Take care
Sometimes when I’m signing a letter or an email I use the closing take care. It’s rather trite and formulaic, but it’s a convenient way to say take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, relax, enjoy and also be careful.
And it seems to me very appropriate for this moment in time to say to you all: take care. The last couple of weeks have been stressful, and it’s not even close to over. The rapid ups and downs, the repeated delays, the fast-breaking news of multiple accusations, the roller coaster ride of a day-long hearing filled with drama, the announcement that the vote would come on Friday morning and that enough people were onboard, and then The Flake Deal.
The level of outraged anger I see on the right side of the blogosphere is as high as anything I’ve witnessed before. It’s a different kind of anger than usual, a feeling that a Rubicon has been crossed. Shared values? Don’t think so. Rule of law? Gone. It really strikes home that, as a commenter here wrote recently: “The differences go to the metaphysical level, to the depths where conversation can only elicit, as a famous philosopher once said, an incredulous stare.”
The comments I read yesterday on articles at liberal sites exhibit a level of gleefully vengeful vitriol that rivels anything I’ve seen before online, and that’s saying a lot. It’s not just the invective, it’s the form it takes and the huge number of people expressing it. Just to take one example, there’s a vicious hatred toward Brett Kavanaugh for the crimes of having gone to private school and being a white man.
I’m not going to reproduce any of it here, because I think we all need to protect ourselves from spending too much time wading through bile mixed with acid.
If you find yourself thinking too much about politics right now, please take care. Take some time away. Distract yourself. Ease up. Remind yourself that we don’t know what will come of all of this.
Long ago, right after 9/11, I remember talking to a friend who is a very religious Christian. When I expressed anxiety about the final outcome of what seemed to me like an epic battle against a vicious and intolerant force, he said that evil never triumphs, not ultimately.
I didn’t ask what he meant by “ultimately.” I think he was taking a very long view. I hope he was right, and sooner rather than later. Because I see a lot of evil out there right now, and I see it laughing with delight. So I need to turn away sometimes and take care.
NOTE: And no, that doesn’t mean I plan to stop blogging about politics. But it does mean I plan to go out for a walk in a little while, and to go to a restaurant for dinner tonight.]
Thank you. You Take Care too, Neo. Enjoy the walk and the dinner.
I have been doing yard work well away from TV and computer. Tonight I will listen to some very good Blues from a local radio station while have comfort food – grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
You, along with Insty and a very few others are my first and last stops for the day.
Thank you.
I think two really good things have come out of this Kavanaugh thing:
1. A large number of independents and Democrats will start voting GOP. The GOP holds both houses and build a safe majority in the Senate; and
2. The Dems and MSN have been completely exposed as the cheaters, terrible and evil people that they are. USA Today ran an op-ed/story that Judge Kavanaugh shouldn’t be able to coach girls basketball. Just horrible.
I think two really good things have come out of this Kavanaugh thing:
1. A large number of independents and Democrats will start voting GOP. The GOP holds both houses and buila safe majority in the Senate; and
2. The Dems and MSN have been completely exposed as the cheaters, terrible and evil people that they are. USA Today ran an op-ed/story that Judge Kavanaugh shouldn’t be able to coach girls basketball. Just horrible.
I think two really good things have come out of this Kavanaugh thing:
1. A large number of independents and Democrats will start voting GOP. The GOP holds both houses and builds a safe majority in the Senate; and
2. The Dems and MSN have been completely exposed as the cheaters, terrible and evil people that they are. USA Today ran an op-ed/story that Judge Kavanaugh shouldn’t be able to coach girls basketball. Just horrible.
Thankfully I was very busy this week and didn’t have time to watch or follow this stuff. I am finding myself spending far less time following all of this never ending drama from all angles. There really is nothing to gain from it at some point. Just depressing.
By the way, is the site having some difficulties or is it just me. Tried to get on a couple times yesterday and got error messages and even today it’s taking a long time to load and I got an error message the first time I went to the comments on this post.
Just to take one example, there’s a vicious hatred toward Brett Kavanaugh for the crimes of having gone to private school and being a white man.
Indubitably nearly all of it from whites (male and female) who fancy themselves a cut above other whites. High school never ends for these chumps. The disreputable Mr. Sailer has been having amiable fun of late slicing up the son of Richard Dreyfus for this sort of posturing.
Griffin:
Yes, there have been some technical problems that my host is working on, that are slowing down the site. I hope they will be fixed soon. Please see this.
