Case Study in Thinking About Fractally Wrong Ideas by Bob Fool

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

*Bob the Registered Fool needs no introduction. For years, he’s vacillated between a sanish commenter and utter trolling. During SP the other side used the fact I hadn’t banned him as ipso facto proof that I was the world’s worst person.
To be fair, some of his crazier comments made all of us go “No, BOB!” Like when he suggested that we kill every foreigner or the like. You kind of needed to understand that to an extent Bob was measuring us, with those comments.
And yet there is often a point at the back of his crazier comments, that makes you think. Something like: “if it’s the business of the US to ensure peace in the world, wouldn’t it be easier to kill the rest of the world. Evil, sure, but easier. Also, maybe it’s not the business of the US to ensure any such thing, unless our interests are at stake?”
Anyway, I count it as one of the scariest things about the last two years that Bob actually started making sense a remarkable number of times. I don’t know if he’s getting saner, or if times– Well, yeah, times.

His guest post below makes sense, though like some of my earlier ones it’s a ball of interconnected stuff and a bit labyrinthine. But still, worth reading and discussing.

I’m trying to finish Bowl of Red under the handicap of Dan having shared his cold. It’s just a cold, but I haven’t had one in years (I thought I did, but it was allergies) and it’s making writing very odd.)

So– Dear Lord, I never thought I’d type this — below is Bob the Fool’s guest post.* SAH

A Case Study in Thinking About Fractally Wrong Ideas by Bob Fool

Near two weeks ago, Sarah gave us an essay that made the following point, which deserves expansion. 

Make sure you’re thinking. Not just following programming. Inverse program is still program. “The left believes this so the inverse must be true” is easy. It’s also wrong at least 50% of the time, and often more. It’s not that simple. It never was. And you have to think.

A fractally wrong idea is one where not only is the basic argument wrong when taking it at face value, not only you will also arrive at a wrong answer if you take it apart and flip one piece, but you will find that there are several wrong answers depending on how deep you go.

The left has heard of divide and rule. They are also deeply invested in dividing people in neat categories, and using whatever reality exists of that division for their own profit.

The left’s espoused race ideas make for a good case study.  The left is presenting several ideas that may seem defensible on their own, but when you look at them together, closely, have implications deeply offensive to sanity and to good order.

One of the left’s current tactics is holding up absolute fruitcakes as spokesmen for policies, including insane policies, that purport to favor blacks in order to ‘address prior discrimination’. Forex, 1619 Project’s “America has always explicitly been about oppressing blacks” and Black Lives Matter’s “actually, civil peace is a white supremacist conspiracy” together raise the obvious question of “Okay, if what you say is true, for what principled reason would it be wrong to murder blacks, beyond personal preference for one faction over another?”

Bowing to the brass idol they present, is only one of the victory conditions that they are seeking.

If you buy into their division, buy into their theory that unconstrained violence is the answer, they get the wider war that they are crazy enough to think that they win.

They do not have unconditional support by blacks. If they did, the cold ish civil war would be obviously very hot. If you buy into the left’s race division nonsense (instead of sorting by actual violence) the left has already set up a propaganda campaign trying to sell your speech to the blacks as “look at X, the whites are going to kill you unless you support the people fighting on your behalf”.

The spokesmen that they are using are utterly vile people, but they have had to work hard to find them, and to develop them. Look at Shaun King; They had to employ a white guy because they could not find enough actual blacks sociopathic, dishonest, and with the necessary social skills to staff that position, and all of the other positions that they need filled.

Obama and the rest of the race war nutters pushing this have been trying seriously to ignite this for around ten years, and whites and blacks have been quietly looking at matters, and whispering “No.”

I have outlined why the left text is wrong.  I have shown a practical reason why “use the left’s methods on the blacks that by ‘helping’ they have painted a target on” also serves a left agenda.  I have also shown that their implicit claim of black support is at least partly wrong.  But there are more falsehoods that are not necessarily errors on their part, that we may believe if we engage with them carelessly.

The modern idea of race is modern.  It comes with the bureaucracy that is a feature of a relatively modern state.  With that bureaucratic capability, you may believe that you can measure any number of important things.  You may conclude that counting a Hmong, an Ainu, and a Miao as of ‘the Mongoliad race’, or that the number of butchers, Samurai or left-handed painters named Fred are matters of pressing importance.   Bureaucracies can easily know these things.  Behavior, on the other hand, is something that bureaucracies have great difficulty with.    

Some of us may wonder, what if race is a real thing?  What if these aggregations map to something with biological reality? 

Well, does it matter how many retards, or how many low functioning autistics there are?  Is it really any business of yours?  A bureaucracy may say ‘yes’.  A bureaucracy that has seized the business of paying for medical expenses will say yes, will have funding shortfalls from the consequences of the seizure, and will try to solve them by finding the unprofitable disabled, and eliminating them.

Leave aside the intractability about usefully measuring real differences across groups so large.  Your real business that might be considered race involves the behavior of individuals towards other individuals.  It matters to you if someone is being vicious to you, or causes harm to your loved ones, or has helped you out of a dark and difficult place, without realizing, simply by being a decent human being.

It also matters because leftism is an ungodly heresy, and being faithful to God is one of the ways we oppose them.  Humans are Children of God, and by acknowledging that, whether we oppose abortion, deny the inhumanity of their technocratic ‘logic’, or refuse to believe their classifications, we fight them, without lifting a finger.

Behavior is what is important, we throw that away when considering race in place of individuals.  Some individuals are being unjustly treated harshly, and some individuals are being unjustly treated leniently.   I do my best to address that with my own behavior.  Which has at time not improved matters. 

No matter how much important cultural differences may appear to correlate with race, culture is a choice of behavior.  It is behavior that makes someone an enemy or ally.

T4 was a profound waste, and wholly unnecessary; that Reich did not need to be doing the things it seized power to do, and tried to accomplish.  In making the economy ‘more efficient’ with central planning, they screwed up things so badly that Germany had shortages of coal.  They did not know who really needed coal, or when, because they had thrown that information away, and made sure that no one really had it.  When we talk about that regime’s failings, we usually talk about the high profile, utterly outrageous things, but we should not forget that they in fact failed in very many, or almost every way, because of their choices in methods and goals.  We should also not forget that our current foe shares enough of those methods and goals, that they will share some of that incredible record of failure once it is no longer concealed by lies.  Shortage of coal in Germany, of all places.

The left tells us they will win, based on theoretical models that are at soundest based on past behavior, and will not reliably predict the future;  They throw away information, and cannot predict the wins that we create by having many separated people working on different parts of a problem.

Our observations actually suggest that very many folks have aligned ‘our way’ on some of the very critical issues I touched on here.  They may have in fact screwed up so badly, have so few real supporters, that matching them in making mistakes is the only way that we can lose.   I’m not certain of that, but much of the time it seems possible that they have lost.  I will say that in seeing through the fractal error, in other techniques that I have noticed, and in techniques which I haven’t noticed, we have all that tools that we might need to win.  I would say that we might have victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror.

They are desperate, because of what we have not done.

The race war nutters have grown desperate, and resorted to using white college students to carry out arson, and Democrat elected officials have implicated themselves providing cover in a way that is not deniable.

They have resorted to the Covid stuff.

They are trying to bring in foreigners here, who do not understand American circumstances, precisely because they have failed to move Americans. They are trying because their earlier attempts to bring in foreigners via the academic route, who have mostly been acculturated inside the insane incestuous echo chamber of academia, had failed to bring the degree of results that they desired.

Well, it turns out that Dr. Aruna may understand American culture much better than they expected, because they are utter fruitcakes on culture, and on American culture.

The Mexican illegal workforce has not been their panacea either. Now they are trying a bunch of people who don’t speak English, from further afield than Mexico, and deliberately unvetted for disease.

They think misery begets communist revolution, so they think that a lack of communist revolution is addressed by making us more miserable. This is not true. But, we thwart them by being happy. If not thinking about their hurtful words leaves space for happiness, then not engaging is one minor victory. Engaging, finishing quickly, and then moving on is another. The deep engagement, rigorously showing that they are not intelligent, that their ‘theory’ is no part of any sound education or research, and that they are simply vile people, who will do vile unnecessary things so long as they have the ability, may also be a victory.

Their ideas are wrong, often fractally wrong, and potentially more difficult to find the correct answers from than starting from a known correct position.

Rigor can be exhausting, but it is worth looking carefully at the real world, and seeing why their madness need have no relationship to it.

Have a merry Kulturkampf, and a happy new Boog!

333 thoughts on “Case Study in Thinking About Fractally Wrong Ideas by Bob Fool”

  1. I’m reminded of P.J. O’Rourke at times like this. “When you can detect a communist country from the window of an airplane at 30,000 feet, you know it’s a lousy system of government.”

    They’re trying to install it here. But they’re failing, and they hate it. A dying animal is very dangerous, and we have to be wary, but it’s dying just the same.

    1. Hitler’s rages in his bunker.

      He was a dangerous and harmful human being, because of the combination of his level of crazy, and his level of effective.

      Early on, he was dangerous and harmful despite being saner and more disciplined in looking forward, because he had more people giving him the benefit of doubt and following his instructions.

      Later, people were disenchanted with his promises, and less confident about his ability to do worse to them than he had already put them in line for. So, much fewer listening to him, but crazier and more dangerous to those he had direct access to.

      When you’ve been stuck dealing with someone who is bad crazy, and have been dealing with them for years, there are some points of dangers. One is when you have been quietly biding your time, and have the resources to make a break for freedom and separation. The ones who live for your misery will be extra motivated to make you miserable, to ruin everything you have worked for, in order to try to foil the bid to be free of them. Another is when they get sicker. You knew the coping mechanisms that would minimize the harm they do to you that were calibrated for a /previous/ level of illness. They get sicker, and the dynamics of their behavior will change.

      (Lockdown has made almost everyone a little sicker when it comes to mental health. The folks who haven’t been impacted because ‘rules are something imposed on /other/ people’, have gotten sicker because they think fewer consequences will be imposed on them personally in the future.

      Mental health is always defined against a society. The behavioral norms a community imposes can make mental health issues worse, or they can make mental health issues better. “Oh, he’s sick, we should cater to his whims” is a terrible standard.)

  2. I’ve shared the specifics with few, but I have been saner recently. Probably. Definitely happier and much less angry.

    Some of the things I’ve said, I’ve probably been angry enough. and short on spoons enough, that it may only have been accident or mostly forgotten prior preparation that led to having a statement with decent implications. I probably have said things even I can’t defend.

    The big caveat I have with this now, is that it is now closer to three and a half weeks since the inspiring essay.

    Immediately after finishing, I became convinced that the addition of the bureaucracy and ‘race is modern’ bits was a needless over-complication that ruined the effectiveness of the guest post. I suspected that the section was not coherent, about as soon as I was no longer looking at it.

    I was also a bit concerned that adding in the abortion mention might be a step too far for local community standards.. That view is part of a holistic alternative to having anything to do with the left’s race war nutjobbery, but is not the only holistic alternative.

    I’ve been meaning to go back, have a look, edit and ping about delays and stuff. Been short on spoons, and could tell that Sarah was busy and deserved recovery time.

    I’m pretty happy with it at the moment.

      1. When it went up, I reread that section. Then I said “Oh, it is finished after all”.

    4. Just the notion of ‘fractally wrong’ makes the whole thing worthwhile. That’s a valuable concept!

      1. Happy to hear that.

        I would note, this isn’t fractal in the true mathematical sense. I decided it would hurt the essay to include digression into explaining that I was using the mathematical fractal as a metaphor.

        I think I may have been lucky in having the right background exposure to crazy and wrong arguments to allow me to figure things out, and summarize it concisely.

  3. Let’s see.. our duly appointed president Biden moved in to our nation over a million criminal aliens, or alien criminals since ascending to the throne.

    Political prisoners are still being tortured and rotting in D.C. jails.

    Covert, or Covid, totalitarianism is a world wide thing now.

    Black is right, ignorance is truth, masked slavery is freedom, of course our fools are the sensible ones.

    2. If you think that only Active Action matters and everyone is a coward for not doing it, you are free to storm the D.C. jail at your earliest opportunity.

      1. as for duly appointed, the US doesn’t appoint presidents. And he sure as hell wasn’t elected.
        There is a constitutional crisis in our future, one way or another.
        And traitors “installed” the traitor.
        We do have a remedy for treason. It ain’t pretty, but it’s there.

