I was going to blog about the people who don’t want to celebrate the 250th. But it’s difficult because there’s this lump of different feelings in the way.
A lot of it is related to the death of Henry Nowak, in England, and I’ll got into that first. No, Great Britain is not us. Though, let’s face it, we got a heck of a way down that path before the election in 24. And it doesn’t mean anything, necessarily about the people of Great Britain but more of the boot on their necks. Except they’ve tolerated the boot a lot longer, and let themselves get disarmed, which…. never mind. Europe.
But that’s probably why this hit me harder than it should have. Look Great Britain was a beacon of freedom compared to late seventies Portugal (and we won’t even mention before, okay?) and I grew up reading British authors. There’s a reason Skip in No Man’s Land is from Britannia on High, a series of colonies established to mimic the “impression” of Victorian England of pro-British novelists. There was an early romantic attachment to the idea of England, warts and all.
More importantly, that poor kid, Henry Nowak was a first year college student. I was once a college student doing an absurd route of walk, train, walk, bus, walk to get to college in town and then across town. Of necessity this took me through some pretty iffy parts of the big city I had to cross, though thank heavens that was “pre-diversity” Europe and the worst thing that happened to me (multiple times) was having a crazy person follow me yelling either threats or obscenities. And there were the inevitable late nights, both for study and to hang out with friends, mostly Swedish-language-club friends, for various reasons. I can imagine being in his position all too easily.
And then there’s the police reaction. how do you even? I mean, I’m sorry. The fact that this is in accordance with the instructions, not to say the indoctrination of the police in England is evil, bizarre, but most of all red-veil inducing. I’m a berserker. I try not to let myself get riled up to the point I have to depress myself to stop going off. But it is too late in this case, and worse there is no one to go off on. Not anyone I can reach anyway.
Then there is the idiot in Congress (the House, I think) who thinks it is very suspicious the ICE detention centers contains mostly non-white people. The composition of the people coming in, apparently, doesn’t matter. They should just and only arrest white people. Apparently.
And all this, like the blatant male-hatred that was being pushed down every channel by the autopen’s administration, is based on the Marxist’s restricted and dual vision.
Because Marxism divides the world into oppressed and oppressors, with the groups shifting according to the time and the subject, but still maintaining that duality, they can’t conceive of say ending racism without shifting to anti-white racism. And they view wanting to stop mistreatment of white people as “racism” because they are incapable of imagining a system in which there is no oppressed group.
It is inherent in their view that someone must be oppressed. You simply have to pick who is oppressed.
So, of course, for women to be free, men have to be oppressed. For black people to be free, white people have to be oppressed.
They are incapable to break free of this completely wrong duality in their heads. And in the name of this duality they are dragging us straight to hell.
To stop the cultural suicide of the west, and, frankly, of civilization and ultimately of the human race, we must break this wrong duality.
People are people. Shoving them into arbitrary groups does nothing to solve any problems. And then arbitrarily deciding which of those groups is “bad” and which is “good” and acting accordingly is outright evil.
Their idea of anti-racism is being racist against whites. Their idea of feminism is being prejudiced against men. Their idea of balancing the scales is to put stones on one side.
And it does nothing, absolutely nothing, except leave an innocent boy bleeding out on an English street, while the police who should be helping him wax sarcastic at him.
A horror they’re trying to export here, and have succeeded in many places.
Mind your teaching of your children, and more importantly mind what others are teaching them. Marxism must be eradicated root and branch and sent back to the hell it came from.
According To Hoyt 
I’m finding it very Hard To Not Hate The Left. [Frown]
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I simply believe they are not worthy of hatred. Why hate mindless automatons?
Besides hatred can lead you to open fire on them… and miss.
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Nah, only strong drink can do that. White-hot anger just steadies my aim.
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I’ve gone on record in favor of hate here before. Anger is good for prompting action, but it takes energy and can make you dumb in the heat of the moment. Hate is sustainable.
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Likewise.
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I can’t find the clip from 1923 when Helen Mirren’s character explains to young Elizabeth the facts of life, so I paraphrase. “God’s law shouldn’t be too hard. You shall not kill. You shall not lie. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And it’s that last one that leads you to all the rest. Some day man is going to covet himself right out of existence.”
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I don’t hate the dwarves in The Last Battle. I hate the fact that they’ve closed their minds to anything else. Which pretty much describes where the Left has gone. At least the Right maintains some level of introspection.
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It’s dragon sickness, I tell you.
Literally, dragon sickness. Brought about the chief dragon itself, the father of lies who was a liar from the beginning.
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Quite well said indeed.
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Who desires everyone to be miserable just like himself.
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One of them apparently repented at the last minute, as he enters the “new Narnia,” with the other saved folks.
Lewis gave an example of a last-minute repentance/conversion. John Bunyan gave an example of last-mi ute damnation in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Interesting.
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We’re not told he “repented at the last minute” as we are given no glimpse into his mind or motives. Just that he turns up in Aslan’s Country and that those who wonder at him being there realize they don’t know the full story and such is between him and Aslan.
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I am absolutely horrified by the footage of young Henry being dragged, cautioned and handcuffed on the strength of a horrible, vicious lie – while bleeding to death in front of the plods. It’s just one more horror on top of all the others coming out of formerly great Britain – the Rotherham industrial-basis rapes of working class and vulnerable girls, the stabbings of those little girls at a dance party after turning a blind eye on an obviously dangerous young thug, the harassment of the ax girl in Scotland, continuing reports of itinerant so-called “travelers” casually appropriating empty fields, and hundreds of male migrants plunked down in rural villages and the authorities then turning a blind eye towards how they then sexually-harrass local women and children … all of it blandly ignored by the upper-echelon British ruling and managerial classes and most of their establishment media.
