Before the crash 2

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, the setup for this is that a friend who is kinder and less sensitive to leftist BS than I, sent me this link (now archived in an attempt to not create a blog war) because he says some of his ideas apply to where we are, and what is happening this year, and next.

Because, let’s face it, whoever wins (I believe in miracles!) the left is going to try to drag us, screaming, into its psychodrama. At the heart of it it’s just that, of course, they don’t want to lose their places of privilege and power, for which most of them did absolutely nothing and are completely unsuited. But they’re going to cast themselves as saving the world or democracy, or whatever. There is no end to the depths of their illusion. Which is the problem.

The friend isn’t wrong about this article. There are ideas we can use to prepare for the train wreck ahead. But it is written in such a way it’s obvious the writer is a leftist, and the lack of self awareness drove me bonkers.

I guess my friend is not as sensitive to liberal bullshit, which frankly probably applies to 90% of humans living or dead. I just spent so much time in environments infested with the lit-crit left that I can get irritated when they say hello.

So I decided to do a combined “yeah, we can use this, but more like this” and fisking of the massive rats in the man’s head. (ROUS, seriously.) Note in wrote this in advance of the first Trump presidency, when ZOMG literally Hitler, and is republishing it now — NOW after all the abuses of the Biden presidency, which given his trying to tamp down free speech, his corruption of law, his racial (if inverted) politics, etc, as well as some of his speeches might as well grow a toothbrush mustache and be done with it — because ZOMG Trump might come back and literally Hitler.

You can actually see this bizarre man, who must be living in a very strange parallel reality, set his hair on fire and run in circles, because Trump might not want the world to invade us, or might make Americans able to afford groceries again. ZOMG. Horror!

For the beginning of this, because it was becoming gargantuan even for my blog, go here: Before The Crash 1

So, let’s proceed to his point six:

6. Be wary of paramilitaries.  When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh.  When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

LITERALLY no one carried torches and pictures of Trump, but okay, twinky, let’s dance!

6. We have the guns. And we are against the system, as noted by the fact that they hate the fact we have guns, and keep trying to get us to give them up. Anyone else remember Obama’s brilliant scheme for this, which would only occur to someone whose emotional development stopped in kindergarten, and who’s about 10% as smart as he thinks he is: Fast and Furious. ”Ur, ur, so we sell guns to the Mexicans, they kill lots of people. We trace the guns as being American and then ur ur, Americans feel so bad they give up their guns, and we win.” — This is prime underwear gnome reasoning right there.

They know we have guns, they hate our guns. It’s what’s kept them from coming stomping through flyover country all big and bed, burning and looting. Instead they have to confine their shows to the centers of blue cities where most people are disarmed.

I have absolutely NO clue what he’s talking about us dressing in uniforms and matching with pictures of a leader, much less the torches, last seen in tikki torches when the FBI decided to cosplay Nazis.

He’s again confused about who the individualists are. They’ve told themselves they’re rebels and iconoclasts that they believe it, even though their statist side has been in power for almost 100 years and they are good boys and girls fitting exactly in the approved mode.

Our side …. the individualists failed to organize, okay? The chances of getting us all to march in the same direction and do the same thing are zero. Torches? Only if we reach the pitchfork and torches stage. Pictures of the leader? WHAT?

Look, I said from the beginning Trump would be the nominee and Trump has a (remote, given fraud) chance of winning. But you know, if I were making him to order, I’d want someone else. And as I told my mom when she was going on about how uncouth he is “I’m neither dating him, nor even going to dinner with him.” As for “worshiping” him, Lord ‘a mercy! I have a religion. My religion looks very askance at anyone worshiping humans, yo. The closest I come is having a massive lit-crush on Heinlein, and heck, if we met we’d have SUCH arguments. (Unfair, as I know how some things turned out, and how some psychological studies were faked. But never mind.) And I’m close to what passes for center mass “Trump Supporter” — I think there’s a very remote chance if elected he’ll do some things I want him to do. That’s it. LEADER? get out of town. Americans lead themselves.

Anyway, our guns. We don’t need no uniforms. In fact, I appreciate he’s taking this from the 20th century, but he should realize things have changed. If all of this falls in the pot, it won’t be uniforms and serried ranks. It will be guerrillas coming out of nowhere, and melting back to nowhere.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. No. I pray it doesn’t come to that. Miracles DO happen, you know? BUT all I can say is I’m very glad we have guns, so that if they try, say, to confiscate all our food and starve us, we can defend ourselves.

Remember: 

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

This is a thing of the most basic preparation. Stay frosty. And of course, side-eye the people who march in concert, all say the same thing and deploy, seemingly at the drop of a hat. And those who talk of their candidate for president being “A sort of god”. They are NOT free men.

7. Be reflective if you must be armed.  If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you.  But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things.  Be ready to say no.

7. I completely agree with him on this. We’re seeing policemen already doing irregular things, like letting Burn Loot and Murder burning things. We’ve seen policemen lose their minds during Covid: Arresting people for taking their children to the park, or closing down churches.

An executive order, whatever that mental midget Polis thinks is not a law. It doesn’t even have the color of law. It’s simply “Do this, or I hurt you.” If it outright contradicts the constitution and makes a mockery of our natural rights as individuals, it is against your oath.

I’m going to say this now, to any of you in police, para-police, military positions: REMEMBER YOUR OATH.

Some of you have already done things that while not grave enough to see you hanged at Nuremberg are on a sliding scale with those evils. REMEMBER YOUR OATH. You swore to the constitution, not to the power of a man who just wants his way — like, say, Obama closing national monuments, to push budget negotiations — and you should remember that if this keeps going on, there will be a reckoning. It might be delayed, but it’s not cancelled just because you say so.

And more importantly, when you wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, do you see an American or the mewling gelding of a despot?

You gave your word. Keep it.

8. Stand out.  Someone has to.  It is easy to follow along.  It can feel strange to do or say something different.  But without that unease, there is no freedom.  Remember Rosa Parks.  The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Yeah, very easy for the left to say, because the right, at least now and in recent decades hasn’t come down on anyone opposing them like a ton of bricks, removing their livelihood, their friends, their connections, their bank accounts or even their freedom.

And yet–

We’re about to enter very difficult and dangerous times. The time to be quiet and well behaved and polite was …. five decades ago. And look at where it led.

Yes, I know, many of you can’t speak. Just can’t. Because you have people to support and duties and financial obligations. I get that. My own path has been painful as is, and yeah, it has affected my family.

But for you people who can’t stand right out in the open and scream, please support those who can and do. I don’t mean monetarily, though trust me, even those of us relative well off have paid a financial price for our dissent, but … you know, it’s good to know we’re not alone. Even if you’re talking under an assumed name, and not saying much.

And figure it out ahead of time — if you’re like me you have esprit de l’escalier and think of the perfect retort three hours later — figure out things you can say or ask that don’t break cover but plant doubt. I recommend two books: Revolt in 2100 and Comrade Don Camillo. Go and study the technique. I’m very bad at it, too, but we need to get better. All of us. Prepare now. before the crash.

The life — and country — we save might be our own.

9. Be kind to our language.  Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does.  Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying.  Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet.  Read books.

The fine irony of a lefty saying this is…. Chef’s kiss. It’s not insanity unless it comes from the insané region of France. It’s just sparkling lack of self awareness.

9- If you can — again I’m aware of the constraints of facing an amoral and unrestrained enemy — when you can, every time you can, even if in the quiet of your own head:
They is plural. (Yes, Shakespeare used it ONCE for someone approaching whose gender and NUMBER was unknown. (But turned out to be a guy.) Get a grip. One instance. might have been a quillo (there were no typewriters.) And if you’re going to base this on Shakespeare, I want you to be able to justify all his word choices when I ask, in a full length non-plagiarized essay, biatches.) There are no “chest feeders”, there are breast feeding women. There are no “persons who give birth.” There are mothers. And black is black (I want my baby back) not “African-American” because Africa is not a race. (Black isn’t either, it’s a characteristic of several races, but you know what, if we are to call Americans with extreme tans something, black is fine. If we’re going to invent weird monikers, call them splendid people of enhanced tan, and whites melanoma-incurring-people of pallor. I don’t care. No one is white and no one is black, but you call people white, you call other people black. (Yellow is weird though. No one is even remotely yellow.)) And let’s be very clear on what “minorities” are, because women ain’t.

