And I Feel A Little Peculiar

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

One of the most charming insults since I came out of the political closet going on 12 to 14 years ago was that I was “a little peculiar.” It was said by a Britisher of course, and it was charming and almost endearing compared to the bilge, sewer water and outright maligning that’s come my way.

Weirdly I haven’t lost ALL my talent. That’s normally what happens first. But there are a few holdouts on that side (mostly those who have read me) who say I can still write I’ve just gone insane, peculiar or sold out. (Oh, that last is charming too. Like there’s money on our side. Okay, there is, but it’s from the public, not the easy, have a packet of cash from a supporting billionaire.)

OTOH I’ve been informed I’m retarded because I retain my accent (moved here after the age of 18, so it’s fairly normal) or because I typo like I breathe. (Dyslexic. In every language I speak.) Hilariously some of the world brains claiming that don’t realize I’m ESL.

I’m not saying this to complain. (TRULY) It doesn’t hurt. Not even when I laugh (and I laugh a lot.) But all of the above is the mildest that’s been thrown at me.

I’ve been accused of crimes real and imaginary, including of having been part of a tyrannical government that fell when I was 11. I’ve been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer as well as racist, sexist and homophobic of course. I have been told I hate Asians (how anyone who reads my books can think that is beyond me. I do, however, dislike dragon-shifter gangsters. Be aware of that.)

It got so bad that at one time my kids were playing online with their gamer group which is international — keep in mind they were under assumed names, as all gamers are. I think my kids have ten handles each at least — when they suddenly heard my name bandied around as this terrible horrible bigot person who wanted to hurt women writers and keep them from being published, and who was probably violent. They decloaked, beat the others around the room and left the group.

Again, not saying this for pity or to whine. At this point all of this is situation normal, as is the fact I have to keep my current address secret including the state I’m in (I figure it will come out in no less than three years. Enough people know the state and city and fandom TALKS. But I’ll keep it quite the next two years if I can.) Because some cartoon characters find SWATing funny. And because some cartoon characters with power and the dem illusion of invulnerability think cutting out the internet access of opponents is a great idea. (Here’s my middle finger, Polis.)

I’m used to this now. I wouldn’t know what to do if tomorrow I started being treated as everyone else. I’d probably check the obituaries to see if I’d died and not noticed.

The point is, and what’s important here: THIS IS THE PRICE YOU PAY TO BE OUT AS BEING TO THE RIGHT OF LENIN.

And this is as a 3rd light in science fiction and mildly amusing blogger.

But I’m educated (ooh, boy. And other useless things) well read, an artist (ah, not really, but a passable craftswoman) and an immigrant from a schrodingerly Latin country (It’s Latin when it suits them) so I’m obviously and clearly someone who should belong to them. Since I insist on staying outside the fence and doing a cha cha at the sheep within, it can’t be tolerated and everything plus the Elon Twitter sink must be thrown at my head.

Imagine how larger the price is if you’re someone who opposes them in politics?

Particularly if you’re a woman, black, a New Yorker, or someone who is rich and successful and has been submerged and passing his whole life as being on the left. (I’ve come to the conclusion Trump, like me, was in the closet for political reasons. It’s how you become that peculiar.)

I think the price is higher, and what you become, overnight, unbeknownst to yourself even, is much much worse.

And when I say it doesn’t hurt and I’m not complaining: It’s true now. But the first …. six years after coming out of the closet were rough. People I loved despite our different opinions suddenly and out of the blue savaged me. People I thought were friends stabbed energetically. Professional contacts complained of the pain and angst of working with such a terrible character (my favorite being the ex-Baen-proofreader who talked about how hard it was to proof my vile, politics laden books. She left before DST. So it was Draw One In The Dark And Gentleman Takes a Chance. Not that any of the others are politics laden, but I could see that there is a libertarian slip showing in the DST series. But…. SHIFTERS?) Just every morning was more or less “What fresh hell is this?” It’s still happening, now of course because I won’t swallow the fraud. Even people nominally on our side — who apparently believe that Biden got the most votes in a presidential election ever, and was the president who is so popular that he lost almost nothing in midterms and that all these years it was Obama dragging him down (think on that a minute. Say it with a straight face) — are now doing the “distance and throw things at her” some of them having started before the election (things that make you go “um”) –are still doing this now and then.

So, you know. it’s okay. I’m used to it. But dear Lord, I know and can sense how much worse it is above.

No, this isn’t a sympathy for Trump thing. You can have it or not, I don’t care. Until fraud is out your opinion — and mine — don’t matter. It’s a “Yeah, he’s peculiar. A lot of our champions are/were peculiar. AND WHO ELSE DO YOU THINK YOU’LL GET?”

Humans are social apes. Over the last 100 years the leftist pov was enforced so strenuously that to go against it was to step outside the ape-band. Or at least it was in everyone’s perception.

This might no longer be true, with the band itself, but it is true with any of those in the band that screech. All the media, all the entertainment, all the education, even political figures who are supposedly not on the left, will revile you, make fun of you, and discount your intelligence the minute you announce you don’t buy into the left’s beliefs and oh, yeah, you’re anti-communist.

(The inverse is true. Occasional Cortex, a woman who can find her own ass with two hands, a seeing eye dog and ass-finding GPS 2 times out of ten is universally applauded as smart and a trend setter.)

TO STEP OUT AT ALL you must be pretty peculiar, in the sense that you’ve stopped immersing yourself and trying to fit in with the other apes. You’ve stopped scratching when they do and howling when the etiquette dictates. You’ve had enough of it. Having thought about it and come to the conclusion you have to follow your own internal prompts, you have in a way stopped being part of the band. That’s peculiar for a social ape. In fact it’s downright insane.

It’s also useful when the band as a whole is determined to do stupid things (like the one child policy, or “green” energy or jumping off a cliff, or become whatever the current version of the dems is: Mao-eco-facist, at an approximation.) They need these peculiar, standing out apes to move them to a course where the band will survive.

But until the wheel turns completely, the ones who stand out and try to push us away from the precipice will be weird. They will have peculiarities other than “disagrees politically.” (Usually fairly harmless. Ted Cruz quotes science fiction movies and books and can’t read a room to save his life. Probably literally. It’s a wonder he survived this long as a politician.)

They will also not be great as politicians. Smooth career politicians are unlikely to step that far out of the “mainstream” even when the mainstream is running around with pants on its head making choo choo noises. Whatever else politicians are, they’re highly social. Now, there might be some geniuses out there, who are politicians and genuine goats and under cover, but probably not a large number of them..

The time is late. The danger is very real.

All our champions will be peculiar. And if you keep screaming at them with the rest of the band and saying “You’re peculiar” then you won’t get any.

I don’t mean to say we must run Trump. Again, who we run makes no difference until we get the fraud out. Certainly not for national offices.

BUT if we want people, particularly people of money and fame — howdy, Elon, hey — to stand up against the establishment, we must stand against the establishment. We must not revile them.

If they’re going to get bilge from both sides, why would anyone sane stand out? (Sane for a definition of can see the train coming at speed.)

It’s my theory if the times weren’t so bad and crazy, we’d have NO ONE with any power and influence. Heck, we might not have me.

This is completely different from the way the other side treats their weird (and considering how they’re the voice of the pack it’s amazing how many rank weirdos they have. And I mean rank) members: I submit Beto, the fake Latin, and Tank Abrahams the crazy fake governor of Georgia. Do they revile them? Even when they do or say the craziest things? Nope. They pet them, love them, call them George and suggest they run for president.

And this when their weird members have far less excuse both in a “stand outside the pack” way and in a “so stressful to have all your friends turn on you” way.

So… Put down that handful of poo, and think before you join the bien pensant in hurling it at the champions of the right. And give them room to sometimes be weird or say strange things (and in this I’m including Cruz, deSantis, etc.) without immediately turning on them.

