When I was little I was punished for telling lies. It didn’t help my budding sense of morality that half the time the lies that I was punished for were the truth, sometimes expressed bizarrely because I was kid.
Look, I know why the family didn’t believe I’d met a bubble gum pig. But it was pink! Really pink. And I did come nose to snout with it.
And kids, should, indeed be told lies are wrong. For why go and see Jordan Peterson.
However, for truly screwing up people look to official education and/or the activists with agendas that captured it.
I don’t know who thought it was brilliant to tell black people in the US that they were the first people enslaved in history, ever, and that it was all due to racism. I know they were already doing this in the 80s and before, because, after finding out a black friend believed this (and disabusing her) I confronted another friend who was a history teacher and she told me that of course they couldn’t tell black people that slavery had been endemic since pre-history, mostly among groups so homogeneous we can’t tell them apart, or that most black people brought to the US were enslaved by Arab traders. Why couldn’t they tell them that? “It will hurt their self esteem.”
I don’t know about you, but to my mind that is bizarre and exactly opposite. To think my people were the only people so weak as to be treated as chattel by other humans, and/or that every other race hated us would instead reduce me to a gibbering mess, and it probably explains the demand for reparations from people who were never slaves paid by people who never held slaves.
And before the usual “oh but other slavery wasn’t slavery. Slavery in the US is uniquely–” can it. Depending on when and where slavery could be — and still is, because it still exists — far worse than US based slavery. Yes, masters could kill slaves out of hand, including in ancient Rome for vast periods of time. And in Africa the Dahomey sacrificed slaves they took over the tombs of their kids. They sold the leftovers to America. Slaves in other places can be and often are treated much worse and much more as chattel than black people in the US. In fact, the US had a higher slave-survival rate than practically anywhere, and frankly there must have been a ton less rape on average. Why? Because black people are still — waggles hand — theoretically recognizable as such in the US (seriously, Megan Markle is less black than I am, in appearance.) Because in other places, the ones that didn’t die were um… integrated. The entire population became slightly darker. (Yes, there are other things at work there, but still. Given enough rape there would be no difference. See blue eyed Indians. And the rape there went both ways.)
So why tell people poisonous lies that will cause them to hate their country for no reason that makes any sense historically?
Every country had slavery. In the Iberian peninsula Moors and Christians enslaved each other with such gusto that being redheaded or blond was more likely to be true of Moors. (Visigoth slave concubines.) The US? it was questioned from the moment of its formation. Because our Constitution is antithetical to it. The Civil war was baked in from the beginning.
Sure, there were a lot of eugenics-like-writings here and elsewhere to justify black slavery. Because at some level Western conscience was prickled by it. Doesn’t mean it was universally accepted. No one writes essays on walking on two legs and those defending wearing clothing are rare. Because these practices are not controversial.
So, why lie? Unless you have rats in your head and think victimhood is a good, this lie is nothing if not poisonous. It robs people of their true history and weaponizes them as the tools of the “activists.” The answer to “You had slave ancestors” should always be “As does every human. They might out weight free people as ancestors of everyone.”
The same is true for the condition of women. Ah swear to bog if I hear one more frigging line of bs disguised as Regency books, on women being utterly without agency and unable to own property till sometime in the 20th century I’m going to pop a vein.
Yeah, the upper classes were different, but even in Regency England, women owned property and controlled it. Women started and ran businesses and even the richest and poorest of women contributed financially to the household. It was different in noble households because NO ONE was supposed to have a money-making job. (The newer kids equating noble with financier is hilarious. That’s not how any of that worked.) Women still were supposed to have dowries set aside for them. In fact, the whole problem with eloping is that you’d have no protections against he man grabbing your money. But most women didn’t elope. (Whatever the romances show you.)
And in the poorer households, women absolutely worked. It might be “just” keeping a garden and poultry. There’s a reasons people talked of “egg money.” Or it might be weaving or piece meal work at home.
Now this was mostly woman’s work: Inside, safe and boring, with a side of can be done while minding the children. Like my writing. And it brought in proportionately about what I brought in the first ten years after the boys were born, somewhere between 5 and 10k. But my contribution allowed us to live in a house we couldn’t otherwise afford.
My mom not only made most of the money in the house — yes 20th century. Portugal. You needed permission from your husband to work outside the home, didn’t have the vote, and had no right to your own kids in case of separation — but also started investments from saving on the kitchen expenses.
To say women had no agency at all till they were allowed to work in the public sphere and take leadership positions there is nonsense. Women always had agency. In many ways, women make society exist.
The problem with the lie that women “took” their rights from men, instead of being given those rights by men who knew it was fair and just is that it sets men and women on an adversarial footing and prevents women work from being valued.
