Once The Mask Drops

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m having a slight problem with all the shock/scare/ horror when people discover how bad leftists are: like G-d to the old Jewish guy praying, I want to answer back “I know, I know…”

Because none of this is any kind news to me, partly because of the place of my birth, my education, and my chosen profession.

From the moment I’ve been aware of politics, I’ve been aware that everything — literally everything — around me — every structure of power, every field I might be interested in, definitely every educational level was taken over by Marxists who didn’t allow dissent.

This was masked for most people by the fact that Marxists still referred to themselves as the underdog, and to whatever institution they had already infiltrated and corrupted as “the man” or the enemy, as though they had to keep quiet about their politics.

That and the fact that when keeping people of a different opinion out, Marxists don’t refer to it as “unacceptable political opinion” but as “being stupid.” Which, when you consider most of history and most of other academic disciplines have been Marxist for nigh on 100 years, might be how many people within the power structure read those who dissent. It’s kind of like wandering into a medieval monastery without knowing Latin and refusing to learn the doctrine. “It’s just stupid.”

Because most intellectual disciplines can no longer even question the fundamentals.

… People are noticing now because the masks are off.

Now, one of the interpretations of this is “they dropped the mask because they knew they won.”

Um… no. “Because they thought they won” might apply, to the extent as they started dropping the mask during the Obama years. When, since they made him into a sort of divine figure, they might reasonably have thought they’d won. Forever, because as cults go, they always think they win forever.

But since their absolute worst mask dropping came after Trump’s surprise-win, I think the mask dropping is the product of shock and more than a little bit of panic.

And now everyone can see it. And now they’ve panicked more, to the extent they’re trying to outlaw production of food, or anything that allows human to live. They’re panicked enough their hatred for all humanity is showing and they’re trying to kill as many of us as we can.

Now, I don’t know what sort of breakage in a human mind can lead humans to hate their own species. But I know hatred when I see it.

And so–

I’m telling you: once you’ve seen and fully accepted what they are. Once you realize the depths they’ll go to to destroy all humans, you cannot fool yourself any longer.

From this, you should understand what we must do: Our goal must be to show people how the masks have fallen and what it means.

At this point those who are still in denial are those who refuse to believe in the depths of evil. Which is why you might sound as a mad person while explaining it.

So, use questions. Like how can they outlaw most fertilizers? Don’t they know what happened in Sri Lanka? And “How do you expect to replace oil, if they won’t let us have hydro electric and nuclear?” and…. You know what to do.

Now go do it. Playing stupid should be easy. They love “explaining” things. Just keep asking questions till they run out of excuses.

Go.

256 thoughts on “Once The Mask Drops”

  2. They dropped the masks because they don’t believe in reality any more. They don’t believe in anything outside of their closed system. They have excluded all dissent from their closed system, therefore dissent does not exist. ‘Reality’ is what they say it is and all the other Leftroids agree with them, so they’re right!
    ———————————
    ‘Progressives’ suppress free speech because they don’t have the means to suppress free thought.

    Yet.

  4. “So, use questions. Like how can they outlaw most fertilizers? Don’t they know what happened in Sri Lanka?”

    The Liberal Party is doing exactly this in Canada. They’re “reducing” the use of fertilizers, for the ecology you know. Also raising the price of fuel, for the same reason. In other words, they are slowly strangling the food, manufacturing and transportation sectors of Canada. They’ve been at it since 2015. Except this year it isn’t slow anymore, they put the pedal to the metal. They panicked.

    We have already had a mass-protest by truckers, and the government response was to invoke the “Emergencies Act” formerly known as the War Measures Act, put down the protest and seize the bank accounts of anyone who contributed money to the protest.

    In Holland the government is pressuring farmers to stop producing and sell their land to the government. Farmers have been shutting down the roads and food distribution infrastructure in response. That same response -will- occur in Canada, there is no question. If the government really does institute a fertilizer ban, then it’ll be on like Donkey Kong.

    Sri Lanka doesn’t have a government right now, the existing one having been run out of town by the populace. That could very easily happen in Holland, and in Canada. All they have to do is keep going the way they’re going, keep making it harder and harder for people to get food and fuel, and it will happen.

    Asking the question “why” I think at this point is pretty much pointless. The answer doesn’t matter. Their motivations and goals are irrelevant, because the consequences of their actions is a threat to the lives of Canadians. You can’t cut off farm production and expect to stay in power, unless you’re prepared to go full Holodomore on your own populace.

    I don’t think they have the balls for it, but I guess we’ll see.

    1. They don’t have balls, they are just far too stupid not to try. Like the Petulant Castro Clone Of Canada, pitching a tantrum and declaring war because “Those Mean Truckers Won’t Do What I Say!” Or the FICUS here, denouncing all dissent ‘in a time of war’ because two other countries are shooting at each other.

      They forget, they can’t go even half Holodomor against 150 million people with 600 million guns.
      ———————————
      Does the Left drive those idiots barking mad, or were they drawn to the Left because they were already batshit crazy?

    2. If they didn’t have the balls for it, they wouldn’t put themselves on a glide path towards it becoming inevitable.

      They’ll try to do it, because once the tipping point comes, continuing down the slippery slope is the path of least resistance.

      1. If they didn’t have the balls for it, they wouldn’t put themselves on a glide path towards it becoming inevitable.

        ????

        That is EXACTLY what you do when you don’t have the balls to actually do a thing.

        Set up the situation so it goes there— but it wasn’t me! Honest!

        1. Which is still doing the thing, and they’re still culpable.

          How they rationalize it to themselves, is their lookout.
          I don’t care about their “pure” motives, only the evil and completely foreseeable effects.
          If they want absolution, they can take it up with St Peter.

          1. Except a lot of folks conflate Cheeping in with not stopping.
            To include all aspects of “didn’t do what I demanded so it’s their fault.”

            1. I get so sick of “they didn’t do what I demanded so the fact that it didn’t work is their fault.”
              (I’m sure everyone can think of a few examples, at least.)
              No, no, there’s no onus on the planner to account for what people might do that isn’t what you want. It WOULD have worked if everyone had participated, so it’s their fault it failed. And so we just need to do it again but force them even harder.
              (My middle fingers. It turns out I have a matched set too!)

              1. “Obviously, “those people,” are even more tragically ignorant and miseducated than we realized. We must simply persevere, no matter the(ir) suffering, in order to reach the glorious society we know is the natural end product of our work. The suffering is merely the messy and painful pangs wich accompany any birth. We will triumph, and someday they will thank us for it.”
                How many truly believe this and how many just go aIong I don’t know. But that mix of self-righteousness and fanaticism is one heck of a drug.

                    1. I denounce them as running-dog kulak capitalist lackey hoarders. Their speeches have been confiscated for the collective.

              2. ANY plan that would work “if only everybody” isn’t a plan and is not going to work. PERIOD.
                Never in the history of humanity, possibly back to when we were a group of ten apes with aching brains did “everybody just.” EVER.

      2. At this point I am not sure it is about ‘balls’ but it is more about delusion. “They” think it’s all going to just all work out fine and after a few minor bumps it will automatically correct to paradise. Sure, there may be a few causalities or some colleterial damage but it won’t be any big deal. I’ve know it to be called magical thinking. They are insane.

        The current Marxist wack-a-doodle is totally disconnected from reality and so they press forward with what they ‘know’ to be the correct plan and are sure all wrong-think will just fade away because… well, because! The sad and bad part is that crazy people are dangerous to others and themselves.

        I am beginning to think the current leadership (or whatever they are) will get to experience a Romania Christmas and it will be sponsored by their own people and on a local basis. That will be likely followed by the remainder of the crazy go-along types trying to put the fires out in their burning Rome and it ain’t gonna be pleasant, easy or effective. In the meantime, sane and grounded folks (mostly isolated and/or distant from the crazy) will be waiting out the mess and doing the minor house cleaning necessary within their own areas. Just my guess and even if I stayed at a Holiday Inn, I’ve never won the lottery.

        1. Going by Sri Lanka and Holland, I agree with you. They certainly seem surprised that the farmers and citizenry didn’t just follow the new policy like they were supposed to.

          I mean, there’s video of Dutch cops firing their sidearms at tractors that didn’t stop when told to stop. Tractor guy gave them the finger and damn well drove right on past, and they, incensed that he didn’t obey, fired a couple of rounds after him. They’re going to try to pretend that they fired in self defense, and no doubt they’ll get away with that, but the video makes it abundantly clear he was A) far away from them, B) clearly not trying to run them down and C) they didn’t fire until he was past them. How DARE you disobey!

