A Fatal Misunderstanding

Yesterday I came across this from Power Line Blog, and I agree with their call for lawfare against this attempt at gaslighting.

However, what stuck out at me, perhaps because of my own experiences was how they assume someone is financing a blog run by lawyers in their spare time.

That first stuck out to me when people — not this outfit I don’t think, though it’s possible it did, and I ignored it — started sending me emails asking me who paid me and how much I made. Sometimes accusatory, sometimes interested.

There was also the break in of my online accounts, where it became obvious they were looking for emails/messages that mentioned money. Which means as I was already booting them they spent precious time sending very rude messages to my editors, to fellow indie authors discussing earnings, and a friend talking about how to split money for a birthday gift of another friend.

This wide variety of subjects obscured the purpose from me, but with thought I realized those messages, rapid fire and full of for real racist slurs that made no sense whatsoever, were copy-pasted and sent to everyone mentioning money without reading the actual messages they were responding to, under the assumption that they were offending my sponsors so they’d drop me.

Years ago, during a time when I’d just had a SWAT attempt and was more paranoid than my normal baseline, a young lady contacted me and asked to come to the Hun’s dinner. It was obvious she wasn’t a regular at the blog/our circles. And she was, she said, a recent convert to our side. And she wanted to talk to me.

I don’t think the Huns dinner was what she expected, and she never came back. Partly because we were all in super-paranoid mode. And partly because she wanted to talk about money.

No, she didn’t want us to pay her. I think. Probably.

What she wanted to tell us is that the left had far less support than we thought. That young people were working for the left not because they believed Marxism, or its lies, but because they wanted to be paid. And the left paid. And the young had student loans. And the job market sucked.

At the time I didn’t believe her. While I realized that some of the left were paid — they all have the billionaires, but a handful — I didn’t realize it was pretty much everywhere.

Just like the USSR used to fund and pay for even stupid little publishers and newspapers throughout the west; just like China pays for much of the left nowadays; other interests and would-be totalitarians fund a lot of the left, from insane feminist bloggers to dumb as rocks anti-gun kids spouting off, to … well…. ante-fa burning, looting and murdering one city at a time, because they could only recruit enough people for a few busloads.

The point is that I’ve since from questions asked, from the assumptions of the left about us, come to the conclusion that maybe not all, but a good number of them are crazy for pay. They’re in it for the money.

And the funny — hilarious really — thing is that they ASSUME there’s more money on the right. Well, they would, of course. They think that they are the underdog, despite their clearly being the conformists. And they are for the “poor” which means we must be “for the rich” so it stands to reason we’re much better paid, right? right?

Also, particularly in the arts they know anyone striking out and being blatantly right wing stops being paid by the official outlets, so how much more must the unofficial ones pay?

Look, it’s the only reason for me to often being accused of selling out…. Apparently my price was a stale doughnut and a pack of chewing gum and I was looking for someone who’d offer LOW enough. (What?)

This is ultimately the thing. They don’t understand why anyone would oppose tyranny or work against its consolidation UNLESS they’re being paid. They can’t understand anyone undertaking hardship and sacrifice to purchase freedom for generations yet unborn, unless the ka-ching is echoing somewhere in their personal register.

This is a fatal misunderstanding.

It’s the reason they try to strangle us financially (and fail, because there are always a million of us who have just had about enough and will mouth off for free or even at great cost) and destroy our careers. Because that will make us go to their side to get paid, right? We’re only doing this because we’re being paid, right?

They probably also think that like them we rig the vote, so they’re just anti-rigging.

They honestly think that Marxism is foreordained, that it’s “scientific” and no one can question it, unless they’re doing it for money. So we must be doing it for money. Heck, they only bother to fight us for money, too, because it’s foreordained, right? There’s nothing to fight for. The future belongs to them.

It’s a fatal misunderstanding. It prevents them seeing that they can’t crush us, because we’re a real grassroots rebellion.

If we’re lucky their sources of funding dry up. Likely in the case of China, less so in the case of the Soros. (Though possible. Alex reads as a moron to me.) And others… But there’s always the possibility of miracles. I count Musk’s flipping over as one of those. Oh, and Trump too, at that.

If we’re not lucky it’s going to get very bad before it gets better.

Hold on to the sides of the boat. The water is getting choppier and choppier.

And be not afraid.

In the end, we win, they lose. It’s just the getting there.

153 thoughts on “A Fatal Misunderstanding

  1. I’m reminded of the “True Believers” of Human Caused Global Warming who think the skeptics are all paid by the oil companies.

    Of course, Human Caused Global Warming is a thing of the Left.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Leftists constantly engage in projection; it’s their version of thinking; a perfect example is “Trump is literally Hitler and an existential threat to democracy, and wants to be a dictator”. Mirror, mirror… :-x

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Hell, they call everybody Hitler. They called Reagan Hitler. Both Bushes. Dole. Mittles ‘Spineless’ Romney, fer Pete’s sake. John McCain, and Sarah Palin. They have diluted the Hitler insult until it’s meaningless.

