The Overton Window Moveth

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was frankly surprised only one of you complained and couldn’t even about the suggestion to abolish public/government schooling. There is a reason I had an heresy graphic with it.

I don’t know why one of you protested, because the complaint was about the overton window and I guess that I could now suggest things like this without scandal.

We’ll shelve that for late and psircle back to it.

Some of you had quibbles, and a friend had straight up opposition, so let me dispose of those before I return to the whole over-tuned window of legend.

The quibbles were:

that letting the families fend for themselves in education meant some kids wouldn’t be educated at all. I think you’ll find that’s wrong, if you look at past and other places with no state school. There are all sorts of organizations and societies that offered schooling, down to “That kind lady on the corner, who teaches poor kids”. (Someday remind me to tell you about my very first school, which was not a government school.) “But Sarah,” you say. “If the parents don’t care, the kids won’t learn.” “Yes,” I say. “And the same is true of government schools.

We’re already in a massively stratified educational culture, in which kids don’t learn much, and most of what they learn in school is indoctrination about whatever the thing the government is chasing is. (Right now, weirdly, anti-Americanism.) If parents don’t take an interest and push, they end up with maleducated liberal parrots. I don’t see how getting rid of the centers that make them so is any worse.

-For a well educated officer corps, there must be central instruction.

Well, yes, indeed. Which means the various services could/should set up schools (perhaps at high school level, to which admission would be by exam, and those interested in the services, or perhaps merely wanting to study there, would apply to them. Yes, these would still be government funded, but with specific purpose and intent, which makes them different from “push the newest thing this administration thinks it’s cool at everyone in general.” Which leads to yes, anti-Americanism, but also total educational mal-practice, such as teaching kids that white people invented slavery to enslave blacks, instead of just teaching them that slavery is a sin as old as mankind, and existing in all races, and inflicted upon all races. And that we’re blessed and happy to be existing in a time when slavery is not everywhere. All of this poison is being put in the national bloodstream by the schools paid for by a government that seems bent on annihilating us. A school set by a military service would obviously be different.

But beyond that, you’re missing the fact that other entities would set up schools. Small towns, for instance, would be quite likely to start schools for their youth. As would larger cities. Various companies would set up schools for the kids of employees, as a benefit (bet me.) As would neighborhoods and just some people wanting to make money.

Now, would all those be equal/comparable/teach the same thing? No. And therein is a strength.

Look, recently we ran into someone that believed the series Bridgerton was true history, and that England in the regency had a sort of apartheid system, with black people (including noblemen) living separate lives from white, until the king married a black woman. (The woman was actually German, with a distant Portuguese “moorish” ancestor, which means, mostly, honestly, probably a redhead (Ask me sometime about how the Moors in the peninsula became redheaded) and also from a line my mom is descended from (the Moorish thing is a … it was a political slander.) Anyway, she was blond, but one of her pictures some people think show “African features” (less than I have) and there you have it. An idiot American decided she was black and spun an entire lie from this.) Why do they believe that? Because they’re all indoctrinated in the same exact false history.

Yes, if you have different entities controlling the schools, then all of them will teach false things to some extent. It is impossible to teach the absolute truth, not the least because we don’t know it (though the truth 200 years back should NOT be a challenge.) But then many “Truths” will be in circulation, and by rubbing elbows with people who were taught differently, people get to discuss things, and eventually maybe come closer to the truth.

Which brings us back to the Overton window.

The Overton window is not natural to human society. It is the product of the mass-information-media-entertainment era.

No?

Sure, in some villages, or some other places, there are things you can’t see/say. That is usually because someone in that society, be it a village or a nation, is going to get under your nose for saying it. (At one point, you could get arrested in Portugal for shouting “Portugal is a sh*tty country!”)

Having “Unsayable” and “Unthinkable” and “if you say that in public you’ll be shunned” is always a sign of an oppressive society, whether the punishments are physical or mental, beatings or mere shunning.

Having beliefs that are beyond the pale — in fact, the existence of the pale — are a sign of an unhealthy society, one in which a truth is being enforced that is different from reality.

No? Fight me.

Look, yeah, sure, there are things people in all eras didn’t discuss in certain company due to manners or delicacy. One didn’t discuss sexual acts in front of children, not equipped to understand them, in most of the west since the onset of Christianity. One didn’t say certain things in front of elders either. “Gentlemen don’t discuss politics or coitus.” But that was a matter of — in a small gathering, or a confined society — keeping the social gears lubricated, and keeping disagreements at bay. What “couldn’t be said” varied.

However, the Overton window is something else. It is “you can’t report certain things, even if they are true, at the risk of becoming a social pariah.”

It avoids discussions of really important things, like how our kids are being sodomized by public education. Or how welfare really doesn’t contribute to the welfare of anyone. Or how Child Protective Systems is a money-laundering scam, in which kids die. Or how our government-funded science has become all government and almost no science. Etc.

It encourages rape rings like Rotherham, and has most of the black population of the US believe they are more at risk of police shootings than whites, which is plainly not true, but can’t be said, because the media has deemed saying so is “racist” (Somehow.) So people live in fear, rather than knowing they’re not at higher risk than anyone else.

And while speaking of risk, the media, and its control of information and encouragement of shunning dissenters, has led to fear of a “slightly more dangerous” flu, and led to elderly people living their last years in isolation and terror, and also led to our kids being isolated into loss of social function.

Furthermore, the only way to keep the Overton window over a whole country is to enforce strict control over the media, and even social media, and to ruthlessly crush down dissenters, so that everyone appears to agree, leading to shock-rejection of those who manage to break through the wall of government-encouraged-enforced lying.

A wall that they try to keep even when the lies are patently absurd and harmful. (Like the idea anyone who dislikes the Biden reign of terror is a terrorist or insurgent, or for that matter racist.)

The Overton window can suck what I don’t have.

Fortunately the total control that allowed the Overton window to move only at the careful prodding of the — mostly leftist — media and state is gone. They still have more control than I like, but not as much as they used to.

The truth is that we need to see reality and work from reality, not from the carefully constructed “reality” of “intellectuals” soaked in Marxism since pre-school. Because Marxism is not only not reality, it’s like malware for human societies and human souls.

If we are to retain civilization — let alone freedom, or individual rights — we must, right now, as hard as we can, smash the Overton window, and run towards the light of truth.

It is the only way we survive.

252 thoughts on “The Overton Window Moveth”

  1. A well educated officer corps would be a good thing, too bad we don’t have one now…In my experience, I have friends who have been officers who are by no means stupid, they are impressively ignorant on many subjects, especially Constitutional rights, but can spout propaganda very lucidly…That’s public education for you….

      1. Based on the enlisted men I. have known (many, being in the Vietnam generation) I would totally agree with you!

        1. Yep. It wasn’t a secret when I was in that the senior NCOs ran the Corps; even most officers said so. Well, except new 2nd Looies; they thought they ran it. Silly wabbits… 😉

          1. They should tell all those shiny-new Ensigns and 2Lt’s “You will never again know as much about military affairs as you do today. Right now, you know everything. Once you report to your first command, those of you who are going to have successful careers will learn that you know nothing. Reaching that point is the beginning of wisdom.”
            ———————————
            Why do so many idiots believe that our problems will be solved by the same shitheads that caused them?

            1. One of the only things that strikes terror into the hearts of seasoned combat officers: A 2nd Lt with a plan. 🙂

              1. Not just any old plan, a Brilliant Plan! One so obvious, so perfect, that not one of those old stick-in-the-mud senior officers could ever have come up with it!
                ———————————
                Lennier: “I can program the parameters into the ship’s artificial intelligence matrix.”

                Delenn: “And what do you do then?”

                Lennier: “Touch [points] that button and pray very very fast.”

                1. …unless it’s a 2nd Lt who begins the explanation of his brilliant plan with “In my experience…” 🙂

          2. That’s what DadRed said. When he needed something done, or to move the stars into better alignment, he went to the senior NCO. (DadRed was Navy medical officer serving with the Marines.)

            1. Not sure if it’s true, but officer final question:

              There’s a point you have to take over there.

              How do you do it?

              Right answer was “turn to Sgt and say ‘get me that point'”.

              1. A classic joke in the Corps:

                Q: You are a Lt, and are assigned to get a 50′ flagpole erected. You have 2 ea. 100′ lengths of nylon rope, 3 shovels and several 18″ stakes. You have a sergeant, a lance corporal and two pfcs assigned to you. How do you proceed?
                A: “Sergeant, get that flagpole up! I’ll be in the O-Club.” 🙂

                1. I mean, it’s not a wrong answer. And the Lt should probably be looking towards what comes after the flagpole is up.

                  1. Well, yeah; I was thinking something like, “1st Lt., with time in grade and on the short list for promotion to Captain. If, of course, his sergeant ‘gets that flagpole up’ “. 🙂

          1. Yep, when a tank or a truck broke down, German and Japanese soldiers waited for somebody to come and fix it. Americans took the damn thing apart and fixed it themselves.

