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Home » People are afraid – and rightly so

People are afraid – and rightly so

The New Neo Posted on by

Ever since I’ve been blogging, I’ve periodically received emails from people in academia about their fear of disagreeing with the herd of leftists. In the past few years it’s gotten even worse in academia, as well as the entertainment world and business and the MSM.

In fact, it’s everywhere, and it’s been everywhere for many years, but the New Red Guards are like sharks in the water now, smelling the blood and in a feeding frenzy. For years they slowly took over those areas, but even the last vestiges of thought that goes against the Party line – however minor the infraction, however earnest the mea culpas of the supposed culprits – must be stamped out.

It’s not just about getting rid of certain people. It’s about power and it’s about sending a message to the rest: we are in control, and you must obey in word and deed. And Silence is Violence, so you will be made to speak out in the ways we see fit.

I think sometimes of the bravery of Soviet dissidents, who were facing a more brutal system than we are at the moment. Could it get that bad in the US? Yes.

What it took to achieve the present situation in the US was to stop teaching children why it is so vitally important to protect liberty and how our Constitution was designed to do that, as well as why all those old-fashioned virtues that sound so boring are of the utmost importance. But we ceded our educational establishment to people who thought otherwise, and were dedicated to relentlessly – and through mendacity if necessary – achieving the indoctrination of generations of young Americans.

The left does not tolerate dissenting views. One reason is that they are drawn to power and control, but still another is that they know they can’t win in the forum of ideas so it’s best not to expose people to them. Therefore, they give to dissenting views labels that trigger revulsion – for example, racist – and then they summon the mob.

And they are masters of useful slogans. For example, “Black Lives Matter.” Of course black lives matter. Whoever says otherwise these days, except perhaps for a group of neo-Nazis so tiny and so rejected by both sides that they lack all influence? But one effect of the use of “Black Lives Matter” as a slogan is that one is no longer allowed continue to say, proudly – as was the ideal in my younger years – that all lives matter, and that the color of a person’s skin also doesn’t matter in that equation.

But people have lost their jobs merely for saying “all lives matter” (or even “all buildings matter,” about the buildings the rioters torched). This is madness. But though it be madness, yet there is method in it. Leftism has always been especially involved in language policing – as Orwell knew and described brilliantly over 70 years ago. Language is an easy way to indicate what is allowed and what is not allowed. But far more importantly, enforcing obligatory leftist language allows (or makes) people signal their conformity – or at least, intimidation into displaying the semblance of conformity – of thought.

“You will not tell me what I can and cannot say” became an act of bravery quite a few years ago. Now, with the death of George Floyd and the elevation of Black Lives Matter to a position that is quasi-sacred, statements that are defined by the left as being against it (although the “all” in “all lives matter” is inclusive rather than exclusive) are sacrilege and blasphemy.

And so we have a host of professors and others who are in trouble for not exhibiting sufficient obeisance to the Black Lives Matter religion. Note that there is no assertion that these people have displayed any racist behavior outside of forbidden language, or that they don’t think that in fact black lives matter. They have not been rude to anyone of any race, nor have they discriminated against any person, nor even spoken harsh words about members of a race. They have merely spoken forbidden words that are deemed to be racist code words.

And for that they must be shunned and shamed, and perhaps have their livelihoods taken away, as a lesson to them and even more importantly as a warning to the rest of us.

What are many of the people who acquiesce in this afraid of? That it will happen to them, of course. Shunning is effective among the Amish, but it’s effective everywhere. We are for the most part social creatures. How many people have the strength to go it alone? How many will take the risk, both financial and social?

I will close with something I was reading today, and not coincidentally. It is from the book Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner. The author was a young man in Germany during the 30s and ended up escaping to England, but the book is his memoir of the Nazi takeover times in Germany. Among other things, he wrote this on the subject of why a great many Germans joined the Nazi Party in March 1933::

They did it for many reasons, often for a whole tangled web of them, but however hard one looks, one will not find a single, solid, positive, durable reason among them – not one that can pass muster. In each individual case the process of becoming a Nazi showed the unmistakable symptoms of nervous collapse.

The simplest and, if you look deeper, almost always the most basic reason was fear. Join the thugs to avoid being beaten up.

Haffner adds that too many Germans were devoid of the following:

…a solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures and forces, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour of trial…At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed. They yielded and capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown.

Haffner’s book is a great one, and I recommend it highly. But I think he’s too hard there on the Germans – or rather, I think he may be too hard on the Germans in particular. I wasn’t there and he was. But there certainly were Germans who didn’t go along. And sadly, I think the Germans were not as unique in their capitulation as I once thought. In the last two decades in particular, and accelerating rapidly in the last couple of years, I have entertained increasingly grave doubts as to whether Americans will pass the test that the German people failed.

I hope so.

Comments

People are afraid – and rightly so — 115 Comments

  1. Again, Republican state legislators could have done a great deal to ameliorate this problem. They did nothing.

  2. Just today I read a news article from what we call the People’s Republic of Chapel Hill, where UNC’s flagship campus is located. A neighborhood HOA sent around a notice telling people to take down the BLM posters springing up all around, because the covenants prohibit them. Good; the rule applies to all such signs, not just BLM signs. Then there was an update. The HOA’s Board has deeply apologized for the notice; signs can go up. It won’t be long, I fear, before homeowners NOT having signs will be harassed and forced to get one or be vandalized. We’ll see.

  4. Also from Haffner: he says that in the late 1920s, under the influence of Stresemann, the political/social/economic climate stabilized markedly. Most people were happy about this:

    “The last ten years were forgotten like a bad dream. The Day of Judgment was remote again, and there was no demand for saviors or revolutionaries…There was an ample measure of freedom, peace, and order, everywhere the most well-meaning liberal-mindedness, good wages, good food and a little political boredom. everyone was cordially invited to concentrate on their personal lives, to arrange their affairs according to their own taste and to find their own paths to happiness.”