This is how we got to the best women should be bad men. And it’s wrong. And we’re dying from it. There is a great loneliness stalking the land, and meanwhile women are worried about men “taking our rights.” How they think men can do this is beyond me. Sorcery?
And if it were possible, the crazy adversarial fixation is more likely to ensure it.
Look at the lies. Particularly lies about history. We’re being robbed of our history. And all the lies told to us all through the 20th century haven’t helped anything.
Find out the truth. Then disseminate it. Because a false past, no matter how pretty, won’t help anyone.
According To Hoyt 
They lie like a Jedi. 😡
I have heard a trope that goes, “Men rule the world, women rule society.”
Or something like that. Women are, for the most part the keepers and enforcers of societal rules. That’s why they have been targeted by the commies from the very beginning. Oh, excuse me. Socialists. No, wait. commies. all of them. They have been very successful at it and I have no idea how to fix it. The way things are trending, other than destroying the public education system and having every child schooled by their parents, It may be too late. Anybody got tickets for the Mars mission? I may be in the market.
Chesterton observed that it was far more likely for a man to marry his dead wife’s sister, which was illegal, than his dead wife’s housemaid, which was legal.
> other than destroying the public education system and having every child schooled by their parents,
I’m having trouble seeing a downside there.
Society is entirely a product of women showing us men-folk that things would work better that way. Males in other species eat their male offspring to preclude competition. Only women had the foresight to teach us about planning for old age.
Reparations? I have a solution for that, and it’s really simple: Take a dollar out of your wallet, and move it to a different pocket. Done. Reparations paid, and Reparations received. Because this is America, and every o e of us is descending from, as Cap’n Shiny Pants put it, “One kinda sumbitch or another.” Genealogocally, we are ALL victims, and we are ALL oppressors. But, as the Italian driver in Gumball Rally put it, “What’s behind you? No es important.”
“No one writes essays on walking on two legs and those defending wearing clothing are rare. Because these practices are not controversial.”
Not controversial yet.
ABLEST!! You’re encouraging genocide against the culture of those who only have one leg!
blink?
We’re already seeing this exact argument about the deaf and hearing recovery. There’s a culture that’s sprung up around being deaf. If medicine cures deafness, then that culture will disappear. Thus, cures for deafness are cultural genocide, and therefore evil.
It’s not that big of a leap to find a similar argument against walking on two legs.
😛
Oh my, your support of one leggers sounds like your disparaging those without a leg to stand on.
Four legs good two legs bad!
Sam Brinton? Is that you?
😛
Mr. Brinton is apparently a Sister of Our Lady of Perpetual Indulgence. Gaaaak. ( Group uninvited and then reinvited to the Dodgers’ “Pride,” event.
Yeah, I think I’ve heard the same. IIRC, he’s also a “puppy play” fetishist, which is why I asked after the “four legs” comment.
The guy is seriously screwed up. Of course, that’s also probably why he got his job to begin with. /vomit
Clothes are a useful tool. There’s nothing wrong with wearing them. The essay I’d like to see is why wearing clothing was made mandatory.
Alien plot to use us all as hosts for alien parasites that served as the inspiration for clothing, as revealed in the animated Japanese documentary Kill la Kill.
Alien plot to use us all as hosts for alien parasites that served as the inspiration for clothing, as revealed in the animated Japanese documentary Kill la Kill.
Wearing clothes is rooted in white supremacy, comrade. Black people were enslaved to pick cotton, you know. Only by going nude can we achieve textile justice!
Considering what I see on my average trip to the grocery store, I really hope nudity doesn’t become a thing.
Gah.
This sounds suspiciously like body shaming… 😋
Some things should be left to the imagination.
And there are somethings that should never be imagined. But that then happen anyways – paging People of Walmart…
I am waaaaay too pale and prone to sunburn for nudity to be a good option for me. Also, I have a live-in chef, so… there’s that. Everyone else is just as glad as I am that I’m wearing clothes.
I look bad enough wearing clothes. Nobody wants to see me without them.
As a side note, I want to point out something that should be obvious but isn’t, because we live in an age of unprecedented prosperity.
Dowries are not an arbitrary thing.
People today hear about dowries and think of them as a crazy “price” on a woman, or in the case of rich people, a flagrant display of wealth. It’s a symbol of women’s oppression or something like that.
What are they really? The starter kit for a household.
If you go back to the Middle Ages, of a thousand years before that, and you wanted to get married and have a home of your own, where do the resources come from? You don’t have apartments for rent. You don’t have a job that pays every two weeks with a bank that holds your deposit.
What you do have is a dowry chest, not full of money in most cases, but full of blankets and linens and potentially even cookware. If you do have money to purchase these things, great. That’s your dowry. It’s your start into life as a married adult.