The native Scots, English, Irish and Welsh are being pushed beyond endurance – and I rather think that the reason they haven’t erupted so far (or at least, not very much) is that they are still very ridden by the class system and centuries of sometimes grudging obedience to those perceived as their betters. The Englishman may grumble sourly and grudgingly put up with treatment or conditions which would have Americans looking to join a Committee of Vigilance, start breaking heads, and buying more ammunition.
And I have very fond memories of visiting Britain, also – given that three of my four grandparents were British immigrants, we grew up marinated the culture they brought with them. We read – or had read to us — quantities of late Victorian kid-lit. All the classics; Christopher Robin, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Child’s Garden of Verses – and all of Kipling. My god – so much Kipling, from the Just So stories to the Jungle Books. It was to the point that when I actually visited Britain (aged almost 16, and again at 22) I had the constant feeling of deja vu – that I KNEW this place, this history, this culture! It all came whispering up from my ancestral memories …
And now I morn for what it has become, for what their leaders have done to their country: coldbloodedly determined to dissolve their people and replace them with another, hoping that the new imports will be more biddable.
They won’t, of course – but by the time the British managerial class figures it out, it will be too late.
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Yes, my very brief visit was filled with deja vu. I knew the landscape, the people….
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Southampton nearly boiled over, I suspect. It may not be much longer before the boiler explodes.
Peoole also might be waiting to see whether Restore does well before resorting to riots.
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The problem is that America proved an outlet for all those who refused to put up with the system and hollowed out Ireland and England, taking all those with initiative and leaving the others behind.
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I’ve always been surprised the Aussies put up with what they do from their government. I always thought of them to be like the Americans in your quote, above.
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I read a post on Twitter by an Aussie who said Americans had a somewhat combative relationship with the Britist government from the beginning. In Australia, people were far more dependent on the government for survival. So Aussies are far more deferential to government decree than Americans.
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Australians are divided: those who stayed close to the settlement, and those who upped sticks and went beyond the ranges. The first lot respect the rules faithfully.
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That is the mythology promulgated by the governing class.
To the extent that it is true, it mashes together the concepts of government services and community voluntarism.
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People came to America because they were disgusted with their neighbors. People were sent to Australia because their neighbors were disgusted with them. 😛
Australian customs busybody: “Do you have a criminal record?”
Tourist: “No, is that still a requirement?”
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Well, according to family legend, G’g’g RC came to America because he left before the plods found him. No noticeable saints in the ancestry, but plenty of sinners, and one or two noteworthy preachers. (Apparently more on the saint vs sinner side of the teetertotter.)
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One of my wife’s great uncles brought a rifle with him from Ireland. (Not sure how he got it through customs, but times were different back then, and his journey may not have been strictly legal.) She described it as having 3 notches carved into it, representing 3 British soldiers.
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So it probably wasn’t one of these, although the tradition has been passed down….
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Aussies are like Canadians. If it’s the government, it must be alright.
Opinions are slowly changing here and down under, as the government becomes more and more blatantly corrupt.
But soooo slowly. It’s painful.
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World Wars I and II didn’t help either.
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As we used to say about Ireland (lived there for 8 years, loved the place), everyone with get up and go, got up and went.
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The more I learn about this murder, the more bizarre it gets. I already knew that Digwa had chased Nowak, and stabbed him in the legs as Nowak tried to escape over a wall. But apparently when Digwa caught up with Nowak again, he repeatedly told Nowak that he hadn’t stabbed him. Suspicion is that this was meant to soothe nearby bystanders who might otherwise react to Nowak’s statements about being stabbed.
This whole thing is like some weird Bizzaro-world story.
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As I understand it, Digwa was using Nowak’s phone to record the whole incident. By stating on a recording that he did not stab Nowak, he likely thought that would be enough evidence on court.
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“Therein lay the terrible grandeur in Churchill’s funeral, a quarter century after Dunkirk. The nation was bidding farewell both to a great Englishman and to the greatness of England. When his flag-draped coffin moved slowly across the old capital, drawn by naval ratings, and bareheaded Londoners stood trembling in the cold, they mourned, not only for him and all that he had meant, but all that they had been, and no longer were, and would never be again.”
Wm Manchester, The Last Lion, Book 1
God Save England, for she is worth saving, for all she has been.
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Ultimately, the moslems in the UK will do something so humiliating that the remaining British will either rise or perish. Theirs is a culture of not just submission, but humiliation. They -must- escalate. Sooner or later, something epically horrid will occur, and the inner “football hooligans” will be unleashed.
We may yet see a Pogrom to make Nazis puke.
I have my doubts. I think the locals have self-gelded themselves for far too long. We may see a rush to “BrExit”. I hope they stay and fight.
And yes, the current outrage was via Sikh. Because you apparently are permitted to gripe about Sikhs. Moslems loath Sikhs. An example may be made on a community that is decidedly -not- moslem. The hammer most assuredly will -not- fall on moslems, just expendable Sikhs.
Anyone else spot that?
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I did. However, there are a couple factors you didn’t mention.
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I have a feeling Kipling was prescient, yet again.
“So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far… ” sounds about right
—————-
In extended observation of the ways and works of man,
From the Four-mile Radius roughly to the Plains of Hindustan:
I have drunk with mixed assemblies, seen the racial ruction rise,
And the men of half Creation damning half Creation’s eyes.
—————-
I have watched them in their tantrums, all that Pentecostal crew,
French, Italian, Arab, Spaniard, Dutch and Greek, and Russ and Jew,
Celt and savage, buff and ochre, cream and yellow, mauve and white,
But it never really mattered till the English grew polite;
—————-
Till the men with polished toppers, till the men in long frock-coats,
Till the men who do not duel, till the men who war with votes,
Till the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Lawrence took his grid,
Began to “beg your pardon” and—the knowing croupier hid.
