Stone Face

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*For those wondering why this is so frigging late: I went to bed at 10 pm last night, and woke up today at almost 1pm. The only times I remember sleeping like that before were after giving birth, or similar outrages. Or as I said “I didn’t even know I could sleep that long”. Worse,t here’s the likelihood of a nap in the horizon. BUT I am feeling better. And my brain obligingly gave me a blog topic while I was asleep. Note, I haven’t checked the news yet, so if the government fell or Europe was subsumed by the waves during my epic sleep, you’ll have to use the comments to discuss it, because I don’t know yet. – SAH*

As we’ve talked about before, one of the left’s strengths, perhaps its last remaining strength and the one that’s hardest to break is that for so long being a leftist was a positional good.

No? Well, even in the US wearing a Che t-shirt didn’t immediately identify you as an idiot who couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag and who knew no history to boot. It should have, but it didn’t. By the time I was in high school, now almost 50 years ago, it made you look cool, hip, daring and willing to question the establishment. Any Hollywood writer writing that student — Hollywood traffics mostly in stereotypes, since that’s easier to sell in visual format — would make him a deep thinker, concerned for the plight of the poor. This despite the fact that Che was a cold blooded mass murderer, one who preferred to kill people with his own hands, though he could also order it done, and despised…. well, everyone, but at the top of the list were students and the educated. Though the poor were there too, somewhere.

The “coolness” factor only increased for the next generation, as communism had fallen and the lefties and opinion makers (BIRM) of the generation before mine could say smugly that the good guys had lost the cold war, and pass on that bullshit to their kids with a side dollop of grand lost cause, like aging confederates moaning the glories of Dixie in slave-owning days.

By the time I came of age as an adult, and certainly by the time I became a published author at 35, one had to at least pretend to be leftist to be able to get on in any intellectual field. You could, yes, attack prominent personalities on the left, but you had to do it from the left. “I’m not sure Clinton is really committed to the cause. He’s just in it for the money and the chicks” was acceptable. “I’m not sure I can support of even tolerate a man who went to visit the USSR in his college days and remained a man of the left” wasn’t and would see you disgraced.

Positional good. “The lefter the better.” There were a never end of people declaring themselves communists in award speeches and such. And this only catapulted them to higher ground.

Which if you think about it is insane. “Yes, I am for a regime that murdered a hundred million. That’s how pure and wonderful I am, give me cash and contracts.”

Of course to maintain that several things were needed, but the most important thing needed was that the various circles be compartmentalized. Mr. and Mrs. average geek retained the power to be shocked by their favorite author or director or what have you chest-thumping his love of Stalin, but they never heard of that, because they were presented curated snippets in the media.

People like Ghandi and several others, are wholly media-constructions, their halo formed of a tightly focused lens.

And it used to be that this positional good status of leftist nonsense was the least of their weapons. it was merely the ability to make people falsify their preference, thereby giving the impression of far greater strength to the left. Oh, don’t mistake me: It was valuable. It allowed them to commit any amount of fraud and it was assumed as they put on the cover of Time magazine, when Obama was elected “We’re all socialists now.”

Which brings us to now. The walls have fallen. They were never as impermeable as the left pretended, at that. Despite their complete lock on the media, the news, the arts, the culture, and more importantly education, they could never get the majority to vote for them, requiring higher and higher amounts of fraud by less and less secret means. (No? Look, no civilized country has default vote by mail. It’s too stupid to even contemplate. But they were finally driven to it. After “voting week/month” after “lowering the voting age” after “no voter ID” etc.)

Now they can’t keep up the media barrage. And a camera in everyone’s phone means that anything that happens there are three or four videos or more and the truth is so to put it “Out there.”

And entertainment has so much competition — from the past, if nothing else, since indie movie/visual media isn’t yet a thing. Though we’re getting there. We’re getting there. Indie writing is of course competition — that they can’t force people to watch their stilted “entertainment.”

Their last defense; their last trump (eh) card is positional good. And ooh, boy, they’re playing it. Like the idiot who asked the sportsball coach tos ay something bad about America. Or the daily — daily, I tell you — challenges I endure, open and not to “say something bad about Trump.” to prove “You’re not a cultist.”