            When a battle went FUBAR, Germans and Japanese waited for High Command to tell them what to do. There’s a scene in The Longest Day, don’t know if it’s historically accurate, with a German corporal in Normandy trying to report the D-Day landings to the generals, except the generals ‘knew’ the invasion was going through Calais. “It’s just a diversion, soldier. There can’t be a thousand ships. Stop bothering us.”
            ———————————
            Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects!

            1. Well, it helped that a double agent sent word of the D-Day invasion before it. And then, at a carefully calculated hour, sent word that it looked like a feint.

            2. It’s always been one of the main strengths of the US military, especially among (relatively) small elite units, that initiative is actively encouraged. The same sort that would get a Soviet, WWII Japanese or Nazi (to a lesser extent) enlisted man shot. Hey it works, dammit! And it’s quintessentially American.

              1. LGOPP – “Little Group of P-ssed-off Paratroopers” – a handful of irritated, well armed, young men with no adult supervision. The most terrifying thing in battle, pretty much.

              2. Y’all parachuted a bunch of 18-20 year olds behind enemy lines, heavily armed and without adult supervision.

          2. Cue “The Americans are so successful at war because war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis” apocryphal quote. 🙂

      2. No, you need educated officers, especially at the staff and general officer grades. The skill-set isn’t that of a private soldier.

          1. “Officer” is a skilled profession. They require training and education at all levels, and the lack of same is disastrous.

            I suggest reading some of the basic works of Tom Kratman for both positive and negative examples. A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex as a start. Or, if you prefer some of his non-fiction, such as Training For War.

            I assure you, good officers are as essential to a functional Army as good NCOs. Different roles snd responsibilities, complimentary.

        2. Going off of two hitches direct, and talking to … a lot .,. of other folks in the American military, you need educated enlisted (know how to actually do things) and trained officers (know how to deploy the trained people).

          2. Try to run a nuclear destroyer without an educated officer class. I dare ya. Or an educated enlisted.

            I submit, we need to define our term: what is meant by educated?

            Military traditions, knowledge and skills, both book larnin’ and field experience (senior NCOs FTW): Education. But… Both.

            Of course, I’m the heretic who claims women do not belong in the military. They’re bad enough at the enlisted tech level (where one can get individual females who pull their weight) but are pure poison in the officer class.

            Of course,

            Officer and enlisted, need to be educated.

            1. :points at post she was responding to:

              The original claim was that educated was specifically not suited to enlisted use.

              And nuke subs are the kind of thing I was thinking of for showing how we need educated enlisted. (AT-I is one of the fields that nukes who don’t make it past the school go into.)

            2. “Of course, I’m the heretic who claims women do not belong in the military. They’re bad enough at the enlisted tech level (where one can get individual females who pull their weight) but are pure poison in the officer class.”

              I’m actually interested in your reasoning, here, especially inre: officer class. I understand and basically agree with the reasoning that women don’t belong in combat, but what are the arguments against women officers? Maybe a link to an argument? A lot of the arguments against having women do certain things have turned out to have some basis in reality, so this is actual interest. I may or may not agree, but I would like to gather more data.

              1. I had a couple of decent female officers over the years. They were in logistics, not in combat positions. I’ve also had female officers who couldn’t even run a brothel even if it was fully subsidized and offering for free.

                1. So how were they different from the male officers who couldn’t even run a brothel yada yada? It this because of lowering standards for women? Or something where the average woman doesn’t perform as well as the average man?

                  I know it’s a hard question. But I’m trying to separate out “screwed up system,” from “edge cases only”, from “just can’t work”, from whatever else.

                  But even so, thanks for the data point.

                  1. My response was to the subtopic of women officers, not to officers in general. However, the same observation applies to male officers. 1 or 2 good ones, a whole lot of mediocre, and the bottom 20% incompetent or criminal.

              2. For what it’s worth– and this is from having BEEN a second class petty officer in a technical field– I basically oppose women in the military.

                In spite of it being the best non-family thing that ever happened to me, and directly resulting in a marriage I value more than life itself.

                Because a lot of the people in the military just really couldn’t deal with women. Male and female. The absolute worst chief I ever had was the CMC who retired and went to running a preschool, which absolutely nobody was shocked at because that’s exactly how she’d interacted with every enlisted as far back as anyone could find. Or the gal who actively went and put male supervisors into “compromising situations”– with, ahem, action– and bragged about it. Or the evil bleep female who accused her entire shop of sexual harassment, and was only foiled because the other female (who actually did work) taunted her back that she wasn’t going to be able to ruin the worker’s career, so she accused the worker’s boyfriend of rape. But screwed up because she chose a time when he was not just out of state, but had been in front of dozens of officers.

                And yes, they were dumb-bleeps. And it sucked to be associated with such… wastes of air. But there’s more dumb-bleeps than women who want to do the job right in the military, so when doing cost to reward…..

                On a theoretical level, “recruit all the autistic spectrum girls” might work as a rule. Ignoring all gaming of the system.

                It’s freaking MESSY.

                1. Feeds into the conclusions I’m coming to. For women to work in some areas, they really HAVE to run the masculine script. And most women either can’t or really don’t like running that one. Which means at a minimum, that you only want to even consider the edge-case women. And even there, you’re not allowing for gaming the system. And other kinds of bad actors. Like you said, it’s messy. I can see where it might not be worth the cost/benefit analysis.

                  Like you, it was a great time in my life, too. And yup, met my guy there, too. I’d kinda like it if there were a way to make it work. But if there is, it’s certainly not the way TBTB are running things. The LAST thing you want to do is encourage women who don’t like the masculine script in the first place, or even think it’s “harassment” to even be asked to run it, to join.

        3. The Reader believes you do need educated officers. But the Reader also believes you should educate them after field testing for the indefinable. Heinlein had the sense of it – from Starship Troopers.

          “The Commandant continued: “That’s the Moment of Truth, gentlemen. Regrettably there is no method known to military science to tell a real officer from a glib imitation with pips on his shoulders, other than through ordeal by fire. Real ones come through — or die gallantly; imitations crack up.
          “Sometimes, in cracking up, the misfits die. But the tragedy lies in the loss of others . . . good men, sergeants and corporals and privates, whose only lack is fatal bad fortune in finding themselves under the command of an incompetent.
          “We try to avoid this. First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past — Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men . . . and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.
          “At least we have no misfits of those sorts. We know you are good soldiers — brave and skilled, proved in battle else you would not be here. We know that your intelligence and education meet acceptable minimums. With this to start on, we eliminate as many as possible of the not-quite-competent — get them quickly back in ranks before we spoil good cap troopers by forcing them beyond their abilities. The course is very hard — because what will be expected of you later is still harder.
          “In time we have a small group whose chances look fairly good. The major criterion left untested is one we cannot test here; that undefinable something which is the difference between a leader in battle . . . and one who merely has the earmarks but not the vocation. So we field-test for it.”

          The Reader believes that further education needed by officers should come after this selection process.

          1. I can’t recall a single maverick officer who didn’t have his head screwed on right. I’m sure there must be a couple that make it through and still are congenital idiots that just happen to be good at camouflage; but I’ve never run into one.

          2. *First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. *

            It never occurred to me, probably because I haven’t re-read Starship Troopers as an experienced adult, but how do they manage it in peacetime? If every officer must be a combat veteran, doesn’t that require a constant state of war? IIRC the war against the Bugs is presented as having been going on for a while but hardly forever.

            1. The Federation wasn’t in a constant state of war per se. However, it was evident that they frequently employed the use of lethal force against other species and their own, not necessarily pacified fellow human colonies.

          3. “We try to avoid this. First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops.

            :::massively tones down response::::
            That is an incredibly bad idea.

            Even before the obvious gaming.

            Starting with, it would rule out folks good enough to avoid combat.

    2. Well, there are military officers, and there are political appointees. The 0bama* and Biden* Regimes have done their utmost to run the competent military officers out of our military.
      ———————————
      ‘Progressives’ believe everybody else is even stupider than they are. This explains a lot.

  2. I find myself both optimistic and pessimistic here. I rove around the internet a lot , and listen in to hear voices not like mine. Dissent is growing in some areas. There is more talk , and by medical professionals, about the harm of puberty blockers, and the lack of evidence that the Dutch protocol does any good at all. But, it will take a long time, I fear, until many sources do not blithely report that puberty blockers are entirely reversible. (Note; I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. But I can read. I suspect part of the problem is that there is a half truth. Puberty blockers are fine for the rare cases of extremely early puberty – when used for a short time.)
    More academics and teachers are standing up and speaking out and even walking away. But that comes at a high cost – leave your position at a college or university over freedom of speech and you may never work in academia again. Teaching (aka below college level) is different – more and more the small conservative private schools are growing, as is the home schooling crowd. And home schoolers sometimes band together to hire a teacher for a specific purpose ( languages you don’t speak, chemistry and physics are popular there).
    What to do ? I don’t know. I’m tired of the endless combination of hatred and refusal to discuss anything.