—————-
Then the bandsmen with their fiddles, and the girls that bring the beer,
Felt the psychological moment, left the lit Casino clear;
But the uninstructed alien, from the Teuton to the Gaul,
Was entrapped, once more, my country, by that suave, deceptive drawl.
—————-
As it was in ancient Suez or ‘neath wilder, milder skies,
I “observe with apprehension” how the racial ructions rise;
And with keener apprehension, if I read the times aright,
Hear the old Casino order: “Watch your man, but be polite.
—————-
“Keep your temper. Never answer (that was why they spat and swore).
Don’t hit first, but move together (there’s no hurry) to the door.
Back to back, and facing outward while the linguist tells ’em how—
‘Nous sommes allong ar notre batteau, nous ne voulong pas un row.'”
—————-
So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far…
“Let ’em have it!” and they had it, and the same was merry war—
Fist, umbrella, cane, decanter, lamp and beer-mug, chair and boot—
Till behind the fleeing legions rose the long, hoarse yell for loot.
—————-
Then the oil-cloth with its numbers, like a banner fluttered free;
Then the grand piano cantered, on three castors, down the quay;
White, and breathing through their nostrils, silent, systematic, swift—
They removed, effaced, abolished all that man could heave or lift.
—————-
Oh, my country, bless the training that from cot to castle runs—
The pitfall of the stranger but the bulwark of thy sons—
Measured speech and ordered action, sluggish soul and unperturbed,
Till we wake our Island-Devil—nowise cool for being curbed!
—————-
When the heir of all the ages “has the honour to remain,”
When he will not hear an insult, though men make it ne’er so plain,
When his lips are schooled to meekness, when his back is bowed to blows—
Well the keen aas-vogels know it—well the waiting jackal knows.
—————-
Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float—
Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat—
Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite—
But oh, beware my Country, when my Country grows polite!
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“Then there is the idiot in Congress (the House, I think) who thinks it is very suspicious the ICE detention centers contains mostly non-white people. The composition of the people coming in, apparently, doesn’t matter. They should just and only arrest white people. Apparently.”
Representative LaMonica McIver (I’ve never heard of her before) is the idiot in question. And her question wasn’t about skin tone (though it was obviously the intent). Instead she asked why only *foreigners* were locked up at Delaney, which is the ICE holding facility that’s been in the news.
https://x.com/i/status/2062212930486067697
An even more foolish question, needless to say.
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Remarking “Dumber than a box of Crocketts” would seem to be in order here. And yet, the very prospect of anyone trying to run the “hold my beer!” algorithm to completion, on a record like that one, is… dazzling, maybe even mesmerizing.
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The term is unclear on the concept.
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There must be a special place in Hell for the chain of command/authority that murdered Henry Nowak. But there should be justice in this world, and compensation to Nowak’s family drawn from the personal wealth (and state pensions) of those who contributed to this murder.
This was no accident. It was not a mis-aimed shot. It was not an error in finding an address. It was a deliberate act of bigotry and moral inversion enshrined in the policy of the government by people who had a clear obligation to know and act better.
It is, in another sense, the elevation of a false god and a false devil over the principles that the Anglo-Saxon nation developed at great cost over a thousand years, to the great benefit of humanity–up until now.
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I have close kinship with England. Its decline and this latest horror is beyond my ability to process completely. I can’t afford that kind of anger–too much going on right now, all of which is crazy-maddening.
I stand with anyone who doesn’t quit in the fight against evil.
I’m so mad and disgusted right now, though.
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I’m 3/4ths English, though like having been born in Chicago, it’s not something I’m going to brag about. Sigh.
(OTOH, the other quarter’s home country is starting to recognize the clue-by-four. I have some faint hope.)
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I think that I may be detecting a common thread among these woke enthusiasms: The Precautionary Principle.
We are told that saving the human world from Climate Change we must overturn an economy that works, more or less, and empower a new ruling class devoted to putting the breaks on progress because the claimed danger so outweighs the actual probabilities.
Antiracism is the same argument: we must certainly inconvenience the majority to prevent a possible injury to the minority.
“If it saved only one life … ”
“It’s for the children … ”
“Protect children not guns …”
“In this house … ”
All of these bromides take as a premise that the feared outcome is so dire it requires that we suspend common sense and do whatever the expert class instructs us must be done. This leads us to profound cognitive dissonance.
These bobbies literally could not recognize what was happening because the precaution against offending the swarthy gentleman was the focus of their attention.
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It was many years ago, but there was a law in a state legislature to ban FGM. Some congresscritters opposed the ban, and stated on the record that mutiIation of little girIs should not be banned because the families who practiced it would then be reluctant to call the police for worse matters.
That came to mind when reading your comment. I tried googling (“FGM in the U.S.”) but couldn’t find the specific state I was remembering. (The law passed with like four votes against, where the reporter asked WHY and got the above answer.)
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Precautionary Principle: We MUST do this to prevent worse. All purpose skeleton key of Progressive mischief.
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A tweet from Bonchie gives (what I gather is) the official attitude:
https://xcancel.com/bonchieredstate/status/2062493957175595492
It’s not enough to not be racist, we must be anti-racist. Please! I just had dinner.
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An antimissile is still a missile, but aimed differently. “Antiracism” is still racism, but aimed differently.
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And this event has made that perfectly clear. Complete with disarmament to keep the new targets from being able to counter it. (Recalls Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down* and wonders if somebody is reviving the spirit of the FP45 Liberator…)
(*) In the mid-late 1960s, it was required reading in a high school English class. Somebody thought they were being clever.
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Because of course the remedy for racism and oppression in the past is MOAR racism and oppression. 😡
RRRAAACISSSM!! and oppression forever!