Neo, thank you. You take care too, and enjoy tonight and tomorrow. (But what will we do for Drama!!!)
Lynn: “… comfort food – grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.”
Exactly so. Grew up on that supper. Except we called them “cheese toasties,” and I’m stickin’ to it! Enjoy.
My own required check-and-re-check-daily stops are samizdata.net and Neo’s own site, right here. (I still think of it as neoneocon.)
“1. A large number of independents and Democrats will start voting GOP. The GOP holds both houses and build safe majority in the Senate; and
2. The Dems and MSN have been completely exposed as the cheaters, terrible and evil people that they are. USA Today ran an op-ed/story that Judge Kavanaugh shouldn’t be able to coach girls basketball. Just horrible.”
Unfortunately, Cornhead, I think 50% of the population is totally on board with this evil. I really doubt your #1 is going to happen. If Kavanaugh makes it through, then the left will start showing their teeth in terms of violence…. and who knows where it goes from there. At that point we had all better take care.
Sometimes I listen to public radio.*
Today, I was listening to Live Wire. It was annoying. They’re very smug and better, more virtuous than the rest of us.
The thought dawned on me: “the rest of us” is not only the Deplorables in fly over country, but ANYONE they don’t think is “good enough.”
(* — Mostly because we have crappy music stations around here that play the same thing over and over, so I listen to people talking.
The pattern seems to play out over and over throughout the last 100 years or so where the left way overplays their hand and goes too far and then the right will pull it back a little and then the process repeats. But the problem is we always end up further out there after every one of these dances. And it’s not just policy it’s culturally which is WAY more important than policies which can be changed or reigned in.
Neo, I am a very (not religious) faithful Christian.
I understand the long view.
The short view is that I’m supposed to be salt and light.
To preserve the culture in the short term so that others might live and live eternal.
I’m also in jeopardy because I know, like Kavanaugh’s daughter, I should pray for those that despitefully use me.
Yet I want Chuck Schumer to drop dead every time I see him.
That’s murder in my heart and it concerns me.
So when you say “take care” I take it to heart.
Thank you.
Let us all take care.
Thank you, Neo, and please take especially good care of your very highly valued self. You have been immersing yourself in all of this, day after day, in order to write about it for the rest of us, and that has to be exhausting and sometimes poisonous. We appreciate it.
On workdays I’m distracted — I have a thinking/writing job that I can’t do unless I focus and close out distractions, so that has helped me to stay balanced. Today, however, is a Saturday with no built-in distractions. Mr Whatsit and I started it off by talking to each other for a while about all this. Fortunately, we agree, but unfortunately it only made us both feel worse — so we went out into the bright September day to shop for food and other needed things, and then he went off to do things with tools while I did a long-neglected household job that made me feel better about being in my house, and then spent the afternoon on an artsy thing that I dearly love to do, absorbed all afternoon in color and shapes. I do feel better — although I haven’t been able to quite shake the part of my brain that has been arguing all day with the legion of liberal Facebook friends and cousins who have lost all logic and perspective, not to mention compassion, and are baying for blood, and cannot see themselves. I’ll try to spend tomorrow in some similar way and stay as far away as I can from the computer.
Cornhead, I wish I could share your optimism, but from what I can see among the people I know — almost all of whom are liberals — there’s not much basis for it. You take care, too.
“Long ago, right after 9/11, I remember talking to a friend who is a very religious Christian. When I expressed anxiety about the final outcome of what seemed to me like an epic battle against a vicious and intolerant force, he said that evil never triumphs, not ultimately.” – Neo
I am trying to hold to my favorite refrigerator magnet maxim:
Everything will be all right in the end.
If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.
Neo – thanks for giving me / us a safe place (lol) to vent.
There is no one in my orbit that I can dump my highly-stoked indignation on, except for a very few close friends and family who are also Republican, and they don’t have time to listen to as much as I want to say. Many of you are in the same situation.
But this is a lousy time to be having Data Base Errors every time we try to comment on your posts!
(or maybe it’s just saving the rest of you from the full extent of my blathering)
Thank you all for being a fair, rational, and astute band of observers in the maelstrom.
And take care of yourselves!
To you Neo, and all the others here, I also say take care.
Way back in 2016 I recall reading stories of friendships, marriages, and other close relationships that had broken up or been terminated because one party supported Trump and the other, always a liberal, was vehemently opposed. I thought at the time, and said so, that I would never allow myself to break off a relationship because of a difference in opinion over politics and politicians. But, then this Kavanaugh affair happened.