    But…and I think this is a particuarly important point…a return to private life was not to everyone’s taste:

    “A generation of young Germans had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions…Now that these deliveries suddently ceased, people were left helpless, impoverished, robbed, and disappointed. They had never learned how to live from within themselves, how to make an ordinary private life great, beautiful and worth while, how to enjoy it and make it interesting. So they regarded the end of political tension and the return of private liberty not as a gift, but as a deprivation. They were bored, their minds strayed to silly thoughts, and they began to sulk.”

    and

    “To be precise (the occasion demands precision, because in my opinion it provides the key to the contemporary period of history): it was not the entire generation of young Germans. Not every single individual reacted in this fashion. There were some who learned during this period, belatedly and a little clumsily, as it were, how to live. they began to enjoy their own lives, weaned themselves from the cheap intoxication of the sports of war and revolution, and started to develop their own personalities. It was at this time that, invisibly and unnoticed, the Germans divided into those who later became Nazis and those who would remain non-Nazis.”

    We have a fair number of people in America today who have “become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere, all the raw material for their deeper emotions.”

  5. Seen on the local Nextdoor app: a notice of a protest tomorrow at 2 p.m. on the New Haven Green “against police brutality.” “Join Black Students for Disarmament who are demanding that Yale dismantle YPD” [the university’s police department]. Given the depressed local economy, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the city’s predators to rip off the disarmed students.

  8. I’m a retiree taking advantage of the senior discount at UNM. I am afraid of speaking my mind openly on campus. I simply won’t.

    I worry about speaking too loud in my cafe across from campus with my only conservative friend there.

    I even worry that my comments here will eventually be noticed by someone at UNM and I’ll be in trouble.

    I’m not proud of this. I got into so much trouble in San Francisco and lost so many friends and communities, that I am afraid and life is short.

  9. I recommend this podcast. Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project.

    https://fedsoc.org/commentary/podcasts/deep-dive-episode-105-should-big-tech-platforms-be-viewpoint-neutral-should-the-government-care

    “Should Social Media Platforms Be Viewpoint Neutral? Should the Government Care?”

    This guy gives a lucid description of hate speech. It explains why anything you say, even truthful, is hate while anything they say, no matter how false, is protected speech.
    Hate speech laws have swept Europe and Canada, only the US remains.
    Arthur Milikh, Heritage Foundation

    It’s long, about an hour. You can skip ahead to his opening statement.

  10. There’s a good article today about all this from Andrew Sullivan titled; Is There Still Room for Debate?
    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/andrew-sullivan-is-there-still-room-for-debate.html

    He cites a famous essay by Vaclav Havel the Czech writer [dissident who later became president] who lived through the communist purges in the 1960’s. In it Havel recounts how businesses felt obligated to support the communist cause or else face trouble or terror.

    He writes:
    In his [Havel] essay, he cites a greengrocer who has a sign he puts up in his window: “Workers of the World, Unite!” If he did not put one there, he’d be asked why. A neighbor could report him for insufficient ideological zeal. An embittered employee might get him fired for his reticence. And so it becomes, over time, not so much a statement of belief as an attempt to protect himself. People living under this ideology “must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”

    Of course, the left ideology has not become a governmental policy [yet?] but for some in academia, journalism and some visible careers people are expected to show their loyalty – even if they don’t believe in all of it – or else.

  12. Victor Klemperer’s “I will bear Witness” (particularly the first volume covering 1933-1941) would be a good read too. Though perhaps Nein Cheng’s “Life and Death in Shanghai” on her arrest and imprisonment by the Red Guards would be better.

  13. Victor Klemperer’s “I will bear Witness” (particularly the first volume covering 1933-1941) would be a good read too.

    Soviet of Washington: Big thumbs up on Klemperer.

  14. before there were Nazis the German Reich exterminated Chinese boxers in the end of the 19th Century.
    ‘Before there were nazis in the first decade of the 20th Century, the German Reich marched the Herero people in German South West Africa into the Namibian desert to die of dehydration
    that worked so well that the German Reich did the same to the Nama people
    seems that Germans don’t have to be nazis to be nazis

  15. “Could it get that bad in the US?”

    No. The U.S. is a country of 331,000,000 people spread out over nearly 3.8 million square miles and divided into 50 semi-autonomous states that are filled with thousands of semi-autonomous communities. The experts also say we’ve actually got more guns in private hands than people to hold them.

    We’ll have genuine civil war and Rwandan-style massacres before it ever gets that bad in the U.S.

    What people have to do, whether they are in the media or academia or just live in one of our overextended megalopolises, is rediscover that frontier spirit and hit the open trail. Donald Trump won 30 states in 2016 and came close in a handful more and in probably at least half of those states their biggest impediment to economic growth is they just don’t have enough people.

    I don’t mean to imply that it would be easy. It would require people to give up on a lot of pretensions, aspirations, allegiances, and indulgences by which they have not only defined themselves but have defined the future for their children. And for some there would be legitimate financial sacrifices. But the only thing stopping you from doing it is you.

    Failing that, think of anything you do that provides fuel to the new Red Guards. Do you subscribe to the New York Times? Drop it. Do you watch a lot of movies in the theater? Stop it. Do you buy a lot of superfluous crap from Amazon? Put your credit card away. Do you spend a lot of time on social media? Pick up the phone or write a letter. And again, while that may not be as easy as I describe, no one can prevent you from doing it.

    We have to stop being mindless consumers and again become citizens, not only at the ballot box but in how we live our lives every day. The Achilles Heel of the modern economy and modern society is that for as much as the elite and the elite adjacent abhor and disdain the rest of us, they need our time, our attention, and our money. Deny them those three things and it won’t take that long to see a change.

    Mike

  17. “…a solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures and forces, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour of trial…” from the book Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner

    In my experience, there are two groups among whom a significant percentage possess that “solid inner kernel”; those for whom Constitutional principles are essentially religious tenets and Christians.

    However, a solid inner kernel is not in and of itself sufficient. The ability to defend oneself from aggression is needed. In a society operating under the rule of law legal remedies may be sufficient.

    In a society prey to might makes right, arms are necessary. The left is forgetting America’s 300 million guns and that the vast majority of those gun owners are not leftists or even liberals… they imagine that they can use regulations and laws to disarm and intimidate us into acceptance of tyranny. . They imagine that they can “cut down all the laws” and withstand the winds that shall then blow across this land.

    Ultimately, it shall prove to be a fatal mistake.

  18. Yes, it IS everywhere!

    I thought being in the private sector that I am in I would be immune to this kind of “toe the party line.”

    That my company gave money to liberal causes bothered me but didn’t frighten me.