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Remember Robert Stacy McCain’s rule, there must be 5 ‘a’s in RAAAAACISM. :)
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the wife and I had planned to retire to the south coast of England. We had a small house bought already. We sold it when Sunak brought down Truss because we knew that Labour were inevitable at that point. What really hurts is that it was Boris Johnson who did the damage bringing in hordes of barbarians. Labour thought those barbarians would keep them in power, but the hordes are taking power themselves and expanding their “culture.” I despair. I’ll go back to Ireland and England for my mother’s sister’s funerals, but have no intention of going there again otherwise.
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I have a 3rd cousin in Devon, the surprise product of a hookup between an American Airman and local gal during the late queen’s coronation celebrations.
She is a very sweet woman, except that she has concluded that the Orange Man is an existential threat to her and her precious NHS. The suicidal psychosis of the English upper middle class should be the fodder for many psychological studies in the future.
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All of Europe hears about Orange Man Bad with a stronger twist. They hate Hitler, who they think is what Trump literally is. They even fooled my late mother, who was not a fool.
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Even eastern Europe? I thought they were a bit more sensible after suffering under communism.
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Please remember, if you were Born in 1989 (when the Warsaw pact started to fail) you will be 37 sometime this year. The Politicians in the East are in their 50’s and 60’s so remember those times (likely very unfavorably). I think the ONLY reason the ex-Warsaw Pact countries haven’t gone doolally like Western Europe is that the EU forced a bunch of utterly destructive imports on them, and their current distrust in the EU is far greater than their distrust in the USA.
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Just saw an article by travel writer Rick Steves; a snippet:
This is somewhat soothing, as I plan to be in both Italy and Greece this Fall.
Presuming the creek don’t rise …
(Quite likely the last Big Trip In My Life – I hope the belligerents don’t Screw This Up!)
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Maybe yet another aftereffect of getting rid of USAID? :P
There’s also a link up at Instapundit to a blogpost on another site where the poster talks about a number of countries throughout the world that are becoming friendlier to the US, including the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia.
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Both sisters and their husbands just got back from Europe (different times). One sister and her husband have two more trips booked for this year and are looking for a third (they caught the Travel Bug).
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My sister and BIL caught the travel bug. They take a lot of bus, ocean, and river, cruises. Last one was a Europe bus tour. They don’t talk politics (not what they are there for). Others do. They’ll push back eventually. They get a kick out of those who do. Their favorite phrases:
They freely admit they voted for Trump.
We don’t travel near as much. When we do, we aren’t traveling with a tour group. Worst we deal with crowds are at animal jams. Guaranty bear jams no one is discussing national politics. Breakfast, or evening hotel bonfires (so far only one that does this), topics are who saw what animals, where (usually bears but not always). Politics once. And everyone at the two bonfires near our room, even the “youngsters”, voted for Trump. Whether their state helped Trump or not (our state didn’t).
We got asked “why stay in Oregon”/west coast. We did point out, “no sales tax” and “no *heat index humidity”. You’d have thought we’d said that “yes, we live on Mars”. Everyone else was from east coast US. They also were surprised “how close” we lived (Tetons/Yellowstone: a little over 800 miles/13 hours).
(*) First time I heard “heat index”, my response was “Wait? What?” Also, Oregon can have humidity where it is muggy. You know, when it is 65, but “feels like 72”, before a storm sweeps through and drops it to 55. It can happen. But it isn’t going to be 94 heat index 110. If it is 110 (has happened, not normal), it is 110.
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Aww, I’m really sorry she’s gone without resolving that between you. They are entirely too convinced of things they know so little about. My condolences, Sarah.
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The classic quote on this is from George Orwell’s 1984
If the main sources of information all claim Trump is the second coming of Hitler (or perhaps worse) it is unsurprising that belief in that claim is strong even among educated and (relatively) independent thinking folks. Even here where we have the 1st amendment our education and most of our press have been captured or are willing quislings. Probably the only thing that saves us so far is the most independent and orneriest people from across the world decided to be Americans for the last three or four centuries. It appears to mostly breed true.
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I have to visit Portugal as long as Dad lives. And I’d like to see my brother once more. After that… I’m not sure I’ll return. Europe requiest in pace.
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I’ve been going to Europe every year all my life not including the extended periods of residence. I’m not interested in going anymore even to see the rugby or Gaelic games. It’s hard. They’re lost in illusion
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We’ve been going whenever we could afford it, mostly time not money. Now we could go for a month or two a year, with a portable starlink, so Dan could work while there. I don’t want. Even though it would be time with dad in his final years. For one, with what I do, I could be in danger.
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I had my chance in 2001-2 with three business trips to Bavaria. One trip, I considered a train trip to Grampa Pete’s family home (the farm might still exist), but other considerations said nope. Germany was still somewhat sane, though one of our German hosts had a wife from the North, and she was about 170 degrees off from the culture of Bavaria.
Not in the cards any more. After Mom passed, I don’t have enough connection to the rest of the family to warrant a trip. Reports from one brother* indicate that expressing sympathy for anybody to the right of Stalin would be ugly.
(*) Don’t want to visit him either. If my knee cooperates, SIL** and her daughters will come out for a visit next year. If. The other knee gets a vote.
(**) Other brother. Never very close, but we get along.
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The only thing I regret is never making it to Greece and Rome, but at this point I don’t think health would tolerate it.
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Dad’s company had him in Ireland for a year (-ish). While there he and mom took trips throughout Europe (even got a train visa for Russia), England, Ireland, and Scotland. Including staying at the Inn that my great-grandfather left to immigrate to the US (via Canada), late 1800s. Still owned by the family who stayed.
Grandma joked her mom and siblings had to marry immigrants, they were too closely related to everyone else in two valleys. As it was, mid and latter 1900s had cousins, 3rd getting married, before they knew they were cousins. I had HS classmates who were *cousins (5th), that I didn’t know were cousins until we all showed up at a larger family annual reunion long past HS graduation. We didn’t go to HS in the area settled (about 50 miles north).