(This came about when I was researching St. Nicholas and the most famous story of the gold in the shoes of the poor daughters without dowries who were going to end up in (sexual) slavery. They couldn’t get married without dowries because two married moneyless people would starve.)
I think the modern antipathy to dowries also looks at things like modern India, where families abort girls rather than go into debt to pay a dowry, and the bride burnings (in-laws murder new wife unless her family pays more. They might just kill her anyway even then.) Dowry has become “what I’ll pay you to take this girl off my hands” instead of young-family-starter-supplies.
If that’s all you read about dowries, then considering dowries in European history to be bad logically follows.
Even though in Europe (or at least in England) it was the husband paying the dowry (to the bride’s father), usually to be settled on her. Which is opposite of India. Bride price in places like Africa is also usually paid TO the bride’s family. India’s just weird that way.
Actually, no, wait. Bride’s family paid dowry. It was still supposed to be settled on her, though. Or used for her support, in the event of the man dying. It didn’t get mingled into an estate’s general funds.
Technically, that would be dower though the terms were used with immense sloppiness.
There were a lot of complications, from the early medieval morning gift through jointure and dower rights.
See also, a woman’s ‘fortune,’ that was so important throughout history- and entertainment; The Quiet Man and Pride &Prejudice come to mind. That fortune was her money, to support her and her children if the husband died young/poor, and it was often tied up legally, so an impecunious husband couldn’t get at it.
There’s also the flip side of a dowry- a bride price. Which, on the surface, looks like the groom buying a woman from her family. Cue cringe and looks of disgust from most modern people.
But it could also be a signal that the groom was wealthy enough to support the woman, or a very practical means of compensating the family for the loss of her valuable labor. And in some times and places, the bride price was given by her family to the bride, as start-up funds for the new family.
Though I still remember the story from a missionary to China: a bride had been caught trying to poison her husband. The missionary’s reaction was that of course the couple should be separated at once. The family’s? Well, they had paid A LOT for her so you don’t want to just cut your losses. . . .
Strictly speaking, that was a trousseau, not a dowry. A dowry was a sum of money or a piece of land that did the same thing, provide a place or money for the woman to go if the marriage didn’t work out or the husband died before having a baby, or if the baby wasn’t male. Thus “dower house.” And for the most part it was upper class folks. Lower class folks did still have trousseaus (also known as “hope chests”, sometimes) but not really dowries.
A dowry is the property the woman brought along. The dower was her rights in her husband’s property.
Not that the terms weren’t often mixed up.
The Chinese real estate bubble is basically a reverse dowry. Since the Chinese went and aborted huge numbers of girls there is a shortage and so women are expensive — even more than usual, 😜 Men have to bring proof of solvency, which in China has to be housing because there aren’t any other places to put one’s money. Families went into huge debt so their sons could marry. It’s really interesting, in a tragic sort of way, from a sociological point of view and, of course, economics — supply and demand.
In Britain, women often earned their dowries.
“the lie that women ‘took’ their rights from men, instead of being given those rights by men who knew it was fair and just”
I was there in the Sixties and Seventies when most of this was going on. My strong conviction is that women got their “rights” the same way women have gotten most of the things they’ve wanted through most of history: they nagged. Principles of justice played very little part in the business. The whole temper of public life at the time was one of incessant whining and pestering that it “wasn’t fair”. A man will generally give up anything to appease and silence a nagging woman; our society gave up many many things, to its great and continuing detriment, to silence a large population of nagging women and their flunkies in the press.
Explain. Women already had the vote by the sixties and seventies. And a lot of other rights. So, they whined till they got abortion? noted.
Pretty sure Roe v Wade was decided by an all-male court. So much for “those without uteruses” not regulating them.
Griswold v. Connecticut was the Warren court (all male) and Roe was the Berger Court. Justice O’Connor was not appointed until 1982, so yup, all male.
Society caved on many things, but–not, notably, on the Equal Rights Amendment, which was passed but never fully ratified.
When the “Big Lie” is repeated endlessly it becomes an accepted Truth, even to the ones with intellect enough to know better.
Such a Big Lie is the current “the US was founded on slavery (racism)”. Its propounders point to the 3/5 rule in the Constitution as proof. But the Truth is that it (3/5 rule) was an expedient to get the Constitution RATIFIED and actual slave-holders were a small but vociferous minority. And no one in the Constitutional Convention, Yankee or Southerner, had any doubt that, in time,
abolition was coming, was indeed inevitable.
But the Big Lie has become a cover for for what
Is termed racial “equity” from LBJ’s welfare state to affirmative action to million-dollar “reparations” and our society has already suffered permanent harm.
Never underestimate the power of the Big Lie.
The compromise was also in favor of the slave-holding states. People who rail against it don’t appear to want to understand that the slave states wanted to count their slaves for purposes of population apportionment in the legislature while denying them their rights as people. And the Constitution specifically states “3/5 of all other persons“, which explicitly recognizes the personhood of slaves.
