last one is a particularly stupid pomo-prog trope. 

   Maher gets to tell anybody he wants anything he wants. You don't have to like it, of course. And you're free to whine about it--good thing for you. But we don't have to listen to you--good thing for me. I shut it off halfway through. Imagine we turned the tables, and I said to her: you have no right to criticize what old white dudes say. Whaddaya think the reaction to that would be like?

Barr: Trump's Claims Of A Stolen Election Were Bullshit

Unsurprisingly.

Obviously there were shenanigans. But I trust Barr.

Macy Gray On The American Flag: "I Shouldn't Have To Salute It, I Shouldn't Have To Honor It"

She's right--she shouldn't--and doesn't--have to do either of those things. 

   As for redesigning it for her own "tribe"...well, you go right ahead, but I expect most of us will stick with the more traditional design. 

Progressivism's M.O. Applied To CRT: "Fights against critical race theory are about power, and the left should stop engaging"

Progressivism--speaking abstractly, and not necessarily about individuals--has lost its collective mind. (Though, of course, some individual progressives have lost theirs, too...) It has become a tangle of lies and delusions. Here's one Maurice Mitchell (national director of the "Working Families" party) at USAT. There may be something in there that's true, but, if so, it didn't jump out at me. 

   It is true that most people talking about CRT don't know much about it. But that goes for both sides. In fact, the liberal, centrist, and conservative opponents of CRT seem to have a clearer conception of it than its progressive proponents. But there's enough confusion to go around, and I'm hardly neutral about this.

   First, though, note that Mitchell sticks to the progressive M.O.: 

   [A] Don't "engage." The progressive left does not want to debate. They want you to shut up and believe and do as you are told to believe and do. They tend to lose debates because their views tend to be daft. So they just keep long-marching through our institutions, chanting their cadence and proclaiming their virtue. They're winning by lying about what they're up to, and by not debating. They reject ideas like truth, reason, and objectivity on principle--off and on, at least. Of course on the rare occasions when they do seem to have the evidence on their side, they urge dispassionate inquiry. When, as is more often the case, their positions are nuts, they fall back on their array of pseudophilosophical skepticisms.

Oh and: here's perhaps the most hilarious bit of the article:

Critical race theorists and others who value definitions and facts should not engage opponents on the merits of the concept.

Read more »

Vivek Ramaswamy: Woke, Inc.

Link

Lots Of Voters Think Trump Will Be Reinstated

Weird:

Pubs: 30%

Independents: 26%

Dems: 13%

Trump blew it with the 1/6 madness. And not what he said at the rally. That was actually the least of it--though I'm not sure I ever watched the whole thing. Rather: it's what he said before and after that blew it for him. He basically told people that the election was being stolen--which may be true, but, of course, I doubt it. Thus he asserted premises for the conclusion You should stop the certification. Then he gave that absurd, repugnant statement on video when he kinda sorta asked them to settle down and go home--but, y'know, not really so much...because the election had been stolen.

At this point, I'm hoping it's DeSantis vs. whichever Dem beats Harris in the primary. I mean, ideally Harris--but I don't think we'll be that lucky. Even the Dems must realize she's unqualified by now...right? Maybe a DeSantis-Noem? Except she knuckled under to the transanity lobby... Or DeSantis-Carson. 

Charges Dropped Against Hundreds Of NYC Rioters And Looters

Interesting incentive structure you've got there, Gotham.

Rafael A. Mangual: Why Cities Can Expect 2020's Violent Crime Wave To Last

Progressives live in a web of lies and delusions.

There is no real doubt that BLM and related efforts at "defunding the police," "depolicing," and "decarceration" are driving the massive, almost unbelievable spike in violent crime. Their subjective attachment to these crackpot policies have already cost thousands of lives over the course of the last year. It's not rational to wait for leftists to face facts. That is a losing proposition. almost every time. If we wait for that, we're doomed. The GOP has to come out pushing law and order hard. That alone may be enough to take back the House in the mid-terms. And the progressive Dems must never be allowed to forget how disastrous...well...basically all of their policies are. The crime wave is evident, and the Dems just keep pushing the policies that have caused it. This ought to be brought up at every possible opportunity. Though, of course, it'll have to vie for time with child sexual mutilations and their other crackpot, disastrous ideas.

Juneteenth "National Independence Day"

The progressive left can ruin anything.

I've been inclined to want this added as a national holiday for awhile now--more-or-less from first hearing about the idea a couple of years ago. Obviously we can't really have, say, Emancipation Proclamation Day, as it would fall on January 1st. 

Unfortunately, this pretty cool idea has been largely ruined by the bullshit idea to subtitle the holiday as "...National Independence Day." I stay as far away from postmodern free-form, politicized interpretations as I can. I'd normally be more tentative about this one. But honestly it's pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that this is yet another nutty, divisive, racialist, anti-American move by the left. It makes no sense to call Juneteenth "Independence Day." More accurate--and more evocative!--would be e.g. "Emancipation Day." And certainly not "national independence day"--as if the actual national independence day, two weeks later, is somehow not the genuine item. 

Kinda hard not to take this to be pushing the "1619" nonsense. I take it the idea is: the "real" birth of the USA was...etc. etc. slavery etc. So "Juneteenth" is the "real" independence day. 

Needless to say, I don't want to do the progressive pomo free-form interpretation thing--looking for the worst possible interpretation of what my political opponents have done... But they seem to have stretched pretty far to get that descriptive clause. It's so inaccurate and contrived that it's impossible not to smell a rat.

Everybody Else vs. The Left: The Central Contrast

 

Meet Your New Landlord: Wall Street

disaster.

Murray: How The Politics Of Race Will Wreck America

link

Something he doesn't mention: remember: the left wants to wreck America--that's one of its major, explicitly-stated goals. 

   Of course I don't mean your average Democrat. Your average Democrat doesn't understand what the left's ultimate goals are. And certainly the average Democrat doesn't want to wreck the nation. Your average Democrat just thinks we should be nice... But as you move leftward, anti-American sentiment becomes stronger and more explicit. Sadly, though, you no longer have to move so far as the radical extreme before American eliminativism becomes undeniable. 

   Even Richard Rorty--a devout man of the left, who understood leftism deeply--recognized and worried about the left's anti-Americanism. See e.g.: Achieving Our Country.

   To repeat myself repeating myself: I don't generally hold a faction's extremist kooks against it. Every faction has its crazy radicals. But when the crazy radicals take the helm, and their crazy radicalism becomes more difficult to distinguish from more popular versions of the doctrine, and the relatively more centrist parts of the curve start openly embracing that radicalism... Well, at that point we get to hold it against them.

   The right went crazy over WMDs, and dragged the rest of us into Gulf War Episode II: The Phantom Menace. That certainly cost us more blood and treasure than Woketarianism has--yet. The invasion of Iraq turned on some clear, identifiable, consequential lies. It's perfectly reasonable to see all that as worse than this. I was apoplectic about it at the time--and still fume about it. But it didn't threaten America so profoundly. It didn't involve, for example, brainwashing children to think that America (and whites and men and conservatives...) is evil at its core. Things like massive state surveillance did pose threats to the nation at a very deep level, and do continue to harm it and pave the way for future authoritarians. But these threats didn't go nearly as deep as the threats presented by the totalitarian, illiberal left. The current left challenges the very ideas of truth and reason, the very ideas of America, and of our liberal, constitutional republic. The left long ago adopted irrationalism (including political correctness / Lysenkoism) as, perhaps, its center. Should its insurrection against rationalism and liberalism (in the broad sense) succeed, madness will have won. 