    Since this latest “the police are racists” stuff started it has gotten to the point where I am worried.

    They started having podcasts and other meetings to “share” how we can all overcome this terrible police brutality. (Don’t they realize that some employees and customers don’t see the police as racists? or that some of us have relatives in law enforcement? or is it that they don’t value our money as much or don’t see us as a shakedown threat?) I wasn’t happy about this either; but to listen in or attend these meetings is voluntary.

    But, in the last couple of weeks they have brought this kind of talk into what used to be business meetings. You know the kind of meetings where we would report what projects we are working on, what the status of those projects is, where we could use help, etc. Now they are asking people to “volunteer their feelings” about all that is going on! It all comes across as just plain wrong to me! For now I am not “volunteering” anything. But, I do fear that it will soon be noticed that I don’t speak up! Will I be called out for not participating? Will my silence fall under “white silence is violence”?

    And, while I am hoping that this will eventually blow over it doesn’t seem like it will any time soon. Each day there is another list of recommend actions to take to end racism. Today’s “action” was a list of recommended books to read – am I going to be asked to do a book report soon? What if I don’t review it “properly”?

    Lastly, I didn’t tell anyone specifically why I took some paid time off in January a couple of years back to go to Trump’s inauguration; a few coworkers guessed why. I just hope that no one remembers!

  19. charles: I’ve kept my thoughts in check while liberal/lefties went on (and on) about their rote indignations. I worry that my silence is revealing.
    _______________________________________

    Whenever I hear the word “share” I would reach for a gun* if I had one. “Share” is frequently followed by the word “feelings,” and I have enough of my own thank you; please do us both a favor and repress yours.

    — Stewart Brand, editor of the “Whole Earth Catalog”
    __________

    * Reference to Nazi quote, “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.”

  20. One of the few possible good things to come from the depression will be if scores of colleges and university are put out of business. It blows my mind how many universities we have in this country and what these tiny no name institutions charge for tuition.

    Sucker born every day has never been more true.

  21. The most “solid inner kernel” I have found is in the Coptic Christians who were murdered on the water’s edge in Libya by ISIS on Feb.21, 2015. I marveled at the calmness of the victims in the widely seen video, since they did not look drugged.
    They were martyred.
    Read the moving account of Coptic Christians, their chronic oppression in Egypt, and the identities of the twenty. Plus the 21st, who was not Coptic, just got caught with them, and refused the offer to be set free if he’d convert to Allah’s god.
    The book is by Mosebach: “The 21″…Be warned; it will make you weep.
    https://smile.amazon.com/21-Journey-into-Coptic-Martyrs/dp/087486299X/ref=sr_1_1

    Haffner thinly excuses the Germans. 33% or so voted for Hitler and the Nazi party in 1932, and Mein Kampf had then been in circulation for quite a while. There was no threatening basis for German fear then, except among Jews, gypsies, and gays. Kristallnacht did not occur until 1938.

  22. For a long time, for “progressives” PC doesn’t stand for politically correct but rather Political Conformity. They are now getting bolder to try to enforce it in the rest of the country.

    Most education has been affected for quite some time and now sports will follow. Several colleges have announced they support kneeling during the national anthem for football and other games.

    Many churches have said they support the BLM movement. There seem to be few refuges available for people to escape this movement.

    Internet companies can monitor what sites we visit and can begin to implement the “social credit” system currently in place in China, a country many in the media and entertainment industries seem to hold in high esteem.

    Hopefully each area of the country can have a real choice in the upcoming election, that of freedom for all in this country. Not the forced and enforced conformity demanded by those who are wanting the power over us.

  23. The sad truth is that American social and political leadership at all levels has become accustomed to routinely caving, in terror, in the face of (what I call) guerilla-protest targeting tactics. The mob singles out the victim, usually someone in lower-middle management, but sometimes real prizes can be had at senior levels too. They all pull on the dunce cap willingly, but it’s your money they’re offering to avoid humiliation.

    These failed leaders have become comfortable at representing their collective cowardice as ‘just following the rules’. Just fulfilling their job directives. Just ‘responding to these strong voices’. As in the HOA example above, the rules can be changed on-the-fly to suit almost any demand, the demand needs only to be forceful enough.

    Equally, the public’s failure is in not calling out cowardice when it happens, with overwhelming shaming and outrage, and by not insisting on shutting down mob rule as a substitute for responsible governance. Minneapolis is about to get a heaping helping of this with their police force. There are about 425,000 residents there who stand to lose their property values while seeing their taxes go sky high for this brave community experiment. Now would be a good time for them to start speaking up.

  24. As a matter of fact, Republicans are now as guilty as Democrats for letting “systemic racism” becoming an idol, a reification of an absolute truth requiring submission, and for legitimizing the appropriation by BLM of “The oppressed™” identity.
    Two centuries of culture wars have taught these politicians nothing about the strategy of radicalism, they still pretend to be able to tame the tiger making concessions, as if on the other side there were a reasonable guy open to “conversation”, and not a cynical plan of destroying the enemy by any means. The fraud has to be called out, day by day, in the clearest and unequivocal way, summoning as many information channels as possible: radio, Television, papers, websites.
    There’s NOTHING of that, it’s a battle fought by individuals or little groups, often looked upon with suspicion and caution by conservative politicians and intellectuals who, after all, have found a not so uncomfortable place in the mainstream circles.
    Instead they let Trump fight the battle alone, with his limited if effective rhetorical skills; most elected Republicans stay cautiously in the shadow, pondering what’s more convenient for their position and career, while the left go forward without the minimal restraint, united in supporting as a block even the most outrageous lies. Church leaders are as blind to the revolution in act as everybody else.

  26. All the guns of America are nothing without coordination of efforts.
    Not when the law, together with all common and objective standards upon which civilizations are built, are constantly bent to satisfy the radical views of the anointed.
    It’s not possible to bear the pressure by single people or companies, relying on a shared respect for traditional or independent choices: this is why so many give up to the mob.

  27. avi-
    If Germans were nazis before there were nazis, as the German conduct in SW Africa around 1900 brutally proves, what are Germans now?
    What happened in Africa is further proof against Haffner’s argument. There was (?still is) a viciousness of superiority among them.