“But the Truth is that it (3/5 rule) was an expedient to get the Constitution RATIFIED and actual slave-holders were a small but vociferous minority. ”
… who wanted their slaves counted as full persons for purposes of congressional representation.
The 3/5’s rule was also a know landmine that was planted by the non-slavers. It placed the slave states in the position of always lacking the representation of the free states. No matter what the slave states did, they would always be behind the eight ball in representation. By some of the founders own writings this was done to eventually destroy slavery.
And one irony is women were supposed to “uplift,” and “purify,” politics because their higher moral nature would force men to clean up their acts. Ahem.
I think maybe women did do that. And that could not stand so feminism was invented to put halt to any uplifting and purifying.
Any person who believes that never went to an all-girls school. Ask me how I know.
I don’t think I dare. 😀
Any person who believes that must have gone to an all-boys school and heard about these mythical creatures called “women” but never actually met one.
Either that or be lying, of course.
Weirdly a lot of liberal women believe that crap. I don’t know why.
There are a lot of people who believe what they are told without having the ability to apply what they see to the question. I think it’s a case of “I know that this is true because it’s in writing,” as so often afflicts people throughout the ages, as shown in Pratchett. (The Truth in particular.)
Most that went to an all-boys school spent as much time as possible with those at the all-girls school, after school. Ask me how I know.
The bathrooms at the all-girls school was full of students at the end of the day, actually bothering to fix their hair and makeup after schlumphing around all day in their uniforms. 🙂
My daughter went to an all-girls Catholic high school – and yes, the other girls had plenty of boyfriends. After their schooldays and their homework was done.
I know it it is retro of me, but I honestly approve of single-sex middle and high schools. It’s easier for the kids to focus on academic stuff … not their gonads.
Well I guess I am looking at from the point of view of someone who has four brothers, almost entirely all male cousins, four sons and worked in a highly masculine field.
So I suppose it depends on what you mean by uplifting and purifying.
But ignoring men so you can be “fulfilled and explore your girl power” won’t do it for sure. 🙂
And that’s all feminism brought to the table.
I’m guessing it did no good things for inhabitants of all girl schools either.
THIS THIS THIS
An aphorism I recall from my misspent youth went something like: Without women, men would have no reason to be civilized but without men that civilization would last until the oil needed changing. (Fred Reed who probably learned it is his misspent youth) It is a bit flippant and, whenever I’ve repeated it, it was grossly misunderstood by the alleged feminists in the audience. I figured it meant that while men were busy building the gadgets women were busy building the families. Both are necessary to make a civilization work.
That is something that seem to escape the postmodern age. Maintaining the civilization that makes our lives less nasty, brutish, and short is a partnership.
You are not pure enough with all that sexist logic and stuff
They have to lie, first and most to themselves.
Winning at the contest of ancestral politics meant more resources. More resources meant more offspring surviving to a breeding age. Being able to win in such contests, therefore, improved the inclusive fitness of an individual. Humans are so good at deceiving themselves because a self-deceiver is a more effective liar and liars succeed more often in political disputes than do non-liars.
Why the lie? Because power is easier to hold on to when your potential competition is at each other’s throats. Division is diversity. It’s purpose and product in one. When it’s not used to distract, it’s there to keep you, most importantly, from those who should be your closest and staunchest allies: your spouse, your family.
They want you divided so that you are alone, powerless, and vulnerable. That way you’ll happily accede to whatever they propose to “save” you.
Don’t be that person. Be strong. In your convictions, in your arguments, in your faith and your work ethic. Be compassionate even with yourself, especially when you fail, but not blind. Be courageous, because after strength you will need courage to face down the evil you find in the world, and in yourself.
Lastly, support others on the path. Those who walk with you are the ones they’d love to divide you from. Deny them this. Be a good friend, mentor, student, and more.
We are not alone in this. And despite to doom-sayers, we are not yet defeated. Chin up, lads. You can do this.
Pay attention to their lies, too, because it tells you what they’re afraid of.
And what they do and wish to do. Lotta projection on the left.
:nods:
Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender.
OT, I’m beginning to think Edward Jones is lying to itself. It’s all, “Consumers are showing a little fatigue, but since employment is at an all time high, any recession should be mild. And might not even look like a recession. And anyway, the market already has it baked in, so we should be fine. We’re all fine here. How about you?”
This is not reassuring me. Has a strong flavor of whistling past the graveyard…
First rule of markets is no one knows nothing. That said, the only reason I can think of that we won’t have a whopper of a recession is that everybody seems to think we’re going to have a whopper of a recession.
Employment tends to be at all time highs until it isn’t. When it isn’t we call it a recession. That high employment means there won’t be a recession is the single most fatuous argument out there. It’s been making my teeth hurt.