Paranoia is a perfectly sane reaction to growing up surrounded by foes. But it can be exaggerated. I realize not giving people another chance to stab you is a good thing. But count out the first two. The first is happenstance, the second is coincidence. (And this doesn’t mean going after people on words said sometimes reported out of context, but on real, verifiable deeds.)

Stand down. Don’t kill the weirdo. He or she might be your only chance at getting out of this bind.

223 thoughts on “And I Feel A Little Peculiar”

  1. You raise some damned good points, and most of us will never truly understand what you have, and are continuing to go through. Mad props to you for hanging in and hanging on while continuing to write successfully! And shooting is ‘usually’ the last resort… Just sayin…

      1. Dry kitty tone No, mad props are sort of thing aviators really try to avoid. The only thing scarier is a runaway Hobbs meter. end dry kitty tone

  2. Weird? Peculiar? Me?
    You’re damned right, and what of it?

    outside of that, the link WP gave me under this post is someone claiming “Demipolybiqueerpanaceexpialidocious
    One of my weirdest facets is that I’m both polyamorous and demisexual. This shouldn’t work. It probably, in actual practice, won’t work, because for the…” by someone going by the moniker lovescienceandnat20s
    This is who those is calling US out are claiming are mainstream and are working to make more of.

          1. I refuse to speculate. And utterly refuse to speculum – unless it’s for an oooold fashion metal telescope mirror…. which would still be Rather Silly now, but at least non-cringeworthy.

      2. Xhe isn’t sexually attracted to anybody without building an emotional attachment first, and that could be with someone of either sex, but would prefer that to be open to multiple such concurrent attachments.
        Xhe is quite right that it would be very difficult to make that work.

        1. I’m not really sure how you’d figure that out about yourself, honestly. Demi is a tricky one especially, usually involving many years and a figurative whack upside the head.

            1. I have to disagree. There are many women I’ve been attracted to without an emotional attachment present, and the extent of hookup culture shows it’s hardly rare.
              The emotional attachment is a huge part of why I married the woman I did but that didn’t blind me (or her) to the attractiveness of others, just put limits on what we would do about it. There’s no harm in looking 😉

              1. In David Weber’s War God (Bahzell) series, the main “species” are called the Races Of Man and are all off-shoots of our sort of Humans.

                Oh while “Standard” Humans are the majority “species”, the Super-Power Empire is ruled by Dwarves.

                The Immortal Elves rule only their small kingdom and don’t associate much with the other Races of Man. They don’t look down on the other Races of Man but keep to themselves.

                The Real Racists are the Half-Elves. 😉

            3. Demi is low on the bell curve of sexuality. I mean, yeah, it fits in with “normal,” but definitely far to the left side (if right is the horndogs.)

  4. Great post.
    I’ve been trying to recall a quote that I read a few years ago. Maybe it was Chesty Puller? Something about, in every unit there’s a soldier or a Marine whose uniform looks like a bag of mud, but he has the ability to think outside the box. You want to simply be grateful for that guy and that he’s on our side, because if you’re not, the enemy will win him over to the other side and you’ll lose the war.
    Now this is going to drive me batty.

    1. I don’t know if that was Puller, but if it wasn’t it should have been. One of the best ever, and only politics and the envy of inferior “superiors” kept him from becoming Commandant. I always regretted that I was in the Corps too late to have a chance of serving under him.

  5. “You are a peculiar people”.

    Said by G*d in the Old Testament (at least IIRC in the King James version). [Very Very Big Grin]

    2. “Peculiar” has shifted over the centuries. It used to mean “unique” (as in “peculiar institution” for southern-style slavery) but now means “weird, odd”.

      1. There’s a game where you start with a word and a thesaurus (usually a computerized one) and try to get to the antonym by as few links as possible.

        From “atypical” you can get to “typical” by one word: “peculiar.” (The first standalone, the second as “peculiar to.”)

  6. A fair number of New Yorkers are not
    Progressive. They live in the outer boroughs mostly or have left for the outer suburbs — raises hand. The despised white working and lower middle class.

    Progressivism belongs to the rich and their servants. Alas, the rich have a lot of servants and a lot of money to buy votes. They own the government the banks the press and just about anything else. My career would be over if they found out and mine is a profession that takes a long time to learn. It’s worse for the young and God help the poor artists

    We’re still here though, which is why I get salty when people from reliably red areas dump on us. We deal with the sneering BS every day.

    2. I know the cities aren’t blue. They look that way because fraud is easier is all.
      I like cities. Wouldn’t want to live in NYC now, but that’s the government.

        1. As a yute, I’d go to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry regularly, occasionally taking the train and so on. The last opportunity I had (2014), I gave it 5 seconds of thought before thinking Hell No. Last I looked, milliseconds would be sufficient to reach that conclusion.

          1. I went in 2001 and 2005 … Not my fault the travel agent (I Fly so much … last time was 2005) couldn’t get me a flight out until Tuesday, after Saturday ending of National Jamboree (which was running shuttles into DC airports). Even the Western Oregon Trail Council contingents didn’t get flights out until Sunday (they left on buses to a water park on Saturday, flew out Sunday).

      2. Pockets in the cities are. The enclaves are generally what I’ve heard called the e-mail class. Joe that delivers for the local bodega that the former get their soy lattes from isn’t. Nor are the armies of men that clean, repair, protect, and maintain the infrastructure, by and large. The small businessmen, those that are left? Largely not-left.

        The class that relies on government supplied largess for their daily bread are assuredly left in vast proportion. But how many of those can afford the cities? They’re often on the outskirts, in government housing complexes.

        Florida showed us true. The fraud is real. Shenanigans are afoot. We’ll not likely know the extent ’till that bits undone, and the real numbers can be scrutenized.

      3. I still think you’re wrong. Out of the hundreds of people I know and interact with, I can think of maybe six that aren’t lockstep progressives. And while most (but not all) of the people I know are goths or goth-adjacent, they come from all over the country and are of all ages and ethnicities and are in all the income quintiles (and many are even LEOs or current/former military). This isn’t just young and stupid recent college graduates.

        When a real estate agent holding an open house can meet a total stranger and respond to “hi, how are you?” with “I’m fine, now if only the President [W] would die” (literally true story that happened to me) I don’t think you can reach any conclusion other than she just automatically assumed that every person through that door would agree with her and that it would be a enhancement to the possibility of a sale.

        King County has plenty of Republicans, but they tend to sort themselves out to the suburbs and exurbs and rural parts. There are plenty of conservative-ish people who comment to Seattle Times articles (when they allow comments), but very very few of them actually live in the city proper — mostly they complain about how they never want to come in any more because urban problem X has made it so bad. And they get called names by people who do live in the city but think urban problem X is just fine because of Social Justice™ or something, h8er.

        Seattle. Is. Not. Unique. Portland is like this, SF is like this, LA is like this. Probably Boise and Denver and Houston and Phoenix and Cleveland and Philly and Boston too. Cities are where the kind of people who vote Democrat congregate, and having congregated make life difficult for the kind of people who vote Republican, who move to the suburbs/exurbs/small towns or just hie themselves to Texas or Florida.

        2. Um… Dude. This is like the guy who is always barhopping strip clubs, and complains that he can’t find a Christian virgin girl who wants twelve kids. You are living in a place that has been (publicly) taken over, and in a fandom that has been (publicly) taken over. Of course you don’t meet the conservatives. They are keeping their heads down, or they have moved somewhere that the local Goths are all Jacobites or true Hapsburg fans, or something along those lines.

          1. You are living in a place that has been (publicly) taken over,

            Yes I do. It’s a big city. THAT IS THE POINT.

            Of course you don’t meet the conservatives. They are keeping their heads down, or they have moved somewhere

            Again, THE POINT.

            Let me say it in small words: Big. Cities. Are. Democrat.

            You can say “but all the conservatives are keeping their heads down” and that might be true, but They. Are. Outnumbered.

            If the elections were 100% on the up-and-up, the cities would still be blue. Where it matters is that they wouldn’t be able to skew the suburbs and exurbs and hinterlands — again, where the conservatives live — blue as well.

