It Makes No Sense!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I don’t like to assume the left is stupid.

I mean, naturally stupid or incapable of thought. I suspect they have the same IQ distribution as the right, they’re simply addled through their reliance on credentials, which means their reliance on misguided philosophies and ways of thinking taught in our factories of irrationality, aka universities.

They also tend to be advanced with less effort, because the intellectual/artistic/political pathways of influence have been dominated by the left for so long.

But given their absolute acceptance of Marxism in its Gramscian retcon, and their ignorance of actual history, their thought pattern is usually understandable. Which is good, because it’s one of my peculiarities that people acting completely irrationally, not to to say against reason BOTHERS ME, like… an itch in the middle of my shoulder blades where I can’t reach bothers me.

So watching the left break into a chorus of “Elon did a Nazi salute!” gives me a migraine level headache of sheer frustration.

I want to yell at all of them “Say again, you’re coming in broken and STUPID!”

Sure, they edited what he said, and talk about intent and malice and repeated it and…. But while they run off down that fascinating rabbit hole, what they haven’t explained is: WHY would he do that?

Look, let’s assume that Elon Musk, who visited Israel right after 10/7, who wore a tag for the hostages, who supports freedom of speech which is the opposite of what the Nazis did, has secretly been a Nazi all along.

Let’s assume I can actually buy that. All the other evidence to the contrary is just because he’s THAT sneaky and devious. You can see it as a movie plot, right?

Now, see if you can follow along: this secret cabal of Nazis has taken power, right? And are going to unleash their evil plot, right?

And then, after all the careful deception…. Musk throws a Nazi salute on stage. TWICE.

At this point, while the left is pointing at the screen and going “see, see, even you see it” I’m going to pause the tape, and turn to the audience and ask the crucial, the most important, the ONLY question:

WHY?

No, people, straight up. Having faked his way in WHY THROW A NAZI SALUTE AND GIVE HIMSELF AWAY?

Isn’t anyone even a little curious about THAT?

Look, the man didn’t get to be a … what is he now? trillionaire? by being stupid and doing things against his advantage. So what advantage can he possibly gain from giving the Nazi salute?

Even if he were a Nazi, even if he memorized Mein Kampf and believed it, what would he have to gain from the salute?

It could get him ostracized. It could make Trump — willingly or not — separate himself from Elon. It could make the right weirded out. BUT WHAT COULD IT EARN HIM THAT HE’D WANT?

There is nothing inherent in Nazi beliefs that forces people to do the Heil Hitler salute compulsively like some sort of political Tourettes.

Besides the bright bulbs on the left are saying what makes it a Nazi salute is INTENT and malice. So…. uh… what was the intent?

In Nazi Germany it served as a rallying point for other Nazis and a salutation to Hitler.

Hitler has been dead for 80 years give or take a few months. Saluting him is rather after the fact, unless you believe the evil son of a bitch is undead. But if you believe that, you have more problems than I am in fact going to be able to address.

And if you’re on the left and believe that there are LEGIONS of Nazis in America, walking around, you also have more problems than I’m going to be able to address. I think there are like maybe one thousand Neo-Nazis in the US and 80% of them are FBI informers.

I can prove it too. Unlike in Germany, Nazis aren’t forbidden here. But while every high school has a young communist (sometimes young Hegelians) club, there are plenty of uninformed idiots wearing Che t-shirts and sometimes there are Communist marches here and there, when is the last time you heard of a Young Nazi parade, or seen someone wearing a Hitler t-shirt. No, not people the left deems Nazis, but people who call themselves Nazis and march around, and form clubs in high schools and colleges, and proclaim their Nazis beliefs loud and clear?

They don’t exist. You see half a dozen rejects sometimes and again I bet you most of those are FBI informers.

“Aha!” the left will say “That’s because they’re undercover.”

Okay, that makes no sense if they’re so numerous, but let’s stipulate that for reasons unknown these people are under deep cover, for fear of… I don’t know, the righteous fury of the global south or some equally imaginary force.

IF THAT’S THE CASE WHY WOULD ELON GIVE HIMSELF AWAY?

“Because he won” isn’t an answer. He’d win just as much without the salute and not risk turning the dupes against him and his evil cabal (if he belonged to such.)

Again, there is no way to square the circle.

The only way to make sense of this idiocy is to have Elon secretly having a transmitter somewhere circa 1942? Nazi Germany, and he’s throwing the salute to tell them to send troops through the time portal. In which case, I hate to tell you this, but we’re not Russians. We do actually have superior tech and would smoke them harder and faster than we did 80 years ago.

Or perhaps you bright bulbs think that the reason he’s so hot on space is because there really are Nazis on the moon, and he’s calling for reinforcements.

No? — if your answer to either of those is yes, please, please, please see a mental health professional — Well, then your idea that Elon was throwing a Nazi salute makes no sense WHATSOEVER.

You truly are coming in broken and stupid. And you’re giving me a massive headache right over my eyes.

Stop. Just stop. People don’t make gestures or symbolic salutes unless it gets them something. And this would get him nothing.

I know you react to group thinking and by personality run after the loudest voice, but calm down, take a deep breath and think for five minutes.

None of this makes sense, and all it does is make me ill.

Stop. Think. If your hair is still on fire, pour a bucket of ice water over your head. That will do it.

275 thoughts on “It Makes No Sense!”

  1. Romans 1:18-32 describes the wrath of God. Verse 22 explains that those cursed become foolish while believing themselves wise.

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      1. IIRC, Samuel Johnson phrased it as “Whom God would destroy He first makes mad.”

        Lets not gloat though. There but for grace walk we.

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  2. I am trying to get my head around this as well. On the face of it, it makes no sense, none, at all. Who in their right, or at the very least sane and coherent mind would think “my heart goes out to you!” was a Nazi salute? Nobody? Probably right.

    Best I can tell, though, and this is reaching is: it’s not about what it says its about. It’s an empty virtue signal. The thing that incites the signal is utterly common, bland, and unimportant. Forget about it. It, for all intents and purposes doesn’t even exist.

    In contravention of reality, the only thing that does actually exist, in the mind of the cultist carefully inculcated in their youth and innocence, is the virtue that is signaled. The originator is barely even there. A pretext. A thinly veiled excuse.

    The cultists on the left are used to this.

    For decades now, almost two generations deep by my count with the foundations far deeper, they’ve been pushing to disregard the evidence of the five senses and replace it with doctrine. Race (which does not, I will remind you, exist). Sex (which very much does). Climate change (the science of which has been bastardized and skin suited to the point it is utterly pointless now- viz. California’s fire problem). Et cetera, ad nauseam.

    They disregard the evidence of their lying eyes constantly. It’s a con. A hoodwink. A lie. Yet, they believe with all the fervent zeal of Doofus eying the chicken pot. They believe hard.

    Not all of them, though. Reality has the pernicious tendency to intrude on things. It takes a lot of effort and reinforcement, and in some cases expensive surgeries, to continue to believe impossible things in the face of stark evidence.

    That is a problem for the D-party. They’ve been pushing the envelope for longer than any of us have been alive. Things have gone long beyond weird into things that are just painful to watch. There’s only so deep you can go into crazy territory before you can’t get back out, and that point’s long past. Practically speaking, the Democrats are in a suicide pact with their own crazies. They can’t win without them, as the crazy is now a core part of their identity.

    They have literally become a walking meme. The Babylon Bee can pack up their offices now and go home. The Democrats are now the party of ridiculous lunacy. They made it, they own it.

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    1. Walking meme is a apt description.

      John Barnes has a set of books in a “future history” similar to Heinlein’s in which there are actually AI/Thought meme’s battling for the control of Earth and a good chunk of the population flees into space to avoid the control.

      One revelation I had this year while pondering over a neighbors yard signs for Demon rats was “It’s worked for her so far”. She is a retired boomer on a good union pension and her late husbands estate. She has the money to travel. Everything she did in life worked for her, so why question the media, etc…

      I see the same attitude among many of the successful high tech workers. Their life in the top 5% is good so far, why question the system? Even though they may be able to understand the technology from the silicon to database to the user interface they have never looked at true human nature or done a deep dive into history or the underside of current events. It’s an abstraction that worked so far for them. They have no idea how the sausage is made nor do they seek out enlightenment.

      As for the mass woke, there is a university town in the local county that contains some of the rabble of the woke. These folk were the foot soldiers for the local BLM/Antifa/Trans/Cause of the Year/ Rent a Hate Crowd movements.

      Everyone that disagrees with anything they hold dear is a Nazi. Not even the most mundane unquestionable physical fact gets through “You’re a Nazi” manta. It’s their “Jesus Prayer”.

      Some of these people may get redpilled by reality, but it’s not going to happen for many of these people. It’s not working currently since they have fewer real life skills and experience.

      And I haven’t mentioned the people that go along with the movement because it’s a path to much greater money and power than they could achieve in a merit based system. It was working for them…

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      1. “Some of these people may get redpilled by reality, but it’s not going to happen for many of these people.“

        Not unless some event forces them to see things as they are. See the redpilling in California. We don’t want that sort of apocalypse for the rest of the country. Unfortunately, that is the sort of violent shock to the system that it would take for most of them.