        1. Oh, I think it might be reasonably pretty, in view of the carnage caused by Fauci and his fellow criminals…I’m not inclined to be merciful in this case…

        2. “Installed”.. like a light bulb. And even so, such a dim one.
          I suppose it keeps the glowworms from having envy or something.
          But shine? No.

      2. I think he is saying that my ‘we can win this’ position is sensible.

        I could be reading too much between the lines…

          2. /I/ was black pill at one point.

            I got better.

            I’m not always well enough to stay out of black pill territory, but I am definitely not always black pill.

            1. I don’t think they have that. I think they’re always at the hail Mary pass. And think there’s one more save. Because they’re a messianic religion without a messiah. They know they win. Arrow of history and all that. They die knowing they can’t be dying. If only Stalin knew.

              1. It is now eleven months to the mid-term elections, normally a snooze fest, but not so this time around.
                The Dems could quite easily lose both Houses of Congress.
                Pelosi is almost certainly going to retire once she’s no longer Speaker.
                Old Joe? Will he even last another year? There is only so much can be done to stave off or cover up the onslaught of dementia.
                CommieLa Harris? I’d make nasty remarks, but she is doing a fine job of it all by her own self.
                AOC and her minions? Tools made use of by the Left, to be discarded as their edginess dulls.
                Hillary? Shirley, you jest!
                And in these eleven months the panicked rat pack will scurry about, generating who knows what new “crisis du jour” to distract from the men behind the curtain, the powers behind the throne, those who control the reins of the denizens of what we have come to know of as the swamp.
                They say 2020 was bad, 2021 a chit show, and looks to be that 2022 is not saying “hold my beer” it’s already mumbling “here, hold this lit stick of dynamite!

                1. You think there will be elections this year? Awww, that’s cute.

                  November 2022 is going to tell November 2020, “Hold my beer.” Voters might go through the motions of filling out ballots and handing them in, but that will have nothing to do with the results.

                  They managed to install Biden-und-Harris, like a toilet and a bidet, and take over Congress, and they’re STILL not getting what they want. The only answer must be Moar Election Fraud! They cranked it up to 11 last year, time to go for 15!
                  ———————————
                  Elections are far too important to be left up to a bunch of uncontrolled voters. The Party MUST exercise oversight and management to prevent mere voters from electing the wrong candidates!

                    1. Why would you think that? Nothing was done last time, except Trump was impeached (again) and political prisoners were taken. Why should the next time be any different? Why would the sheeple stop chewing their cud long enough even to protest? They don’t even object to the most blatant lies.
                      ———————————
                      My grandpa voted Republican until the day he died — but he’s been voting Democrat ever since.

                    2. Why would the sheeple stop chewing their cud long enough even to protest? They don’t even object to the most blatant lies.

                      Oh, bullshit.

                      It’s like the idea that NOBODY in the US is protesting– which works exactly as long as you insist that protest must look *exactly* like what you want them to do.

                      If you define protest as resisting doing what the screechers want?

                      *DEFINITELY* resisting. Pick a really bad place like Oregon. Folks aren’t going along, and it takes a lot of stamping to make the ones most likely to go along do so.

                      And it’s scaring the screeching progs. Look at how badly they tried to insist that Youngkin guy in Virginia had BETRAYED US ALLL!!1!1!1 by… um… saying he wasn’t going to repeat the illegal behavior of his predecessor, but inverting the politics.
                      “Are you going to ban masks?”
                      “No.”
                      “BETRAAAAAAAYED!”

                      ….nope. The Right isn’t just inverted Proggy. The argument against the governors doing mask mandates aren’t invalid just because it’s an outcome we’d theoretically follow.

                      Contrast with Iowa, where we did ban mask mandates– legally, using the correct system. Discussed balancing the interests, since it is a violation of local control. Ended up deciding that the violation of individual rights for very little pay off was the big thing.

                      Very big difference than if Joni had spoke From On High and banned masks with a wave of her pen.

                    4. Agreed for Oregon. Even though Despicable Kate Brown is mandate-happy, and her vax mandate clobbered stake and health-care workers, but even she backed off the vax-passport.

                      I can’t speak about the current state west of the Cascades, but people here are fairly resistant to the vax. Despite promotions (big prize drawings for the vax-test dummies and lots of advertising), the take rate for the vax hardly moved. (55% went to 59% in the county after several weeks of promotion/prizes) OTOH, there’s a lot of people ticked off over the health-care worker mandate.

                      On lockdowns, there’s defiance. One restaurant broke the lockdown (sign in the door read “Hungry Lives Matter”), and the county told the state authorities to pound sand. The courts agreed that without any legal backing, the fines assessed by the state agencies were null and void. (A remarkable win–there are some honest judges still in office.) I’ve heard of other places elsewhere in the state, as well as multiple counties in rebellion.

                      Mask mandates got ignored barring the medical offices. At least around here, the mask-Karens can be counted on one’s middle fingers. (One, it might have been her job to tell me to cover the nostrils. OTOH, the doctor’s assistants didn’t mind.)

                      I don ‘t know if Kate will try more crap. Knowing the area, she’s going to be short of jack-booted thugs outside of the metro areas in the Willamette valley and one or two places east of the Cascades.

                      Agreed, elections in Oregon are almost-but-not-quite pointless. Doesn’t mean we have to follow what the fraudulently-“elected” state people insist upon.

                  2. Frauding the House is different than frauding the Presidency. Yes, it can be done. But it’s a lot more difficult.

                    The Presidency quite literally came down to six counties. Each of those counties threw the election results for their respective states, which gave Biden the electoral edge that he needed.

                    Congressional elections don’t work like that. A vote in Austin for a Democratic rep doesn’t off-set a vote in Lubbock for a Republican. As a result, fraud must by definition be *much* more wide-spread. And it can’t be focused in the Dem strongholds, as was the case in the presidential election. It *must* be done in areas where the Republicans have an edge.

                    Again, that’s not to say that it’s impossible. But it’s a lot more difficult than what happened in 2020.

                    1. I’d think you could also fraud any state wide election similarly (US Senate, Governor, Sec State etc) to how the presidential election seems to have been tackled. I will note that fairly red GA ended up with 2 nearly socialist senators, possibly through manipulation of Atlanta. I would really like to see the Maine/MO electors per house seat and overall winner gets the senate electors model. Any red/purple state that doesn’t do this and has large blue cities is asking to be used.

                    2. Absolutely correct. For a case study, see New Hampshire 2016.

                      https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/7/voter-fraud-alert-over-5000-new-hampshire-presiden/

                      “Though Mr. Jasper’s findings don’t prove those accusations, they do corroborate them. The numbers read this way:
                      ⦁ 6,540 people registered and voted on Nov. 8, based on presenting out-of-state licenses.

                      ⦁ As of Aug. 30, about 15 percent (1,014 of the voters) had been issued New Hampshire driver’s licenses.

                      ⦁ Οf the remaining 5,526, barely more than 200 (3.3 percent) had registered a motor vehicle in New Hampshire.

                      New Hampshire law gives drivers 60 days upon establishing residence to obtain a state license.

                      But more than 80 percent of voters who registered on Nov. 8 using out-of-state driver’s licenses, or 5,313 of them, neither had a state license nor registered a motor vehicle almost 10 months later.”

                      The seat was stolen, and there were absolutely no consequences.

                    3. Except it doesn’t need to be that widespread because they don’t need to win every seat to control the House; they just have to steal enough swing districts and the California Republican seats to keep their slim majority. The Senate of course, frauding a couple of districts is how they stole the Georgia and Michigan Senate seats.

                      Anyone who doesn’t expect them to do it again and on an even larger school, when they scream hysterically that “if Democrats don’t win in 2022 democracy itself will come to an end”, hasn’t been paying attention.

                    4. Up thread, I provided a live example of how a Senate seat can and has been stolen with the student body of a medium size university.

                    5. Again, they have to fraud seats that would otherwise go to Republicans. Or in other words, they can’t fraud the Democratic strongholds, where the fraud is easy. They have to fraud the seats where they don’t automatically control all of the apparatus.

                      Can it be done? Sure. But it’s riskier, and more difficult.

                  3. As observation you would do well to take to heart is that the infamous Time article — if you read what it actually says — is a chronicle of how The Enemy had to pull in every single favor and drum every single one of their ducks into a row in order to just barely succeed.

                    2. <rolls eyes.
                      Dude, do you live in the US? The LIV sheep are starting to get mad, even. And that has an effect. Not instant, not as you'd script it, certainly not in movie "Can you hear the people singing." And I'm still praying to keep the Butcher's Bill low ….. but trust me. There are already things happening, then can't get a grip on us. We're being ungovernable. And you have no idea how much worse it could get, but they DO.
                      Which is why they're working harder to give us orders louder. Remember these are people who think laws are magical. If you say something is the law, people obey!
                      Ah!

                    5. BTW one of the nightmare outcomes that spares the Butcher’s Bill but sets us up for complete trouble for maybe 20 years which might be the rest of my life, is that we break up. A break up is unfortunately possible. But it will be temporary.

                    7. It’s only a few photons, but the Oregon State GOP is starting to see (some of) the light; a fair number of those happy to be the junior partners in the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party are either retiring or are finding themselves getting primaried out of the races. It seems the state vote-fraud machine either doesn’t care or hasn’t noticed that the RINOs are getting more and more endangered.

                      I’m also seeing rural sheriffs telling Salem that their orders will not be enforced if they don’t have a constitutional/legal basis. I have little optimism over the concept of splitting the state, but yeah, we’re doing our part to be ungovernable.

                      I’d have to borrow a 100HP wheel loader for a bucket to carry the tune, but I’ll sing…

                  5. Some would like to be rid of “Let’s Go Brandon:” figuring that gone would help their Narratif (über Alles!), not realizing what it is, is a pressure relief valve. Sure, put a brick on it…

                    I don’t know exactly how the reactions to another obvious stolen election (or set thereof) will go, but I think it’d be better to have a few days worth of food & water and a few fire extinguishers than not to. Then, that ought be simple “common sense.” But despite the name, it ain’t common enough.

                2. What Uncle Lar said, about the panicking rats, and the lit stick of dynamite. All that we can do, I guess, is hunker down, protect our families, friends and communities, and practice sullen Irish democracy on the Biden mis-Administration.

              2. Here’s a black pill: they’re getting ready to punt the fillibuster out of the way.

                https://news.yahoo.com/schumer-senate-vote-filibuster-change-160258001.html

                And they’re going all-out, invoking Jan. 6 AND MLK Day. What kind of monster would dare stand against such and obviously virtuous move (sarcasm).

                And with that will come ‘fortifications’ of elections above and beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.

                Oh yeah, and how long before Trump is indicted on trumped up charges? And do you think a jury would stand up to the kind of threats and doxxing they’ll undoubtedly get?

                https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2021/12/19/leftwing-journalists-all-aflutter-predict-trump-indictment-soon-n1542738

                They know they’re playing for all the marbles, and they’re playing for keeps.

                1. You know what? They might. They’re stupid enough. And they’re panicked.
                  And then may G-d have mercy on their souls.
                  What you have to remember is that these aren’t the actions of people who are winning. They’re the actions of desperate men who see the wolf biting their asses.

                  1. May G-d have mercy on their souls, for the crowd will have none on their physical manifestations. And given their belief system(s) betting on the Author saving their sorry ethereal asses may not even help…

                2. Are you actually autistic, btw?
                  Because, you know, the left collectively is. THey value the form and procedure. “If we take over your institutions, we’ve taken over you.”
                  THAT’s what they are doing. And are completely shocked when we don’t then obey them blindly.
                  If they do this, the resistance ramps up to completely ignoring them: see mask orders and attempted stampeding with Omicron fear.
                  After that the crystal ball is clouded, but there’s a good chance that team heads on pikes comes out to play and there’s a Romanian Christmas.
                  Or that they panic and take planes to CHina. (Yes, they’re that dumb.)

                  1. Sorry for the delay in responding. I had work and other obligations.

                    I hope you’re right, but I live in a purplish state and I’m seeing way too much of the other side: knee-jerk reflex compliance, treating official guidelines and experts as gospel, and flying into insane rages whenever anyone dare question Fauci or Brandon.