          Meanwhile, they’re the ones running the Nazi playbook page for page.

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          1. It goes back further than that. Goldwater was subject to such attacks, and I’ve read that Harry Truman compared Thomas Dewey to Hitler back in the 1948 election. It’s been used as an attack more or less as long as it’s be available.

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            1. I don’t remember Nixon ever being called Hitler. Certainly not as insistently/persistently as what I’ve been hearing lately. Did I just miss it?

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              1. Nixon was Hitler squared to the Left. I remember during Ford’s administration, MAD Magazine (of all places) published a “free poster” showing a startled-looking Adolf over the tagline “WHY NOT PARDON HITLER?”

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              2. If you missed hearing it, so did I.

                I was a high school Anarchist in California then, living in a Blue / CTA home in So Cal, and coming home crying from the tear gas at the Century City protests against Nixon.

                From there, to offshore oil drilling, to Republican Precinct Committeeman and now semi retired attorney has been a long strange journey.

                Survive the ride that’s coming if you can. If you can’t, protect your family, spend yourself well, and take an honor guard to Valhalla.

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          2. Put a black postage stamp mustache on me, give me a bad comb over, and I’m such a great picture of an aging Hitler that it’s scary. Of course, I’ve also been occasionally mistaken for Stephen King by total strangers as I’m walking around Boston. And people wonder why I ‘suffer’ from multiple personality fantasy role-playing disorder. ;-)

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Hey, at least you don’t have one of the most-wanted terrorists in the world walking around with your face.

              I still expect some Federal SWAT team to start Spicy Time when I trip their facial-recognition software in some public place.

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          3. They have literal Freikorps running on the streets, targeting regime enemies and kristalnacht-ing independent businesses. See the Summer of Love.

            They’re literally having Fed- and state-gov politicians partner with massive global corporations for profit and political power. See Pfizer et al.

            We’ve literally got their StateSec goons spreading deliberate lies on social media with the connivance of private tech companies to hurt minorities, women, children, the poor and middle-class, to enrich themselves, while censoring and jailing those trying to help them.

            They’re doing it live, in technicolor, and bragging about it.

            I don’t know how much more cartoon Nazi it’s possible to get.

            And for Wilder’s Law of Maximum Hilarity (in clownworld, the evil option that prevails will always be the most funny) the intersection with wealthy Jewry, who bang on about the Holocaust ad infinitum, approaches one to one.

            Jews for Trump ought to be a thing right about now, because the Left has not only gone full Hitler, but full judenhasse.

            But it’s not.

            I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the student, not because I’m Socrates, but because I’m at a complete loss.

            Abortion and sexual paraphilias (the Nazis were bang on with the latter) cannot be that compelling, surely-?

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    1. …and that (of course) the scientists who say global warming is real are beyond reproach and how dare you question the High Clergy of Climate Change you blasphemer?!

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      1. My mother, dearly departed, said human caused global warming was real because Neal DeGrasse Tyson said so. I said he is wrong. She gasped, declared how I could disagree with him, he is a scientist. who are YOU to not believe him. I said I don’t care if he is a scientist. He is an expert in one field, astrophysics. Does not make him an expert in everything.

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      2. I think you’ll find that most of the “true believer” scientists promoting global warming are all on either government or questionable corporate payrolls.

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        1. Undoubtedly. I was recalling a Usenet conversation where some prog was claiming those against global warming were on “Big Oil’s” payroll, but the ones who advocated it were Saints Beyond Reproach.

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        2. Or just commies who view that imposing global communism “by any means necessary” justifies making stuff up in furtherance of that goal.

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    2. I’ve been running out to the mailbox for years, breathless with anticipation at finding a big fat check from the oil companies. Alas. no such luck. But I keep hoping that someday, the big payoff will arrive.

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      1. I still haven’t gotten my Vast Right Wing Conspiracy membership card. Perhaps the Post Office lost it? I’d bet one can print it from the website, now, but I joined during the Clinton administration.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Oh, sorry, sorry. That’s on me. My sons claim I AM the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. (I swear I’m dieting.) So, feel free to email me, and I’ll try to design a certificate. May I send it PDF? I’m really bad at getting tot he post office.

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      2. Must be mailbox pirates raiding your mailbox of that nice anonymous fat check from the oil companies, and the RNC. Heaven forbid either use direct deposit that can be traced. 😂😂😂/sarcasm-tag JIC

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  2. I never thought of that, but I suspect you’re correct. It’s almost a certainty that the mobs that burned cities (or at least the leaders; most of the followers were probably “useful idiots”) were paid; I just never considered that it might be an across-the-board thing, from Antifa to Just Stop Oil.🤔

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      1. My take is the pad-out-the-numbers local minions were locally recruited to stand in front, but the buses were relocating the trained and higher paid fire-lighters, “fireworks” explosives wranglers, blinding laser aimers, and frozen-water-bottle-flingers.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. And transportation was included, along with “all the bricks you can throw”.