          But politicians and government functionaries don’t understand that there’s a limit to how far people will go. Pass all kinds of oppressive Woke laws and expensive taxes, gun control, they go along. Start screwing with the farm? Nope. That’s serious. You don’t screw with that.

          Shiny Pony is on some kind of photo-op tour of Canada, he’s been jetting all over the place for photo sessions with “regular Canadians” and wearing checkered shirts, cowboy hats, that kind of thing. Clearly the people arranging it all think that their fuel tax/fertilizer ban will go just like the lockdowns did, and everybody will Obey.

          But you know, they still might go along. It might take their grandma starving to death in an unheated nursing home to get them moving.

          1. That depends on Grandma. She might just take up arms and say, “Fuck it, I’ve had enough of this shit!”
            ———————————
            When police arrest violent criminals to protect innocent people, they are Jackbooted Fascist Stormtroopers.

            When police arrest innocent people at the behest of corrupt politicians, they are National Heroes.

              1. And old people get that way by surviving absolutely everything that comes their way. How does the old saying go? Oh, yes.

                “Old age and treachery beat youth and exuberance. Every time.”

                  2. Yep. “Stop that or we’ll throw you in jail for life!”
                    “What,” (releasing slide) “a year and a half? BFD.”

                    4. I don’t know. I think that only comes after “falls apart.”
                      See today’s post. I think most of what’s holding them in power right now is that people CAN’T BELIEVE what they’re seeing.
                      And most don’t know how corrupt those organizations are.

                    5. You know that, I know that. The drive thrus from PJ Media etc. may not be quite as aware.

                    7. Yabbut then you’d have to trust the government, which has just demonstrated that it can’t be trusted. Maybe we could trust some Red State governments today, but what about tomorrow?

                      That’s why accreditation and licensing were left to the ‘professional associations’ in the first place — to prevent the government from controlling law, medicine and education. That sure worked out great, didn’t it? </sarc>
                      ———————————
                      The one thing we need more of from the government is LESS!!

        2. It’s magic thinking. They genuinely believe that if legislation is passed that requires something, companies will figure out how to do it. Because otherwise those companies won’t be able to carry out their business.

          1. Because in their experience that works. See how mask and vax mandates were implemented. They didn’t try and force individuals to do anything directly; they “deputized” private businesses.

            1. Even the deputizing is wearing off. I’ve now had 4 visits with the big gorilla medical outfit in the past few months. Through December last year, the not-Vax push was on, to the point where I dreaded having The Same Damned Argument with my gateway doc. He is/was on the ChiCom Virus Response Board and had been pushing the not-Vax since it/they got the EUA. No longer.

              Into December last year, when I got advice from another doctor to avoid the clotshot, said gateway doc really wanted to know who had the nerve to do so. (Word was going around that bucking the narrative was grounds for blacklisting.)

              This June, I had brushed up on the VAERS results, expecting yet another session of the Same Damned Argument. Didn’t need to. It. Never. Came. Up. (With the various revelations, I wonder if he figured his life expectancy would be better if he just shut up.)

              Oh yeah, Wayne Allyn Root did a compilation of the not-Vax effects and related issues. Let’s just say he’s not a fan.

              https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/wayne-root-list-studies-government-data-around-world-showing-covid-vaccine-dangerous-deadly-worst-heath-care-disaster-world-history/

              1. Oh yeah, the visits with other doctors (one ER, one followup for the previous and my annual cardio checkup), no comments on the not-Vax. They never even asked if I had the clot-shot.

              2. I wonder when TPTB will pivot to, “It’s Trump’s fault! It was his vaccine and we tired to warn you, we really did! But evil Big Pharma deceived us! It’s not out fault! It’s theirs! And Trump’s. Blame Trump!” And so forth. Is it nonsense, yes. Would it be a logical option? For them, yes.

                1. Except, unlike the TPTB you refer to, Trump only facilitated the OPTION of the vaccine. He left the choice to assume the risk of its use it to others … and some, far from warning us, mandated the vaccine – denying people that choice..

                  That greatly diminishes their ability to blame Trump, though they may try,

                  1. And you imagine this will stop them from blaming him, and stop the MSM from agreeing with them…why?

                    1. Yes, they can blame, and the media will carry their water.

                      And we can remind their neighbors of everything they were wrong about … and yet they tried to jam the jab down everyone’s throat, adding to our woes in obtaining services from basic supply to health care.

                      They can believe the media, or their own lying eyes … and for more and more, the eyes have it!

                2. I don’t think they can dis Big Pharma, most of their advertising revenue comes from pimping quack remedies to the idiots watching MSM.

                  Plus there’s too much open evidence of them suppressing evidence of the cause, better treatments, going after people that questioned “The Science”. Too many people have lost loved ones to bad hospital treatment and enforced “vax” shots.

                  On a side note, my company dropped the “vax” requirement about the same time the SC killed abortion as a federal right. “My Body, My Choice” indeed. Plus why tempt lawfare when most of the staff can work from home?

                  1. What I figure too. Just before paper ballots go out.

                    It is something that I’ve believed is going to happen. Never have stated it because I didn’t want to be the one to give them any ideas (stupid, I know). Not that they need any help. I’m sure they can come up with more reversals for “not our fault”, than I can even think of.

                    Killing birds of prey, not good. Now it is just a cost of energy we want.
                    Border wall bad and racists. Wait! We’re losing Arizona! Reeeee. Build the Wall!
                    We are responsible for the vaccine. Wait? Clotshot? Not safe? It is Trump’s and greedy pharmaceutical companies fault.
                    Just wait. When they screw up this fall (please God) and underestimate the amount of vote fraud required, plus really get caught at it (double prayer), mail in voting will go from “good” to “unconstitutionally racist”, and will scream “must have valid id!” REEEEEEEE.
                    Can’t think of one off the top, but know there is a #5, and more.

                    Yes. My head hurts too. From all the 180 whiplash.

                    1. The German Greens. “Oh, leveling the last semi-wild forest preserve in Germany in order to build windmills is fine! Who needs nature when you are saving the planet?” Arschlocher.

          2. Junior is on the right track. It is Religious thinking, in particular it is eschatological and apocalyptic thinking. They’re trying to restore their version of Eden by stopping that Nasty white male science. One of their prophetesses Rachel Carson told them what to do She TOLD THEM SO!!! Another prophetess Margaret Sanger told them what they needed to do to make sure that undesirables don’t overrun and fill the earth. Their chief and Greatest Prophet Marx gave them a holy scripture that told them that governments would slowly kind of just fade away. However they noticed that hasn’t yet worked out they way they expected it to so they started following Ibram X Kendi’s and others reinterpretation of the scriptures. But even that doesn’t seem work for them. So they do what any crazed religious cultist whose End time won’t come does. They reach out and try to make it happen, they immanentize the eschaton. And its going to work just as well as it has for every insane cultist who has tried to make their special end time happen. Only question is how many people get hurt? a couple thousand, a few millions, Bullions. They don’t care, they don’t think it is going to hurt them. And they’ll keep thinking that right up to the instant the rope snaps their neck, or the bullets pierce their body or they get trapped inside their burning homes and cities. Almost makes you feel bad for them, but then I think of the damage they’ve caused and will cause, and realize the Author is far too merciful sometimes…

            1. Nothing about the right track. They’ve flat out stated as much in the past. And they’ll point to what they see as examples of such things that have happened in the past. The fuel standards are one of the things that they point to. And we see such thinking frequently here in California. One of the more minor examples was a ballot proposition not all that long ago to require poultry, beef, and pork ranchers to maintain certain minimal living conditions for their livestock. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to sell in California. Enough poultry and cattle ranchers went along with the new standards to meet California’s demand for their product.

              Pork, on the other hand…

              Two other examples are the roadmaps that the state government has laid out that require the state get certain percentages of its energy from renewable sources, and that a certain percentage of new vehicles sold within the state are electric, both ending with 100% by certain years not too far distant in the future. The thinking is that businesses won’t want to miss out on California’s market, so they’ll find ways to provide the needed goods.

              Magic thinking.

              1. Pork, on the other hand…

                –
                Still having problems getting bacon?

                certain percentage of new vehicles sold within the state are electric, both ending with 100% by certain years not too far distant in the future. The thinking is that businesses won’t want to miss out on California’s market, so they’ll find ways to provide the needed goods

                –
                How is that working out? Charge lines getting shorter?

                Magic thinking.

                –
                On steroids.