                    I think the close proximity of people on the other side is exacerbating things. I work in a predominently left-wing field and and I’ve seen and heard the talk directed at ‘those dirty Trumpers and MAGAt cultists.’ If anything it makes the lefties double down all the harder.

                    I’ve seen the gleam in their eyes when contemplating what’s to be done about em.

                    As for those on the right not following the rules, again I’m seeing the opposite. Too many on the right have a bizarre fetish for rules and order, that’s why it came as such a shock, seeing how corrupted all the institutions have gotten. A lot of people just can’t accept it.

                    And I don’t interpret these moves as desperation, but a kind of giddiness: they learned how much they can get away with, and they want to know how much more they can get away with: they’ve secured the ‘high ground,’ they’ve got the momentum. Anyone who poses a potential rallying point of opposition can be singled out and targeted for a takedown, or else co-opted if not propped up as a fraud from the start (aka Jack Murphy).

                    The avenues of communication that made 2016 possible are being closed off, and the ones who tried to help Trump know what kind of reprecussions they can face. I don’t think a lot of momentum can be built for 2024, even supposing there’s a viable candidate.

                    Black pills, black pills, everywhere I look.

                    1. I’d like to point out the rages are an indication, if you care to look, that they’re not winning.
                      AND they’ve always closed off some avenues. New ones come up.
                      BE NOT AFRAID. When Bill Whittle and I BOTH, who are horrible depressives tell you we already won, even if it’s going to hurt a lot and shortly, there’s a good chance we’re right.

                3. I’ve already seen various internet memes, picturing an indicted and convicted Trump, on the FB page of a person that I once had reason to think better of.
                  Honestly, I think the progs are driving themselves nuts.

                  1. Sanity is partly the behavioral norms enforced by the group. They’ve been shouting for years that they are outside the norms of our group.

                    They believe that, and will have difficultly if it really is our group, and not theirs.

                    Secondly, ghost dancing. Cultures under stress ‘returning’ to the fundamentals that they thought made them originally successful.

                    Some years ago, the possibility was raised here that in the modern US, we could actually have at the same time two different groups ghost dancing, the conservatives that we now infer are mainstream, and the rioting murderous left.

                    Well, we seem to have converged on “No. Fuck you. I am American.” as our behavior to double down on. /If/ we are ghost dancing instead of losing patience with the folks who at times dress and speak like civilized men, but are are in deed savage and outlaw.

                    Their ghost dancing does not look to be so reasonable.

                    1. And he has godlike powers…..
                      For pity’s sake, Liz Cheney (definitely playing RINO, who knows why) is being quoted as saying Trump was watching the protests and COULD HAVE STOPPED THEM AT ANY TIME BY GOING ON TV AND TELLING THE PROTESTORS TO STOP.
                      Think of that. He could have “gone on national TV,” assuming any station would have carried him, and told a bunch of active protesters to stand down and they would have done it. How would they know? Secret decoder rings? Keeping one eye on their cell phones in case he might have a few words for them?
                      What is with these people, anyway?

                    2. They believe the customs of their tribe are Laws Of Nature. Disagreeing with them is Eeevul.

                    4. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
                      Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
                      – Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

                  2. CeliaHayes said:
                    “Honestly, I think the progs are driving themselves nuts.”
                    Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad…

                  3. Honestly, I think the progs are driving themselves nuts.

                    –
                    Which they are welcome to do, if they didn’t insist on dragging the rest of us along for the ride.
                    ———————————
                    Science does not change from day to day depending on political expediency.

                5. The story isn’t as bad as all that. It’s just reporting that Schumer would like to get rid of the filibuster, which isn’t news, and that he’s come up with some timely rhetoric to support it, which is irrelevant. It says the Democrat caucus hasn’t agreed on any rule changes, which means nothing’s happening. Given the fact that getting rid of the filibuster would render Manchin and/or Sinema powerless if the Democrats picked up a few more seats I don’t see either of them going for it. It’s possible that Schumer may hold a doomed vote in order to get Manchin and/or Sinema on the record as opposing ending the filibuster, but if anything that would only help them in their home states.

          1. In all seriousness, any place that would have me is probably going to be a bit difficult some of the time.

  4. During SP the other side used the fact I hadn’t banned him as ipso facto proof that I was the world’s worst person.

    Well, yeah, he’s acting all logical AND providing an actual example of someone on the right, who’s using logic from the right, and applying left/center demands, and getting results taht are definitely NOT “so become a progressive.”

    1. I used to be more progressive. Thought I was a feminist, took a bunch of other things at face value, etc.

      I’ve always been a little nuts.

      I have my current positions, not because I sprung forth from Zeus’ brow a right wing maniac, angry at the world, but because I reached them through thought and experience.

      Slightly off that topic: Someone who loses hours a day traces wood grains on the floor is going to be a bit familiar with that process. So, it actually would not be strange for someone who spends so much time on that to go “Guys. You didn’t used to spend time tracing the grain on the floor. I think this is bad for you, and you should try to quit if you can.”

      1. Well, if people aren’t allowed to talk about their positions, and push back or reevaluate after getting comments from others, how are people supposed to get saner and more realistic? Freedom of speech is close to freedom of thought, and the freedom to change minds including one’s own.

        1. But you don’t understand! They’ve already figured this stuff out for you! So you just need to sit back and do what they say, and don’t waste unnecessary time going down some rabbit hole that might temporarily lead you and others astray and waste time not following the plan that your betters have determined for you!

      2. It was actually quite reasonable to be a first wave feminist – up until ~ the mid 70s when laws were changed so violent rape of a wife by her husband could finally be prosecuted. I considered myself a supporter of feminism back then.
        Second wave began to show some misandry but most of what they supported was defensible enough that they didn’t lose many supporters.
        By the time third wave (and now fourth wave) feminism came about it was obvious the movement had become thoroughly misandrist & anti-family. Feminism is now just a skin suit for people who want to force others to accept their delusions

        1. Feminists started to lose me late ’70s, and early ’80s, or never completely had me. All for the anyone based on their ability to attempt or hold a job, given the same experience, same pay. That is as far as I’m willing to go.

          Full disclosure. Grew up with father who camped, backpacked, hunted, and fished. All 3 of us, and mom, were expected to do so too. Did not matter we had no brothers. And when it came to careers? “No one tells my children what (legal) careers and education they can try to pursue (within their abilities).”

          Now.

          If it meant I, or anyone else, regardless of gender, had to work with crazy druggie, regardless of type of drug/alcohol, just because their gender was female? No. Nope. Hell Heck No! Because being the sane female on the crew, when paired to work, I knew who was going to get stuck with crazy female. It wasn’t going to be one of the guys.

          The other thing that made me mad, that is part of the symptoms was the whole inappropriate poster kerfuffle. There are a couple of ways to fight that. Fire with fire. Which I chose to not use, because I would have lost. Instead I chose the cutesy route. Kittens, puppies, foals, human infants, etc., strategically overlaid. The guys could not complain, because I could innocently ask, in front of girlfriends, spouses, and their children, why they didn’t like the kitten and puppy pictures, in the shacks we worked out of. Only two other wives were in on the whole thing. I thought they were going to fall off their chairs trying not to laugh at their spouses when the topic came up. Solution? Inappropriate pictures (and they weren’t that bad on the scale of “pictures”) went on the ceiling, and I didn’t look up. Had a female truck driver come in after this compromise had occurred. I got lectured on “allowing this”!!!! None of her business. She could stay in her truck. But that isn’t the way “it works”, obviously.

          This doesn’t even touch the whole hiring someone because of their gender when they aren’t even close to qualified, and for reasons, won’t be, even with time on the job.

          Can this all occur the other way for other reasons not related to gender? Well the second, maybe not. But the other two? Definitely. There is a reason nepotism can be a problem. But also against cutting someone out because nepotism. If they are qualified and want to do the job, preference should be given.

          I’m just touching on stuff I’ve ran directly into. Not the whole theory.

        2. Yep – I was one of those relatively sane initial feminists – yes, one ought to have the equal opportunities for education, jobs and equal consideration under the law. But when it turned to poisonous man-hating and family-hating, and went all out for abortion… that’s when I fell off.
          I remember once, that there was a pro-life feminist wing. Whatever happened to them, I wonder.

          1. The problem with the left including the Democratic Party is that they want equality of RESULTS, not equality of opportunity or equality under the law. Of course this only applies to the masses; they believe that as the rulers of “ignorant masses” that they should have lives of luxury in the same way Soviet leadership lived as compared to those they ruled over.

            2. They don’t even want equality of results. They want the most for them and their “peers”. They don’t give a rat’s ass about their favored groups other than what they can use them for. If they cared at all they’d bring the hammer down like Giuliani did in NYC to clean up after the mess that was Dinkins. They want plain and simple to be lords, ladies and whatever else you call those undecided on their sexual nature. The Borgias would have blushed at their desires, even Nero and Caligula would have felt some distaste at what these folks want.

        3. The irony was that the second wave radical feminists wanted an end of sex roles — those things that now determine your sex for all feminists unless you’re a TERF.

        4. I went to a NOW presentation in 1971. Feminism lost me right then and there. I remember being eerily reminded of stories from Cuban refugees.

          “It was never about equality; it was always about power.”
          — Gloria Steinem

    2. Bob needs to make a modest proposal. The frightening thing is they might go for it.

      I’ve always read Bob as a Juvenalian satirist.

      1. I’m not purely a satirist, I really have spent a number of years very angry at the world, and angriest at my self for getting myself into my circumstances then. When one has enough self-hatred, it gets difficult to even orient to treating others decently. ‘Those idiot lunatic activists on the left’ were a very safe target for me to vent rage on, it does not mean that my behavior was healthy, or good.

        These days, at times I am a little frightened of pulling out the “AWG implies a campaign of mass murder” argument, because I’m concerned about the subset of AWG/environmentalist types who would not balk at a such a proposal.

        Also, a little close to the politics and philosophy of something I am doing for work, and I don’t want to make my coworkers think I am crazier than I really am, or create a situation which would require a bunch of clarification. What I’ve been telling folks at work is already enough for a left doctrinaire activist to throw a hissy fit over, and so do need to make people worried about the stuff that a lot of reasonable people would have issues with.

        1. “I’m concerned about the subset of AWG/environmentalist types who would not balk at a such a proposal.”

          They were already hoping that WuFlu would conceal one.

          https://archive.is/aGGem

          “Don’t take this the wrong way but if you were a young, hardline environmentalist looking for the ultimate weapon against climate change, you could hardly design anything better than coronavirus.
          Unlike most other such diseases, it kills mostly the old who, let’s face it, are more likely to be climate sceptics. It spares the young.”

      2. Who’s to say they’re not already, in secret?

        Where do all those ‘unaccompanied minors’ go? How many get on the buses, how many get off? Is the availability of so many untraceable children just an accidental side effect of their border policies?
        ———————————
        Some folks believe ‘Soylent Green’ had a happy ending.

        2. It would be easier to dismiss the Qanon crowd if we didn’t keep finding high ranking pedophiles. All those unaccompanied minors have to go somewhere.

          1. Q Anon himself was clearly pretty suspicious.

            The push back was the very thing leading credibility to the ‘conspiracy of pedophile satanists’ theory. Okay, sure, someone can in principle learn to be a satanist, and in principle learn to be a pedophile, so a few pedophile satanists in a position of power could groom people who are seeking power. But, that would be very complicated and have a lot of moving parts. So the first inference from practice is that it hadn’t happened. Pushing back on the basis that a ‘conspiracy of pedophiles’ was ‘clearly absurd’, and ‘had no evidence’ is risibly false in the face of public school sexual education. Pushing back on the basis that a ‘conspiracy of satanists’ was ‘clearly absurd’ and ‘had no evidence’ is risibly false in the face of the objective reality that leftism is a religion, and might possibly be properly classified as a satanism.

            Someone could honestly believe such assertions of implausibility only if they had never seen through their own grooming in public school, and also had never bothered to think seriously about religion, or to actually observe the reality of human behavior. Someone with these failings of understanding has no right to be lecturing other conservatives on what to believe.

            That is what moved me to ‘maybe there is a conspiracy of self aware pedophile satanists’. With the sub theories that maybe Erick Erickson, etc., were knowingly trying to cover it up.

            Never ‘trust the plan’!