The only answer to that is the stone face and “no.” Just “no.”

Is Trump perfect? Oh, heck no. But perfect was not on the ticket. Kackling Kamala and the Retard Timwalz were. And anyone who thinks that we’d be doing better under that regime is sicker than I am, and should take two ibuprofen and go to bed till the desire to have civilization commit suicide passes.

Is he doing everything I wanted? Ah. Is the income tax abolished? Are all the fraudsters of the left exposed, tarred, feathered and run out of the country on a rail? etc. etc.? No. But I am also aware my rather radical wishes would create incredible turmoil and upheaval if implemented all of a sudden. He’s done more in the time he’s been in than anyone could ever imagine, a lot of it flying under the radar. I would vote for him again without a regret.

Cult? I think not. If Trump were killed tomorrow — almost happened, remember? — I’d cast about for someone who would make the left even madder and then throw all my support behind that. He’s an instrument, not a messiah. Yes, left, this is how much you’ve pissed off we the people.

America? The question of “What’s bad about America?” is “In comparison to what?” Because, yeah, America isn’t the Earthly paradise. Duh. And yes, we’ve been enduring a lot of rule by “enemies, domestic” which has caused several problems, including a lost, aimless and deeply wounded youth. But…. in comparison to what? Because it’s like that the world over and worse some places, and at least here we have an entrepreneurial culture that makes it possible for kids to make something of themselves: with immense effort, but there it is.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where they make it obvious that you have to say something lefty to position yourself as “once of us” refuse it. Give them nothing but the stone face.

This is all they have now. And if we neg it enough, they have nothing.

Oh, sure, paid mercenaries, and an organization inherited from the USSR and carried on by various political groups. And that’s…. inconvenient and difficult.

But it’s not the same as the creation of a vast preference falsification front that allows them to claim legitimate wins when in fact they win only through gargantuan fraud.

The stone face. It’s all they deserve. And it’s all you should give them.

52 thoughts on “Stone Face”

      1. I have said for ten years now that in ten years I’ll be considered a raging leftist without having changed my positions at all, and the grandkids, if there are ever any biological ones, will think of grandma as this strange non-comformist and practically a hippie.

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    3. Since they just love themselves some Roman comparisons, they should recall that whatever Gaius Iulius’ flaws, with a few notable exceptions he mostly colored within the lines, playing the masses against the elites to get changes he wanted rather than just dictating things, and working with the Senate as it stood after he got the Gauls added. He was certainly no Sulla.

      But after those honorable men got all stabby on Gaius Iulius, Rome ended up with Augustus, who kept the appearances but changed absolutely everything behind the curtains, as well as using most of the tools Sulla used that Gaius Iulius had left on the table.

      Obviously the U.S. is very, very far from being anything like Rome, but there should be a lesson there for the radicals about being careful for what one wishes.

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    4. Who can we agree on that the phrase “Could be worse. Throw out Trump and we’ll shove in …”

      Not Vance. Vance has the backbone, and the ability. But do not get the sense the usual suspects would fear what he would do. Vance does not provide the protection that Biden did for Obama, at least for 8 years; or cackles did for Biden.

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      1. Vance has got an interesting background, as evidenced by his autobiography. Part of what you’re seeing might be the perspective of a hill-billy who ascended to the Vice-Presidency.

        He’s also adept with social media, and seems to have more of an awareness of many of the issues that concern those in the base in comparison to his elders in the administration.

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  5. Yeah, the domestic enemies are in a panic, they’ve been losing ground for a while. I suspect that is part of why they and their media allies are pushing the insurrection in MN so hard. They need publicity and dead useful idiots to further their goal of making the government look bad.

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    2. Imagine being stupid enough to attack armed federales just because Tim Walz and other corrupt Dem millionaire elites asked you to cause chaos as a distraction. Doomscrolled on Insta today, and it heartened me that one of the more popular memes is Walz as Lord Farquad saying “some of you may die, but that’s a risk Im willing to take.”