What I mean is don’t concede their bizarre corruption of language. They’re not speaking truth to power. They’re speaking terror to truth. Speak the truth as much as you can. Giving up your very language to them lets them in your thoughts and makes you feel dirtied and powerless. Which is what they want. No, it’s not Critical Race Theory, it’s racism in academic face.

10. Believe in truth.  To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.  If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so.  If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.  The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

10. And again, I fully agree with him. Which is why we should stop the federal government from using our money to corrupt journalists and artists (ah, those grants) and the army and police we pay for to threaten social media sites, etc.

The fact he doesn’t see his “fear” is already happening, with his side doing it, and has been happening since they came up with “political correctness” a term invented by Mao to describe something you know NOT to be true, but which the political power has decreed to be true is an amazing failure at self-reflection.

Most of the people who read here are already rebels who value the truth and facts above mere social comfort, wealth and advancement.

Keep it. And yes, I’m afraid this continues for two more days.

281 thoughts on “Before the crash 2”

  1. If you are uncomfortable with confrontation or speaking out laughter is a very potent weapon. Guy in a dress? Point and laugh! Record and post on social media. Ridicule! Brain Fog Biden gives a speech condemning “insurrection” at Valley Forge? Laugh and point out that Washington was the biggest insurrectionists in our nations history. See a poster of Biden, add a little Hitler mustache. Government pisses you off, follow the lead of EU farmers and accidentally dump a couple of tons of manure in front of their offices. The possibilities are endless!

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    1. That speech, and the location, was just waaaaayyyy to funny. How anyone couldn’t have seen the optics of that being a fool’s show is beyond me. Sometimes I wonder whether his handlers are clueless, or trying to make him look like more of a fool than he actually is. Who thought that speech being held at Valley Forge was a good idea?

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      1. They don’t know US. So they don’t realize how these things will fall with most of the country. It’s more “let’s go to one of their sacred sites. That will demoralize them.”
        “Demoralize” is a weird way to spell “piss off.”

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Valley Forge is patriotic. They want to link Biden with patriotism. Anything beyond that never occurs to them.

        It particularly never occurs to them that Washington would have had the whole lot of them rounded up and hanged as scoundrels and disgusting deviants. But then again, Washington owned slaves. So who cares what he would think?

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      1. Here are some of my favorites. Hell, most of the movie could be quoted that way.

        “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. ” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Our masters have not heard the people’s voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Evey Hammond: Who are you?
        V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
        Evey Hammond: Well I can see that.
        V: Of course you can. I’m not questioning your powers of observation I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is”
        ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “The ending is nearer than you think, and it is already written. All that we have left to choose is the correct moment to begin.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

        “Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

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    1. Got an email yesterday from an emergency mental health counseling group offering training. They guy listed his pronouns as “They/Them” which just seemed like a flashing sign to stay away. I mentioned it to one of my coworkers who said they know the guy and he’d be a great counselor. All I can think of is, if the person is advertising his mental health problem/confusion about his gender, that’s probably not someone I want to be taking mental health advice from.

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      2. Sometimes its HR policy combined with go along to get along.
        I have some friends working at John Deere, who report that managers are graded based on the percentage of their team who display allyship, as evidenced by adding pronouns to your email signature. Rumor had it that a guy got fired for picking some mocking pronouns.

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                  1. I do not agree with red flag laws, But since we’ve had two Trans go ape shit and shoot up schools, will being trans now put you on a red flag list? I mean if it only saves one school kid? So any ‘They them he she it whatever gets instantly put on a red flag list.
                    Tongue firmly planted in cheek.

                    So go ahead, let’s have them all self identify and put them all on red flag lists.

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                    1. ‘Red flag’ laws are blatantly unconstitutional. Confiscating peoples’ property because of what some nervous Nellie is afraid they might do is not only un-American, it’s made-to-order for government abuse.

                      It’s a perfect example of left-wingers punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty.

                      One of my characters is going to get ‘red-flagged’ and he’s not quiet about it:

                      “What I want to know is, who filed the complaint? Was it a ‘concerned citizen’ or just some rando? Or, as I strongly suspect, some little piss-ant bureaucrat made up a fake complaint just to harass me — but I don’t have the right to find out!”

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        2. We’ve got a bunch of people at work who seem to be displaying “custom” pronouns (none of them actually custom, just she/her…and every last one is a female) simply because it’s a built-in field in the project management software we use.

          They’re not doing it in email or anywhere else, most of them. None of them are transgender or suffering any visible confusion about it. A piece of software has an option to choose custom pronouns and, like sheep, they assumed that they had to do it because it was placed in front of them. Or maybe it’s a misguided “I’m a nice person” signal? (At least one or two of these particular women are very much fake-nice, and not to be trusted, in my experience.)

          Meanwhile, nobody has said anything at all about my custom pronouns being Attack/Helicopter/PewPewPew. I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.

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          1. Maybe they’re just tired of getting phone calls for “Mr. Lastname” and then having folks freak out because they have to correct “it’s Mrs,” even though the woman involved isn’t freaked out at all.

            I’ve gotten that, and I have an only-female name!

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        4. I refuse to put preferred pronouns on my work e-mail. Hasn’t been an issue, yet. If they force it, then I’m going to choose the most offensive terms I can think up, and then if fired for it, challenge them in court for violating their own policies.

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        1. Think I’ve heard it a time or two.

          I used to run line in all types of places. Trailer parks, office buildings, government offices, the works. Job sites with a bunch of blue collar workers? That’s the place.

          There are no gender shenanigans in the dirt. Dirtier, more dangersome, more difficult it is? Chances are near certain there’s not a whit of such nonsense. Such folk tend to be refreshingly direct. And will call out any bullshit by reflex.

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      1. I default to “delusional son of a bitch.” You don’t use pronouns to a person’s face. It’s third person. And behind their back I’ll call them what I please. (Actually, I call them that to their faces too. No one said I was wise.)

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        1. See, that’s my biggest gripe. Pronouns are generally not used in front of someone, so they are not-so-subtly trying to control how you speak/think even when the person is not present. That’s not ‘respect’ or ‘inclusion’, that’s a blatant attempt at thought control and I do not consent.

          My general response is something along the lines of “I acknowledge your right to your beliefs. However, the laws of this country do not require that I believe what -you- say I should.”

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          1. FOAD/ESAD

            Plus, for “Gender Assigned At Birth”, cross out “Assigned” and write in “Observed”. Haven’t been called on it yet, but I have a few replies available if I am.

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        3. I wanted to do F/FER (fill it it. It’s crude, and Ya’ll are polite people) when my work rolled that out. They locked out the choices to just a few so I left it blank, which made me want to poke the bear about not allowing what “I” wanted, but since there was the option for nothing I took that.

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    5. I was dreaming about this last night. After I woke up I decided my pronouns are “Stop messing with my language,” “pronouns have a purpose,” and “this is insaneself.”

      “It,” “you” or “one are acceptable gender neutral identifiers.

      Generally what they object to is not pronouns anyway, it’s gender specific titles such as Miss, Ma’am, Sir, etc. What they don’t seem to get is that the human mind is programmed and hardwired to see certain features as male or female. Distance between nose and upper lip, size and shape of the chin, presence of the Adams apple, and so forth. When someone dresses in the clothing of the opposite gender those things do not go away. They will continue to be addressed as the gender they are because the brain does not identify gender by the trappings.