(*) Oh. Another Applegate? Hm. (At this point …) “Who isn’t?” Not quite that bad. But perception…
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my mother’s family tree is a trunk, very few last names.
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My surname is apparently among the top 100 English ones (amusingly only in America. Dropped out of the top 100 in Blighty.) For reasons, I know very little about direct ancestors beyond grandparents, and damned little on that score. The good news, is if another [redacted] runs afoul of the law, I can safely say I don’t know him/have no idea if related…
My niece did ancestry work on my mother’s side of the family. We also had a lot of anecdata about her ancestors (He died HOW?). She skipped Dad’s side; finding a decent starting point would be a challenge.
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We only know about my paternal gg-great-grandparents, because of the historical graveyards out of Yoncolla Oregon. Most are just names on gravestone. One graveyard is a LOT larger than the other. The one for my side of the family, is maintained by the four families descended from great-grandparents. More qualify to join for the annual cleanup and meeting (and burial whether they show up or not annually before they die). There is also the annual gathering for descendants of the three brothers who came west in 1843. But unless someone shows up there, wouldn’t know.
Burial. A lot of inquiries from extended family who do not show up. A perception that because family graveyard, interment is “free”. It is not free. Because not free, haven’t seen any inquiries go any further (and some were “X has died”, states relationship, what is the process. They get told. No new grave.)
The ground plot is free (pick a spot). The rest of the process is not inexpensive. Traditional interment is not “free”, family has to arrange it with a non-local (because no local) mortuary. The hole can’t be dug and prepped by *family, anymore (unless burying ashes). Still requires burial box professionally installed by mortuary (traditional). Ashes cannot be interned in urns, mausoleums, or ash wall vaults, above ground (because of the historical designation). OTOH headstones do not have to be flat ground level either. Not many new tall headstones, but none are ground level mow over them either.
I’ve mentioned before, we know nothing about my paternal grandfather’s family history. A little more of my maternal grandparents’ history, but not much (there are cousins in Montana, met them, once, when I was 8 or so). Hubby doesn’t know anything at all about any of his cousins other than there are some, somewhere.
(*) Last one was great-uncle, August ’73. Nephews and hunting buddies (he had no children), got together and took turns digging, drinking, and telling stories best left out of the formal eulogies. We heard about digging the grave when dad’s, and latest uncle to pass, ashes were interned. Last grave dug by family gets told, and will be told, until the last of the participants are gone (a few still left).
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We have traced everyone back to the boat. Which means, up one branch, to my great-grandfather. Up another, thirteen generations on this continent. (Actually, if you want the first arrivals, that only goes back eleven generations. Generations can be like that.)
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Not true with the West Coast Applegates. That is the problem. You can’t tell because the “xth cousins” heck the 2nd cousins once/xth removed, are through a maternal line branch, at least one, and probably multiple.
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Mine too!
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On Grampa Pete’s side, there’s lots of surnames for the women, all ending in “datter”. His generation was the first in the family where everybody got the surname from their grandfather, not the father. So Grampa’s sisters were “sen”s.
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Does your family ever visit you here?
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No.
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I thought Tony Blair was a large part of the decay as well.
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This was an example of just how far the left has twisted and warped society. Say the magic word (racist) and the police fall all over themselves to arrest the victim and coddle the murderer. There is a sickness in the minds of leftists and they have been working for years to implant the same bizarre ideas into everyone else. In too many cases they have succeeded and this unfortunate young man was a victim of it.
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Thing I get from it, and I’m tired so this might not come out right, is the magic words are losing their power. All the -ists and i-sms of yesteryear get a yawn today. At worst, it just means you’ve made the right sort of antagonist. The fool that makes his own idiocy loud and apparent to all and sundry.
In other places ‘cross the pond and all they’re still stuck in the old system where there’s some legal backing behind the hollow and increasingly corrupted language. Damn shame and all that. Hate it for the friends I have over there. But I’d rather not our boys be meddling in anything over there for the time being. Even for nominal good causes.
There will always be the credulous, the lazy, and the corrupt. These traits are endemic to the human condition and every man jack has them within him. The civilized of us learn to reject those impulses. The less so indulge them.
I am sad to see Jolly old England going the way of the barbarian. Unsurprised, yes. But sad nonetheless.
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Possibly. Those whose paychecks depend on their acknowledging the Medicine of the magic words still toe the line.
More and more normies seem to be making their halting to Spanish Man’s Grave (a great story, for those who haven’t read it: it’s James Warner Bellah).
That’s what it will take: drive them to their Medicine and then show them that their Medicine is no good and their gods hate them.
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–
Outs themselves as to what they are. The screamers are what they are screaming. Ex: “Those who scream racists, and point”, are outing themselves as racist. Not who they are pointing to.
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It’s like we’ve said here before: If you keep hearing dog whistles, chances are you’re a dog.
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I have a mischievous little idea about how to make Keir Starmer writhe. No, he’s not personally or even primarily responsible for the Nowak/Digwa horror, but he is a proper and more than deserving focus of scorn for my purposes.
I am hoping that the English national team makes a deep, deep run in the imminent World Cup. Virtually the only accepted motive for displaying the English flag in current England is in support of its national sports teams, which effectively means its soccer team. The longer England lasts in the tournament, the longer the English will be flying the St. George’s Cross flag, the more those flags will proliferate, and the less Starmer and his diverse persons of hench (such a more enlightened term than “henchmen,” don’t you agree?) will be able to object to seeing them cover public spaces in a sea of red and white.