    3. Puberty blockers are not reversable. Any so-called medical person (or anyone else for that matter) who says they are is either lying, or an ignoramus. Puberty is NOT a developmental process that can be turned on and off without permanent consequences. You can’t just shut off an oven while baking a souffle’ and come back two hours later and turn it back on.

  3. I suspect every one who has been in the US public schools in the last 30 years has at least one absolute horror story about their experiences in it. Most of us will have several.

      1. Well, which decade was that? The issues I ran into in the 80’s were mostly down to not everyone being good at their jobs. Things like them not realizing I was so profoundly near sighted I couldn’t tell there were words on the board.

        The things that had even the teachers pulling their kids out mostly seemed to start up in the 90’s. I suspect that is also when we started seeing protected classes of people become a thing, and start getting used and abused.

        And yes, it does make me feel old to realize 1990 was over 30 years ago…

          1. Yeah. I think that’s still in the range where they may or lay not have been getting a good education, but you weren’t worried about them being actively harmed and the school hiding it.

            That’s not so say no-one got hurt at schools. I directly know of at least a few knifing that happened in school during the 70’s, but while they school staff were singularly useless, they did not attempt to hide it.

            The events I know of from the 90’s, school staff were not reporting or responding to them at all because people involved were members of a protected class.

            Whiley parents’ generations parents may have gotten a call that little Timmy got into a fight and got knifed, my generation expects that we won’t get that call, that instead we’ll just get a cryptic text about how little Timmy has some afterschool activities pop up and will be home really late tonight. Can you sign all these release forms? That would be nice.

            1. My kids in the nineties had horrendous experiences. Including older son getting concussion and no one telling us for weeks. (He told me first. They told him not to tell) let alone taking him to the hospital. And let me point out this was an accident, so what were they thinking?

              1. Yeah. That tracks with the sort of things that happened when I was there too. They lie to you and tell you to lie to your parents and punish you if you don’t.

                And this is the generation who’s kids are hitting school age.

              2. Liability insurance.

                My brother got hit in the head with a sports disc, while the teacher was AWOL; he had my sister and I take him to the ER because that shifted the liability.

                We had enough training to realize that him not being able to remember his full name and date of birth was a REALLY BAD THING.

                ….that scumbag teacher probably didn’t sleep for a month because he was scared mom would murder him.

    2. Oh my word, that’s the understatement of the century.
      I almost still have nightmares about parts of the horror.

      1. I think I related before, but… Pa got sufficiently annoyed with such that on one physical mailpiece he wrote [DECEASED – RETURN TO SENDER]. Years later someone showed him that. “Yeah, we got the message.”

    1. I have wanted to quit work just to watch The Academy of Ideas so many times I can’t even begin to tell you.

  5. Yes, if you have different entities controlling the schools, then all of them will teach false things to some extent.

    Good heavens, you’d THINK that SCHOOL TEXT BOOKS could manage not to include massively debunked claims, or active hoaxes, but… well, there are multiple industries producing content on stuff like that! The one I’m still upset about was the embryo thing in my biology text book.
    Yes, we had the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” nonsense.”
    On the same page as actual photographs… and don’t get me started on the “embryos have gills” thing….

    1. I don’t think I ever heard from any real biologist that human embryos have gills. It is true that, about midway through development, the embryos of mammals and other non-aquatic vertebrates develop pharyngeal folds called “gill arches” that do resemble the gill slits in a fish embryo. However, these do not develop into an organ for breathing so calling them “gills” is, at best, poetic license.

      As I recall, in human embryos the gill arches develop into the bones of the lower jaw and middle ear. I think some also become part of the larynx.

      1. I don’t think I ever heard from any real biologist that human embryos have gills.

        That’s because it’s like century old ABSOLUTE NONSENSE!!!

        :pulls back from minor rage set:

        The name comes from the old theory, IIRC; the issue is the theory was fleeting in scientific settings and justifiably fled decades ago.

  6. Um, Missus Hoyt? Tell me about the red-heads in Portugal? I am, and as far as I know, always have been one and have an interest. So to speak. We really are quite rare, you know.

    1. Oh, Moors towards the end of the occupation used to be mostly blond and redheaded, because they captured SO MANY concubines from the franco-germanic population that predominated in the Chrisian areas of the peninsula at the time.
      It’s a rare subrace. I… uh. Husband was supposed to be a redhead. Ah, well.

          1. The proto-Islamic invaders of Spain/Portugal had a fair amount of ethnic diversity (including some black peoples), and they brought in a wide variety of slaves (including black.people).

            The previous wave of people who had set up in Spain, Portugal, and North Africa, in the late Roman/post-Roman period, were Visigoths who had lots of redheads and blondes among them. And the Celtiberians, who had been living in Spain since the Bronze Age, also had their share of blondes and redheads.

            But there was also a Norse, and then Irish, slave trade out of Dublin, which supplied Irish, Scots, and Saxon/English slaves to Spain, the Middle East, and Africa. (Which succeeded a pre-Christian slave raiding industry by the Irish for the Irish.)

            So a lot of genetic transfer went on.

  7. No? Fight me.

    Yes’m!

    Actually, I think I agree with you, basically– yes, my regular quibbling for clarity.

    It’s a matter of method.

    If “X is unthinkable” is just a flat out enforced rule, yeah, that’s not healthy. You can have founding assumptions– say, “all humans are created equal and have inherent rights”– but they’ve got to be pretty dang few in number, obvious, AND you should be able to make an argument for them anyways.

    That doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to generally agree “this thing is stupid” when someone starts arguing for mandatory Soylent Green instead of graveyards. To have a healthy society, you NEED a pretty solid basic agreement on founding principles. Shared assumptions about the things that MATTER– say, “what is the nature of property.”

    The attempt to artificially impose that effect, especially when it’s a moving target, is not healthy.

    1. I’m not saying that some people won’t get laughed at, if it’s obviously laughable. (Or ew.) BUT it should be able to be said in public. Even if people laugh at you.
      The idea of the overton window was to artificially create the “unsayable.” (Or move it.)

      1. :nods:

        A lot of it was that I was poking at my reaction to “there shouldn’t be anything you can’t say”– and trying to figure out why I was bristling at it.

        Thus, the poking.

        It’s not the result, it’s the method– “that’s unthinkable!” as opposed to “that’s a TERRIBLE idea, and not in a fun way!” or “I don’t think that would work” or “if you want that goal then you need to watch for this stuff.”

                1. Yep, the “SHUT UP!, he explained” sorts. If the discourse is done in a civilized manner, the only reason for these wannabe dictators want it stopped is because they can’t address it, and it works to limit their power. A (literal) pox on them, of the small variety, or something involving buboes. Or locomotor ataxia, since they’re already partway there, being unable to control their mouths.

        2. It still needs poking.

          The phrase: “We need to be able to euthanize defectives, up to at least age 2” (Peter Singer, published)

          Or: “Having sex with infants and toddlers can, under circumstances (handwavium) be good for them and society” (Also published, back before The Advocate got careful)

          Ought not be normal.

          Yes, I’m picking edge cases, and no, I’m not talking about law.

          This … has the shape of a false binary. A Coke v. Pepsi fight…

          Keep poking.

          1. I much prefer folks who say this nonsense do so where it can be seen and countered.

            It’s unacceptable because people recognize that it’s unacceptable, not because it’s outside of a window of reference.

        3. Hmm. One of the unthinkable/unsayable things that you couldn’t say is, “Adults should be allowed to have sex with children.” Even mentioning it used to get you shunned, considered a pervert, and possibly physically attacked (or dropped off a bridge at night with cement slippers.)

          I think there’s enough clinical physical and mental evidence that such acts are damaging to children. But at least we can ask the question, and provide evidence pro/con from the tens to hundreds of thousands of examples out there. We definitely don’t need to actually perform scientifically controlled experiments on it.

          1. :nods:
            The built in definitions to “Adult” and “Child” go into this.

            That’s the obvious good that the equally obvious bad is hacking.

            Like how the cancel culture cultists talk about “consequences” to provide cover for their malicious attacks.

          2. We definitely don’t need to actually perform scientifically controlled experiments on it.

            :turns bad colors:
            The popular science idol that was most of the source for everything you wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask) in theory did that.

            What he actually did was interview child abusers and sex workers and used that as a baseline for normal for human interactions….
            Kinsley?
            :looks: Kinsey.
            Also the source of 10% gay stat.
            Based on dudes that got raped in prison.

            2. And now, if you look at what they say about pre-pubertal children being sexual, they’re really coy and say that they can’t test that because of ethical concerns. Leaving the impression that maybe children could be, but we just don’t know.

              But in addition to the horrific conclusion that children are sexual, and therefore it’s okay for “older children” or “teenagers” or “adults” to have “consensual relations” with them, it adds one more thing to the horror of trans-ing kids. Because if you don’t “need” to go through puberty to gain sexual function, then we can just skip it, right? And cut off the “wrong bits” that produce the “wrong hormones” and then just give the kids the “right hormones.”