        Color me unsurprised…

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      3. Might have something to do with their virulence. They have to keep at it to earn even beer money. So each one of them is thoroughly dedicated and keeps at it despite all evidence to the falsity of their beliefs.

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    1. So Democrats pay people to have fun (1) burning down the neighborhoods their most reliable voters live in.

      Craigslist, did Sarah say?

      (1) Look, burning things is fun. I know it is often a crime, but it is fun.

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    2. We do get paid fighting for freedom. Just don’t get a paycheck that’s taxed. Not all payments are in cash. Sometimes it’s long term investments that pay out in a much more rewarding manner.

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    3. It’s strange, because apparently the weird super cringe tictok teacher from the color coded women for the current administration place holder just turned out to be an actual paid actress, like literally listed in the IMDB, who is apparently getting paid to do her tictoks, not just by tictok.

      It’s just weird, and honestly feels like something out of the Puppet Masters. I kind of don’t want that universe. I mean nobody needs to see me without clothes on. There’s not enough eye bleach in all the world for that…

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      1. Not really weird, as it rhymes with what came before. Those pallets of bricks didn’t just materialize in place, somebody ordered them and had them delivered.

        If the domestically-authorized three letter folks really wanted to do some detectiving, the prepositioned mob ammo, the buses shuttling around to the various mostly peaceful if flamey riots, and those Craig’s List rent-a-mob ads could be traced back to source. They all left financial trails.

        The fact that no such tracing has become public, or even rumored about, during the Brandon Regency is a datum.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. There was more going on to combat the rioters than was generally acknowledged under the Trump administration. It wasn’t talked about much. The best look at it was probably when a progressive church got caught by the Feds and went crying to the press. But there was an effort by the Feds to go after the logistical network that supported the rioters.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I assume all those resources were reallocated to finding grannies caught on video who wandered through the U.S. Capitol Open House.

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          2. And yes, there were solid wins going after the financial networks of the WoT bad guys, arguably right up there with kinetic efforts.

            Naturally when one hits “stop looking” walls imposed from Foggy Bottom around politically inconvenient country sourced financial trails it’s somewhat less effective. Hypothetically. In Minecraft.

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            1. Having been the recipient of a ‘visit’ by a couple of those federally paid ‘walls’ at the behest of Foggy Bottom (or other equivalent agency – never did find out who actually sent the request to the U.S. Marshalls) to silence my rhetoric concerning the Obama Fast and Furious program of supplying Mexican cartels with arms, I wouldn’t be surprised at any of their efforts.

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          1. And the first WTC perps. Guy went back for his deposit claiming the Ryder truck was stolen.

            Both were Ryder, by the way. When I tried to start conspiracy theories for fun (what, it was the 90s) one I tried to get going was UHaul was behind both to besmirch the competition.

            But, you are correct and that the FeeBees haven’t tells you them or some other TLA is at best protecting them and at worse organizing them.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. You’re assuming “domestically-authorized three letter folks” didn’t order the mob ammo and have it pre-emplaced.

          I think that’s assuming facts not remotely in evidence with hints of the opposite in place.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I did say “If” they wanted to detectivize.

            A hypothetical “Look into that and you’ll be reassigned to the Nome office in a week” might impact individual Federal LE agents amount of “want”.

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        3. I really love the pallets of bricks thing, because it got “debunked” on the news in Iowa.

          (no, wait, this is really great)

          See, per the top of the hour local news, they got concerned calls about these piles of bricks which were showing up in the area that the protest was scheduled for.

          The very earnest reporter explained that the local police went and identified who the bricks belonged to, and verified they were there for repairs, took down names and everything, and the owners graciously made sure to remove them so they wouldn’t be a hazard.

          Again, this was very seriously explained. At length. And in detail.

          To my discredit, it took me until the polite invitation to yes, please contact the police if you are concerned about bricks or anything else near a demonstration, but it was really not expected to be an issue.

          From the gossip, there were also some out of towners who were showing really odd attention to the Federal building down town, as well as the local police and the court house.

          So the local cops stopped and chatted with them on the way to lunch, made suggestions of great places to eat, made smalltalk… asked where they were from… what brought them to town… you know, friendly.

          When the protest did happen, it was nice and polite, except for I think two idiots who threw frozen water bottles at the cops.
          And were grabbed by the local Muslims of Des Moines members they tried to hide behind, and dragged over to the cops, because that’s not nice young man.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Very similar in Fargo, though the protestors broke a bunch of windows downtown and threw a bunch of stuff around.

            The bricks that had shown up the day before were claimed by a construction company, who removed them before the expected protest.

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    4. Considering the effort you put into it perhaps you are doing your fund raising on the wrong writings. Maybe put a note up that you need a conservative billionaire sugar daddy on the political stuff. I wouldn’t hold my breath though. I understand a lot of people will go demonstrate for a boxed chicken dinner.