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      1. It’s one of the earliest things. Because vital for children BEFORE WE WERE HUMAN. Strange males would kill you. Period.
        So, most of the transphobic behavior they complain of? It’s the reaction to the uncanny valley most of them end up in. People don’t like being confused about this, even when they realize they aren’t. I actually have a post on this waiting, but it’s…. confusing.

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  4. Very much agree that you have to be careful of the paramilitaries. They are not anyone’s friend. I also think the North of Ireland is the most likely of the “worst case” scenarios. The gunmen are just drug traffickers now, but they’re still there. I’ve had the odd “set to” on this site about gunmen. I know what it’s like and I know what it does. T

    In other news, we do have the fecklessness of our opposition in our favor. The Georgia DA seems to have appointed her lover special prosecutor of Trump. He was seen meeting with the White House and she looks to have benefited financially from the relationship. They really are that stupid and arrogant.

    Miracles do happen and the Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

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      1. Oh yes, on another front, they went after Bill Ackman’s wife because Bill criticized Harvard for being anti-Semitic. His wife. Not him, his wife. That is just gobsmackingly stupid and you’d have to be in a University to be sufficiently insulated from reality to know you don’t go after the wife, the kids, or the parents.

        Now you have a billionaire hedge fund guy with massive resources who’s motivated. He’s stated that he’s going to start with MIT’s governor’s theses and work from there applying the same criteria to their productions. Since most of these idiots seem to have studied “studies” and “studies” are just the regurgitation of a limited number of ritual phrases the fallout should be fascinating.

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        2. :shark-toothed grin:

          Some idiot leftist pundit on Twitter was whining about the Claudine Gay thing and said something along the lines of, “Let’s go do this to ALL the university presidents, then, and see how you like it,” as if it was some kind of a threat. (Oh no, all three of the conservative university presidents out there could be in danger! Wait, are there even that many?)

          “Please don’t throw me into that briar patch,” said Brer Rabbit.

          May they get what’s coming to ’em good and hard.

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        3. Two reasons –

          First, since the subject was plagiarism in scholarship, she made the obvious target for someone trying to accuse Ackman of hypocrisy. You’re probably not going to find any opportunities to tar Ackman with a plagiarism brush, given his line of work. But his wife is another matter, and a few items that sort of look like it turned up (keeping in mind that they gave her less than two hours to respond to the accusations).

          Second, it’s an attempt to cow him through extortion. Many people are willing to play the martyr if it’s just them. A lot fewer people are willing to stand up if the person being martyred is someone close to them, instead. This is an attempt at that.

          But it appears that this has backfired very badly…

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Less than two hours, when everything was turned off and she was cooking for the Jewish Sabbath.

            I mean, trying to get ahold of someone after 5 PM on a Friday in winter is ridiculous, but when people are known to be observant Jews, it is malicious.

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            1. Even without the distractions, the response time was absurd. She would be required to be able to recall fine details about texts that she likely hasn’t looked at in years. She would have had to pull up each text, find the supposedly plagiarized passages in question, and have the original sources on hand to compare the texts and determine whether they were too similar to each other.

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        4. This story gets even better. Apparently the person who wrote the story peddled it to at least four different news media outlets before Business Insider finally accepted it. And now Business Insider’s publisher wants an internal review as a result of BI publishing it.

          As for Oxman (Ackman’s wife), she’s apparently apologized for missing some citations.

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  5. The worship Trump thing was perfectly encapsulated in this sketch.

    Basically any pushback, any question or clarification of truth against the lies was seen as worship or fandom.

    Because that’s how witch hunts work. Make the target so vile, so repulsive that nobody would dare challenge that the person might be innocent less you be revealed as a Satan worshipper too.

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      1. Exactly this. It’s part of why I’ve become so black-pilled. ESPECIALLY watching republicans who should be old enough to know better. But you keep seeing them essentially saying, “well if he wasn’t so bad, this wouldn’t be happening.” Never mind that they don’t seem to have learned that even if DeSantis gets nominated, they’re going to do the exact same thing to him. They should have learned when it happened to Romney and when it happened to Kavanaugh. To post a comment I sent to one fellow:

        So i went to https://www.270towin.com/ and did some calculations by hand. I added up the total votes then divided the Republican votes by it (rounding up the percentage to the tenth).

        /157,351,334 = 47.2% (2020 – Trump)
        /135,516,892 = 46.5% (2016 – Trump)
        /128,125,270 = 47.6% (2012 – Romney)
        /129,446,839 = 44% (2008 – McCain)
        /121,069,054 = 51.2% (2004 – W.Bush        )
        /104,338,914 = 48.4% (2000 – W.Bush)
        /94,686,514 = 41.4% (1996 – Dole)
        /103,756,701 = 37.7% (1992 – Bush)
        /90,695,671 = 53.9% (1988 – Bush        )
        /92,032,260 = 59.2% (1984 – Reagan)
        /86,026,610 = 51% (1980 – Reagan        )
        /79,973,609 = 49% (1976 – Ford)

        As one can see, with the exception of the Reagan sweep and Bush’s ’04 election (gee, I wonder what helped that), the republican candidate ALWAYS earns in the 40% of the vote – even when they win (like Trump in ’16 and Bush in ’00).

        So I challenge folks whether it is Trump that has an election “ceiling” or whether it is the Republican party that has an election ceiling. After all, Trump did just as good or better percentage wise as previous candidates – what makes people so sure that anybody else besides Trump is going to do any better or even crack the 50% mark that only Reagan and Bushes have done?

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        2. DON’T be blackpilled. The older republicans are scared of the press destroying them, because this operated their whole life. They’re scared of the press boogeyman and don’t understand it has changed.
          On the other hand look up the DC honeypot they found. And keep in mind the CIA has been operating psy-ops runs in our country since Obama took power. THEY ADMIT IT.
          That despair you feel? It’s manufactured. There’s a lot of stuff going badly for the people in power. Don’t let the manufactured despair get you.
          Stay angry, stay frosty, and don’t despair. We’re winning this. The mop up is going to almost kill us. But they don’t have a prayer.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. A lot of the “conservative” talkers are nothing but “black pill” pushers. All gloom and doom all the time. Be a happy warrior! Open eyes but truth and principle based. This is what I like about Sarah – open eyes but optimistic of the outcome ahead of us. Trouble is ahead but we will prevail!

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              1. I am disappointed by the quality of our internally focused psyops. They are dumb. They target the not-too-bright. They catch the stupid and the gullible, by and large.

                Almost as if there is a concerted campaign somewhere to keep them that dumb. I mean, remember back when DEI started? They called it DIE. Literally. Not the first time there’s been a “whoopsie” like that.

                Either somebody on the inside that has a clue and this is a scream for help, or, well… They are really that bubble baby disconnected and cotton-headed fools.

                I live in hope for intelligence from those who represent me and mine, and do the proper work of government. That hope is continually frustrated by mortal failings that may just be more than merely that.

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                1. Have you seen how they did abroad? they suck. BUT they’re really good at despondence, because we haven’t had free speech outside mass media long enough to show there’s more of us than of them.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  2. Speaking of mass media, someone who is a long-time subscriber to the last remaining local paper just announced that she cancelled, because a Sunday-only subscription would cost her $1000 for the year. That’s almost $20 a paper. Oh, they said they could get it down to about $500, but that’s still absurd for what it is. (She’s not in the city the paper is centered in, so that adds to the cost, but she still rightly considers that awful.)

                    Not to mention that the online subscription came out to more than the top two national paper subscriptions combined.

                    She said she felt disloyal. I mentioned that she shouldn’t, because they certainly displayed no loyalties to the hundreds of long-term staff they’ve laid off in the last decade, including all of the editors.

                    Anyway. “Why is our model dying?” Uh, I dunno…

                    Liked by 1 person

                3. My current mental model of the administration is basically these two articles:

                  Government by Vampire Zombie Squid
                  https://www.eugyppius.com/p/government-by-vampire-zombie-squid

                  A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
                  https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation

                  Basically the bureaucracies can only act through propagandizing themselves, so when the intel agencies funneled ridiculous amounts of money to developing propaganda tools, their first subject was themselves.