He’ll be stuck. Would he dare chide the English for their excess of evilbadracist patriotism, and finally sink his approval ratings into single digits? Would he bite his tongue as Englishmen filled the streets, carrying those flags and cheering when they weren’t singing songs about Starmer’s solitary sexual habits? (You know what I mean.)
His misery would be excruciating. Doesn’t it sound like fun?
Republica restituendae, et, Britannia restituendae.
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Genius!
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Starmer was in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2013, when the Rotherham rape gang scandal was beginning to unfold and people were trying to bring it to light. HE KNEW what the allegations were. He knew what happened to all those young girls. He knew it was STILL happening. And he and his government minions not only refused to help but took the extra step of persecuting the victims. He went to great effort to create the system that killed Henry Nowak.
I’d like to see his corpse decorate a lamp post somewhere in London, but excruciating misery would also be…acceptable.
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Is there no space on the Tower Bridge, or the Tower itself, for such a display?
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Sooo… would Britannia On High be considered a Jane Austen Fan Fiction — innn Spaaace!? 🤣
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NO.
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[Grin]
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Not finished the 3rd part yet – I’m rooting for Skip and Peaseblossom
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They need a lot of rooting for TBH.
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Marxism must be eradicated root and branch and sent back to the hell it came from.
Yes; and the “pest control” (using the first word in the older sense of “plague” as well as the more familiar one) must be ongoing. One of the lines from my Earth-invades-Mars story (slowly growing despite repeated strafing runs from the going-around merry-go-round sore throat etc. etc.), where the quasi-socialist “World State” ended up happening right after the huge (space elevators huge) human breakout into space…
“Our big problem was, we stopped pouring weed-killer on the stump of Communism. Yes, it looked dead, but that was no excuse, it had looked mostly moribund before. Eternal vigilance, and I mean till the sun fails at least; and don’t ever spare the 2,4-T or whatever it was they used back on Earth.”
Generations of Irish children were taught to spit, often literally, after saying the (justly) hated name “Oliver Cromwell.” (Among other things, he tried to do to the Irish in Ireland what Andrew Jackson later mostly did to the Cherokee on their own home lands — but the Eastern Band says hi, Jacko.)
It is merely a (stolen) idea; but it has a certain “ring” or “resonance” to it… “spit when you say that!”
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*Wry* I’m descended from people who hightailed it out of Wales (with a boat to the West Indies, and then working shipping on the coast of the South!) due to bad blood with Cromwell, and from both people who scattered before the Trail and a family who named one of their kids after Andrew Jackson because he opened the land they settled on.
And that’s only one half of the family.
So; sinners, saints, the way too morally flexible – my family tree’s got it all….
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When you see police behaviour like this, that’s how you tell that the fix is in.
Cops standing around when Uncle Hugo’s burns to the ground, the fix is in. Cops standing around ‘following procedures’ while a kid in their custody bleeds out? Same fix. Just a little farther along the curve, you know?
And we KNOW it’s a fix because we can see the riggings now. We know who’s paying for it, and we know where they got the money.
The British elite is paying for this today. Those riots are not going away. They’re going to get bigger. It’s not a worm turning anymore, now it’s a sand worm.
Probably why #Donnie is in no hurry in the Strait of Hormuz. The Brit elite took the British navy from the mightiest in the world and turned it into the Canadian navy. They CAN’T police the strait because they don’t have any boats that work. From reports, Canada might actually have more ships that can fight than the Brits.
Those fools are going to reap that whirlwind. Probably this year if there’s no heating fuel in November, and no food in the stores.
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Even Lichtenstein might catch up at this rate.
https://a.co/d/0b7RA3yq
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Even Lichtenstein might catch up at this rate.
https://a.co/d/0b7RA3yq
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Duchy of Grand Fenwick has entered the chat.
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I just had the same thought…
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The Brits need to start channeling Mal Reynolds:
“They say mercy is the mark of a great man.”
[Stabs miscreant with sword]
“Guess I’m just a good man.”
[Stabs again]
“Well I’m all right.”
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I am going to be a contrarian here (no, not long live Lenin and Marx, too late in any case).
I looked at the video and to me it looks like the police have been quoted out of context. To me, the sequence is:
A couple of comments
What the police did wrong was miss the stab wound but, as I say, I didn’t see blood. I suspect that, even had they seen the wound, they still would have cuffed him on the basis of #3 unless, in doing so, they would have caused further injury. They would, however, have provided first aid, hopefully enough to keep him alive.
Of course Stammer, the lizard, jumped in to, as he always does, sell someone out; in this case the police. He is not alone, a whole parcel of politicians made statements about how horrific this is. Most of them made such statements before the police body cam was released and I wonder how many have actually watched the video.
I assume that, even should I be proven to be right, they won’t say “Oops”.
It’s interesting that the story has become about the actions of the police, not the fact that a crazed loon was wondering the streets armed with a knife. I was particularly unamused by the minister whose response was to say that the government had gone to considerable lengths to stop the sale of knives. This ignored the fact that the nutter had a statutory right to carry one and also ignored the fact that a chef’s knife is a fearsome weapon. In other words, the government’s efforts to impose yet another ban are likely to be ineffectual.
Nowak’s family have my deepest sympathy. They must be in shock right now and the political hooey can’t be helping. The police involved must be suffering as well.
Is this two-tier policing? I don’t think so. That would be where Nowak was arrested even given the evidence that he wasn’t the aggressor.
I wonder what will happen to Digwa. He has been found guilty of murder which is an automatic full life term. I am surprised that he wasn’t found insane.
I am also interested to see the outcome of the inquiry into police conduct but that won’t be for some time.
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They exonerated the police. And I refuse to believe there was no blood. that was nonsense. go watch it again.
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Bleeding into a lung will leave very little surface blood. That’s why you must check CAREFULLY when somebody says they’ve been stabbed. (Or shot, or been near an explosion… Tiny wound, big bleeding.) And they didn’t. And that’s why the kid died.
