While scrolling Twitter this morning, which is a terrible way to start the day, I came upon this tweet by actress Barbara Hershey:
This describes the Left perfectly, only she doesn’t realize it. Why doesn’t she realize it? How can reality be this twisted that she believes her side is the oppressed side? The side with all of the power and wealth, an entire culture devoted to them, along with the majority of corporations and advertising?
One party controlling the media — The Democrats One party controlling the message — The Democrats One party deciding what is the truth — The Democrats One party censoring speech and silencing the opposition — The Democrats One party dividing citizens into “us” and “them” - The Democrats Calling on their supporters to harass them — the Democrats. They do this openly and with impunity.
I have the receipts:
I know Twitter doesn’t reflect the “real” world, but I do wonder, still, where all of this is going. It seems that they want to push people on the Right to become what they keep saying they are so that they can have a reason to have the hot war they so desperately crave.
And this tweet by Matthew Yglesias that shows just mainstream the idea is that the Jan. 6th prisoners are “politically violent,” when that is not what any of them have been convicted for. They are being convicted by what they said, not by what they did. Why, because they could not convict them on anything they did except “destroy property.”
Do you think anyone during the Summer of 2020 who was overtly violent is being treated the same way?
Unless he means the political violence is going to come from the Left. It will, he probably doesn’t realize that yet.
Okay, time to leave this motel and head out on the road again…
Steve McCann's "Eight Startling and Uncomfortable Ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party" was just the tip of the National Socialist iceberg.
The fascist far left has always had to lie to survive. They've always been on the wrong side of history, and the only way they can remain viable is by gaslighting people on a full-time basis. For decades, their biggest lie has been that the supposedly pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, imbued in the precepts of individual liberty and limited government, is somehow connected to totalitarian collectivist regimes that displayed the exact opposite of those values.
Anyone who has debated leftists for the past few decades has been subjected to the same bluff abuse in their trying to maintain that nonsensical lie. But the close similarities between fascism and communism have been obvious for at least 75 years:
"In certain basic respects — a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom — fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between".
—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Associate Professor of History at Harvard, New York Times Magazine, Sunday, April 4, 1948
1. Democrats and the Nazis were/are obsessed with gun confiscation.
2. Democrats and Nazis are collectivists.
3. The overarching philosophy of both Democrats and Nazis is centralized control.
4. The centralized collectivist control philosophy of the Democrat and Nazi parties is epitomized in the phrase "the Common Good" (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz in the original German).
5. Far-left fascists of the Democrat and Nazi parties see force as means to their political power.
6. Democrats and Nazis are proponents of single-party systems.
7. Democrats and Nazis are fascistic.
8. Democrats are striving for a totalitarian state structure and a single party like the Nazis.
Put all of this together, and you'll come to the inescapable conclusion that all of these parallels make the ironclad case that both parties are all too similar.
With with modern surveillance technology and tyrannical "innovations" like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the Democrats could make the Nazis look like amateurs. This is why they have to be opposed with cultural guerrilla warfare every step of the way.
No, the similarities are NOT between the Democrats and the Nazis, they are between Democrats and Soviet Communists, which is not a surprise since the modern Democratic Party is the replacement for the Communist Party USA.
I always refer back to the etymology of the term and the fact that before the end of WWII they used the term national socialism instead of Nazi, the later being used instead ‘to avoid any taint to the good word socialist’:
1930, noun and adjective, from German Nazi, abbreviation of German pronunciation of Nationalsozialist (based on earlier German sozi, popular abbreviation of "socialist"), from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "National Socialist German Workers' Party," led by Hitler from 1920.
The 24th edition of Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (2002) says the word Nazi was favored in southern Germany (supposedly from c. 1924) among opponents of National Socialism because the nickname Nazi, Naczi (from the masc. proper name Ignatz, German form of Ignatius) was used colloquially to mean "a foolish person, clumsy or awkward person." Ignatz was a popular name in Catholic Austria, and according to one source in World War I Nazi was a generic name in the German Empire for the soldiers of Austria-Hungary.
An older use of Nazi for national-sozial is attested in German from 1903, but EWdS does not think it contributed to the word as applied to Hitler and his followers. The NSDAP for a time attempted to adopt the Nazi designation as what the Germans call a "despite-word," but they gave this up, and the NSDAP is said to have generally avoided the term. Before 1930, party members had been called in English National Socialists, which dates from 1923. The use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, etc., was popularized by German exiles abroad. From them, it spread into other languages, and eventually was brought back to Germany, after the war.
In the USSR, the terms national socialist and Nazi were said to have been forbidden after 1932, presumably to avoid any taint to the good word socialist. Soviet literature refers to fascists.
Seriously you're just contrasting the ideas of the left and right - but the people who hold the offices carrying the flags of the left and right are 2 peas in a pod. They hate us. All they care about is power, money and glory (see Matthew chapter 3). They're wolves in sheep's clothing- wicked to the core. They've dangled the American ideals and romanced us to sleep why they carry out their lust to inherit the earth and everything in it!
Matt is not unifying them, they are already unified.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Actually, the Nazis extensively revised the 1928 Gun Law of the Weimar (Leftist) Government. Many of their changes loosened/abolished various restrictions, and not one toughened any. Because Americans view the world through a non-European lens, the fact that firearms possession was restricted to 'German' German citizens means that "firearms were confiscated in Germany".
I have no problem with disarming Leftists. Every frikkin' one of them is a personal enemy for me as a more-or-less normal white Christian (as every one of them were for the Germans of 1933). Recall that Eastern Europeans were either observing, or being informed by observers, of the Bolshevik "Red Terror" taking place in the USSR (1917 until whenever you decide that Stalin had taken over total control). Certainly over 20 million Europeans were killed during the (1917-1926) Bolshevik phase of the "Terror" -- twice as many people (Jews and Europeans) as the Germans killed by various means between 1933 and 1945 . As late as 1931-33, Bolsheviks (led by Genrikh Yagoda, "the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century", and the Tscheka) still carried out the Holomodor ("Terror Famine") in Ukraine, killing 7-10 million more Europeans. Of course there were also the Bolshevik Bela Kun's coup in Hungary in 1919, unleashing the murderous "Lenin's Boys" on the Hungarian People and the continuous violent uprisings all over Germany from 1918 until 1933. The low-level Socialist agitator, Adolph Hitler, personally witnessed the 7 April 1919 coup in Munich, with Communists taking control of the center of the city. Under the leadership of Soviet Commissars Levine, Levien, and Axelrod, a Soviet Republic was declared, and a 'red army' was formed. The Reds were finally crushed on 8 May 1919, by the military, Freikorps, police, and by civilian volunteers called up by the mayor. Almost 1000 killed, including all the German hostages held by the Communists.
It's generally thought that this was the experience with real Bolsheviks that turned Hitler from a Socialist to a German National Socialist
The current head of the US Department of Justice has made the enemies list clear in a number of recent statements and documents. Yes, the US Tscheka is infiltrating Catholic churches and organizations right now -- joining forces with the ACLU and the SPLC. A US Ministry of Truth (AKA the disinformation control office) has been established, abolished due to public outcry, and now re-established on the down-low. You want totalitarianism? Was it a punishable offense in Nazi Germany (or even in the USSR) to refer to a man as 'he' or 'him'? The US is already under the most totalitarian regime in human history.
You're asking a question that has many answers. The point is always the same -- is this good or bad FOR ME. Jews/Bolsheviks thought the "Red Terror" was just excellent (which is why they did it). Ordinary Germans had no problem with the Gestapo because the Gestapo wasn't bothering them. They didn't go to the camps either. Fighting on the Eastern Front was tough and eventually unpopular, but even that opinion was wrong, as more Germans died after the War than during it. The German military knew this the minute Henry Morgenthau and the "Harrys" (Dexter White and Hopkins) told FDR to declare that the War would be fought until Germany surrendered unconditionally. The US military was astounded, noting that this would extend the war by months and by thousands of casualties as the German military would fight to the bitter end. They were only interested in winning the War as quickly as possible, with the minimum loss of life. Being a bunch of anti-Semites, the War Department didn't understand the need for total vengeance against all the German People, not just the NAZIs.
As for arms control, America's hostile alien ruling elite sometimes forgets who's who -- disarming German Jews was not the same thing as disarming all Germans. Again, it's a case of "whose ox is being gored". Anyone could learn a lot from looking up the origins of that particular phrase
Uh, you might want to take a look at a map and a history book. Yes, the Germans invaded Poland -in collusion with the Soviets - but then they invaded France and the Low Countries a few months later. They only moved into Ukraine on their way into Russia AFTER they had conquered all of Western Europe except the British Isles. Hitler's goal was to establish a 1,000-year Reich in Europe. Race was only incidental to his ambitions.
Materialists cannot see reality whole. Economics is a tiny fraction of the study of human societies, and the least important. NAZIs were pro-German/pro-Western European racists. All Leftists are defined by their virulent anti-white racism and congenital antagonism towards European Civilization. As a white person, this is the only distinction that matters to me.
😆 remember the SNL skit (back when they were funny) of the Japanese car slipping in messages to its driver on his way to work like “your door is ajar...please buckle your safety belt...NO TARIFF!...”
"It seems that they want to push people on the Right to become what they keep saying they are"
This is the sentence that caught my attention. As a child of a covert narcissistic parent, I know from personal experience this is exactly what narcissists do. They blame you for what they actually are and for what they are doing. The "powers that be" need all of us to become what they are saying we are- unhinged, delusional anti-vaxxers - or whatever name de jour they've dreamed up. Just like you wrote- keep everyone divided. I've lost so many friends over the past three years to this nightmare but once you see you can't unsee it.
It really does seem like they're trying to instigate a hot war. They know they now control authority as demonstrated in the success of draconian covid policies (we, in large part complied), authorities allowed BLM and antifa riots, authorities successfully conducted witch trials in the J6 hearings, etc. They are true believers and they want us gone. And don't comfort yourself with the notion, "Well, we've got all the guns." They control the intelligence agencies, the police, military, and media. And game out the worst case scenario in your mind: Do you really think we can organize an effective counter-force to protect ourselves? Can you point a gun at a person you don't know and pull the trigger?
The left has fallen through the looking-glass. You can not convince them their version of reality puts us all on a terrible path. At least I'm not seeing it. They have to figure it out on their own.
Thanks for illustrating the original point. Your masters have convinced you every one of their crimes and character flaws are in fact the crimes and flaws of their opposition. The rest of us can't understand how you can't see this. Do you remember when you were instructed to be angry at Trump for his "quid pro quo"? Of course your masters never explained to you the back story. Biden was using his son to launder State Dept. money back to himself through Barisma. Ukraine was investigating. Biden then threatened to withhold a billion dollar loan package if the prosecutor looking into the corruption wasn't immediately fired. He then bragged about it in front of a video camera and laughed about it. This video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ6QiqvfvxE
All Trump did was tell Ukraine they could continue their investigation without fear of losing US support, and in fact should.
As you may already know, That piece was written back when Hunter's laptop was still being ignored. The laptop proved the story true and the fact-checkers wrong.....again. But you just keep on believing your masters and have history, the recent past, and the present change at their very whims.
You really need to do some research. Obviously you still get your news from corporate media and leftist outlets. Trump, Trump, Trump... "They're not after me, they're after you. I'm just in the way." Donald J. Trump. No truer words were spoken. Donald Trump dared to challenge the Washington establishment. He upset the status quo. That was his only "crime".
I have been wondering this for a while. It's like they can't even remember within the last decade when they hated war and hated the security state.
Is this an American phenomenon or is this a human phenomenon? Does this come from our shallow two-party system that encourages loyalty over self-awareness? Did Trump actually break them or were they broken before, but the right electing Trump over utterly corrupt but box-checking Hillary Clinton broke them?
I get why the elites are doing this, but why these people like Matt Yglesias and Barbara Hershey follow along, are they true believers (which is really frightening) or just stooges? Or do we have a population of people so mentally fragile that can't survive unless they are "right"?
I think it’s the populist part of Trump that drives them crazy. That part of the message appeals to the working class part of the traditional Democrat party and they are terrified they could lose them, especially the Black and Latino parts.
One thing I'm always wondering about True Believers Of The Ideology: do they really believe the idiocy or are they in on it expecting a seat at the table? Sometimes the answer is obvious, others not so much. Not all useful idiots know they are being useful.
"6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved."
Democrats, progressives, and Antifa don't commit "violence" - they merely "express themselves with passion." Whereas, wearing a red hat with the desire to make America great again, is, according to Democrats and their adjuncts in the FBI/DOJ/IC/Media, a dire threat to "our" democracy.