            The only caveat to my previous post is this: The big cities are supermajority Democrat, but they might not be supermajority Woke Democrat. So if we keep hammering the anti-Woke points, we might be able to peel some of them off.

            1. You also have to account for the Democrats who run states on a state level in Washington, Oregon and California, draw districts to put as much of that large Democratic Party population into districts with just enough non-Democrats to meet the population size requirements while ensuring that the district will be an almost certain “blue” district even without the fraud schemes. Thus, the cities have arms, spirals, spears, etc., that reach far out into suburbs and rural areas.

              1. California’s districts are drawn by a commission that’s supposed to be non-partisan, though from what I’ve heard the left more or less stacks it anyway.

                What you’re describing is normal gerrymandering. Both sides do it, absent some restriction that blocks it (one of which gave New York Democrats a rude awakening recently). The ideal gerrymander is a few districts that are pretty much solidly for the other party (with minimal votes from your own party), and a lot of districts that have a slight edge toward your party. This maximizes your own representation while minimizing that of your opponents’. And it works right up until the population adjusts ever so slightly in some of those narrow margin districts, and the balance switches mid-decade from your party to the other party.

                Really absurd geographical districts can and are thrown out by courts. But there needs to be something utterly and completely ridiculous about it (non-contiguous, for instance, assuming that the state’s constitution doesn’t already disallow that) for a court to do that.

            2. Are they outnumbered, though? On Christmas morning, 1985, every dissenter in Romania thought he was alone. By nightfall, the Ceausescues were dead.

        3. Choosing Seattle and Portland to prove the point is building a massive selection bias into it. Like using L.A. to “prove” that all large cities are majority illegals.

          1. How many people here actually live IN a big city — not in a exurb of, not nearby, but IN? Because I’m extrapolating from the evidence of my own eyes and experience, and unless you actually live IN a big city maybe you have no idea what it’s actually like.

            If you want to refute my hypothesis, show me the big cities that aren’t majority Democrat? Surely there must be more than the one exception that proves the rule (and I don’t even think you’ll find that one). But if you’re going to say “we can’t know because of fraud and preference falsification” then I counter-refute you with Occam’s Razor.

            1. Dude. You live in not just “a big city”, but FREAKING SEATTLE.

              And if you had tried to restrain your point to only the very largest cities it would have been plausible but you extended it everywhere.

              1. Dude. You didn’t bother to refute me with counter-examples. And go listen to Idahoans complain about Boise sometime, if you’re going to say “only really big cities are that way”.

                1. Correlation, causation, anecdotal “evidence”, etc.

                  Insert sad smile here. You may be right; but it may be 99/100 think the other 99/100 are leftists so pretend. Sarah told us that one several times.

                  1. Nobody actually lives -in- most mid-sized cities.

                    There are slums that are full of meth houses owned by nobody, there are a few suburbs that got sucked into the city, a couple patches of gentrified Victorian neighborhoods, and a lot of people trying to get enough cash to move out to the suburbs, or left behind when their neighbors got out. Oh, and an immigrant or university neighborhood or two. But the actual downtown is businesses or empty buildings.

          2. LA is very unusual, and is arguably a single giant metropolis spread across four counties. I’d be reluctant to use it as an example of anything.

            1. Re: Portland. So two nieces live in what amounts to downtown Portland. Both have been denying, along with one of their parents (the liberal sister) that the 2020 mess in Portland, “wasn’t”. That the downtown homeless problem is blown way out of portion.

              Today, the topic came up briefly … Guess who has done a 180? All of them. Especially on homeless and general safety downtown. To the point where the one in a studio apartment, apartment with gatekeepers, and elevator required key, is considering self defense options (I think our jaws dropped). We brought up newly passed measure #114. Parents hadn’t paid any attention because they are in Washington. But they are helping with the discussion with their (adult) child, so yes, it matters.

              Also there is a matter of inherited property. We offered to bring them up today. I wasn’t in on the conversation last night. But hubby also brought up that should 114 not get shutdown, they are going to have to come down and pickup the inherited property for their kids. It involves “transporting ownership” of certain items “across state lines”. Or the items can stay here.

              Today’s activity was mom’s 88th birthday party (official date is Monday, the 14th). Most the nieces are in Portland/Vancouver, so 6 of us went north. One niece’s family (also in Eugene) cancelled. The family have been sick all week, with her and their youngest still sick.

              1. Re: Portland

                Allow me to offer my eyewitness testimony. Take into account that I’m used to Seattle, so things I would overlook would probably jump out to small town people as hellish and horrible.

                I go down to Portland every year in May for a goth masquerade ball event. I spend all day Saturday wandering about the shopping-and-restaurant part of downtown (roughly between Broadway west to the 405 and Hawthorne north to the Pearl District, for those following along on a map), and especially in and around Powell’s Books. Note that I do not get down to the government district or riverwards to the financial district.

                This year I was expecting a Mad Max hellscape and was quite surprised to find it mostly business as usual, except for a few businesses boarded up. (Seattle, by contrast, has more empty store fronts and fewer working-but-boarded ones.) There were there were a LOT of homeless camped on sidewalks in 2018 and 2019 and way fewer in 2022, but I am given to understand that they’ve been shooed off or otherwise congregated into larger camps on the periphery of downtown, especially near the Burnside Bridge which probably cuts into Saturday Market traffic. Unlike 2018 and 2019, there were no groups of Antifa goons “protesting” on street corners, and I didn’t see anyone near the downtown courthouse where the riots were.

                As for crime, as I’ve said before I’m male and 5′ 10″ and carry myself with confidence, so while I didn’t feel unsafe I can’t speak to a woman’s experience. However, on an Uber across the river to a club on Friday evening I saw several small groups of young women obviously walking to downtown nightclubs. Otherwise, foot traffic was down a little from 2019. Police have basically disappeared from the streets.

                Again, note that my experiences are only in the central part of downtown. I hear from the news and scuttlebutt from friends that North Portland, which was very rough back in the ’90s when I was visiting my in-laws there, had gentrified in the ’00s but is now quite crime-ridden again, but I can’t speak to that from personal witness. Also, I can’t speak to what a weekday is like in the business/financial/government districts is like (in Seattle it feels like a Sunday on a Thursday in the financial district where my optometrist’s office is).

                1. One niece works at Nike. Her apartment building is right next to 405 (forget actual exit off 405, but not far after it splits north bound from I-5). Parking (must use app because the device wouldn’t work) was a street overlooking 405. Didn’t see any homeless (or where homeless could setup), but both her and her dad say they are there, with all that it implies.

                  Second niece, and her significant other, have an 2 bedroom apartment, same gateway protected access to the apartment and parking, but three, or 4, blocks, east (still between 405 and the river, closer to downtown). From what has been said, they are seeing a lot of homeless. She is close enough to walk to work (somewhere) downtown. He is actually based in Salem, and engineer for ODOT, mostly works from home.

                  We saw fewer homeless from the freeway going up 205, Sunday morning, than the last time. Not none. But it appears either ODOT, or someone, is pushing them out of the highway bank right of ways. We have no reason to go into Burnside or other areas where homeless camping has been an ongoing problem.

                2. Balzacq, you have a great deal more info on this personally than I do, I live in AK, so no comparison and don’t leave all that often.

                  But to the gist of what you’re saying… All of the Long island representatives are now GOP. We got betrayed and the fraud was in big time. And they LOST Long island (because they didn’t do the “Printer goes Brrrrrrrt”) there of course. Tammany hall moved outstate apparently. It’s not all blue.

                  https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/long-island-republican-wins/

                  Or as Dive Medic said “We counted 8 million votes in an hour and a half in FL.” Miami Dade went Red. With Desantis doing the clean up thing on having clean elections. The last time there was this few Democrats in Florida government was during reconstruction I think.