   Quoth Churchill:

...if we fail, then the whole world...including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Epoch Times: Long Interview With THE Officer Tatum

Dude's great.

The things he says are much more reasonable than almost anything on similar subjects that I hear at universities now.

James Freeman: Churchill And Woke Totalitarianism

link

The AMA Joins The Cult Of Woketarianism

So this would be astonishing if it weren't so predictable. Doctors and medical organizations have been jumping on liberal and progressive bandwagons for years now--from gun control to BLM. And elite institutions just keep falling to this nonsense. They almost certainly don't understand the issues. They're just hopping on another bandwagon. I don't get it. It takes only a little bit of thought and a modicum of independent-mindedness to see through it. But the bandwagon effect is, I suppose, even stronger than I always thought it was. 

   Supposing we at least partially recover from this plague of madness, remember this. Remember how readily the alleged "elites" and progressives fell for a pseudoscientific, quasi-religious political cult. 

   This AMA think is especially a matter of concern when combined with the medicalization of everything / medical mission-creep. Their M.O. is basically to take whatever subject it is that they want to hold forth about, note that it affect humans in some way, ergo it might possibly affect their health in some way--then to argue that that makes them authorities on the subject something something something hand over some more of your unhealthy freedom and vote Democrat. 

   And, of course, one of the first things that people and groups do once Wokefied is to go after the expression of politically incorrect ideas.

   We're surrounded by morons and sheep. Worse: cultist morons and sheep. Worse: they control all of our "elite" institutions. And the pandemic of political correctness shows few signs of slowing down. The liberal-conservative alliance has, IMO, been impressive--it's geared up faster than I thought it might. So there's that. But as the morons and sheep who apparently control our elite institutions continue to accept diversity Jesus into their hearts--apparently without understand a damn thing about what they're accepting--the future of America...and therefore the West...and therefore the world...just keeps looking bleaker and bleaker.

Entire Portland Riot Squad Resigns

Your blue future.

Did Kamala Harris Get Conned Into Being Border Czar?

Maybe.

Seems clear that something weird is going on.

It doesn't make much sense to appoint someone as a the czar of "root causes" of such a thing.

It's possible that this is just supposed to be an opportunity to propagandize about climate apocalypticism.

I guess that would make sense from a crass, political perspective.

Yeonmi Park, North Korean Defector

I hope Huck and Hannity do help her travel around to universities:

Six White Female Scholars Have Posed As Nonwhite In Recent Years

Eh.

Dolezal's not a scholar. One of them was just on Twitter. 

I mean, the explanation is obvious: nonwhites are at an advantage in academia now. Contrary to progressive fairytales, academia isn't made of racism. If Smith is black and Jones is white and both are academicians, and their CVs are the same, Smith will get about twenty times more job offers than Jones. When I came out of grad school, the white women were getting about 20 times as many interviews as the white men--all the females but one got better gigs than any male. And women are much more common in philosophy than are blacks. 

   Also: being nonwhite is hip and being white is uncool.

   And grievance studies is all the rage.

   Anyway: no real mystery here.

The 'Tardian: "What The Moral Panic About 'Critical Race Theory' Is About

True critical race theory has never been tried, you see...

   This is pretty much in line with common progressive-left criticisms of its crazy views. It's got an element of the communist/socialist "true x has never been tried" defense, a bit of the old motte-and-bailey, some supercilious pseudointellectual condescension, and some outright lying.

   I've actually been amazed at how quickly conservatives brought themselves up to speed on CRT. Gotta give credit where it's due. They certainly seem to understand it a lot better than the average progressive--which often happens if you're a highly-motivated critic of a theory or policy. Progressives have generally gotten intellectually lazy over the past five or six years, as everything (other than Trump) has gone their way, and they all bathe in the warm caress of groupthink. 

   At any rate, one grain of not-quite-truth in the Guardian's approach: CRT isn't exactly the problem. The problem is really progressive-left / PC indoctrination into the postpostmodern mishmash of politics and shitty pseudophilosophy--actually literary theory (aka "theory") and social justice madness. CRT has taken center-stage since BLM won the contest among lefties to make their specific obsession first obsession among equals. "Equals" because intersectionality, of course! But there's always a first. #MeToo briefly took the lead...but the left never lets women do that for long. It really looked like transanity was uncatchably in first place...but then along came BLM and that was that... Things can still change, but I don't expect them to do so soon.

   Anyway: contra that stupid Guardian piece, the conservatives know very well what they're fighting against. It's CRT--though not only CRT. Progressives have the advantage of pushing a vast tangle of insanity--so they can always claim that conservatives are missing the point. But CRT is currently the most prominent part of it, and conservatives are right on the mark in opposing it. Progressive are probably confused because they aren't to sure what their view is, and aren't too sure what CRT is. But even if what conservatives were opposing wasn't exactly CRT, it wouldn't matter much--they're opposing things that need opposing.

   This tactic, incidentally, isn't too far from one of their other favorite tactics: denying that the object of criticism exists (see: political correctness, cancel culture, cultural Marxism, Antifa). If they start losing, I expect this tactic to make an appearance... Hey, CRT doesn't even exist...and never did!

Peggy Noonan: Bill Maher Diagnoses Liberal "Progressophobia"

So obvious it's amazing that it even has to be said...much more so that it could be controversial:

The comedian Kevin Hart had recently told the New York Times, “You’re witnessing white power and white privilege at an all-time high.” Mr. Maher: “This is one of the big problems with wokeness, that what you say doesn’t have to make sense or jibe with the facts, or ever be challenged, lest the challenge itself be conflated with racism.”

Most Advocates of CRT Have No Idea What It Is

You'll see it all over--they keep saying things like: it's nothing more than a view that says that racism is an important part of our history. They have no conception of what it really says, nor of how radical it is politically, epistemically, and even metaphysically. It's like Scientology were taking over the country, and one faction consistently defended it by saying that it's just a commonsense approach to mental health, and mental health is important! Don't you want our children to be mentally healthy?

   Even if they understood it, many of them would probably still support it. Some because they actually think it sounds plausible, some out of tribalism. But facts do have an ability to overcome such things--even if less than we'd hope. 

   Even if you believe that racism is a massive problem, that in no way narrows the options down to only CRT. There are a very large number of far less radical options--obviously.

   It really is horrifying how far off the rails the progressive left has gone. 

Your First Dialectical Line Of Defense Against CRT and Related Lefty Crazy: They Have The Burden Of Proof

New theories have the burden of proof.

If you've got a new theory, you have to prove it in order to obligate the rest of us to accept it. 

CRT is, obviously, the new theory here (it's 40 years old, but that is new; and it's just been introduced to like 99% of Americans--despite everyone on the left pretending to already understand it.)

I think it's shown itself to be of enough interest to warrant admission to the public discussion. 

Ergo, to repeat: CRT advocates have the burden of proof.

