Betrayal

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This is not a post (solely) about writing. It’s also about politics, but first we have to get there.

Yesterday I was talking with a group with friends who also happen to write. (Look, there’s writer-friends, who are mostly friendly acquaintances because that’s at the center of what we have in common. And then there’s friends who are friends for a million other reasons and would probably be my friends even if their mind had never spun a single tale.)

Anyway, in this the topic of “Betrayal” came up. More than one author (some my friends) have had their fandom turn on them, suddenly, when they found out the author is actually not a raving, lunatic lefty. Or not a swinger. Or not a fur or in one remarkable case male. How they could have missed he was male is inexplicable, though I think that’s just like fandom turning on Heinlein suddenly when being male became the equivalent of being anti-woman. (In the heads of the deeply indoctrinated. Not any sane person.)

These situations are always profoundly wounding, because the fandom feels betrayed — even if they were talked into/spun into feeling betrayed. That’s something I don’t fully understand, because if I were capable of reacting that way I wouldn’t have arrived at my beliefs. But I know it happens — and the author is usually sucker punched and really, really, really feels betrayed.

Writing is weird and weirdly isolating. There is a reason writers need to have writer friends. When I wake up and realize I dreamed all night of an imaginary world, for any non-writer this would be alarming and possibly a sign of psychosis. For me it’s Tuesday and an occupational hazard. Other writers just sort of nod and sigh.

So writers have writer friends, but almost all of us who have some measure of success, even beginners with a knot of five or six readers, have fans they rely on. Because writing is communication. When I talk about my alpha readers (I promise, guys, you’ll get Chinchilla of Hope T-shirts before the end of the year. You poor sods earned them) I’m talking about the people who see stuff fresh off the brain. Sometimes their reactions tell me if I’m giving the wrong impression, which will need to be corrected, or when things that were merely okay to me will ellicit a “wow.” My own group for that is small, though the paid subscribers to substack serve as beta readers (THANKS YOU GUYS for not running screaming when I started posting No Man’s Land. That would have stopped me cold.) And then there’s a larger group of fandom I’m not that close to or close with. I like a good number of them, and if they ALL decided they hated me it would have a bad effect on my bottom line, but we’re not emotionally entangled.

To an extent I’m envious of the writers to whom the larger group is like an extended family, at least on the fans side. There’s a lot of support there, and it helps you and buoys you through the rough stuff. But then there is the risk. Specially if what you write is not–

How do I put this? It might be impossible for writers to write something they don’t believe in. Which is why I don’t tend to write aliens, except in short stories where I can get away with it without thinking too hard. My aliens tend to be modified humans. And I don’t think I could write a functioning, happy communist society. Because I can’t believe in it. At the same time it’s possible for incidental things in our writing to be things we don’t like, don’t approve of OR MORE IMPORTANTLY would never do in our daily lives. For instance, much to the relief of all and sundry I’m not a nudist. (I don’t disapprove of it, I just find it in general unaesthetic and it makes the furniture smell.) I don’t kill people left and right. If brooms existed I’d never, in the history of ever get on one to fly around (fear of heights AND no sense of direction.) I also have never — to date — turned into a dragon. And for the record, I would never kill a bunch of strangers to lay my eggs in them. Er. If I lay eggs. Which I don’t. Oh, and though I have gay characters, I’m not gay. In fact I am hard-core monogamous. (I was going to say I’m only attracted to men, but more and more every day I’m only attracted to man — and he’s sitting there, right now, being sick as a dog with a head cold. Ah well.)

However, because books are the closest we can come to living in someone else’s head, we tend to think of the character as the author. The right (broadly) is better at knowing there’s a difference and appreciating the writer anyway, because for decades all we had was well… commies who inadvertently wrote stuff we liked.

The left doesn’t have that experience. The people who fall on the broad left are also way more … socially conforming. (Not incidental, leftism has been a positional good for decades. So it attracts the socially conforming.) and therefore seem to identify HARDER with stories and characters and project them on to the author/director/actor.

So, when they find out this person is not in fact of them and doesn’t have the characteristic they love in the character, they become furious. They feel hurt and betrayed. And they go to war in the way of the socially adept.

Which in turn wounds the author because this is the author’s SUPPORT that suddenly turns and bites him/er on the butt.

I was thinking about it, and realized I’m not like that for various reasons. One of them being because I’ve been betrayed so often I have calluses. There really have been a lot of these. Some politics, some just because I’m oblivious about social duck speak, and will obliviate (totally a word) past the first two, three, ten warning signs, then be shocked at the sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

I’m not saying if my alpha group suddenly ejected me and started telling nasty tales about me I wouldn’t be hurt like a teen girl who finds her boyfriend kissing the cheerleader, but probably could be cured by rocky road ice cream and a week of moping. And then I’d find other alpha readers. It’s happened before.

Then I thought part of the reason of course is that my fiction writing which isn’t political (Oh, yes, look, it has my ideas in it, and to the extent everything including a character shooting someone is now political, that is inescapable, but–) I mean, I’m not writing to promote a political idea. I’m writing the story that won’t shut up. Political points come from being written by me and my being a political being.

Most of the betrayals and messy break ups have come from the political side. And I even GET that. My beliefs have … evolved. When I wrote Darkship Thieves (13 years before it was published) I was a far more red-meat Libertarian bordering on anarchist. But times go by and things happen to and around you, and you change. I abandoned open borders at 9/11. I hadn’t yet realized the cultural risk, but I realized the military/terror risk. And I had kids. So that became a “no” really fast. Then in the last ten years I’ve come to understand the cultural risk, because we’ve all been living with it. (Also seeing my kids grow and cope with visits to Portugal highlighted the difference cultures make.) I’ve — kicking, screaming and under protest — become less of a free market absolutist. Oh, no. Not inside our borders, but outside. Look, there is no way you can separate “trading freely with countries that aren’t free” from undue political influence and money used as weapons, and for the love of all that’s holy, ending up with our chips and our medicine being manufactured by people we can’t trust.

I guess my opinions change, as things happen. I’ve become a lot harder in some ways. Scar tissue in the soul will do that. (10/7. I’ll never be okay. It hardened my opinion that some cultures are not fixable.)

Thing is, I also know the right has experience betrayals, and I understand that too. There have been people on the right who carry the flag for a while and then change, inexplicably over night. And none of us knows the risk factors other than that most of them came from the left, and there’s a chance they are a minority or otherwise belong to a group claimed by the left.

It’s never fully explained. The person themselves don’t seem aware of having changed. And the readers/listeners/watchers are left contemplating a transformation sudden and complete that we can’t help but experience as betrayal. This is not gradual change, like what I’ve gone through over the years, but sudden screaming fury.

I’m not going to hypothesize. I mean anything from possession to blackmail is on the table, though it’s probably particularly for those going against type just the attrition of being hated — really really hated. They bring the hellfire forge out for us — by the left, and distrusted by the right. Humans are social creatures. Isolate them and at some point they break.

I broke long ago, and am not sure I can break further.

Can I prevent you feeling betrayed? Probably not. A lot of people felt betrayed I didn’t think Russia is wonnerful TM. (Look you, I’d never think a totalitarian regime is wonnerful, even if it seem to support “right” values. Also, I’m afraid I know too much about Russian History and culture to even think their values are our own. I also won’t think China as currently constituted or in any form possible in the near future is wonnerful. I also think blackpill fights on the side of the enemy and I’ll never swallow it. Insert bit from Heinlein about being free even if chained. Will never surrender.)

What I want to say is that the problems I’ve had getting in arguments with long established fans are because either they’re trying to convince me of something I know is impossible, or because they are in violent agreement with me but refuse to realize it. And I have very little patience for being yelled at. I get enough of that from the cats, thank you.

But even when I get very upset, it’s not because they — or I — changed completely overnight.

Will I have the same opinions in ten years or twenty, supposing I’m alive? no. Things will happen and as facts impose upon my thoughts, my thoughts change.

However barring brain injury I’ll never change overnight. And if my opinion changes, I try to explain why. And some people — Foxfier, RES to name two — have pushed me back from forming and weird convictions by beating me with facts and figures which after research and investigation proved correct and my opinion wrong.

Anyway, not sure if any of this makes any sense. Just: I understand betrayal hurts. I’m a multiply-scalded cat, which is why I’m less likely to break completely.

As for the rest of you? Carry on. Even when betrayal breaks out heart, we must carry on.

Or as my grandmother said “Make your gut into a new heart and forge on.”

You’re allowed to be tired, and despondent, and eat rocky road ice cream even though it’s bad for you. But be not afraid. Through fire and betrayal, through falling and picking ourselves up: in the end we win, they lose. Even if not today.

216 thoughts on “Betrayal”

  1. “…eat rocky road ice cream even though it’s bad for you…”

    Wait, say what now? Sure, the lactose intolerant would be better finding a different food based soul balm, and diabetics would likely get in blood sugar trouble, but as a general rule?

    I am skeptical.

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      1. I gotta start packing on the kilograms, and pick an appropriate victim group since I am Caucasian, to have any chance on my Starfleet Academy application:

        Liked by 3 people

        1. Tell them that you’re a Xenomorph (critter from the Alien movies) in disguise.

          After all, beings that kill humans are OK. [Very Big Twisted Grin]

          Liked by 2 people

            1. I like Nerdrotic’s working theory that this is an elaborate humiliation ritual by the new ownership of Paramount aimed at Kurtzman and his entire cohort of message people, so they will be able to get out of the contract left over from the prior owners and fire him.

              Liked by 3 people

          2. Darn you, darn you all to heck Frank. I now have a mental image of Ms. O’Donnell in a catsuit and I now need to find the mind bleach.

            Liked by 3 people

    2. I’m skeptical only because there’s better ice cream out there. :) (FWIW, ice cream is actually far from the worst thing a diabetic could eat. Still on the list of things you shouldn’t…but the fat content mitigates the blood glucose swing. You can plan ahead for it.)

      Vanilla in a (diet) root beer float. The peaches ‘n cream flavor from Tillamook. Cookies and cream w/Oreo chunks. THAT’S what I’m talking about.

      Liked by 3 people

              1. 🤣

                Truth.

                Used to love making milk chocolate pudding. The cooked kind, not the instant version. Cool just enough that it can be eaten without being burned. Delicious. Still love the feel, and taste. But my system can’t tolerate the chocolate shock.

                Same with fancy expensive “rich” chocolates. Inexpensive chocolates, no problem, to a point. But one bite of the expensive stuff? Nope.

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            2. I have made an… interesting… thing. Some LOVE it.

              make brownies, but in round pans. Two pans worth. make chocolate cake in same sized pans. Trim as needed. Frosting is applied…. Brownie layer, frosting, cake layer, frosting, brownie layer, frosting. Yeah, you might have an “extra” (what’s that?!) cake layer. I am sure you can find something to do with it. But “Brownie-bread cake-sandwich…. well now.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. alamode with Coldstone’s dark chocolate ice cream. Chocolate fudge. and Hershey’s Special Dark chunks. ”

                Present to music – ST:TOS “The planet killer” theme.

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            3. The real Death by Chocolate dessert, demanded at every family gathering:

              Cook a pan of brownies with chocolate chunks.

              Cool. Take a large bowl and line the bottom with crumbled brownies. Mix up an instant chocolate pudding mix and pour over the brownies.

              Add a layer of whipped cream. Repeat the layer of brownies, another layer of of chocolate pudding mix, and another layer of whipped cream. Top with Skor bar bits and serve.