I’ve thought about this a lot over the past days and weeks. It hasn’t exactly consumed me but has been on my mind regularly. I’ve purposely avoided the subject with my liberal friends, coworkers, and family. I’ve noted very little discussion of it among people I encounter in public – I suspect many find it a toxic topic.
Here is what I’ve decided: I will not allow the disgusting and despicable behavior of people like Diane Feinstein, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and the other participating Democrats alienate me from the people I care about, like, and love. I won’t give them that power over me.
I remain hopeful that this affair will conclude this week with Judge Kavanaugh affirmed to the Supreme Court. Then we all can move on and get back to our regular lives. Perhaps, if God or karma will intervene, the Democrats will pay a heavy price for the evil they have perpetrated against the good judge.
Steve Walsh:
I recently posted on FB that people who vote democrat now are:
1) Stupid 2) ignorant or 3) evil.
If you’re stupid, I excuse you.
If you’re ignorant, wise up, educate yourself.
If you’re evil, repent.
.
I don’t care who I offend. They drew the line, not me.
They intend to take my liberty and I won’t have it.
I’m definitely taking care, using this opportunity to see and learn things about myself, what I’m capable of, how monstrous I can be, and proceed with the tough (and endless) work of figuring that out.
I can’t do anything to affect the hearings, but I can do things to affect myself. Whatever happens, I think I’m on a solid foundation, able to look myself in the face and know I chose the side that fought to ensure that life never be reduced to politics.
Godspeed everyone.
Aesopfan: I belong to a few FB groups or have “friends” that I commiserate with.
It helps.
Hosting a radio show with call ins doesn’t hurt either.
kolnai on September 29, 2018 at 9:39 pm at 9:39 pm said:
I can’t do anything to affect the hearings, but I can do things to affect myself.
* * *
Very wise.
I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but if you think this is bad imagine what will happen if RBG dies and Trump replaces her with Barrett or someone equally conservative. Well I guess I did sound very pessimistic, sorry.
Never trumpers probably now find trump to be a lot less despicable while trump supporters have new found respect for the so called rinos like Mitch or graham. republicans have never been more united, most if not all Reagan democrats bought into party by trump have been consolidated as as gop voters in the foreseeable future. The battle between good and evil is eternal, because when the force of good wins evil will always resurrect and breed from the resulting freedom. good will never take away the freedom just to prevent evil from coming back, the moment they chose to do that they fall and become the very evil they vowed to eradicate. evil will always exist and waiting to strike back. That is just the way things are, relax and don’t lose hope when evil is winning.
You take care, too, Neo– and don’t forget there’s still baseball as a go-to. Even though the Phillies had a regular Hindenburg ending to the 2018 season– worst September since 1964– they won tonight after nine straight losses. (I sometimes think the Phils are closet Republicans, but I digress . . . ) And Nola on the mound reminded me again how close baseball can come to dance– it’s a beautiful game.
And I also have the cats’ companionship and playfulness as a pleasant distraction from the Washington litter box. Ed B. will appreciate this sentiment, I think– I’ve started to refer to the kitties’ solid waste as Schumers.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nancy Pelosi has suggested that Brett Kavanaugh should be removed from his current bench. I wanted to unleash a primal scream. I have been leaving comments all over Twitter all week – something I have never done. I was not a Twitter person. I had an account with 10 tweets since 2011. I am now up to 169. I have to say it: they are displaying evil. I was once in the play “The Crucible” and I was the character who screamed “I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil!” This feels like the Salem Witch trials. I have never been this worked up, ever. So, yesterday, I said to my husband. We need to get going on the new kitchen floor and cabinets and I marched us to Home Depot and I ordered a new kitchen. For five hours, I did not think about this. So, I agree, Neo. We need to take care. We have to find distractions. This will drive us crazy – trying to figure out how people around us who we know who are fun and engaging are suddenly vicious attack dogs who are absolutely fine with the complete destruction of this nice man.
Thanks Neo. I have a sibling that slants all reality and decency to serve leftist ideology. But if I was the white man in the left’s search and destroy du jour, my sibling would have no trouble resorting to relativism to be my ally. I guess my biggest grief is that this relativism is SO OKAY among the media types who presume to captain our culture. It seems foolish to be living a life that invests in human dignity across the board, when much of humanity morphs into back-stabbing, relativist zombies laying in wait for the chance to feed on me while I helplessly watch.