                  Kind of a real life version of Shiri’s Scissors:
                  Sort By Controversial | Slate Star Codex

                  Sort By Controversial

                  Except we’re in the machine with them as they crash it…

                  Liked by 1 person

                4. Meh, too many links. Look up the following:

                  Government by Vampire Zombie Squid

                  A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine

                  Basically the bureaucracies can only act through propagandizing themselves, so when the intel agencies funneled ridiculous amounts of money to developing propaganda tools, their first subject was themselves.

                  Kind of a real life version of Shiri’s Scissors:
                  Sort By Controversial | Slate Star Codex

                  Except we’re in the machine with them as they crash it…

                  (hopefully a repost without the links works)

                  Liked by 1 person

            3. The problem is when I start laughing, sometimes people get nervous. Especially folks who know me.

              “No, mailclerk, not time to fix bayonets”

              “…not time for napalm, yet.”

              “…put the black flag away….”

              ” …. rather you not sharpen knives if you are gonna giggle…”

              What?

              Like

          2. The CIA has probably been doing it since at least Dubya. I’ve heard that the FBI became a lot more pro-active after 9/11 due to “Why did you let this happen!?” comments from Dubya. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar happened at the CIA.

            Liked by 1 person

          3. It’s not manufactured, it’s exhaustion at seeing people who should know better convince themselves that this time Lucy is going to hold the football.

            OR

            Watching the cries of “we should do something!” ever being followed by, “but not that!”

            And I’m not even talking about professional talking heads – it’s hearing it from ordinary joes that’s depressing. At some point you start to feel like Poe Damaron screaming around, “just tell me that somebody has a plan!”

            Like

            1. Sigh. Ordinary Joes aren’t there yet. They haven’t seen the elephant yet. Listen when you’re out. They aren’t. They’re starting to feel uneasy. Enough not to want more of this. enough to suspect something is wrong.
              BUT not where they’ll act yet.
              Which is why nothing has happened. Chill.

              Like

            1. Sometimes, a man’s highest use is to be the bad example for the others.
              Don’t be that man.
              Don’t waste the other guy’s bad example by being one yourself.

              Do better. be better.

              Liked by 1 person

        4. I don’t care if Donald Trump is ‘occasionally’ a jackass. We need the strongest, meanest, smelliest jackass we can find to pull the Washington wagon out of the swamp/cesspool it’s submerged in. I think DT is the best fit for that job in 2024.

          Liked by 1 person

        5. And Trump has the one thing that nobody else has displayed; the ability to withstand the sheer tsunami of hatred and opposition spewed at him on an hourly basis, day after day, year after year. That would break 99.99% of anyone in America. Trump is like a Timex watch, he takes a licking, and keeps on ticking.

          Liked by 2 people

              1. He wouldn’t agree to the limitations the judge imposed on what he’s allowed to say. I’m not sure how “you can’t say x, y, and z as part of your own defense” is supposed to work, but that’s the excuse anyway.

                Like

      2. I’m depressed by how many of the “right” media says the elections in 2020 were fair and that Trump should have shut up.
        At this point I wonder if it’s Stockholm syndrome of skinsuiting and psy-ops. I’m leaning to the later.
        And then I’m not depressed, I’m furious. Which is why this site stays up. NOT BOUGHT BY ANYONE. (Well, you guys, but I still tell you if I think you’re wrong) AND I’ll continue to point out what’s out of order.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. ‘Cause they’re not. Right, that is. Or conservative. As far as I can recall, a lot of them take money from the enemy. The few that don’t, well, those are reviled to a degree that should be shameful, but apparently isn’t (to most folks, and most folks are fools for doing so) because democrat.

          Fox? Not right, hasn’t been for years now. Even the radio talking heads get funny ideas and wild hairs on the regular. Some of that is just plain old human failings I’ll warrant.

          Other bits, I do wonder if they’ve not been seduced by the other side. Probably not literally. But money talks rather loudly when followed by lots of zeroes before a decimal.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Fox News was never right wing. At their height they were no more than centrist possibly leaning slightly right. But all the other major MSM stations were sprinting so hard left that when compared they seemed right wing extremist.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I recall someone doing a study of the media and found Fox, even 20+ years ago, slightly left of center. But since not sufficiently enthusiastically slurping Marx’s [AHEM] they were called ‘right’.

              Liked by 1 person

        3. What all of you miss about the motivation is you’re using the wrong model. You should be thinking of them like an abused spouse. A combination of love, fear, and hope drives them. That this time – this time if they get the dinner just right, their lover will be happy when they come home and won’t hit them.

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      3. The ‘Paul stab you in the back and steal your wallet Ryan’ wing of the republican party. May he spend eternity shackled to Nancy Pelosi, the Whore of Babylon.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. They’ve done that for decades with anyone who was on the “outs” in my field. And since you never knew why someone was fired or blacklisted, if you were fired, suddenly you had no friends. Heck, you yourself never knew the real reason. The reason was always numbers, but more like than not a lie. So–

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Exactly. I’ve also been repeatedly disappointed by some on the Right who never figured out that they would practice their techniques on “soft” and “questionable” targets first before bringing it against bigger targets. (I brought it up to McCain before https://theothermccain.com/2023/10/20/why-is-kiwifarms-net-harassment-but-what-taylor-lorenz-does-is-journalism/)

        Like the wise man once said: you must defend the rights of scoundrels.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Like the wise man once said: you must defend the rights of scoundrels.

          Which is why I’m a public defender. The police and courts who violate the rights of druggies and rapists will violate ours too.

          Liked by 3 people

            1. Government has always attracted scoundrels. What’s annoying about these days is one of their principle checks on power – the media – have now decided that they’re fine with it as long as it’s their scoundrels.

              Like

          4. As another public defender once wrote, your job is to ensure that the legal system upholds the law in all details. You defend a lot of guilty people because the state has to prove their guilt in a completely legal fashion.

            Like

            1. All too many defense lawyers (especially the high-paid elitists) consider it their job to WIN!! the case, that is, get the defendant off by any means possible. Slander the witnesses, confuse the issues, screech about ‘systemic racism’ and whatnot. Justice is ignored, and legal is ‘whatever you can get away with’.

              Like

    3. They’re not doing that because they believe Trump supporters are a tiny radical minority.

      No, the reason they’re running in circles, pants on head, hair on fire, is because they’re terrified that a clear majority of the American people will vote for Trump in November. Why? Because he says things they agree with. Because he doesn’t insult and belittle them. Because the country did better for 4 years than in the previous 8 years, or the following 3 years. Because some of them just like Trump. Or, they will hold their noses and vote against Biden.

      We used to call that democracy. Now, voting for the ‘wrong’ candidate is AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!!! TO GULAG WITH YOU!!

      They tell us Trump will do all the horrible Eeevul things he spent 4 years not doing. The things Biden(‘s puppet master) IS doing now.
      ———————————
      Elections are far too important to be left up to a bunch of uncontrolled voters. The Party MUST exercise oversight and management to prevent mere voters from electing the wrong candidates!

      Liked by 1 person

  6. On the issue of “Can’t they see that is already happening?” in regard to the blatant bias of the major media outlets; I have encountered that, even with people I didn’t think were ‘dedicated leftists’. They have become SO indoctrinated that when a news source isn’t following ALL the latest approved language requirements or doesn’t stick sufficiently close to the ‘approved narrative’, that news source is promptly labeled ‘right wing’ and people you didn’t realize were pod-people actually AGREE with that description! And they seriously seem to believe that Fox News is being run by Goebbels.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The number of people, to my horror and disgust, who turned out to be NPCs in 2020 was so demoralizing to me. People I thought had a brain and used it? Then it turned out that no, they didn’t. Chicken-brained followers.

      But then other people who previously had proudly sung the Party Line would speak to me privately about the practicality of Being Prepared for government misbehavior and general breakdown of supply chains. “Jeez, Phantom, you always talk about this stuff, what do we do if the schlitz hits the fan here?” This from a Party man.

