Yes, They Think We’re Stupid

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This morning I woke up with my husband reading to me. As we know this is always a problem. That’s why I have two novels with the Red Baron, one fantasy and one a science fiction trilogy, sitting at the back of my brain, waiting to bust out…. As soon as I do another 10 ahead of them, including the second of Elly, which is now being a problem.

Fortunately or unfortunately what he was reading didn’t pertain to dead heroes, or fiction or much I could convert into anything beyond a preachy short story, which I don’t write.

You see, he was reading me a politics editorial. First let me tell you, right now, that if this had been even ten years ago, I’d have performed an exorcism on the spot. Because the Mathematician and I divide the world in two as surely as the treaty of Tordesillas, (spell checker insists this is “tortillas.” This amuses me more than it should.) but in a more insubstantial ways. We specialized within the first three or four years of our marriage. He does the accounting for the household and my business(es) (poor man) because I’m digit dyslexic. I do the housekeeping. He keeps abreast of movies, games, music and informs me if there’s something I might like. I keep abreast of books and blogs and inform him if there’s anything he might be interested in. I refinish pianos, he plays them. He does math, I do politics.

That last one is hard and fast. Mostly because while I’m a nervibore (I live on my nerves) and politics makes me crazy, not keeping abreast of them makes me CRAZIER. I view politics as a dangerous ocean that might at any moment throw out a sneaker wave that drowns me. I have reason for this. If the streets are going to turn into the kind of mess where I turn a corner and run into armed lunatics who will shoot on vague impressions, I want to have some (years of) warning.

He on the other hand hates arguments and sneaking and such things politics are made of, and he would be driven completely raving insane by following all the tendrils of argument and nonsense that is my bread and butter.

It took him years to realize when I started yelling at a movie he was watching and calling it “rank propaganda” I wasn’t being paranoid. He still enjoyed some movies that would make me put a shoe through the expensive screen. (This is why I have noise cancelling headphones and a laptop and am usually blogging, doing instapundit, editing, anything but watching the movie, unless I think it will be “safe for Sarahs.” Those are rare.)

But well… he started paying SOME attention during the Obama administrations, because the sheer rain of sh*t that little psychopath inflicted on this nation got through his consciousness. Then there came 2020. In 2020 for the first two weeks he went raving insane in a mathematical way. No, really. He created a program that extracted actual numbers of hospitalizations and deaths from Covid from every County hospital system (y’all in Utah gave him problems because you use a system different than the rest of the country. I no longer remember why.) Even knowing half of those who died “from Covid” were “with something else like a hole in the head” the numbers were ridiculous. For instance, KC went to “condition red” and hard lock down with four hospitalizations and no deaths.

Anyway, he made this program that updated weekly and told me to share it on instapundit. I did. Every day for a week. The push back was insane. Including “Oh, but they haven’t updated the numbers yet. Next week it will be black plague level.”

He was baffled — guys, he’s a mathematician. His big problem is that he doesn’t understand people being illogical, just like I don’t understand people being rude. Or rather we do, but we just feel it shouldn’t be so. Very strongly — and persevered for a while. The numbers never really increased. The response was all out of proportion. Most people didn’t believe him.

And suddenly he saw what I’d been yelling about for years. And suddenly some of his favorite movies went out of watching rotation because all the good characters were leftists. And suddenly he read politics.

Now keep in mind he’s still not by instinct a political animal, like the rest of us. He’s still, actually, largely apolitical. Those who know us well can attest that I’ll be deep in discussion with a buddy about some ridiculous political snag and Dan will erupt from the office with a baffled expression and say “Did you guys know that–“

He’s outraged, we’re laughing because this is something we were exercised about three months ago, and have since successfully fought back on. He’s my barometer for what the normal “right of center” is like. He’s the person who shows me “Why aren’t we all running around the hills with Klashnakovs yet?” is nonsense, since most of the normal people don’t know a tenth of what the jokers on the left have done. (We’ve learned not to laugh btw, since it offends him. It shouldn’t. He’s the sane one.)

Anyway, so waking up to a mathematician reading politics at me is still confusing at best, alarming at worst.

Picture it: I usually wake up with his alarm clock circa seven thirty, then lay there arguing with the morning.

Morning: is

Me: Oh, no. Oh, no. Not ready. Go away.

Morning: You know you have to get up. You have books to write, a house to clean, food to cook, and you didn’t cue up the blog last night you lazy bum.

Me: mggggggffffffffff.

Morning: Up, up, up….

Meanwhile he showers, and by the time he’s done the morning has usually won and I get my *ss out of bed. (No, you don’t usually see me till close to noon, which you know when I forget to cue the post the night before, or set it wrong. That’s because I’m enrolled in this aerobics program where I run up and down the stairs carrying laundry baskets, or dust and vacuum, or clean the litter boxes, or– Look, it keeps me from being 400 lbs. And provides a sense of accomplishment.)

Anyway, this morning, in the middle of these delicate negotiations between me and the rotation of the Earth, someone walks in phone in hand and says, “The left thinks we’re stupid.”

My eye — on a stalk, yes — emerges from under the covers and I say “mmmmf?”

And then he proceeds to read me this editorial written by some preening MSM slime about how the SAVE act is all a ruse to disenfranchise minorities because:

  • the documented cases of “undocumented” (like they forgot their birth certificate at home, and their home is not in another continent.) voting are negligible all over the country.
  • This is just to make it harder to vote and prevent black people from voting.

My husband, who likes to think the best of people is indignant. Since we have motor voter, vote by mail on request, machines where the votes get “adjusted” how do we even prove illegals vote? And do they really think that black people have no ID? Or that black people think they have no ID? Hence “they think we’re stupid.”

He’s right of course, though I wonder how much it is “they think we’re stupid” (They undoubtedly do. Preening disdain for everyone who disagrees with them is a hallmark of the left, because they mistake their political opinions for an IQ test. But they’re probably not the only thing at work) and that their ideology and concentration on theory makes them a peculiar kind of dumb that has nothing to do with natural mental powers. As in, their theory says this, and they need the theory to be right for emotional reasons, so they never think past it. And never examine what is behind the theory.

So, yes, they don’t understand that when you have a school district administrator in Iowa who not only got his position on forged credentials but also — ALSO — is an illegal who has voted for years, or a MAYOR in Kansas who not only is an illegal but has voted for decades, this is what we call a “leading indicator.” Note these are flyover places, not exactly centers of illegal immigration and fraud. If we found the school superintendent in Chicago was a voting illegal, that might be a “Forget it, Jack, it’s Chicago” (Or Detroit. Or California, or, increasingly, Minnesota.) But this is IOWA and KANSAS for sobbing in bed till your pillows are soaking wet. If these two cases exist you bet your sweet and swinging beepy that they’re ALL OVER the country. They’re not documented because as with “undocumented” immigrants, no one has gone looking for documentation. Because what they would find would end up toppling our already worm-eaten trust in our electoral process.

So “documented cases of fraud” are a stalking horse.

More importantly, he’s absolutely right. Look, humans are humans, whether they’re from El Salvador, Barbados or the US. This is something I learned really hard as an exchange student. The Germans had a different culture, but weren’t inherently more sinful or kinder than the people from Guinea.

We have so many means of fraud. SO MANY. From Motor Voter, where, if you’re not a citizen you have to FIGHT not to be signed up to vote, to vote by mail, to vote ahead, to no ID needed to vote, to– And one thing you learn really quick is that if the means of fraud exists SOMEONE will exploit it. And groups who are good at organizing will exploit all those means on an industrial scale.

The Motor Voter thing is peculiarly insidious too, because it can even catch people who aren’t TRYING to be dishonest. Look, Americans themselves don’t understand the difference between illegal immigrant, legal immigrant, resident and citizen. On my civil wedding day a month after I landed in the country for the second time and BEFORE I HAD MY GREEN CARD (which came around December, because bureaucracy) I had an argument with my smart, civically active mother in law, because “You’re an American now. You need to register to vote and make your voice heard.” No, she wasn’t joking. She really thought that’s how it worked. And since then I’ve run into any number of college educated (sometimes with graduate degrees) Americans who think stepping on American soil conveys citizenship. Or an even stupider set who thinks that the rest of the world should vote because “our elections affect the world.” (Let’s not. Most of the world has the kind of culture where if they voted here we’d be as miserable as they are. This is also why “no citizenship without acculturation”. And yes, I have IDEAS.)

So when the newly arrived illegal (or even legal) goes to get a drivers license and the kind lady, having looked at documentation that shows they’re definitely NOT American asks them if they want to register to vote… WHY SHOULD THEY THINK IT’S ILLEGAL? Yes, there’s a line on the paperwork. BUT this is not the paperwork. This is something she does does on the computer, and that’s it. So why would you think something is wrong? And then, because you want to prove you deserve to be an American and Americans vote, of course you VOTE.

So how many illegals vote? Oh, I don’t know. Probably more than 50% of them. Perhaps as many as 80%. (The rest not voting because they’re busy with other stuff and don’t care, not because they think it’s illegal) AND MOST OF THEM HAVE NO IDEA THEY’RE DOING ANYTHING WRONG.

I really can’t emphasize enough the new arrivals complete disorientation in the US. The US is different from most other places in various ways, and when you get here, it’s as though everything you learned as true and solid your entire life suddenly shifts. And not just upside down, but it goes dancing upside down and sideways and tiltawhirl to the point you have no fricking clue what’s legal and not, what is correct and not, or even what would “just” shock your neighbors.

I was college educated and had spent most of my life reading American authors, and I kept being sucker punched by “Wait, what?” I knew stuff like what being a citizen meant because I’d actually taken two civics classes during my exchange student year in the US.

BUT the number of even legal immigrants who understand that stuff is vanishingly small. And the number who are willing to doubt native-born “smart” citizens are even smaller.