Because the cops were useless at their jobs.
As so many of them are these days. Selected for following SOP, being good at paperwork, and politically reliable.
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apparently he was also stabbed in the legs and face, so….
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Absolutely! And the fact that his hands were paper-white with blood loss? You don’t have to be a medic to recognize this.
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Make sure you are looking at the actual video or still, not an AI-sharpened version: in the video itself, the kid’s skintone is not really distinct from that of the cops handcuffing him.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-200551466?selection=04d7c1a4-39a1-4810-8b49-b357ded9c122
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Which video?
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This video doesn’t align with what you recall, for example.
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Police body cam video. I saw it on the bbc web site. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c172kkwpd9xo
I did have a look again and there is more that I hadn’t seen. The police do check for a stab wound (01:17 on the video and later) – they do not immediately dismiss Nowak’s claims. The subject is revisited at 01:50 where Digwa is saying that Nowak hasn’t been stabbed – the “We have to check, don’t we” was in response to Digwa suggesting that Nowak hadn’t been stabbed, not to comments from other police officers.
Whilst there was mention of blood in the mouth, I still do not see blood on the ground but there are no clear shots of the ground. There is mention of a blood trail but that could have been missed in the dark.
The check was somewhat superficial and I agree that the police should have taken more care. I cannot believe that the police would not have rendered aide if they saw a stab wound and an ambulance was called within 10 minutes of the incident. The police aren’t stupid and the officers would have known that failure to render aide would have had serious consequences.
The gobsmacking part of this is the behaviour of Digwa’s family who calmly substantiated his claims (00:13 – “my Dad’s holding him up now”). Their interference is why Digwa’s mother was charged as an accessory. Two other members of Digwa’s family were charged with weapons charges. Makes me wonder if, as in other cases, Digwa was already known to the police.
The police aren’t cleared yet and won’t be until the inquest and the Independent Office for Police Conduct have both had their say. Of course, the media and politicians of all stripes have found them guilty.
Who would want to be a police officer today? All I can say is that I am very glad to see them about. I have been too close to too many riots over the past 10 years to be comfortable with the idea of defunding the police.
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/06/police-officers-cleared-in-henry-nowak-murder.php
Note, the media in the UK is NOT reliable in this.
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Are they ever? :-)
I hadn’t seen the above, thanks for that. I don’t usually read The Telegraph, just The Guardian and the BBC web site; helps raise my blood pressure and makes me feel better about my decision to emigrate to the USA.
My conclusion is that the police need better training with stab wounds, particularly if such wounds can be difficult to spot. Having said that, they really should have spotted at least one of the 5 stab wounds, particularly as one was on the face.
I note, in passing, some pretty grim news coming out of Portugal (no, not the hottest day evah stuff).
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r2zq9wg9xo
This is not an attempt to suggest the Portuguese police are worse than their UK counterparts, I had merely noted it in passing as it’s one of the countries I have worked in.
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:looks at the linked video:
I do not know if you are insane, or just a liar.
Either way, the video you literally linked shows your claims are false, other than in the insanely twee format that yeah, they didn’t say “I don’t think you have, mate” immediately, because they utterly ignored him instead.
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Stab *WOUNDS*. He was stabbed several times, with stab wounds in his chest, the back of his legs (while trying to escape Digwa by climbing over a fence), and apparently at least once in the groin (again, while climbing the fence). The bobbies not seeing them is the fault of the bobbies not bothering to even give him a cursory look over.
Also, Nowak *was* being arrested. He was being read his rights at what is believed to be the very moment that he died.
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The story of Henry Nowak’s murder and the state of the UK in general makes me sick to my stomach. The complete atrocity of the rape gangs and the utter indifference showed by the rulers is appalling. My ancestry is mostly lower-class British and had my ancestors not come here so there but for the grace of God go I.
Honestly, I might have to step away from politics and current events entirely for my mental health at this point. Cutting down to researching candidates and ballot propositions the month before an election and expecting that someone I trust would inform me if we suffered another 911 caliber event is a choice I’m seriously considering.
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I gave up on Britain a while ago now, when I read about a particular case. No, it wasn’t even the Grooming Gangs.
It was a simple thing: a man had waded into a duck pond to get something that had blown in, and had a seizure. And the police formed a perimeter around the pond while doing exactly nothing for this man because they “weren’t trained in water rescue.” They let a man drown in 18 inches of water, because that was what their policy said to do. I couldn’t get over the fact that there wasn’t one person there who said, “Screw it! If you want to arrest me for saving someone’s life, I’ll go to jail and wear my criminal record with pride.”
It seems to me that what happened to Nowak was just a little further down the same spectrum: officials who’ve decided that sticking with the party line is more important than individual lives and complete indifference to those victimized by the institutional cowardice.
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In their horribly twisted idea of virtue, it is better to tolerate (or even tacitly encourage) the perpetual-victims (“visible minorities”) than stop actual crime. Especially crime inflicted on the lower sorts, like in Rotherham. They are Good People™ because they are standing up for the oppressed, and following the rules.
That their rules will lead to their destruction doesn’t seem to matter, or is even desired, which really makes me start wondering about internalized death wishes and other philosophy and psychiatry.
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“Your government has abdicated its responsibilities, relinquished your laws and abandoned your people to the depredations of the hordes of raping murdering savages they released among you. Now, in a grotesque perversion of their duties, they protect the savages from you rather than you from them. If you dare even to say the wanton vandalism, looting, arson, rape and murder they perpetrate are wrong, you are the ones thrown in prison.”
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Surely, according to Stammer, the UK government is improving the lives of UK citizens by:
I could go on about topics such as ministers lying on their resumés, ministers failing to pay tax and large scale abuse of underage girls.