      So, on balance, I conclude that most people are keeping up a false front. They just say whatever to get along, and when the chips start to fly you never know which way they’re going to jump.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. We’ve been in a cultural cold war for a long time. And they have had the power a long time. Right now, it’s not that we’re losing. What’s causing all the strife is that the mass-media is losing enough power we can and are fighting back.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. There were so many people that I thought were…well, sane who turned out to be ravenous monsters under their masks that it’s scary.
        It’s like being the only human in a world of vampires. One mistake and they’ll devour you.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. For me this started with Sad Puppies. So many people I considered soft left but friends TURNED on me to defend the plastic rocket and potential university sinecures. It was horrifying. The good side? It can never hurt that badly again.
          Scars are acquired through pain, but they’re much harder than untried skin.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I’ve had warnings about this for years, but if I looked back at what I’m calling the Geek Cultural Collapse…the first round of the Sad Puppies was about the time when I realized just how terrible so many of these people were.
            And unironically so.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. There have been a lot of those over they years. Clinton (many examples, but Bill first). Byrd. What they did to Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and others. The selling of secrets, of influence, of bits and pieces of America. Normalizing perversion. Blind eyes to horrors: China, Russia, Epstein, racialism, sexual exploitation, leaving our people to die in foreign lands without proper defense before or vengeance after… the list goes on.

          When I say the line is drawn at cannibalism I mean that everything up to that point has been perpetrated by and then defended by democrats. These are not honorable opponents. They are vile, wicked folk. Their works prove this, daily.

          That is not to say that half the country is utterly irredeemable. No. There are hostages to fortune. There are also the pitiable ones who have quite literally never been exposed to sanity in their entire lives.

          A proper world would hang paedos, rapists, and murderers. They’d do the same to bandits and terrorists and those faithless souls that sell out their neighbors. Doing so is not a task to cause repentance in the surviving criminal and criminal intending population, though if such occurs it would be a happy coincidence.

          Common citizens are being deprived of the protections of law over their selves and property by lawless government servants aiding and abetting these criminals by excusing their actions.

          It’s a sorry state of affairs when one realizes that their neighbors are such folk. But best to know now, rather than to continue in ignorance.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Cannibalism is already on their “to do” list as far as trying to make it socially acceptable, as it is the latest “hot” topic among the Green Leap Forward’s push for “sustainability”. Needless to say, they think Soylent Green is a good idea and an example of “sustainability:” to be emulated.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. I tell people that I feel like “a human in the middle of a nest of vampires”-one mistake, and I get eaten.

            Most of these people don’t or won’t understand that our opponents are no longer honorable foes but vile and wicked people that we might allow to retire quietly and never come back up for air again…as long as they don’t come back, ever.

            Liked by 2 people

      3. Pretty much this … and that’s the thing about preference cascades. No one really knows how many people out there privately agree, until something – something odd and out of left field starts the cascade. And then, everyone sees that practically everyone else has been keeping up a false front, just so they aren’t living in a constant state of war with casual acquaintances, distant friends, family members and neighbors. Most of us really just want to live an uneventful life, without a lot of hassle.

        Liked by 2 people

    3. When swarmed by pod-men and otherwise rational blokes with too much grape beverage powder dusting their nostrils, one might point out for S&G that your politics are “further right than H!tler’s,” or the quite true but largely denied fact that their own favorite candidates are “more far-right than Hitler,” as is almost every US politician, since Der Führer was a radical leftist.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. When Obama shut down the park system, we walked past the barrier in the Indian Peaks Wilderness (a pathetic saw horse) and hiked our planned trail to Devil’s Thumb anyway. I posted a picture to Facebook and received a lot of pearl clutching responses about how I was supposed to obey, and how dare I.

    Some people will always be “mewling geldings of a despot.” I’ve been weeding them out of my life. I think that’s for the best.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. In 2020 they were arresting people in Toronto for running through the empty parks, with great media fanfare. Because this is Canada, and you better not step out of line.

      This is the same city where the cops deliver coffee to HamAss demonstrators, who are -way- out of line but allowed because they’re brown-ish. Even when they’re #Pantifa.

      The moral of the story is, mask-ignorers and lockdown-breakers don’t have an identifiable voting block, so it is okay to make an example of them.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There was an hilarious video here in LA County of cops trying (and failing, because they couldn’t keep up with him) to arrest a jogger on the otherwise empty beach in 2020.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. They also arrested a report for Rebel News for asking a question of one of Trudeau’s deputy’s about their refusal to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Canada has gone full socialist dictatorship and I fear that Canada has been lost as a free nation for years to come.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. The Rebel News guy was released with no charges laid after they f-ed him around the rest of the day. Rebel News, having gotten the whole thing on tape, is suing the arresting officers and the RCMP for the incident.

          Does this ever see a courtroom? No way.

          Liked by 1 person

  8. I rolled my eyes at Point 10. He says that like the Left hasn’t been redefining “truth” to mean “whatever you want to believe is correct, nothing is absolute anymore.”

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Because they really do believe they are the good guys. They don’t see the evil, because their side is not evil, or so they nave been told. Look at all the Jews who still vote democrat, and probably still will, even after all the college and societal attacks by other leftists. I think if you are a progressive you are admitting you are insane.

        Like

    2. It’s a double-think. They’ll do things like openly cheer justices for being “ruling first, rationale second” (something the author of a Warren biography I read openly applauded), and completely fail to understand why it leads directly to the point you make.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Did the biographer cite Lewis Carroll or just give hime the “gay Claudine”?

        Somehow I doubt they’d even heard of Through the Looking-glass before the Disney film skinsuited it.

        Like

  9. Having family in Chicago (dumbest smart kid) I read this site daily:
    https://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/

    It gives you some insight into a “blue” environment and how it’s going. The best advice that they have posted (for fellow Chicago cops) is to arrive at an event then – “point, laugh and leave.” Watching news about Chicago and then reading the posts from the web page – especially the comments – I feel like I’m watching the “crash” in slow motion.

    The posted ideas are worth consideration and discussion – which is currently in progress. However I am reminded that there can be a vast difference from one location to another so what works or is “best practice” in one area or circumstance may not be good for someplace or someone else. The key (for me) in this thread is to read, react, reconsider and then take what will be valuable and move on. Also, revisit what you have looked at as new information becomes available. Just thinking out loud…

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Ever notice, when you read a blog by a retired guy who knows what he’s talking about, the Lefties never come out well? Most of the concentrated, industrial strength Stupid he mentions is imposed from the top down, for Lefty political signalling.

      I particularly liked the one where all city employees -except- the cops will be work-from-home during air conditioner installation in City Building. Like if a city clerk got killed by a 4 ton AC unit falling from a helicopter that would be an atrocity, but if it was a cop that would be no big deal.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Yeah – nobody knows for sure who does the posting – it’s a cop someplace in the Chicago system but TPTB have never been able to track him down.

        They went on hiatus for about two years as I think there was some fear that the authors were going to be exposed. They were not and the blog has recently come back and is the same good stuff as it used to be. It’s a daily read for me and the comments are often the most interesting.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. There were two major Chicago Cop blogs; I think the other one was taken down, but it was over three years ago IIRC. And I’m blanking on the name and it’s not in my bookmarks any more.

        Like

  10. “7. Be reflective if you must be armed.”

    I return, like the dog to his “breakfast”, to the spectacle of the cops delivering coffee to the HamAss schmucks blocking the bridge last week. And I use the Yiddish term advisedly. Fitting.

    “If you carry a weapon in public service…” in a tyranny then you already picked a side, and it is the wrong side.

    “…if you must be armed….” is the typical Leftist assumption that carrying a weapon is wrong, it is evil, and it can only be allowed to officially sanctioned persons doing specifically sanctioned things.

    Leftists consistently fail to understand that Pacifism is not a winning strategy for individuals. To tyrants a Pacifist is nothing more than one more body to bury. Ten thousand determined Pacifists is an afternoon’s work for the SS. It’s STUPID.