But now comes the really hard part (for CRT): 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. 

And CRT is not just an extraordinary claim--CRT is a very large collection of extremely extraordinary claims and whole component theories--e.g. social constructionism and standpoint epistemology. 

Both of which are themselves whole new theories--i.e. whole clusters of claims.

And these claims-ergo these theories--are mostly themselves extraordinary.

Ergo they all require extraordinary proof.

And we haven't yet even mentioned the undefended assumptions of CRT--e.g. that every "inequity" in outcomes can only be caused by discrimination/oppression...  

(While we're on that one: not only is it a pure assumption in CRT, it's known to be false.

That alone sinks the theory. But that would take us into the realm of criticism. And my main point here is that we currently have no obligation to criticize CRT. So just move along--nothing to see here...)

And so, before we can even think about accepting CRT as a serious set of policy proposals for completely remaking the country, there are about ten or twenty or fifty other extraordinary, unproven, implausible claims and theories that are presupposed by CRT--many of which are already either known to be false, or known to be unjustified, or known to be untestable ergo unscientific. 

(In fact, CRT is basically a pseudo-(social-)scientific theory--that bit's pretty obvious to anyone who understands it, and understands what makes a theory pseudoscientific.) 

Furthermore, since CRT is so radical, and recommends such a radical, anti-liberal re-engineering of America...that is: because it recommends such radical (alleged) remedies, and because there is so much at stake if it's wrong...the theory requires a truly extraordinary degree of justification. A few squabbles on the Tweeter where progressives say some words they don't understand will not come anywhere close to doing the trick.

So...since people like me are willing to agree that CRT is worth discussing...and sense it's clear that it has the burden of proof...and since it's clear that it can almost certainly not carry that burden...and since its so radical, and since it can do so much damage if it's wrong....well...if you want CRT to be accepted as a serious policy proposal in your lifetime, you'd better start nailing down the vast number of arguments and refutations and the vast amount of evidence that it's going to take just to even defend its presuppositions and component theories. That is, just to get the thing off the ground--before we have any obligation whatsoever to try to shoot it down.

Until that's done, no one who isn't an advocate of CRT has to do anything. We have no obligation to produce counterarguments until its advocates produce arguments--lots and lots of arguments. Good arguments. Much better than any they've now publicly produced. Enough and good enough arguments to carry the almost absurdly heavy burden of proof that must be carried merely in order to obligate us to argue against it.

As of now: the needle's at zero. CRT hasn't even been able to taxi onto the runway yet. No one, anywhere, is obligated to take CRT seriously. The burden, at this point is 100% on its advocates--and they simply have not produced.

Biden Blows Up At News Conference After Putin Meeting?

 Meh

   Dude is often kind of an asshole... Trump was, too, to the press--though his assholery was generally in response to their extreme assholery...and unfairness and idiocy. So that's an excuse. 

   If what Biden said about what he said was accurate, then this reporter was being an idiot, too. So that's an excuse, too. Very cranky tone, though, that's for sure.

NRPR: "Literal Creationism, But Make It Woke"

Literal creationism but make it wokehttps://t.co/euZ7BFptxy

— OκULTRA XP🧿 (@0K_ultra) April 30, 2021

Make sure to read all her tweets in the thread. There's a pomo anti-science theme in PC progressivism and a critical theory pseudoscience theme. IMO, anyway.

NRO: What's Really Behind The Reported Spike In Anti-Asian Hate Crimes?

Certainly not "white supremacy"...magically acting through non-whites...link.

Tucker Carlson: Crime In Buckhead, GA

 

Swiss Voters Reject Climate Tax

Good for the Swiss.

   To be clear, my lame-ass efforts to understand what's going on, climate-wise, lead me to guess that CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere deserves serious attention. But also that current progressive-left apocalypticism is probably worse than no reaction at all. The "Green New Deal" is laughably absurd as a climate bill--which isn't surprising since it wasn't written as a climate bill, but as a socialist-Democrat jobs bill. Which might be ok...though I doubt it...and we can't tell because there's been no effort to justify it on those grounds. And unless they took out that abject insanity about retrofitting all buildings in the USA, it's almost certainly worse than nothing, climate-wise. Also, of course, no climate bill that doesn't include more nuclear plants and natural gas can be taken seriously.

The Culture War Is A Battle Of Science vs. Religion

Not religion religion--but the political religion of Woketarianism. The progressive left has accepted a quasi-religious view of race and racism, in which the central claims are implausible, unverifiable and unfalsifiable, and held as dogma. Disbelief and even questioning are evil, as are unbelievers and questioners. The view spreads via evangelism and indoctrination, and holds ground by punishing critics. The progressive identity politics orthodoxy is held largely for emotional reasons--it answers certain "felt needs" of its adherents. It offers nonwhites the moral superiority of victimhood, and it offers whites the opportunity to abase themselves for their wickedness--which is, of course, a way of advertising superiority over those who don't. It also offers the illusion of epistemic superiority via the acceptance of quasi-esoteric knowledge--it's an actual conspiracy theory, and there's nothing conspiracy theorists love more than feeling as if they're cleverer and more clear-eyed than the masses. (You may believe the official tales of 9/11, but I've seen through them; you may believe the ordinary accounts of American history, but I've seen and accepted the horrible truth...) 

   On the other side, we have a consilience of our two most reliable methods of finding truth: (i) the informal science of mass, extended human experience, and (ii) formal scientific investigation. Races are real biological clusters of traits, and different races have somewhat different average characteristics.

   The former view also invokes a vast number of radical, unsubstantiated assumptions--e.g.: all disparities result from oppression--and concludes that a radical re-engineering of society is required. And it will not be complete until complete "equity"--i.e. identity of outcomes--is achieved. That is: it will never be complete. The latter view doesn't prescribe any particular solution. Perhaps the most natural course of action in light of it is: keep muddling on, knocking the sharpest edges off of inequalities where possible. Strive for substantially equal opportunity. Hope for the best.

Charles Murray: Facing Reality

I pre-ordered on kindle, so my copy was waiting for me this morning. I usually don't read stuff I might end up working through carefully on kindle--I want a hardcopy to mark up. But I wanted to get this fast. Might get a hard copy too, depending.

The publication of this book could mark a turning-point in the public discussion of this nonsense.

North Korean Defector After Attending Columbia: "Even North Korea Was Not This Nuts"

Holy crap. This is one of the most interesting interviews I've ever heard about this stuff--and I've heard a lot of them.

But the most interesting part to me came out of the blue. At the end, she casually expresses her concern for "the future of our country"...and that really got me--instantaneously--right in the feels. Especially when contrasted with the background video of the little teen lefties burning flags. Here's this woman who walked through the Gobi desert at the age of seven to escape North Korea, and who ultimately ends up here, and who, without reservation or hesitation, now speaks of the USA as our country.

   Shut up. I'm not crying--you're crying.

Bad Ideas Fester and Spread In The Weaker Regions Of Academia

The humanities and qualitative social sciences are like the wet markets of academia. 

Though it may turn out that ed. schools are the Wuhan Institute of Virologies of it...

(Actually CRT was engineered in law schools. But I already thought of those analogies and they're stuck in my head.)

It's OK...