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    5. I grant the people of faith are not typically asked if we’re being paid, but it’s remarkable how much “they must be getting paid” crosses over with “nobody actually believes that”. And the general reaction of shock is much the same, too. Do you seriously think that, if I did not believe what I say, that I would still be here? Why would I stay if I didn’t believe it?

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      1. Well, -we- keep projecting that at least -some- of them are rational, motivated by good intentions, within reach of reason, etc.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. There are some, statistically speaking, there have to be. Oh, they might be rational and with good intentions on other things. But they have blinders on when it comes to politics.

          They’re too busy, they never really thought about it, all their friends, their family, their coworkers, their professors, and the people they look up to say that Rethuglcians are evuls, so they must be, right?

          There are a LOT of otherwise normal people that can’t see the bloody forest for the trees. I’ve met and worked with some of them over the years. Take the classic nerd in a lab coat for example. Engineer guy I worked with. Bloody brilliant with designing the physical architecture for an entire community’s data service network with power, maintenance, and spares accounted for. Still had to have his wife tie his tie for him and cook for him as he’d either hang himself or burn the house down.

          The guy was stubbornly earnest that no, those illegal immigrants coming here were most definitely not coming to leach off the system, they were fleeing abysmal conditions, gangs, and political witch hunts at home. When I pointed out the crime statistics, the lack of oversight, the disease, the lack of integration, the actual gang members coming in, the terrorists caught (and how many did we miss?), the affect on the economy and the drain on funds that he himself supported for the “needy…”

          It took a few weeks to talk him around, but he got there. Dude was a nerd’s nerd- all A student, nice college, the works. Wasn’t raised like that, but after nearly a decade of after high school learning environment, where absolutely everyone agreed on these things, he acclimated to that environment.

          These last few years, there’s a lot fewer of them than there was. Real life has a way of rubbing your nose in it when there’s THIS much stupid f*ckery going on.

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        2. I had not considered that point of view. I do believe that you are correct.

          On the other hand, I’m naive beyond belief. Thankfully, my 20 years in the big city of Denver did little to break my innocence bubble. I’ve only known “good” people, so a lot of this sort of activity is just baffling to me.

          I’ve _read_ about evil people and the weird (that’s the word we’re using these days, right?) values of criminals, but I’ve never experienced it.

          ::looks skyward:: That was not a request or a challenge.

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    6. I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you to find out that the party of greed, envy and murder includes mercenaries amongst its ranks!

      Say it isn’t so!

      Liked by 2 people

    7. One thing that would help is for the federal government to stop all taxpayer grants and funding to NGOs.

      And then stop all taxpayer grants and funds to organizations that give grants and funds to NGOs.

      And so on and so forth through all the layers of cutouts.

      Take them seriously when they declare themselves to be “Non-Governmental Organizations” and completely divorce their operations from all government assistance.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. The Reader would go even further and eliminate ‘non profit’ from the tax code. And also notes that the amount of money currently flowing through them most likely makes the drug cartel’s money laundering operations look like petty cash. There is a lot of money bouncing around the left in the non profit / NGO world.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. No.

          IMO There are plenty of Non-Profit organizations that actually do Good and aren’t Doing Good for Profit.

          Yes, there are plenty of Crooks and Lefties that are Non-Profit organizations, but let’s not punished the Good ones for the garbage done by Bad ones.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. The Reader believes the massive damage done by the misuse of these vehicles over the last 50 years far outweighs the benefits. Your mileage may vary.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. Consider it from the other direction: get rid of income tax, and the benefit of being a non-profit largely disappears.

            This may be less tractable than revising the 501c3/4 code.

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              1. You joke, but FeatherBlade’s suggestion at the top of this thread is excellent – getting a Republican Congress (or Executive Order?) to end funding to huge numbers of left-wing cut-outs is probably the easiest to make happen.

                That won’t address the structural debt, though: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, – pick one.

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                1. What Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid need to have done is first, eliminate everyone who hasn’t contributed, or isn’t the direct beneficiary of someone who has contributed (widow/widower or maybe even a dependent child.)

                  Second thing is to remove all access to those organizations funds by anyone else in the federal government.

                  Third, change those organizations to being self-funding and self-investing. That’s probably going to take 10 to 30 years to phase in, but can be done.

                  Fourth, turn them into private organizations no longer controlled by the government, but rather by the investors themselves. In short, they become privatized mutual fund/investment/insurance corporations.

                  Break this horrid tool of socialist control over American citizens.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Fourth, turn them into private organizations no longer controlled by the government, but rather by the investors themselves. 

                    I thought you were serious until I got to that. [hat tip]

                    Even if enacted, there’s no way the investors would ever have any control of the organization or its funding. That’s a huge chunk of political and economic power, and the Swamp would *never* let that out of its tentaxles.

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        2. But if you eliminated non-profit tax exemptions what would happen to all those politicians and business leaders who operate them (hire others to operate them to be precise)?