You have it wrong. I believe any who violated the law should be held to account and treated equally as others who have been prosecuted and convicted for the same crime. I was appalled at the rioting on J6, but probably more appalled by the BLM rioting, which in large part, targeted perfectly innocent people and their livelihoods. The J6 dissidents who rioted at least targeted the "guilty". After being stiff-armed by the courts, evidently they felt they had no other recourse, but to express their rage for a few hours.
After all the revelations about the malfeasant lying and cheating by Trump's opposition and how they cheated again in the 2020 election with the fraudulent, Biden/CIA-sponsored, 51-Stooge letter, no rational person can look at this and say the election was not rigged.
Yeah. I agree. The J6 riots and BLM riots are not comparable.
If security outside the local retailers had waived the BLM protesters in, and if the store clerks had opened the doors, and if the local police had furnished the matches, then the BLM looting, burning and riots would be comparable. That didn't happen though.
Considering that only about 1% of the J6 demonstrators took part in the Capitol riot, it can also be said that the protest was "mostly peaceful".
I can't disagree with your description of Trump. Few would. I think people "fall for" him because he can beat the Democrats at their game. With all the frauds and hoaxes that the DNC and their agents in the Dept. of Justice, CIA, & DNC-Media commit, Trump gets stronger. Unfortunately, Trump is the consequence of and perhaps the only solvent to our horridly rotted political class.
No matter how many times times you count fraudulent votes, they are still fraudulent. This is the same BS my governor fed us when we asked for an audit of the actual votes. There were thousands of mail in ballots processed by volunteers that only had votes for Biden and no down votes, and were never folded. In case it isn't obvious to you, the have to be folded to fit in the envelope.
Sasha, it is bewildering but I have seen this my entire life. Neither side can possibly understand why and how the other side thinks the way they do or sees the world the way they do. I’ve run into this in all aspects of my life, not just politics. Science, Medicine, Architecture, Engineering, Sports, language, travel, pizza preferences 🍕…it’s always the same.
The actress, Hershey, is just another example.
Here’s a thought:
Democrats, Republicans, Nazis, Fascists, Conservatives, Liberals…can we just put all these political extremists on an island somewhere where they can leave us the F alone and Duke it out?
Then the rest of us can go back to normal life stuff like working, schooling, family, raising kids, playing and traveling?
And the next time someone tells you you no longer have the right to go to work, you don’t have freedom of speech, you have no freedom of assembly, you must take some drug or another…give them a free ticket to the island! 😃
😂 So true! It’s like this every morning for me. I’m up typically 4 hours before my wife and kids and after making coffee, cleaning kitchen, showering, shaving, feeding pets, walking the dogs...there’s still 3 hours to go!! So I read substacks and listen to podcasts and get caught up on all the crazy...
Hey, a CUNY professor can hold a machete to the neck of a NY Post reporter and nothing happens legally; hell, she is still employed although 'on leave'. Stewart Rhodes just got 18 years in a FEDERAL pen for speaking his mind. Note that there is no parole in a fed pen. Think about that.
John Wilkes Booth was a democrat terrorist, the KKK was the terror arm of the democrat party, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, Burn Loot Murder.... They are all the same people killing and attacking innocent Americans on behalf of the Democrat party.
Bless you Sasha for recognizing it. As a volunteer firefight we hang around the table after an incident and two members(democrats) were completely unaware of any of these events. Sad.
So true! All of it! I have no idea how their minds get twisted to believe the right is suppressing speech. What are THEIR receipts? I’d really love to understand what evidence they feel they have. I mean are they lying or are they really so warped by an alternate reality?
Through my rather long life I can attest to this complete reversal of history and perceptions. It’s insulting to constantly hear this mindless narrative that is belied by the facts. Have a pleasant drive, Sasha! Keep your jalopy between the ditches.
I can’t comprehend WHY the left continues the violent protests with no consequences whatsoever! The liberal elites are so darn insulated from reality that they sincerely believe that Trump supporters are the violent folks. I pray for our Country & silently weep at the destruction of our Republic! BTW Sasha, was Cedar Point open yet? It’s billed as the home of the largest number of roller coasters in the world
Hershey's reverse thinking reminds me of Orwell: war is peace, hate is love, etc. Perhaps she is just another person who lives day-to-day under the media blackout of leftist violence, bullying and totalitarian abuse of the law.
She probably also thinks that the novel "1984" describes a world ruled by republicans. Leftists like to appropriate dystopian scenes from that novel (along with their favorite, "Handmaiden's Tale"), completely oblivious that they are describing themselves.
Thank you for remembering the San Jose assault on Trump supporters. It was a memorable event in my life, as I was working in San Jose at the time, and spent a lot of time there downtown.
I was not a Trump supporter then. But I was shocked and turned by what happened that day. It was the first time in my life I saw the police orchestrate political violence.
The SJ police set up barricades at the Convention Center exists in a way that delivered the supporters leaving the event right in the hands of a violent mob, who then spit on them, threw rocks and eggs at them, everything you saw in that video.
Then they stood passively by and watched the violence unfold.
At the time a light bulb went off for me: This is the "two-minute hate," and Trump is "Goldstein."
Afterwards, the police chief said he was under orders to stand down, and the Mayor made up some excuse about how he didn't want the police to engage because it would escalate the violence.
To which just about everyone, on whatever political side, couldn't help but ask: then why have police at all?
No matter. Most of the people who perpetrated that catastrophe were re-elected or promoted and today, in addition to "standing down," the FBI follows up and jails Trump supporters for thought crimes, jailing them for years without trial in an effort to extract false confessions.
How is this any different from the East German Stasi at the height of Erik Hoenecker's rule?
Sasha, are you sure Barbara Hershey wasn’t talking about the Democratic Party? I find it difficult to believe that any sentient human being could be so oblivious as to assume that was referring to Republicans.
Thanks, Sasha, breathtaking cognitive dissonance. In 2021 I started reading a lot of memoirs of Nazi years. It’s true, it didn’t start with the gas chambers; it started in the early 1930s by calling certain groups “diseased” and needing to be separated for everybody’s good… e.g. cutting off access to certain facilities like swimming pools and public schools, and then it turned into camps or ghettos of course.
Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they were standing before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the herald loudly called out: “To you it is said, O peoples, nations, and men of every tongue, that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. “But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.”
And of course, Nebuchadnezzar was just a prototype of the beast who is coming- From Revelation 13👇
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and he was speaking as a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he does great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which were given to him to do in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, that they be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of man; and his number is 666."
The good news is that Jesus is our way out of this beast system- the domain of satan is coming to an end! The Kingdom of God is coming and all will be made new. No more death, pain, sorrow, suffering.. no more sin!
As you know Matt, there are two sins Jesus Christ (Yeshua Messiah) will not forgive: (1) Denial-blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. (2) Receiving the Mark of the the Beast.
No, it didn’t start with gas chambers. Nor did it start with any of the other actions on the list. It started with an IDEA, then steps were taken to implement the idea.
So what was the idea?
That society is composed of oppressors and the oppressed.
That the oppressors have been plotting against the oppressed for centuries.
That the oppressed are the true builders of everything good in society.
That the oppressors are dangerous, and the oppressed should be in fear for their lives.
That retribution should be claimed against the oppressors, so that the oppressed finally get what is rightfully theirs.
1619 Project? Reparations?
21st century Nazis are clearly following the playbook of their ideological ancestors.
The culture war brims over with skirmishes over the Second Amendment. The modern Left maintains that it is dangerous and leads to higher crime rates, and that it was only important in our pioneer past. Some members of the Left may believe this, while others just don't like that it is a check on arbitrary power. The Right, whatever that means, sees it as a protector of individual rights. (What is the Right, anyway? The Left claims that the German Socialist Workers Party were on the Right, as though Hitler was passing out handguns to Jews to keep them out of the camps.)
It was not always the case that Democrats were so against the Second Amendment. Consider:
“The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” Hubert Humphrey – Democrat, U. S. Senator, Presidential Candidate and Vice President
Notice that Humphrey said nothing about hunting or protection from crime, but that it is a safeguard against tyranny, a view now considered to be extreme right wing, but just a typical American attitude at that time. Also, the word is arms, not guns in particular.
Going with that same point of view, here is Mr. 1984 himself:
"The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." George Orwell
Orwell's “rifle” would have been the “assault rifle” of his day.
What about all of those school shootings, one may ask. One may note that school shootings did not begin until after the passage of the Gun Free School Zones Act in 1990. A cynical view would be this:
School shootings. Pass a law legally prohibiting the adults in a school from protecting the children, wait for the occasional nut case, blame Republicans and guns, never mention said law, rinse and repeat. Frequently talk about school shootings on the news so the nut cases never forget. (So people will give up their guns. After all, people will not willingly get in the boxcars.)
This might be a little strong, but the coastal elites should be aware that many people see things in something of this light.
But clearly, one may opine, any truly decent, well meaning and spiritual person would never condone an armed populous since that would just not be right.
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” Mahatma Gandhi
So, is it just a matter of if you are for the powerful or for the people?
We always hear, considering the latest proposed restriction, that if it saves just one life it's worth it. They neglect to say that if it costs just one life it's not worth it. How about, if removing a given firearms restriction saves just one life, it's worth it? The fact that such thoughts are anathema to the left makes one suspect that saving lives is not the issue.
Are there any cases of gun control costing lives? A couple come to mind. At one time airline pilots were required to carry handguns if there was U.S. mail on board, so in effect they always did. (Most pilots were ex military anyway, and they simply had them in their carry on bags, not on their hips.) Rules slowly changed, going to optional until, not too long before 9/11 they were completely banned. After 9/11 there was great resistance to allowing pilots to be armed, and was done only with great regulation.
To reiterate, the other obvious case is school shootings. School shootings were unheard of before the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990. Why is it that the act was not rescinded after the school shootings started?
Clearly, at least for the leaders, the issue is not public safety.
Popular among 2A supporters is the idea of the four boxes. The idea is that the protections to liberty contained in the Bill of Rights consist of the ballot box, the jury box, the soap box and the cartridge box. Upon inspection one notices that only the last consists of real, physical objects. A tyrannical government may simply do away with voting, corrupt the court system and eliminate freedom of speech. They would no doubt declare the private possession of arms to be illegal, but collecting them would be a monumental task.
Before all else, be armed. - Niccolo Machiavelli
A disturbing aspect of the 20th century is the large number of people killed by their own governments. Total numbers vary depending on the source, but it's fair to say that at least 100 million people died in this way. (It's hard to pin down; if you died while serving a hard labor sentence in the Soviet Union, does that count?) One may turn around the saving one life argument and say, “If it prevents just one genocide, it's worth it.”
There is the entire issue of the effect of gun control on crime. The tone from the media is always to the effect that, of course, gun control reduces crime, but they do not provide evidence. A big issue is just the fact that there is much that does not come through in official statistics. A person who fends off a burglar in New York City with an illegal gun cannot report it to the police. (He may realize that the criminal will then go on to victimize an unarmed New Yorker, but he can't do anything about it.)
Then there are the crimes that simply don't occur do to the presence of arms. Businesses that do not suffer the from organized crime perpetrating protection rackets, for instance, as they often do in the more heavily restricted areas. Indeed, it seems probable the organized crime is drawn to such areas,and avoids the others.
Well, that's a few thoughts on this inflammatory subject.
I recall the Korean-Americans armed and sitting on roofs of their business in LA during riots, resulting from 1992 Rodney King ruling, without police in sight. That was what made me a lifelong gun owner and 2A supporter.
What do True Believers do to Un-Believers? Harm. All moralistic/demonizing ideologies are the same: only the labels change. Just about everything the Left does these days is pretexting for "de-righting". They are setting up to be able to say "We were right to do that".
Fellow cake eaters and brain grenade users: Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
Moving my daughters family to Tejas starting at 0'dark thirty Sunday morning. Very sad as wifey and I have a very good connection with our 2 yr old grandson, but they understand our Minny has gone communist and they can save 20% by starting their lives in an American friendly state/republic.
This Quillette article below by a black man says lack of fathers in black families is a taboo subject among black activists who blame black social dysfunction on white supremacy. This idea is constantly promoted by our Woke, white leftist ruling class and is now deeply embedded in our society. Fighting this is a central issue of Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign. Another reason why the Woke will intensely hate him. No one is better suited to fight these demons though than Vivek. Perhaps we’ve got some divine intervention going on here.
“Astonishingly, the subject of father-absence remains taboo among many black activists, even though the rate of father-absence among blacks is horrifying. For these activists, any attempt to discuss black cultural failures is a kind of victim-blaming and a distraction from what really ails the black community—the persistence of white supremacy.”
The majority of woke cultists are affluent white people who have never spent much time with black people and who know nothing about black culture. I don't think they want to know, either. When we get to know people we start to see them as individuals, each of whom is unique. The woke cult abhors uniqueness and loves segregation.