                1. Bacon still seems to be in stock. I’m not sure of the reason. It might very well be because fewer people can afford it these days due to the inflation. Or it’s possible that the effects of the rules changes haven’t reached the markets yet.

                  As for the electrics, I think we’re still a few years off before the first year on the roadmap is reached. Same with the renewables requirement.

                  1. Right now the magic date appears to be 2035 for EV mandates. The nuclear power plants in blue areas are all being turned off in the next couple of years if they aren’t already. Pretty sure their ‘renewables’ won’t support 2X our current grid demand to keep the EVs charges. Magic!

                    2. The Reader notes that this is a place where your ‘mileage’ may vary wildly. Assumptions about EV load on generating capacity and grid distribution depend greatly on the time of day charging occurs and what other demands may be present at that time. The Reader has seen estimates up to 5X our current capacity. A factor of 2 is a sure thing – not that the greenies have any intention of providing that much additional electricity.

                  2. more beef, but pork (and chicken) as well a bit, but Farmers are looking at not having the feed needed come winter (either less available or not having the money for inflated prices), and are thinning herds, so prices haven’t jumped as high as they could be. Lcally it has come down a few dollars a pound for prime cuts, and burger is the $4+ Kung Flu jump range, but Eggs are fricken nuts. At $3.29/doz, Menards has the best price locally for Large Grade A! I think Kwik Trip has Mediums the lowest.

                    1. Oregon. Private hobby farmer. We paid around $4.45/# hanging weight for our 1/4 beef July 22. About $4.75/#, again hanging weight, for 1/2 a pork last fall/winter, 2021 (have 2-ish#’s, two packages, of pepper bacon left). Note, the pork is $1 higher from 2020. Supposedly the pork is about the same (overall) that we’d pay commercially per pound, not to mention we get a lot of cuts we do not normally buy. The beef we’ve been told is a lot less expensive per pound over all, but we get (mostly) the cuts we’d buy anyway, if not in the portions. IDK if that is true or not, with hanging weight VS net weight commercially, for what we normally buy. I’ll have to take the hobby farmer’s and those who do know, word for it. But $/pound on the pork, for what we’d normally buy, Ribs or Pepper Bacon, private VS commercial is way less expensive. Beef, for most cuts we’d buy, definitely less expensive. Hobby farmer has stated that feed costs have over doubled over the last two years. Note, commercially the local (~1 mile away) butcher has been out of Pepper Bacon, plus a few other items, late summer/early fall 2021. Couple of reasons not entirely related directly to meat supply chains (a dead commercial refrigerator, and part supply chains, was part of the problem).

              2. Hmm maybe I was not clear. It is “magical” thinking. But is a very specific kind of magical thinking that shows up in humankind from time to time. Jonestown, Heavens Gate, Branch Davidian, The Millerites, lots of little cults at the end of the first millenium AD, many heretical parts of the early Christian Church and that’s just a sampling in the Western/Christian predominated cultures. You can’t argue with them, the hearer is NOT using a wholly rational process but is following articles of “faith” to reach a desired eschatological end. They do not realize (or perhaps do not care) that their premises can not be falsified or tested. Sometimes after repeated failure they’ll give up or morph into a less virulent form (e.g. the Millerites). Most times they push and push until they end in some violent fashion of either self immolation or confrontation with some other force. You don’t want to be around when our Brahmandarins reach that point, the tools they may have access to are far more lethal than grape koolaid. Something needs to stop them before they get to that point as they are currently building themselves up into that frustrated destructive frenzy.

                1. What I’d like to know is where 2035 comes from. I first started noticing it in writers. It was 2035 and everyone was living in big cities, and there were no borders, and we were not using fossil fuels, and and and.
                  WHY 2035? Is this some obscure leftist work I failed to hear of?

                  1. Well, 2035 was in one of the Back to the Future movies (third, maybe?). It’s also the name of a particular short film that says its about:

                    “6 months after an outbreak, due to vaccine trials that were infecting humans rather than building their immune systems. Prior to “the outbreak”, the government would use controlled viruses to take out foreign leaders that posed a threat. After successfully practicing this for more than 40 years, it finally got out of their hands.”

                    So… not so much leftist, that one, I think. Probably not related to the Seattle thing in 2016 (planning and urban development, that one). My guess is its just far enough out that if things go just right, and they make they proper sacrifices to Moloch, then the rainbow farting unicorns will arrive and all the bad people will realize their badness and utopia will commence. With them at the top, of course.

                    Yeah. Probably one of those not too bright ideas that gets passed around in social media like a digital corona virus for people that don’t wash their digital hands and touch their digital faces a lot.

                  2. Herr Fuhrer Newsome signed an executive order outlawing infernal combustion engines after 2035. Thus, Kalifornia will be all-electric vehicles starting in 2035. By magic rainbows and unicorn farts.
                    ———————————
                    The government can mandate stupidity, but they can’t make it not be stupid.

                  3. “2035” is a round number about 15 years from now, close enough to make it sound like a deadline, but far enough away that no politicians in office now will still be in office then. Also far enough away that most people will think they don’t have to change their behavior right now, even though the bureaucrats will be surreptitiously casting all the regulations in concrete as soon as possible.

                    2. Yeah, he has a Twitch stream that gets a bunch of viewers. I rarely am available when he’s on live, but it’s pretty funny. Especially when various subscribers break him by gifting a ton of subscriptions on him at the beginning of a stream.

            2. Sometimes I wonder if a demon comes up and taps Rachel Carson on the shoulder when a million more babies in Africa have died of malaria. “Time to go down a level, Rach,” the demon says with a grin. “Pretty soon you’ll be hanging with Mao and Stalin and Hitler, and won’t that be fun?”

              1. They banned DDT to save the birds because killing birds is bad but now the birds are being killed by windmills so killing birds is good. I can’t keep up.

                1. Right DDT was allegedly making the egg shells of birds of prey, especially Osprey and Bald Eagles, thinner. So thin that with their very sharp talons they would step on and break the shells. Also the smaller insectivore birds were becoming rarer allegedly due to lake of food source (DDT was killing the mosquitos and other nuisance insects). The Osprey and the Eagles came back, though they started coming back well before DDT had fully flushed out of the food chain and the Fish they ate, so likely that wasn’t it. DDT is long gone and hasn’t been used since fpr general fogging since I was a kid in Grammar school , so the excuse for the small insectivores was gone almost instantly. Problem there is that the growth of urban and suburban areas took away some of the habitats of the swifts and purple martins and similar. At least in the exurbs some have come back with people setting up nesting boxes. And cliff swallows seem to like the artificial canyons of cities although there they have to duck the Peregrines, who normally find a nice plump over fed pigeon an easier lunch anyhow.

                  1. :calibration rant:

                    You cannot measure egg shells that way.

                    They basically were measuring sponges with a caliper.

                    That CANNOT WORK.

                    #end rant.

                    1. Surprised the environmental types even tried to measure it. They might be accused of actual science. Although failing to have a valid process to get the data correct is right on brand for many environmentalist types. It’s the story not the data that matters to them.

                2. If people could keep up, they might be in the right some of the time. They can’t have that.

              2. If Dante Aligheri’s Inferno is to be believed the 9th level of hell is reserved for the traitors and treacherous. It is an icy plain divided into 4 rings with the traitors embedded forever in the ice. I suspect Ms Carson would be placed in the second ring of traitors to their state or community (that being humanity). She knew that even if her theory was true stopping the use of DDT would (maybe) save birds at the cost of millions in Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and Asia. Her push for DDT bans without respect to need or reason marks her among the traitors.

          4. > “It’s magic thinking. They genuinely believe that if legislation is passed that requires something, companies will figure out how to do it. Because otherwise those companies won’t be able to carry out their business.”

            Floyd Ferris: “Oh, you’ll think of something!”

        3. And it’s only “old people” who wrong think, which is why some chick on the other side of SP kept calling me old when she is…. 3 years younger. Yeah.

    3. Honestly, I think our current bi-coastal Ruling Class does want to go full Holodomor on Flyover America. They want it so badly, I think they can taste it, the hate us that much.
      The stupid thing, is that they seem to think that once they unleash the Holodomor on us, that the horrors of it will never touch them. And that, to me, is the mind-boggling part. They can unleash hell on us … but it will never, never adversely affect them.

      1. Where do they think food comes from? (Don’t answer that, I know it “grocery stores”.) Holodomer over flyover areas, be it middle states, or middle of each state, well farming/ranch areas anyway? It is their liberal cities that are going to suffer and starve. The Farmers and Ranchers HAVE Food. Financially there will be some problems. They will be able to sell beyond what they need. But most do walk a thin line.