              But if you actually do need to go through puberty for sexual function, then — whoops — you get a grown-up with the non-sexuality of a child. And if this is something that has to be wired in the brain within a certain window, like language or facial recognition or lots of other things — then artificially adding the right hormones later won’t fix it.

              In my research, I’ve been getting some indications that this may be the case, but I don’t know because it’s hard to get straight facts from anyone. Because it’s all “established science,” doncha know.

            3. Oh, let’s go back further and bring up how Freud created the Oedipus and Electra complexes because his young patients were talking about actual abuse they were experiencing, the adults said, No, of course they’re just imagining things, and Freud believed the adults.

              Most modern therapists think his style of psychotherapy is rotten to the core, with good reason.

      2. ‘The idea of the overton window was to artificially create the “unsayable.” (Or move it.)’

        Aha! The “Overton Window” is LINGUISTIC CASTE to make there be LINGUISTIC ‘UNTOUCHABLES’!

        That might be the right response tothose whining about anyone “pulling it right” – “No, we do NOT want to pull it ‘right’ – we want to END ITS CURSE!”

        1. Oh, so much this. One does not end oppression by changing the details of what they oppress you about. Oppression by the Left or the Right, it doesn’t matter.

          You end it by making the bastards get off your lawn.

          1. Silly Phantom. Obviously, the solution to oppression in the past is more oppression in the future.
            ———————————
            They kill a lot of people, overthrow their corrupt rulers and replace them with a new batch of corrupt rulers. Viva la revolution! Yesterday’s oppressed become tomorrow’s oppressors.

          2. Of course, telling them to get off your lawn is more effective when backed up with a rifle, as Mr Eastwood demonstrated. That’s not an option for Canadians, is it?

            2. As it happens, the perfect method has been invented by the Freedom Convoy. The method for getting them off your lawn is to show up with a few thousand friends and set up bouncy houses and inflatable hot tubs on THEIR lawn. Peacefully! And be sure to clean up the garbage while you’re there, it Drives them insane.

              Never give a Nazi an excuse to shoot you. That’s what they want, and you can tell from all the insane rhetoric from Shiny Pony and Let’s Go Brandon. They really want you to give them an excuse, they’re slavering to do it like mad dogs.

              Always, ALWAYS make them look like what they are: Nazis. that’s the point of the whole thing, it’s a battle for the hearts and minds of the Oblivious Normies who still think CNN is a news network.

              Let the cops respond with force to people who made speeches, put up clown castles and picked up all the garbage. Melt away from in front of them like snow on a hot day, then come back later and make them do it again. And again, and again. Forever.

      3. When a man shows up to teach high school shop class wearing a long flowing wig, a miniskirt, and rubber t1ts the size of two small children under a see-through shirt, it is now “unsayable” to suggest he is mentally deranged and should be removed from teaching duties for the good of his students AND HIMSELF.

        This literally cannot be said in Canada, it has recently been made illegal. If I fill in the details I am a criminal. Big win for the window mover people.

        But, the Overton Window has consequences.

        One consequence it has, that the people who love to invoke it and use it never seem to see, is just because one political faction in a society decided something would be “unsayable” does not mean nobody is thinking it and saying it in private. They are. And the harder you push that prohibition, the more they are thinking about it. Pretty soon they are taking their wooden shoes off and throwing them into the gears of society’s machinery when they think they can get away with it.

        You get a large enough portion of the general population making it their life’s work to f- over a government or a faction, that’s going to turn out badly.

        2. Yeah, I saw that clip. Perfect example of someone who is not qualified to be in a shop, much less teaching a class. There were at least 3 safety violations in the clip I saw, and I wasn’t even looking for them.

          1. Pre-cisely. If you are working in a shop you MUST explain and demonstrate proper safety protocols. I’m hyper-picky about literal loose ends on archery ranges, and we’re talking very low-draw bows. Hair must be back, hoodie strings tucked in, no wristwatches or bracelets, absolutely NOTHING that could get caught and give you a bruise or a burn.

            In a shop? Dear lord. That shop teacher is looking to get killed. (By the equipment, to be absolutely clear.)

            1. Why no officer, I certainly didn’t kill him. Afterall, like all good leftists, we all know that hand gun just leapt off the table and shot itself.

          2. Yes the use of the miter saw with the long flowing nylon wig was particularly edifying.

            Should a man exhibiting that level of mental disturbance even be using power equipment?

            1. I wonder if we need to start distinguishing between men, and males.
              I wouldn’t have any major issues if faux shop person were in there alone and did itself in by getting wrapped around a milling machine or a lathe. I do have a problem with it doing it in or before a class of students.
              Probably the same kind of brainlessness of people who blow up split rim tires without a safety cage. Yeah, go ahead and make sure the hose is properly engaged on the tire while the compressor is pumping away.

              1. Some 35 years ago my mom had the way to say female that made it more of an insult than any obscene word, exactly because of the difference from woman much less lady.

        3. Update, this afternoon the whole school full of kids and the parents all showed up to let the educational bureaucracy know what they think.

          This time, of course, the cops came.

          Still, nice to know that there is a line that the Normies won’t let them cross without a word of complaint. The turnout was impressive, going by the videos.

        4. The only way I could see that get up would be as a “Alright now I’ve shown you what not to do let’s take this wig and put it on a pumpkin and show you want this’ll do to your head if you don’t actually listen to me and tie your hair back and NOT wear crazy clothes.” (I understand this is not what happened, but it’s the only way I could see it NOT being an issue.)

          1. But what if fairly basic rules of shop safety are misogynistic conspiracy.

            Technically, it can be said that the stories of injuries resulting from, say, rings getting caught in machinery, and dragging fingers or hands in for mangling, are a social and societal construct.

            The sharing of such stories is basically part of the in-group/out-group stuff when it comes to the group of folks who are not a danger to themselves or others when doing stuff in a machine shop.

            Slight hyperbole follows:

            So, by the usual critical theory reasoning, and level of scholar understanding, this could all be an ancient super conspiracy, set up thousands of years ago, to be oppressive in this exact situation. It seems like the usual critical theory folks could easily believe in electrically powered CNC machine tools in 4,000 BC, or 40,000 BC.

        5. Further update, the government’s response to the situation is a polite letter:

          On Friday, the Ford government issued its own statement on Lemieux, but some still feel like doesn’t go far enough.

          Education Minister Stephen Lecce wrote a letter to the Ontario College of Teachers, the organization that licenses, governs and regulates the province’s teaching profession in the public interest. They have the power to revoke teaching certificates and change rules of conduct for teachers.

          “In this province, in our schools, we celebrate our differences and we also believe that there must be the highest standards of professionalism when in front of our kids,” Lecce told reporters Friday, according to the Toronto Sun.

          “And on that basis, I’ve asked the Ontario College of Teachers to review and to consider strengthening those provisions with respect to professional conduct, which we think would be in the interest of all kids in Ontario.”

  8. I went to a private school as a boy. I don’t know how my war-widow mother managed to pay for it. But the most important things I learnt there were firstly, to consider all the evidence for this or that and, secondly, to stand by my judgement no matter what pressure was bought to bear. My headmaster used to challenge any opinion and expect us to defend or refute it, not just follow the herd. That’s probably why, years later, I was given an immediate professional Fellowship at doctoral level after passing a 5-year study course in 3 years, without needing the Bachelor etc qualifications. If only all school heads did the same and taught youngsters to conside all evidence before following the fashionable trends!

    1. Pardon the long reply, but here is a related John Taylor Gatto story:

      The greatest intellectual event of my life occurred early in third grade before I was yanked out of Xavier and deposited back in Monongahela. From time to time a Jesuit brother from St. Vincent’s College would cross the road to give a class at Xavier. The coming of a Jesuit to Xavier was always considered a big-time event even though there was constant tension between the Ursuline ladies and the Jesuit men. One lesson I received at the visiting brother’s hands altered my consciousness forever. By contemporary standards, the class might seem impossibly advanced in concept for third grade, but if you keep in mind the global war that claimed major attention at that moment, then the fact that Brother Michael came to discuss causes of WWI as a prelude to its continuation in WWII is not so far-fetched. After a brief lecture on each combatant and its cultural and historical characteristics, an outline of incitements to conflict was chalked on the board.

      “Who will volunteer to face the back of the room and tell us the causes of World War One?”

      “I will, Brother Michael,” I said. And I did.

      “Why did you say what you did?”

      “Because that’s what you wrote.”

      “Do you accept my explanation as correct?”

      “Yes, sir.” I expected a compliment would soon follow, as it did with our regular teacher.

      “Then you must be a fool, Mr. Gatto. I lied to you. Those are not the causes at all.” It was like being flattened by a steamroller. I had the sensation of being struck and losing the power of speech. Nothing remotely similar had ever happened to me.