              Can switch chocolate pudding with caramel, or make brownies with extra strong coffee instead of water.

              Pudding and whipped cream are mostly milk, so there arguably some health benefits.

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              1. Equivalent of that (I could not finish, it was so rich) was chocolate pudding pie with brownie pieces and shaved chocolate mixed in, and shaved chocolate topping.

                Another is Chocolate Lava Cake: Chocolate Cake with chocolate pudding filling, chocolate icing, with hot fudge poured over.

                Just typing the above … Eek!!!!!!

                So, yea.

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        2. There’s one here from a local creamery that’s basically chocolate marble fudge with chocolate chips in it, named something like “chocolate fantasy.” No little marshmallows, though, if that’s a dealbreaker. Might or might not include nuts. But mucho chocolate.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. Same here, mostly. Nuts ought not to mingle freely with the general population.

              Except for those name-brand “peanut butter cups.” THOSE are the Existence Proof that successful rehabilitation is not impossible.

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            1. My MiL doesn’t understand why our default brownies and cookies are nut-free. It’s because there are far too many people out there with your problem.

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              1. They are off future holiday goodies because not enough of either get eaten, and then we are stuck with the leftovers, and throwing them out is not happening. Hubby makes the dream marshmallow chocolate fudge (old creamer style), one batch with walnuts (less likely to be an allergy), the other without.

                Liked by 1 person

        3. I’ve been to a few restaurants that served what I call Chocolate Overkill Cake. Very dense chocolate cake with heavy chocolate frosting, chunks of chocolate embedded in the frosting, decorated with white chocolate frosting. One piece will max out your calorie counter. 😁

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        4. When I auditioned for Jeopardy the first time it was in Orlando. And on my way back to the hotel I stopped in Downtown Disney and had a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. The clerk asked, “Would you like to have it in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone?”

          It was $10 (this was around 2013), had four or five scoops and was drenched in hot fudge sauce. It was wonderful. I couldn’t even look at chocolate for a couple of days, but it was worth it.

          (The audition was about 4 hours, no snacks, so I hadn’t had lunch. Plus, it was just after Easter and I’d given up chocolate for Lent. I promised myself that sundae before we got there).

          Liked by 3 people

        1. Same local creamery (“Treat Ice Cream”) still makes tin roof sundae, and my fav, heath bar crunch. They were a long time fixture in San Jose with their tiny hole in the wall retail through a side door at their factory, and very limited availability through only a few local groceries, but in 2021 the owners wanted to retire. There was much trepidation hereabouts, but in the end they were bought by a similarly local long time ice cream maker over the hill in Santa Cruz named “Mariannes Ice Cream”, with a promise made to continue making the same flavors basically on the same relocated machines using the same recipes, and so far so good.

          The only change so far is some of the flavors that used to be only available seasonally, like Mango Ice Cream with fresh mangoes, are now available more of the year.

          Liked by 1 person

      4. I was diagnosed in 2019. I am fond of fizzy drinks, AND sensitive to a lot of artificial sweetners. Therefore, I drink many of the “flavored water” type of fizzy drink.

        Someone should make a vanilla (“cream soda”) or root-beer flavor of fizzy water. The stores I patronize don’t seem to carry one, despite the fruity flavors stacked to the ceiling.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Sigh. The problem with monk fruit — she says — is that to me it tastes like the memory of having tasted something sweet.
            And it depends on the person. I react to all sweeteners as to sugar. So, screw it, I’ll use sugar sparingly. (The exception is liquid splenda on coffee and tea, because i use less of it than I would of sugar. (Liquid,a nd tastes sweeter.)) That’s it.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Whatever is used in the “Ice” fuzzy water 0 calories besides the touch of the actual fruit juices (sucrose, I think). Even at that, I can only stand a few flavors. The others are either “too sweet”, “stomach gets upset” (lemonade), or both. Kiwi Lemonade for the winner.

              Used to use the liquid additive Crystal Lite, sparingly (full recommended? No.) But the Raspberry Lemonade disappeared off local shelves. Cannot stand the other flavors.

              In general, not plain water. Please, no.

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            2. Tagalose or allulose might work for you (especially the tagalose – hubby says it reminds him of the powdered sugar he used to eat as a kid). Glycine might work, too. Both the ‘loses and the glycine are actually GOOD for the metabollically challenged.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. Try the Tagalose. And Glycine (Glycine is very sweet and I mix the two/three to get more sweet tasting. No BG bump.

                  And the allulose I get is made from figs as far as I know.

                  Liked by 1 person

        2. That is one test that came back as not diabetic (A1C = 5.6).

          Still cannot tolerate sweet drinks, not even most sweetened with artificial sweeteners. For some reason my system swears artificial sweeteners jacks the blood sugar, then it crashes because there is nothing for insulin to feed on. At least with real sugar or honey, there is something for the insulin to feed on.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I know. Not my GP or testing facility.

              Both have 5.8 for “prediabetes”, and 6.0+ for T2D.

              Both my sisters are considered diabetic, one is 5.8, the other (was) 6.0+.

              I’ve been consistent at 5.6. I’ll be persistent.

              Have seen the lab results on the cholesterol. All the numbers are way down. But some still read on the high side. Have not gotten an overview from the doctor yet. Doctor may wait until after the echocardiogram (probably every six months forever, heart valve), and carotid artery scan (there was a “whoosh”, but that could be an echo of the heart valve). Dad died because of arterial decease, and carotid block started it.

              I haven’t missed a single day of medicine dosage on the cholesterol (taken in the evening), since started. Missed two morning doses, but those are taken twice daily. Or why I have a morning reminder.

              Liked by 1 person

            1. “…some people react to artificial sweeteners as to sugar.”

              That makes evolutionary sense. The body’s very first clue that it’s time to serve up some insulin is “Mmmm. That’s sweet.”

              My own Food Philosophy is “Don’t eat anything that didn’t kill off your ancestors’ next-door neighbors.”

              Liked by 3 people

          3. When my wife was diagnosed with diabetes I did a bunch of reading on artificial sweeteners. I was astonished to find that many of them have a “glucose index” higher than straight table sugar.

            Just because it says “sugar-free” doesn’t mean it won’t do a number on your blood sugar.

            Liked by 3 people

            1. ““sugar-free” doesn’t mean it won’t do a number on your blood sugar.“

              –

              I know.

              I am reluctant to take any of the diabetic new helpers, regardless of the weight loss (gotta do it the hard way) potential. I have had enough trouble with blood sugar crashes. The new medications I am on, side effects between “could make blood sugar higher”, “could make blood sugar lower”, seems to have settled somewhere in the middle. OTOH I tend to figure out what the diet is that works, and I’m okay for a while, and then my system goes “nah, this won’t work anymore”. So, we’ll see.

              One tool that has helped, was OTC CGM. Not using one now. The one that worked the best (more accurate with blood sugar meter) is an import (LINX), and difficult to get (a theme with even the prescription versions). One of the shockers was chewable vitamins and supplements, I swear they were worse than candy on an empty stomach. Something that is tiny.

              I’ll just keep insisting on taking at least annual tests, even if the insurance insists I pay for it.

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        3. I think that’s because a lot of people, myself included, find that the fruit flavors pair best with the taste / aftertaste of artificial sweeteners.

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      5. Vanilla in a (diet) root beer float.

        Root beer floats are for amateurs…

        Scoop of vanilla in Vernors, now we’re talkin’ serious floats (AKA, for some reason, a “Boston Cooler,” which is made using a Detroit-centric soda)

        Dang, now I think I need to tell wife-unit to pick up a 2 liter of Vernors and a quart of vanilla ice cream…

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  2. How can it be a betrayal if the other person never “swore allegiance” to you? [Crazy Grin]

    Note, there’s an author whose politics I strongly disliked but he still wrote stories that I enjoyed.

    Of course, this author was able to work with another author who had political views that differed from his own

    People can be very complex.

    Liked by 4 people

  4. “…Which is why I don’t tend to write aliens” — I’ve always been impressed/amazed by writers who not only can write plausible aliens (very alien ones) but get into their heads and imagine ways they would think that is quite different from humans. Larry Niven does this quite well.

    “Nessus, is there any water where you are?” — “Only in the solid form.”

    (in response to watching the human grill a piece of meat) “I realize the meat is not very fresh, but I don’t think cremation is the answer.”

    You spoke of a night spent dreaming of an imaginary world as an occupational hazard. I would think of it as a good thing, your subconscious supplying you with images in a helpful way.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. The last ten years of franchise ownership have been loud, big, obvious betrayals. What was startling was how fast it happened and who got hit, as the internal politics were easily missed or ignored early on.

    But they were not the first betrayals. A lot of the signs were there if you had seen them before in other properties and could recognize them coming in time to insulate yourself somewhat. The reductio in absurdum was only surprising because “that used to be satire….” Even if you carried the satire to the logical end as a thought-experiment, seeing someone do it is still initially a “Wait, what?” kind of reaction.

    Now? Scarred souls are as jaded as anything, and people are breaking in all kinds of ways, both anticipated and not. It is not a fun world to live in but it is all we have. :goes to pick up paint and get to work, whistling:

    Liked by 8 people

    1. Towards the end of my college studies I worked part time for a company that offered a franchise for branded computer stores, both at the showcase retail store and then at the warehouse shipping out franchise startup inventories. I had no effing idea politics and backstabbing could be that pervasive. Talk about a wretched hive of scum and villainy. And that sets completely aside what we employees figured was organized crime family money backing from offshore. I still imagine the organized crime folks were shocked at the depths of the franchise retail world.

      It certainly cured me for a lifetime of any hints at thoughts toward going franchising.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Out of a misplaced sense of charity, corporate ownership of IP and management of content creation can screw up without the deliberate choice from malice.

        There are two strands. One is that a company is owned by people, who direct that senior managers are hired. The senior managers have effective control over the IP that is technically owned by the company.

        Two, managers hire content creators from somewhere. I harp about university programs, but that is because I understand failure modes of those more than I understand the failure modes of influence networks within an industry.

        Basically, IPs have some value that is both regularly proven in merchandise sales, and also a theoretical or assumed value.

        I’ve quite enjoyed story IPs, whose original and purposeful design was the sale of merch that I never bought.

        Anyway, the accounting estimate of the merch valuation of an IP seems like it might be straightforward.

        Evaluating the emotional or pattern value of the IP story content, is a skill. Story pattern, emotional resonances, and audience estimation. Not trivial, even when one is ready to be wrong, and learn from it. (Being entirely sold on academic theory already having answers may be a disabiltiy here.)

        Anyway, it is pretty much possible to evaluate the skill of your story telling hires, by having them prepare a test story, and evaluating it. If you can evaluate stories. If.

        But, if you have an IP that lucked into a set up that works, the folks who started it might not know test and evaluation enough to help you understand if version 2.0 or 3.0 breaks the first version.

        There’s a hazard where your early gen creators can’t help you, your current management team is blind, and by chance everyone you can hire is a lunatic that does not know what working would look like. This will be rare if your supply of newbie seed creatros does not suddenly become unusually bad, and if old hands are allowed to stay in the business and be heard by folks.

        Training camp cults that want to eliminate the four olds will tend to ruin that.