        TPTB sure are not thinking, with either the brain that comes standard in their head, or the one they sit on. I guess brain eating zombies are real because by all appearances theirs have been eaten.

        1. These days, food comes from DoorDash and Uber Eats. They don’t even have to get off their asses and go shopping.
          ———————————
          Not everybody should go to college. Some folks, you send ’em to college and you just wind up with an educated idiot.

      2. Those farmers all are on the hook to deliver their goods to large agricultural concerns.

        That more than a few “examples to be made” would break those contracts in a time of unrest is unthinkable!
        (To some. Only the connected get to violate the law, after all. The more acute note the problems with collective action, think we will be well past harvest before shortages begin to bite, and note the USDA has been discouraging local storage and processing of crops since about 1930.)

        1. And, that fact – that the harvest will be trucked to those processing facilities – very efficiently and quickly – and, only then will the farmers get the boom lowered on them.
          AFTER the food has left the USA for China and other countries that The Left wants to curry favor with.
          At that point, the administration will – SUDDENLY – discover that the seed companies have shortages of stock, and will not be able to supply non-compliant farms. The farmers will be forced into contracts that PERMIT them to farm, this time as employees, not owners. They will discover that they no longer own their farms, and can be kicked off by immigrants who will “do the jobs that Americans just won’t do”. Many of them will be Chinese imports (Oh, the surprise!).
          Over the course of a few years, we will look around and note that the only people who are in charge are just such immigrants.
          For Americans, too bad, so sad.
          The only ones that will still be farming will be in undesirable locations – hills, swampland, the boonies. Where all good rednecks come from.

      3. This is true too. For those who took the blue pill, flyover America (and everything outside Toronto/Ottawa/Vancouver/Montreal) is populated by people who deserve to die. Even stupid little SF fandom has seen instances where people come right out and say that. Propaganda really, really works.

        Their big problem lately is how few took the blue pill. There’s just not very many of them. They do command the high places of the government and education institutions, but since the last couple of years the number of people who #WalkAway because of -insane shit- like banning fertilizer has accelerated.

        Propaganda only works when most people don’t know its propaganda. When they figure that out, it backfires hard. See Holland and Sri Lanka.

        1. “Consequences are something that happen to Other People.”

          When writing that novel of overthrowing the Evil Empire, remember that a large part of winning a guerilla war is ensuring the enemy feels the sh!t end of the above-quoted stick.

    4. The question is, do Canadians have the balls to defy these insane mandates? Their track record of passivity is pretty epic….

    5. The why is for the handful of normal decent people who cannot see.

      They’re still of the left, but they do not hate humanity. They want to be a little bit pregnant, but never give birth to the demon thing they’re gestating.

      2. Lately I’m becoming more and more willing to let those ones go in the fire along with the perpetrators. Stupidity and wishful thinking is no excuse for supporting genocide.

        1. You could have left off “for supporting genocide”. Neither stupidity nor wishful thinking is an excuse for anything, even though the first is unavoidable (ignorance is curable with effort; stupidity is not), and the second is usually simple laziness. Reality gives neither “do-overs” nor free passes.

          1. I could have, but I’m feeling salty today and I wanted to sharpen the point up nice and keen.

            You know, a dog is not smart enough to figure out the latch on his kennel. So dogs get a pass on stuff like that, because they’re dogs. Monkeys can do it, but not dogs. They have their limits, right?

            These are HUMANS pretending to be stuck in a dog kennel. “But I can’t understaaaaaannnd!” That’s about the level of stupidity they’re exhibiting right now. No f-ing free pass for you, boys.

            1. Understand my attempt to convert them is not to save them (though some are just young, not intentionally stupid. We all were there once) it’s an attempt to make this easier. The more on our side, the better.

  5. I am particularly skilled at creative incompetence. Both left and right hand models.

    I completely agree with the assessment that they’re panicked, and running scared because they let us have it with both barrels in 2020 and we’ve just gotten stronger, louder, more determined to expose their crimes and restore the Republic. They don’t know how to do anything, so they don’t know how to stop, regroup, and change course. They’ve just done what they’ve been told to do their whole lives.

    My new IT fellow (who looks a bit like a baldish Gimli) was so polite yesterday–he wore a mask when he came to fix my work monitor. He was also kind enough to remove it when I asked him to. When he removed it, he mentioned that he’d had three shots….

    It’s guys like him (and the elderly) that break my heart–genuinely good people trying to make it in the world, doing what he’s told, and it leaves him no defense or space to run when things go really south.

    1. > “I am particularly skilled at creative incompetence. Both left and right hand models.”

      Wait, what are these models?

      2. Not that you were apologizing. It’s not a neutral thing, and the retailers have miscalculated because they think they can force us again into another undesired behavior.

  6. It shouldn’t be a surprise what’s beneath the mask. Marxism has always been pretty open about the fact that “the dictatorship of the proletariate the ninety-nine percent BIPOC women” will require killing massive amounts of people who aren’t in the favored class. However, I think most people in the Christian West at least are pretty decent and can’t imagine that they really mean it. In so many ways, these guys seem just like people with nutty beliefs. Can you imagine, for example, the late Eric Flint actually killing millions of people?

    I can’t, just like I can’t imagine most of the Leftists I know going for it. But the philosophy requires it, and the leaders have never forgotten.

    1. Reminds me of a case here a few years ago. A jury couldn’t come to a verdict about a guy who raped a baby because one of the jurors just couldn’t bring herself to believe that anyone would do that.

      1. Uhh. Wow. :blinks:

        It’s not that I can’t believe anyone would do that… I’m just bewildered about exactly how they could do that. It sounds like an anatomical impossibility.

        And please, for the love of bacon, don’t explain! Anyone! I don’t want to know.

      2. “…one of the jurors just couldn’t bring herself to believe that anyone would do that.”

        Not Guilty, by Reason of Stupidity.

        Hers.

        1. Almost certainly a hung jury (“couldn’t come to a verdict”), and the perp got a new trial with rational adults on the jury.

      3. Don’t we all know some like this? The ones who just refuse to accept what’s staring them in the face, even -after- it bites them. Sometimes they have to get bit three or four times for the lesson to finally penetrate their haze of denial, wishful thinking and rose-coloured glasses.

        That’s okay. I brought popcorn.

    2. “However, I think most people in the Christian West at least are pretty decent and can’t imagine that they really mean it.”

      Which is why the Jews didn’t fight being put on the trains in WWII. They thought they were just being stolen from and moved again. They couldn’t contemplate what was really going to happen.

      I have something similar in my FMA WIP: [Order 3066 orders the extermination of the Ishvalan people in Fullmetal Alchemist]

      But it hadn’t spared his wife and children, back in Kanda. He’d thought they would be safer if he, an AWOL soldier, didn’t try to contact them. After all, her brothers were there, and his brothers were there, and they could just wait out this Order 3066, which was just another one of those things that Ishvalans had to put up with since being annexed to Amestris. No one had comprehended exactly what it had really meant …

  7. Now, I don’t know what sort of breakage in a human mind can lead humans to hate their own species.

    It’s simple IMO.

    They are the only humans on Earth in their minds.

    The rest of us are sub-humans.

    Sub-humans that must obey them or die.

    Of course, they are not smart enough to realize that their actions endanger themselves.

    If their actions endangered sub-humans, then that’s OK as sub-humans don’t really matter.

    1. There are quite a few cultures around the world that refer to themselves as “the people” and everyone else as something other than people.

      1. Nod.

        Tribal Thinking. “Our Tribe Is The Only True Humans. Everybody else is Other. You only treat the Other like you treat True Humans when the Other is Very Dangerous.”

        1. Then we had better make it very fucking clear that we are deadly dangerous. Or get it through our thick skulls that progtards/marxists/woketards are NOT humans like the rest of us. Or maybe both.

        2. I wonder which Tribe(s) is/are currently in power and encouraging such actions???

          Drawing a blank here, I guess it will be a mystery to all us sub-humans that can’t do statistical analysis and historical research… /s

            1. Hey, that’s an insult to lizards! We have fence lizards all over the place; they’re cool! If we had libtards instead of lizards that would require a call to the exterminators. 🙂

                3. I could even see myself getting along with Lizardfolk, from the legacy D&D lore. Pragmatic to an unsettling degree, sure, and not great at the whole ‘understanding the emotional responses of warm-blooded folk’ thing without practice and a few well-thought out arguments. “I’m not going to carve up the corpse of my departed party member for dinner because warmbloods don’t like that and might attack me in response. Additionally, if we get the body to a cleric and have him resurrected, what is currently a hunk of fresh meat could become a useful warrior and ally again.”