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  6. My sympathies. I had that happen to me in 2024. Felt a little like I was catching something, so laid down for a nap on a Thursday afternoon. Woke up Saturday morning–to a leg red and doubled in size from an infection. Ended up in the hospital for a week, so be careful Sarah.

    I can also feel your pain today. Got my teeth cleaned early yesterday morning. Filling was missing for second time. Off to a root canal early this morning. Still waiting for my jaw to recover enough that I can eat my first meal of the day. (Probably actually good for me. LOL.) Still I’m in SoCal so not buried in snow and ice. Quite the opposite in fact. You guys seem to have stolen our winter (such as we have winter). It’s been in the seventies outside for weeks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av1przlCavA

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    1. Not as warm here. But the snow isn’t being packed in as much. California is getting the rain, or has been. Snow has been going other places than our mountains or even in Montana, which should have feet of the stuff. Getting some. Usual suspects want a lot more. Ski area are low on snow. Not enough snow for the snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Tetons.

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  7. There are several people (I use the term very loosely) I would not walk across the sidewalk and relive myself on if they were on fire. If I were Trump, cackle, snort, laugh, I would have the Attorney General submit Articles of Insurrection against Tampon Timmy, Woman Beater, and the Freyor, then when the inevitable liberal judge steps in ask for it to be fast tracked to the supreme court. They can’t say shit, if he waits, and everyone sees who the real bad actors are, and they are not leaders, just actors on a false stage. It’s not for the press, it’s not for our enemies, it’s to go around all of them.

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            1. Bandity types gonna bandit. When there’s loot to steal, and nearly nobody watching, you get bandity types. Thieves, armed and willing to violence for the most pitiful of profits go gaga for easy access loot.

              When there’s bennies available to anys what bumble across the border you get more of ’em. Simple math. You reward sloth and indolence, you get more of it and more of them.

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    3. This “polling question games” theme is one I’ve been talking about since at one point GWB polled so low on how he was conducting the war in Iraq – the question was basically “Do you approve or disapprove of the way the administration is conducting the war in Iraq?”, such that “he’s being mean to the bad guys” and “I want the rubble to bounce higher, plus a mountain of skulls” both counted as “disapprove”.

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  10. “Undocumented migrants?” Well, yeah. So were the Vikings. So were the Mongols. And the Vandals, Goths and Ostrogoths. Look how well those turned out.”

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  11. I think I was tempted to write, and did not post, an attempt to explain what I think is a nuanced and complicated view I have on Trump.

    With somewhat also the pragmatic calculation, a) I do not have the power to select Trump for an additional term b) Technically, I have 1/N share (where N is pop of American voters) for trying to remove him early, but this is so risky a thing where precedent is concerned that it is reasonable for me to set a basically impossible standard of proof to meet before I choose to act in such a way c) I see a ton of practical things I can do politically, that is in my vaguely defined area of responsibility.

    No matter how much I may dislike Trump, or see him as short of some theoretically possible good, the communists mean that ride-or-die is basically by default the best policy. Even if I had documented revisiting that once a week, the threshold for changing policy would be really high. So not really worth documenting, or preserving records, even if I had been doing that diligence regularly.

    We are almost all theory obsessives here, and so are the monday morning quarterbacks of Trump. Theory obsessives basically created the opportunity for Trump, with self-dealing, and also failures to self-police the extreme destructive idiots among us. Trump owes us nothing in terms of special communications.

    If I say that Trump is more proven by track record than I would be, that is not strictly praise of Trump. What it is, is awareness that I am pretty bad at such sorts of tasks. Reflection shows that my memory of having alternative preferences in gambles to his actual gambles, demonstrates that I would have done worse.

    This definitely could sound to someone else like worship of Trump, combined with a Maoist struggle session style self criticism. If that one is fairly confident that there are good experts that academia selects, trains, and approves. What I mean to be understood as context is that I think that academic fields select a portfolio for that field, and then can fail to train people to do stuff in that portfolio at all well.

    I think there are objective testable standards for effectiveness. I think that akshully, academics are not necessarily empirically good.