        In my heart of hearts, I would prefer it if we could remonstrate such people gently. Person to person. Slowly introduce them to the world as it actually is. But that is not the sort of thing that hard experience tells me will work. The world is a harsh, brutal place. We are insulated from the vast majority of it, by and large. That is a good thing. Mass death, infrastructure collapse, and raw, bloody chaos in smoke and fire, with screams ringing in your ears and the smell of burning hair and cooking pork is not, by any stretch, an unalloyed good thing.

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        1. That Kipling fellow was a real downer.

          “Sloth” isn’t just physical laziness. It is also mental, and moral. And of those, moral laziness is far more deadly a sin.

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        2. It’s probably better to let individuals hit rock bottom in their beliefs and realize for themselves.

          See the “Walking Away” movement and listen to their testimonies as an example. The Left went so crazy, it left these people who were loyal behind.

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          1. I keep hoping that Kurt Schlichter’s The Attack is fiction rather than a Cassandra version of non-fiction. OTOH, he had an ineffective/senile pResident in office and a salad-speaking airhead as VP.

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            1. Reading that now. Terrifying – points out many things ‘we’ ought to be doing and have not been, for years.

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            2. That particular bunch is not noted for careful, coordinated planning to great effect. ~7000 total attackers (6000 border crossers, elite and mob, 1000 firing rockets) on 7 October produced less than 1180 fatalities, ~3400 wounded, and 251 known captured. (Many captured are known dead.)

              Compare that to US Armed forces coup-counting per effective. As “The Warrior Song” says, “another river of blood running under my feet”.

              September 11th was the high-point of their effectiveness here, and it was entirely presumed on “Americans wont fight”, which is out the window now. Anyone getting frisky on an airliner is risking becoming carpet stain, and the biggest problem we have is over-enthusiastic passengers trying to open a hatch to cast a jerk overboard in flight.

              If the yahoos hit a Big Blue City, they risk getting squashed by ordinary gangs, who very much resent intruders on their turf, especially shoot-em-upppers, and would swarm Jihadis with gusto. Unless the dingbats luck out, and SWAT gets there first with their much more restrictive rules of engagement. Still doesn’t go well, as most SWAT can engage at 75-100m with effect.

              If the jihadis hit Big Red, or worse yet smaller Redville, we could wind up with something truly epic, where a pickup team of good-ol-boys decide no need to wait for Deputy Dan. LOL.

              Just imagine the yahoos hitting near a big NRA rifle match, or an “action Shooting” event such as Cowboy or 3-Gun. ROTFLOL

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          2. I’d really like to know if Trump & Co. are expecting that economic crash/reset that many of us are pretty damn sure is going to hit within the next 1 to 5 years, and what kind of plans they have to get through it (ain’t gonna stop it, all you can do is weather it out and try to shorten it.)

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                1. Several State AG have already stated that they’ll be suing.

                  Mind you, I suspect that Trump wanted this to go to the Supremes to get a Supreme “Yes or No”.

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                  1. One commenter was if Ds were smart they’d let it stand until Trump’s departure and then have their guy (of either sex) revoked it. Instead they’re almost guaranteeing a Supreme Court review which could backfire bigly on them.

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                  2. I think brining this question to the fore is a good thing. Easier and less dangerous in the long run than a Constitutional convention or even another ‘normal’ amendment process. Since we already have a couple of classes of people who do NOT get birthright citizenship even if they are born in this country, that starts the precedent for not allowing it for unlawful invaders of this country.

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                2. And while they are freaking out over what is essentially a Very Big Ask position, what is he doing that will really bite them in a few months?

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            2. I think they are. After all, Trump was there in the 80s (and before that), so at the very least he remembers the slump after Reagan got in, because it take awhile to climb out of the crap-economy hole.

              I just hope enough people out there realize this as well, and don’t let expectations of puppies and unicorns and rainbows NOW get in the way of good sense.

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                    1. I’ve spent far too much of today on some “Feminist News” page on the Book of Faces with a bunch of harpies *terrified* that we’re going back to the 50s (or earlier.)

                      Because, apparently, following the actual civil rights and equal opportunity laws that were properly passed by Congress is too horrible to contemplate.

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                    2. The leftist view of the 1950s is so bizarrely fascinating to me. It’s not really even the image many of us gained via pop culture, you know, Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, etc. It’s like…Handmaid’s Tale crossed with Mad Men? (Though I never read/watched or watched either, I have better things to do than be depressed or put up with a bunch of unlikeable characters) It’s just…unreal.

                      Of course, it also explains why they hate the “tradwife” movement so much. Instead of seeing some women (stay at home wives/moms, in many cases) deciding to have fun and dress up in cute dresses and heels and do their makeup for house chores and to cheer up their husbands (and themselves, because if it didn’t also cheer them up they wouldn’t keep doing it), they see an existential threat, like the next step is that someone is going to force THEM to do it.* I mean, I personally loathe makeup (or rather, my skin does–I wouldn’t mind so much if it didn’t start screaming whenever I put it on) and while I like heels I think trying to clean house in them is nuts, but I think the women doing it–or at least taking videos of them doing it sometimes (because no way do they do this every day) are fine. They’re clearly having fun. Not to mention, for the ones with YouTube/TikTok channels, I expect they’re bringing in some income, too. Sometimes quite a lot of income…)

                      *But I suppose that’s the typical leftist/Marxist projection issue: THEY would happily force all of us to comply with the lifestyle they prefer, so naturally we are plotting to do the same to them. Being a leftist must be freaking exhausting.

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                    3. “I personally loathe makeup (or rather, my skin does–I wouldn’t mind so much if it didn’t start screaming whenever I put it on) and while I like heels“

                      Wow. I’m not the only one who hates makeup? Haven’t tried any that no sooner is it on that it must be washed off right now, if not sooner.

                      Heels? OTOH, nope. Not a chance, nope. Unless horse riding boots, or semi aggressive field boots (digging in going downhill). Only semi aggressive because my feet are too small for the more aggressive ones (not good for hiking). Have no use for the field boots for decades now. Wish had a use for the riding boots (not recommended for much walking), but my not used to this anymore body and arthritic knees say “um No!”

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                    5. The ONLY brand I have found that I can wear for a few hours is Besame–they do vintage style makeup (with non-vintage ingredients, so lots of natural moisturizer/waxes/etc that my skin doesn’t entirely hate). But I can still only tolerate it for–maybe–four hours. So really, I only wear makeup on special occasions or to church (which used to run 3 hours, though nowadays it’s 2).

                      I love heels, but thanks to genetics I had the feet of a 65 year old woman by the time I was a teenager (giant bunions, whee.) I got surgery on both feet when I was 23 (and by that point standing/walking was becoming agony–and having spent much of my working life thus far in retail, and then going on a mission where our primary transport was shanks’ mare, it really sucked) And while the surgery did a lot of good…wearing heels still hurts like hell if I do ANY walking at all in them. So, as with makeup: special occasions or church only. (Doesn’t stop me from buying incredibly cute heels when I find them. And hey, they’ll last forever at this rate…)

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                    6. “seeing some women (stay at home wives/moms, in many cases) deciding to have fun and dress up in cute dresses and heels and do their makeup for house chores and to cheer up their husbands (and themselves, because if it didn’t also cheer them up they wouldn’t keep doing it),”

                      Speaking from the other side of the gender fence, guys love the heck out of that. Low rise mary janes, if I’m remembering correctly, nice dress, these things are a delight. And making your partner happy, and sharing in that happiness, is part of what makes marriage great.

                      Men can dress up, too. I hate most suits. Properly tailored, without the shoulder padding (don’t need it) and not too damn tight around the arms and shoulders, those are adequate. My ex fiance loved them, though. We’d go dancing every other weekend or so. Starched pants, clean white button up, shined shoes, the works. Energetic swing, ballroom, everything in between. Dinner date before, work off those heavy Italian food calories after.

                      There’s something to be said for observing proper formality in dress, decorum, and proper behavior. It can be quite freeing to know what the guidelines are, what is expected, even if you ultimately intend to break a few rules. Trad wife, Trad husband, whathaveyou.

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                    9. Makeup is a few times a year, usually for stage. And then it’s the cheap stuff, because for some reason Wet & Wild or Elf doesn’t bug my skin the way some premium brands do.

                      Heel is almost exclusively character shoes or other dance shoes, because those are actually made for balance and have incredibly consistent sizing. (Dancers have to buy many pairs of shoes, unless they do ballet, in which case it is astronomical pairs of shoes. Consistency in creation is a must.)

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                    10. The only time I wear makeup is for photos for government IDs.

                      I try to keep my skin in a good enough condition that I don’t need makeup to look put together.

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                    1. That would be fun. I gave up on mainstream pop/rock years ago, because it all sucked. However, thanks to the internet and tech, we can find just about anything we want in any stile we want. Independent instrumental artists like Adrian Von Ziegler or Brunuhville or Ivan Torrent (because everyone deserves an epic soundtrack to their life.) And if you love 80s style music, I highly recommend Dance With The Dead–they do dark (heh for a given value–it’s very 80s, so it’s also neon) 80s style synth. It’s very fun.