Recently Facebook gave me a ten day vacation and I took it further and stayed away from Twitter as well. I limited my political reading to this page and one other. When the ten day ban was up I felt very refreshed and haven’t been nearly as active on either platform since.
During that time I started the training of a couple of year old horses and they have been a joy to work with. And they both look better than Nancy or Maxine.
Thanks for the advice to take care. I’ve been feeling a lot of despair over the state of our country and I really need to try and step away as often as I can. Facebook is the worst for me. I see long time friends, who have gone all in with the progressives (and “the resistance”) and I just don’t understand it. They share posts from Occupy Democrats and similar sites that paint all Republicans/conservatives with a very broad (and very inaccurate) brush. At least one of these friends, has to know that a majority of her friends list does not agree with her and probably at least half are those evil Republicans. It hurts every time I see it and it makes me feel like we have nothing in common anymore. This is a childhood best friend of 40 some years. Another friend has actually called out her dad, by tagging him on Facebook, regarding his Trump support. I’ve been sort of avoiding contact with these people, because what will they think of me; not hating Trump, supporting some of what he does, and being very skeptical of what is being done to Brett Kavanaugh? I would rather not lose friends over this time in our history, but I also feel like a massive chasm has opened up between us and I don’t know how to deal with it. Anyway, thanks for being one of my places of refuge.
Great post, Neo. Great comments. I feel for those that are struggling with contempt and anger over this. Without my faith in God and prayer I would be consumed with hate–about things personal and societal. Personally we experienced an assault of a person who “bore false witness” against us right before this Kavanaugh travesty. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live something like this out on the world stage. We, like Brett Kavanaugh, are devout Catholics, so our faith informed all our actions (serving to keep us in great restraint with regard to verbal/situational responses). So our lives are in tact but I am unable to put words to the depths of deep unhappiness I felt as a result of people we are close to allowing the accusations to have more bearing than they ever should have. I write all this to say that for me personally, our own trauma and now the political one, drive home the meaning of the words in the book of Proverbs that declare that there are 6 things that God hates, 7 that are detestable to Him–3 of them “a heart that devises wicked schemes, bearing false witness and sowing discord among brethren.” We are seeing the fallout of these evil acts. In our own experience our character was tested and we had the opportunity to live-out the faith we profess. Victor Frankl put it best, when everything else is out of our control, we still have the ability to choose how we will respond. In this post you pointed us in a good direction, Neo. Take care all.
For the last two weeks I have been having trouble sleeping past 3am. What the wicked left doing to the Kavanaugh’s family and the right’s lack of courage to help this poor family is shockingly atrocious, it is inconceivably heinous. this is not right, that is unspeakable, if english is my native tongue I might be able to find a word to accurately describe such travesty but i couldn’t. especially the lack of sympathy the Left has shown for the Kavanaugh’s family (ridiculing him on every leftist platform) all because of an unverifiable claim about something that took place 35 years ago coming from a woman who professes every characteristic of someone who is mentally unstable, lived a well documented self-indulgent and dissipated lifestyle, has shown a tendency and eagerness to lie blatantly to get what she wants and who clearly has every political motivation to falsely accuse an innocent man for wrongdoings due to the conflicting political affiliations between the two individuals. her claims were refuted by every supposed witness she named, then cruelly blamed her former best friend battling from an undisclosed serious illness the reason their testimonies contradict. She remembers nothing, not even how she got there and how she got away but Kavanaugh and Judge. For discussion’s sake hypothetically everything she believed was true, is she exaggerating? did she take something innocuous the wrong way? There is no way to know, we never got to find out because cross examining an accuser is evil to the standards they set and that is all it takes for the left to emphatically convict Kavanaugh of rape and comparing him to cosby.
If the goal is to use this distressful unjust travesty witch trial to critically upset every American who isn’t a leftist to the point of developing stress inducing diseases that would end life prematurely then I believe they succeeded.
Going to spend this day doing end of summer chores.
Winterize the swamp cooler. Clean out window wells and flower beds. Reload a hundred rounds of Mosin ammo. Set up for 9mm ti be done next week. Make a slip case for a revolver. Cut out the parts for my wife’s purse.
Stay frosty.
To those who excuse stupid, you’re mistaken. We have a moral obligation to know right from wrong. To choose stupid, as most stupid people do (‘vincible ignorance’) is an exercise of the deadly sin of sloth. And this shows why it is a deadly sin.
Thank you, Neo. Wise words!
I have one observation, though. I think it’s true that most of the identity-politics nonsense is indeed coming from (mostly) white progressives. I don’t see it so much in the “diverse” workforce in which I’m currently ensconced.