        Liked by 2 people

    3. I watched and even enjoyed ST Discovery and ST Strange New Worlds even though the former was a prolonged Mary Sue (Look I’m Black and I’m a Mary Sue, a twofer!) and tried to sneak in a trans character. They did the latter by using the pre-existing Trill species though, and the character who they tried to cast as pretty sexless was a rather minor character.

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      1. Eh, I could actually *see* a Trill whose symbiote had a long chain of exlusively one sex being implanted in the other for the first time hitting a legit dysphoria. Aliens are alien.

        Of course, Trek level medicine actually demonstrates at one time or another all of the necessary components for a true sex change, unlike our current butchery.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. I tend to think that some minds literally break under extreme pressure. That pressure might be social, political, or even physical.

    The speed and angle of the breaks now being displayed and encouraged suggests to me a physical change in the environment that affects everyone equally but in different ways.

    I know that in the last few years I have become reckless. I am in control, but twice I have recognized that I will put other people in danger, and turned around and went home.

    For people whose minds are less disciplined, I imagine this could easily turn violent.

    I have seen similar tendencies in other people, and I have an idea what is causing it without any proof.

    I imagine that for someone not moored in strict reality, any break in their image of the world might be a dangerous breach of trust.

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      1. Too many things went strange, too quickly, and toss in BLM (not the real one but the other one) and the election, and it felt like a rug yanked out from under society. Some of us regained our footing, and keep an eye out for loose floor coverings. Others …. didn’t.

        Liked by 5 people

      2. I swear I snapped in 20-22. I still don’t know if it was all the stress of a sick husband, or if the vax had any effect (the feelings of rage were worst in the months after I got the vax).

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  7. Feeling like you’ve been betrayed? BEING betrayed. Had this happen to me last spring. Lost a friend of 25 years who went nuts over politics, got every friend we had in common to ostracize me and lock me out of a creative pastime I’ve loved for most of my life.

    What puzzles me about it is that this was somebody who KNOWS what it’s like to live among a hugely dominant majority that you don’t agree with and that will (no less painfully for lack of malice) ostracize and snub the “outsiders” in their midst. A few years of living in a place where everybody agrees with him (or hides it if they don’t), and now he can’t grok the idea of a friend who doesn’t agree with him politically on everything. It’s like the man I knew died and got replaced by…something else.

    Still trying to process it, and haven’t been able to fully enjoy that pastime ever since (but I’m working my way back). I’m trying to do the Christian thing and forgive (forget? no, never), but I’ve never been very good at it.

    Maybe it’s just my limited perception and not having paid attention until about 15 years ago, but it seems like everybody on one side of the aisle suddenly, not very long ago (say, 2016) received license to indulge all the mean, spiteful impulses that civilized people are usually trained to suppress.

    Liked by 6 people

    2. The social pressure of the masses is real. If everybody– your priest, your spouse, your boss, your coworker, your friend group, mass media, movies, comic books, actual books, all of that agree on something- is there something wrong with you or is there something wrong with the universe?

      Even if you’ve been on the outside before. Human beings are social creatures. Yes, even extreme introverts. Perhaps especially so, we have smaller friend groups, therefore the percentages and concentrations are necessarily higher. That social pressure is not something to be overlooked.

      Look, some people adjust to or simply break under pressure. Others harden, like the piece of gum that got stuck under a seat in 2007 and is now there, hard as volcanic rock, and just as immovable. Not always the best thing, especially considering genetic level stubbornness in some of us (me).

      We are not obligated to be doormats, as Christians. One can indeed forgive, but when there is no contrition or even understanding on the other side, well, you can’t make that horse drink. That’s on them. Forgiveness is for yourself as much as it is for others. Carrying the weight of betrayal or anger or frustration ain’t healthy. It’ll drive you mad. MAD I tell you!

      What Sarah said is true- they were out and out telling not just each other, but the whole world that they’d won and it was forever now. There’d be no walking back, this was the future until we all died of lead poisoning for the revolution, or starved on the bug diet, or whatnot.

      It’s also the culmination of a generations long march through the institutions. Yes, a march- in lockstep, everyone looking the same (ideologically) and chanting the same shibboleths to the Gnu Regime. It’s all the culture of the elites going red, the lower class seduced, inculcated, and indoctrinated into becoming less than their potential: drones for votes, and incompetent children otherwise: lashing out in adult temper tantrums because they’d never been taught the virtues of self control, hard work, and self discipline.

      It’s easy to be frustrated with those that become seduced by the lies. Angered, even. Betrayed. But those pitiable ones that burn what they have built and earned for the fake gilt and fading glamour of social conformity are a sad sort. Sometimes they find their way back. Others… Well, human beings make choices in life. I pray that we may learn the correct lessons from them.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Carrying the weight of betrayal or anger or frustration ain’t healthy.

        This. My anger at betrayal burns hot, but fast. I’ve been told that revenge is best served cold, but by the time it’s cold, I’ve lost interest. I’ve also been told that vengeance is not all that satisfying. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’ve never had the opportunity to find out. I wouldn’t mind finding out – for testing purposes only, of course.

        A book I just read really, really tries to resolve interpersonal conflict without violence. It’s scripted, so of course it works. I find it deeply unsatisfying – although very practical. As a real-world methodology, it’s a good idea. In fiction, I don’t like it.

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        1. *I’ve also been told that vengeance is not all that satisfying. *

          It is not. A just recompense might be satisfying. Contrition and a step on the path to redemption from those what have wronged us, that might be better. Even open acknowledgement of fault could help.

          But simple revenge? sigh Not enough. Never enough. It breeds a conflagration, it does not cool the coals. This is why vigilantism is to be avoided. The thirst for vengeance for me and mine is rarely, if ever, slaked.

          I’ve barely recall much of what fueled my fires, once upon a time. This may be more of a male thing, I think, as many of the women in my family and of my acquaintance tend to hold on to hurts long enough for them to grow old and die, then make artistic effigies of the corpses and put them on a shelf to glare at whenever it strikes their fancy. Even those that, once upon a time, tried to end me don’t inspire much more than “meh. They missed.”

          That said, there is good reason for cultivating forgiveness. Wrath that burns hot in the moment and then fades, well, if one has the self control to restrain impulsive combat, that’s a bullet dodged.

          Under no circumstances completely forget, though. Our ability to recognize and remember threat is a well developed part of our humanity for good damned reason. Time was, it was survival in the short and long terms. Not so different today. Viz. the actions and speech of certain of our opposite political number.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Never forget the victim. Never forget the incident. Forget the perpetrator, they are not worthy of remembering. If the name pops up in subsequent news, you know who that is. But, you don’t dredge up the name just because.

            Liked by 1 person

    4. There are a bunch of caveats to me saying ‘they were insane all along, but not visibly so’. Including ‘what is sane’, and ‘how would I (1) know anything about sanity?’ Old mental health consensus is that pathology was relative to a specific culture. So invisible/visible changes where the inner workings of the mind are the same are maybe exactly a case that falls into an undefined area, or an area we never understood and had consensus opinions on.

      Anyway, HRC was always eaten up inside, tip to tail with ambition. She set herself up as the idol that feminists used as a proxy for female success. (I call this position the King Feminist.) She has also been very paranoid since that near fatal accident in the early 1990s. The 2016 election seems to have thrown her over the edge, and she was in a position to drag the rest of the Democratic Party with her. (Because she is the King Feminist, and because she and Bill hollowed out the Democratic Party entirely to make it a vehicle for their ambitions.)

      Obama being in a position to compete for the Presidency is pretty much the Democratic Party being hollowed out. The Clintons did not like competent people who were not their own cronies. They selectively removed a lot of politicians who had their own bases, and who were more interested in their own success than in conforming to the Party Truth. (Incidentally, this is when a lot of the Dixiecrats were push out, as I understand it.) Anyway, the Clintons did not want conventionally sane people, politicians who aimed at conventionally moderate voters, and who were moderately intelligent to very intelligent, and who could get or sustain themselves into congressional, senate, or governor positions.

      They emptied the talent pool of the party.

      So, yes, HRC could be viable in 2008. But, Obama was able to come in from the academic left, and outfraud her in securing the party’s nomination. He also cut a deal with her, with the Secretary of State position, which is historically a ‘good’ one for bona fides wrt the President’s office. So she took that, and did not go all out in taking revenge on Obama.

      Trump’s break with Obama may have been entirely due to carrying water for HRC’s attempt to beat Obama in 2008. So Trump beating her with the Republican nomination might, in hindsight, be expected to be especially destabilizing for HRC.

      The exact timeline from 2016, and who was actually escalating, might be open to some legitimate differences of opinion.

      Democrat narrative is of course that Trump is just that bad, and that unusual. Which the David Frenchs, etc., concur on.

      My basic view is that it is the Democrats which visibly shifted behavior. Largely based on the 2018 cycle in one particular state, which I found a bit unsettling then. In hindsight, I was naive.

      (I will note, that in 2016, I had problems with the ‘lock her up’ rhetoric, and considered it potentially destabilizing. That sort of political calculation feels too utilitarian, and not broadly resonant enough to explain the thing.)

      (1) This is at least a joke at my own expense, and might be a serious point at well.

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  8. Interesting thought provoking descriptions.

    Led me to considering various forms of betrayal and reactions in my life. There was the first committed female partner. I had never considered that such a thing could happen. You’d think an intelligent 18 year old would. My jumbled response led to repeated betrayals on my part in intimate relationships THEN making a difficult commitment as a form of penance that nearly killed me. Finally got that dysfunctional approach eradicated sixteen years ago. But lots of baggage remains.

    Multiple betrayals in business world I never let screw me up. Just sadness briefly before moving on from my side. Not surprisingly the betrayers seemed to have difficulty letting go, and your explanation seems appropriate for their situation.

    Only blood family betrayal from one kid sadly indoctrinated both by elite college and my ex, and of course he thinks its all my fault. Sigh.

    How paradoxical that only in-laws betrayal is from the solid long term current relationship- except they are all deep blue cult members. Those red pilled aren’t part of that fortunately.

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  9. I’m spoiled. Nobody has threatened to kill me over my books. A few other things, yes. But not my books. I have had some people flip out and rant. One because I use metric measures instead of Imperial. Another found that a woman character, who was a sovereign of a world with ships and soldiers, taking lovers indicated I was a pedophile. Because she had life extending medical care that froze her appearance in her teens. You can’t make everyone happy.

    I only diverge on politics because I think you can make any difference unless you are a billionaire or own nuclear weapons. I think Sarah’s heart is in the right place but don’t have any large thermonuclear weapons with which to gift her. (Or $Billions)

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  10. The year I turned 13 everyone else around me changed. I didn’t. From that point on I became the designated target, which lasted until halfway through my senior year. Being suddenly cast out by the crowd no longer surprises me. Disappoints, hurts, upsets, but not surprise.

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  11. This post just solved a block I was having in a story. I have a few gay characters, good characters, but I am not gay, nothing against the life style, if you believe in freedom you have to let others make their choices for themselves that is freedom, you don’t have to agree with their choices, but they are not yours to make. Love the sinner, hate the sin. You be you, I’ll be me.

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  12. As to writers who write good books despite their predilections, I list Dalton Trumbo. The man wrote some great movie scripts even though he was a dyed in the wool devotee of communism even during Stalin, who publicly pivoted from “peace at any price” for the US during the Hitler/Stalin pact to “we gotta go to war now” the second the Nazis attacked the USSR.