Black culture is a dumpster fire permeated with social dysfunction, grievance, tribalism even against other blacks, and racial hatred of white people which is constantly stoked by Woke white leftists. During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966/1976) the CCP used the lower class to destroy the upper class in order to “start history afresh” and create a society where all are equal. Our Cultural Revolution is top down where our upper class, globalist, anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-meritocracy, Woke white left is waging war on white, working class people and our values so that they can destroy us in order to “start history afresh” and create a society where all are equal. Here we go again. It is what it is.
“Our condition is forever precarious; even basic human decency can shatter and vanish in an instant.”
“Maoism had unique traits but Leys nonetheless always saw it as a member of what he called the “great totalitarian family”—ideologies produced by patterns of thought found across human societies, from tiny shipwrecked pre-Enlightenment microcosms to vast 20th century nations.”
“History does not repeat itself, but ideas do.”
“Analyst of Totalitarianism-Reading Simon Leys Today.”
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The article is remarkable and will follow up with interest. I have been listening to James Lindsay and have found him to be very helpful. Christopher Rufo has also written on the match between the woke cult and Maoism. It is terrifying whenever this is confirmed, because the previous movements of this type were devastating.
Human evolution has definitely not gone in the optimal direction!
An excellent article. The one I posted above on the “The Delusion of Crowds” is also really good. It certainly is very distressing to read of how unstable human nature is especially now with the immensely powerful weapons we have while at the same time people like Sleepy Joe and the Woke democrats are in charge. The philosopher Kant said “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” My hope is that AI will soon be advanced enough to save us. Many are afraid of it but what terrifies me is Mother Nature with things like super volcanos and human nature with things like super stupid Woke ideology. We live dangling by a thread over the abyss. This is just not working at all. This is no way to live.
It is true that a) the Democratic Party is mostly white, and b) the Democrats (eg LBJ) enacted laws to ensure blacks voted Democratic by food stamps for fatherless homes, racial employment and education for the under qualified, and urban DAs that rendered all major cities in America lawless. So yea the whites of the Democratic Party again and continue to enslave blacks pathetic enough to accept their handouts for a buck. Sad but fact; multiple generations now and it won’t change without a catastrophic break from external (to the US) forces.
The most interesting and amusing thing for me is that Dems who "identify as Progressive" are the most likely to be white, the least likely to be diverse, of all the Democrats. LOL!! I read that the same is true of DEI bureaucrats. LOL!
I can get my mind around the phenomenon of black people hating white people (as a category) and even women hating men (as a category), although the latter example doesn't work well for heterosexual women who feel that way. What throws me is how masses of so-called liberal white people hate immutable aspects of their own identities, and ascribe to themselves all these demonic character traits. Presumably they would have to hate their own children as well. A lot of these people claim they are willing to sacrifice themselves by allowing "disadvantaged minorities" to cut ahead of them in line for important jobs. I wonder to what extent that is actually true. And do they also expect their kids to do that?
Hmmm let me count how many liberal elites of any race live in murder crazy Philly neighborhoods .... zero. I guess when it comes to their safety they are decidedly conservative.
They might claim they are willing to “sacrifice”, but none of them actually do it. The upheaval over illegal immigrants in “sanctuary cities” demonstrates that it’s all just arrogant virtue signaling. When do we ever see a white person actually step down from a high-powered job to make room for a person of color? Never. But of course they are in favor, as long as it applies to those other lesser whites.
That is what I was thinking also, that the white elite is confusing their idealized view of themselves with what they would do in the actual situation. There was a situation with a friend who had the opportunity to buy a home near what remains of the black neighborhood in my city. After visiting the location, she looked a bit whiter even than she had before. Instead of admitting that she was scared off by the neighborhood, she made a series of statements like, "I would NEVER want to say that black neighborhoods are INHERENTLY DANGEROUS! I am SO AGAINST THAT!" Within a couple of days she announced she wasn't moving to that particular house. LOL!!
The part about the ruling whites using white working people as sacrifices reminds me of a book I read years ago called The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power, by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad. It’s about authoritarianism in cults based on Eastern religions and more generally. The authors linked “sacrifice” as a religious ideal with authoritarianism. Their argument was that when sacrifice is the moral and spiritual ideal, someone gets to decide who makes those sacrifices and the people with the most authority choose less powerful others.
These authors also proposed a concept they called “ideological insensitivity.” This refers to interpersonal behavior in which one speaker is so committed to an ideological dogma he will run roughshod over the real human being in front of him to advance it. In the spiritual groups the authors discuss, verbal tributes to “compassion,” “unconditional love” and “being peace” are constant, but cult leaders and members abuse real people in the name of these abstractions.
But they do strongly support things like CRT, the 1619 Project and LGBTQIA+ ideology in the schools which is extremely damaging to their children plus they also strongly support the dumbing down of standards got the sake of “Equity” which cheats their own children out of a good education. Check out the City Journal article I posted right below here about how they ruin the lives of their own children with their Woke fanaticism. These are some really sick people yet they are our ruling class.
Identity can be based on all kinds of things. China’s Cultural Revolution (1966/1976) was a perfect example of that. Mao’s Red Guard destroyed something like 90% of China’s ancient cultural heritage along with millions of Chinese lives. Temples, books, art works, antiques and anything connected to the past was destroyed. And these lower class Red Guard fanatics were just as Chinese as their victims. You could even say the same about the victims of the Nazis. Most were white like the Poles, Russians and Jews but considered subhuman because they weren’t German (Aryan). “Do they expect their kids to do that?” Sure they do. Check out the City Journal article below: “and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.”
“Patricia (a pseudonym) is the mother of a teenage girl who in recent years has come to identify as transgender. She lives in California, considers herself progressive, votes Democrat, and leads a group for parents of children with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)—that is, youth who suddenly experience distress with their bodies and believe that undergoing medical “transition” will make them whole again. When I spoke to her recently, she recounted how her daughter’s at-first-lesbian and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.”
“The Assault on Children’s Psyches.”
California’s ethnic studies curriculum is fueling a mental health crisis among teenagers.
Barbara Hershey is following the Democratic line and talking about Nazis when the real enemies were Soviet Communists, who killed more Jews than Hitler ever thought about. The Democratic Party is now the Communist Party USA. Communists started taking it over during FDR's administration and became dominant in the 1960s. It's now run by veterans of the SDS and Black Power movement.
BS. That is not at all accurate. Reality is that the Dems do and have controlled the government, education system, unions, cities, MSM and more. It’s one thing to be a contrarian but another to throw out an opposing view without any support. For you to make a credible argument, you need to show how in practice Hershey’s post is representative of Republicans in government, cities, academia, etc.
Seeing Hershey's words I thought she must be a Trumpster. As you say, the left is guilty of all the totalitarian oppression we're enduring. We're living in an age of perfect projection where the criminals are accusing the innocent of their crimes. This is like the world of matter and anti-matter that physicysts say is real. And if they come together, there's annihilation.
Here’s an excerpt below from an excellent book by a physicist named Michael Guillen PhD “Believing Is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith.” He was able to show how quantum physics supports faith and religion, any religion and even an impersonal God. He also has YouTube videos.
“Christianity: God created time, so he exists outside of it. God, therefore, is not constrained by time. He is a timeless entity.”
When I first read the biblical story about the burning bush, I found it odd that God says to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” But following my analysis of light from a scientific and biblical perspective, I realized it’s exactly what a timeless being would say about himself. He would say: “I don’t have a past, present or future. I just am. I am who I am.”
Michael Guillen
“Infinite and finite, complex and simple, He is nature above nature, being above being. Maker of all, he is made in all, Unmoving, he enters the world, Timeless in time, unlimited in limited space, And he who is no thing becomes all things.” Eriugena, medieval theologian.
“It is because it can be loved by us, it is because it is beautiful, that the universe is a country. It is our only country here below. Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love. It is this country that God has given us to love. He has willed that it should be difficult yet possible to love it.” Simone Weil. French mystic. 1909 - 1943
Here’s a short video worth watching about evil. Why is evil so fascinating? Because it appeals to the dark side of human nature. We need to update Christianity to make it more fascinating and appealing than the dark side. We could do this by merging it with science to make it very strong and beautiful.
“Logic is not all. One needs heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who disbelieves in God? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars, science and religion, of Western Civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid. Is this not the central problem of our time? Richard Feynman. Physicist
“How do we now in the contemporary world deal with this?” A very good question posed at the end of this very strange but fascinating video about Eve from the Garden of Eden with the Serpent draped around her body, intensely hissing hate at us. Von Stuck (1863-1928) was Hitler’s favorite artist. No denying our fallen world is a deadly place but then we do have a lot of beautiful things here so it’s not all bad.
Thanks. For whatever reason most people have no interest in such things but reading about religion and science and the nature of reality is fascinating to me plus I believe it gives a strong internal foundation which helps us survive the extremely unstable external world we live in. To a great extent I’m talking to myself to clarify my own thinking about these things and then have these ideas and quotes saved so I can go back to and review and then I also just post them for anyone else interested.
I like this idea that the universe is a dream in the mind of God who also infinitely transcends the world but then there’s no denying Satan seems to be real. Once I read a book called "The Question of God" by Armand Nicholi. He was a professor of religion at Harvard who used the book to compare the ideas of Freud, an atheist, to those of C.S. Lewis, a believer. The author said though that although Lewis was a devout Christian he also believed that God has abandoned us in "enemy occupied territory" in a part of the universe that’s Satan's domain. According to the book (p. 205) Lewis said “One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death, disease and sin...we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel...Enemy occupied territory...that is what this world is.”
I’ve always liked reading history plus for many years worked with mostly immigrants from all over the world who would tell me horror stories about their former countries. No denying our fallen world can be quite a deadly and demonic place but then we also do have many beautiful things here so we haven’t been totally abandoned by God or perhaps it just means Satan loves beauty so it appears in our world along with the evil in his nature. That could also be true.
I just bought The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Mattie’s Desmat after seeing on a Tucker Carlson interview. If I understand him correctly, he says things I think are similar to your points; ie that many of the greatest physicists and scientists eventually find too many flaws in our human constructed science and conclude there must be some kind of ex-rational unknown force that created the universe and sustains it. For my simple mind, I have found it funny that no one can really explain how the universe even started since “nothing existed before the Big Bang”. Seems to me that our sequential model of time, which all science depends on, is not so robust. :D
Here’s an article and a short video of things that have convinced me that we exist in a dream in the mind of God, a common belief in eastern religions, western mystics like Simone Weil and supported by quantum physics. It’s not the “nothingness” of atheism but the “Absolute Nothingness” of the mystics. Personally, this has given me a lot of inner stability which I believe will serve me well as our society disintegrates. The whole internal structure is collapsing which is why the external structure is so rapidly unraveling. I see this happening faster and faster in Chicago, nation-wide and even globally. Follow the path I’ve gone down and see what you think of it.
“What I learned as I delved into these areas is that quantum physics provides significant clues that we are in some kind of simulated reality.”
“Many of the findings of relativity and quantum physics make no sense in the materialistic world view-that we are living in an immutable physical universe.”
This is an article about the scientist Rizwan Virk. Some excerpts above.
“Are we living in a simulation? This MIT scientist says it’s more likely than not.”
As little as I think of Democrats, I can't claim that they're executing people by the Guillotine. I'm sure the NAZIs didn't kill more than a fraction of one percent of their victims by the chopper either. Anyhow, France still executes criminals by the Guillotine. The true evil is when a society refuses to execute any criminal.
“Time is at all times on the verge of vanishing and all things show the frailty of being that keeps them ever poised on the brink of collapse. Time and being display a constant pull to nullification from beneath their very ground. That is impermanence.”
“Nothingness as the nullification of all things signifies the freedom and effortless flight of a bird gliding across the sky without a moments hitch, unburdened. Like the bird that leaves no tracks along the path of its flight, impermanence here means the non-hindrance of being free of the encumbrances of one’s past and of restrictions stemming from former lives.”
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.” Simone Weil. 1909-1943
“Is it just me?” Obviously so. We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. This is simply not working at all. Could it be that the reason why our society is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally? Only God knows what fate has in store for us as our fallen world slides ever closer to the abyss. It is what it is though. No point crying about it.
Some excerpts below from a Quillette review of a book about the irrational side of human nature. The last one says: “One comes away with the sense that civilization operates on narrow margins and is always on the verge of collapsing into irrationality.” That sure is the truth.