      “Listen carefully, Mr. Gatto, and I shall show you the true causes of the war which men of bad character try to hide,” and so saying he rapidly erased the board and in swift fashion another list of reasons appeared. As each was written, a short, clear explanation followed in a scholarly tone of voice.

      “Now do you see, Mr. Gatto, why you must be careful when you accept the explanation of another? Don’t these new reasons make much more sense?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “And could you now face the back of the room and repeat what you just learned?”

      “I could, sir.” And I knew I could because I had a strong memory, but he never gave me that chance.

      “Why are you so gullible? Why do you believe my lies? Is it because I wear clothing you associate with men of God? I despair you are so easy to fool. What will happen to you if you let others do your thinking for you?”

      You see, like a great magician he had shifted that commonplace school lesson we would have forgotten by the next morning into a formidable challenge to the entire contents of our private minds, raising the important question, Who can we believe? At the age of eight, while public school children were reading stories about talking animals, we had been escorted to the eggshell-thin foundation upon which authoritarian vanity rests and asked to inspect it.

      There are many reasons to lie to children, the Jesuit said, and these seem to be good reasons to older men. Some truth you will know by divine intuition, he told us, but for the rest you must learn what tests to apply. Even then be cautious. It is not hard to fool human intelligence.

      1. “…you must learn what tests to apply.” That’s the hard part.

        I’m lucky that a couple of very good teachers (back in the 80s) introduced me to some of those tests and how to apply them. My kids got no such thing from their schooling 25-30 years later. I tried to impart some of it myself, but don’t know how well it took (I’m no teacher, and at a certain point being only their dad doesn’t help).

        1. I am a Headmaster at a classical school right now for all of six weeks. One of the things that attracted me to this job was Euclid being taught first thing freshman year. Taught correctly, Euclid is reasoning and logic. If you can really and truly follow our Euclidean proof, you are far along the road to being a rational person. So we try to beat it into their little heads when they’re 14 or 15, and then exercise it for the next 3 1/2 years.

          Worth a shot at least.

      2. The person in greatest danger is the daughter of a pastor going away to college. She may never have learned not to trust. So she enters a world of danger. She has never learned; Who NOT to trust.

        I am looking at one of the 12,000 books on my bookshelves. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” He who reminds, it is easiest to fool ourselves.

        The hardest paradox to learn: How do you know who not to trust?

        1. You’re right, Presbypoet.

          My personal experience was much like that–I grew up in the proverbial small town where no one locked their doors, and although public school was fairly nasty it was still smalltown. Then I went away to a big city for college. Bad Things happened.

          It was long ago and far away, but lessons learned.

          1. A wide reading knowledge of mysteries, and a bit of true crime and cautionary ballads, is pretty good for installing shrewdness about a lot of things.

            Cautionary ballads used to be fairly popular in small towns….

          1. oh, I have MET computers, and I know better. Those bastages will do everything you tell them. They are like unto Djinn thus: They will do EXACTLY what you tell them. EXACTLY. The bastages!

            Or as an article in Byte put it, “There is no DWIM instruction.” DWIM? Do What I Mean.

          3. Don’t worry, something unbelievably stupid will happen to you and your next clone will take over.

            I played a bit of Paranoia in college, and it always felt like playing for an hour after finishing a 13-hour D&D session and being all exhausted and punchy was the right way to do it. 😀

            1. In one group, our DM had us plan a sample game, which led to the conclusion that it did not suit us.

              Something about his complaining half way through that we were SUPPOSED to try to fix the problem, and the way that did not prevent me from suiciding my way through my clones, in which I do not think I was alone.

        3. We tried it with the D.P. by pointing out lies right, left and center as we went along. As well as errors (including our own).

          So far she seems to have learned that you can trust those who love you to try to be trustworthy, though not necessarily to be right.

          But… “Count no man happy until he is dead”

          We’ll see.

      4. Thank you. Illuminating. Would like to know what he told you each time. As a Jesuit the question of who was then “by Law and by Right and the Grace of God” Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would have been a neat challenge.

        1. This story was related by the late John Taylor Gatto in a number of places – I found it on the internet. It from his childhood in Pennsylvania in the 1930s. He went on to write Dumbing Us Down , the Seven Lesson School Teacher, and The Underground History of American Education. So unfortunately we will never know what the jesuit told him.

        2. The joke going around the History department when I was in college (I was a History major) was that in high school you learn that the US got into WW1 because of unrestricted submarine warfare. Then in college you learn that was hopelessly simplistic and the real reasons were economic and demographic and sociological and yadda yadda yadda. And then you go to grad school and you learn that, no actually, it really was pretty much unrestricted submarine warfare after all.

      5. ….I woulda punched the guy rather rudely, for such raw abuse of good will in the skin of teaching.

        Actually, I might still do so. While my temper is somewhat lessened, so is my tolerance for abuse of innocents.

    2. I love that attitude in your headmaster! If only we had ten more of the like in every public school– or even one such!– but the predicate for answering that sort of challenge is knowing how to
      <> think logically,
      <      > construct a rational argument,
      <> identify and cite valid authorities on any topic,
      <      > argue from evidence rather than popularity, credential, or any other irrelevant parameter.
      And
      <*> keep a thick enough skin not to take, nor give, personal provocation at counter-arguments nor in lieu thereof.

  9. I occasionally mention that a great deal of what goes on would be prevented were we to reinstate dueling. Having to answer with your life tends to encourage a certain civility.

    Similarly, the police and criminal court system is there to protect criminals from justice. Should the police and courts cease to provide something resembling justice, we might have to return to the old ways. We only went to the courts for efficiency since blood feuds do go on and on. I’m Irish and, thus, descended by a Europe’s last barbarians. Civilization is sitting very lightly on me just now.

    Then again, I scandalized my sister’s Ivy League spawn by pointing out that they were the most prudish Ivy generation since Harvard, the Puritan, set up a school in Cambridge Mass.

    1. Sadly it seems some our kin have forgotten that… Or that we are/were and agricultural people, what with the Dáil looking to massively screw over the farmers and producers…

  11. “But Sarah,” you say. “If the parents don’t care, the kids won’t learn.” “Yes,” I say. “And the same is true of government schools.

    It takes effort on the part of teachers and sometimes parents to kill the desire and ability to learn.

    1. Just so. It’s the parents and students who make the school, not the teachers and certainly not the administrators. Here in NJ the desirability of a neighborhood comes down to how good the school is, the thing is that as the neighborhoods gentrify — terrible word it’s really bourgeoiseify — the schools get better because the people coming in change the student mix.

  12. This is why all three of my sons went to a charter school here in Houston…. Harmony Schools now have several dozen branches in TX,KS, and I think Oklahoma… heavy on Stem, heavy on learning, not a lot of extracurricular activities. Very high parental participation, everybody does a science fair project, Uniforms. The big lack is it is only college track, no blue collar type training.

  13. “Various companies would set up schools for the kids of employees, as a benefit (bet me.)”

    Not going to bet against that. The company I work for has already done it, albeit only preschool, and with limited space. People here would sign up for the waiting list the second that telltale line showed up on the pregnancy test if they could. If government schools weren’t filling the entire education space, this company absolutely would be running a STEM-focused school for all grades, and people would be fighting to get their kids into it.

    This company also runs its own private health clinics on its two largest campuses — free of charge for employees and family members. Better results for employees, and a benefit that the company can use to attract and retain good people. Not everyone uses it, but I do, and it’s wonderful. Also, apparently, they figured out they could do it for less than it costs them to play the insurance bureaucracy game.

    1. Disney runs a school for the young kids of some of its employees in the Burbank, California area. I don’t know what the criteria is for a kid to qualify as a student there. But I’ve been to the school. I suspect that other locations where Disney maintains a strong presence (i.e. Anaheim, Orlando, etc…) have similar schools.

      Of course, given what Disney’s been up to lately, having kids in a Disney-run school might not be such a good thing. But it does back up the idea that a large enough company has an interest in making sure that the kids of its workers have a place to learn.

  14. The Overton Window still matters (I wish it didn’t) because a large percentage of Americans still believe what the corporate media spouts (unless it’s about something they have personal knowledge of). So it’s still important to be able to move it.
    Parents allowed by the Covid “emergency” to see what their children were being taught, responded politically and forced coverage. The left tried to deny and defend but there was too much that was indefensible and the Window moved. Home schooling is treated with more respect and school boards with more suspicion.
    Governors in Texas & Florida are similarly forcing coverage of the border that was blocked (except on FNC) for the last 20 months. CBS (!) had a piece on TV the other night on the Mexican cartels bringing fentanyl in to the US – which shows the Window has moved.

      2. The number of families homeschooling has EXPLODED since 2020. Official (from school systems and school boards) numbers are 65% increase. Unofficial (which tracks with what I’ve seen personally) is closer to 800% increase. This also meshes with the number of adult women who are dropping out of the work world to stay home with their kids.