                      And metal. The other stuff I listen to is metal, because modern metal has not been wholly infected by corporate music nonsense. Especially amongst the artists who got (or are still getting) their career launched via their YouTube channels (like Dan Vasc, whose rendition of Amazing Grace is unbelievably awesome). Even already-successful metal musicians are happily creating their own independent stuff–I gather the reason Tommy Johannsen left Sabaton was because his solo career was really starting to gain momentum, in part because of the awesome covers of various songs he does on his YouTube channel (and his Phantom of the Opera–where he sings BOTH parts, in the appropriate key and register–is…holy cow.)

                      (And Battle Beast or Beast in Black are VERY heavily 1980s influenced power metal groups as well…)

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                    2. Metalheads generally divide the world into “people who like metal” and “people who don’t like metal *yet*.” Which is a nice change from the “like our stuff or you suck!” attitude.

                      I guess I’m permanently in the second group, though. Perhaps it’s my rather substantial hearing loss; most metal sounds like a garbage truck backing into an alley full of steel trash cans while walruses applaud.

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        4. I am currently listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, which groups the readings thematically more than strictly chronologically or in interior order, and one thing that comes up a LOT in the Old Testament is bad things happening because people Just Aren’t Listening.

          And it all leads up to the Babylonian Exile, which is basically 70 years of consequences for the equivalent amount of specific time that things were getting ignored. (Like Jubilee years and letting fields lie fallow.) The interesting part is that the ones who returned from exile didn’t fall back into the same behavior patterns that were called out as the cause of the exile being necessary; they did a better job overall of, y’know, actually following the commandments.

          In other words, it took a major shock to the system to change behavior patterns. Which is pretty much human nature. “It’s worked for her so far” is a great observation.

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          2. That’s one of the BIG points Jordan Peterson makes in his new book on the Old Testament, We Who Wrestle With God. Not doing what’s right when it should be done, then making excuses or blaming G-d, never ends well. Ditto when people do similar things to themselves and to other people.

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      2. John Barnes has a set of books in a “future history” similar to Heinlein’s in which there are actually AI/Thought meme’s battling for the control of Earth 

        —

        “Kaleidoscope Century” from 1995. The AIs developed algorithms that could run on meatware as well as hardware, and used humans as low-speed subprocessors.

        It is one of a handful of novels that gave me the creeps.

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        3. OK, try again…I can’t stand Barnes work. Still want to strangle the protagonist of one of his novels, who insisted on calling his wife (who was homely at best), “midons,” because of his cultural background, which she did not share. So he’s calling an ugly woman, “my lord,” as an endearment. Just a completely blind and tone-deaf character, and he was a diplomat.

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          1. Barnes writes flawed protagonists with issues, so if you don’t like that series, don’t read ‘Kaleidoscope Century’ from the Meme Wars, the main character is amoral just to survive and there’s some very uncomfortable topics.

            ‘Orbital Resonance’ is a better Meme War book with a better protagonist.

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    3. It’s just the photo, of course people are spreading it without the words and context, as Elon knew they would …

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  3. I’m confused. While it’s hard, what with my bingo card looking like a flock of muddy yardbirds were scratching for bugs on it, I am trying to understand. Do I drop a dime on the square with the moon nazis on it? or the time nazis? I don’t see a square with space nazis, though I suppose that’s why he wants to go to Mars; to retrieve his cadres from the secret mars bases.

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  4. Credo quia absurdum or some such. Thinking of them as religious fanatics makes a lot of things make sense. Perhaps, we should bring back the old meaning of “enthusiast.”

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  5. Why would Elon do such a thing, if he did such a thing? I dunno. Why would the left say such a thing? Elon took away the stranglehold they held since the death of Rush Limbaugh and made millions of little Limbaughs. So they need revenge. Then in leftworld: Elon is from South Africa, which means apartheid, apartheid means nazi, nazi means they win.
    They’re working to Alinsky Elon while not realizing that they as a group have been Alinsky’d already.

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      1. Alinsky?

        Tell a white woke woman that her opinion doesn’t matter because she is white.

        “Use their own rules against them…” :D

        If you can’t save them, you might as well break their fragile little minds and have fun.

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    2. According to the commenters (British for the most part) at one news/culture site, he’s South African, and so supports Apartheid, and racism, and is authoritarian at best, no matter what Musk himself says or does. So anything nice said about him got waved away as, “Yes, for now, but he’s a white South African, and will …”

      The more I read, the more I boggled. It was fascinating in a pathological sort of way.

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        1. These folks missed the memo. And the site tends to be conservative/libertarian for English versions of libertarian. It was … strange. And probably evidence of how badly the media has saturated the commenters’ minds.

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            2. I love when Euro-peons tell me what the United States is actual like based on their media.

              It’s more humorous than when Yankees tell me, a 6 generation Texan, what my home state is like based on their vast experience elsewhere.

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            3. The hell? He’s been a vicious little turd since at least the 1970s, when he was Teddy Kennedy’s meatpuppet

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                1. Just had one of my FB contacts talk about how he stopped listening to someone because she insisted that our mass media was liberal instead of conservative, and that was just foolish, donchaknow.

                  (The problem with television and radio media is actually that the demands of the job narrow the people who are willing to do it down to two percent of the population—urban, mobile, rootless, and a whole bunch of other qualifiers. Add onto that the need to get stories into two-minute clips and then selling that like it’s actual expertise, and it doesn’t even matter if it’s liberal or conservative. It’s blindered.)

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        1. I used to know a guy, now an American citizen, who came from Rhodesia. Had his old passport to prove he was “African-American.”

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          1. One of my local range acquaintances is a former Sealous Scout. Lets just say his war stories are interesting.

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  6. What gets me is that everyone screaming “see, he’s a Nazi!” supports a party that has actually done Nazi things, like using paramilitary wings of the party to beat up opposition and using the power of the State to suppress anyone they deem An Enemy Of The People.

    It was kind of amusing, in an admittedly odd sense, to see some redditor (user on Reddit, which is almost completely leftist) complaining about “they’re doing it now because they don’t care any more”.

    Of course the right don’t care about shitlibs pissing and moaning, because they (particularly the Reddit variety) aren’t worth caring about thanks to being mostly powerless. The dipshits parade around with their #Resist hashtags and spewing their crap on social media, thinking that they’re all-powerful, when the reality is that their screeching is empty noise that has little to no actual effect on the world at large.

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    1. Quote from the local subReddit that has the most upvotes:

      “Fuck all of that. There is no more calm political discourse. Literal fucking nazis deserved to punched in the fucking face. Nothing else.”

      This is where these folks are, in their self reinforced echo chambers, whether it be Reddit, Bluesky or other online communities. And decent number of these folks are high IQ people including successful business owners. Smart enough to make money, do damage, but still blind.

      Best thing for us is to live a good life, set an example, and conceal carry.

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      1. Of course, they won’t actually be doing any punching unless they’re in a deep blue jurisdiction where they know the local DA has their back, and they have many others present for backup. It’s much easier to talk tough than be tough.

        As for “calm political discourse”, since when? The left hasn’t been interested in “calm” for decades now, they’re just more strident about it in their impotent rage.

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      2. Works for me. Of course, when it comes to IDing Nazis, I tend to focus on government control-promotoing, race obsessed twerps who go around in black shirts and beat up their political rivals.

        One day, some of these idiots are going to get Tsaerneved…

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      3. Many of the subreddit are in the process of banning links to X. Many Discord channels are reportedly doing the same.

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        1. I saw that earlier today, too.

          I know that trying to make sense of a leftist’s “reasoning” is an exercise in frustration, but I don’t get what it’s actually supposed to accomplish. Sure, there’s the virtue signaling and performative theater aspects, but what would even a complete site-wide (vice per-subreddit) ban on links actually accomplish beyond that?

          It strikes me as pure “cut off your nose to spite your face” territory, given how in some subreddits most of the links are sources on TwiX (particularly a lot of video game subreddits where the game producer’s announcements are made on TwiX), and no matter how many users the site claims (setting aside how many are bots, which is a pretty honking big number) it’s not like Reddit is a significant source of traffic for TwiX.

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          1. I suspect that this is something that has been in the works for a while, and the mods at Reddit and Discord finally see this as their opportunity to implement it. There’s a very non-political video-game related Reddit that I used to frequent up until a month or two ago (but haven’t stopped by in a while for reasons unrelated to the current stupidity) where someone put up a post suggesting that that particular Reddit stop linking to X. There was enough pushback that nothing ever came of it. But it shows that the idea has been around for a while.

            And I read earlier today that the Reddit in question has banned links from X. Pictures posted on X are okay so long as you directly post the picture (a requirement since the game developer still uses X). But apparently you aren’t allowed to directly link there anymore.

            In more positive news, I heard that someone tried to push the same policy at the Middle Earth Reddit, and the mods said “No”.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I don’t remember if it was r/LOTR or r/LordOfTheRings (one’s a smaller, less traveled group, while the other actually thought Rings of Power was a good idea), but I read about that, too, the admin saying “no” with a “Gigachad” meme. (That Know Your Meme page doesn’t look NSFW at a glance, but it may link to other pages where there is NSFW material, so surfer beware.)