  28. NEO: But we ceded our educational establishment to people who thought otherwise, and were dedicated to relentlessly – and through mendacity if necessary – achieving the indoctrination of generations of young Americans.

    give credit where its due…

    A vision for feminist schools

    Feminist schools have the potential to benefit both boys and girls because they protect all children from identity-based threats that keep them from achieving at equivalent levels. Schools that are striving to achieve this must ask two sets of questions: First, how do our policies and practices levy disparate effects on pupils’ academic, civic, or social development? Second, how can we develop strategies to respond to these imbalances and thus ensure that students are receiving the same quality of education, regardless of gender, race, or sex? To address these questions, feminist schools develop policies and procedures to foster the belief that each citizen has equal inherent worth and should be treated as such. They reorient the foundation of education in a way that prepares students to engage in a more equitable society, and to transgress and transform their world where such equality has not been achieved (Nuamah, in press).

    [snip]

    My conception of feminist schools builds on this work by expanding the ways in which we think about gender equality in schools to include the role of power. Feminist schools are attentive to the power dynamics that shape students in the classroom. More specifically, they disrupt power relations and provide students with the tools to do the same after they leave the classroom. Thereafter, students may transgress traditional gender practices and become active agents of societal transformation.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    they are the ones that trained the kids more and more each year as the new guard replaced the old guard and made protest and social change the only purpose that was acceptable…

    the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world…

    Transformation will take a village of feminist scholars, activists and teachers
    https://feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/feministteacher.html

    they deserve the credit for the work they have done..
    if not, then be quiet and that’s that…
    because without that, you might as well consider bloodletting a good way to fight disease for how it ignores the sources.

    if not them.. then who, who instills the children and teens with the desire to “change the world”, remake it, etc?

    put this into google..
    women must change the world
    you get 1,870,000,000 results

    the question is will they really like what they make?

    [the ladies are proud of this, and all for this… what ladies are afraid of this and what woman has called for it to stop? they see the change bringing their beloved communism, which they were taught is more equitable… seriously… i have read their works that say such.

  30. Soviet Woman , a magazine published by the Kremlin?backed Soviet Women’s Anti?Fascist Committee, was a rare form of Soviet propaganda aimed at domestic and international readers simultaneously. Founded just after World War II, Soviet Woman was published in French, English, German, and Russian. It was part of the Soviet Union’s bid to become a global hegemon by exporting socialism–including its gender ideals–to the major combatants of the war

    [snip]

    The article argues that the editorial staff of Soviet Woman drew extensively on letters and periodicals from the United States and Britain in crafting a new model of Soviet womanhood, one that supported the Soviet Union’s postwar agenda but met the concerns, expectations, and tastes of Anglo?American readers. The staff effectively reformulated Soviet womanhood to share features of British and American women’s experiences, including: the desire to return to work despite postwar lay?offs; their fashion trends and styles; and their tendency to associate the female sex with pacifism. This feminine ideal upheld in Soviet Woman was created in consultation with the USSR’s capitalist opponents.

    Feminism Is The New Communism…

    Feminism without socialism will never cure our unequal society
    Gender inequality is a necessary condition of capitalism, so this International Women’s Day join a trade union

    If this sounds like socialism, it’s because it is. Only by diminishing the power of the boss class, and giving female workers more access to collectively owned social goods, can we ensure that no woman is forced to choose between sexual and economic exploitation, and poverty. Inessa Armand, the Bolshevik revolutionary who was responsible for allowing Soviet women to divorce, have abortions, participate in politics and access childcare knew that only fundamental change to the economic system could make life better for women. “If women’s liberation is unthinkable without communism, then communism is unthinkable without women’s liberation,” she argued.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/08/celebrate-international-womens-day-why-not-join-union

    [snip]
    Among the hashtags and vacuous corporate slogans that now flood International Women’s Day, it’s easy to forget that it was first celebrated 110 years ago by the Socialist Party of America to honour the New York garment workers’ strike, which had been held by female workers a year earlier. Eight years after the first International Women’s Day, female revolutionaries in Russia effectively overthrew the tsar with a series of protests and strikes, which also won them the right to vote. It’s not novel to tie socialism and feminism together: they are inextricably linked as movements, and always have been.

    Of course, it’s complacent for any socialist to argue that ending capitalism will simply erase sexism from existence. Gender inequality may be a necessary condition of capitalism, but it is maintained by culture.
    ===========================================================
    Claudia Jones Communist, anti-racist and feminist
    https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/claudia-jones-communist-anti-racist-and-feminist/

    Thus: “Marxist-Leninists fight to free women from household drudgery, they fight to win equality for women in all spheres, they recognise that one cannot adequately deal with the woman question or win women for progressive participation unless one takes up the special problems, needs and aspirations of women as women” (from We seek Full Equality for Women, 1949).
    ===========================================================
    take a bow ladies…

  31. Power is being able to say complete and utter nonsense and have it believed
    powerlessness is where no matter how much cogent evidence and proof one has, to not be believed – Catherine MacKinnen

    The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exist – hannah arendt

  32. “All the guns of America are nothing without coordination of efforts.” Paolo Pagliaro

    That’s true if traditional tactics are employed. But tactics are for amateurs and logistics for professionals.

    The left is urban in nature and the urban environment is entirely dependent upon importation of every necessity. Trains can be derailed, semi-truck tires shot out. Water and electrical supplies disrupted. Nor are there enough US military to protect every major city’s supply lines.

    The US military is sworn to uphold the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. While upper echelons are at best questionable, the NCOs and majority of the troops are far more conservative… reflected in polls that revealed that 85% of military personnel disliked and distrusted Obama. Finally, we veterans are quite familiar with firearms and most of us continue to honor our oath.

    The Left could win if they only had the patience and discipline to wait another generation or two but patience is not youth’s forte.

    “Old Age (experience) And Cunning Will Overcome Youth And Skill Every Time”

  36. Well, America imported the scum German professors who participated but then lost out in the battle for power. And it has been 70 years of relative non-interference with American academia. It is notable how many of those in the current protests, the LARPing over-credentialed, White, mostly women with no useful skills. So we’ve only to look at how the Germans came to embrace Nazism

    “For more than seventy years the German professors of political science, history, law, geography and philosophy eagerly imbued their disciples with a hysterical hatred of capitalism, and preached the war of “liberation” against the capitalistic West. The German “socialists of the chair,” much admired in all foreign countries, were the pacemakers of the two World Wars. At the turn of the century the immense majority of the Germans were already radical supporters of socialism and aggressive nationalism. They were then already firmly committed to the principles of Nazism. What was lacking and was added later was only a new term to signify their doctrine.