                  But overall, they’re not bad guys. Just denizens of a very different culture. If you learn how to make arguments they’ll understand – “That behavior isn’t going to be useful in the future because X and Y,” or “If you do Z now, it’ll help you get A, B, and C later.” – you should be fine.

    2. They’ve convinced themselves that half the country are literal Nazis. Not merely wrong, but utterly evil. And of course, they never ask themselves why they’re still alive and free if that’s the case.

      1. Mmmm..Mommy… I used to think that was true.

        “…They’ve convinced themselves that half the country are literal Nazis. Not merely wrong, but utterly evil. ”

        In recent years we have been confronted with literal honest-to-Hitler Nazis. While sometimes the people-hating leftists and their NPCs have made a loud song and dance about it, it has mostly been a stick to beat conservatives with.

        And sometimes, they just do not care. Nazis? Eh, the Narrative told me to root for them, so never mind…

          1. No, they’re not, and they are actual NAZIs, most of them. IMHO NAZI is basically a pattern of behavior, not a political party, and they qualify by their actions. And the difference between “NAZI” and “Communist”, based on their beliefs and actions, is essentially zero.

        3. They’ve called us Nazis so many times the association is stuck in their heads. They don’t exactly believe it, but it’s become ingrained, like a short circuit.

          And of course they can’t see that THEY are the ones following the Nazi play-book page for page.
          ———————————
          You can have a civilized society, or you can have mob rule. You can’t have both.

          1. “They’ve called us Nazis so many times…”

            That is because they cannot quite bring themselves to call us “untermenschen.”

            Not -quite- yet.

    3. There are also those that are at war with reality itself. That my friend is a bottomless well of hate, true despicable hate, that only stops when they themselves die. It is a truly horrible existence.

      I can understand a certain dislike for humanity, in general. Human “nature” can be pretty awful. It takes careful training to turn a base human into something civilized and respectable. My own misanthropy notwithstanding though, civilized humanity has a lot of good points.

      I would quite like to see civilized humanity more often, though. One does not see enough of it in certain places these days.

    2. I came here to post this. To expand, the villainous organization in that book is run by an elite circle who claim that their goal is to produce the perfect man, but the two top villains know that they are actually under the domination of (essentially) demons- spiritual beings who hate all humanity, and the true goal is indeed the death of mankind.

  10. I think that the one thing that took the most effort to really understand is that the Powers That Think They Be hold so much contempt for so much of creation. Not just people, but landscapes, the environment, animals . . . The material is all, or so they pretend*, and it is for them. And if it isn’t what they want it to be, well, it needs to go away, and if that costs tens or hundreds or millions of lives, well that’s just too bad for the dead. It’s not personal. It’s not Snidley Whiplash twirling his mustache, or even Himmler. It’s a systems manager with delusions of perfect knowledge verging on godhead. A widget doesn’t do what it’s “supposed” to do? Eliminate or replace it, or ditch the entire machine [culture/community].

    *I think some really are 100% materialistic. Others I truly believe have reached agreements with Powers that are NOT going to provide what the contracting party thinks they’ll get.

    1. Making Deals with the Devil. Kind of like making deals with Darth Vader (I Have altered the deal, pray I do not alter it further), except you know the Father of Lies will cheat.

  11. My BIL when Mt sister lost an argument with a gasp conservative. “Ignore the facts! Stick to the talking points!”

    These people honestly believe that they are the only true humans. They’ve made no secret of the fact. Like in China, if you are not Han you are not human and have no rights.

    To these things we are at best livestock.

    1. And they shall find to their everlasting horror that these livestock have teeth and claws.
      Everlasting in the sense of until their dying breath so really not so very long at all.

  12. I can only stare in goggle-eyed, slack-jawed wonder at the sheer burning stewpidity currently on display by the dominant political class.
    “Gas prices are too high!” “So let them buy electric vehicles” ranks right up there with “the peasants have no bread” “let them eat cake”…except the latter is apocryphal, the former is not.
    Likewise: “We need poll watchers to make sure the recall votes are counted correctly” “Well, this isn’t really an election”. Gah.
    or “I am a woman. My pronouns are she and her. I am sitting at the table wearing a blue dress.” Forsooth, madam VP, you could rival any two-year old in your mastery of the obvious. Why are you wasting the adult’s time? It is perhaps because there are none left in the building?
    “Mister PM, the farmers and truckers are protesting and won’t be pacified!” “We’re going to have to use harsher methods!” As if that’s ever gone well.
    Well, this is all happening in ostensibly elective democracies, which are behaving in ways reminiscent of senescent hereditary monarchies or communist dictatorships. Do TPTB really think they can ride this tiger? Brazen it out? Postpone the day of reckoning indefinitely with outrageous absurdity piled on desperately transparent lie? Not in my storybook. It never happens that way.

    1. If we were living in a novel, most readers would wall the damn thing half-way through Chapter 1 due to its utter implausibility. The plot, the major characters, even the setting make no sense whatsoever. Most of those in power are not only stupid, they are irrational!
      ———————————
      Those who do not remember the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes. Those who do remember are doomed to watch everybody else repeat them.

  13. It’s interesting that the mask started dropping so obviously once the masks went on.

    And I figured that the “Trump-worshipers” must have been because of the left worshiping Obama, and projecting.

    1. Nobody worships Trump. He was voted in as a F*** You to the establishment. And that action made them drop their masks.

          2. The “God-Emperor Trump” memes were jokes. The “Personality cult/Trump worshippers” were in earnest, but they were projecting, as progressives so often do. And failing to get the joke, as they also often do.

  14. Things will continue as they’re going until suddenly the don’t. Remember the movie “Network”? “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” When a solution is supersaturated it only takes one introduced crystal to suddenly crystallize the entire container. As a society, we’re already supersaturated and more is being added to the solution every day…

  15. they somehow think they’re going to basically ban everything semi-auto, and it can’t possibly be found unconstitutional…

    1. They’re expecting to replace some of the conservative justices and then “fix” the gun control rulings. One of the lefty justices on the court when the Heller decision was passed (I can’t remember whether it was Ginsberg or Kagan) openly stated that she would overturn Heller if given a chance.

      Presumably they think they’ll have a couple of conservative justices (though I don’t know who aside from Thomas) replaced by the time the new law works its way through the appeals process to the USSC. And that would probably be a reasonable assumption, except that the court is surprisingly young these days aside from Thomas. I don’t really anticipate anyone except maybe him (and he clearly enjoys his work these days, so even he might not) stepping down on the conservative side within the next ten years.

      It’s weird, really. When Roe was handed down, the approach on the right was to incrementally chip away, trying to find the legal boundaries of this vague new right. But now that the court has started issuing pro-gun right rulings, the Left’s reaction is to throw a temper tantrum and ram through laws (both federal and state) that are in open defiance of the latest ruling.

      1. One of the lefty justices on the court when the Heller decision was passed (I can’t remember whether it was Ginsberg or Kagan) openly stated that she would overturn Heller if given a chance.

        Probably Breyer; he was a very public piece of shit after Heller.

        1. While I can’t remember which exact one it was, I’m pretty sure that the one I’m thinking about was one of the women. Though I suspect that all four of the lefty justices at the time have said some fairly negative things against Heller. It was a crack in their wall, and it was a significant crack in their wall. And they knew it.

          The moment they have the justices to do so, they’ll overturn it. Perhaps that will happen even before they reinstate Roe v. Wade. They really do hate it that much.

      2. When is the Left not throwing a tantrum? They are ugly losers and uglier winners.

        1. Simple, when they win they try to shove every item of their agenda down our throats because “elections have consequences!”
          When they lose they stonewall and drag their feet over every element of the platform the other side won with because it just isn’t fair!

      3. I don’t think that any conservative justice will step down, but one should note that the creep arrested for trying to assassinate Kavanaugh has said he would have gone after three conservative justices.

        There are strong suspicions in conspiracy-world (with the usual note that conspiracy to admissions is averaging 6 months) that Justice Scalia was killed. Remember how Merrick Garland was going to replace him? That’s how you get Heller overturned.

        OTOH, if they go that route, they would have to deal with a crapton of very pissed off people ready and willing to return the gesture.

        3. The Hodgeson character on Bones, he of the conspiracy theories has been an inspiration. At this date, I fear the writers were too timid in the conspiracies.

          It sounds like TPTB had a “discussion” with the family. IIRC, it was a quick cremation and no autopsy. Pretty sure they sealed the murder theory by denying it. It doesn’t have to be government doing that.