The real problem seems to be much more associated with virtual-signaling. It’s gone beyond annoying and is approaching mandatory.
Sigh!
Down through the years, especially since the death of our son, I have turned to Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” to keep my head straight. In these trying times it may be of value to those who don’t know it or have forgotten its message.
Desiderata
By Max Erhmann
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Hi Neo & our wise cohort here in her web-home…
I’ll be as brief as I can…and start with echoing Ed B…I’m not religious, but I am a faithful Christian who right now really struggles to live that well.
I am angrier than ever & more prepared than I should be to do violence to & wreak vengeance on the American leftists who would gladly destroy everything & everyone that is America today & everything it took to get us there. I sit before God regularly & ask for a new heart in that regard…and then the next day’s outrage…or the next moment’s as this past week proved.
I find myself mulling Bonhoeffer: “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” For him that meant assassinating Hitler…for me right now…I don’t know. I know where my heart is & I know who I am called to be as a disciple of Jesus and I see the gap between the two.
But I share your friend’s assurance that evil will not “ultimately” win. And maybe that is all that keeps me a step back from Bonhoeffer’s plotting.
If I can humbly offer…That “ultimately” means that at the end of all ends, when the promise of a “new heaven and a new earth” is fulfilled, when the final trumpet sounds, the very embodiment of evil & all its minions will be destroyed. All that will remain are the great gifts of life, joy, love, peace, restoration & rest. That ultimate triumph is guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now…I fully understand that folks can argue that last paragraph & disregard that last sentence…but I set my heart’s GPS on that coordinate. Either that or I am truly adrift and lost in despair.
I went to church this morning and prayed earnestly for our nation. I prayed for Judge Kavanaugh, for his wife, and for his children. And, following the youngest Kavanaugh’s advice, I prayed also for Dr. Ford. If she is confused and mistaken, may she be healed. If she is evil, may she repent. My opinion is reflected in these prayers, but God is able to see what I cannot.
Take Care in Triplicate, Neo!!
Thank You for ALL you bring to us.
Your blog is a perpetual relief from the Left Malignant Melanoma that is attempting to devour our culture and political sanity.
You, M’Lady, are vastly appreciated by this neoconservative.
Neo
Thank you. but before You Take Care too , Dr. Ford story and the saga with the it remind me with similar story decades ago that story of First Gulf War: Kuwaiti Ambassador Daughter’s Testimony
As for now with politics as of Iraq war………………………..
there’s a vicious hatred toward Brett Kavanaugh for the crimes of having gone to private school and being a white man -Neo
A successful white man. Pretty sure it’s 90% envy, 10% ideology. Why aren’t they being interviewed for the Supreme Court?
I will not allow the disgusting and despicable behavior of people like Diane Feinstein, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and the other participating Democrats alienate me from the people I care about, like, and love -Steve Walsh
A very good thought, Steve, so a propos. Those Democratic politicians (and so many of their supporters) have to live in that stew of misery they so clearly project: bitterness, envy, resentment, hatred. Let them have it all to themselves!
My cure for the week, with the help of beautiful weekend weather in the mid-Atlantic, was a day at the racetrack and then a day of orienteering in the woods. Restorative. I am ready to spread some love on those poor Dems who need it so badly….. : )
Kai Akker:
Not long after Kavanaugh was nominated, I seem to recall a lot of mockery and criticism on the left about the fact that he was named a peppie name like “Brett.” It happened right at the outset, and set the template immediately.
a lot of mockery and criticism on the left about the fact that he was named a peppie name like “Brett.” It happened right at the outset, and set the template immediately. –Neo
Any handle for the muggers to grab, right? Preppie Brett. Then we saw goody-goody Brett. But finally we got a glimpse of the full man. Can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that green-eyed old college “friend” of his publicizing how Brett once threw his beer in someone’s face and got into a fight. I hope we don’t need allegedlys for that; I want a two-fisted justice on that Supreme Court! Enough with John Roberts and Stephen Breyer. Let’s get someone who might be able to match up with Elena and Sonia.
Kai Akker:
What I read is that Kavanaugh was insulted, threw a drink in someone’s face, and it resulted in a fight. I didn’t read that Kavanaugh was in a fist fight himself—not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Guess I’m guilty of wishful thinking….. : ) Maybe we’ll see it yet, now that they finally got his Irish up. One round with Cory Booker would satisfy me. Or make it two.