“Mackay makes the case, often in gory detail, that episodes of collective mania seem to be an inevitable consequence of human nature. Humans in every time and place have cast aside their better judgment and allowed themselves to be caught up in all manner of irrational hoopla.“
“His chapters on the Swabian Peasants’ War and Anabaptist uprisings are terrifying depictions of the end-times frenzy that wreaked havoc on northern Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The distance between these events in the German-speaking world and, say, the Reign of Terror in France or the Chinese Cultural Revolution is not that great. And the speed with which apparently reasonable people moved from the embrace of a new theological idea to a willingness to torture those whose own theological ideas diverged even slightly is startling.“
“There is plenty to recommend about The Delusions of Crowds. It is laden with great anecdotes and the writing is always engaging. One comes away with the sense that civilization operates on narrow margins and is always on the verge of collapsing into irrationality.”
“The Delusion of Crowds-A Review.”
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I read what you write with interest, although I sometimes disagree, I find it very interesting. I have a question regarding this particular post. I follow international politics and, of course, that of the United States as well. I have always wondered why Democrats are called left-wing. For those of us who live in other parts of the world, it has always been clear that in the United States, there are two distinct sectors, Republicans and Democrats, but both are clearly right-wing parties. Studying the cultural and political history of the United States, I believe they have never had a left-wing government in their country. It's a reflection. I'll keep reading your posts, and thank you for providing this space.
Americans tend to be what I call "conservative liberals" or "liberal conservatives".
In terms of liberality their country is founded on their Constitution, a document that places hard limits on government power. Not one that would be found in any other country. In terms of conservatism, once that foundation was laid down they strayed only a little from it.
The modern Democrat party has strayed far from it, embracing a level of authoritarianism over the last 30 years that might seem normal in France or Germany, but is quite unnerving to the American concepts of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of assembly.
I don't like the terms "left wing" and "right wing", as they don't really have any meaning. Historically they came from the French court, where those to the left of the king beheaded those to his right (and the king too, of course). The only good thing you could say about the French Revolution is that eventually it devoured its founders. Much like the Communist revolutions.
The American Revolution was really only saved from the same fate because the king they were rebelling against was half a world away, and because the men who overthrew the king's authority had no desire to replace him. When they laid down their arms they went back to their farms.
The Democrats are more authoritarian than the Republicans. They'll tell you it's for your own good, but C.S. Lewis warned against people who believe they're acting far your own good.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
As G.K. Chesteron put it:
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”
That's not to say that the Republicans are perfect. The people who enter politics are characterized by the desire to control others, to use the irresistible power of the state to force people to do what they cannot persuade them to do... for their own good of course. However, at least at the moment, the Republicans are better, and when your choices are between Diocletian and Constantine the rational actor chooses Constantine.
Explain what about the Democratic Party you think is clearly right wing and we’ll have a better chance of replying intelligently to your question. In the meantime, a few points; a) the names are indeed very broad generalizations and as such one can identify discrepancies in the labels, b) Conservatives here are often wanting radical changes (which could be considered left wing since it is about radical change); examples include Conservatives want fewer wars, greater individual freedoms, less public system union controls, greater protection for children- especially those still in the womb, and many other radical changes. So it’s not the Left that is right-wing but the Conservatives that are radical for change against the status quo (eg overturn 50 years of federal legislation fostering racial discrimination (ie Affirmative Action). So you see, the Conservatives are the Radicals.
I have noticed that Christians seem to have a better moral compass than most woke liberals, or Nazis. There are plenty of Christians in USA, and are they mostly Republicans ? or am I wrong ? Were there many Christian Nazis ? Were there many Nazi Christians ? Does this mean that Democrats are most at risk for fascist ideology ?
The Nazis created a religion called "Positive Christianity" that was rooted in the more liberal German scholarship of the late 19th century, and basically replaced the Jewish Jesus with the blood and soil of Germany.
So many Nazis claimed to be Christian, but when you boiled down what they actually believed it was not Christianity they were practicing.
Huge difference between being a practicing Christian and being born a Christian. There were definitely a lot, if not the vast majority, of Nazis who were born into Christian families. On the other hand, I can’t see how one could be a true practicing Christian and a Nazi at the same time.
Christianity appears to be diametrically opposed to facist beliefs. New Zealand politics is like a goldfish bowl, and Christian advocates are resisting our super-woke government with the same concerns I have, and a young Christian reporter Chantelle keeps challenging the same woke attitudes as me, despite her platform getting cancelled often. It is about vaccine mandates and Transgender activists, and they dont bring christianity into the debate as in preaching, but we still have basic common grounds. In contrast the woke brigade is emotionally unstable, and hyper catastrophize every percieved threat and micro-aggression. They have no real values, or value, and live in a world of non-accountability, just like our current leaders. Jacinda Ardern cut and ran in a moment.
Christianity is under serious attack worldwide. Billions of souls will be lost to Hell. This world is temporal and the next is permanent. Big difference. Hedge accordingly. Ever since about 3rd grade at Annunciation BVM (Sisters of Mercy), I understood it was far easier to make some sacrifices in the temporal world to avoid crushing suffering in the permanent one. And I’m not even mentioning all the positive vibes from being Catholic, of which there are many.
Hilarious. Fox News just had to pay out three quarters of a BILLION dollars for intentionally spreading the voter fraud conspiracy theory and you're acting like it's "Left wing media" and democrats who have the problem?
Quick poll for all the commenters here:
How many of you still believe that:
- The 2020 election wasn't fair?
- Q Anon is real?
- Ivermectin is a real remedy for Covid? And continuing on that -- that Covid isn't any more dangerous than the flu, despite the 1 million + excess deaths in the US alone since the pandemic began?
- That Bill Gates created the vaccine to inject tiny microchips into our bloodstreams?
- That Democrats are perpetuating the "great replacement" of white people in this country?
- That Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the US?
The list can go and and on -- and all of these are RIGHT WING conspiracies that have had real effects on the politics of this country.
As for all the other things in that tweet by Hershey -- yes they all can easily be attributed to conservatives. Fox News spreading the voter fraud theory and having to pay for it is proof of the first three parts of that statement. Book banning and the erasing of black and queer history in schools is proof of the "censoring and silencing of the opposition." And Republicans routinely call immigrants "illegals", black people "thugs", and queer people "pedophiles and groomers." Not to mention the unrelenting fat and body shaming that women face by conservatives -- just look at the unhinged commentary that Lizzo and Demi Lovato face on a constant basis. Sounds like conservatives sure are dividing themselves into "us" vs "them"!
Sasha -- your substack has the words "free thinking" in the title but all I see when I read your posts are standard right-wing talking points. When is the free thinking actually going to begin?
Mollie Hemingway’s book “Rigged” was quite good as was “2000 Mules” by Dinesh D’Souza. And on top of that there were the years of lies by the media and Big Tech manipulation to destroy Trump and make sure Joe won. Why isn’t the Russia collusion lie considered cheating? Why isn’t the endless demonization of Trump considered cheating? A “collective psychotic break” is what Bret Weinstein says our society is experiencing in this video where he talks about the Time article on how the election was “fortified” to prevent an outcome displeasing to the left. Even the democrats themselves admitted the election was “fortified” to insure their side won. And I’m supposed to believe that Biden won fairly? You people are despicable and evil.
“US 2020 election “fortifying” in Time article.” (11 min)
This Real Clear Investigations article below from 2020 is about the “1619 Project” and what the author Nikole Hannah-Jones told the editors of the Chicago Tribune about its purpose which is, she said, to instill guilt in white liberals so they will support reparations for blacks. White liberals are not being targeted though. White children in our public schools are. And our Woke white leftist ruling class loves this and is totally supportive of it. She was even given a Pulitzer Prize for this poison in 2020. Could it be that the reason why America is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally?
“If you read the whole project, I don’t think you can come away from it without understanding the project is an argument for reparations,” she told the Chicago Tribune in October.
“I'm not writing to convert Trump supporters. I write to try to get liberal white people to do what they say they believe in,” she said. “I'm making a moral argument. My method is guilt.”
“Disputed NY Times ‘1619 Project’ Already Shaping Schoolkids Minds on Race.”
Whenever a libtard tells the truth, they do it without realizing it. And their version of the truth always points back directly at them. They should recognize that they are looking into a mirror when they utter their radical statements.
Valid observation(s). But if that's how you see things in 2023 US, why do you so frequently mock or dismiss serious attempts to resist or combat the perversities that dominate our public discourse?
8 Disturbing Similarities between the Democrat and Nazi Parties
We saw eight similarities already. Here are eight more.
https://parkerd.substack.com/p/8-disturbing-similarities-between
Steve McCann's "Eight Startling and Uncomfortable Ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party" was just the tip of the National Socialist iceberg.
The fascist far left has always had to lie to survive. They've always been on the wrong side of history, and the only way they can remain viable is by gaslighting people on a full-time basis. For decades, their biggest lie has been that the supposedly pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, imbued in the precepts of individual liberty and limited government, is somehow connected to totalitarian collectivist regimes that displayed the exact opposite of those values.
Anyone who has debated leftists for the past few decades has been subjected to the same bluff abuse in their trying to maintain that nonsensical lie. But the close similarities between fascism and communism have been obvious for at least 75 years:
"In certain basic respects — a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom — fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between".
—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Associate Professor of History at Harvard, New York Times Magazine, Sunday, April 4, 1948
1. Democrats and the Nazis were/are obsessed with gun confiscation.
2. Democrats and Nazis are collectivists.
3. The overarching philosophy of both Democrats and Nazis is centralized control.
4. The centralized collectivist control philosophy of the Democrat and Nazi parties is epitomized in the phrase "the Common Good" (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz in the original German).
5. Far-left fascists of the Democrat and Nazi parties see force as means to their political power.
6. Democrats and Nazis are proponents of single-party systems.
7. Democrats and Nazis are fascistic.
8. Democrats are striving for a totalitarian state structure and a single party like the Nazis.
Put all of this together, and you'll come to the inescapable conclusion that all of these parallels make the ironclad case that both parties are all too similar.
With with modern surveillance technology and tyrannical "innovations" like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the Democrats could make the Nazis look like amateurs. This is why they have to be opposed with cultural guerrilla warfare every step of the way.
No, the similarities are NOT between the Democrats and the Nazis, they are between Democrats and Soviet Communists, which is not a surprise since the modern Democratic Party is the replacement for the Communist Party USA.
Somehow they think that the National Socialist Workers Party were not Socialists.
Correction, that's National Socialist German Worker's Party.
I always refer back to the etymology of the term and the fact that before the end of WWII they used the term national socialism instead of Nazi, the later being used instead ‘to avoid any taint to the good word socialist’:
Nazi
https://web.archive.org/web/20180828030638/https://www.etymonline.Com/word/Nazi
1930, noun and adjective, from German Nazi, abbreviation of German pronunciation of Nationalsozialist (based on earlier German sozi, popular abbreviation of "socialist"), from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "National Socialist German Workers' Party," led by Hitler from 1920.
The 24th edition of Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (2002) says the word Nazi was favored in southern Germany (supposedly from c. 1924) among opponents of National Socialism because the nickname Nazi, Naczi (from the masc. proper name Ignatz, German form of Ignatius) was used colloquially to mean "a foolish person, clumsy or awkward person." Ignatz was a popular name in Catholic Austria, and according to one source in World War I Nazi was a generic name in the German Empire for the soldiers of Austria-Hungary.
An older use of Nazi for national-sozial is attested in German from 1903, but EWdS does not think it contributed to the word as applied to Hitler and his followers. The NSDAP for a time attempted to adopt the Nazi designation as what the Germans call a "despite-word," but they gave this up, and the NSDAP is said to have generally avoided the term. Before 1930, party members had been called in English National Socialists, which dates from 1923. The use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, etc., was popularized by German exiles abroad. From them, it spread into other languages, and eventually was brought back to Germany, after the war.
In the USSR, the terms national socialist and Nazi were said to have been forbidden after 1932, presumably to avoid any taint to the good word socialist. Soviet literature refers to fascists.
Thanks for the etymology! Interesting that the German, Russian, and Chinese socialists were obsessed with language and at odds with each other.
You’re welcome - I wish the pro-freedom right were as concerned about language as the anti-liberty left.
It's a uniparty- let's not kid ourselves anymore
People have been saying that for decades, and you supposedly discerned that bit of ‘wisdom’ all by yourself?
Can we dispense with that ridiculous idea?
Why are some people deliberately trying to confuse the situation?
I can easily PROVE there is a VAST difference between the collectivists of the Anti-liberty left and the individualists of the Pro-freedom right.
The collectivists of the Anti-liberty left obsess over gun confiscation, that is NOT the case with the Pro-freedom right.
Seriously you're just contrasting the ideas of the left and right - but the people who hold the offices carrying the flags of the left and right are 2 peas in a pod. They hate us. All they care about is power, money and glory (see Matthew chapter 3). They're wolves in sheep's clothing- wicked to the core. They've dangled the American ideals and romanced us to sleep why they carry out their lust to inherit the earth and everything in it!