Video Game Designer REFUSES TO APOLOGIZE FOR VOTING FOR TRUMP!!!!!!!!!!

 Whaaaat????

CAN HE EVEN DO THAT??? 

HE HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY COMMANDED TO APOLOGIZE AND STILL HASN'T DONE SO!!! 

What is the next step? I don't even know! THIS IS AN INSURRECTION!!! You can't just be told to apologize for your BAD WHITE MAN-PENIS SUPREMACY THINGS and then NOT DO SO!!! Who does he think he even is???

IT'S LIKE HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THAT ORANGE MAN BAD!!!

I CAN'T EVEN!!!!!!111111 REEEEEEEE REEEEEE  REEEEEEEE

Robert Reich: Tiny Little Pants On Fire

Possibly the strawiest man I've ever heard:

The so-called "party of free speech" is now trying to ban educators from teaching about the anguished role racism has played in the shaping of America. We can’t stand for it. pic.twitter.com/TbsOsxMzyp

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) June 11, 2021

Peter Berkowitz: Civic Action, Civil Discourse, And The Dogma Of Systemic Racism

This is right.

   The problem is two-to-three-fold: (a) CRT is mostly crazy; (b) students are being indoctrinated with it. Also: (c) it's a partisan political theory.

   All of these are problems. Any one of them is a problem even without the other two.

   But progressivism brooks no disagreement. It insists that all of its myriad insane theories be accepted without question and implemented immediately. 

   If schools were merely teaching about CRT as one (radical, unproven) view among others, that would be one thing. But that's not what's happening. That's not how the progressive left operates. It represents the speculative bullshit of kooky, extremist leftist intellectuals as fact--in fact, as knowledge. And not even as mere knowledge, but as unquestionable knowledge. And not even as "mere" unquestionable knowledge, but as knowledge the dissent from which is a moral failing--it makes one a racist. (Doubly so, I guess, since it already teaches that we're all already racists.)

   Actually, here's another problem: CRT isn't exactly the problem. It's just one (significant) part of the problem--it's one component of a vast, insane, politically-non-neutral worldview that the left is pushing on all of society. 

Greenwald: The Pulse Nightclub Massacre Was An Act Of Islamic Terrorism, Not An Anti-LGB Act

I remember them pushing the anti-LGB angle hard, of course, and remember being suspicious at the time, but didn't really follow it much. This is one of the ways that the media gets its preferences established. It pumps out the propaganda, and unless you're enough of a freak to pursue the truth basically to the point of pathology, their story just ends up ensconced in your head.

Even NBC News has acknowledged that the PULSE massacre was not motivated by anti-LGBT sentiment. Their article is definitive as it should be. The evidence leaves no doubt. There's no excuse for Senators and LGBT groups perpetuating this lie:https://t.co/V36i1ZHfS8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 12, 2021

To What Extent Is Anarchy An Actual Goal Of The Progressive Left?

At some point it starts looking like a feature, not a bug.

The Best Reason To Suspect Election Shenanigans Is The Left's Dedication To Shutting Down Questioning And Investigation

"Nobody hires 100 lawyers to hide an election victory."

   I still don't think that the election was stolen--though there were appalling shenanigans that the left would be shrieking about nonstop were the tables turned.

   I still want investigations. They're not free, but I think we should be willing to spend the money to be sure. 

   As I've often said: after Russiagate, there's almost nothing I would put past the progressive establishment. 

   And: the more frantically they resist investigation, the more suspicious I get.

   I don't believe that the Dems have the sophistication to pull off such massive fraud. But neither am I confident that they wouldn't be willing to if they thought they could get away with it.

Statement From Trump: I Was Right All Along

(via Insty)

link

   The Hydroxychloroquine thing was largely luck--and may still turn out not to be true. But it wasn't entirely luck.

   Even ignoring that, we still face a kind of puzzle: if Trump's such an unhinged idiot, why is he right so often?

   My long-standing answer: Trump's biggest epistemic advantages are really just a lack of disadvantages: he's right so much more than the left because the left is wrong so often. It has become an unhinged cult driven largely by political correctness: it subordinates reason to its political dogmas. It has disabled the main mechanism by which humans make epistemic progress: it refuses to acknowledge its errors. It ignores factual disconfirmation, and discredits criticism by categorizing all who disagree with it as racists (and the like). It lives in a fantasy world of its own making. 

   Trump's main advantage is that he is kind of an asshole. He refuses to be cowed into saying--and believing--that night is day. He doesn't burst into tears when the left calls him a racist. He's the one-eye man in the valley of the blind.

Why Is Austin Media Refusing To Release A Description Of The At-Large Mass Shooter?

Just kidding--you know why.

I'm sure that, had he been a white male in a MAGA hat, they'd have been just as circumspect.

Did Derek Chauvin Get Screwed?

This makes a strong case for an affirmative answer.

The more I reflect on what I know about the case, the more implausible the verdict seems to me.

But I didn't follow it closely enough to deserve much certainty.

Outright Pseudoscience: The Next Frontier For the Pomo/CRT/Progressive Synthesis

Science is a "white way of knowing." CRT says that "lived experience" and nonwhite "ways of knowing" are just as good as science and scientific medicine. And, while the words and actions of many scientists during the batflu pandemic would seem to make this a rather low bar to clear...well...this stuff is still bullshit.

   Notice the tortured headline that...well...does it or doesn't it really say that this voodoo stuff works against the COVID? 

   If you've followed this blog, you know that something has annoyed me for awhile. Last time leftist pomo bullshit metastasized wildly--during the paleo-PC crisis of the late '80s - early '90s--pseudoscientific and outright magical "new age" mumbo jumbo was simultaneously the rage in pop culture. I predicted that, after crazy leftist pomo stuff erupted again that pseudoscience / magic / woo-woo stuff would also show up. CRT is actually outright pseudoscientific itself...but I don't count that. Astrology was recently in vogue a bit--and maybe still is. There's still time for me to be right! But the woo is really not showing up to the degree I thought it would. But maybe this ancient Chinese medicine stuff will get it going.

UK Gov't Advisor: Mask Use Should Continue "Forever"

Surprise! She's also a communist.

Did Derek Chauvin Kill George Floyd With Knee Restraint?

Kinda looks like no.

Proven Right: Trump Savors Post-Presidency Vindication Streak

link

The lies lasted through the election.

That's all they ever really had to do.

Will The Durham Investigation Produce Some Serious Charges?

Maybe

Obama Quote That's Right On Target

Truer words were never spoken:

“We have to worry when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago”

That just couldn't be righter.

But he's talking about the Republicans, not the Democrats.

That's right...the party that thinks that women are adult female humans and that the Bill of Rights should be protected is dangerously radical and deviating from the status quo of five years ago... The party that thinks that you can change your sex-or-gender by chanting clothes, that want to undermine the first two Amendments at least, that insists that all whites are racist in virtue of simply being white, that males should be able to participate in girls' and women's sports, that mothers should be called "birthing people" because reasons, and that wants to implement socialism in order to avoid a made-up climate crisis...the, like, 20th-or-so made-up climate crisis since about 1970...that part is perfectly normal...
   I deserve a good kick in the ass for supporting that guy.

Obama Pretends That It's Conservatives Who Have Spun Out Of Orbit

I just don't know what to make of this.