              And, yes, he chose that intentionally, instead of a LotR movie meme, as Gigachad was a stronger message.

              Like

      4. Yeah, I will believe that when I see them descending on the next FBI cosplay “far right” march, you know, the military-age-male short-haircut guys in the khakis and caps.

        Let’s see the left implement their plan on them there NSDAP guys.

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        1. The way I knew that the whole “bash a fash” thing, years ago, was just empty noise was that there was no significant uptick in ER admissions for self-inflicted blunt trauma.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. I actually used the “arent we fierce” line when someone tried to strongarm panhandle/mug some fellow diners in a McDonalds. (grin)

            Like

  7. If you ask them, they can explain it. You wont like it or agree, but they will explain all of it.

    The trick is to get them talking about premise, not the down-chain arguments.

    “I am correct/righteous because (whatever). Therefore my opponents must be evil/uneducated/badthought, because otherwise they would agree with me.” Or, some variation of that. “I love, therefore you HATERS!”

    If you spend all your time arguing credentials, degrees, morality, agreeability you never get them talking about the premise that is the foundation of their error.

    And most humans will guard that fortress of premise like it was their last oreo at a stoner convention. Note, you have premises too.

    It is tricky to attack premises because at some point, they are quite arbitrary. Either the universe is closed or it is open. Made or not. Up is thataway. And the person expressing the opinion may be deriving it from something, or taking it as a premise, and they will likely shift off of it if premise, so that is a clue.

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    1. Sure, but checking “What would the benefit be?” is what saved me from falling for stuff like Q-Anon. I have my first principles, sure. One of them is that people do things because they think it benefits them, not because they are meat-robots. Could I be wrong? Sure. But so far, not.

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      1. I always preferred the term ‘Meat Puppets’ seems more accurate. Not disagreeing just offering another turn of phrase.

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      2. That’s why your characters make sense: They have motivations.

        Mine do what’s necessary to move the plot along. This has very strange results, usually bad.

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  9. They’ve been brainwashed into believing that Trump is a Nazi and he won, so the Nazis have to be everywhere. They’re like the dwarves in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. They’ll sit in paradise and convince themselves they’re in a dungeon.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. It’s like BGE said, they’re religious fanatics whose creed has been repudiated on every side, yet they are unable to know anything else. So now they have to double down to avoid “dying” the spiritual/ emotional/ intellectual death of repentance and conversion to the truth/ reality. When Prophecy Fails. Sad.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Exactly this – they have managed to brainwash themselves so far into a corner that they can’t really escape.

      All they can manage at this point is to have a noisy tantrum in the corner, while everyone else ignores them.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. What’s that saying about generals always fighting the last war? Calling anyone they dislike a nazi has worked for them for eighty years now.

      Like

  11. It’s been said that Modern “Liberalism” is a secular religion.

    In their secular religion, Nazis/Fascists are Followers of “Satan”.

    It doesn’t make sense but they’ve gone beyond Reason.

    Like

    1. I think our local scholar/dragon has hit the main issue on the head. A useful analogy is the way religion is viewed with the Wesleyan quadrilateral (with some slight expansions) . The Quadrilateral holds that there are 4 contributors to a faith

      1. Revelation – (Scripture in John Wesleys original view). That body of knowledge viewed as revealed to the believer/follower. Think of the Bible of Geometry’s postulates.
      2. Tradition – That set of beliefs gathered over time. They may be derived or related to the scriptures. Early Mishnah of the Jewish faith or some of the Hadith of the Islamic faith fall into this class. Please note this data category can slide around with revelation and vice versa. Roman Catholics consider the Magisterium in the first class, Most of the reformation churches hold it in the second. Similarly Sunni and Shia Muslims do not agree on precisely which Hadith fall into which category. You may note this can cause some serious friction among folks who would from the outside seem to have similar goals and views
      3. Reason – John Wesley wrote: “Now, of what excellent use is reason, if we would either understand ourselves, or explain to others, those living oracles”. Reason is a tool used (and provided by divine providence in Wesley’s view) to comprehend the first two and to potentially derive further information from them as well as to deal with
      4. Experience – what we partake of in the world. Our experience (and our assessment of it through reason) provides us with feedback that our belief is correct

      So what has this got to do with the Modern Liberal “Faith”. First of all let us note that their idea of Reason may not agree with ours. Similarly we would probably not agree with say the Scholastic theologians view of reason. On top of that all four parts of the Quadrilateral may not have equal weight. This is similar to what can be seen in vociferous Young Earth Fundamentalists. They hold that the revelation of Scripture (In particular of Genesis and Jesus’ teaching/referencing of them in the gospels) override reason.

      Liberals seem to focus hard on their Experience and Revelation (their dogma). They do reason (in a very circuitous fashion more akin to 1984 doublethink) and in general societal traditions are viewed as evil. Much of their revelation is that Mankind (particularly WESTERN mankind) is bad (there are the flavors that wish to end humanity altogether they’re just more general in their views then the run of the mill idiot).

      What can we do to “deprogram” them? The main tactic is to bombard them with clear experiential dichotomies. Our brains really are built (be it by the Author or by natural selection) to prefer resolution to sustained cognitive dissonance. The Turnip in Chief and recently evicted VP provided a WHOLE lot of this the last 9 months or so and it seem to have unstuck some of the folks. Others (e.g. Many Intellectual types, Senators from my state like Fauxcahontas and Ed Markey) may be beyond recovery. For them we just have to treat them like the old insane asylum patient who thought he was Napoleon or Alexander the Great and keep them from harming themselves and others.

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  12. Logic, Sarah? You are using logic to refute them? They’ve long since come up with the refutation for that: logic is white supremacy! So that’s just what they’d expect a white Mormon male like you to say.

    Of course, there’s some of their self-manifestation doctrine at work too. Many on the other side believe that, or act as though, saying something makes it so. Not in an “if you can believe it, you can achieve it” sense, but actually creating reality through their own assertions. Sort of like a fraudulent dementia patient creating an amendment to the Constitution by saying it’s there.

    (Sadly, this sort of works. DuckAssist, the AI adjunct to the DuckDuckGo search engine, told me a few days ago that the 28th Amendment had been ratified. I guess I need to find a new search engine now. Any suggestions?)

    Republica restituendae.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. ^^^

        I did some very local home-town searches, multiple variants — looking for churches,schools, etc. — and the artificial stupid told me every time that certain pillars of my community do not exist here. In fact, it told me they are located in a neighboring very different town. Won’t be using it for anything again.

        Like

    2. DuckDuckGo has been suspect for at least 5 years.

      And the problem with even the most “conservative” AI and LLMs is that they are trained on corrupted sources like Wikipedia and mass media. GIGO

      Liked by 1 person

      1. DDG was originally a front-end for Google, then Bing. Now it claims to have its own search database as well as being a “meta-crawler” for some other search engines, all of which are front-ends for Google or Bing.

        How much of the results are from DDG’s own engine, if it actually exists, and how much is from Google and Bing, is hard to tell. DDG has used both of them as its back-ends at various times. The results for various searches all look very similar.

        For all practical purposes you have Google, Bing, and Yandex. Almost all of the others are front-ends for the Big Two. There are a handful of independent search engines, but they’re all tiny.

        I’ve found Yandex to be superior to Google and Bing for most things, doubly so since Google went to its new “AI enhanced” front pages.

        Like

        1. I was using Qwant for a while, but it pukes on images (at least on Pale Moon), and when it is contemplating, it tends to tie up the entire computer. Quite annoying. (Not sure how much of this is due to PM’s quirks, but I use Firefox only as a secondary browser. Right now, both browsers use DDG as the default.)

          I’ll have to give Yandex a try.

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    4. Shane you have discovered one of the major weak points of LLM’s (please do not dignify them with the term AI). They are essentially superannuated search engines with a descendant of Eliza as a front end. This is a classic issue of LLM they do not reason but mostly cross reference. Take for example an image prompt like “Please show me a variety of analog watches displaying a time of 6:38”. You will get back lots of lovely pictures of watches but many (if not most) will be displaying 10:10. This is because the LLM tokenizes the query and then weights the query (based on its data and model) and manipulates images to generate images from existing data (images) it has. Except that it has no real “understanding” of the hands displaying the time. Most stock watch images that it interacts with are at 10:10 as this is considered to show an analog watch best with out interfering with other features such as a day/date display.

      In many ways LLM remind me of early to mid-period Chess playing programs. They were able to evaluate many plies of the game, more by a factor of 2 more than most Grand Masters considered. But until they were fed large quantities of game data derived by human play skillful grandmasters could lead them down a garden path into defeat. They would also win from time to time by finding a set of branches that no human game had managed to traverse because the human master knew that down that path lay defeat via a variety of known gambits.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. What’s driving me nuts right now is how my family’s swallowed that lie so thoroughly that they will not even consider that they might be wrong — and anyone who suggests otherwise is an apologist for Evil.