        2. I’ve heard that the forced shutdowns of everything demonstrated to a lot of people that, no homeschooling was not nearly as difficult as they’d thought it would be.

          So, yay for unintended consequences?

  15. Testing into high school used to be the norm. Then it was determined high school grads made more, so should be open to all with different levels of degrees. That was unfair and one degree replaced multiple. Then in the late 60’s it was college grads were making more and a multitude of public universities were created to take in everyone. Even those with bad scores are put into a track which would take ten years to fulfill. Then someone realized advanced degrees made more and the cycle continues, chewing up and spitting out. (Yes, there’s more to it than that, including businesses using a degree to mean “can follow orders”.)

    1. which would take ten years to fulfill

      I think I can count the number of people I know who went to state universities and actually finished in four years on both hands at most. I firmly believe that the universities deliberately manipulate course requirements to make it impossible to change majors* without wasting a year or more. And thus they keep that sweet sweet tuition money coming in from students in their fifth, sixth, or even seventh year.

      *(And you have to declare your major when you enter as a freshman for budget distribution reasons, and most 18-year-olds have no clue what they’re really interested in yet. At my college, which didn’t use the course credit system, you didn’t have to declare until the end of your sophomore year.)

      2. Bad enough when I was in college. My degree required 204 hours of classwork. Which was more than the university standard. Could do it in 4 years if took average of 17 hours per quarter. Or could afford 4 quarters/year, and classes needed were offered in the summer. Personally I couldn’t keep that up, and keep grades where they belonged. (100% did not.) I went one quarter over, standard 4 years. But while we had degree classes not offered every term, we didn’t have any classes that were offered only once a year. Did have required lab hours with classes that would block out large parts of days, which made scheduling a PIA.

        Our son had the problem of classes only being offered once a year, repeatably. Often class was full before he was “allowed” to register for classes. Not until he was in his “5th year” was he able to ace out anyone else to get into required classes. Very frustrating.

      3. My husband went through (I think) seven majors, and only declared his final choice in his final year. And that was four and a half years of college, though it was spread out over six years due to breaks.

        Private school. Go figure.

        (In case you’re wondering, the choice was between history major with English minor or the other way around. He decided that the former term paper was better than the English Comp test, and ended up writing a 40 page thesis on the evolution of the English language in the 12th century, with his own translations. He now works in logistics.)

  16. I think the Overton window is not only moving, it’s expanding. Yes, people still get shunned and ridiculed (especially celebrities and others who have a more public persona) for expressing interest in ideas outside the current window. But where I see change is that those already shunned are actively reaching out to the newly shunned and letting them know that they are not alone. Knowing one is not alone in one’s “heresy” is the strongest impetus to shattering the Overton window.

    1. Years ago I read one of Doris Lessing’s early novels; I think it may have been The Golden Notebook. Her protagonist was a communist in the UK in the and early fifties, when Stalin’s crimes were being revealed. Lessing describes the members of the Party going to meetings, and asking about so and so, and being told, “He left the Party.” And on one hand they all knew that people were doing so, and why, and wondered how long it would be before they couldn’t continue to believe in Marxism. But on the other hand, they felt that if they did leave, they would have nothing left to believe in, and they would lose all their friends, who would shun them—and for that very reason, they themselves shunned the people who had left before them, as if they had some dread contagion. And at the same time I saw them as apologists for a monstrous evil (which I’m not sure Lessing entirely saw) and felt that their situation was heartbreaking in a way.

  17. I have been wondering for a few years when we would see company schools the way we used to see company stores.

    1. Companies -refuse- to train people because as soon as they do, those people LEAVE and get better jobs for better pay elsewhere. This is why Credentialism is so big these days. A company needs a guy to do X, they hire the one with the credential from government funded schools that say he’s been trained in X.

      This is becoming a problem for companies in North America lately, as the quality of government school credentials approaches zero. A kid can sleep through a two year community college course in computer science and emerge with a Certificate! that says he can do C++/Java/etc. But the truth is, the kid can barely read and all he can do with the computer is surf teh interwebz. Google will hire him anyway, because certificate.

      But only if he’s not White or Asian. Whites and Asians are expected to actually -know- C++/Java/etc. and to have been using it since they were 8 years old.

      This explains a great deal about Google.

      1. Requiring applicants to demonstrate that they actually know how to do the job is RRRAAACISSST!!!
        ———————————
        It is so much easier to check credentials and victim group status than to evaluate ability.

        1. In certain circumstances, job performance evaluations that measure actual job performance, for example lines of viable code produced per time unit, are illegal in Canada. You can’t be fired for incompetence, negligence or drunkenness from a wide variety of jobs.

          You -can- be fired for expressing an opinion in your time off.

          https://thepostmillennial.com/nurse-faces-trial-in-bc-for-saying-biological-sex-is-real

          “This panel of the college’s discipline committee has been appointed to determine the sole allegation … that Ms. Hamm made discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people while identifying herself as a nurse,” began Michael Seaborn who specified his pronouns as he/him, legal counsel for the British Columbia College of Nursing and Midwives (BCCNM).

          Seaborn explained that the college is not alleging any shortcomings with Hamm’s “competency as a nurse or any deficiency in her conduct as a nurse at work”, but rather that the case deals with “off-duty conduct.”

          “Shut up!” they explained.

          To which one can only reply, “get off my lawn.”

          2. FFS.

            Look, yes, I’ll admit, I’m not always da best model of sobriety or piety horrible coughing fit, but for fucks sake, I don’t go build houses feckin’ paralytic. I might be mildly immortal, but me fingers don’t feckin’ grow back!

      2. I worked a company which had a huuuge budget for employee training. People asked the owner “Aren’t you afraid your employees will get training, learn new skills, and leave?” To which replied “What I’m scared of is they won’t get training, won’t learn new skills, and they’ll STAY!”.

  18. I would argue that the basic problem lies in Marxism’s triumph over the Judeo-Christian worldview. For almost 2 thousand years Christianity (longer for its predecessor) taught that our ultimate fate lies in our own hands. You may fail. You may be killed, but your ultimate fate lies with you and you alone–not your parents, not your culture, not your station in life even if you are a prisoner or a slave. This worldview is not and never has been inculcated by other culture. Other cultures teach that your responsibility and fate lie with your family or tribe or fiefdom or nation.

    THAT is the great heresy of our time, enabled by the weakening grip of the Christian and Jewish idea even among many of the otherwise faithful (including the current antipope). Only that sense of individual responsibility and individual reward can bring back the great American Experiment.

    1. Marxism, and the statist ideologies based on it, take the premise of “render onto Caesar (the state) that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s” into “the state is god and thus all should be rendered onto the state”. In other words “all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”.

      It is why the left has such visceral hatred for Jews and Christians.

      1. When people quote Jesus according to Matthew as saying, “When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was homeless, you gave me shelter. When I was naked, you clothed me,” they always seem to want you to believe it says, “When I was hungry, the government took your money to feed me. When I was homeless, the government took your money to give me shelter. When I was naked, the government gave me this lousy t-shirt.”

    2. Another major advantage of a Christian, is that he knows that God is looking. God knows his motivations. So we know that our actions need to be more than looking like we are doing good, but actually co-creating with God’s plan.

      I have three goals each day.
      That everyone I meet is made more Joyful.
      That I make everyone think.
      That I reflect God perfectly to everyone I meet, which means to bless those who need to be blessed, and curse those who need to be cursed, and see goal #1.

      Marxism permits no other god than Marx. Communism, the Christian heresy. You understand Marx and Islam when you understand they are both Christian heresies.

  19. I think there are a bunch of Overton Windows all shifting at once. Schools are one. Health care is another. So is crime.

    A “Law, order, and public decency” candidate could clean up.

  20. There were problems even in the fifties. 1956, in third grade public school, my teacher used the word “millennium” to mean a million years. I knew it was a thousand, so I raised my hand a said so. She insisted on a million. I got up, took the dictionary from the shelf and showed her. I was sent to the principal’s office, A told I was NOT to question the teacher. “What and let her remain wrong?”. No real answer. Told my Dad after school. He took off work, and came in the next day. Would have loved to be fly on the wall on that conversation. Later that day, I was told I was not to talk to my folks about issues at school. I told them I had been instructed that if someone said don’t tell your parents, their intent was evil, and I was to tell them instantly. Again, no real answer.

    2. Yeah, I really don’t feel bad about having slugged a teacher one day while in 3rd grade.

      Even a 10 year old can recognize, and fight against tyranny. Although it was a good instruction on what actions are effective, and which are not. Which is probably why I’m not out “pruning” the branches off the crap growing out of the government swamp.

      1. Oh my, mom would’ve SLAUGHTERED them.

        ……….
        My mom too. But this is back when parents actually had a say (more or less).

        I thought we had a say on our son’s education K – 12; now I wonder.