Indeed. And the debt ceiling charade is another example of Uniparty politics where it counts; ie money.
If his forces are united, separate them.
Sun Tzu the Art of War, Chapter 1
Why are you unifying them?
Matt is not unifying them, they are already unified.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
-Also Sun Tzu
Actually, the Nazis extensively revised the 1928 Gun Law of the Weimar (Leftist) Government. Many of their changes loosened/abolished various restrictions, and not one toughened any. Because Americans view the world through a non-European lens, the fact that firearms possession was restricted to 'German' German citizens means that "firearms were confiscated in Germany".
So, are you contending that today’s fascist far left is WORSE than the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
I don’t really think that’s going to win anyone over.
They selectively confiscated guns, just as the Democrats are doing now, how is that an improvement?
How does that refute the thesis?
How the Nazis Used Gun Control
https://web.archive.org/web/20180308150153/https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook/
Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ''Enemies of the State,'' by Stephen P. Halbrook
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282014209_Gun_Control_in_the_Third_Reich_Disarming_the_Jews_and_''Enemies_of_the_State''_by_Stephen_P_Halbrook
I have no problem with disarming Leftists. Every frikkin' one of them is a personal enemy for me as a more-or-less normal white Christian (as every one of them were for the Germans of 1933). Recall that Eastern Europeans were either observing, or being informed by observers, of the Bolshevik "Red Terror" taking place in the USSR (1917 until whenever you decide that Stalin had taken over total control). Certainly over 20 million Europeans were killed during the (1917-1926) Bolshevik phase of the "Terror" -- twice as many people (Jews and Europeans) as the Germans killed by various means between 1933 and 1945 . As late as 1931-33, Bolsheviks (led by Genrikh Yagoda, "the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century", and the Tscheka) still carried out the Holomodor ("Terror Famine") in Ukraine, killing 7-10 million more Europeans. Of course there were also the Bolshevik Bela Kun's coup in Hungary in 1919, unleashing the murderous "Lenin's Boys" on the Hungarian People and the continuous violent uprisings all over Germany from 1918 until 1933. The low-level Socialist agitator, Adolph Hitler, personally witnessed the 7 April 1919 coup in Munich, with Communists taking control of the center of the city. Under the leadership of Soviet Commissars Levine, Levien, and Axelrod, a Soviet Republic was declared, and a 'red army' was formed. The Reds were finally crushed on 8 May 1919, by the military, Freikorps, police, and by civilian volunteers called up by the mayor. Almost 1000 killed, including all the German hostages held by the Communists.
It's generally thought that this was the experience with real Bolsheviks that turned Hitler from a Socialist to a German National Socialist
The current head of the US Department of Justice has made the enemies list clear in a number of recent statements and documents. Yes, the US Tscheka is infiltrating Catholic churches and organizations right now -- joining forces with the ACLU and the SPLC. A US Ministry of Truth (AKA the disinformation control office) has been established, abolished due to public outcry, and now re-established on the down-low. You want totalitarianism? Was it a punishable offense in Nazi Germany (or even in the USSR) to refer to a man as 'he' or 'him'? The US is already under the most totalitarian regime in human history.
Please answer my questions instead of dodging them:
Are you contending that today’s fascist far left is WORSE than the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
I don’t really think that’s going to win anyone over.
They selectively confiscated guns, just as the Democrats are doing now, how is that an improvement?
How does that refute the thesis?
How the Nazis Used Gun Control
https://web.archive.org/web/20180308150153/https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook/
Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ''Enemies of the State,'' by Stephen P. Halbrook
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282014209_Gun_Control_in_the_Third_Reich_Disarming_the_Jews_and_''Enemies_of_the_State''_by_Stephen_P_Halbrook
You're asking a question that has many answers. The point is always the same -- is this good or bad FOR ME. Jews/Bolsheviks thought the "Red Terror" was just excellent (which is why they did it). Ordinary Germans had no problem with the Gestapo because the Gestapo wasn't bothering them. They didn't go to the camps either. Fighting on the Eastern Front was tough and eventually unpopular, but even that opinion was wrong, as more Germans died after the War than during it. The German military knew this the minute Henry Morgenthau and the "Harrys" (Dexter White and Hopkins) told FDR to declare that the War would be fought until Germany surrendered unconditionally. The US military was astounded, noting that this would extend the war by months and by thousands of casualties as the German military would fight to the bitter end. They were only interested in winning the War as quickly as possible, with the minimum loss of life. Being a bunch of anti-Semites, the War Department didn't understand the need for total vengeance against all the German People, not just the NAZIs.
As for arms control, America's hostile alien ruling elite sometimes forgets who's who -- disarming German Jews was not the same thing as disarming all Germans. Again, it's a case of "whose ox is being gored". Anyone could learn a lot from looking up the origins of that particular phrase
What’s the idea here?
Throw up a big and incomprehensible block of text on the screen and then pretend to have ‘answered’ the question?
Please cite the FACTUAL basis for ALL of your assertions.
Then answer my question for once.
Are you contending that today’s fascist far left is WORSE than the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
I don’t really think that’s going to win anyone over.
They selectively confiscated guns, just as the Democrats are doing now, how is that an improvement?
How does that refute the thesis?
How the Nazis Used Gun Control
https://web.archive.org/web/20180308150153/https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook/
Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ''Enemies of the State,'' by Stephen P. Halbrook
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282014209_Gun_Control_in_the_Third_Reich_Disarming_the_Jews_and_''Enemies_of_the_State''_by_Stephen_P_Halbrook
Then why don’t you back up that assertion with FACTS.
You can dispense with falling back on the ‘Google it’ dodge.
Remember, you’re making the claim, that means YOU have to prove it with a long list of established and reputable sources.
Now, hop to it, you’re comment won’t be valid UNTIL you prove it’s veracity.
Uh, you might want to take a look at a map and a history book. Yes, the Germans invaded Poland -in collusion with the Soviets - but then they invaded France and the Low Countries a few months later. They only moved into Ukraine on their way into Russia AFTER they had conquered all of Western Europe except the British Isles. Hitler's goal was to establish a 1,000-year Reich in Europe. Race was only incidental to his ambitions.
NO, you have to base your argument on FACTS, if you cannot it is worthless.
You can dispense with falling back on the ‘Google it’ dodge.
Remember, you’re making the claim, that means YOU have to prove it with a long list of established and reputable sources.
Now, hop to it, you’re comment won’t be valid UNTIL you prove it’s veracity.
Please cite the FACTUAL basis for these assertions.
UNTIL you do so, your OPINIONS on this will be worthless.
“Jacobite”
Are you a fan of Guillotines like the Jacobins and the National Socialist German Workers' Party:
Assembly Required
https://archive.ph/mUCSD
A Guillotine in Storage Bears Signs of a Role in Silencing Nazis’ Critics
https://web.archive.org/web/20151126120950/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/world/europe/a-guillotine-in-storage-bears-signs-of-a-role-in-silencing-nazis-critics.html
No, it's 'Jacobite' not 'Jacobin' -- 180 degrees difference, as educated people well know. Keep forgetting I'm not in Europe.
It doesn’t matter where you are, the fact is that both Democrats and Nazis have a strange affection for Guillotines, why is that?
Assembly Required
https://archive.ph/mUCSD
A Guillotine in Storage Bears Signs of a Role in Silencing Nazis’ Critics
https://web.archive.org/web/20151126120950/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/world/europe/a-guillotine-in-storage-bears-signs-of-a-role-in-silencing-nazis-critics.html
"Gun Control’s" Nazi Connection
Startling evidence suggests that the Gun Control Act of 1968
was lifted, almost in its entirety, from Nazi legislation.
https://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/GCA_68.htm
Materialists cannot see reality whole. Economics is a tiny fraction of the study of human societies, and the least important. NAZIs were pro-German/pro-Western European racists. All Leftists are defined by their virulent anti-white racism and congenital antagonism towards European Civilization. As a white person, this is the only distinction that matters to me.
Again, what’s the idea here?
Spew a bunch of unrelated BS then pretend to have ‘answered’ the question?
Please cite the FACTUAL basis for ALL of your assertions.
Then answer my question for once.
Are you contending that today’s fascist far left is WORSE than the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
I don’t really think that’s going to win anyone over.
They selectively confiscated guns, just as the Democrats are doing now, how is that an improvement?
How does that refute the thesis?
How the Nazis Used Gun Control
https://web.archive.org/web/20180308150153/https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook/
Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ''Enemies of the State,'' by Stephen P. Halbrook
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282014209_Gun_Control_in_the_Third_Reich_Disarming_the_Jews_and_''Enemies_of_the_State''_by_Stephen_P_Halbrook
Love my MBZ. I haven't seen it sending me subliminal messages to raise taxes and support teachers unions.
😆 remember the SNL skit (back when they were funny) of the Japanese car slipping in messages to its driver on his way to work like “your door is ajar...please buckle your safety belt...NO TARIFF!...”
No. Sounds funny, though.
"It seems that they want to push people on the Right to become what they keep saying they are"
This is the sentence that caught my attention. As a child of a covert narcissistic parent, I know from personal experience this is exactly what narcissists do. They blame you for what they actually are and for what they are doing. The "powers that be" need all of us to become what they are saying we are- unhinged, delusional anti-vaxxers - or whatever name de jour they've dreamed up. Just like you wrote- keep everyone divided. I've lost so many friends over the past three years to this nightmare but once you see you can't unsee it.
Otherwise known as “projection”?
“Accuse your enemy of what you are doing, as you are doing it to create confusion.”
— Karl Marx
I thought Saul Alinsky said that.. one of his 'rules for radicals'.. unless he lifted it from Marx..
100%
It really does seem like they're trying to instigate a hot war. They know they now control authority as demonstrated in the success of draconian covid policies (we, in large part complied), authorities allowed BLM and antifa riots, authorities successfully conducted witch trials in the J6 hearings, etc. They are true believers and they want us gone. And don't comfort yourself with the notion, "Well, we've got all the guns." They control the intelligence agencies, the police, military, and media. And game out the worst case scenario in your mind: Do you really think we can organize an effective counter-force to protect ourselves? Can you point a gun at a person you don't know and pull the trigger?
The left has fallen through the looking-glass. You can not convince them their version of reality puts us all on a terrible path. At least I'm not seeing it. They have to figure it out on their own.
Thanks for illustrating the original point. Your masters have convinced you every one of their crimes and character flaws are in fact the crimes and flaws of their opposition. The rest of us can't understand how you can't see this. Do you remember when you were instructed to be angry at Trump for his "quid pro quo"? Of course your masters never explained to you the back story. Biden was using his son to launder State Dept. money back to himself through Barisma. Ukraine was investigating. Biden then threatened to withhold a billion dollar loan package if the prosecutor looking into the corruption wasn't immediately fired. He then bragged about it in front of a video camera and laughed about it. This video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ6QiqvfvxE
All Trump did was tell Ukraine they could continue their investigation without fear of losing US support, and in fact should.
As you may already know, That piece was written back when Hunter's laptop was still being ignored. The laptop proved the story true and the fact-checkers wrong.....again. But you just keep on believing your masters and have history, the recent past, and the present change at their very whims.
You really need to do some research. Obviously you still get your news from corporate media and leftist outlets. Trump, Trump, Trump... "They're not after me, they're after you. I'm just in the way." Donald J. Trump. No truer words were spoken. Donald Trump dared to challenge the Washington establishment. He upset the status quo. That was his only "crime".
Sure, Jan.
I have been wondering this for a while. It's like they can't even remember within the last decade when they hated war and hated the security state.
Is this an American phenomenon or is this a human phenomenon? Does this come from our shallow two-party system that encourages loyalty over self-awareness? Did Trump actually break them or were they broken before, but the right electing Trump over utterly corrupt but box-checking Hillary Clinton broke them?
I get why the elites are doing this, but why these people like Matt Yglesias and Barbara Hershey follow along, are they true believers (which is really frightening) or just stooges? Or do we have a population of people so mentally fragile that can't survive unless they are "right"?
Thought provoking post, Lillia. I think your last point about the mental fragility of so many of today's Leftists is spot on.
I think it’s the populist part of Trump that drives them crazy. That part of the message appeals to the working class part of the traditional Democrat party and they are terrified they could lose them, especially the Black and Latino parts.
I agree. That's a huge part of it. They've lost the ability to convince. Now all they have is shame and fear.
Shame, Fear ...and the FBI.
One thing I'm always wondering about True Believers Of The Ideology: do they really believe the idiocy or are they in on it expecting a seat at the table? Sometimes the answer is obvious, others not so much. Not all useful idiots know they are being useful.
Matthew 23:6-13
"6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved."
This is why.
Vaya con Dios.