    I’ve been sort of edging around the issue, not actually agreeing with them, but not blatantly disagreeing. Rolling my eyes and saying “oh my,” or commenting on the importance of avoiding the appearance of evil — and hoping that, when the penny finally does drop, they’ll see in retrospect that I was trying to nudge them toward seeing the truth without blatantly arguing and getting into screaming fights.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. There is a reason that Cromwell reads as desperate when he writes “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”

      People don’t believe themselves to be wrong, and deeply resent anyone who suggests it, because it comes across to most as a *personal* attack on their mental faculties.

      Like

      1. That line by Cromwell has been on my mind an awful lot over the past four years.

        It’s horrible to watch loved ones swallow the Kool-ade by the gallon, then tell you that you’re the one who’s deluded and believe false information. (TBH, this blog is a big reason that I didn’t stay suckered by the COVID panic for very long — but I soon figured out that I’d best shut up around family members who’d swallowed it).

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    2. You know the dwarves in the last book of the Narnia series that refused to believe even their own eyes. People can get like that and it becomes impossible to reach them. You see it in some of the mentally ill, and it means there’s no chance of a cure.

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      1. I think lefties are more like Uncle Andrew at the end of The Magician’s Nephew; he originally could hear the animals speak and went full denial into being unable to hear them speak.

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  14. These are people who can’t reason on their own. They have to believe what the people they trust tell them. Sadly the trusted their parents/school/church to believe. I knew a professor at a university who had a doctorate but couldn’t mix a pitcher of lemonade from frozen concentrate. The directions left him confused because he was so used to ambiguity he could interpret them several ways. He had no practical skills to fix anything. If his faucet stopped working he wouldn’t know how to fix it. He wouldn’t know how to start to get to the screw under the handle, what sort of screwdriver to use or which way to turn it to loosen. The sort of person who takes his car to the dealer with a little leak and they sell him a new engine or a trade up to a new car. When this economy comes apart in hyper inflation he will be helpless and have no idea what to do without excess funds and privilege.

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    1. I cite two identical instances of lack of reasoning. Both were of complaining the car battery was dead. “The dome light is on”. “But the battery is dead”. “Turn the radio on”. “But the battery is dead (radio plays loudly)”. “Turn the headlights on”. “But the battery is dead (headlights come on strong)”. “It’s NOT the battery (the trick is that there is a thin wire that corrodes through along with the main big positive cable that engages a relay to the starter solenoid that corrodes). Neither comprehended the contradiction that lights or radio would work with a dead battery. The result of my long and hard-won experience.

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      1. Not to denigrate your experience, but “if systems using electricity work, it can’t be the battery” does not require any experience. It’s obvious from first principles.

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          1. My apologies, having omitted some details. A weak battery also degrades the light intensity (like a weak flashlight) and the radio volume. In this case, both were good. But the starter did not grunt or even click like the battery was as dead as the great wooly mammoth.

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  16. I think if lefty stupidity bothered me as much as Sarah, I’d have to move to an island off-grid. I couldn’t deal–this is next-level insanity.

    I am, however, triggered by bureaucratic insanity. Hard. I can’t deal with it in an “adult” way.

    Yesterday, I tried to do the proper thing and obtain an Idaho concealed carry permit, CCP. I’d read the requirements and was all prepared. Had my appointment. All set. Called to the window. Informed that the paper “I’m a vet” card was not allowed. Oh, my DD214 will suffice? Great, I have that on my phone. No electronic documents–hard copy only. Got a printer? No external files allowed.

    “Can I make you an appointment for Friday?” asked the NPC.

    “NO.” I took the time to re-layer myself, as it was about 30 outdoors, and I couldn’t help it, guys, I slammed the f*ck out of both sets of doors on the way out, BOOM.

    It’s open carry from here on out. Otherwise I swear I’d do something I’d regret, it’s that intense.

    (And reading the glorious firestorm of action that is our new President has me laughing and singing….)

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I’m going to do exactly that. Any advice about wording? I’m the best at persuasion, especially when it’s just plain wrong to have any requirement at all other than citizenship.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. A friend was a certified CCW instructor, and we had him come over for the spiel (Oregon is pretty simple, for better or worse). As it turns out, the Gunsite diploma I had from 17 years previous would have sufficed.

          Liked by 1 person

          2. We just got our Oregon CCL. It currently is take the online course, answering each section questions with 100% success rate (or will not proceed). Pay and print certificate that is sent through email. Fill out Oregon CCL application, make appointment with county sheriff, take recognized ID (we used book passports, CCL application, and CCL class certificate, hand in to sheriff county clerk (?, more than clerk?), wait. Sign CCL card. Get fingerprinted. Card gets mailed. Now where initiative 110 further takes you, to get the ability to purchase a gun (stayed by numerous court levels … is it dead “yet”?) requires meeting with state (or county) police to show can transport and use handgun safely. Which brings up a point, or two. What if you don’t own a gun to bring to show police you can safely handle a handgun? Or in my case can’t rack any of the handguns we had at the time? Or unload any of the revolvers (although I think that has resolved itself, since we discovered that the rounds might have been over grained).

            Like

        2. Idaho IS a Constitutional Carry State. You need the permit IF you need to carry in states that require permits and recognize Idaho’s. Otherwise, assuming you aren’t a person prohibited from posessing firearms, read the laws and carry.

          We’ve been a Constitutional Carry State a good while now.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I didn’t know that, but after looking it up it is not Constitutional Carry. You don’t require a permit, but there are MANY exceptions, unlike true Constitutional Carry.

              Liked by 1 person

          2. Quite handy, that.

            I’m licensed in OR; we drove to MT, and had to disarm in WA, but both ID and MT are Constitutional Carry (as well as both honor, or honored then, OR license).

            Tricky bit: exemption from FedLaw carry in a school zone requires a license from the local authorities – out of state does not work.

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        3. Use a cleaned up version of your story (no anger display) to point out how un-cooperation turns must-issue into “No I wont” by adding rules that are not published.

          Make sure your state instructions specify the docs you tried to use, or have no opinion on electronic versus paper, thus showing the clerk’s arbitrary denial. Might be lawsuit worthy if a lawyer agrees. Just make sure your facts are 100% before you send the “see I was denied” story.

          I would still obtain the concealed carry permit just for the options it provides, the insurance against an accidental cover/conceal, and for reciprocity when traveling. No state that I know of, lacking constitutional carry, offers reciprocity to visitors from CC states. I believe there is at least one CC state that only recognizes residents. (this may have changed, not sure)

          The CC permit often provides a bypass to some “wait” or “check” laws that may also be annoying.

          And if only so that some clerk didn’t succeed in an “(HONK!)hole veto”, go get it. (grin)

          Oh, and if there is a required class, and it is waivered by that DD214? Go take it anyway, at some point. Useful to show training, useful to know laws, etc.

          Like

          1. Excellent ideas, thanks. I’ve taken several classes, safety, basic pistol, and concealed carry. Always good to have that knowledge under your belt.

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        4. Sorry Kathy, I wouldn’t know what to say. But I bet you could maybe find some ideas by looking up the history and discussions around the Montana Constitutional Carry vote.

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      2. As far as I know, Idaho is.

        You still need a permit to carry on school campuses, and in sports or theater venues.

        Like

    2. Wow. Kootenai County Sherriff’s website is super unhelpful regarding the CWL.

      You get much better information from Latah County Sheriff’s website (astonishingly).

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Of course, Kootenai’s website is where I got my information. I’ll check out Latah for sure, thanks so much.

        Like

  17. I’ve been saying for years that “climate change,” is a Satanic parody of Christianity. You have original sin (industrialization, or maybe agriculture if you’re a real purist), damnnation if you don’t repent. Forgiveness requires massive penance and sincere, unquestioning belief in all the doctrines. The gospel must be spread far and wide and heretics (“deniers”) punished. And it will, of course, cause massive suffering, perceived by the believer as either deserved punishment for sin or purgative suffering for the repentant.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I came across an essay once about how socialism in general is a particularly nasty christian heresy. Similar premise, very well fleshed out. Wish I could find it now.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yup. It’s interesting that the man largely responsible for the formulation of modern Marxism-Leninism was a former seminarian. In The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn has Stalin even pondering how much it comes out like an Orthodox catechism.

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  18. I got a T-shirt from JPFO* that had an image of Hitler doing the salute and captioned, “All in favor of gun control, raise your right hand.” I wore it twice. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, got close enough or took the time to read the caption and I got a rep as a closet Nazi that it took months and a move to escape. They still have that meme as a bumper sticker but it seems they have gone out of the T-shirt business.

    *Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I know the one. Text needs to be bigger – big enough to dominate, and image should be small enough to take a second to process. A great concept, but the visuals need work to make it effective and not counterproductive to the wearer

      Like

    2. Yeah. Seemed witty at the time. Like thanking a Drill Sergeant for calling me “Smart Ass”. “I am glad you think I am a smart ass, not a dumb ass.”

      Seemed witty at the moment. Not so much later…

      An acquaintance made a really nice western gunbelt with various Native American symbols on it. Not his fault some Austrian psycho-nincompoop hijacked one symbol. But I pointed out to him that no one is going to know the truth if all they see, and turn away from, is some grumpy cracker with guns and swastikas.