    I absolutely do not believe that the opinions of the academic fields synergize to allow multi-disciplinary consensuses to correctly identify best overall goods. The purported such, like the Grand Societal Challenges of the UN, are really pretty awful.

    I don’t really buy that the list of what he is up to at any point is what I would calculate to be good as an individual analysis around that point. However, I have convinced myself that I do not have an excellent record when I try to keep up with him. Empirical test should be more reliable source of truth than theory anyway, and I have to wait anyway on seeing what actually happens.

    I don’t outperform him on theory, and I am unhappier when I try to be accurate in evaluating a bunch of different problems that I am not well prepared for understanding.

    And I have at least until 2027 before I have to start having an opinion again about replacements. I have a whole year to learn from my own mistakes, and rethink my life choices, before obligation can drag me back to this area of politics that I have made myself unhappy and insane over in the past.

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    1. I figure a lot of rice bowls have been over turned, and a lot of people are really scared.

      Some of those people may have opinions that make it very hard for them to interpret anything but their own preferred policy as being non-positive where Trump is concerned.

      Obviously, I can be callous where other people’s rice bowls are concerned.

      I’m not sure that any of the rice bowls that I tap, or can in theory tap, really make all that much sense anymore.

      Now, maybe all that overturning of conventional logic is fraud, and getting rid of the fraud can be done, and would mean that we can outright avoid any difficult choices about things that may actually be good some of the time. But, I do not know anything.

      Lots and lots of shit is years down the road, and some of those worries can outright wait for years.

      Trump is a liberal democrat, who sends his son to university. He has optimism, where I have a lot of depression, or defeatism, or actual outright disturbed thinking.

      I have made a ton of my own problems. Trump is significantly of no actual relevance to many of these. The communists are not the cause of my problems, and a bunch of helicopter rides would not make my life any better.

      The actions of the political sphere will not make me a good person, or an ethical person, or a moral person. The actions of the political sphere cannot give me inner peace, or make me happy.

      It is actually reasonable for me to triage, to let go of politics to a degree, and maybe consider how I treat actual specific individuals.

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    1. So the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is now also addressing Climate Change, AI threats, misuse of biotechnology, and rising nationalism. What a cataclysm. And talk about mission creep . . .

      And we’re now 85 seconds to midnight on Doomsday, closer than we’ve ever been. We have less than a minute and a half left folks. Use the time well.

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  13. Or the daily — daily, I tell you — challenges I endure, open and not to “say something bad about Trump.” to prove “You’re not a cultist.”

    ….

    America? The question of “What’s bad about America?” is “In comparison to what?”

    Weirdly, YouTube gave me a video about a guy talking about group cohesion via Dunbar’s Number.

    That wasn’t the ‘interesting’ part.

    This guy professed to be shocked about how people were “Defensive” when their “Group identities” were challenged… by him walking up and demanding they prove that it was alright for them to like a sports team on their jacket.

    I am actually somewhat in awe of the sense of entitlement that would put you in a place where you think “Ah, yes. Hello, person, I have the authority to stand judge over if you are allowed to support this sportsball team.”

    Don’t allow folks to hold authority they don’t have, even if they feel entitled to it.

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      1. Same. Fingers too fat for teeny phones, seems like. It’s not that I barely pay attention to the .01 inch boxes you have to tap to hit the right letters. Of course it’s not my eyes are getting worse. Nope, it’s the stupid smart phones move the letters around when I type. Got to be it. Only explanation.

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  18. One of the political discussions last year was aviation safety.

    NTSB report came out today, for the DC helicopter crash.

    Anyway, the NTSB has an aviation safety dash board now, that actually lets you look through the data from 2023 back some fifteen or so years. They have three categories, and some numbers for each scaled by flight hours.

    General aviation is around 5 to 8. Another category is around 1. The major airlines are .1 to .2.

    So, yes, airplanes are safe in absolute terms, and the data does show changes that may be important.

    These ADSB policy discussion are largely outside my knowledge, and I would not know how to weaponize them for partisan ends.

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