This is why requiring proof of birth or citizenship to vote is not any kind of onerous requirement. Look, the people already registered will stay registered. They just need to show ID to vote. (Which means, yes, some illegals will stay on, but since we’re disincentivizing their staying here… well… It’s also why Jeffreys (Temu Obama) is so upset about ICE having access to polling places. It might discourage illegals from voting. Which he thinks is bad. SMDH.)

We don’t actually have a ton of people born in the US who lack a birth certificate, and those who do can usually get one. And a lot of states accept “entry in the family Bible” still, or did last time I looked. And naturalized citizens, TRUST ME have a citizenship certificate. And it’s in their go to bag if they ever need to evacuate. They also usually have a passport. (Because we don’t trust the funny people on the left, that’s why. At least if we speak against them.) And that’s not counting funny places like Hawaii where they will write you a birth certificate even if they have no proof you were born there. (They have some weird name for it like preponderance of evidence, or something.)

Women who changed their names? Well, most women are not mentally damaged. I have friends who were divorced more than once and have no trouble obtaining passports and proving their identity. That is, what do you call it? Bullshit.

However even if 80% of illegals vote, that’s the tip of the iceberg. I’m much more concerned about people over 140 years old voting. On principle, vampires shouldn’t vote, and no one else CAN be that age. And that’s not counting imaginary people. When we bought a house that smelled like an ashram in downtown Colorado Springs, we later received voting cards for 90 some people. This was I GRANT YOU a large Victorian, but it only had six rooms. And the family that lived there before us was three people. And I hear enough of those stories to tell you it’s not just Somalian Learing Centers that are housed ten to the abandoned warehouse.

If people have to vote in person and show ID to vote, that — by itself — will force them to at least get fake IDs for all the people registered as Minnie Mouse and Daffy Duck. That will, at the very least slow the fraud enough to make the margin actually controllable. It won’t stop fraud but it will make the fraud actually “a marginal number” that might affect district elections but not state ones.

Which brings us to “But it will make it harder for people to vote” or my “favorite” “But it will disenfranchise black people.”

If you think the first you’re merely an idiot. I actually have to show my ID to vote. And a picture ID, not merely a (Imminently fake-able in batch lots) utility bill, as in Colorado (And while we’re at it, stop the same day registration bullshit. If it didn’t occur to you you want to vote until the day, you failed the “proof of IQ” needed to vote. And you probably don’t exist, actually.) Do you know how much trouble this is? Well, I usually take my purse. When my name is called (my first middle name pronounced as Marquez because why not? Gah) I grab my license, show it to the volunteer, then get assigned a booth. That’s it. It takes maybe ten seconds. And the license is in the wallet with my credit card and other things I take for literally every transaction in life, from buying a gallon of milk to cashing a check.

“But Sarah, what about people who don’t have those documents?”

Well, people who have been in a persistent vegetative state for the last ten years and whose documents have expired shouldn’t vote. Next?

“But black people–“

Well, and now you can take your frigging racist ass out of the conversation. Because while Joe Biden thought that poor kids were “just as smart as white kids” the rest of us don’t march with KKK hoods. It would be as bad for my asthmatic ass as the Covidiocy masks for one. For another sooner or later someone would tweak to my 23 and me profile and… well, you guys have seen Blazing Saddles. ‘nough said.

FOR THE THIRD AND MOST IMPORTANT HAND: I don’t believe people are defined by race. I think 99% of the differences we attribute to race are actually cultural. And even if we had hard biological differences that weren’t stupid shit like a susceptibility to some genetic issues, and/or an inability to process milk or wheat (REALLY? I needed that why? I don’t care if ggggrandmamas preferred Cassava or barley and oats, this is stupid. The majority of my ancestors lived on wheat!) it would be unlikely to hit American blacks who are, frankly, genetically, as much of a mutt as anyone else here, and more so, since most of them have had ancestors here well over a hundred years. Don’t believe me? Go look at the picture of the LA Mayor in Africa. Your first reaction will be “Who is the white chick?”

I don’t understand how the left can pound their chest and say “I am standing up for blacks who are too stupid to get an ID” and not spot the racist. I mean, the men have to shave and the women have to at least occasionally apply makeup. How do they manage not to look in the mirror.

No, most black people aren’t some kind of infant being looked after by someone else. (Always excepting people who have been in a persistent vegetative state for 10 years.) They do have to bank, or at least cash checks, fly and buy groceries. This means most of them have an ID. Like 99.9% of them. The ones who don’t landed here yesterday from Somalia, and the Learing Center hasn’t gotten around to faking them an ID yet.

So would it hinder people from voting? Yes, billions of them as a Democrat in Congress (I don’t even remember which just now) said. (HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVE IN THE US AGAIN?) But they are mostly illegal, imaginary, vampires and such.

And they shouldn’t be voting.

218 thoughts on “Yes, They Think We’re Stupid”

        1. Cool. Some people believe in the flat earth. Who am I to stop you? You obviously have no idea how complicated the subject is, or how many ways the tests can be gamed. I do. I used to administer them.
          BUT if it pleases you to imagine this is a rock solid measurement, do so. After all, there are so many things to make people unhappy and so few that make them happy. You hold on to your little stupid belief, if it makes you happy.

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  2. My friends and I had a similar spreadsheet.

    It was depressing and infuriating and I got to the point where I wasn’t allowed to watch the governor give updates.

    so yeah .. they’ve all thought we are stupid for awhile.

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    1. In May or June 2020 I put together a spreadsheet with all the Washington data so far, did some math, and decided that if:

      1. Everyone under 40 had been deliberately infected with Covid

      2. Everyone 40-60 had gone about their lives in a normal way, and

      3. Everyone 60+ had stayed home and ordered everything in,

      we would have had fewer deaths, would probably reach herd immunity in a few months, and would have had far fewer economic problems, overdoses, etc.

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        1. In March 2020, right when they announced the indefinite lockdowns, I predicted there would be a wave of suicides, overdoses, alcoholic relapses, domestic violence, child abuse, and so forth.

          I got called a granny-killer and a Social Darwinist (!?) by (ex-)friends I’d known for 20 years. Turned out all of my predictions came true.

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  3. I’m doing my darndest to stop caring what “they” think, say or do. When my friend, who died of liver cancer, was marked as a Covid death in 2021, what little (which is to say infinitesimal) amount of faith, trust or belief I had in the government evaporated on the spot.

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    1. Were your friend’s cancer treatments ‘deferred’ due to the ‘unprecedented public health crisis of COVID19’?

      Something like 700,000 cancer patients went untreated for a YEAR because of the ‘crisis’.

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      1. Which makes me feel blessed that hubby and BIL were diagnosed with cancer in 2024, well post COVID idiocy. Even uncle, who ultimately died due to cancer, was diagnosed post 2022. Treatments did extend his life, but he had too many medical problems for a cure. (Dad ultimately was the same. Cardio Vascular. Got to the point where all organs were failing. Nothing more medical could do. Dad died 11 years before COVID.)

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  4. The Treaty of Tortillas – in the Americas, tortilla will be defined as a flat, grain-based food, and both corn and flour will be provided as options. Exceptions will be made for known preferences, such as Mexican Street Tacos, and Tex-Mex burritos [ever try to make a corn tortilla burrito? Don’t bother.]

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    2. *snicker*

      In Spain, a tortilla is a potato frittata – basically, an unflipped omelet. Popular ‘tapa’ or bar food snack. When we lived there, my daughter and I much preferred going to a bar (which in Spain was more like a coffee shop than a dive serving alcohol exclusively) because we could check out the little dishes and have what we liked the looks of, for a light, fast luncheon …

      Anyway – regarding “they think we are stupid” … *sigh* I will never forget going around and around with another poster on Open Salon in 2009 (when Open Salon was a thing, and a good representative of the folk posting there were not insane proggies) and trying to explain that my local Tea Party chapter were entirely self-funded and totally volunteer. We passed the hat at our meetings (at a local restaurant whose owners supported us because they were also Tea Partiers) and our website was hosted by another volunteer for free … She finally insisted, vociferously, that we were being funded by a coterie of raaaaacist millionaires, and that I was either stupid or a liar to insist otherwise from my own experience. Because, apparently, we were all incapable of having a difference of opinion from the proper proggie conclusions…

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  5. Funny enough, when my wife the engineer is speaking to me about politics I know it’s bad, really bad.

    IN other news, zerohedge has gone off the rails again and is spreading Iranian propaganda. As I wrote the other day, propaganda is always there in the background — mostly Russian, which this probably still is — but I ignore it because he does cover what they all try to bury and detecting the BS isn’t hard — think anything marked Escobar. I stop looking at the sight when there is chaos because I don’t need him anymore, call me fickle, this is one of those times. I don’t need hysterical headlines when I can look at the actual numbers and see they’re well within historical norms, like now all the press BS notwithstanding. Each time I stop reading him I wonder whether I’ll come back, might not this time since he’s actively giving aid and comfort and that’s unforgivable.

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      1. It’s not just him. The Financial Times isn’t even a newspaper anymore, it’s just an organ for the blob, and the WSJ is right behind them. Effectively then, there are no newspapers left, anywhere, since the financial press was the last mass market organ that had any attachment to reality. That’s actually a problem. I’m not so naive that I didn’t know about bias, but there’s a difference between bias and flat out propaganda. If WuFlu taught us anything, it’s that we need accurate, timely information, and there’s no visible supply. I suppose we’ll have to continue to maintain the parallel structure ourselves, or for any entrepreneurial types, an opportunity.

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          1. I had to read it for professional reasons since my superiors always did and I had to anticipate what inane questions the board would ask me. Now I’m retired and so don’t read any of the financial press anymore. All I need is market prices and and my own models,

            In other news, nothing says spring like crocuses in the snow, both of which have manifested today here.

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            1. Snow? What is this “snow” you speak of?

              Unfortunately, this year Utah has had a warm dry winter, with very little snow up in the mountains. Going to be an interesting summer.

              I’m not seeing much of apples or grapes in my future this year.

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              1. Been seeing a lot of canceled snowmobile tours in Yellowstone FB posts, due to lack of enough snow on the roads. Not good for the summer going forward. Fingers crossed for spring blast of snow. In other news, first Yellowstone post hibernation grizzly sighting.