          I do think they are often used as tax shelters and money laundering operations. And some of them funnel money to professional protesters and the lawyers who so frequently sue to get paid in the form of settlement checks. But I don’t really want to force legitimate charities to pay taxes. And it probably wouldn’t hurt them at all because the Feds/IRS will just pick and choose who to prosecute and collect from. They will go after anyone the SPLC has on their list, mainly religious organizations. And they will choose not to prosecute those with acceptable (leftist) connections. They will protect their own revenue streams.

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    8. This reminds me of how I went round and round again, when I used to post on Open Salon, with another OSer who was absolutely convinced beyond any doubt that the Tea Parties were all lavishly funded by the Koch brothers, or some other mysterious bunch of capitalist millionaire raaaaacists or something. She just flat out refused to believe that a)we passed the hat at meetings to cover expenses, b)our website was hosted for free by a local guy who had a web-hosting business, our meeting spot was a facility owned by a local franchise chain restaurant, and that we all had serious jobs and just volunteered our time. No – she absolutely believed that we were being all funded, and told me I was either a liar or gullibly stupid.

      Sigh.

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    9. Not are any of us getting paid in dollars, it too often costs, in too many ways, for standing ground, let alone speaking up. As many who post on this blog already know.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Part of why I fundraise, and why I defended Glenn Reynolds for fundraising. Yes, he’s doing well, and we’re doing okay, but if you think both of us haven’t PAID for what we do with about half our potential income? Yeah….

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        1. There’s not one damn thing wrong with getting paid for your own efforts. The shame people feel for having to ask to get paid for their own efforts is understandable, up to a point, but nobody should ever try and tell you “you should do this for free.”

          You can, if you choose to, do so. But somebody else trying to convince, or worse, force you into it? Sister we fought a war to make sure that didn’t ever happen again.

          Charge all the market will bear. Spend that money on things you need or want. That’s basic capitalism. There’s not one damn thing wrong with earning your pay. Anybody that says otherwise is a fool.

          The mercenaries that got paid to riot against capitalism, against civilization itself are damned fools. They are fighting against the system that protects them from the evils of the world that they cannot even conceive of.

          The newest residents of Speck, Appalachia, refuges from the hellholes where civilization is under dire threat if not completely absent, are terrified of places like this turning into that. They tell me, “don’t ever change.” They want their kids to be able to play in the neighborhood without tripping over human faeces and used needles. They want low taxes, safe homes, and decent jobs. They want to live without fear.

          The right to property was rightly enshrined by the founders. Keeping what you earn gives you the knowledge of what things are worth. It teaches you respect for hard work, honesty, and fair dealing.

          It’s no surprise the left wants to know who “funds” us. They don’t work for what they get. They just accept the “free” money. They have no respect for hard work, honesty, and fair dealing- instead, they have contempt for those of us who do.

          Such considerations are endemic to the human condition, though. We will never be free of the bandity minds that seek to pull down civilization, not so long as we remain human. Our task, and our children’s, is to push back against those who would destroy what our ancestors created, and teach the next generation (and sometimes the current one) the worth of hard work, honesty, and fair dealing.

          Liked by 2 people

    10. As I understand, they are given a hotel room, transportation, and a cash stipend for food and such. Not sure whether the hotel room came out of their stipend. I didn’t ask.

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    11. from experience, there are a lot of welthy ignorant fools on the left happily donating money to this marxist or socialist cause or woke bullshit cause or another, i see it all the time, people i know well and even some closer than i think i want them to be. Its frustrating to see how people buy into this crap. Its making me want to liad everything in a 40’ shipping container and run, just take my chances and run away from this place and everyone i know.

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    12. “And they are for the “poor” which means we must be “for the rich” so it stands to reason we’re much better paid, right? right?”

      “Socialism and/or communism means being kind and generous, so you opposing it must mean you’re just mean and greedy!” 🙄 whoo-boy.

      Liked by 1 person

    13. During College 1.0 a friend (Conservative Jewish) kept muttering about the checks from the World Zionist Organization getting lost in the mail.

      Sort of like WattsUpWithThat and the checks from Big Oil.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I’ve wondered when I’d get my White Privilege checks (and my Male Privilege checks). [Crazy Grin]

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          1. That’s fine. Not all God-fearing people are Christians. That thumbnail does kind of remind me of a white-bearded Zero Mostel of Fiddler on the Roof fame.

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    14. Leftists simply can’t conceive of people exercising independent thought and doing things by themselves for themselves. This is reflected in the utter contempt they have for the masses and their belief that people are too stupid to make their own decisions. Their ideology treats group think as human nature and is why they are amazed that socialism doesn’t work-because their concept of how people think necessitates socialism’s assumption that “everyone will go along”.

      As we all know, they have human nature completely wrong.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I once spoke with an avowed socialist (in-person, not via Internet) who had an answer for the “human nature” part.

        He claimed that human nature was only like that because we had been raised in a CAPITALIST environment. And children raised in a SOCIALIST environment and culture would have a different nature.