            1. I went to Catholic school so, to me, a conspiracy of pedophiles is not as far fetched as all that. that said, I doubt they’re cannibals too. I’m fairly sure there’s a conspiracy of Satanists, knowing or otherwise,

              My first thought, and probably my current thought, on QAnon is that it’s an FBI op, like all the rest. The best way to cover up something like pedophilia is by making a conspiracy of it and then make it ridiculous. There was a note recently that one doesn’t have to show something is false anymore, you just have to show that the schlubs believe in it, though that’s probably always been true.

        3. I’m sure many of you saw it bu in the news reports over the holidays was notice that background checks of individuals picking up unaccompanied minors at the US border were being terminated. Now anyone can pick up an unaccompanied minor without any background check. All of this pedophile stuff is deliberate.

          1. Most of the “unaccompanied minors” are reported by Border Patrol as young men aged approximately 16 to 30, but with no ID so they can claim any age they like, and we’re not allowed to notice this. IOW, plants from cartels and other hostile interests. In fewer words, an invading army.

            1. I keep on forgetting how little I really know, and getting really concerned about a model that relies on an element being true that is not known to be true.

            2. Somewhat related, the teenage birth rate dropped amazingly quick when the number of gray-haired women who claimed– in Spanish– to be under aged went down.

              Makes one wonder exactly how many of our Big Huge Problems are nothing but paperwork cheats.

        4. >Where do all those ‘unaccompanied minors’ go?

          They “lost” thousands of them during the Obama years, that they never accounted for. Thousands more since. That they publicly admitted to.

          Pedophiles might be the best-cast scenario. Spinrad came up with something much worse in “Bug Jack Barron.”

  5. Yep. That’s Bob. I thoroughly agree with him half the time, and vehemently disagree with him the other half. Welcome to the rat, err, human race.

    It’s kind of a shame we don’t have a private, “Information, Intelligence, and Action Organization” dedicated to the preservation of maximum individual freedom. Some group so good they could infiltrate the various intelligence agencies of the world, effectively eliminate those pushing totalitarian polices. Why use a gun, bomb, or poison when revelation of the truth of their misdeeds to the right people would cause their legal or social demise, or death from an avenging 3rd party? There’s a lot to be said for Herbert’s BuSab (Bureau of Sabotage), or Heinlein’s mysterious New Man organization run by Kettle Belly Baldwin. But then we run into the question of ,”Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Who guards against the guardians?

    I might feel better if I knew such an organization existed. But considering the level of secrecy needed, they’d probably kill me or lobotomize me just for knowing. I certainly can’t see them ever recruiting me to work for them.

    1. The problem is, their misdeeds ARE revealed, and nothing is done about it. Evidence is not followed up, stories vanish without a trace, and they never face any consequences. Occasionally, a scapegoat is sacrificed.

      I’m just surprised Ghislane Maxwell didn’t ‘commit suicide’ months ago…
      ———————————
      Erik: “It’s reassuring to find that the world is crazier than you are.”

      1. I suspect that there’s a deal in place to keep her quiet. “Look, this is too public, and we can’t let you go. But if you keep your mouth shut and don’t implicate anyone, we’ll do what we can. And you won’t end up like Jeff.”

        The dropping of the charges against Epstein’s guards immediately following Maxwell’s verdict was a flaunt.

        1. It’s also possible she did successfully manage to persuade TPTB she has set up data dumps they haven’t found, to outlets they don’t control, and her death will trigger a dump.

        2. And Uncle Shady isn’t above waiting a few months to take them out. Whitey Bulger had been incarcerated for quite some time before they had him eliminated; more like cleaning up a loose end. I’m sure they were worried Epstain wouldn’t keep quiet for long, which is why they did him in so quickly.

      3. That’s why you reveal who perpetrated the deeds to the serial raped young girls’ fathers. One or two of them are likely to take matters into their own hands. Justice should be served.

    2. I’d get worried by anyone who seemed to be agreeing with me a hundred percent of the time, or who asserted that they completely agreed with me, generally, on everything.

      I think back in the day on MGC, perhaps during Sad Puppies, there was a visitor who tried to assert the latter. I’m pretty sure I recall suspecting they were a false flag, playing some sort of political game.

      I /expect/ everyone to have at least one disagreement with me.

      I outright know that I have questions that I am deeply conflicted on, and my state of mind changes over time. I also believe that truth is important, and that small differences of opinion can be very important. So, with those tests for agreement, in theory I might for short periods of time completely overlap with some else, but in practice we should expect disagreement.

      On political issues, I count myself as a political enemy. Because I cannot agree with the level of fanaticism that I would like to have. Some matters are complicated, I want simple extreme black and white answers that I can simply take a hardline position on, so that I could ignore other people, and spend my thinking time purely on my own entertainment.

      Living in a reality means a /bunch/ of trade offs, that don’t satisfy any one goal, and which maybe cannot satisfy any one goal.

  6. I’m really proud of myself: I read the post, carefully, and understood it! It’s hard to concentrate lately, too much changing, too much grief, but this post made total sense.

    Especially, for me, this: “They are desperate, because of what we have not done.”

    They are also very mad that we are making our lives better by moving, adjusting, adapting, and overcoming their death throes.

    1. I am glad that you were able to get something from it.

      For several reasons.

      I know a bit about life screwing over ability to concentrate, or do other types of thinking.

      You can be sure I won’t hold it against someone if they say that today’s post is a little bit too much to deal with. Barring the case of someone showing up who never posts here, and then them castigating me for not being perfect lockstep leftist.

      Some days I just can’t read anything.

    2. I do not think Orvan is going to let them stick that in his mouth no matter the beauty of its restoration. And no Antique does not modify Ox-Tounge but Iron…

      1. No, no, the Ox Tongue goes inside the Antique Iron. After it’s been heated in a fire. Then it’s good for 5 – 10 minutes of ironing before the Ox Tongue has to be heated again.

        This iron’s Ox Tongue was missing, so he had to machine a new one.

        1. You know, that’s so much more sophisticated than hte ones used when I was little, where they just put COALS in the iron, with the attendant problem with smudges.

  8. The late LDS scholar Hugh Nibley once wrote (paraphrasing) that the question – for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of course – wasn’t between alcohol and tobacco. If that’s the question that you’re presented with, then certain assumptions have already gone too far. Instead, when presented with that question, the listener needs to back up to the earlier, apparently unasked, question that allows you to pick a different option.

    That’s a lot like certain political discussions these days. A political side will try and see that you must pick this decision, or you must pick that decision. But the trick is to recognize when neither is palatable, and then have the presence of mind and force of will to back things up to the question that got skipped.

    1. The False Dichotomy.

      “You must wear a mask or you want to kill Granny!”
      “If you don’t get the inoculation you’re an Anti-Vaxer!”
      “Either you support Antefa or you’re a White Supremacist!”

      And so on.

      Most of what they say is so far from reality it’s not even wrong.
      ———————————
      They’re the Experts! They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.

      1. I believe that is what Greg Gutfeld calls the prison of two ideas.
        Lawyers, and most of our crop of politicians started out in that field, will always try to back you into a corner of two choices, neither of them what you really support.
        Proper response is “Trick question you A-hole, back off and let me have my say!”

    2. Thing is, from any sort of Christian perspective, we should expect the world to always be asking if we are going to sacrifice to Baal, or if instead we are going to sacrifice to Astarte.

      This is a very basic skill. We very much have gotten too comfortable in the conventions and precedents of our Christian intellectual activity. Which is not saying that we ought to abandon our traditional understandings in service to sucking up to the world. More, we really do not go far enough when it comes to advocating for some of the traditional understandings. We do many of our arguments by rote, learned from prior example, and those of us who try new arguments are very often not arriving quickly at stronger arguments.

        1. I tucked you into church of optimistic sf/subset Heinlein philisiphically when I started reading back in 2013? It’s been awhile. Hilariously, I was hooked by the SP giffy post, which has almost been one of a kind.

            1. I’ve been becoming increasingly Protestant recently, which shocks me for a number of auto-biographical reasons. Then again, Francis seems to be a Prod too so I’m in good company, snark

              As I understand the reformation, it was the pious who rebelled, well before the politicians figured out how to make it pay.

              1. There are a lot of good resources. Fr.Schmitz’ Bible in a Year podcast, for example. Or the Thomist Institute if you want heavy duty. Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. The crazy Catholic SQPN crew just started a Stargate podcast. William Albrecht. Reason and Theology channel.on Youtube. And so on.

                Spend time with God, spend time thinking about Him with other people, and go to Mass when it is possible.

                1. Stargate podcast? I wonder if this involves the priest son calls “Father SF” who took over our old parish (Two houses ago) when we moved.
                  “He made references only I understood, and sometimes I was afraid he’d quote your books.”

                  1. Sarah, take the word of a complete stranger and listen to “Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World” podcast sometime. Jimmy Akin is one of the few people who could give you a run for your money in eclectic intelligence. He’s interested in everything, from Thomist theology, to ghosts, to whether you should baptize an alien (Spoiler: If the alien asks, it’s evidence of a rational soul), to “The Mad Gasser of Mattoon.” Always with intellectual rigor and perfect charity and a bit of snark. No “Father SF” involved, I promise…

                    1. Echoing the suggestion– seriously, folks, listen to the Border Patrol Ghost episode.

                      It’s a heck of a story.

                      The thing that makes Mysterious World a Catholic podcast is that after the cool story, they look at it from the POV of reason, religion and Normal Life.

                  2. All we need is someone who completely disregards real history and think’s Sarah’s Darkship series is real history. So they decide to cull the USAIN philosophy from her books and create a new religion.

                2. Thank you. It was the pious who saw the rot well before the politicians got involved and, thinking about the state of the church – as opposed to Church- would drive me out, I go to Mass at least every Sunday and pray the Office as much as I can. The bloody bishops are the problem and being an RC means being stuck with the bloody bishops. We had a decent bishop before Francis, now we have another lavender mafia fellow traveler.

                  I’ve found the less I know about the day to day the better off I am. Social media is a curse.

                  Tying in with Bob’s post, the lunatics have always been there, mostly in faculty common rooms, now the faculty common room is the public square. It’s making us all nuts. I learned a long time ago not to read the financial press, ever. Too much noise and not enough signal — it cost me money. I’ve been cutting back on all the rest of it and may just cut the cord completely.

                  1. Re: the Reformation… It wasn’t so much “the pious” as “those involved in a certain kind of private devotional spirituality.” And historically, putting private devotion ahead of actual religion usually means you start setting up your own religion.

                    The irony was that most of the early Reformation folks saw everything collapse that they had been trying to reform. Like all the women reading and interpreting the Bible for themselves, who saw their daughters or granddaughters deprived of learning to read, as the female literacy rate plunged along with female ownership of businesses.

                    There is a certain amount of difficulty in becoming more holy without becoming holier than thou. And apparently the Desert Fathers texts say that acedia doesn’t just manifest as listlessness and restlessness, but also as “scorn against one’s brethren.” So it is not a new problem.

                    Private devotion and small groups can get smaller and smaller by ignoring the unworthy, whereas a large community religion has to deal with everybody, and try to bring everybody along. That is why the whole wheat and chaff problem is so often talked about, in the Fathers and in medieval churchmen. They had to deal with “my pastor stinks, my bishop stinks, my temporal lord is an idiot, and I’m not that good.”

                    Somehow we thought we could get around that, and a lot of people never took history of the churches or religions; so people are easily scandalized by bad stuff. I hate it, but I guess I always kind of expected a lot of stupid and wicked; plus I do read a bunch of the Fathers.

                    After five hundred different times where you and your neighbor Christians are compared to different kinds of clean and unclean animals in the OT, or going into Noah’s Ark, the message starts to sink in! Just try to be a ritually clean sacrificial-type animal, instead of the baddies….

              2. Yeah. Some of us feel like that.
                But you know, younger son reminds me there have been anti-popes and worse before, and the church survived.
                I don’t know what’s coming. If it weren’t for the rampant anti-semitism I’d join the splinter who left the church to live in pre-Vatican II ways, because you know….. the longer I live the more I think that was a mistake.
                As is, we abide, and wait for both Church and Country to fix their sh*t. And stand ready to help, of course.

                1. They’re an interesting crowd. I find them a bit too Pharisaical, which given their anti-semitism is almost funny. They lack charity. I find them cold and the faith is not cold. My MIL was involved with them. It was the Mass not the rest. She never could wrap her head around the new Mass.