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          1. Don’t know if I can afford the time right at the moment. As for the FT, election news is what’s really salient. DId one read them, one would conclude the triumph of socialism worldwide is assured. I stopped reading them right around the time that Varoufakis guy was running in Greece. the FT talked him up and talked him up and talked him up. his party came in 8th, no seats. More recently it’s been Spain where the Spanish socialists, according to the FT and especially now that they’re at the front of anti Trump, moves from strength to strength despite historic losses for the PSOE in Extremedura and more recently Aragon. Chile just put in a right winger, again to the great surprise of the FT. The best theory for why that I’ve heard is around advertising revenue, but I suspect it’s Ben Rhodes’s “ they literally know nothing.”

            Still, it’s a pity and something potentially dangerous, Thank God for Musk buying Twitter.

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            1. in the you can’t hate them enough category. The papers are filled with pictures of “defiant” Iranian butchers out in the streets with headlines about fearlessness and other BS. The fact is they are much safer out among civilians than they are in their deepest bunkers surrounded by “trusted” guards since their enemy are civilized people who try to limit civilian casualties. Not one paper mentions this just the defiance The stupid burns IHTFP

              In other news. Europe is negotiating with Iran to let their ships pass. MInes don’t care what your flag is and Europe can burn. let the muzzies or Russians have it

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              1. In an interesting twist it appears that Israel has been bombing IRGC checkpoints using phoned in tips from regular Iranians. This hints that used properly a revolt by the Iranian people could have Air Support (close and otherwise) provided by Israel and the USA. Think of it a service called dial-a-brrrt that lets you call in A-10 with the GAU-8.

                This is a new and interesting model for revolts. As few others can project power and air superiority like the US it really doesn’t work for anyone else other than in close proximity to their country

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                2. Think of it a service called dial-a-brrrt that lets you call in A-10 with the GAU-8.

                  Apparently it’s dial-a-drone. The Israelis have apparently started sending anti-personnel drones block by block looking for IRGC.

                  Col Hammer smiles…..

                  Fireflies coursed the alleys, working outward from the killing ground about Astra headquarters. Occasionally the little machines dipped and stabbed the darkness with a single shot. They had been under Barbour’s direction since he broke, then changed, Pepe’s control codes.

                  “The Sharp End”

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          1. And I miss the New York times of the ’70s and ’80s. Yeah it was biased (although I didn’t see it well being a naive teen), but at least they made a decent pretense of being independent. They actually would hunt down news stories. In the last 20 years or so they’ve just been a clearing house and house organ for Democrat pap. And their reporters are awful both in their reporting and writing. Wed be better off with machine generated garbage from MiniTru.

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            1. Locally, the current owners (not local), cannot figure out why no one takes the Red, er Register, Guard, anymore. Not even printed locally. Do not have a local office, let alone local reporters. Cannot discuss local channel news reporters, haven’t watched them in decades. Get peaks on local channel posts (labeled with local towns); mostly weather and road conditions. Getting a kick out of Rick, retired from ABC (I think) local news, and his FB page. Note, retired. Secondly, moved to Idaho. He is not holding back on reporting Oregon legislative politics. He is “not in favor” of the current politics.

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    2. See also, formerly rock-solid pollster Rich Baris. Now (on TwiXter at least) total, utter doomerism on the very existence of the Iran war (‘the midterms are lost’ ‘we must stop the war now’ etc.), and assorted other things. Even in an active shooting war (of course, undeclared). Even as actual Iranians with pipelines to the inside are telling him he’s all full of… you know, on facts on the ground; and others’ polls find a totally different, far more credible and consistent story.

      IIRC, Second World War Britain actually had a wartime law against, essentially, doomerism. Of course now they’ve made waving their own flag illegal and are removing Winston Churchill from their currency, but… idiots gotta idiot, stooges gotta stooge.

      At some point you just admit the obvious, mourn their fall, ignore the zombiefied post-life of what they used to be, once upon a better time — and close ranks and move on best you can.

      Build under, build over, build around, as we walk on forward.,

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      1. I am absolutely heartbroken over the way that I see Britain going – or at least, in the media and social media sources that follow. Three of my four grandparents were immigrants from the British Isles, early in the 20th century, I was raised as an Anglophile, spent part of two summers traveling through there in the early 1970s, immersed myself in the literature, history and music of the place … and now…

        Sad beyond words. The political elite of Britain are selling their souls and their storied heritage for a mess of political pottage. The Victorian upper and noble classes may have been raging snobs … but I don’t think they despised the working classes the way that the Starmbanfuhrer and his fellows do.

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        1. In GKChesterton’s The Flying Inn England faces muslim submission managed by Lord Ivywood:

             But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
            He rots the tree as ivy would,
            He clings and crawls as ivy would
            About the sacred tree.

          https://allpoetry.com/The-Song-of-the-Oak .

          (This is also the source of The Song of Quoodle which, unfortunately, was vandalized by an editor who changed “old Gluck” to “a Jew” and let Chesterton be forever tarred with accusations of antisemitism.)

          A bit more Chesterton:

          And they that rule in England,
          In stately conclave met,
          Alas, alas for England,
          They have no graves as yet.

          https://allpoetry.com/Elegy-in-a-Country-Churchyard

          The current rulers of England are determined to destroy her.

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  6. “But it will disenfranchise black people.”

    Of course they say that. Because to a Leftist, Black people, immigrants (who are all the same, right?), women, teh gays etc. are merely sub-human useful idiots who will be easily herded into doing whatever the Left wants. Sheep for the shearing.

    That’s why the war on White men. Because the Left views White men as the only humans worth being concerned about. Beat them down and make them quit, then the Left wins.

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    1. And when any representative of those sub-groups goes off the reservation, the blow-back is epic.

      They think they own us, but last time I checked slavery was illegal in thus country.

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      1. There are some states where it is illegal, but Federal law says differently, along with some Federal laws and acts.

        However, the 13th Amendment un-slaved existing slaves, then reserved the creation of new slaves to the Judicial Branch.

        —

        [via Library of Congress]

        Thirteenth AmendmentThirteenth Amendment Explained

        Section 1

        Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

        Section 2

        Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

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          1. The Supremes also ruled that the draft in WWI was totally not slavery or “involuntary servitude”, even if compliance was forced with the threat of prison.

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      1. Yes. Only the way I heard it (see e.g. former rock drummer and historian Larry Schweikart on this one), the party itself was formed expressly and specifically to perpetuate slavery — that’s been its goal and raison-d’etre from the very get-go. (Just as capital-R Republicanism was founded to “eradicate those twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy” — yes that’s a quote or very close to it. So much for alternative marriage, 1860s-style; contrast and compare that with our country’s nationally-court-mandated second experiment with non-traditional marriage, now ongoing.)

        So if one thinks of “The Democratic Party” — or “The Democracy” in mid-1800s-speak — as just and simply being, quite literally and authentically, “The Slavery Party” instead and more honestly… well, a lot suddenly comes far more sharply into focus.

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        1. There was another plank to the Republican Party—the creation of the transcontinental railroad.

          Huh. I wonder if any other political party managed to get its original planks passed?

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  7. Well, obviously! They’re The Smart Ones™! and they’ve got the credentials to prove it! Therefore, we must be even stupider than they are.
    ———————————
    George Carlin: “Think how stupid the average person is, and then consider that half of them are even stupider than that!”

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  8. I realize I’m talking too much about hats here, but this is a wonderful line:

    …this morning, in the middle of these delicate negotiations between me and the rotation of the Earth… 

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      1. Thursday is Hat Day.

        This morning I saw a picture of a guy dressed as a Hassidic Jew, rocking a really cool Indiana Jones hat. I then went down a long rabbit trail, the very reason I try to *not* do a web search on the off questions the Voices occasionally put forth.

        The hat the Hassidim wear is a fedora. The only thing that makes it a “Chabad hat” is the color; black. Fedoras can come in any color, and varying forms of creases or ‘dimples’.

        The costumers for actress Sarah Barhnhardt made a hat for her performance in a play called “Fedora”, performed in 1882. The hats became popular female apparel, and were then adopted as political symbols by the early feminists and prohibitionist. (there was quite a bit of overlap.)

        In the later 1920s men started wearing them too, led by such personages as Edward VII and Al Capone.

        The Lubovich Chabad started wearing them in the 1940s when they were still extremely popular. They wore them in addition to the kippah, doubling down the usual head covering custom. At the time the hats were unremarkable; they didn’t stand out until the whole hat-wearing thing (for men, anyway) same to an abrupt end in the early 1960s.

        I hope the Voices don’t ask any more questions today…

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          1. I have five hats but only ever seem to wear the Panama. I mourn my Stetson fedora that finally wore out, and the replacement isn’t quite the right size.

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            1. I have 44 fedoras of every type, including 5 Stetsons. I actually was able to wear the Panama for 3 days, I’m in New England, so that was nice.

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        2. Younger son running out the door in a black fedora, and his wife running after to remove the hat because younger son looks like some of my ancestry AND they’re not living in a “safe” area for such right now. We’re working on it.

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          1. Reminds me I really need to get a new Fedora. Not worried about being targeted for wearing one, even though I actually am ” a member of the tribe” as it were, given that most of the attention would be to the t-shirt for Slayer, or Sabbath, or another such band, along with the lack of a beard (even when I wear a shirt with sleeves/collars, I tend to wear them open at the front with a t-shirt underneath, and I really like my collection of band and concert t-shirts).

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          2. We used to live fairly close to Lakewood, NJ. I have absolutely no use for people complaining about the Hasidim taking over the streeets on Saturday.

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        4. Plain black or grey baseball cap. Works well enough to keep the sun out of old eyes, well enough to keep a light drizzle off my beard. Gets in the way if you kiss a girl, though.