On top of it all the sanctimonious a*hat, Stammer, tells us that we have never had it so good and that anyone disagreeing with him is a far-right bigot.
As I said, good to be here in the USA.
Apologies for the rant but it really, really, irritates me – particularly given that by mentioning the above I become the loony brother.
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Don’t forget: when British National Health refuses treatment for your child’s rare medical condition and you try to get treatment in the U.S. at your own expense, your whole family will be arrested at the airport and kept in jail until the kid croaks.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Socialized Medicine. “When we say No, we really mean it!”
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Hadn’t seen that. Do you have a reference?
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Alfie Evans? Or another one? There were three last I heard.
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So the issue was with the NHS? I had interpreted that differently but it’s no surprise.
I am no fan of socialized medicine. My treatment here in the USA has been (mostly – a few OOPs and one Oh Boy! errors) good, albeit expensive. Organizations the size of the NHS seldom work well – like all nationalized industries, the objectives become political rather than organizational.
I have a relative, a surgeon retired from the NHS. He is no fan either, although that is more a concern with the management structure (he doesn’t like professional managers) and government interference.
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It was the whole Nanny State; the NHS was just the initial point of failure. ☹️
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Look up Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans. There have been others.
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Nuke it from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
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My last comment on this, since it was not my intention to start a war, merely to express some reservations concerning the story.
What I am seeing is standard operating procedure (probably why the IOPC says there is nothing to see).
I have no idea why they didn’t see the stab wounds but I doubt that it was because Digwa was a Sikh; Sikhs in the UK have a benign reputation. I shall read the IOPC report with interest.
In any case, an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes of the arrest – a minor miracle given the current state of the NHS.
That is not to say that there hasn’t been pusillanimous behavior by the various UK authorities because of the fear of being called racist; labelling people, as we know, is a favorite tactic of activists. The ironic thing is that the sensitivity by various police forces, in part at least, is because the Metropolitan Police have been labelled as institutionally racist on at least two occasions. I can believe this of individual officers, and not just in the Met, but not of an institution.
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I was very fortunate to have been in England in 2010. Things might not have been good there, but most of the issues were concealed beneath the surface. I enjoyed the trip, I had a good time, met a friend I knew from California (who is still suffering from BDS, TDS, and probably would see me dead if we ever met again), and it was a good time. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
…and now, England has become a horror show of what suicidal empathy does. If you have to believe all women, why not believe the women that were made a part of the Rotterdamn grooming gangs? (Oh yes, they’re “South Asian,” which is what the British press calls Islamic people when they don’t want to get in trouble with them.) Or any number of regular atrocities perpetrated on the British people on a regular basis because the Elites hate the current People and want to install a new, hopefully more controllable People?
It makes me furious and I am tired of being furious and afraid of what happens if that madness truly crosses the oceans. Right now, it’s restricted to the big (Blue) cities for the most part. And that means it won’t be hard to just…deal with things with a whiff of grapeshot as needed.
I hate thinking like this.
I hate the fact that the Left is making me think like this.
I hate the fact that every time we don’t punish the barbarians in our midst, it’s only going to get worse.
I hate the fact that people defending the barbarians are considered moral somehow. Especially with arguments so specious that they should be laughed at on a regular basis.
And I hate the fact that too many people are going to suffer because of this misplaced empathy.
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“It is inherent in their view that someone must be oppressed. You simply have to pick who is oppressed.”
THIS. This is it, right here. “Be the change you wish to see,” they say. Well, the change they wish to see is themselves, choosing who to oppress.
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The history of the UK is full of invaders. How this invasion is handled is to be seen, but the past reveals some invaders suffered some brutal retaliation.
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Yeah, well, the Normans took the place over. Moslems believe they are destined to rule the world and reduce everybody else to slavery.
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I’ve only read a few of the comments (will go back and read all of them, because so many are good!), but I wanted to say that the root cause of *all* of this is failure to acknowlege God – who He is, that He is the Lord of the whole universe *including humans.* And that each and every individual was made by God and belongs to God and is valued and loved by God. Therefore, nobody – no individual or group – has the right to usurp God’s Lordship and persecute and murder other human beings, especially not as groups. I’m not talking about legitimate punishment for crimes committed, or even legitimate wars against groups or nations that have made a practice of attacking us. If crimes aren’t punished they just get worse and innocent people get harmed; if aggressive groups or nations aren’t stopped, they just get worse and more innocent people get harmed. That’s self-defense on a larger scale and entirely legitimate. I’m talking about the practice of dehumanizing an entire group – calling them oppressors or some other term. I’ve heard a lot of different words. They all mean, “You aren’t really human. You are less than me and my ‘in’ group. You don’t matter.” I’ve talked before about how this is at the root of the ‘three vowels,’ Eugenics, Abortion, and Euthanasia. I guess we can make it four vowels, by adding ‘Oppressors’ to the list. All of these ideologies are rooted in a refusal to acknowledge God and His ownership over all of us. *Every* human life matters to God. *Every* human being has the in-breathed spirit of God (not the Holy Spirit, unless you’ve believed on Jesus Christ – then you are actually indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as the Bible says), a quality of life that comes directly from Him. We don’t get to decide that we are special, and everyone else is not special, and therefore we get to decide who lives and dies, and what those who we graciously allowed to live are going to be allowed to think and say and do. (I hope that makes sense!) That is the prerogative of God, and God alone. We may thumb our noses at Him now, but eventually *everyone* will be called to account for their actions in this life, and most of that will be, ‘How did you treat other people? Did you love your neighbor as yourself? Did you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind?’
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The Brits are not alone in this nonsense. This is happening in the county where I live.
https://twitchy.com/brettt/2026/06/04/this-karmelo-anthony-supporter-seems-a-tad-racist-n2428919
I do have reasons for thinking that this was never going to end peacefully.
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