    OTOH I’ve stopped dead in my tracks following certain authors/franchises/TV series when they did something unforgivable. With Star Wars it was Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks were stupid, but to go from the feisty competent Princess Leia of the first two movies to the nothing but eye candy of the third was a bridge too far. (I think Lucas was bitter from a difficult divorce, but that’s beside the point.)

    Thomas Hardy lost me when he had every character acting insanely stupidly in Tess of d’Ubervilles. Last of his novels I ever read. Longmire lost me when they had a father murder his slightly less villainous 30 year old son, saying, “I can make another son.” That felt like having the Marquis de Sade suddenly appear in the middle of a Hallmark movie. Likewise the TV series Nashville went from dramatic series with many flawed characters to over the top soap opera pastiche by playing Roadrunner vs. Coyote and not in a comic way.

    The difference is I didn’t start hate campaigns against any of these folks. I just stopped wasting my money and time on them. The communists are always the ones given to that sort of hysteria, always have been, as documented by Whitaker Chambers in Witness.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Laurance Dahners. I loved his books. They’re a bit Young Adult for me, but they were fun. Then a series (VAZ, I think) started a bit victim-y and went full-on woke (book 3 or 4). I left a “What happened to you?!? Sorry, but done” review and moved on.

      I wasn’t the only one. Years later, I read something new, just to check. He apparently reads the reviews. He had recovered. His latest, Tales of Simple Magic, is back to normal.

      While a bit saddened, I did not view it is a betrayal, or even much of an inconvenience. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know I exist. They’re his characters in his books. He can do what he wants with them. That doesn’t mean I need to read it, though.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. Knock on wood, I haven’t been fully betrayed by friends. I’ve been dropped, but minus the full-throated screaming mob. I don’t really miss those who’ve ghosted me. I’m just gonna keep going for now and see what happens.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. As to family and betrayal, there’s a reason I call myself a self-made bastard. I wrote an essay explaining it, but it’s basically a Festivus essay, so I’ve never published it.

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    1. A cynic is an optimist by nature and a realist by sad experience. Some people think this is a cynical definition, but I think it is realistic.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Quite so. Cynicism looks at the world through half lidded eyes, seeing past the drama and glitter to the festering cesspool that is oft found beneath. I’ve been a depressive and cynic by genetic and natural bent my entire life.

        Optimism, far as it stretches, is a survival mechanism after a while. One cannot maintain it without scars. Not wide eyed, unbiased optimism, oh heavens no. I am very biased. But there remains beauty in the world despite cruelty, nihilism, ennui, sadism, greed, and other debased things.

        Innocence is precious, but fragile. It is doomed to break, should it survive. Optimism after decades of seeing and being in a world that kicks you in the teeth more often then you have breakfasts is neither stupidity nor credulousness.

        It is choosing to look for the good that exists. It is seeing it, recognizing it, and appreciating it despite the depression, the exhaustion (moral and otherwise), the distraction, and the effort.

        Good is often overlooked and forgotten. Human brains hold onto the bad things tighter. It’s not easy to seek such things and hold onto them. But it is worth it. Both from a personal perspective and a civilizational one.

        The left conjures illusory visions of vague perfection. Things like the climate hoax, Marxism, and certain religions of which I shan’t speak, they evoke things in deliberately religious tones. They’re not assailable by logic, they are housed in the part of the brain that faith lives. The same sort of thing that cults entrap folks with.

        Good things can be simple, but deep. The birth of a child, for example. That is a new soul and a new vision and proto-gestalt intelligence, a veritable world in and of itself, from the union of two people. Good can also be complex and awe inspiring- space, moon space stations, people living, working, and creating an entire lunar economy- pretty darned awesome, and that in itself is a kind of good, too.

        Scratch a cynic and you’ll find a hopeful man who has been burned perhaps one or one million too many times. One who has been trained or trained himself to expect only bad outcomes. The polar opposite, expecting only good ones, is not optimism, it’s utter foolishness. Optimism is looking for the good.

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        1. In my youth I fancied myself something of a cynic, saying “A pessimist can always be pleasantly surprised.” But I found it got really wearing forcing the expectation of the worst, just so anything better was not a disappointment. And then when “pleasantly surprised”, I could not feel that pleasantness as something bad was then bound to happen, under my self imposed pessimism.

          In the end I decided that my life maintaining an optimistic outlook was vastly hugely immeasurably better on a day to day basis than it was moping around just in case something might disappoint.

          You do you, your mileage may vary, objects in mirror are closer than they appear, etc., but going through life expecting only the worst was for me itself the worst.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Cynicism always claims to be the only true realism, even when it does olympic gold medal worthy gymnastics to avoid seeing reality if that reality would suggest that not *all* is lost.

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  15. The thing is (getting back to fans and writers or personalities who have fans) – if you are even slightly in the public eye, the audience has a sort of simulacrum notion of your character, and what you are like. I suppose that people who have on-line friends run into the same thing; they know the image of you … but likely not the real you. And if you suddenly and unaccountably (in their envisioning) behave in a manner not consistent with the image in their heads … they are disconcerted at best, and disillusioned and bitter at worst. You’ve betrayed the vision of ‘you’.

    Liked by 4 people

    3. Oh yeah, it’s quite the… experience… to have someone dub you something you are utterly and absolutely NOT because you didn’t kowtow to their screwed up image of how the world works the way they say it does – and since they said it, therefore MUST.

      Being corrected by the sane… yeah, that happens.

      Being “corrected” by the insane? Yeah, I need multiple INDEPENDENT and NON-ALIGNED confirming sources. Demons masquerade as angels.

      Liked by 2 people

  16. It hardened my opinion that some cultures are not fixable.

    Well, if you neuter the culture can’t you then call it fixed? Once the culture is no longer able to procreate, well, only one more generation and it’s not the problem, right?

    I mean, our ancestors had some ideas. Horribad, terriful, borfing solutions, but… They worked. For certain values of “worked.”

    Of course there is also the regrettable human constant of banditry, laziness, and naked cupidity that is the bedrock (originally wrote that as badrock, which should be a word) of certain cultures. That sort of thing should be punished at every instance of uncivil and violent tantrum that they exhibit.

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    1. Neutering a culture generally destroys the good in it, leaving the remains open to rot. To quote Chesterton’s Father Brown, men may maintain a certain level of goodness, but not of evil. Evil always finds a pathway further down.

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      1. Charles Williams covered that path very well in, Descent Into Hell. One character faces her fears with the help of a wise poet, and is redeemed. One goes from simple academic dishonesty to envy to…well, read the book. It’s good.

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      2. Not every culture is worth saving. As there is good in people, nigh every person in point of fact, so there is in cultures.

        Yet, as with people, some just need killin’.

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  17. Forgive me, the moment demands that I dissent.

    The Left certainly has its considerable arsenal of semantic weapons to stifle and smother disagreement. But, so does the Right.

    Ostensibly the force to restore freedom of conscience, increasingly cliches concocted in partisan influence studios are pervading this side of the aisle, polluting the discource and making the real work of democratic (small d, dammit!) truth seeking.

    When I speak my true reservations about Trump’s style and methods, his incessant whining about the Nobel Prize and my own discomfort about being forced to tell myself that my president doesn’t really mean what he’s saying, it’s just a negotiating tactic; when I say something I am bombarded by accusations of being a RINO, of having TDS. I am not allowed to have a divergent opinion. I must either agree or shut up. Maybe you can guess my response.

    Hellluva liberation movement says Libertarian me. The Right is becoming indistinguishable from the Left in its reactivity to perceived heresy. The silos are hardening just as the differences are losing relevance. (Remember Star Trek “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield? That’s where we are. I doesn’t matter anymore what you believe, it is the shibboleth that you invoke that identifies you.)

    This would be just the expected rough-and-tumble of politics in an anxious age. But, it has become ubiquitous. I fully expect this post to be vigorously flamed. So be it.

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    1. You’re not wrong that there are also pudding heads on the left. As the good book says: The pudding heads shall always be with you. A lot are young and trying their wings (I too was once a pudding head.) Others aren’t even American. And some are natural born pudding heads. As your cause becomes more popular, you’ll attract more of them. You’ll attract more of EVERYONE.
      You are wrong to be embarrassed by Trump’s negotiating tactics. What he wants is not stupid, if you know the geopolitical situation. His negotiating tactic is not presidential. If it were, he’d be throwing American blood at it. I rather he uses the Art of the Deal.
      As for being embarrassed by a president, the press just didn’t report the utter buffoonery of Obama and CLinton (The streets that Romulus and Remus walked REALLY?) Ignore the style, and take a deep breath that at least we’re not in fact landing troops, which other presidents did at the drop of a hat.
      As for the cringe movie houses of the right and such, this is old. It’s part of being held out of the “main” creation field. You value what’s different and…. Yeah, they’re cringe and just so stories.
      I can’t do that to save my life, which is why I get accused both of being a nazi and a communist. Eh. It’s a living. And it might not be the BEST living, but it’s the one I can make.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Ah yes, those were the days…, when Obama sent planes loaded with $1.7 billion cash to Iran while they were publicly proclaiming us the Great Satan and death to America, when Joe Biden stood up for his son taking payoffs from Ukraine by insisting their internal corruption probe pound sand. But Trump blusters about taking Greenland by force. Yes, Trump is non-presidential (for some values of presidential), but he got rid of illegal immigration. He got rid of Maduro. He’s stopped the “free trade” scam where we were effectively the only country on the planet without tariffs (yes, Europe was full of tariffs to keep out US goods as was/is Canada).

        Yes, I’ll admit Trump doesn’t engage in stirring oratory like JFK or Ronald Reagan or God help us, Barack Obama (Yes, his speeches were great oratory but they were all lies.) But then Trump doesn’t force others to take meetings with him while he’s on the toilet or hoist his pet beagles by their ears to amuse onlookers. For that matter he doesn’t have dogs that are allowed to attack his own Secret Service guards as our previous president did. Trump gets things done.

        Do we want rhetoric or results? One of my favorite moments from all the presidential debates I’ve seen is from 2000. Al Gore spent several minutes getting into high dudgeon because G. W. Bush as governor of Texas, vetoed hate crime legislation despite a well-publicized heinous race crime where two redneck chuckleheads tortured a poor black man to death by dragging him behind their pickup. Bush replied, “We put those murderers to death. What else did you want us to do to them?”

        Liked by 3 people

      2.  His negotiating tactic is not presidential. If it were, he’d be throwing American blood at it. I rather he uses the Art of the Deal.

        From my perspective, he’s memorized Peace of Dives, and he does it better than anyone other than Dives himself. However, his weak spot (if he has one) is in recognizing people who are not rational enough to make the Deal, or too fundamentally dishonest to be trusted to keep it.

        But to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West—
        And their hates were nothing weakened nor their anger nor unrest—
        And they pawned their utmost trade
        For the dry, decreeing blade;
        And Dives lent and took of them their best.

        Then Satan said to Dives:—“Declare thou by The Name,
        “The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame.
        “It is known through all the Hells
        “How my peoples mocked my spells,
        “And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came.”

        Then answered cunning Dives: “Do not gold and hate abide
        “At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
        “With gold and fear and hate
        “I have harnessed state to state,
        “And by hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.

        https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_dives.htm

        Kipling wrote this before WWI, and the events of that war (including the death of his son) damaged his optimism.

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    2. Trump isn’t a gentleman. He would fit in with most of our historical presidents up to the turn of the 20th century. They were egotistical, determined men who were convinced they were the best for the job. Putting him in the same room with any of them would be two bulls in a chinashop.