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  9. It’s white people who are stupid. Anyone who watches TV ads knows this. It’s always the Black/brownish/heavier than just a tan people in the drug commercials patiently explaining things to the white patient. Ditto dark attorneys and executives. Even car sales…uh persons as obviously no white devil is smart enough to sell cars or houses.

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      1. It’s due to the (perceived) marketing demographics, if what I’m hearing is right.

        Short version-most “television” these days (i.e. on-air, basic cable) is the cheapest of all video options and it’s usually on in places where the people who have to watch can’t change the channel. Think the DMV, doctor’s offices, laundromats, etc, etc, etc.

        Or it’s on in places where people can’t afford to subscribe to a streaming service (finally, aging boomers, which is where you get all the medical ads). I.e. the urban poor.

        And who fills those two niches these days? Black and brown people, usually female, usually poorly educated.

        It’s why so many shows have a black or brown female lead of some kind, especially in prime-time demographics.

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      1. Even with those of us who can’t just fast-forward through streaming commercials. I (mostly) ignore commercials. There are a few one pays attention to, because of the cute factor. Couldn’t tell you the product, let alone any political points. But cute.

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        1. Dr. Pepper has a cute one where a black delivery guy and a crazy cat lady bond over Dr. Pepper. She’s showing off her cats, he’s getting her out of the house, and both are simply new best buds. It’s rather sweet.

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        2. A local (regional) store has “PRICE COMPARISON” signs on many items. Showing either a lower or matching price of a couple competitors. But they can be “read backwards.” Oh, no price Compare sign? Must be less expensive elsewhere.

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    3. And, in a related but seperate phenomenon, it’s nearly always fathers who are idiots, or immature goofballs, or laughing-stocks (or some combination of the three) in TV shows. Mothers are saintly dispensers of worldy wisdom, while fathers can’t even tie their shoes without assistance from their wife and/or their eye-rolling daughter(s).

      One reason I appreciate Bluey is that, while the dad does have moments of immaturity, that’s not his only characterization. He has serious conversations with his wife in which it’s plain that they both respect and love each other, for example. And even when he is being a goofball, it’s plain that most of the time, he’s being a goofball on purpose, as part of the game he’s playing with his kids. He’s portrayed as a functional adult, who’s not perfect, but who is just as much a good role model to his kids as his wife is. (Who also has moments of immaturity, though the father does have them more often). Perhaps Australian TV hasn’t gone downhill as far as American TV has, or perhaps Joe Brumm wanted to buck the trends he was seeing; I don’t know. But I appreciate Bluey for many reasons, and its portrayal of the family’s father as an actual functional adult is one of them.

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    1. Yes — and if the fangs don’t prohibit anything like an accurate self-image, then the Fang-Fangs are frequently there willing to provide backup. (Meant in the most general sense of lobbyists and other fluffers, “journalistc” gaslighters, doomers and utopians all… but still casting a cold eye to a particular part of Evilly Occupied California.)

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  11. Illegal aliens voting needs to be stopped for sure, not matter how many it is. But I am even more concerned about the “vote harvesting”. The ballots that get filled out for people who don’t know what’s going on, colllected up, and put into the system. The Mrs. (fairly liberal) is slowly coming around on this. One thing that seems to be having an effect is her acceptance when I say that every system put together in society eventually gets “gamed” by the greedy. She’s seeing this a lot now with medicaid and related fraud. Why wouldn’t that apply to vote gathering?

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    1. Agree.

      Vote harvesting from people who, although citizens, of age, who no longer have the mental capacity, regardless of age, whether they are institutionalized, or cared for at home, have no business voting. I do not care who is helping (spouse, child, nurse, aid).

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  12. Autocorrect, along with its diabolical sibling autotune, is Skynet’s cutting edge, helpfully nudging us stupid carbon units towards our beckoning emoji hieroglyph future of equity for all.

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  13. I’ve read that under the SAVE act, an original birth certificate wouldn’t be accepted as ID, you’d have to get a new one. If that’s true, it would stop me from voting; I can afford a new certificate, but it’s not worth it to me. And if it makes it harder for married women to vote, Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot. Married women are more likely to vote Republican than are single women.

    Ending universal mail-in would be enough to bring fraud down to a manageable level. Ending motor-voter and deporting the majority of illegals would get it down to where it would only swing the very close elections.

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    2. I didn’t have to show a “new” birth certificate when I got my passport or my REAL ID drivers license, I showed them the same old copy I’ve had for decades. Why would the SAVE Act require anything else?

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      1. Why would the SAVE Act require anything else? I don’t know. Doesn’t make sense to me either, but laws sometimes don’t.

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        1. I did not bother with real id for driver’s license. Already have passport (both versions, because paranoid. Lose/stolen one? Have backup.) Requirements for real id is the same as passport. Have had a passport since 2012.

          Hardest part was getting certified copy of marriage license because the pretty witnessed one doesn’t count. I had to send away to the correct county (the one where we took out the license, not the one we were married in, even though both counties got signed and witnessed versions, sigh). These days (having nieces who have gotten married, and divorced, in the last 15 years), not only do they automatically get a certified copy back, both partners send in signed copies of what name they are legally using. Granted, not standard for the husband to change name, but possible, and cases where the couple chose a different surname. This tracks all names used from birth, through adoption, marriage, and divorce, no matter how many of the latter two. At least this is what I have observed both in Oregon and Washington.

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        2. I have the RealID. Had to show my birth certificate as well as proof of residency (2x) at the address on the license. At least in Massachusetts AAA offices often are also DMV (full service) if you have AAA membership. Skipping the DMV lines and the sloths (cf Zootopia) combined with the occasional need for road service, makes AAA worth it. My passport has expired, I want to fix that as my wife will retire in a little over a year and we may want to do some traveling while we still can.

          Wife did similar to get RealID, had to show marriage certificate, as well as birth certificate although at this point she’s used my name nearly twice as long as she did her own maiden family name.

          The certificates had to be actual through stamped ones from a registrar, NOT the birth registration often provided at the hospital, but still that’s no big issue. Wife dropped $10 for a proper copy of a New Jersey Birth certificate and $5 to get a copy of the marriage certificate from my hometown, where we were married. The 5 year license fee for the drivers license was $65. You can get a Non drivers RealID at DMV’s for some nominal fee (mostly to make the ID, and that’s waived if you are 65+ or otherwise low income.

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          1. “although at this point she’s used my name nearly twice as long as she did her own maiden family name.“

            –

            I have used my hubby’s name over twice as long as I carried my maiden name (22 years VS 47 years).

            For mom, it now has been 3.5 times (married at 20, she’s now 91). My aunt kept her first married name after 30 years, in spite of the divorce, because she wanted to maintain the last name of her lost daughter, and any grandchildren by their son. Married at 18, she’s now 71.

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    5. I haven’t done any weed since Emerson, Lake and Palmer (no Oxford comma, alas) were losing a bundle on tour with Works, but you’ve achieved maximum buzz. It took 10 minutes (8 of which were “Honey, you have to do something else NOW”) to find and read the relevant portion of the bill.

      Unless you are going by a different name than on the birth certificate, a bog-standard official birth certificate will work. If you do use a different name, you need proof of name change.

      I’m sure glad I bought the industrial grade BS detector. I’d have to replace the consumer grade one daily.

      [Makes note to break down and get a REAL ID. Still ain’t gonna fly.]

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  14. Always believing the worst of people is a kind of moral disease. I’ve got it, I think. If I drop my keys and someone reaches for them, I’ll stomp on them as quickly as I can, and if I catch someone’s finger … well, I’m protecting some particularly valuable property. (If you want to help, ask. If you don’t ask, you’re not helping, you’re taking over. Exception made if they are sliding downhill.) But this is a symptom of a society in which we are trained to believe that everyone has both the trust and the duties of a sibling, not the duty of a citizen-of-a-republic to think things through. Thinking things through is a moral duty, especially since we have the awsome responsibility of the vote.

    Yes, the awesome responsibilty of the vote. Through an accident of history, our votes affect not only us individually, not only us as citizens off communities, states, and countries, but the whole world and generations yet unborn.

    A cynic is an optimist by nature and a realist by sad experience. That’s usually treated as a character flaw, but it looks more and more like a moral necessity–a necessity to keep both the optimism and the suspicion.

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  15. I keep waiting for someone to question the statistics of those without ID. The supposedly reputable numbers claim 15 or 18% of blacks and 8% of whites don’t have any in the various blog, tweets, and videos I’ve seen.

    No one yet has asked for a breakdown. What age range is most likely not to have ID? The recently turned adults who live in urban areas with buses and not old enough to so driving isn’t a high priority and not old enough to drink so legal ID isn’t a priority? Or what about the elderly who have had licenses taken away or someone else is in charge of them?

    Or are they talking about current ID and not expired ones that someone hasn’t bothered to update yet?

    What about urban vs rural?

    Those with jobs and those without?

    How long does one typically go until you get an ID?

    But I guess if we break it down, we can find where there are problems and work on actual solutions to them rather than use them as scare tactics and sob stories

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    1. They’re statistics. You can’t question the numbers. They just *are*.

      Reminds me of when I began questioning some of the equations in engineering textbooks. It turned out many of them were just rules of thumb, expressed in a mathematical format. It was amazing how many people got angry at that. At me, not the handbooks. [shrug]

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    3. Who did what is always relevant and maybe important.

      Methodology is key to any number that someone arrived at.

      I can have all the qualifications, and choose to use a bad methodology, and thereby screw up my number or numbers. I can try to use a good methodology, and fail because of a stupid mistake that I didn’t catch and fix in time. I can use what the literature says is a good method, for a problem I don’t have the background to know is one where the method breaks down.

      Conversely, I can deliberately use a terrible method that is intended to randomly give me a bad number, and by accident or intuition select something okay as a number.

      Auditing is expensive enough in time that people always hate it at least a little, but not wanting to be audited is still red flaggy.

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      1. “Who did what is always relevant and maybe important.”

        Yes, absolutely. In this case it is DemocRats and their academic water-carriers trying to pretend [insert visible minority here] are too stupid and too functionally useless to get ID for voting.