                  Francis too is a Pharisee. Look at the BS about his shoes. Benedict obviously enjoyed the dressing up part of being Pope, it showed him to be human, but then again Benedict is not a Jesuit. The Jesuits have always lacked balance.

                    1. I’m a Jesuit boy, the son and grandson of Jesuit boys. It all went wrong when the threw out AMDG and put a man for others in its place.

                    2. Back in New Jersey our small Methodist church had a former Jesuit (he was married to a female minister) as minister. Jerry could be verrrry interesting.
                      As in, “Are you comfortable? No? Good. I’m not here to make you comfortable.”

                  2. There are all different kinds of traditionalists. There are a lot of “I go to the OF Mass and don’t complain, but anything traditional has my vote” people out there. (I am one of those.) There are the young kids, who tend to get more and more traditional because the non-traditional kids tend to quit or stay home on the couch. There’s the kind who go to EF Masses at their EF parish and would never ever want to splinter off for anything. All pretty normal, all skew young.

                    The “cold” trads are usually either wary (often for good reasons) or angry, or they just come from parishes that didn’t have socializing on church property, although they might have had sodalities and stuff. (Usually you can identify the ethnic group.) There is a lot going on, under the surface, and they might be very fervent. But it might be hard to find out, because they are wary and angry and traumatized, and all their shields are up.

                    The problem is that it can be hard to find out whether you have fun traditionalists or wary traditionalists in your area, unless you actually poke around a lot. And with Rome making nasty noises about parishes daring to put announcements of Latin Masses in their bulletins, a lot of parishes and groups that do fun things are going low key, even if their bishops support them.

                    Sigh. Some people.just are a menace to mental health as well as souls; but we’ll get through it. God is our ally and friend; everything else is temporary.

                    1. The anti-Semitism is from the French royalist wing of traditionalism, sad to say. I don’t think Lefebvre himself did that junk, but there was a lot of it around, and it polluted the well (via ex-Bishop Williamson). FSSP tends to discourage it hard, but SSPX didn’t really discourage it enough (although eventually they yeeted Williamson).

                      And the actual splintered off groups therefore tend to have a lot of it, because their members usually are people who left or got driven off from the SSPX.

                      There’s a geocentric wing too; but I think most of them are in the splinter groups like the sedevacantists and the antipope-Michael-followers. Sungenis has surfaced and maybe is not a holocaust denier anymore, because he is out there debating a bunch of Muslims and unitarians, for whatever reason.

      2. And society encourages it. We’re simultaneously instructed to reject useless and outdated deity-botherer customs, and unquestioningly accept dictats handed down by TPTB.

  9. I think the big issue was that we were too busy living our lives for the longest time. And, in a perverse way, life got too easy for the small-minded “intellectual”-they didn’t have to compromise themselves more quickly in some form or another. More of them looked “successful” in one form or another, more of them looked like they could get the brass ring in some way.

    It’s going to be a while for things to change, but they’re changing. And, I can almost tell from the desperation of the various people that are nominally “in charge” to pretend that they’re relevant and that we should listen to them.

    It’s always going to be crazy, just this is going to be insane. Stay calm, keep your powder dry, keep calm and bugger on, and thumbs up for us all.

      1. Clothes, weapons, flashlight in easy reach. Three day crash kit right nearby. Thirty day supplies handy somewhere if you have to move fast. And backup copies of important documents in your crash kit.

        1. We need to rearrange “meet site for family if we’re out and separated when the balloon goes up” — I thinking running to places in Col Springs/Denver right now would be dangerous. So other places needed. And I need to restock the bug out bags, haven’t adjusted since we moved.

          2. We have a relative’s farm to go to if things get crazy. Far enough away and yet close enough to reach. It helps to live near rural areas.

            1. We’ve got nearby farms to go to. Unfortunately they are too close to Eugene/Springfield. Even old homestead places in Drain would be better. But the Drain properties are long gone (last one sold ’74). Grandparents place at 2.75 acres wouldn’t have been big enough (sold 2005). No way to have had it purchased from estate by family members. Sold it for more than it was worth, but convince the creditors of that, but estate court agreed, and that is who counted. In short. We do not have anywhere to run.

    2. This! I had this exact discussion with my son recently. He wanted to know why ‘you’ (meaning my generation aka Boomers) let this happen. I told him that the sane people lived their lives and assumed ‘politics’ would continue to color roughly between the lines of the Constitution. Got to say that, collectively, we were wrong and the toll for that error is going to be large.

      1. We believed in a proper division of labor in our economy. My job was not to do my own dentistry, that’s why I go to a dentist. I don’t want to deal with politics, that’s why I leave things to politicians.

        1. Heinlein quote here – “… Specialization is for insects”. And in this case, business school majors. The Founding Fathers concept of civil virtue went far beyond commerce and voting. We forgot that. Adam Smith wrote both ‘The Wealth of Nations’ and ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’. Both are important as we work to understand where we went astray.

          1. There’s a difference between division-of-labor and specialization. And, we should have been making sure the idiots in charge were doing a good job. Now, we have to clean that mess up…

  10. The left tells us they will win, based on theoretical models that are at soundest based on past behavior, and will not reliably predict the future; They throw away information, and cannot predict the wins that we create by having many separated people working on different parts of a problem.

    It’s not just that. For decades they took the silence of their opposition as not just consent but support for their progressive policies. What they failed to realize was that our side hoped/thought that if we ignored the crazy progressives they would go away. Sadly, that allowed them to implement some of their ideas. We, again, stayed quiet in the hopes that this would make them happy. We are now painfully aware that our “Fine. Whatever. Just go away.” response only goaded them further and gave them the idea that they were winning.

    Now that they’ve thrown off the veil (did so with Obama, really started with Clinton), the rest of us are finally starting to see where we went wrong. And we are starting to fix it. Saying “no.” Publicly ridiculing their chosen elites, pressuring the bureaucracies, using their own lawfare tactics. They are shocked and surprised and, like Sarah mentioned, the beast is dying ugly. In their death throes they are lashing out at their own kind and then are surprised when that drives even more away from them.

    Because they threw away information, because they believed their own propaganda, because they are legends in their own minds, they are losing.

    We have to keep up the pressure.

    1. Thanks for expanding. I was sure that there was a bunch of stuff I was missing that deserved outlining.

  11. In terms of the older racial classifications, the Ainu seem to have been predominantly Caucasian.

    1. Yeah, I think I recall that a lot of the older racial thinking went that way.

      Modern classifications of ‘Asian’ might find it expedient to go the other way.

      Substituting Ama for Ainu might make part of a point better.

      I think races are at least as much political categories as things with any biological reality. And not necessarily politics that makes any practical sense.

      PRC would like to push Pan-Asian theory, that might classify Ainu as Asian for convenience sake. Then play around in first world politics, trying to make governments accept the PRC speaking on behalf on Asians.

      How many ‘high level’ races do we want to have, and how far will we go to cram peoples into them? If you go with relatively few, groups like the inuits or polynesians might be a little bit weird to deal with.

      There are biological traits that can be heritable. These do not necessarily map to culture in any useful or predictable way. Frequency of alleles, etc., may not be the same, century over century, in groups that have managed to remain culturally and linguistically distinct over the whole period of time.

      I think this fixation a lot of anthropologists have on ‘indigenous’ is also stupid.

      What part of the theory actually corresponds to reality? Is the part of the theory that may correspond to reality one that can be used for any useful predictions or choices? I had another essay on my to do list for a guest post, which can also be boiled down to these two questions. Maybe I can skip writing it? 🙂

      1. Of course, the PRC will conveniently neglect to mention that another group pushed Pan-Asian theory less than a century ago. And they left a trail of blood and horror throughout much of Asia and the Pacific until their cities were turned to dust and ash, and they were finally brought to their knees.

        But the Japanese of WW2 are largely a boogeyman these days.

        1. As far as Xi is concerned, the Co Prosperity Sphere has simply never been done correctly. IE, with him as the most senior abuser.

          1. Of course, the primary issue still remains. All of the other potential members of the theoretical sphere have zero interest in letting one of their neighbors lead it. In some ways, the status of the US as an outsider is a blessing since the US doesn’t have all of the old national hatreds working against it. Yet.

    2. While this may be true, I suspect that the bureaucrats primarily look at, “Ancestors came from Japan.” And that’s part of Bob’s point. Ethnically, an Ainu might have little in common with his or her ethnically Japanese neighbor (whose ancestors arrived in Japan after the Ainu’s ancestors). But the Ainu’s geneology is from Japan, so the Ainu is “Asian” according to the bureaucrats.

      Remember that these are the same sorts of people who think putting a Vietnamese actress into a movie will increase audience appeal in China.

      1. I decided I was not expert enough on the mutual sentiments of the Ainu and Yamato peoples, or the ancestral stuff, so probably ought to keep my mouth shut on that.

        Genes between Japanese and Koreans, and discussion thereof, is supposed to be a fraught topic with Japanese and Koreans.

  12. Tangentially related, imo –

    New York Post had an article up about a Navajo activist by the name of Jacqueline Keeler who has put together a list of two hundred prominent or vaguely prominent whites who have falsely claimed Native American ancestry (or “Pretendians”, as the article calls them). Senator Fauxcahontas gets a mention, of course, along with several other individuals. Hat tip to Instapundit, where I found the link.

    https://nypost.com/2022/01/01/alleged-pretendians-list-exposes-allegedly-fake-native-americans/?fbclid=IwAR3vIujt3zC6Ttd-pmk_RSJQs2c8EdQGAyWIFCmdgy6KESlZmoEGG3QkWxI

    Read, and be amused.

    1. I’m an Illegal Indian.

      We didn’t register with any tribe, in no small part because not being property is a really good reason to leave a tribe.

      Grew up knowing a lady whose mom decided that leaving the tribe with her infant son, while very pregnant, to be an unwed mother in a logging town was a VAST improvement over how she was being treated in the tribe. At a time when death-by-Indian-raid was still living memory, including for folks in the town. First birth was difficult. Second one was expected to kill her. As best her daughter could figure, she wasn’t that old. Can fill in the gaps there pretty well, especially since the lady didn’t have any half-siblings, and was a respected gal in the town by the time I met her. Just…very cranky about idealizing anything tribal. And a REALLY BIG fan of formal medical care.

      For other paper evidence….
      It’s bog standard to look at census information and see people flip races (black, mixed and Indian popped up when I was looking for entirely different things), ages, names, blood kinship (“boarder” vs “sister”) ….when it’s known they did no such thing.

      Sure, it’s amusing to see race nuts turn out to not be “real” whatever race.

      Don’t think “amusing” is reason enough to give any kind of power to such ideas.

      1. What’s amusing, imo, is the number of people who have claimed the ancestry in what’s pretty clearly an attempt to get ahead, while having no basis for doing so. Minorities are so heavily discriminated against in this country that people who aren’t minorities are falling over themselves in a mad rush to claim minority status. It’s one thing if you’ve got some poor quality records that suggests you might have the ancestry (and I should note that one of Keeler’s targets might actually have that). It’s another if you’ve got absolutely nothing, like Elizabeth Warren.

        As an example, one of my ancestors just a few generations back was part of one of the Scottish clans (Mackenzie, I think, though I’d have to double-check). I don’t present myself as descended from the clan. But if I did (perhaps I decided I wanted to wear the clan’s kilt), I’d make sure that I had an ancestry figured out, and the geneological chart handy just in case I was asked about it.

          1. I actually hope more and more people start doing that. Because nothing else will wreck their racial / identity spoils system faster than forcing them to either set hard definitions (one-drop rule, anyone?) or admit that it’s all an ideological scam.

              1. Once they make gender identity “special”, that will really blow the lid off. How do you determine if someone is really “genderfluid”?

                  1. Ha.

                    That.

                    If they want to play those games, they can call me a Dalek. And pretend that it is perfectly safe me to chase them with a plunger, so long as there are stairs, because Daleks do not run up the stairs after you.

                    I reject any claim that may make about saying what I am.

                    Also, it is not my custom to chase people with plungers. My mom raised me better than that. You can call that institutionalized systemic internal humanness all you want.

                    2. “Also, it is not my custom to chase people with plungers.”

                      Are we talking people, or politicians? Because politicians SHOULD be chased with plungers. And pressure washers.