        4. In NYC it’s the outer Boroughs especially Staten Island. The rest is in the suburbs. The thing is that almost all of have been driven out of NYC by the prices becoming too high. We were replaced by lefty wannabes from Podunk. You cannot live a middle class life in NYC anymore.

          STaten Island. parts of Brooklyn and Eastern Queens have working class people. Lots of GOP there. Immigrants tend to do whatever they think Is in”. Hispanics are interesting with the
          Large number of small businessmen among them starting to think like small businessmen.

          I miss NYC. I hate the suburbs. Absolutely loathe them. Politically I’m quite conservative. Culturally I’m a hippy. In that I have to agree that conservatives are rare in the things I like to do. That said. An awful lot of them are just ignorant and a larger number “passing”

        5. There are very few areas where cities are not Democrat hives, even in the reddest states (okc had a dem rep when I left because the media still has a lot of power, no matter how much you want to go into full Broadway showtunes passing the graveyard saying they are dying.) Phoenix was plastered with the bs that the space case was “fighting for you against joe” while lake was going to secede and that would end social security for the blue hairs here. The reps were quiet as church mice. At work, coworkers (mostly folks counting days to retirement, not wet behind the ears college kids) were mostly full bore on masks, on Vax mandates, and so forth. And this is engineers, not it, not hr, none of the stereotypical lefty dreamers. Space case got their votes not thru fraud but because the left owns the transmission of information.

          Cities have always been hives of machine politics from before the revolution. The right gave up on them years ago while the left built up its machine, owning government services, teaching, media, and culture and using all of them to create the herds of compliant population that it needed. Over the last 50 years the economy and population alike have been pushed into codependency (LEAN, JIT, inability to cook, dependency in internet, etc) which makes them easy prey for the story of socialism and the reality of fascism and feudalism that it begets.

          I have family and friends in blue states, lived in the reddest metro in the union (will see what miami dade does in two years, Ian gave DeSantis the same boost Sandy gave Obama imo), and am now stuck in one of California and NYC’s colonies. I know plenty who bite hard Into the media stories and went from Trump fans to sanders supporters.

          1. We’ll have to agree to disagree, then, because I’m pretty damn sure of my experience living in Seattle proper for 20 years and Tacoma proper for 12 years before that and Portland proper for 4 years before that. And preference falsification is there but it’s a per-issue thing. The vast majority of people here are liberals so they vote Democrat, even though they may have doubts about this woke issue or that.

        7. Boise? Nah, bruh.

          The progs present themselves hard, but they don’t understand that the general tolerance is NOT the celebration that they have in their circle.

          It’s a common problem across the country.

          South Park addressed it before the turn of the century.

          The fact that I don’t cheer every LGBTQQIARESPECTEIEIO movement/moment doesn’t mean I’m homophobic.

          (And when did Latin suffix for “fear” become “hates” or “opposes”)?

          1. Or simply “Doesn’t applaud loud and long enough for”?

            So I’m “Homophobic!!” because I’m not interested in what they do. Don’t want to hear about it. Do your own thing and leave me out of it.

            BUT: What you do to other people’s children in the public schools you force me to pay for is for damn sure my business. You take-a my money, you get-a my opinion. Whether you want it or not.
            ———————————
            Biden-Fetterman 2024: It’s a no-brainer!

          2. -phobic means what it does today because the homosexual movement (I was going to say “gay”, and then realized that by doing so I was going along with a preference cascade; it’s weird how that word doesn’t get used anymore) back in the late ’80s and early ’90s pushed the idea that the reason why people were opposed to homosexuality was because they were afraid of it. They claimed that there were no good, rational arguments against homosexuality. People just opposed it because they were afraid of it (and were particularly afraid that if they accepted homosexuals, they might learn that they themselves were also homosexual). So people who opposed it were labeled homophobic.

            1. When it was first “created”, homophobic had the meaning of “Afraid of being thought homosexual”. It was created because some “pretty” men were thought to be homosexual, and they didn’t like that.

        8. I had the same kind of experience with a very competent and nice Toyota salesman…He just assumed that I would be obsessed with “diversity”, whatever that nebulous concept had to do with buying a car…He was quickly disabused of that notion…I still have no idea what his personal views are, and would prefer to keep it that way…

      1. The very rich and the very poor though how much the very poor actually vote rather than mail-in voting is interesting. NJ11 flipped red after two terms of that vile POS that rode the anti Yrump
        Midterm. My old district in NYC, all of Long Island, and a big chunk of
        Upstate went red and the rest of the non NYC races were very close. The GOP has to deal with the details of elections or perish. Most of them would rather perish in afraid than be seen to be icky wypepo

        The big cities ‘ votes have been corrupt since the beginning what changed is the machine not having to deliver anything to their constituents. That’s fairly recent. We’re going to have to face the implications at some point

        1. There must be a reckoning, sooner rather than later.
          New York is instrumental in the GOP taking the House. Assuming that rumor is true.

        2. I lived 14 years in New Jersey. I can’t speak to the proportions but the folks in the suburbs seemed reasonably sane. And every now and then a Republican wins statewide office. But it’s a machine state, no question. The closer you get to Camden, Trenton and NYC metro area, the bluer it gets. We don’t miss it.

            1. All states are purple. Some are more on the red side of the spectrum and some on the blue side, but not state is 100% one or the other. In every state, though, the big cities are blue spots (the “Hillary Archipelago”); the question is only if the hinterlands are ruby red or sort of burgundy.

              1. I figure that if the State of Jefferson became a thing, Bend would be the blue carbuncle in a red sea of rurals. (I gather Spokane would be similar if it went that far north, similarly Redding if it went that far south.)

        3. The only NJ district that flipped from blue to red was NJ7 (Kean, Jr beating Malinowski). 11 remained in the hands of the socialist party.

          1. I live in NJ7. it was red until 2018 when it flipped in the Trump midterm debacle. Keane is almost the epitome of a RINO, but he’s not Malinowski. Malinowski is vile, I’ve met him — one of those guys that sets women’s radar off. Getting Malinowski out took a lot of work, especially as Malinowski spent massive money.

            2. All the self-proclaimed ‘moderate” Democrats like Gottheimer and Sherrill vote in lockstep with the Pelosi and Squad leftists.

              NJ has effectively legalized ballot harvesting (people can drop of mail in ballots in the ballot drop boxes without limit, so even though they don’t expressly authorize ballot harvesting, in practice it is now legalized) and all the other stuff that goes on in places like California and Colorado, and I expect that within the next 4 years it will have the same results it has had in those states.

              1. My solution for the problems of drop boxes would involes a list of their locations and a bag of thermite grenades…

  7. Well said. And thanks for saying it. In your Second Language.
    As if DST and GTAC could come out of someone who wasn’t
    “A little peculiar.”

  8. No prophet is without honor except in their own country.

    So true, all of it. The most important thing is to de-fraud (irony intended) the elections. Then, when in power, dismantle and distribute DC to the true center of the country. My only questions about Trump are whether he’s still too naive about those folks in DC to actually destroy them and salt the earth. Of course, saying nasty things about DeSaintly is not good, but then I only see headlines, and I don’t believe such things until I care enough to confirm it for myself. I’ve lived through too many IRL repeats of Gaslight.

      2. Sundance at CTH is sure DeSantis is being wooed by the GOPe wing of the Uniparty, with Youngkin of Virginia as backup. He thinks the Trump comments are shots across bows.

  9. The (loosely defined) Right is great at throwing away valuable members the very first time they, pardon my French, fart off-key. Leftists don’t just accept their weirdos. They celebrate them and support them even more. I suppose it comes from their side believing that anything goes for the cause, and our side still demands good optics (as judged by our enemies, more often than not).

    1. Because our side has been trained by the press to be afraid of the hammer on the slightest APPEARANCE of impropriety. We’re all Caesar’s wife. Which keeps us in chains.