        All you have to do is remember what these exact same people did to pretend that guns cause crime since the 1960s, and you’ll know their methodology on a host of issues, from immigration to voting to glowball warmening. Lie, deny, distract, gas-light, pound the table and then lie some more.

        The thing about them is they endlessly recycle the same lies over and over, no matter the subject under discussion. I think this is partly because the lies seem to keep working, but also because they’re not really smart enough to come up with anything better.

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        1. It may be too far to say it is like His Majesty’s (George VI) Vichy government in 1944, allowing an Italian Fascist parade, while the UK has not officially left the alliance with the US, and is still officially at war with Germany.

          (It makes an American tempted to give a friendly word, individually to each of the performant Canadian ‘nationalists’ of last spring. “You don’t want American filibusters? My friend, this is how you could obtain American filibusters. That is not a fight that either of us is ready for, and relations have not deteriorated anyway near that point anyway, but you might find it instructive to work out how Americans really think about things.” Of course this is very silly, considering all of the existing communications difficulties between Americans. It would be faster, and easier (still impossible) to sort out the pressing differences of understanding between Americans.)

          Anyway, the most annoying possible defense of that parade is “Factcheck: Akshully, it is not like a Waffen SS parade in Toronto during WWII, approved of by His Majesty’s government. It is more like His Majesty’s Vichey Government endorsing a Fascist parade.”

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          1. ooops

            Might be wordpress, or I may have pebkac ed.

            Meant to be a response to Phantom ranting about a parade in toronto.

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    5. You have ID if:

      • Have a bank account.
      • Have a credit card.
      • Use a credit card (I’ve been asked. Our son has been asked.)
      • Driver’s license.
      • Are a college or trade school student.
      • Working.
      • Pay bills (Seriously, why can’t someone else pay my bills? Let them. Now change or open services for me? Then they need id.)
      • Get married.
      • Medical services (not just insurance card, requires ID. Every. Single. Appointment.)

      I’m sure I missed some.

      If you do not drive, or have lost your driver’s license, regardless of reason, there is State ID. Our son had a state ID at age 12 (needed to be able to cash cashier’s checks on a trip without parents present). At 16, he had his state driver’s license. If we’d had passports before 2012, after he was 16, we’d have needed his birth certificate for passports (we’d gone to Canada before passports were required with him, but then just our ID was required, via vehicle border crossing).

      Note, my paternal grandmother, who never ever had a driver’s license, had state ID before she had a passport. She didn’t get a passport until she was in her late 60’s or early 70’s (not sure when aunt took her to Scotland).

      Not have an ID at age 18? Lazy.

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      1. “use drugs” is another one. Prescriptions require an ID to be picked up. Alcohol requires an ID (and I’m nearly 60!). Nicotine requires an ID. Legal marijuana requires an ID (sometimes two).

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        1. Sign up for social security.

          Work. At least to start work.

          File taxes. Had to enter a *federal ID number, and our driver’s licenses, the expiration dates, and dates renewed, latter two in the “correct format” on the licenses.

          (*) Do not remember how those were assigned when we first got them. But have been the same since.

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          1. Yes.

            Rarely buy alcohol, so surprised every single time (also > 60, and I look it).

            Didn’t think about prescriptions. But technically yes and no. When I pick up mine, I show my Costco ID. When I pick up mom’s, not Costco, I just ask for the prescription.

            Never buy the remainder.

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        2. The alcohol thing varies by region and perhaps seller. I’ve been asked for ID at places that avoid discrimination claims by ‘carding’ everyone. But most places… I haven’t been asked for an ID for several years.

          Storytime…

          A fellow bought a case of (alleged) beer, was carded, found to be of age, and was thus allowed to buy. He did so and went on his way.

          I put my item(s) on the counter and they were rung up.

          “Ma’am, you carded the last fellow, but not me?”

          “Sir, ONE, sorry, but you do look rather older than that guy.
          TWO, I have seen you in here before, so there’s that.
          THREE, he was buying Natty Light. You are buying the good cognac.”

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          1. Yeah buying a bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge or nice Henessey VSOP tends to make them just happily take your money. Even in Massachusetts, where they are officially supposed to card EVERY time.

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          2. Not only is Kroger local (Fred Meyer) scanning everybody, they have to scan your ID, Oregon driver’s license/ID. There is a specific way they scan it to prevent getting all the embedded data off the license (in theory the programs are supposed to ignore anything on the scan that isn’t name and age, by blocking one barcode that supposedly guaranties that).

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      2. Seriously, why can’t someone else pay my bills? Let them. Now change or open services for me? Then they need id.

        In the country where I live, if you’re making a payment over a certain amount, you need to show ID, period. It’s part of an anti-fraud / anti-corruption law passed a while ago. (At least, a cash payment; I haven’t been asked for ID on credit card payments, I presume because they’re traceable). Because paying someone’s expensive bills for them could be a way to pass a bribe that wouldn’t show up in their income.

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    6. So quick use of the internet shows ~237 million registered Drivers in the United States as of 2023.

      The Registered Voters in the United States as of 2024 stands at ~174 million.

      Population as of 2024 was ~340 million with estimates of those over 18 at about 267 million

      So best guess we have a possible 30 million or so (Yes I know 16 and 17 year olds can get licenses, I assume that is a small portion of the issued licenses so am ignoring it) folks who could potentially vote BUT do not have licenses. That’s our outer bound to the issue. Some of them will have passports but how many that is I do not know.

      And of course the number of licensed drivers is nearly a 100 million more than the number of registered voters (even with Motor voter and every other provide a cereal boxtop type scam the democrats have provided).

      Who doesn’t drive that is over 18? Mostly those elderly who have had their license taken away or given it up, Young wealthy city dweller types (One of my daughters know a couple where neither drives quite a stretch in suburban Massachusetts), and those so poor that getting a car/insurance is out of the question (also usually city dwellers as without a car in suburbs/exurbs you are out of luck). So this hits urban demographics which is going to impact primarily democrat constituencies, which is part of why the Democrats squeal like stuck pigs every time it comes up (the other part that it makes fraud in large urban centers, a Democrat specialty incrementally harder to perpetrate)

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        1. My younger Daughter’s buddy who doesn’t drive had a (NY) license, but was part of a bad pileup when she was home in college. Not her fault, but snow and ice in upstate New York can make for a mess. I have also known several folks with especially night vision issues that just don’t drive or drive basically like VFR rules only in daylight and good weather. Heck I’m getting to the point that I am far more cautious about driving, I know my reactions aren’t what they were 20-25 years ago. Generally I have no reason to be out in snow or heavy rain, so avoid it if possible. People need to hurry up on the self driving, but it seems harder than initially thought.

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          1. I have NO night vision, so I was always “day and good weather.” We think the eyes … No, we know the eyes have gotten worse, though I wasn’t aware of it happening, so we wonder if that is driving the fear of driving.

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          2. We took a defensive driving course while seasonal with the USFS (no, not evade and aggressive driving defensive driving). How to prevent accidents while driving government trucks and vans. Not that it covered what was needed, we weren’t exactly driving on city streets or multi-lane freeways. (Safety driving in the back roads of a national forest? Log trucks have the right of way, always. Then the forest fire crews. Easy.) But the training did teach me driving techniques I use today. (Space. Put a buffer around the vehicle I am driving. Stay out of packs. More than two lane freeways, i.e. I-5 Oregon, which is fine, at least most of it, is? Hubby drives, I sleep.)

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        1. It wasn’t hard to get Mom a non-Driver Id here in Illinois.

          Mom had gotten to the point where I didn’t trust her driving a car.

          Note, thankfully she didn’t argue.

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          1. “thankfully she didn’t argue.“

            –

            Lucky you.

            Maternal grandparents we were not so lucky. Grandpa did not have any choice as he was as blind as a bat. Mostly not driving anyway, although he could still park the trailer once they arrived with grandma driving. Grandma got her license back via eye doctor (grumble). Limited. Only around their small town (one stop light), during daylight hours, and not when raining. Never mind, a major coastal highway went through said small town (given the turn the highway takes, plus single stop light, traffic does have to actually slow down through town, but still). No accident. At least extended family could say “we tried, we turned them into to the state”, if something did happen. Oh, yes the county and the state would have filed elderly abuse charges if anyone insisted she not drive. They both issued official warnings.

            Mom still drives at 91. She’s given up driving I-5 any further than Creswell south, and now Salem north. She does, mostly avoid driving to Salem. She takes Amtrak to sister’s in Vancouver, WA and back. Even at 91 the joke on her local driving habits are “That is new? How?”

            Seriously. She drives the same way now she did when we were little and still at home. The occasional lamp posts still don’t get out of her way. One of the reasons why the old arm flung front seat seatbelt, or bracing against front seat while in back seat, equivalent (before seatbelts) stands out is because, it wasn’t infrequent. She’s gotten better at not last minute break slams, if only because I kept pointing out that it was not saving time and how I didn’t do that (okay my method drives hubby nuts. Theory is, if the dang light is red, why go the speed limit? Maybe I won’t have to stop if I’m easing up to the line. Drivers behind me? Tough. Okay, maybe I’m not gunning it when light turns red. Have to make sure the cross traffic is stopping.)

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            1. Mom voluntarily gave up I-5 and other highway (coast, etc.) driving. We had asked but she kept saying no. Then suddenly it was “I’m giving up driving I-5.” We’re under the impression something happened that scared her (to her or someone she knew). But she won’t say. She had been driving down to Canyonville and Medford, and back, 2 to 3 times per month. Gave that up cold.

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            2. Ugh. I despise the idiots I see racing up to a stop light that has just turned red. It’s that important, to sit there waiting 10 or 15 seconds longer?

              Then of course there are the ones that just sit there after the light turns green. “That’s as green as it’s gonna get!!”

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              1. Sorry. I do take a beat when light turns green. Unless I can see that cross traffic is actually stopped or stopping. Too many times I’ve taken that beat, had someone behind me honk, I don’t take THAT long of a pause, to have cross traffic blow through a very red light. It isn’t the fact that it’ll get greener. It is, is someone going to push the yellow? Too often they ran more than a yellow.