      When television became part of the political arena, the people of the US started electing pretty-boy orators.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. You didn’t say the quiet part “Pretty boy orators who were communist operatives, at least on the left.”
        Heinlein said they took over the party in the forties.
        And the “Both sides are bad” is exactly the USSR flex, and probably run by the same book, including planting and amplifying the worst effects of chowderheads on the self-proclaimed right.

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        1. Yes, the equivocation can fit right into the Comintern playbook. But, ….

          There is a reason why Senators and Congresscritters address each other with ostentatious courtesy – there always has been a very real chance that disagreements could lead to fisticuffs or worse. (We really don’t want to have the Taiwanese congress.)

          That Trump takes his combative style to another level is one thing. (Trump is Trump.) The thing that bothers me is that he is setting the tone for throngs of those eager to “Follow the Leader” in a mirror Cultural Revolution.

          At every historical turn, the public divides in thirds. One third fervently supported the revolution against the king, one third was equally devoted to their oaths to that king, in the middle a third was undecided, had mixed feelings, were frightened or merely indifferent. In a more-or-less democratic polity, it is that middle third that decides. It is that middle that must be persuaded.

          Today’s moment is no different. Trump won because the middle trusted him more than Kamala, on the margin. It is always on the margin.

          Despising that middle is tantamount to the Democrats’ hatred for the Working Class. It places self flattery before objective pollitical interests. They lost because they said “don’t believe your lying eyes” once too often. That’s becoming a danger on this side as well.

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          1. He’s not taking half the combative style most of the people want. And I think you’ll find the middle DOESN’T CARE> Liberals do. As do a certain type of “nice” women.

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          2. You didn’t read his book, “The Art Of The Deal”? Really essential stuff to understanding his various antics. So is “The art Of War”, which he clearly uses.

            Trump’s antics are deliberate act, that makes the ultimate goal seem quite reasonable compared to the initial demands.

            I don’t see much crazy “our way or highway” on the right. I do see a very enthusiastic rip-to-shreds of false equivalence, and basic errors of fact or logic. If you are getting chewed, perhaps its your method or approach?

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            1. I’m seeing a lot. I mean an awful lot.

              If you dare to doubt DJT the reactions are furious and often hilarious. (In another space I was accused of being a Zionist tool. I just quietly left the room after that one. No use arguing with crazy.)

              I do not idolize or lionize politicians. I voted for Trump 3x, but when I see him hawking watches on Fox News I feel disrespected. He has been a salutary change, but I worry about what comes next.

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              1. We doubt him all the time. But not on stupid crap like “Style” — I mean we already had one president with perfect pant creases.
                And if you care what “the world” thinks of our president, you’ll only vote for democrats. Everyone else gets demonized. I lived in Europe for Reagan.
                Look, chill and use you head.
                I heard all the “he’s too brash and mean” and drives away the center from the DeSantistas in the run up to 2024. I knew it was propaganda then. It remains propaganda now. The only people who fall for it are the status-insecure. Oh, and the young.
                But you’re moving goal posts at speed. You started this by saying the right was cancelling people just like the left.
                And I give you that there’s a current of “you shouldn’t allow women to write novels. They’re all communists.”
                I suspect most of those, liek the fandom of NF are manufactured and foreign and both.
                BUT the right isn’t cancelling anyone for the simple reason we don’t have the levers of power. Right (to the right of Lenin) arts are all indie and or tiny.
                I will also submit that you should study game theory. The only reason we don’t have levers of power is that the left has been cancelling, first quietly then increasingly openly for fifty years.
                If you’re going to whine about the current right, point me to where people are getting banned from FB or X for using lefty talking points. Or where they go in fear of debanking.
                Lest you mistake my meaning: THIS WAS DAILY REALITY FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME 2020/2024.
                Or do you want to discuss IRS fishing expeditions? Because I have that T-shirt too and I’m by no means the worst of right wing bloggers.
                Before you can stand there and say we’re indistinguishable there MUST be comparable malfeasance. Not style, not words and not “But Trump is so declasse, my European friends won’t like me anymore.” MISDEEDS. Attempts to silence, bankrupt and marginalize competing viewpoints. (And no, getting ratioed on Twitter isn’t that.)

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Please read a little closer.

                  I’m not talking about creases in trousers.

                  Ultimately, it’s not even about DJT. It isn’t even a matter of ideology. It is the question of placing leaders on a pedestal.

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                  1. NO ONE is placing him on a pedestal. Not here, at least, and few people I run into. He’s too brash, too NYC.
                    People at most give him a positive employee review.
                    Also, you JUST switched those goal posts at warp speed again, from “the right iis now the same as the left and cancels people” To “We shouldn’t worship our leaders.”
                    I will believe you didn’t do it on purpose, maybe. But I recommend disciplining your mind and thinking logically from one end to the other.

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                    1. I wanted Trump style trolling, but in an extremely spergy way that he rarely comes close to delivering on.

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                    3. The punishment and canceling that I spoke of is precisely due to not worshiping the man. Plain and simple.

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                    5. Come back to me when Larry Correia has been cancelled.
                      Again from the top, who’s been debanked, or subjected to IRS harassment or even cancelled on social media? WHO?

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                  2. He is a liberal democrat, and inherently has the problems of liberals, Liberals, democrats, and Democrats.

                    We had no viable substitute in 2024, because of the stupid way the Democrats choose to gamble on power politics. The Democrats were the only source on him authorizing the unorganized militia to clean out the Democrat criminal conspiracy by force of arms. The offramps from that theory were a) convincing the public that there was no criminal conspiracy by the Democrats or b) convincing the public that Trump had not given such an order. The legal novelties proposed by Democrats were so ignorant that they wound up convincing undecided people that there could have been a massive Democrat conspiracy. So that basically required giving Trump a venue to give such orders again, with less interference possible with his communications, so that the failure to give such orders tends to disprove the hypothesis that he gave such orders on Jan. 6., 2021.

                    Trump’s EOs have been extreme in some respects, but they are not consistent with the claimed Jan. 6, 2021 order.

                    He is one year down, three left, and has very limited potential to accomplish anything compared to what needs doing.

                    The Republicans are basically screwed when it comes to successors that are truly proven viable. If the Democrats can come up with ploys that are better than ghost dancing their personal insanity.

                    Most foreign leadership basically belongs in the old legal category of ‘common enemies of all mankind’.

                    Current day political problems are annoying, and will require some non-rote thinking. Nobody with any sense wants to be stuck with the fixing things bill for US politics, or for world politics.

                    And here we are.

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                    1. Trump was sufficient to the moment. And, yes he did get screwed.

                      But, he really needs to break character every now and then, look at the camera and tell the people what’s what. More work, less talk.

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                2. “And I give you that there’s a current of “you shouldn’t allow women to write novels. They’re all communists.”“

                  –

                  Wait? Where? Not saying this isn’t being said. What I will say is most of the authors, not all, but higher percentage, of the authors I am reading, are, by published name, women. And I’m getting very few off of *indie, including yours, Sarah.

                  I don’t pick up a book based off the author’s name. I pick up a book, or series, based on the description blurb. Okay, these days I am choosing a new author based off of discounted pricing, too. But when you have (I’m an infant) almost 2000 book titles in your library, as someone who re-reads, one gets a little pickier.

                  (*) Amazon, I’m guessing. Does Nook have an indie option? Not going through BookFunnel, yet. Primarily because haven’t figured out how to add the appropriate ebook extension to the Windows, or Android, Nook and Amazon apps. Or found a generic Android reading app I like (I’d even pay); any suggestions. Calibre works for generic app on Windows.

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        2. Make that ‘Posturing pretty-boy orators that lack any talent or ability beyond reciting words composed by other people.’

          AND are communists.

          Except for The Mummy. The opposite of a pretty-boy, and couldn’t successfully recite words with 4 teleprompters shoved in his face. Still a commie, though.

          Reagan was our last great President. Trump 2.0 is by far the best one since.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Nope, but he’s very good at using his rhetoric to get what he wants and drive his enemies nuts. They all left Davos thinking they faced down the bully and won because he didn’t nuke Denmark to seize Greenland. They probably just agreed to give him the bases and access he wanted in the first place.

            Liked by 1 person

    3. The Right is becoming indistinguishable from the Left in its reactivity to perceived heresy.

      (Sorry this turned out to be so long. Like the man said, I don’t have the time (or patience, or self-discipline) to make it shorter.)

      I read this late last night, and hoped it wouldn’t still be yes-butting me today. Alas.

      The Right, infuriatingly, adopts the Left’s rhetorical Dirty Tricks. Both sides “reason” from the same self-evident premise: “We are the Light! They are the Darkness that comprehendeth it not!”

      The latest still-steaming example comes from that poor, stupid woman in Minneapolis.

      A Talk Radio dood–I’m sure “pundit” is the word he’d prefer–currently runs as his promo a cut of himself saying she “tried to run over an ICE agent.”

      No. No, she effing did not “try to run him over.”

      Outside of fiction and mainstream “news” (BIRM), actively homicidal soccer moms are rare. OTOH, the vast majority of women try to Fit In with–i.e. “not be shunned by”–(what they think is) the Dominant Group. They are Agreeable.

      There’s no doubt in my mind that she really, truly, sincerely thought she was “just looking out for the ‘neighbors'”–in the generalized sense of the word, though she (“allegedly”) wasn’t a local.

      She stupidly, Agreeably, obeyed her Stupid Bee “wife’s” command to “Drive, baby! Drive!”

      Meanwhile, ICE agents–LEOs in general–are justifiably fed up with having their lives really, truly endangered by angry mobs, whipped up by smugly self-righteous AWFULs.

      I COMPLETELY understand–and share–the idea that Being An Instructive Example–“pour (dé)courager les autres“–is one of the more useful things such a Useful Idiot can do.

      (Here’s where I tick off the whole blog. It’s been a few weeks…)

      The ICE Agent involved sure did get three real good shots off, the second she started driving. Impressive shooting, if it was an instantaneous surprise reaction.

      Less impressive if he had it all cued up in his mind beforehand.

      Even in hindsight, it looks more likely than not that this particular Agent (who had long LEO experience and–if the “news” is accurate, which is always a shaky bet–had been hit by a car before) stupidly and/or strategically stood “in front of” her car, near enough that, when she started forward, “tecknuhkleee” she was driving toward him.

      Gotcha, effing bee. Bought and paid for.

      (I pause here, with pre-rolled eyes. In any other venue, this is when somebody makes that tired drop-the-miker about what kind of degenerate I should call the next time I’m in trouble, “if you hate the cops so much. Just like the sixties, maaaan.” With my eyes still stuck at Max Rollage, I touch-type my assurance that I consider Law Enforcement to be indispensable. If I had to choose whether to Rapture the Cops or the Doctors out of society, we’d have to do without the docs for a while. Good thing I ain’t in charge of Rapturing.)

      My point is that BOTH the Left and the Right are neck-and-neck in the Race to the Bottom of rhetoric. Both are willing to paint lying mind-pictures with words that are “tecknuhklee” true.

      The Lefties do this because they need to. The Truth would destroy their every argument.

      The Right does it because, for enough of the people, enough of the time, it works.