    Then he says 8. Stand Out. No. Do not stand out, you’ll get killed. And don’t join a paramilitary, you’re going to get killed.

    Be invisible, and don’t be where the action is. Be far away from the morons getting themselves killed over politics. If you’re going to die anyway, at least make them work for it a little.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. These morons (on both the Right and the Left) look at Ghandi as an example and figure that Ghandi won through pacifism and nonviolence, so clearly they can win through pacifism and nonviolence!

      Not realizing that the reason why Ghandi won through nonviolence was because the British Government used fairly extreme violence against him and his supporters during their nonviolent protests, which horrified the British populace when they read about it in the newspapers, and it was the pressure from the Public that ultimately forced the Brits to relinquish control of India.

      If Ghandi had tried that strategy against a people that didn’t cling to the Moral High Ground the way the British do/did, say Russia, France, Germany, or Belgium, he and his supporters would have been stomped into mud and/or machine gunned, and that would have been that.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I seem to recall that even Gandhi acknowledged that his campaign would not have worked on the Nazis. Shaming the government for not adhering to its own moral code doesn’t work when that moral code is “kill everyone who disagrees.”

        Ask the Jews about principled Pacifist resistance. Or the Chinese, or the Koreans, or the Scots for that matter.

        And #Pantifa’s organizing principle is “kill everyone who disagrees.” They just suck at it, because they are contemptible wankers.

        Liked by 1 person

            1. Yeah. Between that and “slept naked with extremely young women, to prove his self-control” I cringe every time I see a quote by him or someone semi-deifying him.

              Like

      3. I think it was Turtledove who had a short story in which Ghandi tries his tactics against German Gen. Model.

        He ends up getting turned in for a reward.

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      4. There was a short story about this in (I think) on of the old Destinies books. Ghandi was present when the Germans took the final British surrender in India and then the Germans shot him.

        Like

    2. “ REMEMBER YOUR OATH. You swore to the constitution, not to the power of a man who just wants his way”

      And note, as sworn LEOs, that employees of the Department of Public Health are not in your chain of command.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. “ REMEMBER YOUR OATH. You swore to the constitution, not to the power of a man who just wants his way”

        Precisely how Donald Trump is being framed.

        Liked by 1 person

              1. Cops, by and large, are going to defer to the bosses, not some nebulous oath. The system is designed to enforce it: “Pension if you make it to 20, else nada”, “disobey and get sentenced to gen-pop”, whatever. JKust the culture of “dont ask, just do” that permeates many departments.

                There are exceptions. We have far more exceptions than European cops, who in the 1940s largely went Nazi when occupied by the Reich, or went Red when “liberated” by Soviets.

                Do -not- rely upon large numbers of cops refusing unlawful/unconstitutional edicts. See “Covidiacy” for examples. And note the Feds didnt actually push very hard to enforce it locally.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. See “Covidiacy” for examples.

                  Why don’t you? Since it disproves your entire theory, it’d be more useful.

                  There are, instead, a few exceptions in hell-hole cities with decades to a century of nasty culture building up.

                  The news showed the cops going out and harassing a guy on a paddle boat.

                  They didn’t show the hundreds of others who were helping moms pick up the barricades closing a playground.

                  They barely even showed all the neighboring cities to Portland telling the city to go do something rude with itself when they wanted to borrow some police but hold them to the same toxic rules, and the neighboring cities are really not conservative bastions!

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                  1. OBJECTION! Colorado Springs is not a hell-hole city and is more or less okay culture wise. And yet they arrested a guy for going out for a walk with his fish in a bag, using the “you can take a pet for a walk” rule.
                    Look, a) if pet owners can be out, everyone should be able to be out. That’s just logic. Pet owners aren’t virus immune. b)if a guy is walking his fish, assume he’s going nuts. (As I would be if I still lived downtown then.) Seriously?

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                    1. First off… I wanna buy that man a box of cookies. :D

                      I can’t get the monday-friday net to bring up the story, so I can’t see which department made the arrest. (Even local papers won’t do very well on identifying city, county, state, etc police.)
                      That said, I can try for Colorado Springs.

                      Which, in 2019, we’ve got a two-fer– nine of their city officers were censored for ‘involvement’ in a ‘security company’ run and owned by the county sheriff, where they’re alleged to have done among other things video surveillance. Never came to trial that I can find, only comment I could find was someone that wanted them all fired, not clear if they bothered to identify if it was illegal or just ‘against policy’ nor if the policy ink was dry yet when they were punished.

                      That suggests that their police culture, they throw the cops (Especially rank and file) under the bus, which is the culture that matters– the department culture, which generally flows from the mayor or chief, depending on local politics. Which is why you have cities-by-Portland with radically different police cultures, and why you don’t want to EVER make a cop in Seattle think you might try to kill him. He knows if he has to act against you in any way, his career there is over, the only question is how many pieces he’s in at the end of being dragged through the dirt.

                      Like

            2. Regarding whole chain:
              And that’s one of the reasons to keep voting. It can make a difference if your local sheriff is not part of that chain.

              Liked by 1 person

      2. Apparently the head of the Health Dept. In St Louis tried to impose a mask mandate. It lasted less than 24 hours. Her rationale was, “The hospitals are being overwhelmed with respiratory cases.” The hospitals came back with, “No, we’re not, this is the normal winter load.”
        Also, she was talking about how the flu level was, “above the five-year average!” while forgetting (?) that includes 2020, with its officially abnormally low number of flu cases. The pishback was, I gather, epic.
        So that’s a good sign.

        Liked by 2 people

    3. Agree with everything you just said, especially 8. Oh lord, especially 8.

      That thing with the cops seemed like it had to be something from the Babylon Bee, until I actually saw it. Oh my stars! Bless their little hearts.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I actually thought it was fake until the Police Chief “apologized” for it. I’ve known a lot of cops from my target shooting days (long past now), and they’re not the types of guys to be doing this, generally speaking. Much more the “You’re not getting past this line, we don’t care what you want, and I’ll pepper spray you down to the ground if you don’t like it.” Mr. Helpful is not a common type, let’s just say.

        Making me think that they were given orders, and this is them letting Big Brother know that the orders are not popular by following them.

        Or they’re just HamAss supporters too, that’s a possibility. After 2020 my opinion trends lower.

        Liked by 1 person

    4. You do need to stand out. Or some of us do. Watch my beacon. It stays lit.
      YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
      I can’t fight for shit, I’m not 20 anymore. Haven’t been in a physical fight for 40 years.
      But I can climb the hill and light the beacon and let all those in the darkness know they’re not alone.
      IF you can’t do anything else, light a frigging beacon. Even if in your case, you might have to do it under triple security because of your fucky speech laws.
      LIGHT A BEACON they will see through the night.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. My 2 cents here – also, learn history. Learn all the odd bits of history you can. I did not get hardly anything on Woodrow Wilson in HS history besides “Look what a great guy he was, shame he didn’t live longer!”

        What he actually did I’ve had to learn for myself in bits and pieces over the years, and I just stumbled over a Kindle sample that mentions how he helped… really wreck China in the wake of WWI, after they’d come in on the Allied side.

        The more history you know, the more you can side-eye all the progressive claims and counter with facts. And the more you realize they’ve tried all this before….

        Liked by 1 person

    6. Regarding standing out – yes, and no.

      Someone must stand out to let others know that they aren’t alone in their private thoughts about the insanity of it all. And if enough people stand out, then TPTB will back down in fear of the possible consequences.

      The drawback, of course, is that standing out puts a target on your back. And if there are only a small number of individuals openly standing out, then TPTB might decide the most expedient course is to get rid of you.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Or to put it another way…

          It really sucks to be him. But someone has to be Jimmy Lai.

          And if you don’t know who Jimmy Lai is, look him up.

          Like

  11. On the uniforms, I suspect this actually comes from the agents provoking always being in marching outfits, generally looking like they came off of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue.