      1. That’s not it. It’s, “He talked to a rich Republican fundraiser at a cocktail party once. He’s a RINO! BURN HIM!”

        The Left’s purity spiral hurts us more than it hurts them. The Right’s purity spiral also hurts us more than it hurts them.

        1. It’s not always about a purity spiral. A lot of the time it’s “he made us look bad.” Which could be a stupid joke or an embarrassing photo or whatever. “Seriousness of the charge” is a variation on that theme, but we’re sort of beginning to get over that one.

          In the end I had massive problems with W, but he absolutely didn’t deserve to be almost defeated because of an old DWI coming out a week prior to the election. There were fairly solid data that it did in fact make some people stay home.

          1. There is that too. “I don’t really think he f***ed a pig, I just want to see him deny it” kind of stuff from the opposition.

            But boy howdy do we also have a purity spiral going.

            1. “We want a candidate as pure as St. Francis!”

              What we need is a candidate more like, oh, St. Ferdinand of Spain (smiter of Moors), St. Louis of France (smiter of Infidels), St. Oswald of Northumberland (Smiter of . . .). You get the idea. None of whom were sweetness, light, or models of moderation and discretion.

                1. Does St. Michael meet the “natural born” citizenship requirements? Age shouldn’t bee a factor, since he’s way over 35.

                  1. He was “born” long before the US was founded (or Europeans found the Americas) and he could be considered residing in North American long before the first European resided in the Americas.

                    Mind you, I doubt that Michael’s boss would want Michael to become President of the US.

                    The Privilege of rulership of Mankind (or any part of Mankind) by non-mortals is likely restricted to G*d Himself. 😉

        2. the guy we just elected is a RINO. Don’t care. I crawled through glass to vote
          For him. The alternative was truly vile

  10. One thing I’m learning is, I don’t have to have an instant opinion of the latest outrage dejure.

    So many are fake or manufactured or taken completely out of context, sometimes the only good position to take is, let’s find out more before we all cannonball to judgement.

    1. How many times:

      “Did they listen to the same speech I did?”
      “I was there. That is not how it happened!” Contents generally (very generally) correct, but the headlines are way out of context.

      “Longview WA was what??????” Personal experience the 48 hours after St Helen blew (supposedly wiped out … I was talking to mom on the phone, from Longview. The quote is what they, both sets of parents, were getting from their friends who knew we were in Longview.

    2. Same here … I’ve lived long enough to know, and read enough history to be rather skeptical of the current outrage dejure.
      As to think – why is this a story now, and why is it blaring form all the outlets … why, it’s almost as if it has been distributed and rehearsed…

      1. The Journ-O-List effect is real. But also, the media universe of the last forty years and the social media universe of the last ten all incentivize bandwagoning like nothing in history.

        Remember, all the TV networks watch all the other TV networks and have access to near-real-time analytics, so if one news net mentions something and their analytics momentarily spike, every other news net will mention that same thing in the same way within minutes. Social media like-and-share is even worse.

  11. In Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman, Feyname relates the story of him and some buddies being taken out and dropped off well away from town/campus by rival group. They get to an intersection and are indecisive. Then the Quiet One points out that the phone wires are sparse as they spread, and concentrated from the central office, so follow the line of most numerous wires. And, huh… but wasn’t he the dumb one? No. Just not a Standard one.

    1. I love that book. I loved him, too. The only guy who could make me understand physics, 45-minutes at a time.

  12. Right on! The CIA/media state has so severely demonized dissent from the ‘new norm,’ that more and more ‘traditional’ Americans are afraid to speak. I read an interesting piece on The Spectator from a woman who spent a day in a democrat call center, in disguise as a democrat. Most of the people she talked to were voting for Fetterbrain ‘because he was a democrat, and the other party is evil or Nazi. ‘ So I guess the CIA/media state did not require as many IT election fixers as in other places. I won’t say we’ll never get the country out of the swamp and back onto the road, but I will say, I don’t know how the hell we’re going to pull it off, short of out side taking to the streets. Will we? I’m not sure. I think, bottom line, way too many people have become addicted to the gubmint teat.

      1. And a lot of Democrat definitions as the default. They’re currently controlling the rules of the game, which is why it’s hard to make progress.

      2. I agree, very few ‘true’ democrats. Yes, my parents were democrats, as were all the other adults in the little working class neighborhood I grew up in. But, I have to say, a good portion of the people I know, especially in my ‘writers’ group,’ are democrats, self professed. I try on occasion to point out to them that our current democrat party is a fraud. But I can’t get them off the dime. The democrats of my parents’ time loved their country. Today’s democrats no longer do, many of them. Anyway, what the hell is a democrat anymore? Or a republican? I’ve taken to calling myself a non-democrat. I guess by that I mean I’m an independent because so many republican party leaders are frauds, just democrat lite.

      1. Actually, the ‘call center’ had her calling a few people who were very surprised to learn that they were registered democrats. They had no idea. And her description of this ‘get out the vote’ operation indicates that they are leagues ahead of the republicans. She is told by another volunteer, a real democrat, that ‘our systems is so advanced because Silicon Valley IT types are ‘on our side.’ The article, in The Spectator, is called, What I learned making calls for Democrats and Republicans. Here’s a link, if I can add one: https://spectatorworld.com/topic/what-i-learned-making-calls-democrats-and-republicans/

        1. $SPOUSE was a registered Dem in the early months of 2008. She got a call from a D call center and the question was “are you going to support Hillary?”. When $SPOUSE stopped laughing, she realized she might as well shift party affiliation to R. We held our nose and voted for Palin’s boss…

          (GOPe was strong in our county. Bunch of stuck-up country club types. Several were voted out, with at least one trying the “I’m now a Democrat for the general election” and failing miserably. OTOH, the establishment is still a pain in the tail, but we keep trying. Baby steps.)

        2. “And her description of this ‘get out the vote’ operation indicates that they are leagues ahead of the republicans”

          Dave in Florida, the resident elections expert over at Ace’s blog, said the same thing in a podcast that had him on as a guest. He mentioned that he happened to look up some information that got him on the radar of the Warnock campaign, and he’s been deluged with text messages ever since that solicit for donations, talk about the importance of voting, encourage him to vote, and make sure that he knows what to do in order to vote. Meanwhile, crickets from the Republicans. And much of the blame for that – according to Dave – lies squarely at the feet of McConnell and McCarthy, who were playing blatantly obvious favorites with the funds this election instead of focusing on the races that Republicans could win and needed to win in order to get a solid majority in the House and Senate. Not only were M&M playing favorites with the funds, but they were reportedly also forcing candidates to take on certain political consultants as a requirement to get the money. And having a solid GOTV operation takes money.

          Dave’s of the opinion that a lot of the reason why the election wasn’t as big of a wave as he believes it should have been is because the Dems’ GOTV operation was solid, while the Reps’ didn’t have one.

            1. I don’t know enough to offer an opinion either way.

              The podcast in question is in Ace’s sidebar (at the top as I write this), for anyone who wants to listen to what Dave has to say. It runs about an hour.

        3. Just for the record, the post Carl linked is by Dave Seminara.
          It was very interesting, but another data point in why Republican GOTV electioneering is lousy.

          My own data point from 2012: I tried to volunteer for the GOP call center and couldn’t even find the address on a Google Map.
          The Democrats set up shop in the building next to the county welfare assistance office.

  13. I can’t imagine what you, Dan, and the kids, have gone through. I’ve not gone through it. Haven’t hidden my political belief from family or co-workers. Also don’t shout it from the pulpit (regardless of what form that takes), at work or family gatherings. The former, and wow have I discovered since then where co-workers, clients (FB), and scouters, are politically (are they blind? … never mind), it wasn’t part of the business, and wasn’t their business.

      1. And yet still can’t pay off that student loan. Advanced mathematics might be too much to expect, but didn’t that fancy Economics Degree even include simple arithmetic?

        2. Why should she? They will get paid off by the taxpayer. Well, those that aren’t made out to registered Republicans will be.