I mean...much of the election stuff is nutty--though thus far unrefuted. But, nutty as it is, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the insanity that's gripped the left. He's too smart to believe that the Pubs are the main problem. 

One of the most depressing possibilities is that he really is sympathetic to CRT and associated progressive madness. He did apparently work with Derrick Bell at Harvard...

I fear it may be true. If so, I'm an idiot for all the volunteering I did for that guy and all the money I gave him.

Robin DiAngelo Is Full Of Shit

I've only read excerpts from the book, but you can barely exist in 2021 without being exposed to her bullshit ideas. 

She's just another race grifter.

Idiot.

The Grand Unified Theory Of Progressivism: Racism Causes Climate Change

Finally! The conceptual holy grail of progressivism!

But how to work in transgenderism....?

The Greatest Threats

It's th' Rooskies!

It's "white supremacy"!

HOW DARE YOU IT'S TH' GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!*

Funny how it's always something the left has its panties in a wad about...

* Note that Trump POUNCED "lashed out" called bullshit on this.

USA's Cultural Revolution Proceedeth Apace: JAMA Editor-In-Chief "Resigns" For un-PC Tweet

Hey, this stuff is confined to campuses and it's phase II of the civil rights movement and the only people who oppose it just want to be able to use racial slurs without consequences and political correctness and cancel culture don't exist. Also, why are you so interested in this stuff, anyway? It's pretty suspicious that you'd be so interested...

   Also, so far as I cant tell, Bauchner's tweet* was supporting the (largely bullshit, of course) idea of "structural racism," not questioning it. The first sentence of the tweet was intended to be in the "voice" (as they like to say) of a naive, unenlightened/unwoke person who needs to be "educated"...by people spewing leftist talking points and using their medical credentials to lend bogus epistemic authority to trendy, illiberal nonsense. The second sentence was more like Bauchner's own words--it's basically an assertion that there is "structural racism"--read: magical, empirically undetectable, racist ectoplasm--in medicine. And an assertion that all will be explained in the podcast. 

   So Bauchner seems to have been advertising for a podcast containing Woketarians testifying about their acceptance of Diversity Jesus into their hearts...but part of his tweet could be interpreted to mean basically the opposite of what it says. By, y'know, the sufficiently stupid and/or malicious and/or woke. But I repeat myself. Because postmodernism. That is: the death of the author, intentions don't matter, every interpretation is exactly as good as every other interpretation bullshit bullshit bullshit.

   Of course he issued the de rigueur groveling apology.

   If you're still cowering and hoping that the cult will leave you alone if you just mouth their words and go along with it all...well...you see how well that works.

* Nope...was not even his tweet. He didn't write it. He didn't even see it before it was published. So my final sentence should probably be in bold.

Addendum:  JQ said, upon hearing about this:  he should have masturbated on a Zoom meeting before resigning. Then he might have been able to get his job back.

They Got Boris

facepalm

   At one time in my life, I was somewhat sympathetic to this general kind of bullshit.

   I thought we were at a point analogous to the fall of France. Now I'm worried that we're seeing the progressive analog of Operation Sealion succeeding. 

A [Social] Scientist Who Said No To COVID Groupthink

No mention of the fact that this sort of thing always involves pushing the line preferred by the progressive left.

The Kamala Harris Saga Gets Weirder And Weirder

I have no idea what the hell's going on with her.

As I've already said, it's become downright bizarre. By refusing to go to the border, she's creating a massive problem for herself. Basically all she had to do was, y'know, her job. As Veep. Which means: go walk around and shake some hands and mouth some platitudes. But, y'know, in this case: do it at the border. 

  Sure, it's a Democrat-created clusterfuck down there. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen an administration commit such a massive unforced error before. Except, of course: progressives don't think this was an error, so

  But it's not going to change because Kamala doesn't go do her Veep thing there. Suck it up. Go down there and pat some kids on the head. Be back in Swampland by dinnertime. What. The. Hell. Is. The. Problem????

   Whatever she's up to, it's apparently important enough to be worth shooting herself in the foot in this way.

Stephen Miller: Biden's Immigration Plan Would "Erase America's Nationhood"

It seems to me that Miller is right. 

   I think he's definitely right that the progressive's damn-near-de-facto-open-borders position would do extraordinary damage to the nation, and at least take a giant stride to "erasing it...as a nation."

   This is one of progressivisms utterly insane positions. This isn't something about which there can be a reasonable disagreement. This isn't some fine-tuning question, nor something that falls in a gray area. This is utter madness. This isn't the sort of thing that should be a matter of serious public discussion.

   Biden has already done more harm to the USA than Trump did in four years. In fact, Trump made the country stronger. Biden is trying to destroy it. Not, of course, intentionally. But, rather, because he's accepted the Woketarian madness that's infected the extremist left.

UFOs; Or: I'm An Idiot, Part MCLXVIII

I said this before, but it bears repeating: I'm just as much of an idiot for mindlessly asserting that them oofohs were Skunk Works black projects as the LGM brigade is for mindlessly asserting that they're flying saucers. Or, well...at least knee-jerk naturalistic...or terrestrialistic...claims like mine have the virtue of conservatism. But: still (apparently) wrong, still mindless, still knee-jerk. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Also: the Skunk Works hypothesis is weirder / more ostentatious than the hypotheses West argues for. No crazy new gizmos needed. Just balloons and F-18s and geese and shit.

Delicious Apple Pie Is TOTALLY RACIST BIGOT!!!!11111

...but, er, it's still delicious, so

This nonsense is, of course, nonsense. There'd be no sense in paying any attention to these monomaniacal idiots if they hadn't somehow taken control of he country...

Basically, the cult thinks that x is racist if it causes any racism...or is in any way a partial consequence of any racism...or stands in any identifiable relation at all to anything that's in any way racist...which mean....everything is racist...including, of course, "anti-racism". Especially since "anti-racism" is not only a consequence of racism, but, in its contemporary fanatical, irrationalist form, it's causing racism--both by openly advocating for anti-white racism, and by increasing the likelihood of repelling people who are ordinarily themselves against racism.

  But also and anyway. Everything stands in some relation or other to apples...and APPLES ARE OPPRESSION, JACK. Ergo etc. etc.

More Mick West On UFOs

He's responding to an attempted debunking of one of his earlier videos by a former F-16 pilot. The latter dude is kind of a jackass about it all, but West maintains a polite, neutral, reasonable tone throughout:

Russiagate, Lab-Leak-gate, Lafayette-Square-gate...Not To Mention Covington-Kids-gate...And On And On...

How many of these things can pile up before Progressitarianism/Woketarianism starts losing adherents? 

The cult's propaganda wing insisted that Xenu or whatever and his fleet of UFOs were gonna land LIKE TOTALLY NEXT WEEK several times now...and...no dice. And we're just talking about the conclusively-disproven stuff--not all the other patent falsehoods they're pushing like climate apocalypticism, BLM's open season claim, transgender mythology etc. etc. etc. 

   The UFOs did not land, my dudes. 

   When prophecy fails...again and again...the cognitive dissonance...eventually...becomes too much for even cultists to tolerate.