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      1. It’s also a Buddhist symbol. I have a gong that probably will never see the light of day again. It shows the Buddha meditating, surrounded by a circle of swastikas. Never mind they point the opposite way of the Nazi one, there’s too many people who believe swastika = hatey hate symbol, with no possibility of exception or nuance.

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  19. The “explanation” I’ve seen is that the salute doesn’t have to make logical sense, because fascism. Which of course doesn’t explain a damn thing. But what did you expect?

    Liked by 2 people

      1. The Nazi Card has been overplayed to the point of absurdity. What’s even more absurd is that anyone on the Left still thinks its a viable strategy.

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          1. Or they could, you know try not accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being Nazis.

            Who am I kidding? It would be like the meme of the guy making a reasonable suggestion getting thrown out the window.

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              1. Root was the Soviet communists defining “That which opposes Communism is Fascism.”

                Modern use drops the “Communism for “us”

                “That which opposes us is Fascism.”

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          2. This. Their resistance to Trump right now is quite literally frantic posts on X about what a fascist he is, ominous posts about how it’s like 1932 in Germany, and pictures of women or kids who are crying as a result of Trump’s deportation order. That’s it. They literally have nothing else to work with at the moment.

            Also, as of the 2020 riots, anyone who asks the left what a fascist is must be a fascist.

            Liked by 2 people

              1. I think I remember seeing that someone gave Kamala enough money to pay off the campaign debt. I can’t remember who, though. The payment was something along the lines of the typical book deal payoff, though I don’t think it was for a book.

                In any case, she’s already campaigning again.

                Like

            2. Including AI art of small, crying, big-eyed child waiting at school for deported parent to arrive. Promptly countered by commenting on the parents/siblings/friends who will never see the loved one murdered by an illegal again.

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              1. Saw that.

                Something has changed. You can feel it in the air. It doesn’t mean that things will be a bed of roses from here on out. But Americans – even if they don’t think of themselves as conservative – have gotten sufficiently riled that they’re starting to stretch their limbs.

                A preference cascade has begun.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Asmongold did a reaction stream to the ICE deportation news, and the despicable criminals who were being deported.

                  Both Asmongold and his commenters seemed to be remarkably law and order, all of a sudden. Some of them legitimately seemed to be hearing about this kind of thing for the first time, while others apparently were just unlurking on the topic.

                  Asmongold’s most memorable remarks were “Gotta catch ’em all” and (about deporting the illegal guy who was found in the apartment of a target) “It’s AoE damage, when they go after one and then they get another one. It’s like a bonus.”

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                  1. A lot of people don’t realize how screwed up the Biden administration’s handling of the border really was, and would have called it a conspiracy theory if someone told them, because what the administration was doing is so flagrantly in violation of any sort of common sense. I once started describing the “catch and release with court date” state of affairs to one of my co-workers, and he refused to believe it. It was so utterly and completely absurd that he refused to accept that it was actually how the government was handling people who were illegally crossing the border.

                    Liked by 1 person

          3. Sonethung that has occurred to me recently…

            The PRC has started doing things recently that make me wonder if Beijing is rolling toward an actual invasion of the ROC. That could result in the PRC and the US fighting each other. If that were to happen, the PLA would likely be looking for ways to mess with the US mainland. One of the easiest ways to do that would be to hire the cartels.

            And Trump just announced that the US is going to war with the cartels.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. It’s something to think about. As bad shape as China is in, and it’s really bad, they’re going to get weaker from here with no end in sight. If they’re going to go, now’s the time to go since there might not be a later. Correlation of Forces and all that.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. My fear recently has evolved from “Will Trump let us avoid the abyss?” to “The abyss is coming via another big war. Will Trump get us ready in time?”

                Like

            2. PRC is in deep, deep guacamole. The fact that they seem to be ramping up to invade Taiwan is worrying, but a sign of just how close to collapse they are. They have had to invade Taiwan since 1949, but doing the actual invasion is insanely stupid, tactically. So that they are doing it now, while their economy is on the edge of collapse and there are nationwide student protests… possibly means that everything falls apart at once.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. The problem is, invading Taiwan is both hard and expensive. The CCP has no idea if their military can do hard things, and no idea if they have enough cash on hand to do expensive and/or hard things.

                Loading up 70-90% of their deployable combat power onto RO-RO ships, only to see them mostly sunk in the Straight, would be …. regime ending. The reality of modern submarines means that any number of countries could sink a sufficient number of transports to wreck the effort., and the CCP might never know who dunnit.

                …

                “Comrade, -that- was an Indian torpedo. The sonar is distinctive.”

                “But the launching boat was… French?”

                “No, those were decoys used by the uninvolved Korean boats. The launcher is over here.”

                “But there wasnt anything there.”

                “Yankee boat. Maybe even a boomer.”

                “No, a mine laid to launch an Indian torp.”

                “Comrades, we have 37 other ‘fish’ to fry. If we want to avoid a transfer to a less pleasant camp.”

                “Did any of our transports survive?”

                “The three with ‘engineering casualties’, that never left the dock, and the one that managed to run aground and surrender to the Fascists.”

                “Two. Something blew up a dockside transport. Just, blew it the hell up. Our spacemen saw it from orbit.”

                “(HONK!) our (HONK!)s. Were doomed.”

                Like

              2. Heck, they had an incredible number of _parents_ protesting at this one school in a boringly normal town, because apparently some municipal official’s kid was murdered by some CCP bureaucrat official’s kid. The school tried to cover it up, but nobody was convinced.

                Liked by 2 people

  20. From Vox Day: ” It [the salute] was an attempt to damage Trump through the negative visual rhetoric of a fake supporter. , , ,[Musk is] not on our side, or President Trump’s side, anymore than Richard Spencer, Ben Shapiro, Neil Gaiman, or Jordan Peterson are.”

    Form your own opinion as to whether this makes any sense.

    Like

    2. Methinks the Venereal Disease involved is late stage syphillis.

      Apparently he’s hooked up with Jon Del Aroz to create an entire whirlpool of stupidity…

      I am honestly kind of ashamed that I used to defend him.

      Like

      1. What I find funny is how the morons freaking out about Elon’s body language are suddenly treating the alt-Right groyper types as some kind of authority to be taken seriously. I mean, most people on the Right ignore those twits.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Musk isn’t a Trumper. Musk is seeking a different path to success now that the EV gravy train is ending. Just a question if he is a useful snake, or just another scorpion to be squashed. I no more trust him than I do any of the other recent converts. Most likely he sees an advantage to free speech and some common Trump beliefs. At some point, I suspect he will get a bit too far out of orbit, and Trump is going to jank Musk’s underoos up over his head.

        Trump wisely quit using that “snake” poem. He knows what is there to work with. Aint none saints.

        (grin)

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  21. Elon is a known troll of epic proportions. He KNOWS what he did. He did it ON PURPOSE. Watch the video, you can see it all over his face. He thinks it’s funny, aggravating the left. Well, it is… But… LOL

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    1. I’ve seen the video, and what he said with it. It wasn’t a Nazi salutation, in any way shape or form. I’ve seen a LOT of WWII movies. The whole thing is nonsense.

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      1. Agree. Not a nazi salute (not capitalizing it).

        If, IF, squint and turn head just right, to be negative … it is a royal hand wave. /snark off

        Elon was waving to the crowd. You know, like you do if you are in a parade, and not one of the military academies/units, or marching bands.

        OMG they are idiots.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Yes, of course it isn’t anything Nazi, lol. But Elon KNEW they would come after him for it. He is an epic troll.

        Like

              1. Just when I began to perceive the whole Nazis on Mars mystery, it came to me that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first three Martian novels might be a bizarre riff on the New Testament (heroes with initials J.C., dontcha know). And then there’s that whole Conan crucifixion thing lurking in the background. I think, perhaps, I should dial back on conversing with y’all.

                Like

            2. I’ve already said my piece. He was waving to the crowd, just like anyone does when in a parade.

              However. Given the left reeeeeee? Would Musk cringe and apologize? Or. Would he grab this and let them go buy the rope that they hang themselves with? Who am I kidding. The latter. No question. He is already, gleefully, like a kid in a candy store and unlimited spending money, doing.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. I’m telling you, he knew his wave would be seen like that and he did it on purpose, to troll. It’s his personality. He is definitely enjoying the attention he created.

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                1. Potato/Patahto … Agree to disagree?

                  Musk won’t admit it. We’ll never know one way or another. Musk will continue to troll, as long as the usual suspects bleat about it.

                  🍿🍿🍿

                  Liked by 2 people

          2. Well, I do. He has posted things before about how the left has take hand movements as nazi signs, so he knew full well. Plus, it’s all over his face.

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  22. I’ve seen that meme multiple times, with someone saying “All I know is that you’re defending a N*** salute on the second day.” I usually see it with someone making a snide comment against it. And saying “N***” makes it look like a different (and worse) slur than it is.

    I keep thinking, “No, no one is defending a salute. We are all *denying* it. If you think we’re defending it, you have worse understanding than I thought.”