        No kidding. I’ve also seen (Internet) devout vegans make a similar claim about their fake meats. “We only crave meat because we grew up eating it. Once people stop feeding it to their kids, fake meat won’t be needed.”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Vegans also insist lions can survive eating grass instead of wildebeest and other meat-based animals, because their cats eat grass.

          They propose fencing Africa and putting the eaters and eatees on opposite sides of the fence until they get used to it.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I looked briefly and found only a secondary source, but I have seen screenshots of the primary source posts in the past. The author was reading vegan message boards:

              But one post marked a turning point. A vegan flushed out his idea to keep animals from being killed—not by humans, but by other animals. Someone should build a fence down the middle of the Serengeti, and divide the predators from the prey. Killing is wrong and no animals should ever have to die, so the big cats and wild canines would go on one side, while the wildebeests and zebras would live on the other. He knew the carnivores would be okay because they didn’t need to be carnivores. That was a lie the meat industry told. He’d seen his dog eat grass: therefore, dogs could live on grass. 

              No one objected. In fact, others chimed in. My cat eats grass, too, one woman added, all enthusiasm. So does mine! someone else posted. Everyone agreed that fencing was the solution to animal death.

              from https://lierrekeith.com/book-ex_the-vegetarian-myth.php

              Liked by 1 person

              1. I have never seen that one, but I have no doubt the idea exists.

                I have seen/heard some nearly as stupid.

                All domesticated animals should be freed to “live their best lives” in the wild.

                All animal protein can be easily replaced with vegetable protein.

                Oh, and both PETA and Antifa are conservative organizations.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Sigh. Did you forget your sarcasm tag too?

                  I know. I only wish.

                  Not surprised that PETA and Antifa are considered conservative organizations. Who are these people that think this? Left of Marx? Dropped on their heads by their nannies as infants? Changelings out to destroy humanity?

                  Never mind. Last one is kind of self answering. Might not be Changelings from the fae, outer space aliens, or even demons sent by evil forces, but they are out to destroy all life on earth, or humans at minimum.

                  Like

                  1. Unfortunately several of my nieces and nephews, 2 of my siblings married into families that have 4 or more generations of liberal conformity. Authoritarian compliance, thou shalt never question.

                    “Family time” is watching NPR and discussing talking points. They don’t even try to pretend. Their “truth” is whatever the left days this week, and they don’t think about it beyond that.

                    I stumbled onto a FB page that my nephew was a member of and immediately got bombarded by leftist hatred. I tried to talk to him about it, but he refused to even consider another POV. ANYTHING that has negative connotations is automatically conservative. All the riots were driven by conservatism. All mass shooters are conservative.

                    One of my nieces was cringing away from grandpa’s guns like they were venomous snakes. This from a girl who’s been shooting most of her life. My brother says he doesn’t know what happened. Obviously he hasn’t seen her FB page, with her liberal aunts and uncles encouraging her to “express herself” by protesting and rioting. Last time I checked, she’d decided she’s bisexual. By now she’s probably moved on to trans.

                    If there’s any encouraging note in all this, they’ve all decided not to add to the population bomb.

                    Like

                2. All animal protein can be easily replaced with vegetable protein.

                  Until the “plants’ rights” whacktards get media coverage.

                  “Think of the corn! And the poor tomatoes!”

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. You might be amazed at the number of dedicated vegetarians who stopped because they realized that plants are alive too…

                    “I’m a silican. I don’t eat anything that was once alive.”

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          1. I saw an episode of one of those ‘Hoarders’ shows about a female hoarder with…a lot of cats. She’d been feeding them a ‘vegan’ diet for years. The ones not in such dire health they had to be euthanized, were blind. Stupid, stupid, STUPID — and the poor cats paid the price.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Oh, yes. that’s their fundamental illusion. They will claim that in pre-history, before property, humans were sane. Of course, this is a fantasy based on the garden of Eden.

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    15. “We’re only doing this because we’re being paid, right?”

      …Have they met writers? Ever?

      Don’t get me wrong, I love getting paid, I like having a roof over my head and groceries in the pantry. But without writing I go insane. And that scares me far worse than Not Getting Paid. Writing must happen.

      And because I am Odd, that writing must reflect things I actually hold to be true. (See the not going insane part.) Things like, Good Exists. Evil Exists. People either aim at one or the other, or drift in between in selfishness. And that sometimes the good guys, if they’re smart and just a little lucky, can work things so the bad guys make a satisfying thump as they hit the floor!

      Liked by 2 people

        1. Oh does it ever. I’ve been too sick/exhausted to write on various occasions, and you can feel the world getting slippery and harder to handle. Eep.

          …Back to edits, and hopefully the ref book I want for a different idea will show up today….

          Liked by 1 person

        2. My writing program (scrivener) went bork today. It has my scribbles on it. The ones that aren’t on restaurant napkins, loose receipts, and backs of envelopes that look like hieroglyphic scrawls (I can do penmanship when I want to. I just usually don’t want to).