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        3. Back when I was doing in-home care, one of the clients was a lady in her sixties who was blind from birth.

          Yes, she had a photo ID. She also had a little gadget with a cutout window so she could sign her name on the line. Because you can’t [expletive] LIVE without showing ID or signing your name.

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      3. My eldest will be turning 18 this spring without so much as a permit. That’s lack of time, lack of need, and personal issues. Second child will probably be getting a permit at the same time as first child, and may well get the DL first.

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        1. Sounds like my younger cousins, when they were younger. Or the 5 boys across the street.

          Reasons? Costs. Once they have the learners permit, the insurance kicks in, if there is more than two vehicles at the household, no matter how many drivers. With just two, presumption is they do not access to a vehicle full-time. A third vehicle means they do have access “full-time”, even if there could be 4 sharing it.

          Adding our son to the insurance policy was $1200/year until he was well out of college. Household driving record? Stratospheric. Our credit rating is as high as you can reach. Does not matter. Now his vehicle insurance is < $600/year in his mid-30s. Ours runs < $800/year for two vehicles. Ours is inching up. Not because of personal driving records, but age. As you get older, the rates go up.

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    7. 70% of random internet post stats are cool-looking two digit numbers pulled from…

      The others are …

      oh nevermind . Not worth it.

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  16. Sarah: I’ve been interested in epidemiology and infectious diseases from my early high school days – circa 1970. I took that interest into college, where I qualified as a medical lab rat, and later to medical school.

    I noted some of the same problems your hubby did, but didn’t have the energy to try to work out the math, especially the conflation of “Died WITH COVID vs Died OF COVID” – I found that some of the most preeminent critical care physicians around the world sometimes had trouble differentiating those two, especially in the beginning.

    It also should be noted that:

    a: some countries where Ivermectin was in routine use continued to report flu cases but reported few if any COVID cases;

    b: The American Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks did the only wide screening for anti-COVID antibodies – and found that, IIRC, there were almost 10x as many serological confirmed cases as clinically reported cases – those reports were quietly buried, even in professional literature;

    c: there were three viable antigen candidates for immunizations – IIRC, the S (Surface) antigen was the most variable, and the changes in the S antigen due to natural variation and mutations were the cause of the multiple waves;

    d: no reliable serological testing – in the past, consisting of acute – during the infection; convalescent – during the immediate recovery phase; and residual – 30 days or more after full recovery- tests were reported. Even more interesting, serum antibody titers – ascertaining the level of the antibodies, primarily of IgM (a 5 bladed rosette of antibodies) and IgG (the single Y shaped antibody) – results were rarely reported. When I asked for a titer due to a clinical case of COVID with negative nasal swab testing, it was refused as an unnecessary test!

    This serological testing has been the mainstay of this kind of epidemiology since the procedures were invented a very long time ago. Yes, they have been augmented by DNA screenings, but the DNA procedures require significant capital AND running costs, while the Sero tests require maybe $50 in misc parts and a source for the purified (ie: NON INFECTIOUS!) antigen, and the lab skills of a HS Junior or Senior who has been in a Hard Science College track, and learned how to do blood typing.

    I’d love to review your Hub’s work – if you contact me through the Bar we both frequent, I should be able to set things up for him to upload to my Drop Box, as I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a BIG file!

    Thank you!

    ps: I’ve been enjoying your cover artwork as well!

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    1. I don’t know if he’s been updating the site, but I’ll ask him hwen he knocks off for the day. If I forget poke me again.
      BTW yes, on a). I have fans with family all over the world, so we knew this. On b): I’m fairly sure my family had it in Jan 2020. You see, older son was doing his trauma surgery rotation in medschool and he worked on a gentleman who had been in an accident on his way back from China. The thing made me ill for over a month and had all the symptoms. But then they wanted me to get a vaccine. BAH. No.

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      1. I’m pretty sure that all three of my cardioversions due to atrial fib were related to taking the mRNA vaccine.

        Since it was VA, and they just paid to get the problem permanently corrected, it’s not like even my wife has cause to sue for damages.

        Part of the problem is that the VA refused to do a VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) report on my condition, and without access to the hospital system to make the report, it was impossible to complete over the internet access we had at the time.

        Suffice it to say, if they want me to take an immunization again, it will NOT be an active agent such as an mRNA – purified viral or cellular extract, even live virus – smallpox for ex – sure, but odd ball ‘hijack the system’ stuff? no way!

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        1. Can’t prove it. But pretty sure my current heart problems, if not caused by, haven’t been helped by, the mRNA vaccine, and having COVID, twice (early Dec 2019, and Jan 2021). I was very, very, sick with it.

          Not helped by genetics, and at least one of the problems (heart valve, pick one), and/or the AFIB, it is known that early childhood bad fevers from having any one of the MMR, and frequent high fever strep throat, weakens the heart valves.

          Lucky me, won that lottery; genetics and all 4 childhood illnesses (old enough to not had the vaccines available). Pretty sure the only two illnesses I haven’t had due to vaccines (normal to the US west) are polio and smallpox.

          On the flip side, aunt’s second husband’s heart problems, that killed him, were directly caused by the mRNA vaccine. Multiple doctors have stated so. She is documenting all this, for when (if), a class action is ever filed. (For reasons, not a fight she is willing to take on. Support? Yes.)

          Her first husband’s medical problems (my uncle), like mine, were probably were made worse by the mRNA vaccine (they’d been divorced for 20+ years before he died, so she doesn’t have recent medical information). Like mine for the same reason; dad’s little brother (genetics, and likely had MMR as a child too; he was only 8 years older than I am).

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          1. Late BIL seems to be one. Late nephew had beaten cancer (vax-killshot status unknown) but it came back really hard. Asking *that* question is not a good idea for me–I neither need nor desire to inflict more pain on Brother and SIL. Still, circumstances (hint: don’t get ill in Illinois) look suspicious.

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            1. When my heart problems started being obvious, mom kept pushing me to push my primary (I was, needed something to show the specialists too, because lord knows, won’t happen in their presence). Why? Because the “next-generation” (i.e., my age group, +15 to -10 years, ish) was suddenly dropping from heart problems, on paternal side. All dad’s siblings, and dad, have had ongoing heart problems. Not to exclude their first and extended cousins. Yes, four of dad’s siblings are within the +15 year range. Although one brother comes under “what problem didn’t he have?” Of my paternal first cousins? So far, only two of us have hit that lottery jackpot. Jury is still out on some of the first cousins, as they are well outside the +15 year bracket (20+ years younger).

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          2. Yeah, I believe that the vax caused my renal cancer. can’t prove it, tho. I am old enough that I had all 4 of the childhood diseases before the age of 5, since MMR was not available. (I remember taking my sunglasses off and looking outside through the curtains, and thinking my Mom didn’t know what she was talking about.)

            I had to take the vax in order to keep my job, because everyone else was convinced that COVID was waiting outside their door, to tackle them and infect them. Then, when the state went on full lockdown, I was laid off. I have an awful reaction to the vax, and I was sick for over a week.

            Then, I was a passenger in the second car of a three car pileup, and that’s when they found cancer on my left kidney. It seems to be trying to come back, now. Grr.

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        2. I know someone who got lung clots, verified non-COVID, from the J&J shot. (He took it because his health profile indicated that the Moderna/Pfizer ones would be bad for his heart.) He was pretty chill about that, basically citing that he played the odds (shot for keeping job) and since he was still alive and repairing, he would be okay. (He is also still around and kicking five years later, so that’s good.)

          As a side note to that, researchers have determined a possible cause of clotting, and it involves both a genetic profile and an adverse event related to an adenovirus. Basically, you pulled two bad cards and then got the adenovirus-related shot, and you fell in the risk group. They were still researching whether getting COVID itself created the same level of risk, but they were hopeful that they’d be able to figure out that kind of risk in advance, because there are other vaccines out there of that type.

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        3. Found this Substack report that puts even more interesting light on the subject – from Oz:

          https://kirschsubstack.com/p/excess-deaths-in-australia-cannot

          “”Executive summary

          Raphael Lataster did a careful analysis of the Australian excess mortality data in 4 of the 8 major Australian regions. He chose these 4 regions specifically because they had low COVID and low lockdowns and were highly vaccinated. So this was the perfect natural experiment to assess whether the COVID shots might be responsible for excess deaths.

          He found a significant correlation in all 4 regions between the COVID shot rollouts and excess deaths. The correlation could not be explained by any of the reasons offered by the health authorities (which did not include that the COVID shots themselves should be considered as a possible hypothesis).

          There were no excess deaths before the shots; they started immediately after the shots and reached the highest excess death levels in Australian history.

          I discovered that the Australian actuaries agreed with Lataster that it is statistically impossible for this to have happened without a novel cause of death (e.g., the COVID vaccines weren’t safe).

          None of the official explanations given by Australian health officials for the excess deaths (aging population, delayed access to health care, COVID, heat wave) actually match up with the data. The officials never show how a model with these parameters fit the data. They simply offer these explanations up with no data to justify the explanations.””

          the article itself is paywalled, but I’m going to contact my last educational contact and see if I can reactivate my library access.

          I’m pretty sure that SAH’s Hubs will enjoy the piece, and it’s pretty straight forward.

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      2. Speaking of Covidiocy, there’s this from Coffe & Covid. https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/upgraded-thursday-march-12-2026-c

        There’s a lot in it, but the piece details the history (and horribleness) of the 1990s era (and never been fixed) VAERS database, along with coverage of what’s replacing it. Specifically, in beta testing, it’s getting 30X the number of entries made (VAERS took 15-60 minutes to enter per event) and has a real-time output, beating the hell out of the quarterly-until-Covid swamped the system VAERS output.

        Lots of goodness in there, but it’s Phase I. Sounds like Phase II will bring out the swamp-denizens and Big Pharma, but you get the idea if’s about ready to roll out.