  15. I rather expected Trump to take a swipe at DeSantis before now. That he would seems pretty inevitable. He did the same to Rubio, Jeb!, Cruz… That just seems to be something he does to those he competes with. I don’t really think there’s actual malice behind it either. He just wants to win.

    As for peculiarities… Well, for all the hollering over how the left is supposed to be the “inclusive” party (stop laughing for a minute, I get it), they have a whole raft of things that they exclude. That being anything and everything not on their one specific list of approved things one can be. Which is leftist and only leftist.

    It was only natural that all the other weirdos would wander away from the left. Some ended up on the right. Others were here already (me, for one).

    But the leftist doctrine enforces weirdo-ness that has evolved far beyond the pedestrian weirdness that comes naturally to humans, like a fascination with story, or geek/nerd interests, and so on. The leftist does not and cannot admit that the weirdness of mutilating children is so far beyond the pale it should be abhorrent. Some can say it in soft voices, in private, perhaps to the mirror when their phone is in the other room. In public? Never.

    The same goes for the rest of the creed. The woke wack. Climate cultism. Race ridiculosity. Sex stupidity. And so on. The left imposes a particular brand of stupid and makes it mandatory. The result breaks all sorts of things, from trust in your fellow man, to relationships, to family structure, to ability to defend self and others, to economic stability, to law and justice…

    That’s why their stories suck. “Representation,” they call it. They have to “represent” things that aren’t real. That’s why all the stories have a gay/bi relationship in them these days, regardless of whether or not it makes sense or is involved in the plot in any way. Why they have to “fix” old stories to do away with the original characters. That wasn’t the approved wierdness. You have to be representative, which doesn’t mean representing reality. No you have to represent better than reality.

    It’s why women are getting shafted along with men now. Women aren’t minority enough (were they ever, in actuality? 50% of the population, a “minority”?). The envelope edge got pushed, and women are getting pushed out. Same as gay men were/are. Not weird enough. Got to be some flavor of new kink made up sexuality.

    Funny though. Weird is still getting the shaft, too. Except now, it’s because the D&D nerds and the reading geeks are just not weird enough to be included in the super-inclusive-really-trust-me-I-promise crowd.

    1. Sam Bankman Fried of The broken cryoto exchange SBX shows that sufficient weirdness can cause people to think you’re very smart. Giving politicians millions will tend to do so too.

      This story has Enron and Madoff
      Beat. The SBX cabal just stole what’s left of the customers money and lit off to Argentina. Everyone needs to follow this. It’s absolutely surreal. They had been living in what was essentially a line marriage in a penthouse and losing $24 Billion in two days. They owe money to everyone including some people it’s not wise to owe money to.

      Zerohedge will as always get you started

      1. FTX/Alameda thing, right? That went down hard, and fast. Word is, he’s not in Argentina (they’ve got an extradition treaty with the US anyway)… supposedly. It’s wild, though. Chap 11, 900M assets vs 9B liabilities, the purported hack, the missing money, the weird relationships thing.

        Makes me glad I didn’t bother with crypto much back when I was moving money around. FTX reads like it will be a made for tv movie in a year or so. You’re right, though. Madoff’s got nothing on what SBF and friends look like they’ve been doing.

        I’m just going to sit back and watch for now. I don’t think this will be the last crypto to go bust in the next little bit, but it is crazy.

        1. It really sounds like crypto is a possible alternate medium of exchange but a lousy medium for speculation. And that trusting your crypto wallet to an exchange, or anything but a USB stick you keep in your safe with a password you can’t possibly forget, is a foolish mistake.

          1. I’d love to see crypto work and so far none of the issues have been crypto qua crypto. The exchanges and .., blech .. stable-coins are all just frauds and pyramid schemes. Especially the stable-coins

            1. BGE, too many people (including people here) want to promote crypto as a “medium of exchange that the government can’t interfere with.”

              Unless people realize that as long as the the government can ask the Al Capone question: “It takes an x level of income for you to afford the necessities of life. How did you receive that income, and why doesn’t it appear on your tax return? Prove it or we will send men with guns to arrest you / kill you.”

              you do not have a medium of exchange that will allow an alternative economy.

        2. He’s skipped with all the remaining money and the KYC details of all the transactions. If he’s lucky he’ll right of return to Israel and Mossad may keep them alive. If he’s unlucky … Well they’ve been laundering money for the democrats and various east European
          Gangsters. Did I mention Biden
          And the Clintons? Epstein died quickly

          It’s really fascinating. It’s better than any thriller I’ve read

        3. Regarding FTX, I read somewhere that a lot of the money sent to the Ukraine was turned around and invested in FTX which company promptly flipped 40 mil back to the commiecrats(with 10% to the Big Guy of course).True or not it sure sounds plausible.

      2. “Sam Bankman Fried of The broken cryoto exchange SBX shows that sufficient weirdness can cause people to think you’re very smart.”

        It’s not weirdness, it’s family and tribal “connections”.

        Once you follow them, it’s a microcosm of the Left’s corruption with links to corporations, elections, Ukraine, 501C organizations and Congressional slush fund bills.

        It’s a mafia, it’s FRAUD.

    2. DeSantis is being – dare I say it? – GROOMED for the role of standard-bearer for the GOP. TPTB have decided that he will be easier to work with than Trump.
      Plus, the state of FL is the Ultimate Destination for The Rich/Influential/Well-Connected, should the remainder of the USA become a hellhole. They can have the benefits of a tropical paradise, without the icky part of giving up protection of US citizenship.

      1. “Plus, the state of FL is the Ultimate Destination for The Rich/Influential/Well-Connected, should the remainder of the USA become a hellhole. They can have the benefits of a tropical paradise, without the icky part of giving up protection of US citizenship”

        Most of the more aware elite have dual citizenship or at least residency overseas. Plus either part or full ownership in a private jet. New Zealand and a handful of other countries are their ultimate bugouts.

        1. Y’know, all I really want is for anyone in a US government position to be forced to give up any foreign citizenship they hold.

          If you can’t be bothered to be fully loyal to the country in which you live, you shouldn’t have any part in its government.

          1. Well, IIRC officially American Citizens aren’t allowed to be citizens of another country.

            Now, there are Americans who have via birth (or IIRC inheritance) have foreign citizenship, but I don’t believe that the Government is concerned about that unless the Americans USE THEIR FOREIGN CITIZENSHIP.

      3. They might be trying to groom him, but I suspect Desantis won’t run unless Trump decides not to. And I suspect that the recent Trump blasts at Desantis and Youngkin mean that Trump will annouce soon.

    4. What DeSantis should do is take that DeSanctimonious label and flip around like we did with the Ultra MAGAs, and Super MAGAs labels.

      “Why thank you Donald, for recognizing that there are some things I do hold sacred….”
      and run with it.

    5. To Kill a Mockingbird is just so mean! It’s RACIST and about RACISTS!

      ….

      That’s the F***ING point, you mentally deficient jagoff!

      I SAW the movie! They didn’t celebrate the lynching!

      muttering what the actual f*** /muttering

  16. The left’s idea of “diversity” is 100% absolute lockstep conformity of thought. The minute people express any thought out of lockstep with the leftist orthodoxy of the moment, they are immediately persecuted and efforts made to destroy them. Just look at the treatment of long time leftists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Tabibi.

    The modern left may be incompetent but they sure have embraced 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World as models to be emulated and implemented.

    As incompetent as they are, they still must be battled against; as President Reagan noted, liberty is always one generation away from being extinguished, and the left certainly seeks to extinguish it; their failure to succeed is not due to lack of effort.

    No matter how incompetent they are, if people go along with them, liberty will be destroyed. Liberty must be actively defended each and every day.,

    1. The LEFT is/are ALL about diversity… UNTIL they encounter the real thing and discover that world is NOT marching in lockgoosestep with them after all.

    2. Diversity means people of all races and genders thinking, saying and doing the exact same things in the exact same way, and attacking anyone who dares do otherwise.