          Will fix it tonight. Otherwise, writer brain goes back to giving me IDEAS. Which means no sleep, no productive work…

          Liked by 1 person

      1. They don’t know writers. They know artists. [Said in gushing, self-important tones]. Or authors who have the proper political et cetera beliefs.

        The rest of us don’t exist. Sort of like the famous man upon the stair who still isn’t there. ;)

        Liked by 2 people

    16. There’s a very odd failure of empathy in the Left, one of distance.

      They can empathize with people thousands of miles away, in cultures that aren’t theirs (mostly to try and “uplift them to proper people!”), and in places that they will never go.

      Their neighbors, on the other hand…they cannot empathize with or have any good feelings for.

      Like

      1. When it’s your neighbors, you live with their warts daily, and you are close enough to actually be able to do something.

        Far away blurs the warts and helping doesn’t require actually dealing with them. That’s people.

        Liked by 3 people

        1. Also: far away tends to blur everything — specifically everything that differentiates individuals from one another, and actual (often idiosyncratic) groups from some abstract assembly of people.

          Which is a long way to say, pull back far enough and real groups of real people start to blur into the Standard Issue Groups and Classes of the (Marx-ist or Marx-esque) Theory of Everything they’re taught.

          While your real neighbors might easily bust the theory. (You mean the nice gay couple next door are conservatives who really like Javier Millei and think Maduro is a commie pig? Tilt! Check Engine Soon!)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Also the Left tend to hold to Rousseau’s (may he rot in whatever level of Hell he resides for an eternity of eternities) idea of the Nobel Savage. They think these people far away must be free of the taint of contaminating (western) society and so they exist far beyond our petty squabbles and needs in some preternatural state of bliss. They do this having never read of most native american tribes’ treatment of other tribes. of the Yanamamo’s constant raiding and struggles, Of the sacrifices of the Pre columbian societies, etc, etc. As usual the Left struggles vainly against actual reality to keep their precious theories. Reality is patient it just keeps hammering them, although it may take upwards of 70 years for a system based on this nonsense to collapse. Although that view had been setting up business here since early in the 20th century, that nonsense grabbed the reins here in full strength here in the 1960’s. Thus I fear the Gods of the Copybook Headings sit patiently around the corner for us.

            As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

            There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

            That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

            And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

            And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

            When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

            As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

            The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

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            1. Rousseau was a idiot.

              If a man be Noble, then he cannot be Savage.

              If a man be Savage, then he cannot be Noble.

              However, there be times when a Noble man may need to act savagely to preserve his own life, or the lives of those he holds dear.

              Like

            2. About that ‘Noble Savage’ bullshit — obviously they don’t know how monkeys behave. Monkeys ain’t noble nohow. Neither was Primitive Man. They were looters, rapists, murderers, enslavers, cannibals and torturers. Anybody outside the tribe was fair game, as well as any weak or odd members of the tribe. It took us 200,000 years to learn what ‘Noble’ even was, much less that we should aspire to it.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Indeed anyone with two brain cells to rub together and the observational capabilities of a myopic bat could tell that. However, these are our Democrat/Brahmandarin selected “betters” and they have neither.

                Like

    17. When I hear “paid”, my mind goes to the gutter and I remember the joke that ends with:

      “Who gave you the 25 cents?”

      “They all did.”

      Look, Good wins; but, win or lose this fight, our Earthsuits all have an expiration date, so get ready for what’s after that.

      May God defend the right.

      Like

      1. Long ago when our girls were pre teens what had been a detente between them broke down. I would ask whoever was causing the brouhaha why they were doing it. at one point the reply started coming back “For fun and profit”. I asked “Who’s paying you?” This baffled them for a while but one time the younger girl (the snarkier of the pair) replied after a moments thought “The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundation!” I needless to say had to back off to another section of the house to laugh hysterically. It is clear we watched a little too much PBS.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’ve always been a bit amused/bemused by the weird specificity in that foundation name. Are the middle initials so we won’t confuse it with some other outfit? When I win the lottery I’m going to set up a charitable trust called the John R. and Catherine F. MacArthur Foundation and work against everything the originals support.

          Liked by 1 person

    18. “Though possible. Alex reads as a moron to me.”

      The impression that I got from my admittedly small amount of information is that Alex is the “Yes-man” to his father. The older sons showed too much independence and thinking for themselves, so their father cut them loose from his empire. Alex strictly follows his father’s orders. So he gets the keys to the kingdom.

      If this read is accurate, then I suspect that the fortune won’t long outlast Dear Old Dad, as Alex will quickly start floundering the moment he doesn’t have someone else telling him what to do.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Also possible that when Daddy passes to the pit, Alex will decide that he wants to spend all that money on himself.