Quede con Dios
Democrats, progressives, and Antifa don't commit "violence" - they merely "express themselves with passion." Whereas, wearing a red hat with the desire to make America great again, is, according to Democrats and their adjuncts in the FBI/DOJ/IC/Media, a dire threat to "our" democracy.
You have it wrong. I believe any who violated the law should be held to account and treated equally as others who have been prosecuted and convicted for the same crime. I was appalled at the rioting on J6, but probably more appalled by the BLM rioting, which in large part, targeted perfectly innocent people and their livelihoods. The J6 dissidents who rioted at least targeted the "guilty". After being stiff-armed by the courts, evidently they felt they had no other recourse, but to express their rage for a few hours.
After all the revelations about the malfeasant lying and cheating by Trump's opposition and how they cheated again in the 2020 election with the fraudulent, Biden/CIA-sponsored, 51-Stooge letter, no rational person can look at this and say the election was not rigged.
Yeah. I agree. The J6 riots and BLM riots are not comparable.
If security outside the local retailers had waived the BLM protesters in, and if the store clerks had opened the doors, and if the local police had furnished the matches, then the BLM looting, burning and riots would be comparable. That didn't happen though.
Considering that only about 1% of the J6 demonstrators took part in the Capitol riot, it can also be said that the protest was "mostly peaceful".
I can't disagree with your description of Trump. Few would. I think people "fall for" him because he can beat the Democrats at their game. With all the frauds and hoaxes that the DNC and their agents in the Dept. of Justice, CIA, & DNC-Media commit, Trump gets stronger. Unfortunately, Trump is the consequence of and perhaps the only solvent to our horridly rotted political class.
No matter how many times times you count fraudulent votes, they are still fraudulent. This is the same BS my governor fed us when we asked for an audit of the actual votes. There were thousands of mail in ballots processed by volunteers that only had votes for Biden and no down votes, and were never folded. In case it isn't obvious to you, the have to be folded to fit in the envelope.
Birtha, did I count correctly, that there were 51 names on that GCC statement?
There are only two possibilities to explain Barbara Hershey's post (in order of decreasing probability):
1. She has the self-awareness of a gnat
2. She is a closet Republican
Sasha, it is bewildering but I have seen this my entire life. Neither side can possibly understand why and how the other side thinks the way they do or sees the world the way they do. I’ve run into this in all aspects of my life, not just politics. Science, Medicine, Architecture, Engineering, Sports, language, travel, pizza preferences 🍕…it’s always the same.
The actress, Hershey, is just another example.
Here’s a thought:
Democrats, Republicans, Nazis, Fascists, Conservatives, Liberals…can we just put all these political extremists on an island somewhere where they can leave us the F alone and Duke it out?
Then the rest of us can go back to normal life stuff like working, schooling, family, raising kids, playing and traveling?
And the next time someone tells you you no longer have the right to go to work, you don’t have freedom of speech, you have no freedom of assembly, you must take some drug or another…give them a free ticket to the island! 😃
Someone started their Memorial Day weekend binge early :D
😂 So true! It’s like this every morning for me. I’m up typically 4 hours before my wife and kids and after making coffee, cleaning kitchen, showering, shaving, feeding pets, walking the dogs...there’s still 3 hours to go!! So I read substacks and listen to podcasts and get caught up on all the crazy...
Dude, every woman on this post is jealous of your wife and every guy hates you.
Yeah I know 😢🤦♂️
I’m used to it! 😂
Hey, a CUNY professor can hold a machete to the neck of a NY Post reporter and nothing happens legally; hell, she is still employed although 'on leave'. Stewart Rhodes just got 18 years in a FEDERAL pen for speaking his mind. Note that there is no parole in a fed pen. Think about that.
John Wilkes Booth was a democrat terrorist, the KKK was the terror arm of the democrat party, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, Burn Loot Murder.... They are all the same people killing and attacking innocent Americans on behalf of the Democrat party.
Bless you Sasha for recognizing it. As a volunteer firefight we hang around the table after an incident and two members(democrats) were completely unaware of any of these events. Sad.
So true! All of it! I have no idea how their minds get twisted to believe the right is suppressing speech. What are THEIR receipts? I’d really love to understand what evidence they feel they have. I mean are they lying or are they really so warped by an alternate reality?
Through my rather long life I can attest to this complete reversal of history and perceptions. It’s insulting to constantly hear this mindless narrative that is belied by the facts. Have a pleasant drive, Sasha! Keep your jalopy between the ditches.
Democrats have become enemies of America, in that they no longer believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law in general.
I can’t comprehend WHY the left continues the violent protests with no consequences whatsoever! The liberal elites are so darn insulated from reality that they sincerely believe that Trump supporters are the violent folks. I pray for our Country & silently weep at the destruction of our Republic! BTW Sasha, was Cedar Point open yet? It’s billed as the home of the largest number of roller coasters in the world
Hershey's reverse thinking reminds me of Orwell: war is peace, hate is love, etc. Perhaps she is just another person who lives day-to-day under the media blackout of leftist violence, bullying and totalitarian abuse of the law.
She probably also thinks that the novel "1984" describes a world ruled by republicans. Leftists like to appropriate dystopian scenes from that novel (along with their favorite, "Handmaiden's Tale"), completely oblivious that they are describing themselves.
Thank you for remembering the San Jose assault on Trump supporters. It was a memorable event in my life, as I was working in San Jose at the time, and spent a lot of time there downtown.
I was not a Trump supporter then. But I was shocked and turned by what happened that day. It was the first time in my life I saw the police orchestrate political violence.
The SJ police set up barricades at the Convention Center exists in a way that delivered the supporters leaving the event right in the hands of a violent mob, who then spit on them, threw rocks and eggs at them, everything you saw in that video.
Then they stood passively by and watched the violence unfold.
At the time a light bulb went off for me: This is the "two-minute hate," and Trump is "Goldstein."
Afterwards, the police chief said he was under orders to stand down, and the Mayor made up some excuse about how he didn't want the police to engage because it would escalate the violence.
To which just about everyone, on whatever political side, couldn't help but ask: then why have police at all?
No matter. Most of the people who perpetrated that catastrophe were re-elected or promoted and today, in addition to "standing down," the FBI follows up and jails Trump supporters for thought crimes, jailing them for years without trial in an effort to extract false confessions.
How is this any different from the East German Stasi at the height of Erik Hoenecker's rule?
You forgot,
One party controlling law enforcement — The Democrats.
That's a big one.
Sasha, are you sure Barbara Hershey wasn’t talking about the Democratic Party? I find it difficult to believe that any sentient human being could be so oblivious as to assume that was referring to Republicans.
Hershey isn't a sentient human being she's a Hollywood has been. Those two concepts are, for the most part, mutually exclusive.
Thanks, Sasha, breathtaking cognitive dissonance. In 2021 I started reading a lot of memoirs of Nazi years. It’s true, it didn’t start with the gas chambers; it started in the early 1930s by calling certain groups “diseased” and needing to be separated for everybody’s good… e.g. cutting off access to certain facilities like swimming pools and public schools, and then it turned into camps or ghettos of course.
Here's where it's going- A view from Daniel 3👇
Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they were standing before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the herald loudly called out: “To you it is said, O peoples, nations, and men of every tongue, that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. “But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.”
And of course, Nebuchadnezzar was just a prototype of the beast who is coming- From Revelation 13👇
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and he was speaking as a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he does great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which were given to him to do in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, that they be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of man; and his number is 666."
The good news is that Jesus is our way out of this beast system- the domain of satan is coming to an end! The Kingdom of God is coming and all will be made new. No more death, pain, sorrow, suffering.. no more sin!
Repent and be saved before it's too late.
As you know Matt, there are two sins Jesus Christ (Yeshua Messiah) will not forgive: (1) Denial-blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. (2) Receiving the Mark of the the Beast.
love the Johnny Cash song about this.
When I first read the Hershey tweet, I thought ‘wow, I didn’t know she was conservative, how brave of her.’ NOT.
No, it didn’t start with gas chambers. Nor did it start with any of the other actions on the list. It started with an IDEA, then steps were taken to implement the idea.
So what was the idea?
That society is composed of oppressors and the oppressed.
That the oppressors have been plotting against the oppressed for centuries.
That the oppressed are the true builders of everything good in society.
That the oppressors are dangerous, and the oppressed should be in fear for their lives.
That retribution should be claimed against the oppressors, so that the oppressed finally get what is rightfully theirs.
1619 Project? Reparations?
21st century Nazis are clearly following the playbook of their ideological ancestors.
The Second Amendment; if it stops just one genocide, it’s worth it.
Second Amendment Thoughts
The culture war brims over with skirmishes over the Second Amendment. The modern Left maintains that it is dangerous and leads to higher crime rates, and that it was only important in our pioneer past. Some members of the Left may believe this, while others just don't like that it is a check on arbitrary power. The Right, whatever that means, sees it as a protector of individual rights. (What is the Right, anyway? The Left claims that the German Socialist Workers Party were on the Right, as though Hitler was passing out handguns to Jews to keep them out of the camps.)
It was not always the case that Democrats were so against the Second Amendment. Consider:
“The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” Hubert Humphrey – Democrat, U. S. Senator, Presidential Candidate and Vice President
Notice that Humphrey said nothing about hunting or protection from crime, but that it is a safeguard against tyranny, a view now considered to be extreme right wing, but just a typical American attitude at that time. Also, the word is arms, not guns in particular.
Going with that same point of view, here is Mr. 1984 himself:
"The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." George Orwell
Orwell's “rifle” would have been the “assault rifle” of his day.
What about all of those school shootings, one may ask. One may note that school shootings did not begin until after the passage of the Gun Free School Zones Act in 1990. A cynical view would be this:
School shootings. Pass a law legally prohibiting the adults in a school from protecting the children, wait for the occasional nut case, blame Republicans and guns, never mention said law, rinse and repeat. Frequently talk about school shootings on the news so the nut cases never forget. (So people will give up their guns. After all, people will not willingly get in the boxcars.)
This might be a little strong, but the coastal elites should be aware that many people see things in something of this light.
But clearly, one may opine, any truly decent, well meaning and spiritual person would never condone an armed populous since that would just not be right.
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” Mahatma Gandhi
So, is it just a matter of if you are for the powerful or for the people?
We always hear, considering the latest proposed restriction, that if it saves just one life it's worth it. They neglect to say that if it costs just one life it's not worth it. How about, if removing a given firearms restriction saves just one life, it's worth it? The fact that such thoughts are anathema to the left makes one suspect that saving lives is not the issue.
Are there any cases of gun control costing lives? A couple come to mind. At one time airline pilots were required to carry handguns if there was U.S. mail on board, so in effect they always did. (Most pilots were ex military anyway, and they simply had them in their carry on bags, not on their hips.) Rules slowly changed, going to optional until, not too long before 9/11 they were completely banned. After 9/11 there was great resistance to allowing pilots to be armed, and was done only with great regulation.
To reiterate, the other obvious case is school shootings. School shootings were unheard of before the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990. Why is it that the act was not rescinded after the school shootings started?
Clearly, at least for the leaders, the issue is not public safety.
Popular among 2A supporters is the idea of the four boxes. The idea is that the protections to liberty contained in the Bill of Rights consist of the ballot box, the jury box, the soap box and the cartridge box. Upon inspection one notices that only the last consists of real, physical objects. A tyrannical government may simply do away with voting, corrupt the court system and eliminate freedom of speech. They would no doubt declare the private possession of arms to be illegal, but collecting them would be a monumental task.
Before all else, be armed. - Niccolo Machiavelli
A disturbing aspect of the 20th century is the large number of people killed by their own governments. Total numbers vary depending on the source, but it's fair to say that at least 100 million people died in this way. (It's hard to pin down; if you died while serving a hard labor sentence in the Soviet Union, does that count?) One may turn around the saving one life argument and say, “If it prevents just one genocide, it's worth it.”
There is the entire issue of the effect of gun control on crime. The tone from the media is always to the effect that, of course, gun control reduces crime, but they do not provide evidence. A big issue is just the fact that there is much that does not come through in official statistics. A person who fends off a burglar in New York City with an illegal gun cannot report it to the police. (He may realize that the criminal will then go on to victimize an unarmed New Yorker, but he can't do anything about it.)
Then there are the crimes that simply don't occur do to the presence of arms. Businesses that do not suffer the from organized crime perpetrating protection rackets, for instance, as they often do in the more heavily restricted areas. Indeed, it seems probable the organized crime is drawn to such areas,and avoids the others.
Well, that's a few thoughts on this inflammatory subject.
I recall the Korean-Americans armed and sitting on roofs of their business in LA during riots, resulting from 1992 Rodney King ruling, without police in sight. That was what made me a lifelong gun owner and 2A supporter.
People now call them “roof Koreans”.