        1. Now mindlessly chant in unison: “Diversity is our strength!” for an hour. The first one to stop gets to leave with the comissar.

        2. War is Peace.
          Freedom is Slavery.
          Ignorance is Strength.
          Conformity is Diversity.

          The left just added a fourth slogan to the three from 1984.,

              1. Oh, they LOVE work… as long as…
                1. It’s someone ELSE doing the work
                and
                2. It benefits THEM rather than the poor schlub doing the work.

                And this is why I will not be shedding tears fro them if they find out the hard way “YOU don’t work, YOU don’t eat.” And if they commit suicide by attempting theft, I am PRO-CHOICE on that as, well, they CHOSE suicide. I will feel likely bad for the unwillingly drafted assistants.

    3. Cardshark – “Just look at the treatment of long time leftists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Tabibi.”

      Look at the treatment surrounding Kanye and Kyrie. They criticized their paymasters and the whole crew and their well paid house servants had to put them in their place.

      Or look at the video of Kevin Hart shushing Kelly Clarkson about the huge money being offered for certain “activities”.

      The safe bet is too be silent or spout the leftist orthodox line. You definitely don’t want to do your own research and get red-pilled about reality. Nor do you want to track the 20 trillion dollars that are missing from the US or how many of the elite are pushing hard for the “Great Reset”.

      1. Kanye was espousing conspiracy theories about Jews right out of the Third Reich and Kyrie promoted a movie that spouted conspiracy theories about Jews right out of the Third Reich. Rather different. Especially when the leftist orthodox line includes those very conspiracy theories thata Kanye and Kyrie were spouting.

        That being said, if you pay attention to the posts, some of us, are free speech absolutists, who believe that the response to speech like theirs is more speech that shows how wrong they are.

        1. Yup. Kanye, unfortunately, has gone anti-semite. Worse, he’s got supporters in that. There was a small demonstration (people on overpasses with banners) here in LA County a few weeks ago, that was in support of his anti-semite statements.

          1. So wh There are groups and individuals shouting their hatred of Caucasians every day(and allowed to do so on every social media platform. But heaven forbid showing distain toward those of semitis heritedge..

              1. Just because others are bigots doesn’t mean that their bigotry should be emulated in a tit-for-tat manner. Content of character is what matter, and what people’s actions and words are what matters. Not their skin color, sex, religion, etc.

                As Mohammad Ali noted many years ago, anyone who judges someone else by the color of their skin is a racist and bigot, no matter what color they themselves are.

            2. Kanye doesn’t appear to be down on Caucasians generally. In fact, there were reports that he turned up at an event a couple of months ago wearing clothes that had the slogan, “White Lives Matter”.

              But then immediately afterwards he started spouting anti-semitic stuff.

      1. Knowing Thompson, (which I didn’t, but hey…), he probably would have rejoindered that he meant “pro” as the antonym of “anti”.

  18. I woke up this morning angry and discouraged. Discouraged with the country, discouraged with the perfidy, discouraged with myself most of all–why can’t I figure everything out and fix things, even in my own life (which is going fine, albeit slowly learning to thrive in a new state)?

    Today, in Arizona’s Maricopa County, there is an impromptu rally to support the journalists who are denied entrance to the facility, to support those who are having their elections stolen, slowly, in broad daylight, to support other Americans who are so frustrated we want to break something.

    Lines are being drawn. People are showing their colors. Maybe this is what it felt like before the Civil War, people were trying to sort things out and refusing to believe things had gotten/were going to get so ugly, so fast.

    Aslan is on the move, and that’s what I’ll focus on. Live, thrive, fight. As best I can, and with anyone else who wants to join me.

      1. “The King is Still On his Throne.”Beautiful. A site I’d not seen before, thank you!

  19. Is ‘peculiar’ something like ‘eccentric’ as another factor matters? Not the same factor, of course. Anyone can be ‘crazy’ but if you have enough money it becomes ‘eccentric’. I would SO love to be ‘eccentric’….

    1. Chuckle Chuckle

      Going a “bit” more serious, peculiar has an interesting history regarding its meaning.

      It seems to have had the meaning of “property” as in that field is my property so it’s “peculiar” as compared to that other field that I don’t own.

      There was a meaning of “special” in the good sense as reflected in the Old Testament quote that I mentioned earlier. IE The Jews were a Peculiar People because G*d Chose Them.

      There is also still a meaning of “special” when discussing a quality of a group or person.

      Of course, it currently has a meaning of “Odd” which can apply to the regulars here. 😉

  20. My scorecard has a new category, “Fetterman voter”, which will capture many in its wide net. Fetterman voters, for example, lack the ability to distinguish between a ‘ham sandwich’ and a qualified candidate for the US Senate. A Fetterman voter has < a 40-word vocabulary. Fetterman voters are parent/house/basement/dwellers. A Fetterman voter consistently gives Mr. Biden positive approval ratings. You get the profile.

    I would not deem to give a Fetterman voter the time of day (not that they would know what to do with it). They are the new know-nothing class.

        1. They already have that idea. MSNBC was already pushing the idea; of course given that the current VP is Harris, the vegetable might be an improvement.

          1. Newsom, too. I’ve been away from Cali long enough so that I’m not sure if he’s worse than Harris, but I’d like to see him being held* up as an example. Pour encourager les autres.

            (Lamp, tree, whatever.)

    2. Why does it matter? He just needs to press the yay or nay button that the party tells him to, just like his voters. The way the senate and house work is that your local vote is just a proxy for Chuck and Nancy or the McTwins. Both parties have given leadership the keys to the purse and the ability to control what gets to the floor (there are some workarounds but rarely usable). Things don’t get voted on unless leadership knows the outcome. Legislation isn’t written by the legislators but by lobbyists and party staffers. Any committees are just for creating sound bites. He’s there to just be the finger on the button for the plurality of pa residents, namely those in Philly, Pittsburgh, and the collar counties. If there’s any concern in 2028 they’ll make sure to toss some money to those areas to remind them to vote properly and the media will again slime anyone running against him and build him up as the new Mr Smith goes to Washington.

      Politics is just acting for ugly people.

  23. FWIW department….went to the local mall yesterday, it being damp outside, and saw the Go! Calendar kiosk was up, so I checked it. (My beloved was in the habit of buying each employee a desk Calendar for Christmas. Now, we only have to shop for ourselves).
    Anyway, saw the following political calendars:
    Barack Obama
    Michelle Obama
    Kamala Harris
    Donald Trump
    Note who’s missing.
    Also, the custom T-shirt kiosk is offering Let’s Go Brandon shirts.

    1. That’s because they are all fundraisers and publicity promos that are being put out by people affiliated with them in anticipation of the 2024 campaign. And yes, I still think that the Obama’s intend to “rescue” the Democratic Party (in their view) by having Michelle run so they can say it really is Obama’s 3rd term (it will be his 4th of course given who is actually running the executive branch)

      This is why so many of the Obama people and Obama himself have made public statements critical of certain policies as “being too far left”; they are once again trying to masquerade as moderates with the help of their media shills the same way Obama did in 2008.

  24. Re: Know-Nothings, they were Democratic Party funded mobs of Democrats pretending to be ex-Whigs. (With an ex-Whig figurehead.)

    When the real ex-Whigs got organized, they founded the Republican Party.

  25. I just came from spending a couple hours with my friend and next-door neighbor who was the number 2 poll worker at the town.
    (1) They do a manual tabulation of the ballot totals to confirm the numbers on the ballots match the numbers the machine kicks out. Not that hard, because we have less than 5000 ballots.
    (2) Chain of custody during the day is maintained, and two person checks when ballots are moved.
    So machine fraud during the in-person voting in my town is pretty much not happening. No South Dakota-ing going on.

    That said, there were 377 mail-in votes. And as I mentioned the other day, short of calling the people back and verifying they actually were the ones who sent the ballots in, we don’t know for certain if any of those were fraudulent. It would only take about 150 fraud votes to swing the state representative wins for the district.