    Also, I’ve seen the ADL accused of being a Nazi group, since they are saying that the gesture is not what they are trying to make it out to be.

    And the final thing. I like reading the Not Always Right page (including the comments). They are usually a bunch of fun, but they do tend to have TDS. This manifests, among other things, as talking about how masks saved everyone, and how evil anti-vaxxers are (as if COVID vaccine is the same as most vaccines), etc. They had a big flurry of TDS manifested shortly before and after the election, but they’ve really gone bonkers after the inauguration, including the “Hitler Salute”. I just have to read and shake my head. They aren’t stupid (usually). How can they fall for this?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. they had to CHANGE the definition of “vaccine” in order for the clot shots to be labeled vaccines … the clot shot is just a treatment (and not a very effective one at that) …

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Change the definition of vaccine, change the definition of herd immunity, call a medication that had been safe and effective for a few decades a dangerous horse medicine, etc.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Y’all raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care!

      Gotcha! You’re all Nazis now too.

      I make a Nazi salute multiple times per day stretching because my shoulders get too tight.

      Like

      1. “Nazi? Those losers? Nah. Terran Empire!” (geek : the whole Kirk Mirror Universe thing : geek)

        Would that not bend a few brains!

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        1. No, the Terrain Empire salute has been used as “proof” that Musk was making a Nazi salute.

          “See, everyone knew it was a Nazi salute, which is why they used it fur the Terran Empire. So Musk knew!”

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          1. And the “chest to outstretched hand” thing was also used in Friday’s Child (“We come with open hearts and hands”) and in Bread and Circuses (IIRC). You know where it wasn’t used? Patterns of Force.

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      2. Next time we get a picture of a left-wing politician/media figure raising their right hand, we take that sucker out of context and spam it all over social media. That’s the rules now.

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  23. Speaking of the “neo-Nazis”, I wonder how many of them will be around in a few months when DOGE begins slashing government agencies/spending? And on a related note, remember that “Patriot Front” that kept making sporadic appearances the past few years. Have they been around lately? I remember them supposedly getting arrested and then returning a few months later like nothing happened, which is suspicious in and of itself.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. When I was on Gab, one of the guys I followed was positive that PF was an honest group. Got a hard nope after that.

      (Then Gab changed the features for the non-paid accounts, and I decided it wasn’t worth spending the money for one. Sorry, sir, no sale.)

      Like

    2. Word was, the so-called “Patriot Front” disbanded right after Christopher Wray announced his resignation as head of the FBI. I don’t know if that is true or not, but that was word going around at the time.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. I spoke too soon: the Front just resurfaced in Washington today. I guess they don’t want to travel too far from the main office.

      Like

  24. IQ is a tool in your toolbox, just like experience … but just because someone has a hammer and a saw in their toolbox it doesn’t make them a carpenter … IQ is also a measure of POTENTIAL more than a measure of capability … thats why is some scenarios someone with a high IQ can be as dumb as a bag of hammers …

    Like

    2. IQ means intelligence quotient, which measures our ABILITY to learn. It doesn’t measure whether we will learn truth or not.

      I am in Mensa, a high-IQ club. I am likely leaving it and never going back because there are many, MANY bad people in it and those “in power” of the club allow, and even encourage, that behavior.

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          1. It’s complicated. When we first joined, we had a great chapter where we got together, made awful puns and drank beer. Kind of the equivalent of these comments, though most people were very lefty.
            But then we moved, and all the other chapters were fairly horrible.
            I joined again when we moved to Colorado because we didn’t know anyone, and thought it might help. It didn’t. And I need to revise that date. We left 32 years ago. And haven’t gone back.

            Like

            1. You definitely don’t want to! The “leaders” get rid of anyone that doesn’t agree with them, and there is so much corruption it’s as bad as the US government, but these people have egos the size of battleships. There are conservatives, but they had to go to a private website to not be censored. It’s horrible. I tried to help fix it, by running for local secretary, but they literally INVALIDATED MY ELECTION because apparently the leaders can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Seriously!

              I joined about ten years ago or so to try to get homeschooling help for my gifted kids, but even then it was really bad. I rejoined to see if I could find scholarships for my kids since they are now in college. There weren’t very many, and they didn’t get any so it was a waste of time and this whole election thing is outrageous.

              Liked by 1 person

  25. But while they run off down that fascinating rabbit hole, what they haven’t explained is: WHY would he do that?

    1. Because it’s what they do. They win, and they give “secret signals” to their allies about their true intentions.

    2. Because it gives them a cudgel to batter their enemies with. “Nazi nazi nazi!!!!”

    3. Because there was literally nothing else they could gin up into a two-minutes’ hate object from inauguration day.

    They do not have arguments. They fear arguments. All they have is emotional manipulation, and now that it’s not working the way it used to, they are quadrupling and quintupling down on it, because there is nothing else they can do.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The “game”, from Transactional Analysis, is “Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of a Bitch!” – NIGYYSOB

      You cannot win, from their point of view. Its not about fixing you, or persuading, it is all about “getting you”.

      Liked by 1 person

  26. “So watching the left break into a chorus of “Elon did a Nazi salute!” gives me a migraine level headache of sheer frustration.”

    Sarah. Please. Take it easy.

    If Elon lifts his hand higher than his elbow, the media will all scream “ELON DID A NAZI SALUTE!!!11!” They will scream in unison, with a brass band for backup.

    Because lying liars lie. They always lie. They never stop lying. Even when they say the truth, it’s a lie because it is them saying it to get you to do something they want.

    The huge mistake that I have made most of my life is in thinking that Lefties actually believe the stupid stuff they say, and are therefore stupid. But they don’t.

    For example, no human being capable of standing up, seeing lightning and hearing thunder, will believe that taking weapons of self defense away from citizens makes society safer. It makes CRIMINALS safer. It leads to Peel Police telling people at a Peel Region council meeting to leave their car keys by the front door, so that the home invaders will be less likely to kill them when they come to steal the car.

    Yes, that is a real thing that really happened, unlike Elon’s ‘Nazi salute’. Which I saw him do because I watched the speech, and if there was ever anything less like a Nazi salute I’d love to hear about it.

    What’s really happening here is something much worse. The Left (particularity in Canada and Britain, but also the USA) has hit the wall financially. They’ve pushed the pillaging of the Canadian people as far and fast as they can in the last ten years, abandoning the slow-and-steady pilferage they were doing previously since the 1970s. They had jacked the taxes as far as the people were going to let them by 2010-ish, and since then they’ve creating chaos deliberately to keep us all reeling, so they can back a truck up to the bank and steal faster.

    That’s what mass-immigration is. Chaos, caused deliberately. It isn’t stupidity. It is malicious.

    But then Mr. Trump won in 2016 and messed up their plan. The whole world saw the USA turn on a dime and stop falling apart. Then we saw it start falling apart again under #Let’sGoBrandon. And now that #Brandon is history, it will stop falling apart again.

    So what do they do? Give up? Go to jail like they ought to, for defrauding us all? Behave with decency and shut up for five seconds? No way.

    These are lying liars. They can’t stop. It’s in their bones. They keep going. They’ll still be lying in jail. Their last words on their death-bed will be a lie.

    So they lie about Elon. No kidding. Must be Thursday. Just recall the context of the lie. They are maliciously trying to manipulate us into a condition of panic and chaos so that they get rich and we all die. Because they hate us.

    Kind of puts a different complexion on it, right?

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  27. Something I haven’t seen anyone else talk about. If Elon were crypto-Nazi, he’s doing a lousy job of it. He supported a guy who is reducing the power of the state to censor and persecute the public, and is heading a department whose sole goal is to reduce the size of government. All of which would make it much harder to create a Fourth Reich.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. “Itch between the shoulder blades.” Aaargh! I’ve had one of those for months now. $SPOUSE$ has looked, and there is nothing there, either.

    I suspect, though, that the intelligence distribution on the Left is somewhat different. I have noticed that the ones way out on the right side of the curve are frequently (not always) less connected to reality. On the other side, there are those of subnormal intelligence that are more easily led into fantasy. The center of the distribution for the Left would therefore be somewhat lower, leading to a “flatter” curve than the one for the Right.

    Just a hypothesis, of course. Even if I were handed a few million dollars, I could never prove it. Too many conflating factors like a dysfunctional education system, cultural barriers, etc. Not to mention the current definitions and measures of “intelligence” that are not useful.*

    * I, myself, define “intelligence” as – the ability to correctly evaluate reality; identify the actions that will, when implemented, change the reality to personal benefit; and the ability to effect those changes.**

    ** Note that this definition does not include “morality,” it only addresses personal benefit. A highly intelligent person may have the ability to steal millions of dollars and get away with it. A highly intelligent AND moral person will have the ability to earn millions of dollars while not harming others, and/or providing others with benefits.

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  29. I’m not worried about the handful of Nationalist Socialists in America. I’m really worried about the Globalist Socialists that backed GW, Clinton, Obama, and the Biden-Harris Cabal. They didn’t go away, they have far too much money and influence even now, and they have too many useful idiots who still believe their spiel.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Did you see the Davos bankers laughing at Trump? He called them, right in their faces, and they still laughed.