    2. “they somehow think they’re going to basically ban everything semi-auto, and it can’t possibly be found unconstitutional…”

      Draven, looking at the goings on in NY, NJ, and CA, to name a few, they are actually thinking that they don’t care if it’s found unconstitutional. They’ll just pass another law with a few phrases flipped and rely on the “any way for a paycheck” and “folloving orders” contingents of law enforcement / TLAs / the military to enforce it while it’s dragged for years through the courts to see if this one will be seen through… and if another assassin gets luckier, it might not be.

      What they really don’t believe, because it never has, is that anything outside the system can or will be done about it. Like the T-shirt says, “We Will Tread”…. You, Sarah, and anyone else can warn them until you’re blue in the face. They won’t believe it until it happens.

      1. The thing is that in isolated cases it already has. Ruby Ridge, the Koresh compound, the Athens TN armed protest, a host more of small incidents. One might even argue that the January 6 cluster fisk was a spontaneous sign of moral outrage over systemic abuse by the powers that be.
        The day is coming when our home grown nazis will echo the same horrified cry uttered by the Germans during the battle of the Warsaw Ghetto in WWII, “The jews have guns!”

        1. Only this time it will be different. “The Christians have assault rifles!”.

          I think the church needs dust off the older hymnals and crank up “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

          2. Or open Dickson’s “Soldier, Ask Not”; fiction or not, that hymn raises goosebumps, as does the full version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

          1. How the frak did “pub” get in that post?

            I can make my own typos just fine, bless your code.

    4. They also don’t Understand that If the “Ban Semi-Automatic Weapons” how Simple and Easy it is to turn most “Semi-Automatic” Firearms into actual, Selective-Fire Weapons. Sometimes just by Removing a single Part, or usually, Adding three small ones, that can be made by Hand with a Hacksaw and File.
      We shall see what happens in Canuckistan, where Turdoo has Declared that “Semi-Automatic Weapons” must be Turned in to the Government, in a “Buy-Back”. But you can’t “Buy Back” what you never Owned.

  16. They don’t actually think. All the right sort of people in their set believe these things and so, being the right sort of people, they know these things to be true.

    The science is settled and all that.

    More and more things get added to the things that all the right people know to be settled science like masking, “vaccines”, gender fluidity and so on.

    Once they start believing the “science” it’s really difficult to get people to examine the actual data. It’s how you get a grown woman who is educated enough to be a nominee for the supreme court to say, in public, that she doesn’t know what a woman is and not get laughed right out of the hearing room or die of embarrassment as soon as she says it.

    There is no reasoning with them. They didn’t reason themselves into it and they would rather die or, better yet, see millions of others die, than to admit their tribe is a bunch of unthinking criminals.

    1. All that “settled science” garbage is the result of their complete ignorance regarding what science actually is. And they cannot be taught any better.

  17. So pretty much the old ‘Columbo’ method of exposing murderers. That just might work on some of the more naive normies I know.

  18. This, “… what we must do: Our goal must be to show people how the masks have fallen and what it means.” is what I am doing with my books., especially the latest. Problem is, how to get people to take a look at them. Anyway, good post.

    1. Publicity is an icky job, but like most others, if you don’t want to pay somebody else to do it for you, you have to promote yourself.
      Yah, it seems like I don’t believe in it either: My excuse is that I don’t have Story written yet, and my underdeveloped muse keeps telling me, MOAR Research!

    2. So, have you sent your books to the book promo? Have you emailed me a link to my hotmail so I can link your book at insty?
      If not, why not?
      And I speak here as someone who sometimes forgets to promote HER OWN BOOKS.

  19. What they really don’t understand is that the 2020 steal changed the ballgame, just as the Boston massacre and subsequent attempts to clamp down on Americans did.in the 1770s..While I think that, as in the Revolutionary period, most will avoid conflict at any price, we now have a hard core who know that we cannot submit to a shutdown of farmland, eating bugs and lab “meat”, or schools that try to sterilize our children or turn them into Marxist minis…And unlike other countries, we have the weapons to fight tyranny..That’s the motive for trying to replace us…

  20. I’ve said it before:

    Do these people not understand that there aren’t that many positions on the top in socialist situations? Do they honestly believe that their comfortable lifestyles will still be there post collapse? That they will be immune from the programs and privations?

    Not a fan of vandalism, but I did get a giggle when the “Let’s Kill 90% of Homo Sap” Georgia Guidestones had a whoopsie.

    2. Yes, they believe it. All of them. They also firmly believe that they’re important enough to be part of the 500 million.

      I ran into one of those in my 20s, and since then I have a hard time not believing in either conspiracy, evil, or human stupidity.

  21. “How do you expect to replace oil, if they won’t let us have hydro electric and nuclear?”

    Okay, I have a question for anyone who can answer: Does anyone have any information on the actual, NON-subsidized cost of Solar? Because I came across someone claiming to have looked into it and that Soar power is the cheapest of the available power sources now, even without subsidies (which of course makes one ask, “Then why are there still subsidies?”).

    I’m afraid that my current job simply doesn’t leave me with enough spoons to go out and look it up and check background information enough to be sure of the right answer. I hope someone can help out, because I have a really hard time believing it.

    1. No information on the really big systems, but I can point to a small scale example, my 3.6kW system. 12 panels, battery storage, providing 120V at 30A. I did not go for a subsidy.

      Total project cost with ground mount was about $20,000. I contracted the (required) engineering study ($250) and the installation of the 3″ pipes (in 8′ holes, well beyond DIY) for the mount ($8000, of which $5K went to the contractor, the rest materials.) All the rest of the build was my own labor. Prices date to 2018, and I got a good deal on the solar panels ($200 each from a US manufacturer.)

      FWIW, the battery cost was about $1000. Lead-acid golf-cart type batteries. Higher performance batteries are available (twice the storage at 3X the cost).

      1. Interesting. The guy I mentioned above quoted a price of $23 and change per Megawatt-hour. Based on your example, I’m guessing he looked ONLY at panel costs and not any of the rest.

        1. Keep in mind too that some insurance companies have higher home insurance rates if you have solar panels on the roof (the new, semi-flush ones) because it can be harder for fire-fighters to deal with roof/attic fires with those things in place. It seems to vary a bit with location and company, so you’d need to ask about your specific location.

          1. I’ve seen systems small enough to fit on a pumphouse roof. They “work” because of a whole-house generator. I went ground for the size (8 x 12 pumphouse, 10′ x 22′ array). I was not going to size the pumphouse to fit the array. Had to get the local PEs to adjust the canned design to suit real conditions; we have looser soil (pumice and clay) and higher wind (110 mph design) than normal places.

            FWIW, there are emergency cutoffs that will disconnect the arrays with a push of a Big Red Button. It removes a little of the drama of fighting fire on a rooftop. It turns it from incredibly dangerous to merely dangerous, though it would still be a righteous PITA to vent the roof. Still, rooftop solar sells, and it is cheaper than a groundmount. For city installations, not much alternative.

            One of our neighbors put in a rooftop system, and has plans for solar hot water in the future. With our climate (95F+ summers, 0F- winters), I’ll give it a hard pass.

            This week, we’ve had 7 days of 100F plus, with yesterday kicking the sensor to 110F. Watering the garden requires ensuring the water isn’t hot enough to cook the plants.

          2. Looks like Yog-Suggoth WP liked my comment so much it ate it. Sigh.

            Rooftop is a) cheaper than ground, b) less involved, c) the only way if you have a city lot. It’s also a righteous PITA to vent a roof on fire when there’s a layer of tempered glass above the roof that needs to be vented. I’ve had to demolish a panel that broke during transport. Seriously not easy.

            I haven’t bothered to check the code, but there are systems that will disconnect the panels (and inverters if relevant) with a push of the Big Red Button. I have one for the ground-mount system because wildland fires.

            One of our neighbors has a grid-tie system on the roof (lots of trees, it kind of makes sense for that rural property) and is contemplating rooftop solar hot water. I don’t like such because our climate is extreme, above 95-100 in the summer, and below zero in the winter.

    2. Here’s a TED talk that a friend of mine (who is a fan of solar) posted to his Facebook feed. The speaker flat out states that solar and wind will require ridiculous amounts of investment before they’re practical.

        1. I’m inclined to think that’s the case, given what we know right now. I’ll also note that the speaker explicitly says “(pre Biden inflation) trillions of dollars and decades away”, which indicates that while he does believe that EVs and hybrids are the wave of the future, they’re so far into the future that they’re not a realistic fix for now.