   And note: contrary to what a lot of conservatives are claiming: I don't think it's exactly right to blame the media. The media is part of progressivism--but it's like a semi-autonomous propaganda office. Sometimes the progressive MSM acts fairly autonomously, but that's usually because it knows the general ideas and talking points that the Democrats and leftist "scholar-activists" are already pushing. For example, it doesn't have to stop and ask what it should say about Kavanaugh/CBF, nor about clearing Lafayette Square. It both reports on the dogma of the left and helps shape it. With respect to Lafayette Square, I'd bet that it is mainly the PMSM's fault. With respect to LabLeakGate, it was progressive virologists who took the lead in making the LLH unPC. Or so it seems to me, anyway.

[Title weirdness: I'm not claiming that the lab-leak hypothesis is proven; but I do (seem to?) mean that something's been proven...er...I guess I meant: it's proven that the classification of the LLH as bunk was bullshit; it's never been bunk. Whatevs.]

Thomas J. Philipson: College Subsidies Are A Feedback Loop For Big Governement

It's amazing how much becomes clear when you break out of liberal groupthink. Conservatives have been trying to tell me this stuff for decades, but it just couldn't get through my thick, blue skull. 

   And lemme tell ya--a whole lotta students have no business in college. And note that I mean: they don't like it, they aren't good at it so they drag the institution down, and they don't get anything from it. If they were on the good side of any one of those divides, I'd be happy to have them in my classes. Even untalented students who are interested are fine by me. But honestly, there are just too many students in my intro classes who shouldn't be there. (Of course upper-division classes have mostly philosophy students in them, so they've basically been selected for interest.) 

   My university--and I'm sure it's not unusual in this respect--treats itself like a business. It panics if enrolments (customers!) fall, and prefers unqualified, paying students (customers!) to fewer students. One reason is: it doesn't want to risk finding itself in a position in which it might have to cut faculty positions...or, God forbid, administrative positions! But, honestly, a whole lotta faculty don't actually have a lot of business at universities, either. And don't get me started on administrators and quasi-administrators. We could easily do with half as many...

Anyway.

WSJ: A Made-In-Washington Inflation Spike

link   The Trump economy was great; the Biden economy is shit, and getting shittier.

But, hey, no mean tweets so

Kamala Harris, No-Show Border Czar

Holy shit, this is just bizarre at this point.

As if refusing to go to the border for months after being named border czar weren't freakishly weird enough, she's now getting testy at journalists for asking her about it. Seriously, how much longer can this go on? There's something weird going on. She'd never make so much trouble for herself unless there were. There's some reason she doesn't want to go. Obviously she doesn't want to have to deal with the disaster...but that's a given. I wonder whether there might be some friction about this between her and Biden. I could easily see her and/or her people being really pissed about being handed the biggest self-created disaster thus far in a self-created-disaster-packed administration. I'd be all like You go be border czar, Joe; you f*cked it up; you go fix it. Maybe that's what Harris is all like, too.

Progressivism Contra The Family--Shrier: "When The State Comes For Your Kids"

link

The neo/quasi-Marxist left has long made it clear that it aims to erode or destroy the nuclear family. This isn't some conservative crackpottery: as is so often the case, the leftist intelligentsia and activist vanguard has long come right out and said as much. They do refrain from saying it so openly that their less-radical trailing edge would be unable to ignore it. You wouldn't think that'd work, but somehow it does. It's a standard kind of motte-and-bailey strategy. It works just well enough that non-wackos who want to believe can continue doing so. It's rather like their position on anti-white racism, open borders, etc.--there's an exoteric doctrine and an esoteric one. The latter is for the elect--among themselves, and in their quasi-scholarly conferences and publications, they can admit their racism, admit that their ultimate goal is open borders--and admit that they seek the destruction of the family. The exoteric doctrine leaves all those ultimate aims unstated. If you follow out their lines of argument, you can see where the lines converge...but people don't follow out lines of argument. Not most of them, anyway. And certainly not true believers.

   So now the incoherent doctrine of transgenderism is being used to more-or-less just take children away from their parents. K-12 schools are brainwashing children with radical leftist dogma, including CRT. Holy and unquestionable BLM has openly said that they are Marxist, and aim to "disrupt" the nuclear family...but, hey, they took that off their website when people started noticing. And, again: that thin, ridiculous, half-hearted effort at concealment is enough for the true believers.

   Ten years ago, if I'd heard someone say the things I now routinely say, I'd have classified that person as a right-wing kook. Make of that what you will.

The Biggest Problem With The Progressive/Pomo Synthesis

The biggest problem--or plausibly so, I say--isn't that progressivism is a radical, illiberal, irrationalist view, nor that the post-post-modern philosophical mishmash of CRT, postmodernism and the other post-s (poststructuralism, postcolonialism) are also radical and irrationalist. The biggest problem isn't even that this synthesis (or jumble) is poorly-justified and almost certainly false. The biggest problem is that it's being imposed on the nation--and without anything like due deliberation. Anybody who wants to honestly discuss or even believe this vast, sweeping, weird, implausible view should, of course be able to do so. And if--terrible as that would be--we decide as a nation to adopt the view, that would be one thing. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is that it's being imposed on us against our will by a rabid, quasi-religious cult. Children are being brainwashed, adults are being indoctrinated by their employers--and,worse, the state. Discussion and disagreement are squelched. Laws are being differentially enforced. Mobs--both electronic and physical--are intimidating people into silence, and even deploying violence to achieve their ends. This is totalitarianism and terrorism.

Greenwald On Clearly Lafayette Square: Yet Another Media Tale Collapses

link

The media lies and lies, always always to promote the view of the left.

...Except, of course, when war's afoot. What accounts for their having been all-in on WMD madness? 

I mean...that was twenty years ago, and the entire left, including the media, has converted to Woketarianism... So maybe that's the difference.  I just don't know.

Maybe they always just choose the stupidest, most emotional position on everything. Eh. Just can't be. 

Amazon: No Confederate Flags, But Plenty Of Communist Flags

Pages of 'em, actually. 

WTH Is The Problem With The Kamala Cookies??

Um...I don't get it.

   The cookies are kinda creepy-looking...but I just don't get why they're supposed to be some big, bad deal. 

   After the last five years, I'm kinda ok with the strategy of hammering the Dems on every single thing we might be able to score points with. So maybe that's what's up. But really, this cookie thing is nuts.

The Deadly Results Of Defunding The Police

link

WSJ: Barr, Garland and Lafayette Park

More on this.

   Just after the incident, one of my colleagues--who I respect--sent around an article he'd published about it. In it, he argued for the standard progressive line: the Trumpians tear-gassed the protesters so that Trump could have a photo-op. I'm basically the only member of the department who pushes back against such things and articulated the non-progressive sides of arguments, and around that time I'd felt compelled to do so more than I'd have liked to. He sent the article to me personally, and expressed skepticism to him personally, but I didn't do so publicly, to the whole department. And now here we are. I don't want to raise the issue again--I don't want to raise any political issue I don't have to raise. As in this case: I don't even respond every time someone else makes an insufficiently-well-justified point. 

Read more »

"The Whole World Is Crossing The Rio Grande"

Biden is a disaster.

DOI Inspector General Clears Trump Re: Clearing Lafayette Park

Of course the left's story about the event is already in place, and this won't get 1/10th as much coverage as the initial, histrionic accusations.