  21. Interesting about the Moorish bit among the Portuguese. I had read somewhere (I read and study a lot) that there had once been Negro slavery in Portugal back in Roman times but that slavery had fallen into abeyance and the Negro population had intermarried with the locals with the result that the Portuguese had a lot of Negro blood in them that showed up occasionally in how people looked. The prime example was King John VI, grandfather of Dom Pedro II of Brasil. Diplomats wrote to their home countries that John VI HAD to have Negro blood in him from his physical appearance. (I should note that I think there may be some anti-Portuguese prejudice from this Black blood story–it is more difficult to find materials on Portugal in English than on Spain or France or Italy.
    Anyways, some more words on you about this Moorish connection in Portugal sometime might make interesting reading. Brazil’s Emperor Dom Pedro II is an interesting character. OK, my mother’s mother was born a Slavic subject on Austrian Kaiser Franz Josef and Dom Pedro and Franz Josef were first cousins (FJ’s father and DP’s mother were siblings–and BOTH had Napoleon Bonaparte as an uncle!); this means I consider Brazilians as family! OK, so Brazil hasn’t had Emperors since 1889 but we can dream..

    1. that was not from Roman times. You’re mixed up. The Roman citizens were more likely to be black than the Roman slaves. Slaves were more likely to be blond.
      There were A LOT of African slaves imported into Portugal in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. They intermarried and the entire population became a shade darker.
      BUT the kings having African blood is bullshit. Like, complete and utter bullshit. The kings of Portugal — like other royal families — had almost no Portuguese blood. The second Dinasty had JEWISH blood, since Henry the Navigator’s father was born of a converso woman (He was illegitimate. Ascended on restoration fo the country after Spanish rule.) BUT no Black blood. Heck, most of them were mostly German.

      1. Yup. Roman Spain/Portugal, and the previously Carthaginian parts of Spain/Portugal, was a trade hub. It was also a popular place for Roman soldiers to retire and collect their piece of land.

        1. One of the “important families” in the area (My SIL’s family) PROBABLY owned all of the village under Rome (and the next three villages.) Over their continuously inhabited farm/manor house’s gate (The roman portions were in fact under a wheat field, but you know what I mean) is the notice that the land was given to someone or other on retirement, under Trajan.

        1. The woman is OBVIOUSLY of Germanic origin. But in one of her portraits, the features look VAGUELY African (less so than mine) therefore crazy Americans have decided she’s black.

  22. Read Romans 1:18-32. The wrath of God includes making people wise in their own conceit but actually foolish.

  23. Overton Window. Took me a long time to find a definition; the concept turns out to be semi-obvious but as someone with a history degree and training I’m used to thinking over a wide range. Glenn Beck’s novel “The Overton Window” will NOT help–I will NEVER read anything by Glenn again!

      1. In his own way, Beck did a LOT to get people looking at connections between “Foundations” and politics, and he’s probably one of few people who could get tens of thousands to read The Road to Serfdom so they could follow along and comment with his TV show (when if was on Fox.)

        Yes, he’s off-kilter, but as Orvan says, people should take him seriously.

  24. Object to your reasonably correct assertion?

    Certainly as an interim measure, we need to end federal involvement in education and totally defang is not eliminate the teacher’s unions. (The latter objective might be sufficiently accomplished by achieving the former plus making it illegal for teacher’s unions, if not all unions, to mandate union membership as a condition of employment, or impose punitive measures on people who refuse the join the unions.)

  25. Having 2 or 3 or more points of view is actually better. It might even encourage people to study issues further than what you are taught in school. Public, private, the neighborhood nice lady, etc.

    Remember keep your clothes, valuables and weapons close so you can find them in the dark.

  26. “…teaching kids that white people invented slavery to enslave blacks, instead of just teaching them that slavery is a sin as old as mankind, and existing in all races, and inflicted upon all races…”

    To anyone with any noticeable grasp of the “ancient world” (Romans, Greeks at the very least, Biblically also Egyptians, likely but not to my certain and instant knowledge also Persians, Assyrians, etc.) that idea is right up at the point-and-laugh and try really hard not to fall down level of absurd. (And notice in the overall conventional color-scheme, most or all of these peoples are maybe-sorta-white at most.) “Did those clever but very evil ‘white people’ also invent prostitution, taxation, and fire, too, the better to further oppress their poor victims?”

    Which immediately means that when the “teachers” who are retailing this line of, ah, narrative in the guise of history go beyond North America and before (roughly) 1619, they’re gonna have to either dance around the (known or guessed) reality very very fast and well, or else just outright lie to their students about such things as where food in the Roman Empire days largely came from… though of course that’s one more thing that involves lots of finicky detail. (Search term: ‘latifundia’.) “Oh, what a tangled web they weave,” those mad spiders of the 1619 Mendacity.

    And no, “white people” did not introduce slavery to North America. It’s a bit of a nasty thought — but if the economic and mercantile situation had been a bit different, ‘American’ as in ‘Indian’ slaves might have been quite the item of international commerce, courtesy of “successful” tribes here and their own mercenary instincts. One more alternate-history event we can be glad didn’t happen on our timeline…

    1. Slavery was practically universal for at least 300,000 years. There is not branch, twig or leaf of the human family tree untainted by slavery. ‘Reparations’, if any, are owed by everybody, to everybody. Sorting it out would be impossible.

      Why can’t they just be glad the United States was one of the first countries to abolish slavery?

      The British like to brag that they were the first, BUT — the way they ended slavery in 1824 was by borrowing 20 million pounds to buy the slaves from the rich slave owners, and making the Commons pay off the loan. The last payment was made just a few years ago.
      ———————————
      Governments can only print money; they can’t make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

      1. The Reader believes that if Alexander Hamilton had lived he would have advocated that solution here; it was the kind of government action he often advocated. And it would have been cheaper than 700,000 lives. We would have still had to learn to live side by side. The Brits didn’t on their home territory. There were so few slaves in Britain proper in the early 19th Century that it wasn’t an issue.

      2. “Slavery was practically universal for at least 300,000 years.”

        You know why it isn’t anymore? Not morality—the Industrial Revolution. Now we have machines to do all the nasty jobs that nobody wants to do. I mean the daily level of necessary things that we need to survive.

        We don’t need to chop wood anymore to cook our food or heat our houses; we’ve got electric or gas heating and cooking appliances. Heck, we’ve got microwaves to make it even faster. Boom, there goes several hours per day of work. We don’t need to hand-wash our clothing; we have washing machines. We don’t need to laboriously plow farmland with animals or even ourselves; we have tractors.

        People who complain about the amount of work we have to do in modern society have no CLUE how much work they’re offloading. And to be honest, the reason slavery was a thing was because, again, nobody wants to do these things. Yeah, some people like to chop wood (I know a set of scouts whose joy is to set up and employ an axe yard), but it’s not an “every day until you die” chore anymore. You can do it for fun.

          1. I spin and weave. I also have my, “God Bless the Industrial Revolution,” spiel, where I run through the general history of spinning, ending with mechanical spinning and power looms. I point out that thanks to that I can spin for fun, not because there’s never enough yarn for the looms.

            1. Now I know who to ask!

              How long does it take to make a simple cotton shirt with pre-industrial technology? Spin the thread with a spinning wheel, weave it with a hand loom, cut the pieces and sew them together with a treadle sewing machine.

              I estimated at least 40 hours of labor, making one shirt cost around $700.00 in today’s terms. Most of the time is taken up spinning the 14,000 yards of thread. Spinning good thread is not unskilled labor!

              I didn’t even count ginning, sorting and carding the cotton.
              ———————————
              Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

        2. (I know a set of scouts whose joy is to set up and employ an axe yard)

          ….
          Only “a set”? Try most every scout I’ve encountered once they’ve been introduced to the axe yard, and earned their Tote ‘n Chip. Closing the axe yard, was almost an outing requirement to get anything done. (Not that more than one scout could be in that area at a time … but still.)

          How did we cure our own scout? We had our scout split and stack that seasons wood, all 10 chord … cured him. Next season he was willing to use paternal grandparents mechanical splitter.

    3. Apparently the new film about Dahomy-as-Hollywood-wishes-it-were is getting flack from African-Americans. Apparently the real Dahomy beat up the neighbors and sold them to Europeans and others as slaves (as well as having human sacrifice on scales running from “once a year” to “hundred at a go.”). Oops. smirks in history kitty

    4. And no, “white people” did not introduce slavery to North America

      The teacher we had who tried to push that was pretty freaky even before you considered “hey, we rape you into submission so you’re adopted, now” as not being slavery.

      He seriously pushed it as “adoption” when the tribe murdered your family and then “married” you.

  27. I’m reaching the opinion that with few exceptions, we could probably get rid of just about everything made by the entertainment media after 2006-08 or so, and the world would be a much better place in general and in specific.

    They at least tried very very hard to remotely pretend like they were normal.

      1. Probably why I’m going to have to buy a new BluRay player at some point soon. I’m trying to get everything I can on physical media. Because it’s MINE at that point and they can’t edit or vanish it.