          And that’s important, imo, to the argument with the population at large. If I go start talking to someone and say, “Renewables are crap and will never work,” I’ll likely get dismissed out of hand. But if someone who likes them starts talking about how expensive and absurdly far away they are at this time, then a fan of wind and solar is more likely to sit up and pay attention. And while the US may still keep investing money in the research, hopefully we can avoid anymore Solyndra messes.

          And just maybe, over time undue enthusiasm for this mess will die down over time, and we can start to have an honest and genuine conversation about it.

          Or maybe funding for it will dry up when the usual corrupt bureaucrats realize that it just doesn’t have the payout that it used to.

        2. > “And they’ll still never be.”

          Solar might make sense in space or on a planet with little-to-no atmosphere, where you can expect reliable access to sunlight. But generally speaking, not on Earth.

    3. Anybody claiming that solar is the cheapest power is…misinformed. Hydroelectric is cheapest; the dam, turbines and electrical equipment have already been fully amortized, the water is free, and the only remaining cost is maintenance. Nuclear would be next, except that we haven’t built a new nuclear power station in more than 30 years and the legal and regulatory costs of building one now would be much greater than the construction cost. Coal, oil and natural gas are getting more expensive by the day due to government idiocy. They’re even tearing down hydroelectric dams.

      Solar only delivers full power for a few hours on clear sunny days, and none at all during the night. That makes it suitable for supplemental power and home-sized systems, but hopelessly inadequate to supply our modern industrial civilization.

      Which seems to be the point. The ‘Green’ activists hate our modern civilization. People have too much freedom and too many choices they don’t approve of. They want us penned up in human Ant Farms like that ‘Line City’ they present as a utopia.
      ———————————
      There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.

  22. That’s an excellent question. There are a couple of posts right here on AtH just this week where Imaginos182 has actually run some numbers. Without the numbers, and briefly, solar power is too diffuse and spread out to effectively replace more conventional sources of energy, except in limited cases. It has to be collected and concentrated or converted for industrial or commercial use, and the efficiency of the conversion is low compared to other sources. The land area that has to be dedicated for collection has to be taken into account, and the equipment to convert it is not cheap. It’s only available half the day at best, less if there are any clouds around to intercept it, and storing it in form of electricity requires batteries, which are also not cheap. Oh, there is the possibility of conversion of solar energy to fuel, but this is still most efficiently and effectively accomplished by plants, which are in no great hurry to go places and do things and can afford to take their own sweet time about it. By the time all pertinent factors are taken into account, you are correct to be skeptical of this claim.

  23. If you can get them into explaining rhe differrnces between Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky, you can have Stan give ’em an atomic wedgie.

  24. Oh, and while some of us are tempted, we should remember the old wisdom in Proverbs 24:17-18 ESV —

    Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
    and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,
    lest the Lord see it and be displeased,
    and turn away his anger from him.

    1. I mean, watching the Bidet family disintegrate, Russian military disasters in Ukraine, and Chinese banking/real estate bubbles makes us possibly want to cheer and gloat; but there were many innocent people hurt by the villains in all of those, so we’d best be looking to help them than stomp on someone God is already judging. And I’m preaching right at myself here… 😦

        1. If China collapses, multitudes will die anyway, just over there not here. Given that multitudes will die regardless, I’m fine with preferring it be them and not us.

          2. I don’t hate them, and I continue to pray this passes us by without major death. (I don’t need to know how. The AUTHOR can figure out a dodge. i do that in my books all the time, though sometimes the price must be paid. BUT–
            But if the choice is China dies now, or China dies after killing America (there is no future in which China goes on without mass death. Not now.) I’d like them to hurry up and die asap and thank you.

    2. No. I’m quite pleased when he falls. This is not a contest. It’s life or death. It’s them or us. I don’t rejoice because they fell, but because they stop threatening us. Sorry.

        1. I don’t gloat. I’d rather they repented. But you know?
          Actually I’m often shocked at how little need I feel to gloat when one of them dies/is injured. Mostly I feel pity they never saw the light.

          1. Yes. That’s what I mean. OTOH, the “schadenfreude” squadron often shows up and announces that “X has really got the goods on Y and they’re going to go down!” And occasionally I’ve “taken a bite of the apple,” as it were.

            And, of course that never happens. Too many examples to list since 2015. And I wonder how much of that can be attributed to that admonition.

            Anyway, I thank you for all the attention you’ve shown me!!

    1. I seriously dispute the Zelinski as US puppet. That’s nonsense. He might or might not be used by the Junta, but the war started with an act of invasion. And it wasn’t the US or Zelinski invading anyone. That woman needs to THINK.
      Also the war matters nothing, except to the Eastern countries.

    2. Again, I’d like to point out that the whole “Ukraine was invaded because it was wearing a short skirt, I mean wanted to join NATO” is nonsense.
      It’s like the abuser beating his wife because she tried to contact a shelter.

  26. Here is another question to ask them, Sarah …

    How can the “experts” and “leaders” you put so much trust in, ever know YOU well enough to get the answers right for YOU from the top down?

    Ask them – nicely – to defend that as true and logical.

    Then point out this: “Yet you expect your government to be your caretaker in all areas, instead of focused on keeping you free so you can take care of yourselves and your neighbors. That is why things are not working.”

    Explain to them that the caretaker paradigm effectively unplugs most of society’s distributed intellect – the part that is closest to the problem and has to live with the solution and its side effects – from the process of solving problems.

    Our conservative/libertarian worldview is often characterized as selfish and pull-up-your-bootstraps heartless by its opponents, because it refuses to jump to the easy pseudo solution of top-down mandate/subsidy. But the alternative they believe in leads people into a complacency that makes them vulnerable to the error and evil of those they trust (in grand Flounderian fashion).

    And there is nothing stopping them and/or us from helping others outside of the top-down approach, except for their/our own laziness and lack of confidence that leads them/us to outsource that to The Man.

    Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth – I Corinthians 13:6

    1. Especially when those ‘Experts’ and ‘Leaders’ have established a system which not only protects them from consequences but actively rewards them for making disastrously wrong decisions, as well as for their greed, corruption and depravity. In a just world, Fauxi and other CDC and NIH officials would be in jail by now.
      ———————————
      They’re the Experts! They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.

      1. They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.

        And this example you cite, is how we are persuaded to sell ourselves short, and embrace the confession “that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

        And as a result, disconnect the insights of millions, who are far closer to the problems and have skin in the game, from the problem-solving processes of our society.

        1. This. We need to adopt the Matt Gaetz answer when they start cry bullying. Oh, you’re offended. Be offended.
          (Only after that get considerably more annoying can you adopt MY answer: These are my middle fingers. I have a matched set.)

    1. At least on Venus they would have some actual greenhouse effects to study instead of computer models where it might happen in ten years.

      That should make them very happy.

      1. The greenhouse effect is what makes earth habitable instead of an iceball. Yes, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. So is water vapor, and there’s a lot more of that in the atmosphere. A lot more. The chance for earth to have a runaway greenhouse effect like Venus went by about a few hundred million years ago when most of earth’s supply of carbon dioxide was getting locked up in thick layers of limestone and dolomite, taking it out of the atmosphere for good. I’d be happier with a little more geology and lot less paranoia and politics in the climate science.

        1. Little know fact about the climate models: they all (correctly) assume that water vapor is the main driver of the greenhouse effect, BUT they also postulate that increased CO2 will drive up water vapor, thus resulting in a greater increase in the greenhouse effect than would be caused by the CO2 alone. The mechanism for this is … opaque, and the multiplication factor is an arbitrary guess.

          The tl;dr version is that they don’t actually understand how clouds work — does the increased albedo offset the water vapor effect? why do they form in some places and not others? and so forth. When I discovered that about 25 years ago I knew they were just making s*** up.

          1. You would not guess that water vapor is the main driver of the greenhouse effect from all the screaming about carbon dioxide. CO2 counts as a trace gas, and how and why it should have a huge positive feedback and multiplier effect as seems to be assumed is where I say “Finish the proof” and “show me your work”. I haven’t yet seen an accounting that doesn’t wander off into incomprehensible jargon. Unfortunately, the upper atmosphere where all this interaction supposedly takes place is hard to get to. Postulates and hypotheses are WAGs until you have measurements, and a model is not repeat not a measurement.

    2. How can the heat on Venus be caused by ‘greenhouse effect’ when no sunlight gets within 10 miles of the ground? And yet the temperature increases in those lower levels where no solar energy ever reaches.