    Good rule of thumb probably: if they match they glow.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Whenever you see something like Jan 6 being organized, or a torch parade, or even a Freedom Convoy, it is best to assume all those fit young men in matching sunglasses aren’t with your guys.

      It is best to follow the fit young men with the Nazi flags around with signs that say “He’s not with us.” There really is no better visual than a masked Nazi flag guy with five other guys carrying big red arrows pointing at him that have “Not with us!” printed on them. I’ve seen that done a few times by Conservative groups and it’s genius.

      Also best to assume that a thing like Jan. 6, if it is the genuine article, is not -organized-. IMHO if it is organized and advertised ahead, it glows.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. More importantly, ask yourself what the purpose is. I think Trump thought that if the people supposed to question the fraud saw his support, they’d question it, etc. He is sometimes dangerously naive.
        I’d already caught on there was not a hope of that, so I wasn’t going to go.
        If something is purposeless feel-good, at best it’s purposeless and will achieve nothing. At worst, it’s a trap. And it was.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. It was DC. Not a place one goes expecting anything good to happen.

          I mean, I will miss the memorial, the museums, the historical sites and all. But, DC. Do not trust the public institutions, the mechanisms of law, or expect a fair shake.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. No-one goes to DC now expecting anything good. But a lot of that is how it has changed or ripped the masks off over the last few years.

            When the wife and I got married, we went to DC for our honeymoon. Spent about a week there, and hit two or three different branches of the Smithsonian every day and never repeated ourselves, and we did not even manage to cover all of it.

            I think that was the last time you could really do that. Now, no. Now if you go, you expect the absolute worse.

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        2. Jan 6th was Nancy Pelosi’s Reichstag’s fire. and even that is starting to fall apart, if it wasn’t, morons on msnbc wouldn’t need to cry about it.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. We were prepped for infiltrators at a number of Tea Party events – with large signs that said “Not with us” or a like phrase – and we had security people who would stand next to a suspected infiltrator with that sign.
        A tip from another Tea Party organizer, was to have a handful of Magic Markers in pocket, and be prepared to be spontaneous and write something on the spot on the blank back of existing signs.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Hell if I know, and I occasionally dress like that too. But I should have clarified that if there’s a group all dressed like that (and they’re all relatively young and extremely physically fit), then that = Feds.

          Liked by 2 people

      3. If he has a stupid haircut, he’s a fed.
        If he has a stupid haircut, he’s a fed.
        If his haircut’s tight and high, looks better in a suit and tie,
        If he has a stupid haircut, he’s a fed.

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    4. Good rule of thumb probably: if they match they glow.

      If you want to see what Americans look like when they form mass groups…… look at the Lobby Day photos.

      You would be hard pressed to find a single matching pair in the entire crowd. Unless it was a family.

      Liked by 2 people

  13. Uniforms?

    I’m guessing if the horde decided to organize it would look more like a Viking invasion.

    Or maybe just a bunch of folks with MHI patches on their assorted headwear/ninja headbands.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I note that the Geneva Convention requirements to qualify as a lawful combatant in any conflict, and thus required to treated as a POW if captured among other privileges under the laws of war, is to wear something as a ”fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance” so as to distinguish them as combatants from the general population, which can be met with a colored scarf.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes. Convincing these people to dress in the same would be impossible. At best, we’ll put the lilac on our shirt or headgear. (Yeah, and some of you will get that. At this time, in this place. For the record, I’m Reg Shoe.)

        Liked by 1 person

        2. Er. I was under the impression that it was hard to stop. Writing, that is.

          If anyone is feeling underinspired, I have all these lovely plot bunnies just waiting for a good home to infest…

          Liked by 1 person

      3. While reading these comments I was wondering if anyone had USAian patches or other merch. I would certainly buy USAian patches and maybe a mug or a t-shirt.

        Like

    3. I suspect the original author was thinking about MAGA hats and American Flags. I hate to explain to them what running for President in the USA looks like!

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      1. The original author is an idiot. “so and so and year” is normal for running. As is gear with the motto. Perhaps he missed “hope and change” (gags.) Seriously

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  14. (Yellow is weird though. No one is even remotely yellow.)
    Unless they’re severely jaundiced. My sister, for example, whose liver is failing (thankfully, she’s already found a donor and is scheduled for replacement surgery). But yeah, yellow is not a healthy color for anyone.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Right. If you’re jaundiced.
      Asian people range from paler than my husband to medium brown, but “yellow” is odd.
      Then again, I only figured out why everyone said I was olive when I was doing a self portrait and had to lean into very light-touch green shading in the darker areas.

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      1. My sister once told me her oldest son (at the time less than a year old) was olive complected… I corrected her. “No, he’s orange.” She ducked her head and muttered something about him liking the pumpkin and squash veggies better than the mixed greens from gerber….

        Like

      2. I do color correction. My first set of pictures from the studio I work for—taken BEFORE I started being a regular with the color correction—went through a ton of prints before they came up with acceptable ones. I took a look at the discards and said, “You tried to color-correct to my skin tone—I’m green.” (Specifically 3-5 points towards the mauve end on the green slider.)

        The front desk person didn’t believe me until I held my hand next to hers. Yes, when I’m not spending a ton of time outdoors, I’m pale. But I’ve got that olive undertone.

        As for yellow undertones, not normally. More often green/cyan undertones on the Asian skin tones. “Yellow” is an incomprehensible descriptor if you know any color values.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Or if you eat a lot of carrots. Did when I was flirting with vegetarianism (no, I was not and never would be a Vegan. They’re worse than Vogon poetry). Almost got disqualified from blood donation until I explained…

        If you eat [too many] carrots and tomatoes, you too can be Orange Man. Read such in a book or article by an M.D. explaining the weird things he encountered in his career. It’s been way too many years to recall more details than the color tidbit.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. Too much carotene. More common in kids under 1, because they don’t clear it as well. In adults, possible, but boy that’s a lot of carrots!

          Liked by 1 person

          1. It was. :)

            Still like them, but I have to watch quantities because of vitamin K content. Was drifting below my target.

            Like

  15. So, so many things this guy gets right, but probably can’t see the forest for the trees.

    10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. Climate change, Covidiocy, Most Secure Election, etc. Yes, absolutely believe in facts. But you can’t cherry pick facts to fit your pet theory/conclusions. Sometimes facts are very uncomfortable, and you just have to suck it up and deal with them.

    9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking Two things here. 1) Kommiehoe is the poster child for torturing language. But right behind her are Biden (somewhat excusable considering his dementia that no one on the left wants to acknowledge), and all the other Progressives pushing their cause du jour. 2) There whole reason there are accepted conventions in language is to be able to clearly communicate. Changing the accepted meaning of a word muddies that, as does changing the order of words in a sentence. And for Pete’s sake, spelling actually counts and is necessary otherwise you’re smelling his colon instead of his cologne.

    6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. Is this guy foreign? Maybe he was thinking of the KKK allied with the local constabulary? The US doesn’t really have any paramilitary except for the odd “militia” groups that number a few dozen to the group if they’re really successful at recruitment. Nor does the US have much of a history of organized paramilitary groups, especially ones that are friendly to the government. What the US does have is a butt-load of veterans, hunters, gun enthusiasts, and amateur historians who just want to be left alone.

    I had a fun commenter yesterday on another site that probably thought he was making a big point referencing the movie(s) Red Dawn and that there are only about 20K militia members in the US when he responded to my comment that even without our actual military (and I’d include the National Guard and Reserves in that) the US could still fend off any military invasion just with what the civilians are armed with. Just because the ~100M or so gun owners aren’t currently drilling and learning together doesn’t mean they wouldn’t come together in a pinch should some military decide to try invading the US. There are millions of old soldiers that could easily pull together a cadre to quickly train the willing in their area. Not to mention that there are ~25M active hunters that go out and practice concealment and sniping each year.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I don’t know. If Alma Boykin shows up we’ll ask her, since she’s apparently heard of him.
      It would explain the way he’s mired in the 20th century. Europe has no discernible blogging movement, and I don’t even know why, and assume it’s cultural. Because in the 70s we had a bunch of pirate radio stations, some of them political. Blogs are the logical descendant.