        Like

    19. ”And the funny — hilarious really — thing is that they ASSUME there’s more money on the right. ”

      Best reason I can think of – because that’s the usual Democratic propaganda. People who just accept that propaganda as true have swallowed their party’s propaganda. That’s a fairly reliable signal those people have a more generalized problem of distinguishing fantasy from reality. It’s actually not all that difficult to find out who are the major donors to each party. By law the info must be made public. It’s on the web. But most people won’t do the search. Why not? Probably because, as Mark Twain is widely thought to have said, “It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they’ve been fooled.”

      My suggestion: look at all politicians as sales staff for the actual insiders who set party direction. More accurately, look at them as door to door peddlers. When peddlers knock on your door, do you accept their pitch and invite them in? Or do you speak to them thru the screen door before sending them away?

      Even within your own party – follow the advice of Ronaldus Magnus “Trust – but verify”.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The ‘right” reinvest their profits in their businesses. The ‘left’ apparently invest their profits in destroying businesses. Yep, makes perfect sense to me.

        Like

    20. Apparently Israel decided to celebrate the end of July by bombing Hezbollah in Beirut and assassinating a Hamas guy at his house in Tehran.

      Since most of the Druze kids killed by Hezbollah were from families who used to live in Lebanon until driven out by Hezbollah, it was nicely retaliated.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. And they popped the s(HONK!)bag responsible for the Beirut USMC barracks bombing.

        Long past due. But (singing) “POP! Goes the weasel!”

        Like

    21. Marxism of all stripes is the antithesis of “scientific”.

      Want proof? Every group that tries it is the experimental group. I don’t know of any that haven’t died, or aren’t in the process of dying. And the lot of them usually murder or get hundreds of thousands killed along the way. That’s a failure of the experimental group, proven time and again.

      The controls are those countries that maintain a non-authoritarian, usually free-market economy. They keep going, with cyclical ups and downs as the markets change; and usually don’t die unless someone starts implementing socialist controls on them.

      Like

      1. AIDS messes with your immune system and you generally die of all the other things that pile in and infect you before the AIDS can.

        Marxism is cultural syphilis. It rots your brain. Also, use gloves when interacting with the infected. Or, heck, full on MOPP gear.

        Like

    22. i wonder if someone would pay people to be counter anarchist?

      its just an idea, could be fun, you know, throw bricks at the brick throwers, or go all Kyle R on them, see, fun!

      Like

    23. Here is a case in point:

      https://x.com/AlbertaBound9/status/1818506501012775110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

      “Who is the vicious Vicki Campbell @merry123459, a so-called “55-year-old Liberal Grandmother” on Twitter (X)?”

      She is in fact an NDPee activist AND an employee of a public sector union. A paid shill, essentially.

      Whenever you scratch one of these determined public Leftists, you inevitably find the green of money. Usually government money, in Canada.

      I hereby swear that nobody pays The Phantom to say the stuff he says. Even my books are a labor of love, not profit.

      Now, if some deep pockets moneybags were interested in paying me to say whatever I want without supervision, I’d be interested in that. But it will never happen, because when people pay you they expect to call the tune, and I don’t take requests. I just say what I’m going to say.

      I am not a herd animal, like a sheep. Nor a pack animal, like a wolf. More like an orangutan, or possibly a badger. Goofy looking and solitary.

      If you see a hundred thousand fat little badgers all in a group, all going the same direction with a look in their eye, that’s the Conservatives. All they wanted was for the friggin’ commies to stay off their lawns, but they wouldn’t, and now it is -on- like Donkey Kong.

      Anybody think there’s going to be another Olympics? Anybody think #HeelsUp is going to steal the election like Maduro? Anybody think Bud Lite will make a comeback?

      Badgers only look fat.

      Like

    24. Trying again without the links, because WordPress delenda est:

      Here is a case in point:

      “Who is the vicious Vicki Campbell, a so-called “55-year-old Liberal Grandmother” on Twitter (X)?”

      She is in fact an NDPee activist AND an employee of a public sector union. A paid shill, essentially.

      Whenever you scratch one of these determined public Leftists, you inevitably find the green of money. Usually government money, in Canada.

      I hereby swear that nobody pays The Phantom to say the stuff he says. Even my books are a labor of love, not profit.

      Now, if some deep pockets moneybags were interested in paying me to say whatever I want without supervision, I’d be interested in that. But it will never happen, because when people pay you they expect to call the tune, and I don’t take requests. I just say what I’m going to say.

      I am not a herd animal, like a sheep. Nor a pack animal, like a wolf. More like an orangutan, or possibly a badger. Goofy looking and solitary.

      If you see a hundred thousand fat little badgers all in a group, all going the same direction with a look in their eye, that’s the Conservatives. All they wanted was for the friggin’ commies to stay off their lawns, but they wouldn’t, and now it is on like Donkey Kong.

      Anybody think there’s going to be another Olympics? Anybody think #HeelsUp is going to steal the election like Maduro? Anybody think Bud Lite will make a comeback?

      Badgers only look fat.

      Liked by 1 person

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