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        1. Also let’s not forget that during the height of The Pandemic!! there were many reports of various medical workers being told either “not to bother” reporting “adverse events” to VAERS, or were even scolded for having done it — so the discrepancy between “reported vaccine reactions” and “actual bad reactions to the not-a-vax” is likely to exceed even this factor; by another multiplier that may be quite hard to properly ever even estimate…

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          1. The official number from the CDC is that 20% of the events are recorded in VAERS. The unofficial number is about 1%. Apparently, it was such a trainwreck that despite the difficulty in getting the stuff entered (the description makes California DMV look competent and cooperative), the backlog of entries overwhelmed the worker bees.

            [Side note] I’m still frosted by an adverse reaction to a “booster” pneumonia shot that my then-doctor said wasn’t given to me (seems I remember it, discussed it with $SPOUSE but they never recorded it. I still got an adverse reaction, complete with a spot on my lungs and a 10 day prescription of antibiotice. Dr Mengele said I must have gotten it in the clinic. Pull the other one. I’ll go for a Morris dance.

            $SPOUSE saw the advert for that pneumonia vax shot, and the adverse reactions they mentioned pretty well fit mine. I fired that doctor. Since he was the Covid clotshot promotor, I sort of wonder if his bugout plan is up to date. Not all the local tribe members use Tribal Health, and I know/knew a few who it would not be a good idea to tick off.

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  17. The stupidest people DO have ID. My son is IDD – Intellectually Developmentally Disabled (new word for mentally retarded) and HE has state-issued photo ID, because we (parents and guardians) got it for him.

    He won’t be voting, since he’s minimally verbal and can’t understand anything symbolic or abstract*, but you can consider him a documented case of the most “stupid” person you are aware of, and who does have ID.

    He will never vote, or have someone steal his vote, because I carefully check the voter rolls to make sure no one has registered him without our knowledge.

    *He could reliably vote for tacos or pizza, but he would vote for both, so his ballot would be invalid.

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    2. Ask a police officer what adults they encounter not carrying ID, and they will tell you it’s exclusively the perps. The potential advantage of not having such on their person outweighs the disadvantages for pretty much only that narrow class of criminals, offering a chance to dissemble if searched and possibly get out of an arrest. Naturally those same individuals will have ID when visiting check cashing storefronts or buying alcohol or such other establishments that require ID to transact, but otherwise they do not.

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      1. Then there were the teenagers who just happened to leave their ids at home when they were attempting to purchase cigarettes.

        (I encountered plenty of those when I was working at a 7-11.)

        [Very Big Twisted Grin]

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  18. They also continue to demonstrate that they think we’re all dumber than a bag of rocks by…continuing to do ALL the things that lost them the last three elections (we all know they only won 2020 because fraud. Which is also why they’re freaking the hell out now…)

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  19. “…these delicate negotiations between me and the rotation of the Earth…”

    There’s a phrase I’ve used a lot, incl. in a few vignettes if I remember that rightly:

    Inexorable as the dawn.

    This idea (as many of us will already have recognized instantly) comes from very much the same place as the line quoted first.

    It’s coming, nothing you can do about it. Oh, wait, no it’s already here.

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  20. So I was talking to my mom about remembering getting my start of interest in theory of toxicology in kindergarten. I segued from there to my ten year old knowledge in that giving me really weird estimation problems for what ‘everyone’ knows. Which connects to me having wild problems estimation what normal intelligence is or can do.

    Democrats in congress have kind of an opposite problem. That they may be so stupid, so ignorant, or so badly educated, that they also cannot predict a normally educated and experienced rational actor.

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    1. I’m gifted but maybe in narrow ways that peaked at an early age.

      (I don’t know what IQ I have, and do not think that raw IQ without appropriate supporting skills is very useful.)

      I’m not saying that I am well educated or well informed. But for reasons of experience and niche interests I have some information/knowledge, which may be incorrect or badly applied.

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      1. The curse is commonly misspelled as “gift.” For those of us afflicted, it can manifest in many ways but the results tend towards social maladaptation, niche interests, sometimes sensory issues, and the like. Broadly speaking of course, each person carries their own stone around, metaphorically speaking- but the weight remains.

        For the democrats? There are a few with social intelligence. The wit to read a crowd and respond adaptively to evolving social situations. There are some (a rather smaller set within the parent set) with malicious intelligence, ones what know the kind of evil schtick they are involved with and delight in it. And, yes, there are indeed many, many maleducated morons. Artificially stupids. I believe the potential for actual intelligence is/was there, but was mostly beaten and lectured out of them. These are primarily the younger set.

        There’s a coming wave of dumb that is going to hurt. A lot. There need to be folks with experience and knowhow in critical places of the broader economy. Technical ability, keen adaptation, deep and wide knowledge of critical but esoteric subjects. It’s not just politicians that are stupid. They breed, too. And there’s a bloody lot of fools out there.

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    1. Thrawn from Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars novels (the only Star Wars books I consider canon) was in Kingdom Hearts? Which one? I’ve been watching a Let’s Play series of Kingdom Hearts in order to try to keep up with the story (confusing and hard to follow because it was spread out across so many games for different game systems, so most people didn’t get to experience all the games unless they spent a lot of money), but I didn’t know they pulled in Thrawn. Though, come to think of it, KH is pulling in Disney characters, and now that Thrawn has been made canonical in the new Disney SW canon (in some form or other, the Disney “canon” is non-canonical to me so I haven’t followed its details), I suppose it’s not out of the question that he’d show up in KH.

      No spoilers about plot please, but I would appreciate finding out which KH game he appears in so I know when to expect him.

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      1. Failed to mention that I only got as far as KH 2 in the Let’s Play series I followed, and haven’t reached (I might get these titles wrong) Birth By Sleep or 385/2 Days or any of the other titles. So quite a LOT of plot details are likely to be spoilers for me.

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      2. Sorry, I have an overly broad willingness to interpret the rules for what ‘should’ be in Kingdom Hearts.

        Too my knowledge, Star Wars and the MCU have not been included yet.

        The hundred dollar bundle on steam looks like most of the games, but the time investment would still be overly stiff.

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  22. It took him years to realize when I started yelling at a movie he was watching and calling it “rank propaganda” I wasn’t being paranoid.

    It has been 24 year’s since Zhang Yimou’s Hero was released, and it still enrages me that such a talented director, and such a beautifully executed film, was such a disgusting piece of propaganda. And so few people see it for what it is.

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    1. I’ve seen that movie. You’d have to be as thick as a brick to miss the propaganda. They backed up the concrete truck and laid it on by the cubic yard.

      But, to be fair, I’ll say that there is less propaganda in that pure propaganda film than there is in a single episode of Starfleet Academy.

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      1. I was in college when it came out, and didn’t understand the ending (the state needs a strong leader? And that’s why you gave up on your mission and let them execute you? Are you stupid?). My more politically-aware friend complained about the propaganda, and I started to get it once I thought about what the CCP wanted people to believe (the individual should lay his life down to serve the state). But it didn’t occur to me to connect those dots until my friend complained about it.

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        1. (the state needs a strong leader? And that’s why you gave up on your mission and let them execute you? Are you stupid?)

          See? You got it. It’s the non-sequitur. “Wait, wtf did you say? That’s stupid. Nobody does that.”

          I literally can’t watch television or movies anymore because it just jumps off the screen at me. Every time the character starts into some long-winded monologue about something Woke, or makes an UTTERLY INSANE (and/or morally repugnant) decision and all the other characters have to rush to cover for them, I can’t watch. The cringe is harmful to my spine. I fast forward, or I give up and go watch cats on YouTube.

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      2. For most people. it clicks when I say “Nameless is Taiwan”.

        And the fact that the man who made Raise the Red Lantern and To Live, among other brilliant films showing the depravity of communism, made Hero, is just tragic.

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  23. One thing that has taken me a lot to realize is it is generally not that they cannot tell the difference between truth and party. Rather it is that truth is not relevant to them. They value their closeness to The Group above all other things, and their every action orbits around that axis.

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  24. Based on what they have successfully sold to the electorate over the past decades, I’d say they have a fair amount of empirical evidence that said electorate is in fact stupid.

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  25. Yeah, at the DMV each time. And here in the formerly golden state, if one is not covered at work for health insurance and thus must go to the Covered California barrycare exchange, one also has to get past that exact same autoregister-to-vote opt out every single year at renewal.

    And hey, look at them bragging about the “undocumented” illegals they enrolled and covered through that exchange…

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  26. Speaking of “They Think We’re Stupid!” it was revealed today, by a Conservative member of Parliament on Twittler (that’s an important detail because the #Lieberals currently form the government, Conservatives are His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition)…

    …that Canadian Forces personnel in Kuwait were fired upon by the Iranians on March 1st. Good news, nobody died. (Probably. We’re not sure. But most likely it’s all good. Uh huh. Unless they’re lying about that too.)

    So for 11 days, the Canadian government has been pouting and posturing about the warlike things that Those Bad Jews and #OrangeManBad are doing to the poor mullahs. Meanwhile our guys were under fire from the poor innocent mullahs. (And recently it was quietly revealed that a whole bunch of money for veterans of foreign wars was going away, nobody has had much to say about that either.)

    You’d have to devoutly believe that everyone but you is stupid, stupid, stupid! to pursue a policy like that.

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  27. Is it any wonder that people who feel that they are so superior to everyone else that they must achieve absolute totalitarian power so that they can control every aspect of those they deem inferior “for their own good” would constantly engage in demagoguery that declares that they are acting out of the noblest intentions while denigrating those they claim to be defending. They have utter contempt for the masses, and have decided that they must rule over everyone else for the “good of society”.

    No one should be surprised that this lust for power to fulfill their delusional self-centered visions of achieving utopia (which of course would be a dystopia) results in their actively taking the side of those who openly vow “death to America” and proclaim that such calls are not a slogan but policy (as Iran did last month). They have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they will do ANYTHING for power, and that the constitutional order of a democratic republic governed by the rule of law with limited government is something they wish to destroy because it stands in the way of their achieving that power.