    “When the Soviet policies of mass extermination of all dissenters and of ruthless violence removed the inhibitions against wholesale murder, which still troubled some of the Germans, nothing could any longer stop the advance of Nazism. The Nazis were quick to adopt the Soviet methods”

    –von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos

  37. I’ve been referring to the Neo Cultural Revolution for a number years. Am I afraid?

    Well not so much; I have a shotgun, a rifle, and a .45. I country boy can survive.

  38. I have been wondering how long the great American middle would tolerate the madness. I wonder.
    I hope that they (we) are simply biding time until November when there will be a resounding statement.

    If the election goes sour, or attempts are made to nullify another one; I am not sure what will happen.

    As we seem to descend deeper into chaos, the statement by Paolo Pagliaro,“All the guns of America are nothing without coordination of efforts.” is significant. BLM, Antifa, and the like, have been permitted to organize, even arm; but, if half a dozen conservatives get together for a beer, one of them is likely a Fed infiltrating a potential neo-Nazi gathering. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little; but, just a little.

    Bkhuma, you clearly do not live in the People’s Republic of California or you would not advertise what you have. I don’t. Oddly enough, the state of Washington has pretty permissive gun laws–and the denizens of CHAZ flout them. I have a close friend in Seattle, and he is the proud owner of an arsenal; and of his concealed carry permit. He used to chide me about the PRC; but, he has been quiet lately.

  39. “

    “What it took to achieve the present situation in the US was to stop teaching children why it is so vitally important to protect liberty and how our Constitution was designed to do that, as well as why all those old-fashioned virtues that sound so boring are of the utmost importance. But we ceded our educational establishment to people who thought otherwise, and were dedicated to relentlessly – and through mendacity if necessary – achieving the indoctrination of generations of young Americans.”

    What it took was parental negligence and disinterest beyond ceding the educational establishments. Where were the parents, and their own supposed convictions, their imparting of life values and virtues to their offspring? Did they ever teach their kids that there was anything more important than comfort, ego reinforcement, affirmation, social acceptance and inclusion? No. How could they? Nothing else was, so far as they were themselves concerned.

    Was there any extended famiy to provide a natural society alternative and reinforcing network? (Probably not, if your recent family history is 4 generations of one or two child nuclear urban dwelling families.) Or were, as is more than likely, these kids raised in an environment where school was not a place where you went primarilly to take classes, but the place where apart from mass media and casual secular society encounters, your whole social world existed?

    These kids did not become reduced to the unreflective, shouting chorus of willing little automatons they are, without either positive or negative input from their parents: either ushering them along in that direction intentionally, or by default through their negligent preoccupations,

    Yes we have a mass culture where niceness, inclusion, acceptance, and social affirmation have been relentlessly peddled as the highest goals of existence; and where Wiccan feminists and anal receptive males have roosted in the hierarchy of many “Christian” churches. .But these messages and messengers obviously found a ready audience.

    So … now it has gotten to the point where some people are shouting that unless you are shouting too, you are the enemy?
    And people, who have more resources and easier lives than ever our ancestors did, tremble in the face of it?

    Gee … What can we do … We might have to fight! My whole life could be upended if I fight back. Better to hunker down and hide in the root cellar as did 40 generations of my family before me.

    This is not the population which built or is capable of building a free country; nor is it a population fitted by nature to live in one. They are instead , and proudly, herd animals. Sheep, as Mario Cuomo repeatedly referred to them.

    The preoccupied with feeling good about themselves, values relatavistic, psychology of adjustment, pass the birth control pills please, proles that “raised” these kids, are as much to blame as Gramsci.

    In other words, the gospel of collectivism, found its natural audience in a population predisposed for it, or for the kind of self indulgent, individual responsibility avoiding behaviors that created the conditions for its rooting.

    And when you talk to other men who afraid of riding a motorcycle, or shooting a gun ( much less doing something actually dangerous like rock climbing LOL) or to women, whose blasé discussion of preparing their 14 year old daughers for adolescence with a supply of birth control pills is just another topic of conversation, you realize you are NOT dealing with serious people.

    Of course they are afraid. It is their nature to be afraid.

  40. There was no threatening basis for German fear then, except among Jews, gypsies, and gays.

    No. Ernst Roehm was homosexual and Hitler ambiguous. The abuse of homosexuals in Nazi Germany concerned discrete fractions of that population which had some association with particular institutions. In its dimensions, it was 2 or 3 orders of magnitude less severe than the abuse of the Jewish population.

  41. An actual armed conflict in this nation would be a disaster, gun owners vs. military with a manpower of 1.4 million active in all branches and then add in the national guard and you would have 2.2 million total, our military has a lot of things that go bang and they could level cities but taking over and holding ground takes a lot of manpower which currently is not there. An interesting fact is last month May were over 3 million guns sold with 20 million so far this year. We know from our experience in all the conflicts since WWII, maybe Korea, that guerrilla warfare ties up conventional manpower so there is not enough military to take all the civilian gun owner on and win, too many people over too many square miles.

    I am not sure if there has ever been a civil population as well armed as we are in the US right now and any attempt to disarm the American population would be destructive and leave our nation wide open for other countries to come in under the banner of stabilizing and protecting us from ourselves which might be the long game for China with the help of the media. Right now chaos and confusion fit the bill for 24 hour coverage of Trump is bad for the nation with extra point for slanting the stories further left and blaming conservatives.

    I sure hope my fears are groundless and things can smooth out but we are in a non shooting war of words and battle of winning hearts and minds.

  42. Everything stated here is relevant, and there’s a lot of good advice supported by evidence, but I think MBunge’s comment is something we all have to get very serious about. And, if you’re looking for a way to affect meaningful change, work to make this a mass movement.

    Dry up the funds. Eliminate the money. It’s a pain. It’s work. It’s tedious. But there is a very energetic, concerted effort to eliminate our freedoms and we are actively funding it.