      Venus is also extremely geologically active. The surface is only a few million years old because the whole planet melted not so long ago.

      The heat on Venus most likely comes from the planet itself. From a higher content of radioactive elements than we have here.
      ———————————
      Zathras used to being beast of burden for other people’s needs.
      Very sad life. Probably have very sad death.
      But, at least there is symmetry.

      1. Sunlight penetrates to a lower layer, heating the atmosphere on the way. The infrared light produced by the heated atmosphere and hot ground are what are trapped by the greenhouse effect. Venus is not more radioactive than Earth. Its closer distance to the Sun and its higher atmospheric pressure combined with massively higher concentration of CO2 are the reasons it is hotter. It’s a complex interaction that keeps it hot, and really not conducive to being explained here, but that’s the Cliff’s Notes version.

      2. True, the sunlight on Venus hardly ever reaches the ground. The simplified version is that It bounces around and stays in the cloud layers and atmosphere until it gets degraded to heat, and that’s what warms the surface. Besides that, Venus closer to the sun and intercepts more more sunlight in the first place, due to Ye Olde Inverse Square law. The earth reflects a much higher proportion back into space before it gets degraded. Bare rock, like the Moon or Mercury, reflects even more.

  28. Learned something interesting today that refers back to the “cultures,” theme.
    Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s a few years ago.B&J said, “OK, but all our customs must remain intact.” Unilver said, ” We really want the ice cream, ok.”
    Well, now Ben and Jerry’s executives are part of Unilever. And they started being promoted inside Unilever. So now, all of Unilever has begun pushing the ideals of B&Js.

    2. Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas and somehow the McDonnell executives all got promoted into the Boeing C suite and now Boeing acts like McDonnell did. And is slowly going down the tubes.

      1. Slowly? Somebody’s got the throttles to maximum.

        In 2001/2 I got really nervous when the flight entailed a Scarebus (the incident where one shed parts of its tail under computer control was quite fresh). Wasn’t quite “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.”, but it was close. OTOH, that was when the 777 was shiny and the 787 with interesting batteries wasn’t a factor.

        Now, if I have to get there, I’ll drive. If I don’t have to get there, electronics is my friend. And no, I don’t need to cross any large lakes or oceans.

        2. I guess it is time for the Reader to tell his favorite Boeing is stupid story. Back in the mid 2000s, the great big defense contractor the Reader worked for was subcontract to a Boeing Defense division for a unique piece of hardware (all details about the hardware and which Boeing division are redacted – still classified as far as the Reader knows). We struggled working with them from the beginning and had to replace our program manager every 6-12 months because Boeing got pissed off at them (none of the PMs careers were impacted because our executive management knew what a s*** show it was). We finally delivered the hardware and helped them set it up and were told to go away – they didn’t want their government customer seeing the people that actually built the hardware.

          Several months go by and we get a call from Boeing – your hardware quit working. It was worse than that; the hardware was irreparably damaged. We restored as much functionality as we could, but there was no interest on the part of Boeing to have us involved in what had happened. The Reader, being a curious sort, got a little internal funding and ran some tests on our retained samples. We quickly figured out that the only way they could have done the damage they did was to reverse their power supply connections and apply 28V to a 10V line. Since we no longer had a contract with Boeing, we neglected to mention that fact.

          Government program manager finally calls a review of Boeing’s Root Cause Corrective Action effort and insists that someone from our shop attend so the Reader volunteered. In the mean time the VP of our business area had told Boeing that we would no longer work with them in this business area. The Reader sat quietly while Boeing went through about 60 Powerpoint slides of BS. When they were finished the government PM looked at me and asked if we had anything to add. I got up with my 5 slides and totally demolished the Boeing ‘story’. The government PM asked me why my root cause wasn’t on the Boeing ‘fishbone’ diagram (for those of you unfamiliar with Root Cause Corrective Action efforts – https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone). I looked at her with a straight face and suggested that Boeing had boned the wrong fish.

          The Reader was persona non grata at all of Boeing Defense’s operations after that.

          1. Haw haw haw haw!! I’ve heard of screwing the pooch, but boning the fish? 😀

            That one’s got to be a legend somewhere, if only whispered in dark corners.

      1. I loved them before my sugar went wonky. If it goes back normal, I’ll go back.
        When pregnant with #2 son I had mega DQ cravings. I once drove up their flower bed, I was so intent on getting the … smoothie? I think. TBF I was seven months pregnant and in no way sane.

  29. Cutting fertilizers, and therefore reducing harvests, will impact poor nations around the world the most, like in Africa. So make sure to ask leftists why they hate black people so much. Throw their tactics right back at them.

  30. Speaking of people who HATE conservatives of all stripes with a purple passion, I note that a certain camel is attempting to smear certain Christian authors with a mass-shooting in Denver last year. Somebody the author knew once was pals with some other guy who knew a chick who’s mom’s boyfriend knew a guy who was internet bros with the shooter.

    Generally I don’t notice the doings of the camel and his flops, but this came to my attention today. The term “extreme Catholic” caught my eye, in particular. Being an observant Catholic is now a danger to society, according to certain [insert bad words here] camels who shall never get a free click from me.

    This is right on point to the original post, you can’t have an opinion or a belief that the Left doesn’t like. Being Catholic and writing stories with Conservative themes leads directly to mass-shooting in Denver. It’s the writing that made him do it, you see.

    Some of the commenters have gone so far as to dredge up deleted tweets and all kinds of related blather to link Mr. A to B to C to D to the shooter. Mr. A is clearly a danger to society and needs to be purged. Funny how they never work this hard to link authors to shooters who are raging Lefties, eh? Far more often the case, really.

    If given the power, these are the people who do things like ban fertilizers and arrest people for posting comedy memes on Twitter.

    Hi, camel floppers. We can see you. Just remember the great circle of life: what goes around, comes around. I can say from personal experience you’re not going to like it.

    1. meh. He’s just upset because wifu’s trick of being “gender queer” didn’t make her rich and famous.
      I don’t object to their both being nerds. Most of my people are nerds. What I object to is their being nerd LOSERS who think they’re cool.

      1. And so lacking in originality. “I can’t succeed on my own so I’ll tear down successful people until other people like me, they really like me!” Yawn.

      2. I myself am a -huge- nerd. But I don’t go around trying to link authors I don’t like (of whom there are many) to mass murderers. Not even the rude ones who call me a Nazi. I figure being that big a jerk is it’s own best punishment.

        But not the camel. He’s going to make the world safe for Socialism, one “extreme Catholic” at a time. Good luck with that, camel. That church lasted 2022 years, I don’t think he’s going to be the one that knocks it down.

    2. I would note that there are some really surprising correlations of most US spree shooters.

      Basically, there is the psychiatric drug pattern. There is the left/public schools pattern.

      Dylan Roof was about the only nominal ‘ideology’ shooter whose ideology was not significantly left, by the left’s standards. And, Roof was pretty clearly probably psychiatric drug pattern.

      The number of noticeably Christian noticeably conservative shooters is freakishly low, considering population make up. Even if you do absurd things to assume more left than there really are.

      The shooters are basically connected only to federal bureaucracies designed in the theory that the federal bureaucracies can manage and provide everything that a person can need. They have no support outside of the federal bureaucracies. Since the federal bureaucracies can’t provide everything, those who have only the federal bureaucracies are nuts, and a subset are violent nuts who are a danger to others.

      If some has family, if they have church, if they have a constructive risk averse (conservative) ideology, even someone with serious problems may be stabilized enough that they do not carry out a spree shooting.

      Now, the whole ‘public schools cannot provide everything’ /could/ be spun as the ‘pedo adjacency of public schools’. And, Foz Meadows having ‘pedo adjacency’ could be spun as being that really, America’s spree shooters are the fault of Toby Meadows. But, that argument is clearly more dishonest and obnoxious than anything that has a really strong basis in actual evidence.

      Which is to say that it would be dishonest and obnoxious for camel flops to be framing the business the way that you describe.

      1. Makes you wonder about people like the camel, right? Pedo adjacent or just straight molesters? I’m sure if I spent enough time scrounging Twittler I could find (or manufacture) some odious correlations. (Pedos breath air. Camels breath air! PROOF!)

        But then I’d have to shoot myself for becoming a parasitic waste of oxygen. 😡

      2. > “Dylan Roof was about the only nominal ‘ideology’ shooter whose ideology was not significantly left, by the left’s standards.”

        Define “left” as used in this context.

        As I recall, Roof was self-admittedly carrying out race warfare. And race war is a collectivist thing, which puts him on the left in my book.

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