What do True Believers do to Un-Believers? Harm. All moralistic/demonizing ideologies are the same: only the labels change. Just about everything the Left does these days is pretexting for "de-righting". They are setting up to be able to say "We were right to do that".
Barbara Hershey believes Republicans control the media? Huh?
Fellow cake eaters and brain grenade users: Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
Moving my daughters family to Tejas starting at 0'dark thirty Sunday morning. Very sad as wifey and I have a very good connection with our 2 yr old grandson, but they understand our Minny has gone communist and they can save 20% by starting their lives in an American friendly state/republic.
NotFromTexas - Please offer any advice.
This Quillette article below by a black man says lack of fathers in black families is a taboo subject among black activists who blame black social dysfunction on white supremacy. This idea is constantly promoted by our Woke, white leftist ruling class and is now deeply embedded in our society. Fighting this is a central issue of Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign. Another reason why the Woke will intensely hate him. No one is better suited to fight these demons though than Vivek. Perhaps we’ve got some divine intervention going on here.
“Astonishingly, the subject of father-absence remains taboo among many black activists, even though the rate of father-absence among blacks is horrifying. For these activists, any attempt to discuss black cultural failures is a kind of victim-blaming and a distraction from what really ails the black community—the persistence of white supremacy.”
“AWOL Black Fathers.”
Quillette. Mar 21, 2022
https://quillette.com/2022/03/21/awol-black-fathers/
The majority of woke cultists are affluent white people who have never spent much time with black people and who know nothing about black culture. I don't think they want to know, either. When we get to know people we start to see them as individuals, each of whom is unique. The woke cult abhors uniqueness and loves segregation.
Black culture is a dumpster fire permeated with social dysfunction, grievance, tribalism even against other blacks, and racial hatred of white people which is constantly stoked by Woke white leftists. During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966/1976) the CCP used the lower class to destroy the upper class in order to “start history afresh” and create a society where all are equal. Our Cultural Revolution is top down where our upper class, globalist, anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-meritocracy, Woke white left is waging war on white, working class people and our values so that they can destroy us in order to “start history afresh” and create a society where all are equal. Here we go again. It is what it is.
“Our condition is forever precarious; even basic human decency can shatter and vanish in an instant.”
“Maoism had unique traits but Leys nonetheless always saw it as a member of what he called the “great totalitarian family”—ideologies produced by patterns of thought found across human societies, from tiny shipwrecked pre-Enlightenment microcosms to vast 20th century nations.”
“History does not repeat itself, but ideas do.”
“Analyst of Totalitarianism-Reading Simon Leys Today.”
“Please subscribe to our free mailing list to view this article.”
https://quillette.com/2020/09/28/analyst-of-totalitarianism-reading-simon-leys-today/
What "free mailing list" does this quote refer to? Is it for Quillette in general, or is there a mailing list for Leys work?
Thanks for passing on the article.
It’s just for Quillette in general to read their articles. If you want to comment on the articles you have to be a subscriber.
Thank you!
The article is remarkable and will follow up with interest. I have been listening to James Lindsay and have found him to be very helpful. Christopher Rufo has also written on the match between the woke cult and Maoism. It is terrifying whenever this is confirmed, because the previous movements of this type were devastating.
Human evolution has definitely not gone in the optimal direction!
An excellent article. The one I posted above on the “The Delusion of Crowds” is also really good. It certainly is very distressing to read of how unstable human nature is especially now with the immensely powerful weapons we have while at the same time people like Sleepy Joe and the Woke democrats are in charge. The philosopher Kant said “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” My hope is that AI will soon be advanced enough to save us. Many are afraid of it but what terrifies me is Mother Nature with things like super volcanos and human nature with things like super stupid Woke ideology. We live dangling by a thread over the abyss. This is just not working at all. This is no way to live.
Well said! I feel the same pain.
It is true that a) the Democratic Party is mostly white, and b) the Democrats (eg LBJ) enacted laws to ensure blacks voted Democratic by food stamps for fatherless homes, racial employment and education for the under qualified, and urban DAs that rendered all major cities in America lawless. So yea the whites of the Democratic Party again and continue to enslave blacks pathetic enough to accept their handouts for a buck. Sad but fact; multiple generations now and it won’t change without a catastrophic break from external (to the US) forces.
The most interesting and amusing thing for me is that Dems who "identify as Progressive" are the most likely to be white, the least likely to be diverse, of all the Democrats. LOL!! I read that the same is true of DEI bureaucrats. LOL!
“How Blatant Anti-White Racism Won Acceptance in Elite America.”
Real Clear Investigations. Sept 7, 2022
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/09/07/how_blatant_anti-white_racism_won_acceptance_in_elite_america_850879.html
Speak of the Devil: How Demonizing ‘Whiteness’ Spreads White Nationalism.
By Bret Weinstein.
https://youtu.be/S1sJgjG5AF4
I can get my mind around the phenomenon of black people hating white people (as a category) and even women hating men (as a category), although the latter example doesn't work well for heterosexual women who feel that way. What throws me is how masses of so-called liberal white people hate immutable aspects of their own identities, and ascribe to themselves all these demonic character traits. Presumably they would have to hate their own children as well. A lot of these people claim they are willing to sacrifice themselves by allowing "disadvantaged minorities" to cut ahead of them in line for important jobs. I wonder to what extent that is actually true. And do they also expect their kids to do that?
Hmmm let me count how many liberal elites of any race live in murder crazy Philly neighborhoods .... zero. I guess when it comes to their safety they are decidedly conservative.
They might claim they are willing to “sacrifice”, but none of them actually do it. The upheaval over illegal immigrants in “sanctuary cities” demonstrates that it’s all just arrogant virtue signaling. When do we ever see a white person actually step down from a high-powered job to make room for a person of color? Never. But of course they are in favor, as long as it applies to those other lesser whites.
That is what I was thinking also, that the white elite is confusing their idealized view of themselves with what they would do in the actual situation. There was a situation with a friend who had the opportunity to buy a home near what remains of the black neighborhood in my city. After visiting the location, she looked a bit whiter even than she had before. Instead of admitting that she was scared off by the neighborhood, she made a series of statements like, "I would NEVER want to say that black neighborhoods are INHERENTLY DANGEROUS! I am SO AGAINST THAT!" Within a couple of days she announced she wasn't moving to that particular house. LOL!!
The part about the ruling whites using white working people as sacrifices reminds me of a book I read years ago called The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power, by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad. It’s about authoritarianism in cults based on Eastern religions and more generally. The authors linked “sacrifice” as a religious ideal with authoritarianism. Their argument was that when sacrifice is the moral and spiritual ideal, someone gets to decide who makes those sacrifices and the people with the most authority choose less powerful others.
These authors also proposed a concept they called “ideological insensitivity.” This refers to interpersonal behavior in which one speaker is so committed to an ideological dogma he will run roughshod over the real human being in front of him to advance it. In the spiritual groups the authors discuss, verbal tributes to “compassion,” “unconditional love” and “being peace” are constant, but cult leaders and members abuse real people in the name of these abstractions.
But they do strongly support things like CRT, the 1619 Project and LGBTQIA+ ideology in the schools which is extremely damaging to their children plus they also strongly support the dumbing down of standards got the sake of “Equity” which cheats their own children out of a good education. Check out the City Journal article I posted right below here about how they ruin the lives of their own children with their Woke fanaticism. These are some really sick people yet they are our ruling class.
Identity can be based on all kinds of things. China’s Cultural Revolution (1966/1976) was a perfect example of that. Mao’s Red Guard destroyed something like 90% of China’s ancient cultural heritage along with millions of Chinese lives. Temples, books, art works, antiques and anything connected to the past was destroyed. And these lower class Red Guard fanatics were just as Chinese as their victims. You could even say the same about the victims of the Nazis. Most were white like the Poles, Russians and Jews but considered subhuman because they weren’t German (Aryan). “Do they expect their kids to do that?” Sure they do. Check out the City Journal article below: “and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.”
“Patricia (a pseudonym) is the mother of a teenage girl who in recent years has come to identify as transgender. She lives in California, considers herself progressive, votes Democrat, and leads a group for parents of children with rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)—that is, youth who suddenly experience distress with their bodies and believe that undergoing medical “transition” will make them whole again. When I spoke to her recently, she recounted how her daughter’s at-first-lesbian and then trans identity emerged in response to feelings of shame about being white.”
“The Assault on Children’s Psyches.”
California’s ethnic studies curriculum is fueling a mental health crisis among teenagers.
City Journal. Jun 20, 2022
https://www.city-journal.org/the-assault-on-childrens-psyches
The above article describes the situation in Portland to a "T."
Barbara Hershey is following the Democratic line and talking about Nazis when the real enemies were Soviet Communists, who killed more Jews than Hitler ever thought about. The Democratic Party is now the Communist Party USA. Communists started taking it over during FDR's administration and became dominant in the 1960s. It's now run by veterans of the SDS and Black Power movement.
I'm sorry that you had to spend the night in a motel - a lot of amenities are lost when that 'h' becomes an 'm.'
Scrolling Twitter is a very bad way to start the day. Stop doing that.
All this shows is that both you and Barbara are equally living in your respective silos, cut off from actual reality.
BS. That is not at all accurate. Reality is that the Dems do and have controlled the government, education system, unions, cities, MSM and more. It’s one thing to be a contrarian but another to throw out an opposing view without any support. For you to make a credible argument, you need to show how in practice Hershey’s post is representative of Republicans in government, cities, academia, etc.
Amen !
Seeing Hershey's words I thought she must be a Trumpster. As you say, the left is guilty of all the totalitarian oppression we're enduring. We're living in an age of perfect projection where the criminals are accusing the innocent of their crimes. This is like the world of matter and anti-matter that physicysts say is real. And if they come together, there's annihilation.
I’m sorry, who is Barbara Hershey and how could that tweet possibly not be about the progressives?
Here’s an excerpt below from an excellent book by a physicist named Michael Guillen PhD “Believing Is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith.” He was able to show how quantum physics supports faith and religion, any religion and even an impersonal God. He also has YouTube videos.
“Christianity: God created time, so he exists outside of it. God, therefore, is not constrained by time. He is a timeless entity.”
When I first read the biblical story about the burning bush, I found it odd that God says to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” But following my analysis of light from a scientific and biblical perspective, I realized it’s exactly what a timeless being would say about himself. He would say: “I don’t have a past, present or future. I just am. I am who I am.”
Michael Guillen
“Infinite and finite, complex and simple, He is nature above nature, being above being. Maker of all, he is made in all, Unmoving, he enters the world, Timeless in time, unlimited in limited space, And he who is no thing becomes all things.” Eriugena, medieval theologian.
“It is because it can be loved by us, it is because it is beautiful, that the universe is a country. It is our only country here below. Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love. It is this country that God has given us to love. He has willed that it should be difficult yet possible to love it.” Simone Weil. French mystic. 1909 - 1943
Here’s a short video worth watching about evil. Why is evil so fascinating? Because it appeals to the dark side of human nature. We need to update Christianity to make it more fascinating and appealing than the dark side. We could do this by merging it with science to make it very strong and beautiful.
“Logic is not all. One needs heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who disbelieves in God? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars, science and religion, of Western Civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid. Is this not the central problem of our time? Richard Feynman. Physicist
“How do we now in the contemporary world deal with this?” A very good question posed at the end of this very strange but fascinating video about Eve from the Garden of Eden with the Serpent draped around her body, intensely hissing hate at us. Von Stuck (1863-1928) was Hitler’s favorite artist. No denying our fallen world is a deadly place but then we do have a lot of beautiful things here so it’s not all bad.
The Sin by Franz von Stuck. (3 min)
Khan Academy. Smart History. Nov. 2012
https://youtu.be/muJatqh6wRM
I appreciate your comments and references; very compelling, insightful and inspiring. Thanks Seva.
Thanks. For whatever reason most people have no interest in such things but reading about religion and science and the nature of reality is fascinating to me plus I believe it gives a strong internal foundation which helps us survive the extremely unstable external world we live in. To a great extent I’m talking to myself to clarify my own thinking about these things and then have these ideas and quotes saved so I can go back to and review and then I also just post them for anyone else interested.
I like this idea that the universe is a dream in the mind of God who also infinitely transcends the world but then there’s no denying Satan seems to be real. Once I read a book called "The Question of God" by Armand Nicholi. He was a professor of religion at Harvard who used the book to compare the ideas of Freud, an atheist, to those of C.S. Lewis, a believer. The author said though that although Lewis was a devout Christian he also believed that God has abandoned us in "enemy occupied territory" in a part of the universe that’s Satan's domain. According to the book (p. 205) Lewis said “One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death, disease and sin...we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel...Enemy occupied territory...that is what this world is.”