    What my friend couldn’t tell me was how many same day registrations were given provisional ballots. I think I said we had 250 or so same day registrations. So if there’s fraud there, we have to go to the state to get the laws passed about what’s allowable ID, what’s allowable residency proof, (what’s allowable residency – and we need to stop letting the out of state college kiddies claim residency), and we damn sure need to stop provisional balloting (either you have the proofs, or you don’t get a ballot. Boo Hoo.)

    1. “what’s allowable residency – and we need to stop letting the out of state college kiddies claim residency”

      If they can’t claim residency for purposes of In-state tuition, then they shouldn’t be able to claim residence for voting.

      … which doesn’t help with kids from one part of the state voting in another part of that state.

      1. Not that big of a problem since kids from other parts of the state are more likely to lean more to the right than the districts any of our colleges are in.

      2. The locality of registration was a big deal in the early 1970s where I was an undergrad. Lots of people from the very blue area in the state were trying to take over the very red locality around the U. The issue tried was “the prospective voters are getting support from parents in the Blue, and temporarily living here. Why should they be allowed to vote here?”. As of when I graduated, it was somewhat up in the air, but the last I heard, the progs managed to take over the local politics. I’ve vowed to avoid that state for the remaining years of my life, so no first hand observations of the results.

  26. Sarah said: “TO STEP OUT AT ALL you must be pretty peculiar, in the sense that you’ve stopped immersing yourself and trying to fit in with the other apes. [snippage] Having thought about it and come to the conclusion you have to follow your own internal prompts, you have in a way stopped being part of the band. ”

    This is what I was saying Tuesday night with my comment that we denizens of ATH, from Blog-ess to the commentariat, are all a bit weird. Freaky. We have weird ideas, we say weird, crazy shit, and we just don’t act Normal.

    To stop trying to fit in with the other apes, all by itself, is friggin’ weird. You take a look at all those Normies, fitting in is Job One for them. They live, breath and eat Fitting In. If it doesn’t help them Fit In, they don’t even see it.

    Now, having been since birth one of those unfortunates who Just Doesn’t Get It about the fitting in thing, I soon understood that while the other kids had each other’s backs, they did not have -mine-. In any situation, I was always going to be the first under the bus. (I had my own hammock next to the differential. Happy ending, I adapted and overcame all obstacles. Usually by ramming with my forehead. Raaarrrrr!)

    Eventually I came to understand that not -everybody- is like that, just the Normies. That big fat middle of the bell curve majority who live their lives Fitting In, and judging everything and everyone by how much said thing/person will help them Fit In.

    I don’t really understand what they’re doing. (I probably can’t understand it.) But I see them all doing it, and I notice that they never do anything else. They’re dumb as shit about most things, but they are by-god experts at being right in the middle of the monkey pile.

    So it seems to me that if you even -notice- stuff like the elections seem sketchy, it’s already too late for you. You are a weirdo. If you act on what you noticed and diverge from the group, now you are a -dangerous- weirdo because Normies know staying with the group is the most important thing. All the Normies will try to have nothing to do with you, in case some of your wrongness might get on them.

    If you then stand on the other side of the fence showing them your middle fingers and doing the chacha, they will obviously close ranks and fling shit at you. They are MONKEYS. That is what they do. Scream, and fling poo.

    We, the weird and super-wrong monkeys, don’t really care if the group doesn’t like us. That’s what makes us weird in the first place. When we tire of flipping them off from just outside shit-flinging range, we will get back to our own pursuits while they all go to Hell in a hand basket. The survivors will be back begging later, no doubt.

    Will no one rid me of these tiresome Normies? They’re stinking up the joint.

              1. I decided to just stop eating.

                ……….
                I do that and my body goes “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Starvation! Must hold onto every ounce!!!!!!!!” It is call Pioneer genes. I get it from both sides; a long history, from both sides. Eventually, the system grudgingly gives up the weight sloooowwwwwlllly … but dang it is a long plateau.

  32. Heinlein’s “extremely small minority” is a subset of the peculiar.
    So don’t kill the weirdo. Doing so might bring “bad luck.”

  33. Folks, the presstitutes are doing their usual (censored) job for the Left. They toot the flute for the Left, and sweep under the rug any good Right news. When they do discuss matters of the Right, it somehow is always in support of RINO works.

    So why the “doooooooooooooommmmmmm”? You know it’s bullshit. Don’t wallow in it.

    Take a gander at NC results, especially over multiple cycles. See a trend? How did things turn out in NC last week?

    (Crickets – presstitutes applying lip balm….)

    There are others.

    Yup. Lots more to clean up. Yup. Some on the Right, notionally anyway, threw us under the bus to maintain their grift, and blame “Trump” or “MAGA”. Yup. RINOs gotta go.

    Yes, the big prizes eluded us. Barely. The contrast between “cleaner” states and the alternatives are impossible to gloss over. Harp on that. Just how bad will it be in “blue” areas in another two years? CA may go feral. We may need a wall to keep it contained. Hammer that.

    Dig around a bit. Note the successes not mentioned by blue-kneepad presstitutes. Pick a spot where you can do something and do it. If your local area is hopeless, move. If you can’t move, sabotage the Left in every way. School board agitation is gold.

    Aim to misbehave.

    Get uppity.

    Never quit.

    1. “Rather clear that Democrats are going to steal these seats and keep control of the House.”

      And who was saying that MONTHS ago? That would be the doomer. Funny how that keeps happening.

      1. Yep. We both were. And were accused of being “too negative”. It was so easily predictable however. As I noted, their utter contempt for how unpopular their policies were and their strident belief that they would still retain power notwithstanding the awful polling was a neon lit warning sign to those willing to open their eyes.

        The two things leftists are good at is propaganda and stealing elections. Until their propaganda and manipulation of elections is seriously challenged, they will keep expanding their power, and the power of the state, over people’s lives. It will eventually collapse, because the system the seek is simply unsustainable as it is separated from reality, but there will be a lot of suffering while it happens and a lot of rebuilding to do after. That will take hard work and people need to be prepared for it.

  35. Late to the party but Valorguardians.com had a cartoon for you (or me really) in Sunday’s “Boomer’s Sunday” column. The text reads: “That moment when you realize that your tinfoil hat wearing friend was right about everything,” so congratulations I guess.

    Sigh.

  36. Mrs. Hoyt:

    We almost certainly agree much more than we disagree. I am strongly conservative, as I suspect you are as well. I also happen to be transgender. It is a weird mix at times, but that is how it is.

    I can understand why you choose to keep your residence secret. All the factors that you mention are well beyond true. FWIW, Marjorie Taylor-Greene has been swatted numerous times recently. She represents the Georgia district just over the line from Chattanooga.

    I will admit to mild curiosity about where you ended up, but it is your privilege to share or not as you wish. I somehow suspect you might have ended up somewhere in Tennessee. At least you would not bring hard-left politics with you. An actress named Danica McKellar has just moved here according to an article in the Daily Mail .

    Hang in there and persevere. We need all the sane voices we can find.

    Michelle Rogers Chattanooga, TN

  37. With the rise of photoshop and deep fakes, it’s impossible to trust any media anymore. You have to be there at the moment to really know anymore. And even then, our memories are faulty and can be corrupted. I fear we’re rapidly approaching a the time when the USA transitions from a high-trust society to a low-trust society. The consequences of that are catastrophic.

    Trump has always been over-the-top. I haven’t liked him as a person from the early 80s based on what I saw on TV and in the “news”. Now I question how much of that was real, and how much was just spin (from both him and from the gatekeepers), so my bias needs to be overcome. He’s outlandish, boisterous, and a showman. He’s also been quite a successful businessman. And I rather liked most of his policies as a politician (he’s one of the very few that ever kept a campaign promise). I’m concerned over his recent attacks of De Santis though. I’m wondering what he’s seeing, and who’s feeding him the information.

    It’s difficult to trust anything these days.

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