    After all, these are the same people who insist that it is racist to require ID to vote, but have imposed ID requirements for everything else, including even getting cold medicine.

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  28. Slight addendum. They think we’re stupider than they are. They think themselves smart. Their friends say so. As do their colleagues, families, and the tv and their phones tells them that, too. Many of them have degrees in this or that. Not just underwater basket weaving. Some in things like advertising, business, journalism, anthropology (spits). The only echo chamber that exists is the one between their own ears.

    The down the nose look is rather a telling trait of the tribe. They know better. At least in their minds they do. Thus, it is only natural for them to explain, teach, and guide those of lesser intellectual achievement (and, implied, ability). Nothing we do can be validated as approaching parity, in their eyes, to their own soaring superiority.

    They think they’ve got all the answers to all the difficult questions. The teachers patted them on they head when they regurgitated the rote response in class. There was no rhetoric, no chain of logic and carefully built foundation on tested and true facts. No evolution from failure to failure to inevitable failure that eliminated the flaws and revealed truth.

    Their method was, is, and continues to be utter pettifoggery, yanking upon emotional strings like a hyper caffeinated churchman on the holy bell. Having continued to promote purely on ideological imprinting, the mental muscles of intellectual investigation and moral courage have atrophied. This has resulted in the very public failures of public officials over and over again. We do not need to discuss the failures of their backers and propaganda outlets, the mass media, do we? Not here, where such is as well known as our Kipling.

    Who wants to be led by fools? This is what runs through what remains of their cognitive process, the gears chattering and the wires smoking from running long unused processes, so used to their dopamine hits from emotional spikes and plunges and not careful introspection. They think us lesser. Fooled into following false prophets. Utterly blinkered to the Truf, capital Tee, of their revolutionary semireligious revelation, as they are the ones, the only ones, with a private line to the Progressive paradise plan.

    I must clarify, when I’ve said “they think,” that does not mean that they engage in the process normally. No, there is quite a bit of rote response- think liturgical call and response- to it. Inconvenient facts come from, to them, untrusted sources. They move as the spirits list, not as sun and season change. Ephemeral to the moment, always following the fanatic fad.

    Being schooled by those one considers beneath them should be a humbling experience. A good thing, indeed, for all of us. To be humble is to realize just how limited in scope we are, How much there is out there to actually learn and experience. An exciting process, once you’ve grasped onto it. Once you’ve accepted that you’ve something yet to learn, a whole world of possible teachers and teachable moments reveals itself.

    And yet, to those of sufficient self conceit, to be humble never occurs to them seriously. They might ape the motions of it towards this barbarian culture or that modern day Vandal or painted tribesman. But inside? They are the great saviors of all. It’s the rush, the heady breath of that special smoke that they jones for like Spongebob looking at a glass of water. They want to convert all to their cause celebre, to lead all to their exalted eschaton immediately. There is no humility in them. Thus, they eschew actual learning until they are sufficiently shocked out of pre-programmed talking points. Or, until things hurt enough that reality is, quite literally, undeniable.

    They think themselves smart. Thus, those who disagree must be dumber than a bag of hammers. There is no true humility, contrition, or acceptance of responsibility. It is for this reason we call them children, not adults at times. Even though they, by rights, ought to bloody well know better.

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  29. Most of today’s Democrats remind me of Heinlein’s Mrs. Keithly — too stupid to realize they’re sawing off the limb they’re perched on. They’d rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. They’ve discovered that they can enrich themselves if they just go along with the program. (Note: This is not exclusive to Democrats.) It used to be hidden and admitted to being ignored. Then came DOGE and Nick Shirley which revealed that, probably, the entire national debt has gone into myriad pockets and was never spent/wasted on government projects. That continuing down this path will inevitably lead to the end of the Republic escapes them. Or they think, “It won’t come for me because I’m special.

    Yes, I do think THEY are irredeemably stupid.

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    1. I do believe in redemption. It is possible. Yes, even for democrats.

      However, that redemption is a hard road to travel. And human beings instinctively avoid the hard roads when there are others available.

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      1. “However, that redemption is a hard road to travel.”

        A hard road that starts with the admission of wrongdoing. Which is something one rarely sees, honestly. Imagine one of our favorite Usual Suspects admitting “Yes, I knew it was wrong, but I said it anyway so I could fit in.”

        Maybe a little more lately, with the red-pilling of so many DemocRats who can’t ignore the insanity any longer. There was one the other day who drew the line at sympathy for the mullahs. Still hates ICE, but declared that DemocRats siding with the Iranian mullahs against her own country the USA was a bridge too far. She’s got a long road ahead, that’s certain.

        Now, their redemption may or may not get them forgiveness from -me-, because I’m a little salty about the whole thing these days. I’m less than forgiving about things like the Ontario government is allowing Al Quds Day to go forward in Toronto, even though the Toronto Police Department has been forced to declare a no-fly zone around the American Embassy for the day.

        You don’t allow demonstrations arranged by the people you’re at war with during a war, it just isn’t done. But it IS being done, right here in Ontario where I live. It’s a crowd of Germans waving the Nazi flag on Hitler’s birthday in 1943, in the middle of University Avenue in Toronto, with a parade permit and squads of cops guarding them from the Normies.

        Yeah, a little salty. Salination is over 9000.

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  30. *slaps forehead

    It’s the rotation of the EARTH, not the sun, with which we must argue.

    You young whippersnappers….I remember the good old days when we all cursed the rising of the SUN way too early. Good times. Good times.

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  33. I just find it disturbing how many people that I thought were nominally intelligent fell, hard, for the Obamamessiah and catching TDS. How COVID was going to be the end of the world (seriously, they thought it was going to be Captain Trips but worse because of Orange Man Bad). How they believed every daytime talk show, how the cast of “The View” were right about everything…

    And every time I saw them, I just had to keep myself from screaming at them that they were being played and manipulated.

    And a few times, I broke and tried to explain things to them.

    They never believed me. They never wanted to believe me. People who I had helped over the years, shed blood with, and they instantly thought I was getting measured for an Einsatzgruppen uniform. That I was having my white sheets laundered for the next Proud Boys event.

    …if I hate the people that dropped us in this hole for anything, this is one of the biggest reasons.

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    1. “They never believed me. They never wanted to believe me.”

      Yes, I know. Holy crap, yes I do.

      What’s going to really hack you off is when they start coming to you for advice. They will do this quietly, when nobody else is around, because you’re the only one in their little circle who might know your ass from your elbow when things start to get spicy.

      That’s when your self control and Christian Charity, capital C capital C, will truly be tested. “Do I let them go and hang, or do I serve them a hearty beating first and then let them go hang?” These are the questions that clutter my days since Covid.

      Thus far I’ve just been mildly helpful and called it good enough. Not out of Christian Charity I hasten to add, but because I’m old now. I’ve written vengeance off as too much trouble to be bothered with.

      Sooner go for a bike ride. Always a good day for a bike ride.

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      1. I’m a bit of an odd Squirrel. And the best type of vengeance is one where you help out someone, who has to keep being polite and doing the please and thank you’s, and knows that the second they stop doing that I’m walking away for good.

        Just because I’m polite, doesn’t mean I’m nice.

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  34. I got modded.

    For what was in hindsight a violation of Godwin’s law, but may have still been actually appropriate.

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  35. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » YOU CAN TELL BY HOW THEY ACT:   Yes, They Think We’re Stupid.

  36. sorry to be off topic.

    I’ve got cancer and it’s not going well. I likely won’t be checking in for a while. It’s been really fun.

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    4. May the doctors practice their witchcraft with care and precision. May the specialists and bloodsuckers be especially competent and wise. May you and yours face the coming poking, prodding, and alchemic concoctions with with the dignity of a sphinx, the patience of Neighborcat watching a mouse hole, and the calm attention that’s the opposite of Doofus watching the chicken pot cook.

      Be well as you can be, face every day with courage, and keep your loved ones close. Keep marching on while you can. That’s all any of us can do.

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  37. First, I have to say that my husband (the engineer) sent this to me (the political analyst) to read since he made it to Insta first this morning. The situations you describe between yourself and your husband are eerily similar to our house – right down to COVID being the switch that brought him more into my political sandbox. (That he was a captive audience to my rantings about all the @#$& policy and started reading more policy stuff had more to do with it than following the numbers, however.)

    Second, I keep coming back to the reality that the Democrats are leopards, incapable of changing their spots: They are the same racist, misogynistic, condescending jerks they have always been, just with better PR. They now manage to encourage minorities to want segregation, you know, for their own good.

    To say I’m tired of their $#it is an understatement. This is exacerbated by the stupidity of congress critters like thune and Cornyn who are convinced everything is a paid influence campaign, because they continue to exist in the DC bubble, detached from reality.

    A little self-awareness would go a LONG way.

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      1. LOL – thanks! I did, indeed, marry my best friend… with a piercing voice. 😁

        I confess that I’m probably the more annoying one, though!

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  40. Frenz, I can only imagine a two week so far war as dragging on if either I have my instant gratification hat on, or I think it is a real possibility that we could speed run and blitz all of the foreign sponsors of the Democratic Party by August, or something.

    I do often wear the instant gratification hat.

    The second scenario is wildly optimistic, as far as I can tell. Terrorist sponsors that we are at war with, maybe.

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  41. Now hear this. Now hear this:

    Nuke the Filibuster; it’s the only way.

    Ah, but I hear from the peanut gallery, “Then what will control the left when they get back in power?”

    It’s become a silly objection. They’re going to nuke the filibuster anyway. They have to, if they’re ever to restore the deep state and the NGO-Party gravy train, to pack the Supreme Court, to disarm us, to restore race-based electoral districts, to get their new illegal immigrant client base regularized. Etc. Etc. Etc. The left has no choice.

    So we need to do it first. To pass the Save America Act. To ensure the left never gets back into power.

    Nuke the Filibuster.

    Nuke it now.

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