      Like

  16. My biggest problem with paramilitaries is the fact that almost all of them were started by or heavily infiltrated by the three letter government agencies.
    Revolt in 2100 taught me how to read news stories.

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Be reflective.
    Proof he really doesn’t understand paramilitary, let alone guerilla tactics.

    kind to language
    This is rich coming from the side that has warred against an entire part of speech (pronouns!)

    Liked by 2 people

  19. Color me double plus paranoid, but maybe cosplaying Left is the only way he could publish with any kind of reach.

    Like

  20. Sees the Cat Signal flashing, scurries to answer it

    HI! Yes, the author is a historian of Eastern Europe, most notably of the area that passed back and forth between Poland, Russia, the Habsburgs, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, Poland, and Russia. He’s book Bloodlands is excellent, if depressing as all get out (the topic). He’s also done a broader general history of the area. He’s also on the faculty of an Ivy League school and a European college.

    Since 2016 he’s been getting odder and odder. He suffered a major illness a few years ago, and had trouble with the medical system, leading to further leftward drift. I suspect that he’s been researching Stalin and Hitler for so long that everything looks like the start of a Cult of Personality leading to a totalitarian dictatorship and bloodbath.

    It’s sad, in a way, because his earlier books are so well researched and useful.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I just looked at his substack. Hoo boy! He is all in on declaring Trump guilty of insurrection. His argument is pretty lame, but he seems quite confident in the righteousness of his cause.

      Apparently changing election laws by unconstitutional means is not insurrection, but complaining about the results is insurrection.

      Liked by 2 people

    3. I read Bloodlands. I thought it was good, but too dour. there’s so much more about that part of the world and by changing dates you could write the same book about just about any part of the world. The Rhineland in the seventeenth century for one.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. I actually clicked through, today. It’s not a bad list, but you’re right: The irony is piled deep with that coming from a Leftist and some are decidedly non-American (the paramilitary being one well dissected above).

    Seven is particularly odd:
    Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service…
    Especially when combined with nine.

    You use this word “must”, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.

    The jump to “carry a weapon in public service” is proceeded by an “if”, so presumably there are some people who must be armed who are not doing so in public service, but that’s a logical deconstruction. It doesn’t read that way. It reads the other way around: The only reason you must be armed is if you are doing so in public service.

    I find it self-evident: If one is dealing with people-killing devices (be they guns or cars) one should be reflective of the power one is wielding. There is a reason the warning is “do not operate heavy machinery”.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. People killing devices can also include ballpoint pens, paperclips, car keys, shoes, and some vegetables. The only difference is in mindset and training.

      As such, I believe that all grown men and women should be properly philosophical about violence. And be properly armed. Because one of the responsibilities of adulthood is being prepared to defend against unreasonable aggression.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. That’s in a story I’m working on, in a congressional subcommittee hearing:

        “How many weapons do you see in this room?”

        “More than two hundred. The chairs, the water pitchers, those electrical cables they’ve got strung all over, the chairwoman’s big fancy name plaque – I could kill people with any of them.”

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “Sir, why do you carry a pencil?” Tsa agent asks.
          “In case I want to kill someone” he answered.
          “Not funny sir” Tsa agent replied.
          “I wasn’t joking” he replied.

          Liked by 2 people

    2. The “if you must be armed” is the part that sounded most Yurpeen-ish when I first saw this, as it’s just so out of touch with the actual US.

      Look, dude, the majority of US states, that’s 27 out of 50 for those keeping the tally, are now “Constitutional Carry” states. You probably need a definition. Here you go:

      Constitutional Carry laws recognize the right of every law-abiding citizen to carry a firearm, openly or concealed, on their person, without having to receive government permission in the form of a mandatory state-issued permit.

      No doubt you have just fainted. When you recover please look up how many of the remaining non-Constitutional-Carry states have very permissive concealed carry permit laws.

      You have just fainted again. Ah well.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. For all the negative said about Oregon and Willamette Valley, I-5 corridor, in particular, the concealed carry permit is easy to do.

        Made easier thanks to OR 114. How do I know? Used to be one had to go to an approved all day class, get that certificate, then turn in the paperwork to the county sheriff office, and get fingerprints etc. Now in anticipation of OR 114, the class is online. Take the class, one section at a time, take a test at the end of the section, past the test 100%, or retake the section. Most the tests pretty straight forward. Finish all the sections and tests, pay for the certificate. Now can download, type up, print the county forms, make your appointment. Appointment, go in with driver’s licenses (we took our passports JIC because none of our licenses are the official ID versions). Showed the certificates, signed, got our fingerprints and pictures taken. Haven’t done the show you can handle a gun properly to a sheriff at a range that 114 requires, and won’t. Especially now that 114 has officially been shot down (local level), until state or 95th circuit, reverses it, until SCOTUS flattens it.

        Even by some miracle 114 is upheld we still won’t take the last step. Not like we are going to buy any firearms at this point anyway. (Why? We’ll just lose them in another boating accident.) Made easier by agreement of all the Oregon county sheriff offices. And yes, you read that correctly. The first step of 114 required to be able to buy guns, is getting a concealed permit. Pretty sure that is not what the framers of OR 114 meant to do … “oops” and “Oh Well.”

        Liked by 2 people

  22. Yes, the right does not easily organize from group action. But quite likely we will organize in very small groups if armed resistance is necessary. One very important thing we ought to consider and work towards, is to put an end to illegal and proper law enforcement actions such as no knock searches. Change this behavior now, when the police come to take your guns, they will ask, because they know they have no defense for shooting first. Put an end to civil forfeiture. We are going to have to clean house in the FBI and justice and Homeland whatever. The right will have to lead the way to making violence unacceptable.

    Liked by 1 person

  23. I might wear a uniform, BDUs left over from my military days, if I were planning on sniping from rural cover. However, the best uniform for blending in is whatever the rest of the people are wearing. Granted, this makes you an unlawful combatant, and outside the Geneva Conventions. However, that’s hardly going to matter in a rebellion scenario. Only a fool would expect the U.S. government, especially the one we have now, to obey the laws of armed conflict during a revolutionary uprising. But establishing a uniform isn’t that hard either, merely having one side don a particular item that identifies you as a member of that group is sufficient. A red, white and blue armband, or a chartreus bandana worn around your neck would work, as would hanging a red and white candy cane from your right front pocket. Even a 3-piece suit would work, not to mention making you look more respectable. It’s just hard to be athletic in one.

    If the cops aren’t stopping the burning, looting, and violence, that means it’s up to you and I to do so. And if we’re dragged before a court for it, ala Rittenhouse, I will very gladly, and loudly, make sure everyone in this country knows law enforcers abandoned their duty and we had and have a moral obligation to replace them with ourselves for self-defense.

    I know about people standing out. And damn me for being one of the people who used to laugh at them. Now? I’ve experienced it myself. That goes a long way to changing minds. Hell, they were right most of the time, and we should have been supporting them. It’s one of the reasons why we’re facing such a steep mountain now. Would have, could have, should have. Remember that if we ever get through this.

    Oh, there are plenty of yellow people around. They’re usually in Congress calling loudly for us to send our military to bomb, invade, suppress other people; but they run for cover when we say they have to put their precious little butts on the line. Kind of like our rotten Summer Squash in Chief. (On the other hand, he probably has claimed to have been in every military operation since before Washington crossed the Delaware.)

    Threaten social media sites. Yeah, that’s a big problem, and not just limited to the Democrat (puke) Party. Nikki Haley has been reported as stating she wants to stomp on the social media sites for “disinformation”. Sorry, but to me that puts her squarely in the Marxist playground with her buddy, Biden.

    Liked by 1 person

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