Daunte Wright Was A Violent Carjacker

What a surprise.

NPR: Leftist Scholar "Uncovers The Racist Roots Of The Second Amendment"; Harsanyi: Uh, No

NPR (As is so often the case, the title is the locus of the most concentrated bullshit.)

Harsanyi: basically: If by 'uncovers' you mean 'makes up'...then sure.

Her argument seems to be a big, fat cheat--i.e. lie. And NPR uses a success term in the title. "Claims to uncover" would be one thing. But instead NPR opts for a lie of its own. Which, of course, shouldn't surprise anyone.

VT Soccer Player Suing Coach Who Benched Her After She Refused To Bend The Knee To BLM

link   I hope she absolutely sacks Tech and that coach.

NYT Idiot: Oh, Boo Hoo Pickup Trucks With American Flags Mean "This Is My Country"!!!

..."it's not yours" Boo hoo hoo.

And they didn't vote Biden but they still get to live in this country can anybody explain that to me boo hoo hoo...

Mara Gay: idiot.

WaPo Reporter Troubled By "Racist Legacy" Of Some Birds

facepalm

VDH: The Lethal Wages Of Trump Derangement Madness

Would it have saved lives if the lab-leak hypothesis not been suppressed by the left on account of political incorrectness? I don't really see how. That seems to be the central case of the essay. But the other cases make the point better. And I think the points about Russia and Hydroxychloroquine are right. TDS harmed the nation. It's really just one manifestation of political correctness: the left is always right, any view or person that opposes their preferences is horrible and vilified. 

   Trump, of course, did his part by being incapable of moderating his tone so much as an iota. He certainly made matters worse. Thing is, I agree with him in principle--you see that I refuse to moderate my tone. Why? Because that's one of the ways the crazy left wins: it can say whatever it wants in whatever tone it wants, while demanding that we not respond at all--or, if the can't prevent response, they demand a self-abasing, hyperbolically deferential tone. But they're the crazy ones, not us. And we have no obligation to be delicate about that. We should call a spade a spade clearly, directly, and energetically... But the President is in a different position. You can be direct without going out of your way to provoke. Trump was mostly an effect, not a cause. It's the left that lost its shit; that's why Trump was elected. But then Trump helped fan the flames. Not impermissible. But also not prudent. Obviously. 

RIP ACLU

Nothing major in here is really news. But it's still depressing as hell.

Ridge Says He Was Pressured To Raise Terror Alert Levels

...especially before the '04 election.

Despicable.

But, hey, I'm sure the left would never do anything like that...

Greenwald: The New Domestic War On "Terror" Has Already Begun

And guess who their coming after, bigot?

The Logic Of The Left Constantly Drives It To Crazier Positions

Climate change could be a problem...

Oh--ok, well, let's look into it...

[Co-opts universities, preferentially funds teams that "find" scary results, controls the media, which broadcasts mostly worst-case scenarios without identifying them as such, declares that IT'S THE END OF EVERYTHING IN TEN YEARS...NO TIME TO INVESTIGATE!!!!!! Labels all disagreement "denial" (as in Holocaust).] YOUR DENIALISM WILL KILL US ALL!!!  NO TIME TO DISCUSS!!!

OMG...uh...well...this seems pretty alarmist...but...I mean...there are already good reasons to switch over to natural gas and nuclear...

NOOOOOOOOOOOO  REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Only solar and the mystical ways of indigenous peoples can save us!!!  We must begin funding Head Start and community gardens and diversity training immediately!!!!!

Give 'em an inch, and they...demand all the inches and call you a racist anyway.

Hey, at least their climate scam is better than their racism and transgenderism scams. Those scams actually work, in part, by making more racism and more transgenderism. At least their climate hysteria is merely hysteria. Their other insanity is counterproductive hysteria.

Ronald Brownstein Is Full Of Shit

Idiot.

   Most of this stuff he's whining about is reaction against the insane leftist revolution that progressives are pushing--e.g. the mask business and the "outlawing" of CRT. I haven't looked at the laws, but my guess is that they're mostly anti-indoctrination laws. It'd actually be perfectly fine to ban CRT in K-12, since we know that it won't be taught honestly, and we know that it'll basically be set up as if it were a major alternative to the status quo instead of one idiosyncratic and insane, weird, distant option among many more plausible ones. 

   Also LOL @ "targeting transgender individuals" by preventing the implementation of extreme transgender ideology--e.g. re: public restrooms and women's sports. Failure to implement all the radical left's policy preferences is reactionary, bigot.

   I couldn't even finish this piece of shit article.

   All this stupidity is predictable. It's just part of the overall leftist M.O.--make radical changes, then characterize any attempted return to normality as reactionary. These people are dangerously full of shit.

McWhorter: The Problem With Dropping Standards In The Name Of "Equity"

Princeton is dropping the Greek/Latin requirement for the classics major. Yes, that's obviously a "diversity" move. And, as McWhorter notes, it's a very bad idea.

   Our "diversity" honcho once stated, in a meeting, that disciplines that couldn't sufficiently increase their "diversity" should consider chanting the nature of their discipline in order to do so. Which, as I've said before, basically means that e.g. we will be expected to stop doing philosophy if we don't make our quotas. Though...there aren't really any quotas, of course. That would be illegal. Also: too clear/definite. It's maybe more effective hanging out there as a threat with no determinate trigger. Also: no word on what we should do instead. Maybe psychology? That's a more "diverse" discipline. Or social work! That one's really "diverse"... 

   Of course this suggestion (threat?) is utterly insane. But it lies just a wee bit farther down the lunatic trajectory about which McWhorter writes. Stop saying that it isn't going to happen. Stop thinking that things will turn around before then. You can't keep singing those ridiculous tunes at this point.

Another Stray Thought, Re: Gain-Of-Function Research

Erm, how about you do everything you can to develop a vaccine first? I mean...you know that you're tacking on a spike protein... And you know what that's supposed to do, and how it's supposed to do it. I guess you can't develop the vaccine first / without having the finished product...else: who do the GoF thing at all? But why not set up everything you can for a treatment ahead of time? I mean--maybe they did. I don't know.

Also: if you ARE going to do GoF research...how about NOT F*CKING FARMING IT OUT TO OUR LARGELY-INCOMPETENT GLOBAL RIVAL? If they do it right, then you've helped them produce a possible bioweapon. If they don't do it right, that may mean: they made it right but then let it get out. I don't see how anyone would think that this was a good idea. Though, of course, I know very little about all this. And details matter. A lot.

The Metaphysics And Epistemology Of The X-Files

No big thought here. Just: its two most well known thoughts sit uneasily together. The metaphysical thought is The truth is out there. Well, there are really two related interpretations of that; (a) the truth is in outer space; (b) the truth is non-mind-dependent. I guess that ambiguity is intentional. (b) is a metaphysical thought--a realist one, obviously. The epistemological claim is: I want to believe. That kind of epistemic thought tends to be frowned upon, because commonsense realism typically recognizes that such "motivated" (or, more properly: illicitly motivated) belief is likely to be unjustified. It's fine to want to know the truth; it's not fine to root for the truth or falsehood of a particular proposition or theory. So: no outright inconsistency; just a sort of wee tension. 