    Over the past several decades most of us have stopped going to movies featuring certain actors and certain themes. We have to follow this principle in every aspect of our lives. Cut the cord. Stop funding CNN, MSNBC, HBO… Get your entertainment over high speed internet and subscribe to the specific channels/services/news sources you trust. It’s a pain. It takes some research, but I’ve done it, and so have millions of other Americans. Look at ESPN’s subscription base over the past 5 years. It’s plummeting like a rock. Uncoincidentally, ESPN fired their old head of programming last year and brought in a new guy who said, “No more politics. People simply want to watch sports and get reporting on scores, strategy, injuries, trades…”*

    Entertainment is just one example and we need to do this everywhere. Like most of you, I have refused to buy Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for years. I don’t mind that they have their political views, or that they would rather foment revolution than make ice cream, but I’d rather have my ice cream dollars go to a company solely focused on making and selling a good product.

    Unfortunately now we have to get more serious. Much more serious. And that requires a lot of homework. We need a website where we can search a company’s name and find political press statements they have made. Find out what PAC’s they donate to. Find anonymous “reviews” from employees on any inside events like charles outlines, in a comment above. Then we need to act. This could have a huge impact. I know a lot of this goes on now, but this needs to be direct and organized. This needs to be coordinated by, or at least sponsored by, someone or some organization that already has a good listener/readership base; Glenn Beck, the Daily Wire, Breitbart, Instapundit, Ace of Spades…

    Any ideas how to get this going?

    *I do agree with folks here who predict much of sports is toast, regardless of what approach ESPN takes. This anti-freedom cancer will continue to spread throughout the rank and file athletes, their coaches and many sportscasters, and the companies that advertise at their events.

  43. OldTexan,

    As General Mattis recently brought to light, it is not obvious where all the U.S. military would fall in regards to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

    As you know, Robert E. Lee was a graduate of Westpoint (and later an instructor there) and served honorably in the U.S. military for decades, prior to the Civil War.

  44. DNW,

    Spot on. My wife and I have substantially altered our eventual retirement by paying for private schools for our children, even while paying property taxes to fund our public schools. Family vacations almost always revolved around museums, libraries and American and world history. While my wife did plenty during the day (and during my long absences from home, traveling on business), it was my duty to read to our children and help them learn to read, and encourage them to read important works. Although we always wanted dinner to be fun, family time, we often worked in conversations about civics, current events and history. At many Sunday dinners I’d bring up the sermon we had heard that day, while attending church service as a family, and encourage our children to debate the topic, even areas where they might disagree with the Priest.

    I noticed one of the most fruitful techniques was anything related to relations or friends. I was surprised at how interested our children where in their relatives, and their relatives’ histories, so I would use that interest to incorporate little morality tales about relatives who made sensible decisions, or poor decisions, and how that played out in those relatives’ lives. The same with their friends and schoolmates. I would use examples of things their peers had done and how the results played out. There was something about the proximity to those people (through blood or geography) that I noticed made the kids retain a lesson more than if I told them about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree.

    But you are correct, the vast majority of young and middle aged idiots had self-centered or cowardly parents.*

    *However, parenting can only do so much. Prior to having children I thought it was about 95% nurture, 5% nature. After having raised them to the age of maturity I now think it’s about 20% nurture and 80% nature. I came to learn the best I could do is “steer” my children. There wasn’t much I could do directly, but I could plant some seeds, encourage some course corrections, expose them to fruitful ideas…

  45. @ JK Brown.

    Good observation.

    Yes, German collectivism and anti- natural rights leanings have a long history.

    On the left is Marx. On the so-called “right” is Prussian anti-liberalism (anti-liberalism qua classical liberalism) which has a long history, with the Kulturkampf being just one infamous manifestation of the impulse that arose in German politics.

    This anti western, anti liberal strain of collectivism in Germany is fascinating and puzzling.

    In Germany, a nation that once made it difficult for private schools to exist, and effectively bans homeschooling, the churches receive funding from the government based on taxpayer religious identification. (More private schools now exist than once did)

    Something strange has been percolating in Germany for a long time insofar as the conception of the law and the individual’s relation to his fellow men goes.

    It is deep enough to have been famously if in some ways implicitly argued in the form of academic theories of the law and the state. Kelsen, Schmitt, et al

    And I am at a loss to explain it, or the reason for it. It seems to have developed with no real, or at least sufficient, cause that I can see. The only explanation I can come up with is that for those people who rule teleological justifications out of court, and who militantly insist that no “is” can lead to an “ought”, no moral imperative deduced from a fact or body if facts, there is no alternative to the rooting of commands or desires, apart from “The Will”, be it the general, or the individual or that of some interest group. Whether human intentionality is itself an illusion, adds another layer of complexity, if not absurdity, to the stance of the progressive collectivist.

  46. The residents of Capitol Hill, Seattle, are so far to the left that they make the Upper West Side of Manhattan appear to be Goldwater Republicans.
    Well, now that they are an independent nation, they can actually live in and experience their beloved “heaven-on-earth” utopia.
    Instead of talking about how great things are in Cuba, even though they would never in a million years want to live there , the Capitol Hill residents can create their own little Havana without having to move there or risk a sunburn.

    Let’s hope the residents there get their dose of liberal/progressive/national socialism good and hard.

  47. For a long time I’ve felt, and even expressed here in Neo’s fine comments, that US Democrats are acting against conservatives like the Nazis acted against the Jews.

    More and more people will see it. And undecided folk will see it more clearly if it is honestly expressed:
    Democrats are using their political influence to take away human rights of those who disagree with their policies.

    Democrats. Not “the left”, because there is no “L-Left” on any ballot. The L-Libertarians are mostly ignored, despite having the best philosophy for a Free and Responsible People. A majority of people would rather be More Comfortable, and especially Not Be Responsible, even it means being less Free. (Short form of DNW – too many Americans are spoiled rotten)

    Addiction to materialist consumption makes folk fearful of losing their jobs, their income — and especially their status.
    It is the US Democratic Party which is mostly to blame; Reps have long been against most of the changes, altho many elected Republicans have been so lightly against most changes as to have given silent consent.