My view, and I know nothing neither, is that what’s holding back unemployment is data manipulation and severance. most of the big tech layoffs carry severance. You’re not unemployed while you’re on severance.
Everything else …. Everything else is pointing toward recession. Will it be mild or harsh? We won’t know till it’s over. I can say that “Doctor Copper” isn’t happy, Contango baby. from the FT:
“The price of copper has widened to the biggest discount against its futures equivalent in almost two decades, in a warning sign of a SUDDEN weakening in global demand as China’s economic rebound stalls.”
If we manage to get away with a mild recession, it’ll be proof that God loves Children, drunks, and the United States of America.
I think we’ve been in a recession for more than a year, but the government prints money to prop up the illusion that we’re not. As for ‘high employment’, see Mike Rowe’s take on the 7 million working-age men not even looking for jobs. Commercial real estate sits empty as more of the few remaining workers log in from home, having traded in the power suit for a power bathrobe. Middle management is left with nobody to manage, leading to layoffs.
———————————
It is not within the power of any government to increase the value of unskilled labor, only to raise its cost.
You might well be right, though I think it’s been six months or so, They’ve been f-ing around with the employment statistics and all. The seasonality turns against them now making it harder to fudge.
The money printing stopped and the money supply is decreasing at a rate not seen since 1933. China is collapsing, Europe is collapsing, banks are collapsing, commercial real estate is collapsing, house prices are collapsing, Contango everywhere, including interest rates. Everything is signaling a deflationary recession. That’s what a depression is in real language, a deflationary recession.
Five names in the S&P are all that’s going up, just five, Outside that, the markets are still down, All that’s left to happen now is increases in initial claims for unemployment, which spiked upward sharply in March then leveled out. If/when that moves sharply above 250k — it’s at 244k now — then it’s Katy! bar the door!
Coincidentally, China and Europe have reached the demographic point of no return that Japan hit back 30 years ago. Coincidence? bah!
Of the 14 stocks I’m keeping an eye on, 13 were down today, most by more than 1%. Only Apple went up a few cents. Even Olin and Ruger are down. If they get much lower, I might think about buying more.
Guns and ammo 😜
For myself, I’m heavy in bonds and hedged out the patootie. I think this thing has a ways to go and I’ll be able to buy much cheaper later. No one knows, I certainly don’t.
Copper, lead, and steel as your precious metals investment? ;p
FWIW, $SPOUSE and I agreed that the unused boat isn’t likely to get used as long as we have Kat-the-dog. She thinks water is for drinking (typical border collie) and freaks out if she’s left alone.
So, I went to the big boatyard by Flyover Lake to see about a consignment sale. The parking lot (AKA, “consignment plaza” was full to the brim, with boats ranging from low end (like ours) to “I am (or was) a rich Bass Fisherman”. Was told by the relevant person that the best time to sell a boat was last year, when there was a) a shortage of suitable boats, and b) some spending money. The little 5HP Honda might sell, but the jon boat will take time.
Further complicating matters is the Cali-f’n-ornia market. Light (< 2900 lbs gross) trailers in OR don’t need a title, and the third-hand trailer I have is such. However, Cali demands a title, and getting one issued would cost more in time and (most likely) money than the damned thing is worth. $SPOUSE doesn’t want a boat less motor. So, no sale in mind.
Looks like luxury goods not aimed at the very rich aren’t going to sell well. I’m guessing that Ruger’s basic firearms are selling as well as they can make them, but the high end “it’d be nice to have, but I can wait” ones are going to sit or not get made.
Not sure why Olin would have trouble, though smokeless powder isn’t that useful to me when I can’t get suitable primers. (Small pistol magnums have been produced, but not in big quantities. Took months of looking to get success..) Some ammo seems to be in stock, and is getting replenished regularly, but if it’s not for 9mm Parabellum or .223/5.56, components are hard to get.
Dammit, they heard you! Olin down 5.5% today.
Powder’s not all they make, you know.
Olin seems to be an interesting company. Looking at the vertical integration for the firearms/ammo/components is fascinating, and the industrial chemicals should do well, assuming Brandon gets replaced by someone sane.
Apparently the clever sort can turn a lie into a cottage industry. News story this week that the grifters with BLM seem to have somehow burned through 100 million dollars with no real accountability as to where it all went, though seems there were a few multi million dollar mansions acquired in the process. Poor babies are now facing bankruptcy or so the story goes.
As for the mechanism of the slave trade, it was my impression that the warriors of one African village raided the next village over, captured those folks, then sold them to Arab traders who transported them to the coast where they were resold to mostly British ships for further transport to mainly carribean sugar plantations. The need for slave labor in the US South came about mostly due to the boom in cotton production caused by the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. Had the ACW never been fought slavery would have died a well deserved death in any case as industrialization made the practice economically infeasible.