                    7. What, you’ve never seen a battle-ax with spikes? Like the one Rory Mercury uses.

                2. Or some of one of my flavors of obnoxious trolling.

                  Summarizing, how can you be sure my gender identity isn’t Saint Augusto of the Whirling Blades, or Saint Rafal of Warsaw?

                  If I have to respect that someone’s gender identity lets them visit bathrooms and carry out acts of rape, why can’t my gender identity require that I be allowed to carry out acts of murdering dipshit leftwing activists?

                  This thing of adjusting rules, and forcing conformance with the new rules, based only on evidence that is inside of a person’s head, was a crock from the beginning. It was a bad idea from first principles. Furthermore, they were only ever intending that it be enforced in their favor, using only their pet examples of people who are mentally different.

                  Human mental variation is extremely wide. If your basic principle is that rules are not for the majority, but instead must accommodate a minority who thinks differently, you can very often find a tinier group of people whose wishes conflict with the larger minority.

              2. Nope. Making an example of all of them would require them to do something about Elizabeth Warren. It makes me wonder why they’ve latched on to her as someone who must be protected instead of being disposed of. Sean King also got lucky. He was found out at the same time as Dolezal, but one of his books turned up on a recommended listening list from Audible several months back. And people still cite him as an authority or spokesperson.

                BLM did kick him out, though. He’s no longer affiliated with that group. So it’s not entirely clear who he’s supposed to be acting as a spokesperson for these days.

                On a related note, Instapundit had a link up a few weeks ago with a headline (I didn’t read the attached article) talking about large numbers of white students claiming to be minority on their college admission paperwork. Once people figure out that something works, and there’s no easy way to check it, they’ll abuse it.

                3. > It makes me wonder why they’ve latched on to her as someone who must be protected instead of being disposed of.
                  —
                  Warren has probably collected enough dirt to take down anyone who seriously opposed her. And it doesn’t even matter if any of it is true; the media will run with whatever she tells them.

              3. I’ve been thinking about calling myself Native American on all their stupid little racial rosters. I don’t know what it’ll get me…probably nothing…and with my ancestry being very well-traced in all directions back to the 1500s, I’m as certain as anyone can be that I have no Amerindian genes… But that same genealogy also verifies that my family has been here in North America since the 1600s.

                350 years of ancestry on this land ought to be enough to make me a native, right? If not, why not? Please present your evidence.

                1. There ARE no ‘native Americans’. Humans are not indigenous to this part of the world. The first humans wandered into North America some 17,000 years ago when the last Ice Age exposed a ridge of rock across the Bering Strait.

                  How are they more deserving than my ancestors, who built ships and sailed across a stormy ocean to get here?

            2. Witness the entire leftist twitter/twitchosphere collectively losing their shit a few months back on the “trans-korean” issue. Going so far as to openly admit they didn’t have an argument but reeeee anyway. And this was only a couple years after the infamous trans-racial paper they freaked out about and smothered.

              They know. Every last one of them knows it in their bones.

        2. If you’ve ever said you’re Scottish, then you’re in the same boat as any illegal Indian.

          The tribes can say, “not a registered member of my tribe.”

          I am not granting them any kind of right to say, “not an Indian.”

          1. My grandmother and great-aunt are descended from Clan Anderson in Scotland. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they’re registered, I’m 1/4 Scot.

            1. ::thumbs up::

              As I’ve mentioned, my great great grandmother was such an oppressed woman that when she said “we are moving to America,” her (adult) sons obeyed.

              Filled a park at the 100 year reunion, even with most folks not being able to s how.

          2. Unfortunately, the clan tartan is a rather unsightly yellow and black. Doesn’t go with much of anything. Guess we weren’t at the front of the line when they handed out clan colors.

            1. My grandmother visited Scotland, proved she was related to who she said, and got a nice big probably-for-great-kilt.
              …which she used for a blanket, because ours is ugly, too. I think it looked kind of faded even when new, but it’s been a while.

              I’ll stick with blackwatch and similar, when I can’t find more tiedye type colors. 😀
              (I don’t mind hideous when it’s BRIGHT COLORS1!!!!!)

            2. It could be worse. It could be greyscale, like the tartan handed out to my clan (Moffatt, all of whom are related via the male line, because the clan did not adopt. I haven’t been arsed to pursue membership.) Apparently by the time we got there, all the colors had been used up, like a cheap inkjet!

              If we’re claiming distant identities, I do eventually go back to some minor Roman functionary ca. 350AD. So I’m an ancient Roman, and they better not forget it!

              Speaking of tartans, I wish I could pull off this look:
              https://www.your-kilt.com/

                1. Er, yes and no. Some clans had tartans loosely associated back to the late 18th century. The Victorians were very OCD about it. VR required if a clan chief came to court he be dressed in clan tartan. There are correspondences on file of clan chiefs asking the fabric mills “What’s my tartan, and can you get me a kilt in it soonest, I have to present at court”. Followed by memos at the mill saying rename Tartan #27 as Clan X tartan, and make up a kilt to these measurements for the chief. I have a grandmother who was a Scottish Davidson. I have no clue whether she was a Highland Clan Davison, or a Border Riding Family Davidson – they are not related. The current Clan Chief of the Davidson, Grant Guthrie Davidson, while we were sharing a wee dram said “That problem is easy remedied. You want to be a member of my clan? Yes? Very well. You and yours are members of my clan.” Thereby, by the old rules, bringing the Withnell family into Clan Davidson as a sept, and since I am head of the family, making me its chieftain. I don’t usually were the two feathers in my bonnet, however.

          3. The funny thing about that is that I’ve read that the earlier your European ancestors came over, the more likely it is that you are descended from Native Americans. My uncle says one of our ancestors was a Creek woman. I’d never try and claim tribal descent though. Based on the DNA testing, I’m English, Scottish, and Danish.

            2. More chances.

              Family stories said one French ancestor came over so early that he had to marry locally for the want of French brides. And we tracked them down in the family tree, and she died young and we are descended from his second, French wife.

              There are some brides who appear out of nowhere up the Acadian branch, though.

            3. I have *major* issues with treating DNA testing as evidence against ancestry– it just doesn’t *work* that way, dang it!

              It’s like making a math formula based off of Sherlock’s idea that everyone who passes through a room picked something up and left something, and if you can’t find something it means they weren’t in the room.

              It’s cool, I love finding out where others with similar DNA markers are– that has GREAT possibilities for health care!– and similar things, but even if they DID actually get a decent sample size….
              :grumble grumble grumble:

              1. Yes. Look, not only do we compare to MODERN populations, (my alleged Spanish ancestry is almost certainly because all of mom’s best known ancestor’s LEGITIMATE offspring is in Spain) but when you’re conceived half of your DNA gets “wrapped” and effectively thrown away.
                And what is there can express funny.
                Some of you have met me. My DNA says I have a 75% chance of blue eyes. They’re not wrong. Three of my grandparents had blue eyes. But er…. my eyes are greeny-brown. 😛
                Oh, also my hair is CERTAINLY curly. (I wish. Do you know how much it would have saved me in perms? Besides I only look “right” in my head with curly hair, and right now my hair is too dry to perm.)

                1. I know I’ve pointed it out several times, but there are identical twins who express as “different races”.

                  We don’t even know what we don’t know about DNA!

                  1. Which is what I told all the idiots who kept telling me we only divided from chimps 250k years ago, which is what they thought in the early 90s.
                    It’s like “You know, we don’t even know enough for that to be wrong. It’s like kindergartners trying to understand advanced physics.”

                    1. Oh! Somewhat related!

                      Know that factoid about being something-over90%-identical-to-apes/monkeys/chimps/[specific species of ape]?

                      It’s based off of identified genes.

                      In isolation.

                      So, if you know gene 1, 2, and 3, two things are 66% identical when they are:
                      1abcdefg2hijklmnopqrs3tuvwxyz

                      and
                      2asfknjhasdekfnaslekdnfas;lkdenfalkjenafaeslkh;lknasfe3

              2. In this case, I just meant that I feel no connection whatsoever to my Native American ancestry. Based on family history, the English, Scottish, Danish stuff is much more accurate based on the names, immigration locations, and other factors. Descendant of Mormon pioneers is probably the closest I get to an actual genetic grouping I identify with and that’s close enough to modern times that it is a recognizable subgroup.

        3. ” (perhaps I decided I wanted to wear the clan’s kilt),”

          I just went with a black kilt, figured most of my ancestors would have been sneaky bastages who wouldna’ wanted to advertise where home was.

                    2. Actually, (sic) represents the Latin ‘so’ meaning the spelling or grammatical error existed in the original source material and has been copied exactly ‘so’ as a quote.

                      Of course, your observation is also relevant.

                      Although sheep aggregate in flocks, not herds, lazuhrus.

      2. Then you have those taken in raids and raised in the tribe, regardless of skin color, regardless of tribe affiliation, or lack thereof. That does not count those who voluntarily joined a tribe. Then these intermarried each other. Raised in tribal traditions. Males raided with their brother tribesmen. Biologically of the tribe? Not a single drop. Culturally of the tribe? 100%.

        DNA wise. There is no test that will detect Apache VS Navajo VS Tillamook VS Cherokee. So? Language? Culture? Um pretty sure that is what the “Indian Schools” were built to strip. Both for most native cultures are all but dead, not dying, dead. The few that are hanging by a thread encourage Anyone to learn the language.

    2. It’s a bit more complicated than that, though in principle I oppose anyone who mostly looks white claiming “my ancestral oppression.” Which is why I don’t (though I could, thank you 23 and me.)
      Because what 23 and me compares to are current genetic groupings. So despite all the brides who come into existence on their wedding day on husband’s side, and some genetic issues that are a mark of Amerindian descent, he doesn’t show it on 23and me.
      Because the tribes from new england got overwhelmed and disappeared.

  14. When Jared Diamond wrote _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, I was very disappointed that he didn’t take his argument to the logical conclusion. He didn’t dare, and sure wouldn’t today. But it raises an interesting question that no one really cares to poke too hard answer, because most of civilization has agreed Not To Go There. How many generations of environmental and cultural selection are required to rewire parts of the human brain? How many generations to unwire the rewire? Again, not something I want people experimenting to find out [because I have a sick feeling that the PRC has/is], but a valid question.

    When I was in grad school, those of us older students noted that we could sit and read for far longer than the younger students (ten years younger on average) were able to. They didn’t have the attention spans. We grew up without the internet. They grew up along side the internet. Correlation is not causation, but it provided fodder for a lot of arguments-over-beer-and-burgers.

    1. I hope that was “compared to what we could do ten years ago”, otherwise the observation is worse than useless.

      I also hope there was some sort of timing data. Because “feels like I focused for a long time” means nothing unless you know what a long time is for that person and whether they were actually focused or not.

      1. As in “I was reading 300 page novels on Saturday ten years ago, and I got all the assigned readings for the week done on time.” The assigned readings adding up to over 500 pages of academic monographs and journal articles per week. So yes, we had a fixed datum to start with.

        1. That could also be that you were in a group with other Odds. I think we’re about the same generation – no internet, much less social media, etc.

          But the crowd that I hung out with (mostly) could read any of the non-math textbooks, such as history or literature, cover to cover, in the first week – and never touch it again. That was not true of all of my friends, and certainly not of the majority of the college student body.

          (One – my roommate, actually – could do the same with a textbook in a mathematics heavy subject, or even a pure mathematics subject. Not just Odd, like most of us – but ODDDD.)

          1. Oh, that roommate, despite being someone who could read math, ended up as a lawyer. Mostly juvenile defense cases. Surprised most people, although not me – he was always excellent at being a Devil’s Advocate.

    2. Instincts evolve Darwinianly (is so a word) and thus very slowly, culture evolves Lamarckianly (quiet, you) and is much faster. I think it’s more likely that your fellow students never learned to pay attention for long periods rather than they were biologically incapable of doing so. If primary school never forced them, and primary school has been out of the forcing kids to do things business for decades, and their internet-based entertainment rewarded short attention spans, then there’s no reason to believe their brains were rewired because they had short attention spans as young adults.

      2. Agreed. I certainly did not learn a long attention span in school. Don’t see how I could have, either. It followed the time hallowed tradition of “lesson blocks” – so much time for spelling, so much time for reading, so much time for arithmetic. In the lower grades. Then I hit middle school and “periods” – fifty minutes with each subject teacher.

        Whereas, at home, where I was not time constrained, I could spend days on end with just, for example, Greek and Roman history. Or physiology – I remember one summer almost entirely dedicated to the digestive system.