    So I disagree, strongly, with this from Paolo (whose comments are great, even this one which I disagree with):
    Republicans are now as guilty as Democrats for letting “systemic racism” becoming an idol,

    Positive, Negative, and Neutral should always be different alternatives. Democrats pushing belief in un-Truth is different than being neutral and different than being opposed. And also different than spending your life fighting for it or against it. This logic, which says a failure to oppose makes one “as guilty” as those who propose, is exactly the BLM logic which is frightening:
    a failure to support BLM makes one as guilty as the worst white supremacist racist.

    This has also been an issue among pacifists during a war – failure to support going to war is equal to supporting the enemy.
    No. No, it is not.
    But it is also true that if enough folk fail to support a war, the war effort will fail.

    America can still win any war, but not necessarily the peace – because peace depends on the people willing to be mostly peaceful yet willing to fight for justice against injustice.

    BLM says that’s what they’re doing. But it’s a lie. They want to fight against unfairness. Life is not fair, Reality is not fair, the Truth is not fair.
    There is no process of justice that can create a fair Reality.

    US colleges, and K-12 schools, have been teaching “everyone should get the same” (“I was always taught in school…” The Stranglers, Always The Sun). With everybody sort of knowing that was not real and not possible, but accepting it as a white lie / noble goal.

    Ending racism is a noble goal.

    The lives of most US blacks are worse than other races in the US, but it not primarily because of racism, but because of bad black behavior.

    Only the Truth can set one free – or keep one free.

    —
    Look for US House of Rep districts which voted Rep in 2016 but switched in 2018, and work for the Republican candidate to switch back. Trump winning with (new?) Rep House majority might allow enough time and law changes to save America from the Democrat Nazi Red Guards and the humiliations.

    My newly graduated doctor son plans to stay in Slovakia, not go “back” to the USA at this time (dual citizen). Lots more of us here remember and oppose communism and national socialism both.

  48. DNW, AesopFan and others;

    No offense, but all this “left/right” nonsense seems to be a philosophical trap, or, at the very least, a vast time suck. I can’t count the number of articles and posts and comments I’ve read in the past 20 years where people debate historical minutiae regarding whether something is/was “right” or “left,” or how the terms mean different things in this country, or during this period of history, or, and, or, but, or….

    It’s pretty simple. Are you on the side of freedom, liberty and personal responsibility, or not? Many things start as one thing and evolve or devolve to another. It makes no difference what anyone “says” or “writes” about what something is, or where if falls on some imaginary spectrum. Definitions are meaningless. “Soviet Socialist Republic.” “German Democratic Republic.” “People’s Republic of China.” “Democratic Republic of Congo.”

    Are individuals free, or not? How close to the ideal of maximum, individual freedom is a system? That’s all that matters.

  49. @ Rufus,

    You remind me of my kid brother.

    The moment he got married he developed a kind of seriousness of aim regarding his kids, eventually four, that it literally entailed, to all extents and purposes, the dedication of his life to his family.

    It was not just the choice of job and place stability over career advancement, not just the soccer games, karate classes, band expenses, and “crummy” camping vacations in state parks with his wife’s family ( apparently it was her family`s ” thing”), but also what I considered a baffling and somewhat embarassing nascent religiosity which included the saying of grace, even at extended family holiday meals. ‘Geez .. talk about a fanatic … what’s he turning into?’

    Now however, with a newly minted doctor, dentist, and pharmacist in his brood, and two weddings in the fall, he and his wife have done all they could to set the kids on the straight path. And that is where they seem to be.

    No, he missed hunting season at our cabin, 18 years out of 20. Apart from the Fourth of July celebrations at the vacation farm, he hardly ever got up there. Certainly not for the grouse hunting or the fall colors.

    Until recently he could not have even told you what the 4 or 5 most useful rifle calibers for medium to large thin skinned game, were.

    But apparently that kind of sacrifice, or something like it, is what it may sometimes take …

  50. You’re basically describing what I’ve been thinking the past few days: the ever-more-intense policing of language is all about power and control, and a large factor in what is going on is a failure of education. It’s a relief to hear it from someone else.

    I’m surprised more people don’t say enough is enough, that they’re not going to play the game, that they’re willing to go it alone if necessary. I suppose I understand if losing your job or your social circle would mean homelessness. Personally, I’m not going to be told what to read, watch, say, and think by anyone – a family member, an employer, a media personality, a friend. If that means I have to live alone in the middle of nowhere with a vegetable garden, a root cellar, and some chickens, so be it. But I’ve always been that sort of person. As a child, I did not like society very much, and decided I was a nonconformist. It’s in some people’s nature to be that way, and others instinctively hop on bandwagons and “follow the rules,” however irrational the rules might be.

    I guess many of you have turned away from Jonah Goldberg, but a few years ago he wrote about “The Unwisdom of Crowds” https://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/donald-trump-inauguration-calvin-coolidge-unwisdom-crowds

    “I’m not a big fan of enthusiasm, particularly among large numbers of people. When large numbers of people get really into something, I tend to go the opposite direction.” I’m like that, too. (And you could argue that’s not reasonable – what if the crowd’s right? – but more often than not the crowd shuts down critical thinking and it’s a turn-off.) But a lot of people aren’t. A lot of people do want to be part of a crowd – if they didn’t, there would be far fewer crowds. Maybe we need to face this deep truth: the rugged individualism Americans are supposed to love is not normal.

  51. The sad truth is that American social and political leadership at all levels has become accustomed to routinely caving, in terror, in the face of (what I call) guerilla-protest targeting tactics.

    Sorry if I missed another comment on this. What we are seeing, I believe , is corporate white collar jobs that are sapping any will from the drones who work in these jobs. The people who won’t wimp out are plumbers, carpenters and independent truck drivers. Crafts and work that involves personal trades and skills will see most of us through. College degrees did not use to be evidence of leftist orthodoxy. That is recent.

  52. ” DNW, AesopFan and others;
    No offense, but all this “left/right” nonsense seems to be a philosophical trap, or, at the very least, a vast time suck. I can’t count the number of articles and posts and comments I’ve read in the past 20 years where people debate historical minutiae regarding whether something is/was “right” or “left,” or how the terms mean different things in this country, or during this period of history, or, and, or, but, or….”

    Sure. Within broad strokes, I basically agree. And I suspect that the others by and large agree with the core point.

    Tyrannical collectivisms whatever their subspecies, basically share certain anthropological and metaphysical assumptions and effect similar harms.