That’s a point I’ve made often. Whitney was just one of the inventors who revolutionized agriculture. Slaves were expensive, and like horses, they still ate and had to be managed even when there was nothing for them to do. Even if they didn’t get sick, die, or run away. A cotton gin, harvester, or steam tractor was cheaper and more efficient than slaves.
I figure, fifteen to twenty years, and slavery would have been a dead issue in America, at least in agriculture, which is where the vast majority of slaves were. But the Late Unpleasantness forced the issue.
Finally, though various states outlawed slavery in their individual constitutions, the Federal Constitution did not. All the 13th Amendment does is limit the creation of new slaves to the judiciary.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Once a court creates slaves, they’re free to use, give, or sell them as it pleases.
In 1918 the Supremes ruled that the military conscription for WWI was totally not “involuntary servitude”, nope nope nope. That was also applied to coal miners in West Virginia during WWII; the mines or prison, it was totally their free choice, not “involuntary servitude.”
Given how pwned the court system has become, I admit to some concern.
I’m sure some of the plantation owners would have gone on using slave labor even if it meant losing money. Some folks are just like that. A lot of them have crawled into the government, where they seek to enslave us all with their laws and rules, their ‘Disinformation Governance Boards’ and ‘Central Digital Currency’.
———————————
‘Progressives’ will do the wrong thing just because the people they hate do the right thing.
There’s also the element that forcing people to listen to lies lets you revel in your powers
Indeed, and moreso when you force them to repeat the lie with their own voice.
Real power is being able to do evil and force people to accept it.
This thought is not fully formed, but I’m not sure intrinsic rights can be given or taken away. Rather, I think they are either respected or abused.
I feel like there is a common thought that rights are a zero sum game: if one person has them, another cannot. I suspect that contributes to the current mess: if there is a finite volume of speech, then granting freedom of speech to one person would take it from someone else, and denying that freedom of speech to certain parties would then free up more speech for others.
Also suspect this is both false, and attempting to do this on the major social media platforms is where the “dead Internet” theory came from.
But again this feels like half an idea, not yet fully formed.
You are touching on something core to the understanding of rights the Founders had….the whole “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” thing? Yeah. It gets called by different terms depending on the extent to which said Creator is even remembered, but in a nutshell, you are not “given” rights by any mortal agency, they are either respected or abused, as you said. The problem is…the definition of “rights” has proven deucedly variable since those words were written. “Negative” vs. “positive” rights, remember? A lot of what gets bandied about since the 20th century has been “positive” rights (“I must be granted…”) rather than negative rights (“You may not remove…”). And that, as they say, is when the fight started.
There can be no ‘rights’ which have to be provided by other people.
Thus, the right to speak freely, to worship (or not) as you see fit, to keep the fruits of your own labor, to own guns, to defend yourself if attacked, none of these rights place burdens on others.
See The Bill Of No Rights for a breakdown of some other ‘rights’ demanded by the ‘Progressives’.
Like the ‘right’ to Not Be Offended! which restrains everybody else’s rights to speak — or to hear — anything the wankers don’t like. The ‘right’ to force you to repeat their slogans and propaganda. The ‘right’ to physically assault you for engaging in BadSpeak.
Then they want a ‘right’ to ‘free’ medical treatment, which is anything they want to define as ‘medical treatment’ whether it makes any sense or not. ‘Free’ education! ‘Free’ housing! ‘Free’ transportation! ‘Free’ 0bamaphones! All paid for by you.
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‘Progressives’ suppress free speech because they don’t have the means to suppress free thought.
Yet.
The right to free medical treatment means enslaving the doctors and other medical professionals. Otherwise they could say no, and that would violate your rights.
Well, rights like voting…. aren’t life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
The problem with the lie that women “took” their rights from men, instead of being given those rights by men who knew it was fair and just is that it sets men and women on an adversarial footing and prevents women work from being valued.
It’s really handy for the idiots who want to take power away from folks, though.
Because it ignores that the Things Were Better Then folks decided to change things, and might get folks going “hm, WHY did they do that?” rather than running around with their hair on fire.
The largest (thus-far) reported slave revolt was …. In Mesopotamia among African and Europeans held by Muslim sugar planters back in 869. It grew into a larger political rebellion, but it sure wasn’t against Europeans.
Until 1700, more Europeans had been enslaved by Africans (Muslims), the Mongols (Muslims and animists), the Vikings, and other Europeans than Africans and others enslaved by Europeans. Awkward, that.
“It will hurt their self esteem.”
If your entire sense of self and subsequent self worth is tied up in being a victim then being told “no, you are not a victim” destroys that, then you really need something else to base your identity around because that’s just plan pathetic.