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      1. I’ll point out that a) the agent had been hit before and been in the hospital for months. This would SURELY change his reaction, yes.
        And that she WAS emphatically not a soccer mom.
        Look these are being run by communist organizations more or less OPENLY and she was not only trained in provocation, she TRAINED OTHERS.
        Stupid and agreeable I’ll give you, but also dangerously indoctrinated and activated communist asset.
        So don’t kindly make assumptions that she’d not run him over. I’m convinced she saw herself as a heroine of the revolution, for “bagging” an Ice Agent. Hence the idiotic smile she left this Earth with.
        Sorry Uppity. I’ve seen this move before oh, so fucking often, and this is normal “Cue a woman preferably a mother, even better pregnant to be shot, to inflame the masses to glorious revolution.”

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        1. Sarah, with respect: you’re demonstrating my point. There’s a tendency in us all–not just in writers–to clarify stories by simplifying and polarizing the characters. The Hero must be purely Good; the Villain must be Evil Unmitigated, and their laughter must always sound like “mwAHAHAHA!”

          As the structure of your sentence implies, Stupid and Agreeable and Dangerously Indoctrinated can all fit comfortably together in the same mind.

          Yes, no doubt she was “trained in provocation”, and no doubt sought and obtained the status-bump conferred by “training others.” What I deeply doubt is that she was chortling evilly and rubbing her hands like a fly at any point before, during, or after that training.

          Evil deeds almost ALWAYS come from the perversion of Goodness; thank the Lord, True Evil is vanishingly rare. MUCH more plausible is that her natural human instinct to nurture “victims”–of Capitalism, of “inequality”, of Systemic WhateverTheEff–had been perverted into “toxic empathy” by experts, who themselves had been seduced into that same mindset by the previous generation of dupes. “Soccer moms”–figurative and literal–are no more or less susceptible to such seduction than anyone else.

          When Wifey told her to drive, she took off smoothly, as though from a 4-way stop. It didn’t look AT ALL like a trying-to-hit-somebody move. If I were trying to run somebody over, I’d floor it, and swerve to keep him square in front of the hood ornament.

          Note that I mentioned the ICE guy’s history–according to the media, who are less than 100% trustworthy–of having been car-hit before. Yeah, that would change anybody’s reaction. It would sure change mine: I’d quit standing in front of cars.

          I tried my best to see attempted vehicular homicide in those videos. Cynical and pessimistic though I be, I couldn’t. Still can’t.

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          1. Dear Lord. Listen to yourself. You don’t read minds. What do we know? She was smiling happily while aiming a deadly weapon at a man. A smug, self satisfied smile.
            I don’t care if she thought she was doing it for Jesus. The
            Nice Soccer Mom story you came up with (or bought from the media) has more holes than an whore’s drawers.
            She was attempting murder. She got shot. The end.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Am I reading minds but you aren’t? I saw what looked like a smile before she took off. I couldn’t see her face after that.

              We see “smiles” or “smirks” according to our own projections. Ask that now-wealthy 15-year-old kid who “smirked” at that Amerind who got in his face.

              I’m not saying anybody involved was the Good Guy. The usual case (outside of fiction) is that stories like this are usually jerk-on-jerk.

              (Do you really think I’m Agreeable enough to buy anything from the media?)

              And, again, this thread is demonstrating my point.

              And, again, I’ve managed to piss off everybody in range.

              Damn, I’m good!

              Like

              1. You haven’t pissed me off. Exasperated me yes. No, I’m not mind reading. THERE ARE TAPES. I’d have shot her in those circumstances.
                I’m saying the likelihood of it being set up is near 100% because this is being organized by communists (yes, it is.) AND I know their playbook.

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                1. Hey, if someone were bearing down on me with a car, I’d shoot too. And, yes, Commies can always use a sympathetic Martyr–young, pretty-enough women make especially good ones. It’s VERY plausible that Wifey set her up; “Lesbian Bed-Death” is A Thing, and Wifey could plausibly been playing for a two-fer there.

                  It’s also plausible that a cop, justifiably pissed off and fed up, set her up as an Instructive Example.

                  It’s WAY MORE than merely “plausible” that both Ideological Teams are intractably hostile toward dissenters.

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          2. Dude, you’re engaged in false moral equivalence.

            Go actually look at the stuff instead of fence-sitting and assuring people that they’re just buying into preformatted storylines.

            This:

            Note that I mentioned the ICE guy’s history–according to the media, who are less than 100% trustworthy–of having been car-hit before. Yeah, that would change anybody’s reaction. It would sure change mine: I’d quit standing in front of cars.

            Shows you are either not familiar with the large amount of video available, or that you have shut your brain down so hard that you cannot engage with this subject rationally.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. “Fence-sitting”

              Really, I’m getting more and more confident of my point. You don’t have to keep demonstrating it!

              I’ve seen three (maybe four) of those blurry, shaky-cam videos. The thing they’ve convinced me of most is that cops need MUCH better video equipment.

              How about four hemispherical “fish-eye” lenses, two on each shoulder, front and rear facing, with redundant processors that can’t be turned off. A GPU can correct for the aberration and the motion, making the relevant section as clear as commercial movies, in 3D.

              Again, when I first heard this story, I Just Knew that the Media was gonna spin it to make her the Innocent Victim, and him the Eeeevil Gestapo Nazi Stormtrooper. I tried my best to see HER as the Murderous Commie Bee who tried to kill a cop, and I still can’t.

              She was an idiot, and she won her Darwin fair and square, but I can’t, try as I might, see Attempted Murder in it.

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              1. Dude, you didn’t reason into your position, you won’t reason out of it, and the attempted rhetoric-fu is lacking.

                Your assertion that you are more sure of your position is meaningless, because there has been nothing in your display today which would make that is in danger of making someone go “Oh, my! He made some good points, I must question myself.”

                All you’ve done is accuse others of buying into a narrative as you… ignore evidence and charge after your starting conclusion.

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                1. Foxfier, that is one of your best Pot-Kettle Black-Callings I’ve seen yet, and you are good at that.

                  I heard about the story. I assumed the media would spin it. I tried–oh, how I tried!–to see it the way you all are so stompifootily sure it happened.

                  If you have a link to the video that will convince me she really tried to hit the guy, now would be a dandy time to trot it on out.

                  To reiterate: The videos I’ve seen so far are too shaky-grainy-blurry to rule out much of anything, and they’re all friggin’ Portrait Mode vertical framing of a horizontal scene. Unlike you, I am NOT sure what happened. What I saw looked to me like she just drove away.

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                  1. Foxfier, that is one of your best Pot-Kettle Black-Callings I’ve seen yet, and you are good at that.

                    :claps hands: Oh, glee!

                    After it’s pointed out that you are doing the standard proggy nonsense of accusing others of what you are actually doing, and failing to give any evidence to support it– you then do it again.

                    Yeah, that makes me care even the least bit about your applied judgement.

                    Which, again, is the only thing you have given to support your views.

                    You are not being rational, and I am not going to pretend that you are; since you rolled in making false accusations, guess what? More of them?

                    Does not make an impact.

                    You didn’t get the reaction you wanted, and you are attempting to lash out because of that.

                    Unfortunately, you already burnt all your fuel.

                    There are folks– here, even– from whom that angle of attack would be effective, because it would mean something other than “I think this will manipulate the target into doing what I want.” You are assuredly not among them, and instead managed to join the pack of hypocrites who expect others to uphold a standard they will not hold themselves.

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                    1. :claps hands: Oh, glee!

                      Oh, Foxfier! I truly love you! Not in that trudging, dutiful way that I hope the Lord will accept as me Loving My Neighbor, and not, Lord knows, in any way that involves a molecule of desire to have anything to do with you IRL, but I purely, truly love you! (The rest of y’all either get that or you don’t. Either way… :claps hands: Glee!)

                      OK, I need a call from the judges: I had a bet with myself. I’d have flat lost if she’d given a clarifying link. But I expected an expressed refusal to do so. You know, something like “I’m not going to waste my time doing your homework for you when NOTHING would convince a brainwashed proggie manipulator like you and furthermore blah blah DARVO blahblahblahblah…” So, is it a win or a push? I got a beer riding on it.

                      …your applied judgement … is the only thing you have given to support your views.

                      :gleefully re-claps!:

                      Yes!!! I looked, I saw, I judgmented! What else was I sposta use to Support My Views? Appeal to some kind of Authoritah?

                      I “rolled in” with two things that could reasonably be called Accusations. The explicit one is that “The Right, infuriatingly, adopts the Left’s rhetorical Dirty Tricks.” That is, both sides Gell-Mannfully spin the Event beyond recognition, then attack dissent.

                      Judges…?

                      The implicit one is that the ICE agent may have–N.B.: may have–deliberately set the stupid bee up to sign her own death warrant.

                      I was hoping–conceding the possibility, at least–that somebody would link to evidence that would rule that out.

                      For, I think, the last time: I expected the media to spin him as Villain and her as Hero. (Or Herx? Her@? She-Ra? They wouldn’t wanna misgender a dead AWFUL.) I wanted a link to a clear case of FAFO, with FA and FO separated by less than a second, which is pretty near the neurological optimum, Behavior Mod-wise.

                      If anybody has one, please.

                      If not… I’m still jovially amused by this thread, but I doubt anybody wants much more of it.

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              2. “She was an idiot, and she won her Darwin fair and square, but I can’t, try as I might, see Attempted Murder in it.“

                –

                “I meant to hit him with the car (regardless of why), hurt him, but I didn’t mean to try to kill him”, is still attempted murder. Had she had gone to trial instead of dying, and I was on that jury? Guilty.

                Sorry. It 100% is.

                Liked by 2 people

                1. The circle in your reasoning there is that you’re starting from the conclusion that she “meant to hit him.”

                  I really, really TRIED to see it that way. I still can’t.

                  Could somebody–anybody–post a link to whatever video you think most damning? Preferably, a clear one that keeps the whole affair in-frame? Extra credibility awarded to one in landscape mode.

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                  1. The one video I am referring off of is the first one, mostly seen. Camera from the back. LEO who shot is on left, to the front. To me looks like just out of range of the front buffer. As the car moves forward, the wheels are turned left, not right. Would she have hit him if the wheels were forward? I can’t tell if he was far enough to the left or not (if it is even reasonable for that situation to actually be slightly in front, not 100% out of the way). Would she have hit him if the wheels were turned right, even a little? From that angle, I do not think so. That she turned the wheels left is telling. At that angle, intent is harder to tell. It is other videos, the smile (won’t say “smirk”), the other co-idiot/wife’s explanation of “drive”, makes probable intent clearer, for me (YMMV). There are other videos, from other angles, that add to that perspective. By the time the LEO shot, it is clear the car is headed for him. As it did hit him, intended or not, it did hit him. If she’d obeyed orders and gotten out of the car, she’d be alive. She intended to NOT follow LEO orders.

                    Your perspective is yours. Mine is mine. Were we on the same jury? Hung jury. Of course, this is presuming she wasn’t shot, just hit the LEO, and didn’t kill him. Then she’d be around for her to testify what she meant, to state she panicked and turned the wheels the wrong direction. I didn’t get that from her facial expression in other videos, what little was seen, but defense could frame it that way. Unfortunately for her, that isn’t how it turned out.

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                    1. Honestly, considering that she *did* hit him, I’m not sure her intentions matter. He had more than enough reason to consider himself in mortal danger and act in self defense.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    2. Truth.