        1. School taught me that paying extended attention would be bad— I’d “overthink” and get the wrong answer.

          …mostly by paying too much attention to what was written.

          Part of why I like Pratchett is that when I sit and think after reading his stuff, I get rewarded by it fitting, and having good stuff in addition.

          2. School never rewarded focus,.except in sports. Focus meant that you got attacked by students, or asked distracting sudden questions by teachers. You always have to keep vigilant during school, not paying attention fully to any subject.

    3. Part of why there is so much more disgust over the German regime. China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia. Those weren’t “us”. But a place that went from being extremely cosmopolitan and the ideal country for a lot of the early era progressives like Wilson to where it did and it is more visceral.

      Although I’m not sure that the whole Kinder gentler thing has worked out well. You need to have that civilized barbarism that ended suttee and the Aztecs.

      1. That cosmopolitanism was largely a facade over a quite intolerant base culture. For “progressives” like Wilson – well, the country of the 1930s was even more ideal; it implemented many of the things that they wished they could have gotten away with. Much like modern “progressives” wishing that they could be the American Mao.

  15. I could follow your arguments Bob– which is really good since my brain has been washed in immunosuppresants and prednisone plus a failing kidney for a long time.

  17. I’m back from the grocery store, where I saw not a single free face in the building. Wall to wall useless masks. 100% sheeple except for me. I had to raise my middle finger and walk out of a shoe store without any shoe polish last week because I forgot my Medieval Plague Mask.

    Target was full of empty shelves where the items I wanted should have been.

    Do they still make Banquet frozen fried chicken? I looked and looked, and found NO frozen fried chicken. No frozen crock-pot stew. Seems like, as soon as you find something good, it gets discontinued.
    ———————————
    If everybody is thinking the same thing, most of them are not thinking.

      1. This is Kalifornia, where Herr Fuhrer Newsome just decreed another mask mandate. It’s insane. If we haven’t all died of the communist Chinese common cold by now, we ain’t gonna. Politicians and bureaucrats punish doctors and nurses because they don’t want the experimental retrovirus inoculations. Adverse reactions, including hundreds of deaths closely correlated with the inoculations, are covered up and condemned as ‘misinformation’ and ‘conspiracy theories’.

        I trust ‘misinformation’ more than the government and the media.
        ———————————
        We need new conspiracy theories because all the old ones have come true.

        1. It depends on the part of California. In my part of LA County (as I noted last week), the masks are worn everywhere – even in the parking lot (other outside areas, not so much, mind you). In other parts of this exact same county, compliance is apparently fairly low. The LA County Sheriff has publicly stated that he’s not enforcing any of the state’s SARS-2 edicts. Other police departments in the County are going to do what their chief decides.

          Unfortunately, the recall didn’t dislodge Governor Hair Gel. So we’re stuck with this mess for the time being, at least at the state level. And there’s been chatter here and elsewhere about new state-wide voting rules that are live starting this year.

          1. Yup. Sacramento County is pretty hard-line on the masks, though I see maskless people walking around in stores and nobody seems to hassle them. Go up north on 99 a bit and you’ll see a lack of masks in the fast food restaurants (which makes sense to me—if you’re going to eat, you have to be maskless anyway!)

            I dunno. It’s getting patchy and there’s definitely fatigue over the situation.

    3. The frozen food selection, be it just veggies or prepared meals, has plummeted out here. For example, the protein blends from BirdsEye are gone, with an empty space in the case where once they reposed.

      1. Twice now in the last few weeks, I’ve gone to the supermarket and the milk section has been almost completely empty. Fortunately, those weren’t on consecutive trips. But it’s troubling regardless.

        1. We’re finally starting to see the odd spasm of Bare Shelf up here in the Northern Wastes, but it’s odd things. Frex, today no half-and-half or cream, but plenty of milk. (Last week cream but no half-and-half.) No flat soda crackers, but for once not out of oyster crackers. Hamburger was short, but other meats overflowing. Lots of cheese, but no Cheese Wiz. Talked to one of the stockers and she said the suppliers are complaining that they’re getting random and short quantities for no visible reason.

          Generally speaking it’s the more-processed stuff that’s gone missing. Frex, name-brand boxed cereals (tho in-the-bag are plentiful). And stuff that’s stocked not by the store, but by a contractor (snacks are mostly like that) are likely to be short. Fresh stuff, no problem.

        2. FYI, the shortages in Colorado are much more serious than in landing state.
          Things are sometimes thin here, but it’s a time of day thing, not a permanent thing.
          The only things I had trouble sourcing was flat spray paint (don’t ask) and whipping cream. (And that’s resolved since.)

          1. We haven’t really noticed any shortages here in DFW; what we have noticed is that there are fewer choices in certain categories. Prices are definitely higher, though.

            1. It’s hard to tell, though. Landing area is around 25% to 50% (you read that right cheaper than CO.) And sometimes I’m mind blown. Take chicken breasts. $6 a lb in CO, $2 in landing place, granted on sale from $3, but still. Same week.

              1. Yeah, there are so many factors. Given that it’s CO, you probably should start in the regulations governing how chicken can be raised and sold. Think CA and “minimum chicken (or pork) raising standards”.

          2. One of the many steps that got me out of California was when spray paint cans were banned for commercial use. Not just short, but actually banned. The bureaucracy by its nature can make no adjustments for local conditions.

          3. Related, we had some empty shelves (besides seasonal switch-over) on Sunday– most of the frozen section looked like locusts had hit it, and part of the bulk aisle, though pickles and condiments was good.

            …three aisles later, the canned good section was *half* stripped, with four kids doing stocking. Behind them, fully stocked; ahead of them, stripped bare.

            So I’d guess “manpower shortage” in our area.

      2. Then, here in Arizona, I cannot find canned spinach – but copious supplies of frozen. Supply chain disruption really means “chaos” – it’s going to be different from State to State, and even town to town, grocery chain to grocery chain.

    5. Or it’s just not getting out. At airport, my first two drink choices were out. (How do you run out of milk…it’s not like Cisco gets it at grocery stores that the populace had seen a flake and done a French toast run). Almost everywhere has the ubiquitous sorry were out

    6. I haven’t found the Vietnamese Pho that the family likes to grab as a quick snack lately. But that is how CostCo has always been. Unless it is their own branding, everything that you have found a liking for tends to disappear without warning.

      1. WO – “everything that you have found a liking for tends to disappear without warning.”

        So glad to hear it’s not something that only happens to me!

    7. I’m sorry. We’ve got your Banquet fried chicken here in Ohio. But I think a lot of people bought that instead of pre-prepared wings, this year, over the holidays. That is probably many of your shortages listed… But also California has a shortage of truckers, as there are easier states to do business.

      1. Kalifornia is trying to put independent truckers out of business ‘for their own good’ because they don’t belong to a union. And I mean ‘belong’ in the chains-and-shackles sense.

        So, when the workers own the means of production (their own trucks) and can choose which loads they will haul, that’s Eeevul Exploitation, but when they work for a giant trucking corporation and union, that’s Freedom.
        ———————————
        Only idiots believe they know how other people should live their lives. The stupider they are, the more blindly they believe it.

  18. The race war nutters have grown desperate, and resorted to using white college students to carry out arson

    –
    Don’t forget using black and female college students to impersonate White Supremacist Redneck Misogynist Racist Trump Supporters. While holding Tiki Torches without fuel. I swear, they’d need itemized step-by-step instructions to organize a drinking party in a winery.

  19. There are a couple relevant points to some of the trolls I have made about it being racist to have a problem with genocide.

    We have two questions. What is racism? Is racism good or is it bad? With a incorrect enough definition, the choice of racism becomes the lesser evil.

    First, when the left wishes to guilt us out of doing something, and asserts that it is racist, they often are equating culture and race.

    The equation of culture and race is a terrible assumption, that leads pretty directly to ‘racism is a good thing’.

    Because culture and behavior are deeply linked, so if culture must be protected, so also must behavior.

    Since the true range of human behavior is broad, including mass murder, you cannot object to mass murder without objecting to behavior and hence probably culture.

    We are also told that we should feel guilt for the behavior of ancestors in various matters, broadly involving a people that could be labeled ‘white’ and people that could be labeled ‘indigenous’. Generally, the matter was a lack of peace. We are to be making personal restitution for every act done by the ‘white’ group. However, the questions of ‘indigenous’ behavior, or acts, are routinely explained away or defended as ‘being their culture’.

    Peace is not the default behavior among humans. War is mostly the rule, and peaces are very often exceptional. Where populations are in contact, you need customs among both populations for peace to be supported. Compatible customs.

    If group one and group two were at war, it may mean that they did not have compatible peace customs. In some of these past conflicts, an impartial eye sees that both groups were so alien to each other that neither really was equipped with the customs that would have been necessary for peace. When A says that X is peace, B says that Y is peace, and X and Y are substantially different, A and B are very unlikely to be able to bind each other in mutual peace.

    Why is only one side being treated as monstrous for the lack of peace? Why is the other side in many cases being given a free pass for behavior that was also horrible?

    My answer is that the current ‘popular’ historical narratives are false, and perhaps knowingly false. That the communists look upon a relatively good society with a lot of internal peace, loathe it, and so distort things so that the behavior of peace with some, and war with others is presented as wholly monstrous. That the communists wish to prevent us from making the reasonable choice of peace with those who have peace with us, and war against those who will never choose peace with us. For communism itself will not even bind communist to peace with communist.

    We should reject the assertion that culture is race.

    Furthermore, if guilt is a thing that can be inherited by blood, there is no reason to treat ‘enemy’ ‘races’ as containing innocent people.

    If we think the old, traditional, pre-communist definition of racism is correct, and that the word describes an evil behavior, we should as a fundamental assumption reject the heritibility of guilt.

    1. Why is only one side being treated as monstrous for the lack of peace?

      —-

      Because otherwise the side accused of being monstrous might actually decide to be monstrous under its own definition. It is imperative to the left that the bulk of society be kept as peaceful as possible while it is overthrown and enslaved.

      1. I’ve read LeBlanc’s Constant Battles, but I may need to brush up on this stuff some.

    3. If that’s foolish, I’d hate to read something wise …. ‘cuz I’d be miles behind.

      “Where populations are in contact, you need customs among both populations for peace to be supported. Compatible customs.”
      “My answer is that the current ‘popular’ historical narratives are false, and perhaps knowingly false. That the communists look upon a relatively good society with a lot of internal peace, loathe it, and so distort things….”

      That clarifies some vague almost-ideas and uneasy glimmerings I’ve had for some time but couldn’t distill down to an essence.

  20. “The Nazis entered the war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and will reap the whirlwind.”
    Arthur Harris

    Laws of war are partly an artifact of the military customs of the populations involved. What about where customs differ? Reciprocity, and reprisal.

    A reprisal is an act that would normally be an offense under the previously understood customs of war, but which due to an offense by an opponent, becomes justified as a controlled punishment, or even a moral obligation.

    If you have parties who are capable of doing extremely horrible things, and capable of restraining themselves from doing those horrible things, wars can be waged between them that are restricted to somewhat more civilized targets and methods.

    To understand the status quo, we must first understand that America is and was strange. We had a pretty good peace consensus between some groups not entirely on the same page culturally speaking. Because of that cultural mixing, we can’t assume customary traditional ways of doing things, and have to negotiate the specifics in detail. Which basically required all of us to develop a cultural imperative that we talk to each other honestly, and negotiate in good faith. Plus also things like the same rules for everyone, etc.

    The first, I think legitimate, appeals against racism were effective because they appealed to Christian values, and to our shared cultural values, in asserting that the behavior was /wrong/ by the terms of those values.

    Whenever something is effective, there is someone who will try to weaponize it, and abuse it for their own ends.

    Right now, we have a bunch of communists doing this, and they have been doing it for decades. They have been speaking dishonestly, negotiating in bad faith, and making appeals to our better nature without any intention of reciprocating to our responses with what /we/ would see as good behavior.

    We don’t need to have all of their bad behavior, their violation of the peaceful norms of American.

    Reprisal does not mean matching every evil act for act. We managed a long stretch of peace with the Japanese without doing to their women that they were doing to the women of Asia. The first step in fighting the Axis was not resolving to match them in every vileness.

    We do need to be deliberate in extending the norms that we have become used to automatically extending to all other Americans.