This is why I write historical fiction – to engage and interest people in our history, and perhaps to fight back against some of the pernicious falsehoods and outright lies being perpetuated today.
The current WIP concerns a woman who was an active crusader for the abolition of slavery in the US in the 1840s and 50s … and once the war began in earnest, served as a battlefield nurse. I hope to open some eyes, at least.
It’s hard to understand what is true and what isn’t on a regular basis.
It doesn’t help that we have people that will lie for no other reason than to watch people squirm. To give them an advantage. To make things look a little better for themselves.
It got to this point because Mao’s Cultural Revolution Redux was allowed to fester far too long on the college campuses and just like the original version spread out to infect the rest of society.
“It got to this point because Mao’s Cultural Revolution Redux was allowed to fester far too long on the college campuses and just like the original version spread out to infect the rest of society.”
And not just in the colleges, in the churches, in big business, in the media as well.
You can say that the colleges spread it, and they did, but the other institutions were targeted specifically as well, in addition to the college graduates they hired as well.
This has been a multi front attack.
I think most forms of evil start with lies. All forms of evil are propped up with lies.
The MC in the story I’m mainly working on will soon be utterly repulsed by lies. She will recover her ability see when somebody is lying, by analyzing tiny details of facial expressions and voice stress. It’s going to cause her…difficulties.
———————————
“Come on, lying to the government is practically a patriotic duty!”
“In that case, I may have to reconsider applying for citizenship!” she snapped.
OT: I just found out tonight that my father has had a recurrence of his Type B lymphoma. He had made it past the 5-year line, but they found it had recurred last week after his March checkup was clear. He starts radiation therapy soon.
He’s 90 years old. We hope he beats it, but that’s a tough row to hoe at his age.
Prayers up.
Prayer-flag raised.
I’m so sorry. HUGS.
Prayer flag raised. I”m glad they caught it so fast.
Thank you, all of you.
Um… just for the record, Sarah, I’ve written more than one essay on social media about why people wear clothes (and why they should consider wearing more than they sometimes do). The guy the first one was written for took serious umbrage, but I’ve had this conversation with others as well.
The “why, if you’re a woman, it’s a REALLY BAD IDEA to travel across a Muslim country in super short shorts and a barely there halter top, ESPECIALLY if you’re going to Bali” discussion also got a bit intense. I am still not sure that the other participants actually understood the additional advice of “and it had better NOT be bright red” either.
The reactions were interesting.
So–I think this topic might be more controversial (and more necessary to discuss) than you think it is.
NOTE: I grew up in Indonesia where my parents ministered among tribal people who appeared to be (when we first arrived) clothing optional by western standards. But even they had rules of “what must be worn to be considered decent and respectable in society.”
That string around the waist and bit of leaf strategically placed was absolutely necessary. As a man, you could not be seen in public without either one.
Also early on, when the Danis (a large tribe in the mountains) heard that the lowland tribes had no gourds, they were absolutely scandalized and took up a collection. The lowland tribes refused to accept delivery or to wear them. They have pretty much adopted western clothing since that historic moment, and they really don’t take it kindly (there are whole regions off-limits to foreigners because offended locals made threats) when importuned to adopt “native dress” or when westerners shed their clothing in a misguided attempt to emulate them culturally.
The men will–sometimes–don grass skirts and dance, but it has to be their idea. The women aren’t going there.
Even in “modern, liberal” Europe, if the sign says – Women must cover their shoulder, no shorts – you don’t waltz in wearing a tank-top and short-shorts. I held the door as the usher ushered the offender out. Rapidly. (She had declined the offer to borrow a shawl and wrap skirt, so I had NO sympathy.)
“Even in “modern, liberal” Europe, if the sign says – Women must cover their shoulder, no shorts ”
Japan was like that too, xteen years ago. I wore a sleeveless collared shirt to the orientation interview and was informed that that does not count a professional dress there.
Now I’m curious. Why had it better not be bright red?
Red has traditionally been the primary color of choice worn by prostitutes the world over, and in many parts of the world, still is.
Even school girls wearing burgundy or maroon school uniforms can’t walk down the streets in Indonesia without getting absolutely harassed.
My Lady Greensleeves was the medieval counterpart to Roxane, by Sting.
Other colors have been used in some places/times, but there’s a reason why it’s traditionally called the ‘red light’ district….
And from American literature, we get The Scarlet Letter.
That makes sense. Thanks
Some how I was thinking it was something more Indonesia-specific.
Sarah: ” Because a false past, no matter how pretty, won’t help anyone.”
And the “past” being flogged by the Left isn’t even pretty!
c4c
Ya want lies with those fries, bluster with your beer?
‘haps I shouldn’t drag this up sister, but what do ya think of them L.A. Dodgers?
Pendejos.
Es verdad.