                      It is with the fact she did hit him, that I have to translate the video I described as “with intent”. I do not know how anyone can’t. If the wheels had not been pointed to the left, I could give “intended” some benefit of doubt. There was absolutely no reason to point the wheels left to move the vehicle out of the way. Could have just turned wheels right to clear the LEO and the vehicle across the street. There was no way her vehicle was going to turn left at the angle it was to go anywhere. IMO conclusion, she meant to hit him. Then did.

                      Liked by 1 person

          3. If I were trying to run somebody over, I’d floor it, and swerve to keep him square in front of the hood ornament.

            Maybe because you’re competent and have at least a passing touch with reality?

            Being trained in provocation (or anything) and being competent at it are two different things.

            Me? I think she was LAPRing and had no clue (or care) about the danger she was posing to the agent, or what the potential consequences (up to what happened) would be.

            And in a moment like that, it is not the responsibility of the agent (or an armed citizen) to determine intent behind the action, it is to respond to the threat the action presents.

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            1. Totally agree about the LARPing. Wifey–arguably the most Evil player on the board–gave that away with her “Why were you using real bullets???” line.

              But really, you don’t have to be all that competent or in touch with reality to know that if you’re gonna kill somebody with your car, you gotta punch it and stay on ’em.

              Yes, the Agent is in the clear. Street legal. I’m just not at all convinced that he wasn’t playing to that end. It wouldn’t be the first time a cop has done that.

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              1. The number of otherwise intelligent and aware people I’ve run across (no pun intended) over the years that had no understanding that a vehicle is a multi-thousand pound kinetic energy weapon….

                Is it possible that both sides are wrong here? Absolutely, but not based on the evidence I’ve seen to date. And if it comes down to leftist agitator working to destroy our Constitutional society vs a person that has sworn an oath to defend it, I know who has more credibility with me unless and until there is evidence to the contrary.

                (I have no problem hanging a dirty cop out to dry, or in disciplining one that screwed up, but given the history of Minnesota hanging cops out to dry over the self destructive actions of some of our less than stellar citizenry…)

                Liked by 1 person

                1. The number of otherwise intelligent and aware people I’ve run across (no pun intended) over the years that had no understanding that a vehicle is a multi-thousand pound kinetic energy weapon…

                  Flooring the car isn’t about making sure there’s enough kinetic energy to do the job, it’s about cutting down on that annoying jumping-out-of-the-way thing that people so often do when ya try to hit ’em.

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          4. Umm… dude? Her wheel was spinning on the ice. I don’t know how much winter driving you’ve done, but to me, as a Montreal native, that indicates she floored it. That’s exactly what happens when you accelerate hard enough for rolling friction to give way to sliding.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I’ve done way plenty winter driving, and spun out often enough to take it real seriously. Long before the world went nuts, I used to give myself “refresher courses” on suitable icy parking lots in the wee small hours. [Funny story ’bout that deleted; maybe another time.]

              I have 2 mp4’s of the Minneapolis Moron’s last hurrah (which I saved as Minneapolis_Good_Shoot _1 and _2, because that’s the kind of heartless dude I am) dated 01/09/26, saved from Twitter. One was described as coming from the shooter’s own cam (which made me hate Mouthy Wifey; I hope she’s charged as an accessory before-the-fact); the other was a compilation of the cop’s cam, somebody else’s phone-cam, and two stationary ones.

              Last night I frame-by-framed them, with special attention to what her tires were doing, and where the shooter was, and when he shot. (The clearest views came from two slightly different landscape framings from what may have been somebody’s home security cams; in both of them, her car was smack-dab between the cop and the cameras. Arrgh!) I wasn’t looking specifically for friction-breaking, but it woulda jumped right out at me if I’d seen it.

              Again and again I keep reading characterizations here that disagree with my lying eyes. Gell-Mann to the max.

              Again, I ask for somebody to puh-LEEEZE put up a link to something that supports the local Killer Karen Konsensus.

              (And again I tiredly anticipate being told to do my own research.)

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      2. Friend, I said nothing about Saint Renee Nicole.

        I fully support the ICE mission in Minneapolis. I’m sorry she put herself into that situation with her misguided priorities

        Please mind the nuances.

        My discomfort is with the taboo against any criticism of the man DJT.

        I fully support the idea that he saved the country by closing the border and hope that he will do much more good work in the future. But, in a free country, no one is above reproach.

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        1. My discomfort is with the taboo against any criticism of the man DJT.

          You need to actually provide something objective instead of feelings and false equivalences.

          People aren’t getting upset because you are going against the flow, they’re getting upset because you are expecting us to act like you offered content when you did not, and then start name-calling when asked for something solid.

          I have had no issues around here when I say Trump is doing something wrong, because I bring objective support for the ideas instead of engaging in Bulverism. (That is, telling someone how they got so wrong without bothering to first show that they are in fact wrong.)

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          1. OK, kinda.

            Mine is a composite discomfort. Not a response to anything specific in THIS place.

            I have always been the “But, what about ….?” guy in the room. A couple of times my contrariness has prevented some real stupid mistakes when group was in a hurry. It is a habit of mind.

            When saying “What about … ?” I have been accused of TDS, being a cuck and even more unseemly terms. That’s the personal, and, yeah, I’ll admit to some feelings.

            My bigger point is that even hinting at disagreeing with DJT leads to little joy on the right. That is a big honking blind spot.

            (I don’t cop to any name calling, though. I’m just trying )

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            1. WHERE? Hinting at disagreeing WHERE? Context. ALSO for the record that’s not as bad as the left. Again and again where are the people banned from social media, like my friend banned in 21 for anti-vax memes? Where is the attempted ministry of truth, where are the IRS chases, where is the debanking?
              Look, this MATTERS. I’ve lived in a regime that did this stuff, mutatis mutandi in the seventies. I KNOW what “equivalent to the left” is.
              You’re just saying “They don’t love me and they call me mean names when I run my mouth.” In some places this happens to EVERYONE who is not inner circle. In others? It’s called political argument. Deal.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. Different instances of the same point: “Our Guy purely Good, Their Guy purely Evil; any other opinion is Proof–Proof, I tell you!–of YOUR depravity!!!”

          Trump’s “negotiation technique” may be effective at getting The Deal he wants, and what he wants looks to be very much in America’s interest, but it can’t help but sour the souls of whomever he deals with next.

          Trump is the most effectively pro-America President in the last 40 years. I wish that were a higher bar.

          Liked by 1 person

      3. Even in hindsight, it looks more likely than not that this particular Agent (who had long LEO experience and–if the “news” is accurate, which is always a shaky bet–had been hit by a car before) stupidly and/or strategically stood “in front of” her car, near enough that, when she started forward, “tecknuhkleee” she was driving toward him.

        She was being arrested after a full day of criminal harassment including unlawful detainment that would have risen to kidnapping if they’d been totally normal civilians, not law enforcement in the course of their lawful duties, there were multiple agents there, the guy who took the shot wasn’t at the window because he got out of the hospital in June of this year (from memory) after being dragged along the road from a window during an arrest, and she backed up then put it in drive to go over the top of him and the rest of the team.

        At least one agent had severe internal bleeding even with the attack being fatally halted.

        We have the body cam video including the lovely crunch the car made as it hit him.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Not only that, he was NOT in front of the vehicle until she put him there. He was in front, off to the side of the driver front bumper. Far enough to the side if she had gone straight, hadn’t turned into him, so it would have been just a glancing blow? Wags hands. She would have missed him had she turned the wheels right, and not left into him. She was going to hit him, on purpose.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. How far to the right of the roadway was she when she started moving? Even if she wasn’t parallel-parked, people habitually get as far right of the road as space allows if they stop their cars, and turn a bit left when they start up again.

            IDK WTF happened. I’ve heard a lot of stuff about that left wheel-turn, and about how she–>sigh<– “allegedly” backed up to get a better bead on him.

            I haven’t SEEN anything clear enough to settle it.

            If anything even potentially productive has come from this thread, it’s this:

            …cops need MUCH better [body cams]. How about four hemispherical “fish-eye” lenses, two on each shoulder, front and rear facing, with redundant processors that can’t be turned off. A GPU can correct for the aberration and the motion, making the relevant section as clear as commercial movies, in 3D.

            Maybe we could also make Portrait Mode a fifty-lashes offense? Jeez, people…!

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            1. As far as I could tell from any of the videos, including the one I referenced (not linked), she was not *parked legally, but semi-diagonal toward the right, on the road. Which was intended to not only harass, but block ICE LEO. FYI, neither reporting side is denying that. It was their (both women) perpetual harassment and blocking that got the order to exit the vehicle to be detained.

              Do not disagree that ICE need better (any?) body CAMS. OTOH there might be, only those have not been released? I wonder if the car had a dash CAM?

              Again. The videos are out in the cloud. I have come to one conclusion. You do not have the same conclusion. Not linking something you should be able to find on your own.

              (*) If the car had ever been legally parked on that street, I haven’t seen any video showing that aspect of someone just trying to get out of the way of the ICE LEO’s. You’d think if there was that view, someone would have posted it.

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              1. Not linking something you should be able to find on your own.

                Oh good eye-rollin’ Lord! That’s damn near word-for-word what I expected from Foxfier!

                I’ve seen 3 or 4 of those friggin’ videos, and none of the ones I’ve seen were clear enough to show anything that looked–to someone without a groupthink obligation to solidarity that’s tantamount to a post-hypnotic command–like the stupid woman was “trying to hit him.”

                If you have one that’s soooo unequivocally damning, YOU are one I’d have expected to link to it.

                “Pics, or it didn’t happen!”

                Like

            2. Tim Pool did a slow-mo review on his podcast a few days back. He went from “no, it was an accident” to “holy cr@p, she tried to kill him” based on it.

              Like

              1. ::sigh::

                Last word on it:

                I watched QJ9dlMRglBg and U1uDSjca8EY on YueToub, each about 11 minutes (that I’ll never get back) of Tim Pool’s plodcast, both from “2 weeks ago” (because God forbid they just put the f[HONK!]ing timestamp on it).

                There was much Opining about the cop’s state of mind, and how little time he had to OODA, and how hard it would be to prosecute him, and how he’d been dragged by a car before, and how Tim Pool has been shot at too, and First, A Whole ‘Nother Incident about a whole ‘nother cop who didn’t shoot in time, “for context”, and Look! The Cop’s Foot Slipped! (Everybody knows that only happens when you’ve been hit by a weaponized car.)

                But, even with the pre-suasion, peri-suasion, and post-suasion, I still CAN’T–not “won’t”, not “refuse to”–but CAN’T see it as her “trying to hit him” (as opposed to GTFO). Which, for the last time, is the FAFO story I hoped to see confirmed.

                I DID see her wheel spin on the ice. I’ve had wheels spin on black ice too, from a standing start, and I sure as eff wasn’t punching the gas when it happened. But, yeah. Like everything else in the story, there was undeniable spin.

                There’s a wonderful scene in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonimicon in which a viewpoint character needs to have all 4 wisdom teeth pulled. I recommend it; it’s brilliant writing.

                Getting a f[HONK!]ing link out of this crowd that actually clarifies–well, ANYTHING, including that stupid woman’s intent–has nothing whatsoever to do with Randy Waterhouse’s teeth and I don’t know why I mentioned them. Probably it’s my brainwashed anti-cop proggie liberalism flaring up.

                As usual these days, it’s another win by forfeit of dissenters’ interest. With one last eyeroll that’s gonna force NIST to recalculate the next Leap Second, I Agree To Disagree, and cede the field.