      Mr. Trump did well there. If I had money in Bank of America I’d be taking it out and putting it somewhere else today. Maybe in my sock drawer.

      The action of a hundred million ants can move a hill, given enough time. Davos bankers look like a hill that needs moving. Four years from now, that guy might not be laughing any more.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. If you have investments, even in mutual funds, you can use the ESG tools to find mutual funds that perform well but have low ESG scores.

        Just ask your broker to find funds with ESG scores of BBB or lower.

        Moving investment out of all the A-rated funds will hurt all the companies that think ESG is a good thing.

        … eventually, anyway.

        Liked by 1 person

  30. To the Left, “Nazi” means “totally the diametric opposite of a Socialist or Communist” because they’ve drunk their own ink about “Socialism and Communism are completely totally utterly 100% the absolute opposite of Fascism and Nazism.”

    So Musk is a Nazi by that definition. Besides, there’s an insane troll logic to it:

    Trump is Literally Hitler

    Musk supports Trump

    Therefore Musk is a Nazi

    Therefore any gesture Musk makes that somehow vaguely resembles a Nazi salute must actually be a Nazi salute.

    Musk made a gesture that somehow vaguely resembled a Nazi salute

    Therefore Muck made an actual Nazi salute

    Quod Orwell Demonstrandum

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Trump is going to get writer’s cramp. Pro life protestors pardoned. JFK, RFK, and MLK files declassified, though I bet they’re empty. God willing, Epstein next.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Another bird-brained possibility occurs.

    These people, at least the older among them, still consider Michael Moore to be a genius. (Stop laughing.) Moore had some stupid TV show in the ’90s, one episode of which had him seeking out, finding, and mocking KKK members. (Hey, he should get credit for finding people less intelligent than himself. That took effort.) And in it, he tricked one of the yokels into giving a Nazi salute, because har har, haw haw, ain’t them rednecks dumb?

    So they are arguing from cooties (argumentum ad contagion), but they are also trying to emulate St. Michael by playing an endless (and rigged) game of “GOTCHA!!!!!!!”

    Liked by 1 person

  34. “There is nothing inherent in Nazi beliefs that forces people to do the Heil Hitler salute compulsively like some sort of political Tourettes.”

    Tell that to Dr. Strangelove

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      1. I freely confess, when I read that part of the essay, I my mind went to Dr. Strangelove. And I laughed, because I can so see some on the Left assuming that.

        Liked by 2 people

  35. They are insane, they have nothing, they are waiting for the next Clinton to come to save them. So they’ll throw shit against the wall until someone points out that their hands are covered in shit. Then they’ll wallow in shit until the next Great White Male Hope comes to save the party and fool the Little Racists again.

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  36. The nazis never made it to the moon because Dracula shot all their moon rockets down with his moon laser.

    On a more serious note, I suspect they believe it because it is what they do any time they get power. They immediately start doing thingd to demand everyone say the line, to acknowledge their primacy.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. something in response to our hostess’s X site — I lurk there through my son’s account and never post— about what the NY Times gets from the cartels. The NYT is majority owned by Carlos Slim owner of Telefonos de Mexico. At one point, he was the richest man in the world, but he’s slipped a bit. he sold off about half his NYT shares at a huge loss and the NYT hasn’t been doing well. Not as bad as WaPo, but not by much.

    So what the richest man in Mexico whose business more or less depends on maintaining a certain amount of good will from the cartels, gets from those cartels? Survival? Protection from rivals and the government?

    Liked by 1 person

  38. An interesting thing about “IQ distribution” is that there are more male geniuses than female. I have upset a few women telling them this, but they seem to feel better when I explain “the rest of the story”.

    Men’s bell curve for IQ is different than women’s. Yes there are more male geniuses but the opposite is also true, there are more male idiots than female idiots.

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    1. Because if you have power, you must use it. Otherwise, you don’t have power.

      And they crave power like most people crave air.

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  40. PBS=Pure Bull Sh*t
    And for your preview, let’s call them what they are and really represent, The Deathocrats or Extinctionocrats, because that is what they truly represent, Death and Extinction. Maybe they are Lizard people from Mars, would explain why they want all humans dead. Snark or watching to much Ancient Aliens on the pablum box.

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    1. Have you ever noticed you come up with something better the moment you hit send?

      PBS=Pablum Broadcasting System

      Feeding Mental Pablum to the folks one shovel full at a time.

      The funniest thing I saw On PBS in a long time was when Lavar Burton found out that he had a white person in his family tree. Dude, we all got everything in our family tree, there is only one race, the HUMAN RACE, Grow the hell up Geordie.

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  41. Saw an interesting observation on X today regarding ICE’s raids targeting illegal immigrants.

    Trump took office, and the raids *immediately* started. It wasn’t “wait three weeks while we start assembling information on the people we want to grab.” It was “Thanks for the go order, here’s our first batch of people that should be kicked out.” Further, ICE’s initial focus is against the aliens that have committed serious crimes after crossing the border (i.e. in addition to the basic illegal alien status). Homan has stated that the ones that haven’t been causing problems will be left alone (unless ICE stumbles across them while looking for the violent criminals) until after the dangerous ones have been dealt with.

    ICE knew where these people were. They knew without having to do any research, or go look these people up. That means for FOUR <CENSORED> YEARS the Biden administration knew where these vicious criminals were, and ignored them.

    We already knew that, but still. It’s worth specifically emphasizing.

    I also saw video footage of ICE and FBI agents raiding an immigration attorney’s office back East. I’m guessing someone’s been aiding and abetting the illegals in ways that go beyond normal attorney-client privilege, and the Feds are fully aware of it. There’s probably quite a few attorneys like that.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “ICE knew where these people were.”

      Yes, they knew. This is the frustrating thing about being a Conservative. It isn’t merely that our government seems inept and incapable of maintaining order.

      It is that the government -could- keep order, quite easily, properly and cheaply, but they have been commanded not to.

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  42. It’s dangerous to hold that the Left is stupid, because then you underestimate them.

    They’re much worse.

    They insist you believe that what they say defines reality.

    They’re discovering that people are on to the scam, but they’ve gotten away with it for so long, they’ve started to believe it.

    Not stupid, not even deluded. MALIGNANT.

    They are demonstrating why “bearing false witness” is a mortal sin. Why one of Satan’s titles is “Father of Lies”.

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          1. (Grin)

            (Wanders off, singling loudly Rush “ghost of a chance”, then sortof Filking it “gnost”.)

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  43. The left projecting – again! The left are anti-Israel, pro-nationalisation, pro-censorship, pro compulsory medication – all Nazi policies. Then, someone waves in a way that makes them think he is one of them (someone that appears to have all of the opposite policies) and they lose their heads.
    When will it dawn on them that they are the Nazis.

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  44. People don’t make gestures or symbolic salutes unless it gets them something. And this would get him nothing.

    I have an answer but let me preface by saving this is not what I think is going on.

    What he could gain is distraction (and a troll).

    Every news report, every tweet, every BlueSky post, every minute spent on “Elon gave a Nazi salute” is a resource not being used to smear Trump nominees or rally rent a mobs (online or in real life) to get squish GOP lawmakers to “bravely reach across the aisle to find Trump’s extremism”.

    Now, this would not be without risk. Maybe this would finally sell their Nazi fetish to a lot of people who crossed over to Trump this election. However, Elon might make the calculated risk that the Nazi card is so overdrawn all this would do is result in over the limit fees instead of political capital for the left.

    And, yeah, it would be a great troll which is something Elon is known for. For example, this Tweet yesterday by him:

    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1882406209187409976

    As I said, I don’t think this is what he’s doing although I’ll admit part of me wishes he was. Laughing at the derangement over it is so much fun I wish it was an intentional troll.

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    1. Musk has also been posting tweets complaining about all of the Nazi salute showing up in his feed. Says that the algorithm sucks. 😋

      Like

  45. Leftists aren’t stupid (as in “born with limited intellectual capability”), but a great many of them are Cluster B personality disordered. Accordingly, they have extremely short attention spans, and are prone to simply ignore or deny the validity of any information that doesn’t fit their pre-conceived worldview. I like to say that leftism is narcissism rendered as politics.

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        1. In the 60th anniversary issue of Analog Ben Bova was listing things predicted in the magazine. After like the fifth one involving a Heinlein story he remarked how it seemed Heinlein invented everything first

          Although given the history of invasion fiction that lead to War of the Worlds you could argue Well’s Martians are Germans and thus proto-Space Nazis.

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          1. Nah, the Martians were communists. War Of The Worlds was published just 19 years before the communist takeover of Russia. Wells started writing it around 1895, 30 years before there was a National Socialist German Workers Party.

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            1. Sigh.

              There were “Invasions of Britain by Germans” stories long before the Nazis arose.

              Mind you, there may have been Invasion stories where the invaders were French.

              Of course, Britain (and other countries) had been “invading” less advanced areas on Earth for years when Wells wrote “War Of The Worlds”.

              So it’s reasonable to think that Wells was writing a colonization novel where Britain (and the rest of Earth) was being colonized. [Grin]

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