    We may win this merely reprising against the communists by trolling them, mocking them, and not listening to them as if they are speaking honestly in good faith.

    My instinct is that the glowies are /not/ our friends. But, I do not have a rigorous proof of that, off the top of my head, and regret that lack.

    This goes back to the issue that I cannot /prove/ the conditions under which we win, but I can know that my own worse nature misleads me, and that my judgement is not completely reliable.

    1. “My instinct is that the glowies are /not/ our friends. But, I do not have a rigorous proof of that, off the top of my head, and regret that lack.”

      Of course, the term “glowie” is being tossed around like “racist” and “alt-right” and “insurrectionist”…. and for the same reason, to shut down speech. By the standards I’m seeing here and elsewhere, Patrick Henry, both the Adamses, and several other Founders would have been called “glowies” because they saw the actual situation, and wouldn’t “sit down, John” and shut up about it.

      2. I will point out that when I blocked Russian IPs we stopped getting — real — white supremacists who claim to be “alt-right” commenting here. But I see them in LOTS of blogs. And the message is always “You should already be stacking bodies.”
        This is because that plan would be super convenient to Putin, who, like China, is almost out of time and not sure he can take us unless we’re killing each other.
        https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.desk-russie.eu%2F2021%2F12%2F30%2Fwhat-does-the-russian-ultimatum.html&data=04%7C01%7C%7C5681cd48ab604d700bdc08d9cf9536c5%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637769062052365022%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=53blPDoZNOgo7Bk4C5lK8gYCSPGiTMwZd9KPsjUXGUE%3D&reserved=0

        1. I’m sure that the Speaker of the House of Burgesses thought Patrick Henry was “carried away by emotion” too.

          Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — [“Treason!” cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

          1. Note Steve that you’re arguing with something I never said.
            I didn’t say anything about emotion, but about knowing, US hating agent provocateurs in the service of (mostly) Russia, who deceive people on our side.

              1. Sigh. Okay, Steve, but the emotion is being manipulated by agents provocateurs. And some of us are SUPER-susceptible to them. I understand. Team heads on pikes lives in my mind.
                I recommend you read a book called “the long road to the American revolution.”
                This is not a movie. The rest of the world exists. And we need to know what it’s up to.

                1. Of course there are. And they are succeeding admirably in their goal of keeping us atomized and limited to things they can ignore, like laws, elections, etc.

                  2. Yes, all those completely atomized Let’s Go Brandon chants which definitely don’t demonstrate to everyone that we are the vast majority.

      3. Being aware of what is going on and NOT RUNNING AWAY WITH EMOTION is very important. Yes, we need to reclaim our country. Not letting it be sucked dry by failed saratrapies playing mind games while we attempt to do so is needed also.

      4. Glowie is a taxonomic classification for arguments I have really seen, in person.

        Black pill is also a taxonomic classification for arguments I have really seen, and made.

        The theory encapsulated with the terms, that the glowie is an agent provaceteur and fed, and the black pill is a false flag, is clearly untrue at times.

        Both arguments, in my opinion, are incorrect positions that conservatives may find themselves holding during the processing of left claims about the status quo. Left claims about current events may be fractally wrong.

        The counter argument to glowie type arguments hold. STFU if you are doing something active, you will need opsec to pull it off. Try to only make plans that can be managed of your own resources. Absolutely never trust ‘new friends’ encouraging you and ‘supplying resources’.

        As a matter of philosophy, I try not to believe the black pill. Fundamentally, I have always had the goal of trying to do what I try to do, regardless of it certainly leading to my death. Black Pill is only a special case of ‘the world kills you, and you become a martyr for Christ’. Which is something I should be willing to embrace anyway. Additionally, I get depressed enough that being killed resisting sounds mighty attractive at times. I’m not suicidal, technically, and haven’t been suicidal, technically, because I have fanatic opposition to suicide. I am not fanatic about preserving my own life, because it is clearly not the most important objective, and it is not really an achievable goal. This does mean I have issues with a combination of lack of investment in life, and “it is for a good cause, I swear”.

        So, about any concerns you might have about our philosophical differences. I don’t care. I’m pretty sure that you do not care either about any I might have.

        Neither of us is wrong to be sticking to our own position.

        A lot of this is ‘reasonable men can disagree’, not a situation where truly conclusive proof can be shown one way or another.

        Also, I am a lunatic who tries to prove things that are completely and utterly subjective.

  21. There’s maybe a situation with the Ukraine.

    I don’t understand it.

    I have made an opinion known before about Russian customs for running security organizations, and suspicions about the implications where true peace is concerned.

    I’ve set that aside. I strongly believe that, in the words of Buckman, first we must get our own house in order.

    I would not regret any war that was the other party’s failure to be willing to deliver on peace.

    I also am suspicious about foreign disinformation campaigns.

    However, the direct actions of the American leadership have shown that we cannot really trust them. Given the stuff that they have pulled on Americans, it is plausible that they are also doing intolerable things to foreigners.

    Theoretically, and morally, we should get our own house in order first before worrying about inevitable future wars. Practically, we can not wage a decisive war against the Russians when internal sabotage could at any moment ruin the war effort.

  22. I think the 2020 election will be seen by historians as similar to the Battle of Coral Sea. On May 9th the Japanese had very good reasons to say that they’d won. In fact, Yamamoto ordered Inoue back into the area to finish off the Americans. Sure, they had lost a lot of aircraft and pilots, and two of their fleet carriers had to back into the yards for a few months, but they had sunk 1/4 of the US Navy’s fleet carriers in the Pacific and severely damaged (possibly sunk) another 1/4.

    Meanwhile, the code breakers in Honolulu were reading the IJN’s mail and 10,000 miles away the USS Essex, USS Intrepid, and USS Lexington were rising in the drydocks…

    1. Two years after that we were building an entire Army, Navy and Air Force every month. We had to cut waaay back on ammunition production because we were running out of places to store it. We were still shooting ammunition left over from WW2 in Desert Storm.

      Once we got going, we out-produced the whole rest of the world by about 10 times.

      1. War has always been ‘gets there firstest with the mostest’. It’s why outside of c3 tech advantages are just as easy to overpower with quantity.

      2. We built up our entire ground and air forces from practically nothing, and also provided enough gear to equip half of the Commonwealth and half of the Soviet forces, respectively. Plus we also kitted out the Free French forces (which, while not as strong as the other nations, did hold a chunk of the front line in Western Europe).

        Our navy mushroomed from “slightly weaker than Great Britain, as dictated by the naval treaties” to “big enough to make even the British throw up their hands in resignation and quit the naval arms race”.

      3. And, contrary to Democrat myth, it was despite all of FDR’s policies, not because of it.

        Another Democrat myth is that WWII ended the Great Depression. It’s obviously BS in the sense they mean it, you don’t grow an economy by spending money building things that will get blown up destroying wealth somewhere else. But it is true in the sense that WWII forced FDR to abandon the New Deal shenanigans that were keeping the depression going.

        1. Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Built the Arsenal of Democracy That Won World War II by Arthur Herman is a good book.

        2. Also, finding oneself virtually the only large industrial economy left standing (as the U.S. was after WW2) is certain to produce a certain amount of economic boom as everyone has to buy their durable goods from the survivor. That wasn’t a net improvement of global conditions, but a purely local one, which persisted longer than one might expect as so many of the countries which would have normally recovered quickly found themselves under Communist influence (When I toured the former East Germany shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the recovery from WW2 was still not complete).

          1. I just though of something else–
            yeah, we were the mostly intact industry left standing, but the American idea of making money is focused on the idea of making more stuff, faster, so that more people buy it and *keep* buying it– that means you have to get a good production population, sustain your own supplies, and the customer needs to get enough utility out of it to buy it again.

            Which is a sustainable model for growth, which explains why we *stayed* big, vs the places that yeah had stuff and sold it, but that was their seed corn.

            1. The Henry Ford idea, which was the idea of other business execs before him, was that your workers should be able to afford your products, and thus be potential customers and advertisers/salesmen of your product. Same thing with loyal customers – you want more than one sale from one person.

          1. I don’t think it was the only thing, there was a reason he had to choose Truman, but it certainly helped.

        1. I saw that in M*A*S*H:

          Hawkeye sets a small green can on the stove.

          BJ: [picks up the can] “August 1944? Hawk, these beans are leftovers from the last war!”

          Hawkeye: “Yeah, they’re has-beans.”

  23. Technically 1/5, since Saratoga was also in the Pacific. She was at Bremerton Yards, up in Washington, at the time, finishing her repairs from the submarine torpedo that hit her. She quite literally just barely missed the Battle of Midway, having scrounged up probably every last free carrier aircraft in the Pacific Ocean at the time.

    Though the Japanese never quite seemed to figure out just how many USN carriers there were. IIRC, they did believe that they’d sunk Yorktown at Coral Sea. And they reported sinking another 3 or 4 Yorktown-class carriers (despite only launching two strikes, each at a single carrier…) in their after-action report about what happened at Midway. We only ever built three of that class in total…

    1. They thought they sunk two US carriers at Midway, but it was the Yorktown both times. She was finally sunk by a Japanese submarine while being towed back to Pearl Harbor.

    2. Pilots have a routine tendency to over count their kills, both air-to-ground and air-to-air. The debriefing scene in “Battle of Britain” is the classic example.

      1. This, by the way, is not because pilots tend to exagerate their own prowess (altho they do) but because the same incident, seen from different angles and altitudes, can appear quite different, requiring skilled debriefs to sort out the after action reporting.

    2. I’m not sure what my purchasing budget will look like, I’m prioritizing escapism, but I will put it on a list.

  26. > they in fact failed in very many, or almost every way, because of their choices in methods and goals.
    —
    “Reality must concede to the directives of the State.”

    So far, it seems to be the ultimate failing of every totalitarian state.

  27. In my mind, the point at which feminism went off the rails was with the 1977 Francine Hughes domestic abuse/murder case. Hughes was the battered housewife who, after 13 years of abuse, killed her husband in his sleep by dousing his bed with gasoline and setting him on fire. She then turned herself in to police, was tried for murder, and was not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. In 1980, the incident was turned into a book called The Burning Bed by Faith McNulty, and in 1983 it was adapted as a TV-movie (starring Farrah Fawcett) by the same name.

    The problem is not the killing itself, which I tend to agree was justified. Nor do I have a problem with feminists citing it as an example of abuse of power by a male, or with their adoption of Hughes as a mascot. No, my problem is that many feminists celebrated the death of a man who was burned alive in his bed, and said, loudly and often, that this should be the fate of ALL men. By doing so, they outed themselves as being bloodthirsty, rage-driven fanatics, and exposed the amoral nihilism of the feminist movement. It was no longer about justice; it was about hating men and harming them in any way possible. And I wanted nothing to do with that.

  29. Incidentally, I found this part very profound:

    “Well, does it matter how many retards, or how many low functioning autistics there are? Is it really any business of yours? A bureaucracy may say ‘yes’. A bureaucracy that has seized the business of paying for medical expenses will say yes, will have funding shortfalls from the consequences of the seizure, and will try to solve them by finding the unprofitable disabled, and eliminating them.”

    As a Canadian who has worked in the American AND Canadian healthcare systems, I can tell you that this is not a wild theory of Bob’s. This is an observed fact. Not just observed by me, but by lots of professionals whose job it is to notice things like that.

    Apropos, the Prime Minister of Canada recently had this to say:

    https://tnc.news/2022/01/04/clip-resurfaces-of-trudeau-calling-unvaccinated-extremists-misogynists-racists/

    “Yes, we will get out of this pandemic by vaccination. We all know people who are a little bit hesitant. We will continue to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely against vaccination,” said Trudeau. “They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people? Or do we say, hey, most of the Quebecois people – 80% – are vaccinated. We want to come back to things we like doing. It’s not those people who are blocking us.”

    Now, for any Leftists, flopping camels, Chinese bot farmers and particularly for Bonnie McDaniel (who has EARNED having her name listed here individually), for all those people who love to say that The Phantom is a lying liar and of COURSE the Prime Minister would never say anything like that, and Phantom is just lying again… there’s a video of Trudeau saying it. On TV. In an -interview-.

    Helpful tip for the terminally stupid and Leftists generally (but I repeat myself), try replacing the phrase “fiercely against vaccination” with “Jews”. That should make the communication much clearer for you.

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