That's all I got.

Kurt Schlichter: "Why Are All The Experts Such Dopes?"

This is largely right, and I've said such things several times.

The main caveat, of course: they're not all dopes--not by a damn sight.

A paradigm example: high-energy physicists.

The real experts--the good experts--aren't any dopier than anybody else...and are, in fact, almost certainly less so. About their actual area of expertise. More on that caveat below.

But there are several problems:

First, as one of my colleagues suggested to me a year or so ago--with respect to science, anyway--it's not science that's dopey, it's "science communication"--which is a thing. E.g.: science journalism. 

But that's not the whole story.

From the perspective of a layperson, anyway: the science/expert bureaucracy is dopey. E.g.: funding of science and other expertise.

And: it's dopey largely because it's been taken over by the progressive left. And the progressive left politicizes whatever it touches. See, e.g.: education.

Also: many experts (including many scientists) have themselves become politicized, and have politicized much of their actual discipline and research/scholarship. 

My guess: the more public-facing and not-actually-scientific/expert-ish the fringes of expertise/science become, the more politicized/dopey they become. That's to say: science communication/journalism is probably the hardest hit--but the rot does permeate toward the core. From my perspective, lots and lots of people--even smart, knowledgeable people--are being sucked into the progressive left worldview. Even more people are allowing themselves to be willingly sucked into it just to stay out of trouble. Another group hasn't been sucked in, but remains silent about the problem--again, because they don't want any trouble. Mainly: they don't want a scarlet letter 'R' pasted onto them.

Two of the main problems, one of them mentioned by Schlichter: 

(a) Many disciplines and pseudo-disciplines are bullshit; they're mostly about topics about which we don't have any actual, substantive knowledge. They're mainly the realm of what we can loosely call mere opinion. E.g.: much of the humanities and social sciences. Including: grievance studies.

(b) Many experts in legit fields where actual knowledge is acquired now make pronouncements outside their actual field of expertise while pretending to speak with the authority their judgments have within their field. Just one recent example: the WHO and CDC making pronouncements about "stigma"--in particular the alleged "stigma" associated with using place-of-origin and place-of-discovery names for viruses and diseases. 

The conservative rejection of expertise (as I've claimed before) is better described as a rejection of pseudo-expertise.

That's all I got.

X Is "Rooted In Slavery" Ergo X Is Bad--For America's "Gun Obsession" Values Of X

LOOOL

I guess you stick to the formula so long as people are falling for it.

I used to think that people don't really commit textbook fallacies that often. But I was wrong. And progressives have made me really wrong. Boy, they really do love the genetic fallacy in particular, don't they?

As Inner Cities Descend Into Anarchy, Biden Administration Seeks To Make Sure The Suburbs Are No Refuge

Think you can escape urban anarchy by retreating to your suburban enclaves? 

Sorry, bigot, but the Democrats want to make sure that can't happen...

If people could escape from urban anarchy, then BLM/Pantyfa terrorism would be less effective. So you see the Dems' predicament. They have to do this. Otherwise, people might not be frightened into compliance. 

Besides, progressives love cities. And they hate "flyover country" and deplorables. And they can't stand the thought that someone, somewhere, is living in ways they don't condone. 

Your life will be micromanaged into compliance, bigot.

Stop making this harder for them to accomplish!

Resistance is futile.

Besides, the vanguard of the left wants to destroy the family. So destroying your community seems like a reasonable next step toward...oh, I don't know...family equity? Or...eliminating family privilege?  Critical family theory? 

Anyway. All voluntary, non-governmental associations must be destroyed. 

Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Of course new, exclusive, progressive-approved associations like exclusively black dorms, and exclusively white struggle sessions, and exclusively gay graduations are permissible... But not exclusively female restrooms, locker rooms, and sports. Bigot!  Also, middle-class people moving out of the suburbs and into inner cities is gentrification...which is bad... But consistency is racist, so... 

Also: the point is not to improve stuff that's broken; the point is to break stuff that isn't. That's really what all this comes down to in the end...

A Lesson For The Censorious Left: Embrace Open Debate Because Sometimes You're Wrong

link

Actually, humans are wrong a lot.

You, progressives, are wrong more than most people.

It's no accident that you also stifle debate more than an ordinary amount.

Nation's Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan

The incomparable Onion...pre-wokefication:

The Progressive Approach To The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Was Not Unusual; It's Par For The Course For The Progressive/PC Left

The progressive/PC left politicizes everything. Politicization, for them, is not a bug, it's a feature. They're having to retreat on the LLH because new evidence got out, and they judge that digging in their heels is not an option. Of course they're fighting a rearguard action--blaming Trump, blaming conservatives, excusing their own politicization of the issue on the other guys... To be fair, the other side does, IMO, bear a bit of responsibility...but not much.

   The PC left would stick dogmatically to its political preference if it could; but it's concluded that it's an untenable position.

   Thing is, this case isn't unusual. It's par for the course. The only thing that's different from innumerable other cases is that such clear evidence has emerged against their position that they've got to admit that the hypothesis they declared absurd is surd after all. This also seemed to happen with Russiagate after the Mueller report...though even in that case, progressives first blurted out that THE ROOSKIES GOT TO MUELLER TOO!!!!!! Then they dragged their feet and tried a bunch of other bullshit...e.g. TRUMP WASN'T EXONERATED!!!... Then they just stopped talking about it. Then came the bullshit SSCI report basically going back to the unwarranted allegations and innuendo. Now they point to that report as if it actually proved something. 

   If the zoonotic hypothesis turns out to be true, recent admissions will be swept under the rug, and they'll go back to LOL LAB-LEAK CONSPIRACY THEORIEZ LOL!!!

   At any rate, the PC approach to all of the following have been basically the same: pick the politically correct position; progressive "experts" come forward and endorse it, pretending to speak as experts but actually just supporting their personal politics; MSM declares all alternatives to be crazy conspiracy theories / rejection of "the science."  Note: often the "experts" aren't even really speaking about their area of expertise, but on some related matter about which they aren't experts at all (see, e.g., progressive doctors and psychologists proclaiming that being a woman is a matter of thinking you're a woman.)

   The PC left does this with respect to matters both big and small. The smalls stuff has included e.g.: the Covington kids incident, Jussie Smollett, Kavanaugh/CBF etc. The big stuff includes: climate apocalypticism, transgender mythology, the various aspects of race hysteria--BLM, the genocide by cop hypothesis, the 1619 nonsense, diversomania, CRT; COVID hysteria; rape crisis hysteria / #Mee#Too#... 

   Political correctness--the subordination of reason, evidence and truth to leftist political dogma--is the absolute cornerstone of the contemporary left. And falsely declaring other views to be disproven or even crazy is just the flip side of falsely declaring your political preferences to be undeniably true.

Steven Quay and Richard Muller: The Science Suggests A Wuhan Lab Leak

BUT THAT'S A RACIST TINFOIL HAT CONSPIRACY THEORY BIGOT IT'S WORSE THAN SAYING 'CHINA VIRUS'!!!!11111

Political correctness is just Lysenkoism writ large.

Jones Big-Ass Truck Rental And Storage

 

Remy: The Venezuela Diet