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          2. I’m willing. It’s the most intractable case of Gell-Manning I’ve ever been involved with.

            It’s just so damn frustrating (and also very damn diagnostic) that nobody’s willing to link to ANYTHING that backs up what everybody except me saw so clearly. (And dodging it with that do-your-own-searching thing is straight outta middle school. Sheesh!)

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  18. The Right is becoming indistinguishable from the Left 

    Reminds me of the old trope of “There’s no real difference between the USA and the USSR”. It was utter bilge based on ignorance or turning a blind eye to the horrors of the USSR while overinflating the threats posed by US actions. Those of us paying attention at the time knew it was garbage.

    And much of the “hardening” you are seeing on the “right” are from idiots, hucksters for click bait, or intentional disruptors by infiltrating leftists (I give you Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson as examples in all three categories).

    Bottom line, don’t focus so much on style and “dignity” (as defined by losers that are comfortable in being Dignified Losers) and more on the results. Much more has been accomplished in one year than I could have ever imagined.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Garbage posting foreigners and their bots as well, both for spewing bile and boosting it as well. *Holds up examples of multiple subcontinent types pouring fuel on war between the sexes flames – or perhaps sharing their cultural perspective while cosplaying Westerners*

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    2. When you indulge in cuteness like “as defined by losers” you become part of that dynamic.

      Ask yourself: Is it persuasion or catharsis?

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      3. The term “Dignified Losers,” as suggested by the capitalization, is a known term which refers to a specific pattern of behavior.

        If you don’t recognize something, ask, rather than assume that it’s wrong and scold someone else for your assumption.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I understand the reference. I reject it. It is cliche

          It is “cute” because it dismisses my point without engaging it.

          It’s actually an example of my point. To criticize Trump is to be dismissed.

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          1. Cliche’s exist for a reason, and I find this “cliche” to be accurate and useful for a specific type of politician in DC. The same type (and in some cases the same ones) that didn’t like Reagan’s way of communicating directly to the public.

            I have been trying to address your points (as least so long as you stay on one long enough to make a response to). At this point any dismissiveness you get from me (real as opposed to the type you’ve been imagining up to this point) based on your attitude here in addressing folks, and less that forthright argument style, and not your attitude towards any politician. (One that I voted for as the best of a bad lot, and has pleasantly surprised me for what has been accomplished the past year, in spite of the Dignified Losers on Capitol Hill)

            Liked by 2 people

          2. I understand the reference. I reject it. It is cliche

            OK, Humpty-dumpty; so you supposedly knew what it meant … but couldn’t manage to display that understanding in your response?

            You thinking something is “cute” or “a cliche” is not the winning argument you seem to believe it to be.

            You’re not being dismissed because you are criticizing Trump, you’re being dismissed because you gave stupid reasons for your belief, demand we agree with them simply because you have Made A Judgement, and can’t be bothered to apply any sort of rational evidence.

            “Waaaa, I don’t like it!” Well, woop the flippin’ do.

            Liked by 1 person

          3. Wrong.

            You are not being dismissed.

            You are being disagreed with. And you are being told why.

            If you take it as being dismissed, that is on you, not on the others.

            Note, I am not dismissing that you think you are being dismissed. I am disagreeing that you are.

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  19. I won’t say my life has been a steady set of betrayals, but it has been a sequence of people contracting Martian Brain Fungus in bad ways.

    Fandom-worked cons for years, including our local furry con. I can barely go to the local gaming and anime con, because my “home con” went terrifyingly left during the Obama Administration and got worse during the first Trump administration.

    (That they ended room parties before COVID didn’t help, either.)

    Learned some extremely creepy stories about the local furry con and the fact that they went groomer so quickly was disconcerting.

    One con died within three years because the staff so screwed up relations with everyone that nobody wanted to attend as a guest or work there.

    Creators-with very few exceptions (almost all Baen authors), they went nuts (Stross). Or stopped publishing (Gerrold). Or got caught up in a purity spiral (Ellis). Or all three, somehow.

    Or died. Dying got really popular for a while.

    People-most left the area. The few that remained…purity spirals. Suddenly doubling down on some very extreme politics. Massive cases of TDS. Sudden “discoveries” of hard-core political or sexual beliefs. And the defense of people that really don’t deserve any protection at all, but we give because we’re not them.

    Watching just about every family member contract Martian Brain Fungus.

    And suddenly feeling like the last human in a city of vampires. Ugly vampires.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Sweetie? Write that. And then have your characters fight back and refuse to die. It’s better than therapy.
      What got me through 2015 the year of six moves, cancer surgery and general everything falling apart? Ringo’s Black Tide. I read it and listened to it back to back to back. I owe John a debt I’ll never repay.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I wouldn’t want to live there, and yet I keep going back.

        And, OK, I enjoyed Faith’s trip “downtown,” through Jacksonville. I know those streets. And the semi-useless lawyer who (eventually) got Dad’s probate settled had his office “downtown”. Don’t wish him harm, don’t wish any actual inhabitants of the Armpit of Florida harm, but…

        Ringo just said on Twitter he did the zombie apocalypse because he’d started a novel around a Carrington event, and it was too dark. The zombie apocalypse was nicer.

        Liked by 3 people

      2. My characters are fighting back.

        One of which (palate cleanser, I hope) is stuck in the BTR universe and having access to an even better vaccination option means little when your logistics are terrible (30,000 doses/month, maybe 40,000 doses/month means little when the curve on the other side is going up like a rocket). Then, you start planning for what happens when everything falls apart-what do you risk on the basis of hope?

        …but we fight.

        Even if we will lose, we fight, Great Aunt.

        We’ve come too far-I’ve come too far-to stop.

        Might shuffle to the side a bit, might fall back to a better position for a while, but only long enough to prepare for the next advance.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Now I wonder if even heard of the furry con. Or worse, if it was one I once attended. FWIW, I’ve been to AnthroCon (once, it was too big even before it got huge), Midwest FurFest (great when it was in Schaumburg… Schaumburg might not be much, but the hotel layout was great), and Rocket City FurMeet (best at the initial hotel… the layout worked well). I know RCFM folded, but that was due to hotel and TSA idiocies more than anything as I recall.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Further Confusion.

        The last time I went, year before the Crow Flu, I got to talking with some of the people I know that were working security.

        The stories they told were…harrowing.

        How bad?

        The least worse was a senior member of the con, who was still there, was caught with barely legal boys and him having at least one or two (treatable, thank God) STDs. And the rumor that the not legal boys had gotten out before security had to notice them.

        The only reason I believed them was that two of the FLARE guys were guys that got vouched to me. “They’re all right,” if you were to invoke a Harbringer assessment.

        (And the uncomfortable realization that the con was almost entirely younger twinks, older men cruising, and fag hags didn’t help, either.)

        Liked by 1 person

    1. All this Anti-ICE crap is nothing more than the Democrats pissed the Republicans are once again taking their slaves away.

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      1. I’ve come to the conclusion that the biggest reason why the Democrats don’t want immigration enforcement and reform is that it would remove (for the most of them) the feeling of being part of the gentry.

        They might have to….horror of horrors…have to do work with their hands if they didn’t have the bowing and scraping brown and black hands available.

        Liked by 2 people

  21. I’ve lost count of the friends in the SCA, people my beloved fought and played with and I knew with him, who called him all sorts of vile names for not agreeing with them politically.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Oh. I’m not even counting the people we invited to our house, whom we thought were friends “outside politics” who shut us out when I came out of the political closet.
      And half of those were colleagues.

      Liked by 2 people

      2. Martian Brain Fungus hitting-a lot of them were happy that Bush won after 9/11, then started to go downhill very quickly. When the Obamamessiah won, they were so in my face about how how history had won and Straight White Males (like me) had finally been consigned to the trash heap of history and the dawning of a whole new age was upon us and…

        …I know Trump’s election broke them, I know that they will never forgive anyone who didn’t shed blood for Hillary!’s election, and it’s only getting worse the more shrill they get and the stupider they act.

        Liked by 1 person

  23. “I guess my opinions change, as things happen. I’ve become a lot harder in some ways. Scar tissue in the soul will do that. (10/7. I’ll never be okay. It hardened my opinion that some cultures are not fixable.)”
    Yep.
    As far as kicking an author to the curb, only one I can think of is Stirling, after a particularly appalling comment on my wall to the effect of “hold them down and forcibly vax them all.” Yep, Not Sorry at all on that one, Herr Doktor Mengele.
    The left is at best, blind and lost. At worst, evil.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. If someone becomes a flaming asshole, and rage-hates at me, I treat it as a major commendation.

    “Wow. You assholes hate me. Great. Now I can sleep soundly at night.”

    I only accept input from people I seriously respect. Otherwise, it’s noise.

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  25. This reminded me of the people a few years after 9/11 who I saw (online) go from reasonable people to being solidly convinced in all the conspiracy theory garbage that was coming out.

    I’m not talking about any of the claims about who was involved – I’m no good when it comes to analyzing the activities and motivations of people, – I’m talking about Physics-related things, like, “It was a missile and not an airplane that hit the Pentagon,” or, “The towers were deliberately brought down with demolition charges,” or even, “the planes were full of bombs,” kind of stuff.

    Then I just saw a clip from a Joe Rogan podcast where he responded to a question of, “You believe we went to the Moon, right?” with “I USED to believe we went to the Moon.” Sigh.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The footprints are visible to good cameras in low Earth orbit, and simple ones in Lunar orbit. If we had faked it, any number of subsequent observations would have said “hey! Where are the footprints? (and wheel marks) Plus the high precision laser reflectors we left at walking distance from the LEMs, the nuclear battery seismograph, etc, etc. etc.

      “How did we fake the footprints, dude? Lunar orbiters can resolve them easily. How did we fake all that hardware still sitting there? Its visible from Earth orbit. We bounce lasers off the reflectors we placed.”

      Spare me the Moonbeam Morons, and spare me te “Trooffers” of the the “Fire cant melt steel” idiocy who have never examined the wreckage in a mere housefire. (Raise steel above critical temp of 1500-1800F and it goes plastic/sillyputty. Sayd the guy who made knives by doing exactly that, with propane and a blower)

      Right up there with “A Marine cant hit a man moving at a walking pace at less than 150 yards with a scoped rifle from a prepared supported position, three shots fired in six seconds.” Yeah, right.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I think the Indian lunar orbiter actually took a picture of one of the sites Apollo 11. And with a little bit of internet fu here we are

        https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/when-chandrayaan-2-found-neil-armstrongs-apollo-lander-on-the-moon-2517826-2024-03-21

        Thats a pointer to an India Today article. The shots there are only ok, there are some more detailed blowups found on the net, I only include 1 link here as other wise WP will scream at me :-) .

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  26. “Yelled at enough by my cats”…oh yeah, been there. The furry little bastards are never satisfied. Good thing they’re cute.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Chickens, demanding to know why I spread that cold, white stuff all over their yard! Their complaints can probably be heard in low earth orbit.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. BTW

          Beautiful blue sunny sky, and dry, here in western Oregon, Willamette Valley. Cold -ish. Freezing, frost in the AM, but warming up into the 40s before dropping at night again. We are going to start seeing rain, but no ice, no snow. Per the weather apps. OTOH wish I could be wrong 60% at my job, when I was working. (Next Saturday, I’ve been retired 10 years! Time flies!)

          Liked by 1 person

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