I think that their front office—collectively—has less intelligence than an amoeba, and a softer spine than said amoeba. That their parents had nothing more than a brief professional relationship, one of many that their mothers had that night. And that the fleas of a thousand camels infesting their armpits is too mild of a punishment for their poor choice in guests for “Pride” week.
“Do you find it difficult when your ID is a rabies certificate?” 😎
LOL
When I saw this today ATH was the first thing that popped into my mind. While it isn’t strictly speaking on-topic it seemed to be appropriate here, considering the prevalent opinions about trad pub. 🙂
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2023/05/25
Please, oh please, oh please! I want to be hiding behind a cloud to watch that. (Especially when the trapdoor opens under a certain editor from a publisher I won’t name that starts with T and ends with R.
[Not that I wish ill on that individual, nor do I want that individual consigned to perdition if he/she/it sees the error of his/her/its ways and repents sincerely.]
Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller also has some advice for writers – or maybe not.
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2023/05/02
I love the discussion in the comments.
FWIW, the areas that supplied slaves to the New World (and slavery in the sugar islands of the Caribbean was rough enough to make Simon Legree into a screaming abolitionist fanatic) didn’t have much, if any, Arab involvement. That was local black tribes fighting each other and selling the losers to the slave traders.
And the rot on college campuses started before the 1960s. The “Red Decade” of roughly 1930-1945 left a hard core of crypto-Commies on campus, protected by tenure and gaining seniority. A lot of the college radicals of the Vietnam War era were mentored by fossil 1930s Reds, as senior faculty or university administration—do the numbers yourself. A lot of campus protests of that time echoed things that had been done in the Thirties.
Arabs/Muslims managed the great ports of trade. No, seriously. This is why Obama’s father considered himself “Arab.” Enough Arab blood from people located in the region to supervise. They were the …. aggregators.
The Arab slave trade was huge, and they had a lock on the East African slave trade. But my understanding is that it was the West African slave trade that supplied the vast bulk of slaves to the New World and that the trade and the trade ports there (along the ‘Slave Coast’ and parts adjacent) weren’t arabian.
No, they were Africans selling Africans to Africans or Europeans until the 1800. Up to that point, the Europeans were too few, too sick, and too under-armed to do more than pay what the local chieftains asked for. In fact, at first, the Portuguese and others didn’t want slaves. Those had far less value than did ivory and gold. But that’s what the chiefs insisted on the Europeans taking along with the gold and ivory.
*The Fante and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade” by Rebecca Shumway is a great starting point.
Because the alternative was killing them. Those chiefs didn’t WANT them.
I understood they were also enmeshed.
At any rate, the discussion that sparked my comment was about how many American black people became Muslim in rebellion against the slave trade. And I was like “The…. what?”
Obama’s ancestors came from Kenya, IIRC. Wrong side of Africa. The vast majority of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was supplied from the “Slave Coast”—roughly modern Senegal to the northern edge of modern Namibia. The Bight of Benin was the epicenter.
Technomad, if you look at sheer numbers of humans sold/traded, Africans selling to other Africans was the largest number, followed by Africans selling to Arabs, or Arabs raiding and selling to other Arabs (or the Ottomans). The native-to-native had been going on long before AD 620 CE. Then the Arabs began raiding Africa, especially eastern Africa. But don’t forget that the Muslim Berbers were raiding south of the Sahara in western Africa and dragging people back to the Barbary States. Yes, the death rate was 90%, but the Berbers were OK with that. That was even as the Europeans were starting to get into the western trade.
The Germans were actually welcomed in East Africa because they pledged to stop the slave trade by the Arabs. Tanzania worked very well for the locals while under German management.
If you really want an example of how utterly malevolent the current regime is, here it is:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/05/25/jewish-group-blasts-bidens-anitsemitism-strategy-shaped-by-antisemitic-cair/
The administration had a group that routinely demonizes Jews and supports those who openly seek genocide of Jews, create their antisemitism strategy. Communazi is the perfect term for this regime
> (The newer kids equating noble with financier is hilarious. That’s not how any of that worked.)
With my “think like a 10-year-old” hat on, it seems obvious. Nobility is power. Money is power. Nobles are wealthy. (they wouldn’t hear about the ones who weren’t) Therefore they’re the same thing.
> meanwhile women are worried about men “taking our rights.” How they think men can do this is beyond me. Sorcery?
Because saints like Andrea Dworkin and Gloria Steinem clawed those rights from the evil Patriarchy through pure determination and justness of cause, and the Patriarchy is bitter, resentful, and always looking to cut women back down to “barefoot and pregnant.” Without constant vigilance, women will become livestock once again.
You’re displaying a troubling skew toward badthink. Perhaps a nice vacation at a Happy Fun Camp will re-tune you to the Only Truth, as explained by the Narrative.