I’ve always liked reading history plus for many years worked with mostly immigrants from all over the world who would tell me horror stories about their former countries. No denying our fallen world can be quite a deadly and demonic place but then we also do have many beautiful things here so we haven’t been totally abandoned by God or perhaps it just means Satan loves beauty so it appears in our world along with the evil in his nature. That could also be true.
I just bought The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Mattie’s Desmat after seeing on a Tucker Carlson interview. If I understand him correctly, he says things I think are similar to your points; ie that many of the greatest physicists and scientists eventually find too many flaws in our human constructed science and conclude there must be some kind of ex-rational unknown force that created the universe and sustains it. For my simple mind, I have found it funny that no one can really explain how the universe even started since “nothing existed before the Big Bang”. Seems to me that our sequential model of time, which all science depends on, is not so robust. :D
Here’s an article and a short video of things that have convinced me that we exist in a dream in the mind of God, a common belief in eastern religions, western mystics like Simone Weil and supported by quantum physics. It’s not the “nothingness” of atheism but the “Absolute Nothingness” of the mystics. Personally, this has given me a lot of inner stability which I believe will serve me well as our society disintegrates. The whole internal structure is collapsing which is why the external structure is so rapidly unraveling. I see this happening faster and faster in Chicago, nation-wide and even globally. Follow the path I’ve gone down and see what you think of it.
“What I learned as I delved into these areas is that quantum physics provides significant clues that we are in some kind of simulated reality.”
“Many of the findings of relativity and quantum physics make no sense in the materialistic world view-that we are living in an immutable physical universe.”
This is an article about the scientist Rizwan Virk. Some excerpts above.
“Are we living in a simulation? This MIT scientist says it’s more likely than not.”
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/we-spoke-to-an-mit-computer-scientists-about-the-simulation-hypothesis/
“What is Life? Is Death Real?”
http://youtu.be/QOCaacO8wus
As little as I think of Democrats, I can't claim that they're executing people by the Guillotine. I'm sure the NAZIs didn't kill more than a fraction of one percent of their victims by the chopper either. Anyhow, France still executes criminals by the Guillotine. The true evil is when a society refuses to execute any criminal.
“Time is at all times on the verge of vanishing and all things show the frailty of being that keeps them ever poised on the brink of collapse. Time and being display a constant pull to nullification from beneath their very ground. That is impermanence.”
“Nothingness as the nullification of all things signifies the freedom and effortless flight of a bird gliding across the sky without a moments hitch, unburdened. Like the bird that leaves no tracks along the path of its flight, impermanence here means the non-hindrance of being free of the encumbrances of one’s past and of restrictions stemming from former lives.”
Religion and Nothingness
By Keiji Nishitani
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331332.Religion_and_Nothingness
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.” Simone Weil. 1909-1943
Usually this thread is convivial and respectful but today it seems to have been disrupted by petty disputes and loathsome bickering. Is it just me?
“Is it just me?” Obviously so. We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. This is simply not working at all. Could it be that the reason why our society is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally? Only God knows what fate has in store for us as our fallen world slides ever closer to the abyss. It is what it is though. No point crying about it.
Some excerpts below from a Quillette review of a book about the irrational side of human nature. The last one says: “One comes away with the sense that civilization operates on narrow margins and is always on the verge of collapsing into irrationality.” That sure is the truth.
“Mackay makes the case, often in gory detail, that episodes of collective mania seem to be an inevitable consequence of human nature. Humans in every time and place have cast aside their better judgment and allowed themselves to be caught up in all manner of irrational hoopla.“
“His chapters on the Swabian Peasants’ War and Anabaptist uprisings are terrifying depictions of the end-times frenzy that wreaked havoc on northern Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The distance between these events in the German-speaking world and, say, the Reign of Terror in France or the Chinese Cultural Revolution is not that great. And the speed with which apparently reasonable people moved from the embrace of a new theological idea to a willingness to torture those whose own theological ideas diverged even slightly is startling.“
“There is plenty to recommend about The Delusions of Crowds. It is laden with great anecdotes and the writing is always engaging. One comes away with the sense that civilization operates on narrow margins and is always on the verge of collapsing into irrationality.”
“The Delusion of Crowds-A Review.”
Please sign up to our free email list to continue reading.
https://quillette.com/2021/02/08/the-delusions-of-crowds-a-review/
DeSantis is owned. Get over him. NO FRIEND OF THE BUSH FAMILY IS A FRIEND OF AMERICA!!!! #TRUMP2024
I read what you write with interest, although I sometimes disagree, I find it very interesting. I have a question regarding this particular post. I follow international politics and, of course, that of the United States as well. I have always wondered why Democrats are called left-wing. For those of us who live in other parts of the world, it has always been clear that in the United States, there are two distinct sectors, Republicans and Democrats, but both are clearly right-wing parties. Studying the cultural and political history of the United States, I believe they have never had a left-wing government in their country. It's a reflection. I'll keep reading your posts, and thank you for providing this space.
Americans tend to be what I call "conservative liberals" or "liberal conservatives".
In terms of liberality their country is founded on their Constitution, a document that places hard limits on government power. Not one that would be found in any other country. In terms of conservatism, once that foundation was laid down they strayed only a little from it.
The modern Democrat party has strayed far from it, embracing a level of authoritarianism over the last 30 years that might seem normal in France or Germany, but is quite unnerving to the American concepts of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of assembly.
I don't like the terms "left wing" and "right wing", as they don't really have any meaning. Historically they came from the French court, where those to the left of the king beheaded those to his right (and the king too, of course). The only good thing you could say about the French Revolution is that eventually it devoured its founders. Much like the Communist revolutions.
The American Revolution was really only saved from the same fate because the king they were rebelling against was half a world away, and because the men who overthrew the king's authority had no desire to replace him. When they laid down their arms they went back to their farms.
The Democrats are more authoritarian than the Republicans. They'll tell you it's for your own good, but C.S. Lewis warned against people who believe they're acting far your own good.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
As G.K. Chesteron put it:
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”
That's not to say that the Republicans are perfect. The people who enter politics are characterized by the desire to control others, to use the irresistible power of the state to force people to do what they cannot persuade them to do... for their own good of course. However, at least at the moment, the Republicans are better, and when your choices are between Diocletian and Constantine the rational actor chooses Constantine.
Explain what about the Democratic Party you think is clearly right wing and we’ll have a better chance of replying intelligently to your question. In the meantime, a few points; a) the names are indeed very broad generalizations and as such one can identify discrepancies in the labels, b) Conservatives here are often wanting radical changes (which could be considered left wing since it is about radical change); examples include Conservatives want fewer wars, greater individual freedoms, less public system union controls, greater protection for children- especially those still in the womb, and many other radical changes. So it’s not the Left that is right-wing but the Conservatives that are radical for change against the status quo (eg overturn 50 years of federal legislation fostering racial discrimination (ie Affirmative Action). So you see, the Conservatives are the Radicals.
Praying for safe travel!
When I went to @barbarahershey8 the account was suspended.
Brilliant quote.
Have fun in Sandusky!
I have noticed that Christians seem to have a better moral compass than most woke liberals, or Nazis. There are plenty of Christians in USA, and are they mostly Republicans ? or am I wrong ? Were there many Christian Nazis ? Were there many Nazi Christians ? Does this mean that Democrats are most at risk for fascist ideology ?
The Nazis created a religion called "Positive Christianity" that was rooted in the more liberal German scholarship of the late 19th century, and basically replaced the Jewish Jesus with the blood and soil of Germany.
So many Nazis claimed to be Christian, but when you boiled down what they actually believed it was not Christianity they were practicing.
Huge difference between being a practicing Christian and being born a Christian. There were definitely a lot, if not the vast majority, of Nazis who were born into Christian families. On the other hand, I can’t see how one could be a true practicing Christian and a Nazi at the same time.
Christianity appears to be diametrically opposed to facist beliefs. New Zealand politics is like a goldfish bowl, and Christian advocates are resisting our super-woke government with the same concerns I have, and a young Christian reporter Chantelle keeps challenging the same woke attitudes as me, despite her platform getting cancelled often. It is about vaccine mandates and Transgender activists, and they dont bring christianity into the debate as in preaching, but we still have basic common grounds. In contrast the woke brigade is emotionally unstable, and hyper catastrophize every percieved threat and micro-aggression. They have no real values, or value, and live in a world of non-accountability, just like our current leaders. Jacinda Ardern cut and ran in a moment.
Christianity is under serious attack worldwide. Billions of souls will be lost to Hell. This world is temporal and the next is permanent. Big difference. Hedge accordingly. Ever since about 3rd grade at Annunciation BVM (Sisters of Mercy), I understood it was far easier to make some sacrifices in the temporal world to avoid crushing suffering in the permanent one. And I’m not even mentioning all the positive vibes from being Catholic, of which there are many.
You think this is a Doctoral dissertation?
It's not even a writing assignment for PoliSci 110.
That’s horrifying!
They just can’t make the connection.
Hilarious. Fox News just had to pay out three quarters of a BILLION dollars for intentionally spreading the voter fraud conspiracy theory and you're acting like it's "Left wing media" and democrats who have the problem?
Quick poll for all the commenters here:
How many of you still believe that:
- The 2020 election wasn't fair?
- Q Anon is real?
- Ivermectin is a real remedy for Covid? And continuing on that -- that Covid isn't any more dangerous than the flu, despite the 1 million + excess deaths in the US alone since the pandemic began?
- That Bill Gates created the vaccine to inject tiny microchips into our bloodstreams?
- That Democrats are perpetuating the "great replacement" of white people in this country?
- That Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the US?
The list can go and and on -- and all of these are RIGHT WING conspiracies that have had real effects on the politics of this country.
As for all the other things in that tweet by Hershey -- yes they all can easily be attributed to conservatives. Fox News spreading the voter fraud theory and having to pay for it is proof of the first three parts of that statement. Book banning and the erasing of black and queer history in schools is proof of the "censoring and silencing of the opposition." And Republicans routinely call immigrants "illegals", black people "thugs", and queer people "pedophiles and groomers." Not to mention the unrelenting fat and body shaming that women face by conservatives -- just look at the unhinged commentary that Lizzo and Demi Lovato face on a constant basis. Sounds like conservatives sure are dividing themselves into "us" vs "them"!
Sasha -- your substack has the words "free thinking" in the title but all I see when I read your posts are standard right-wing talking points. When is the free thinking actually going to begin?
Most of the items on your list are only Democrat inventions about what all conservatives supposedly believe. Talk about conspiracy theories...
Cool so which of those things do you personally not believe in?
Mollie Hemingway’s book “Rigged” was quite good as was “2000 Mules” by Dinesh D’Souza. And on top of that there were the years of lies by the media and Big Tech manipulation to destroy Trump and make sure Joe won. Why isn’t the Russia collusion lie considered cheating? Why isn’t the endless demonization of Trump considered cheating? A “collective psychotic break” is what Bret Weinstein says our society is experiencing in this video where he talks about the Time article on how the election was “fortified” to prevent an outcome displeasing to the left. Even the democrats themselves admitted the election was “fortified” to insure their side won. And I’m supposed to believe that Biden won fairly? You people are despicable and evil.
“US 2020 election “fortifying” in Time article.” (11 min)
Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying. Feb 12, 2021
https://youtu.be/NMRn7ZQOl1I
Cool, so do you believe that Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation?
This Real Clear Investigations article below from 2020 is about the “1619 Project” and what the author Nikole Hannah-Jones told the editors of the Chicago Tribune about its purpose which is, she said, to instill guilt in white liberals so they will support reparations for blacks. White liberals are not being targeted though. White children in our public schools are. And our Woke white leftist ruling class loves this and is totally supportive of it. She was even given a Pulitzer Prize for this poison in 2020. Could it be that the reason why America is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally?
“If you read the whole project, I don’t think you can come away from it without understanding the project is an argument for reparations,” she told the Chicago Tribune in October.
“I'm not writing to convert Trump supporters. I write to try to get liberal white people to do what they say they believe in,” she said. “I'm making a moral argument. My method is guilt.”
“Disputed NY Times ‘1619 Project’ Already Shaping Schoolkids Minds on Race.”
Real Clear Investigations. Jan 31, 2020
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/01/31/disputed_ny_times_1619_project_is_already_shaping_kids_minds_on_race_bias_122192.html
Well, maybe you ought to read the German law first. Any 'evidence' you come up with would surely be startling.
Whenever a libtard tells the truth, they do it without realizing it. And their version of the truth always points back directly at them. They should recognize that they are looking into a mirror when they utter their radical statements.
Valid observation(s). But if that's how you see things in 2023 US, why do you so frequently mock or dismiss serious attempts to resist or combat the perversities that dominate our public discourse?