  28. Before 2020, I’d have agreed with you but argued that it would take generations to wean the normies off their learned dependance on the state. Not it could all burn down tomorrow for all I care, kids running feral in the street or sitting at home watching paint dry is better than government schools.

  29. Sarah said: “Furthermore, the only way to keep the Overton window over a whole country is to enforce strict control over the media, and even social media, and to ruthlessly crush down dissenters, so that everyone appears to agree, leading to shock-rejection of those who manage to break through the wall of government-encouraged-enforced lying.”

    Yes, and those exact things are being done right now in Canada. The government BOUGHT the legacy media, they didn’t even try to hide that they were buying it. They just did it.

    The government is planning legislation to control what shows up on social media. They’re not even trying to hide what they’re doing, they are just going to DO it. Straight up.

    Annnnd they’re going to fail.

    In the (not mainstream) blog-based news today, it was revealed that the RCMP (that’s the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for you ‘Muricans) released their blacklist of all the people who donated money to the Freedom Convoy, which was legal by the way, to “lobbyists”.

    “A police blacklist of bank account holders named as Freedom Convoy sympathizers was emailed to lobbyists, records disclose. The RCMP distributed names, birth dates, phone numbers and other personal information by unencrypted email, contradicting public claims by cabinet.”

    This from the federal police force of a country whose Prime Minister was belting out Bohemian Rhapsody in the lobby of his luxury London hotel the night before the Queen’s state funeral. (No, not at a private party, in the f-ing -lobby-. Yes, there’s video. No, it is not being reported by the bought-and-paid-for media. Yes, everybody knows except Canadians.)

    1. Cally: [Recites atrocities the Federation committed against her family]

      Vila: “And it wasn’t even a crime!”

      Cally: [Icy menace] “You mean it wasn’t against the law.”

      Vila: [Nervous] “Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant!”

  30. Pingback: Sarah Hoyt on the Overton Window « Quotulatiousness

  31. To my Canadian neighbors:

    You and your families should take up elk hunting. It teaches great things: camouflage, silent movement, sniping, and gun control.

    It sounds like you all will need these skills if you want to remain free.

    See the truth, say the truth. Be ungovernable.

  32. For every locality A the term “the government of A” names the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber).
    Government employment has no power to transform people spiritually; quite the opposite: guns attract thugs.

    Current policy in many US States restricts parents’ options for the use of the taxpayers’ $15,080 per pupil-year (2018-19 US average) K-12 education subsidy to facilities operated by government employees. Children, parents, and taxpayers get nothing positive from the current policy that they would not get from a voucher-subsidized competitive market in education services or from an unsubsidized, minimally-regulated* competitive market in education.

    *No compulsory attendance laws, no minimum wage laws, no child labor laws.

    1. Either false, or circular; the Cartels in Mexico definitely do more “interpersonal violence” than all levels of the Mexican gov’t combined.

      The phenomena of governments being the most common route for violence is rather advanced WRT social organization.

  33. George Wilder Cartwright wrote 97 years ago about “universal education”. It is very revealing. Doing the math, Frederick the Great started it 241 years ago, for nefarious purposes, which is still what it is about today.

    German Efficiency and American Liberty

    One hundred and forty-four years have rolled away since Frederick the Great issued his decree that started universal education in Germany. Nearly fifty years later five million serfs were emancipated by official proclamation and serfdom was technically abolished. The German people became a free people on the surface, but centuries of servitude had established a habit of “mind your master” in them that induced an attitude of subservience to inherited authority. Frederick the Great was not inspired by any broad conceptions of general uplift through the medium of education, but by a desire to increase German military efficiency. He had learned by observation and experience that the best soldiers were those who had just enough and not too much education. The ruling classes in Germany clung tenaciously to the feudalistic theory of government. German statesmen, philosophers and teachers uniformly regarded the state as consisting of two distinct and separate classes. The few upon whom the burdens and responsibilities of government should rest, largely by reason of inherited right, and the masses of comparatively uneducated people whose chief function was to render unquestioned obedience to the commands of constituted authority.
    The whole German system of education as originally founded by Frederick the Great, and as developed and extended by his successors, has consistently adhered to this fundamental idea.
    The masses of the people were educated in the Volksschulen, or elementary school for the common people. Here they were drilled most thoroughly in “obedient industry, patience, persistence and thoroughness.”
    The child was taught from infancy to revere and respect his superiors and habits of obedience to authority became fixed. The education of about ninety percent of the German people was confined to the Volksschulen. Secondary and higher education were unknown to them. Their reverence for the kaiser amounted to a kind of worship. They dared not question his divine right to rule.
    On the other hand, the ruling classes were thoroughly trained in the higher schools and universities, receiving special technical training in the particular branches relating to their several departments.
    With ninety per cent, of her people schooled to servile obedience and sufficiently educated to render efficient service, and with the ruling classes technically trained each in his special field of endeavor, to organize and to direct, the German machine developed a massed efficiency hitherto unknown in the history of the world.
    Individual initiative among the masses remained undeveloped. Being neither fostered nor encouraged, the individual was lost in the progress of the mass. The man was merely a part of the great machine. The door of opportunity was practically closed to nine-tenths of the people.
    We heard a great deal about German efficiency during the early stages of the war. Nobody says anything about it now. Germany had more regulations that infringed personal liberty than any other country. Nothing could be done by the individual without first getting some kind of license or permit. The. goings and comings of each man, woman and child were made a matter of record. Exhaustive reports were required of all persons, firms, and corporations. They had destroyed individual initiative and incentive. Yet, in eighteen months, America did what Germany had not been able to do in forty years. Why should we further Germanize America by regulations and restraints? Why should those who seek to do so call themselves reformers? They draw their inspiration from Caligula, Aurelius, and William II. of Germany.
    -Mutual Interests of Labor and Capital by GW Cartwright, 1918, DEMOCRAT CA State Senator, 2 term
    https://remnantshighway.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/mutual-interests-of-labor-and-capital-hilite1.pdf#german-efficiency-and-american-liberty

  34. I’m all for abolishing a number of things, public education among them.

    But also, can we please not do the thing where we pretend our policy preferences would lead to a utopia? I think the complaint that some kids wouldn’t be educated is fair, and the correct response is not that it would -still- be better for them – it’s a trade-off, and some kids would indeed end up worse-off, because, even if the default option isn’t great right now, it is inevitably going to be better than the default option some kids end up with otherwise. It’s an entirely new roll of the dice, and some kids get double sixes, and some kids get snake eyes, that got different rolls before.

    The key thing to emphasize, I believe, is not that everybody would end up better off, which basically can’t be true, but rather that the solution we’re applying right now ends up with -more- kids being worse-off, in more ways. Emphasize the trade-off, and in doing so, defang it. Acknowledge some kids have to end up worse off.

    I think this is kind of the central problem with a lot of policy positions. Like, personally, I think open immigration would be net positive; more people would end up better off. But also – like, it would be ruinous to some people, as well, and not acknowledging that is kind of the central issue I have with the way the Democrats approach the whole thing.

    (Actually, I’d say “Not acknowledging the people their policies hurt” is pretty much the central Democratic shtick in the current political era.)

    1. Oh, no. Sometimes you can end up universally better. Take the free market.
      OTOH I think — having immigrated and acculturated – that open immigration is demented and a good way to abolish the country. So, whichever.

    3. Shorter:
      “Some kids may not be educated!”
      “They’re not educated RIGHT NOW.”

      Same way with the homeschooling “Socialization” argument– yeah, my kids aren’t socialized to be bounced off lockers. Don’t see that as a BAD thing….

    4. The free market allows more people to better themselves than any other system. Not everybody will make the effort, and yes, some will be stymied by forces beyond their control. But the opportunity to better oneself is greater in a free market system.

  36. “A school set by a military service would obviously be different.”

    Sorry Sarah, but I beg to differ on that one. West Point, and the Air Force Academy being two excellent, err egregious, examples of massive Wokeism and Marxist infiltration and indoctrination so bad that multiple former alumni have taken notice and written condemnations of it. Which hasn’t moved TPTB.

    1. Years ago, even before “woke” was (recognized by that name) as a Thing, I had a ‘boss’ who many ooh-ed and aah-ed over as he was a West point grad. That useless piece of flush-worthy excreta forever destroyed any respect I might ever have for a “West Point” graduate. Damint, I have FLUSHED better than that useless farkwhyte of a shte-head mega-dolt! MOO!. And my current uber-boss is FULL of Ideas. Second Looie ideas.. (does that exist in Navy? He supposedly is Navy..). for Annapolis sake, I hope he was NEVER there.

  37. ….Wordpress, why did you screw up how you send out messages, AGAIN?!

    (it’s now arriving as COMMENTOR SAID on POST NAME, which doesn’t thread in email)

  38. Pingback: Feelin the pinch in a way | Dio's Workshop

  39. > letting the families fend for themselves in education meant some kids wouldn’t be educated at all.

    …just like public school, then.

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