    This is not to say though, that examining their development through the commonly accepted historical lenses – while bearing in mind that that is what we are doing – cannot be enlightening when it comes to analyzing how we came to our present debate and it’s framing.

    That is to say, that I think that a taxonomy of totalitarianism, is useful in some regards, even though we understand that the terminological question is itself fraught with motivated reasoning and terms, and may not do much for the person facing the business end of a muzzle.

  53. Maybe we need to face this deep truth: the rugged individualism Americans are supposed to love is not normal.

    Sorry but I would revise that to say it is not “common” any more.

  54. Cicero,
    The fact that they replaced the least violent, most intelligent semites with the most violent and least intelligent doesn’t bode well for the future.

  55. MBunge knocked it out of the park.

    Choke off their support. Every time you watch their product or buy their merchandise, you’re aiding them. Every time you aid them, they’re using that money against you.

  56. “Maybe we need to face this deep truth: the rugged individualism Americans are supposed to love is not normal.”
    Perhaps we are seeing large crowds of rugged individualist Americans.

    And while I once was fond of Goldberg, his TDS is a sad form of dementia.

  57. Maybe we need to face this deep truth: the rugged individualism Americans are supposed to love is not normal.

    Sorry but I would revise that to say it is not “common” any more.

    As long as I have heard the term used, I have heard it used in mockery of the very concept. That would have started way back in junior high school.

    And too, many people just never have been interested in, much less admired self-discipline or reliance; nor the effort, mild discomfort, and occasional forswearing, that are needed to attain some semblance of it.

    There are a few streams contributing to this flow. Some are generated by nihilistic comfort seekers who see no reason to substitute workouts for lathering their own sensuality. In other cases individualism and a relative lack of social and psychological dependency is seen as a kind of threat to social solidarity and mutual identification; as those who imagine themselves as comparatively strong, seldom like to identify with the weak, even if we all have some weaknesses.

    But in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man …..

  58. Well Mbunge, I am trying. I am distancing myself as much as possible from the purveyors of Leftism. It is hard; they are so deeply embedded. I will keep looking for opportunities and alternatives.

    The military–there is a big question. Back when racial tensions were at a peak in the USN–before this time–and a full blown race riot occurred on at least one carrier; I wondered sometimes as Command Duty Officer what the effect would be if I had to call out the duty Marines at night. They were the only armed contingent on board; and they were maybe 20% Black. Were they Marines who were Black; or were they simply Blacks who were armed? Fortunately, it was never put to the test.

  59. @DNW: What it took was parental negligence and disinterest beyond ceding the educational establishments. Where were the parents, and their own supposed convictions, their imparting of life values and virtues to their offspring?

    Mom kicked dad out, and was liberated burning her bra looking for something better than a happy gulag… only to find out that being old, alone, without family, or kids, wasn’t what she really wanted, and it was too late to go back…

  60. I have to be honest.

    When I read that leftist professors are being doxxed and protested against by those even further to the left my first thought is that ‘Karma is a real … beast.’

    They sat by and did NOTHING ( as far as I can tell ) when their conservative leaning peers were ostracized and removed. And they sat by and did NOTHING when conservative leaning speakers were heckled or dis-invited to campus.

    A study of history would show that ‘The Revolution’
    ALWAYS eats its own. Just ask the ghosts of Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre.

  61. Until quite recently (meaning the past few weeks) I would have said I am not afraid. Not for myself, I mean, and setting aside fear for what my white and especially white male grandchildren may face. I’m 80% retired, and could do without the remaining income from that job, my house is paid for, and so on. So I’m free to say whatever I want to on my blog and in other online forums, such as this one.

    But there is a wildfire burning, and I don’t know where it will stop. There is nothing to stop WordPress from shutting down this blog. I read just this morning about just such an instance, the blog of a feminist dissenter from “trans” orthodoxy. My own blog is at TypePad. There’s nothing to stop them from terminating my account.

    So you buy some server space and roll your own website. There’s nothing to stop GoDaddy or whoever from shutting you down. So you put up your own server in a closet in your house. There’s nothing to stop ISPs from denying your access to the net altogether.

    “Activists” are attempting to deny various financial services to corporations, or to hated organizations like the NRA. I don’t know how much success they’ve had, but the threat is obviously real. There’s nothing to stop them from going after individuals. Is the freezing of assets totally beyond their dreams? I wouldn’t bet on it. After all, when you’re fighting Nazis, pretty much anything is justified.

    So…I won’t say I’m afraid, exactly, but I’m certainly uneasy.

  62. The idea of picking up and moving out of New York to ‘flyover country’ has been appealing to me for some time. My husband has been resistant to the idea. But the other day, out of the blue, he suggested we take a long road trip to check it out.

  63. I just think as much as leftism (or just “collectivism”) is a battle against human nature, so is the individualism promoted by the American right. All politics can be seen as a fight against an aspect of human nature – whether one is battling selfishness, or unruliness and disorder, or conformity and acquiescence to authority.

    Selfishness is a part of human nature, but so is conformity. Humans started out in small, closely knit clans. Humans didn’t evolve for international solidarity or self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity as a whole. But humans also didn’t evolve to be content living alone on the wild frontier. Both our selfishness and our tendency to conform have limits. But they are still significant aspects of human nature.

    We criticize the socialists for failing to understand human nature, or for hoping that they can change it. And they deserve criticism. But we are guilty of the same failure. Why do so many people hate liberty-centered conservatism? Why do so many get lured in by anti-capitalist, anti-freedom trends? Could it be that there’s something we’re getting wrong about human nature, too?

  65. Oldflyer:
    What a scary thought.
    I have no knowledge of a race riot on a US aircraft carrier or elsewhere in the armed forces.
    Today, I believe and hope black Marines are Marines first. Duty, Honor, Country.

    It has been said, “We should have picked our own cotton”.

    Interestingly the Germans who settled much of central Texas (see Fredericksburg) refused to own slaves; they thought they themselves worked harder. (source: Frederick Law Olmsted, in 1856, “A Journey Through Texas”; current edition published 2018). Yep, same guy who designed Central Park, and a stern abolitionist.

  66. “I guess many of you have turned away from Jonah Goldberg, but a few years ago he wrote about “The Unwisdom of Crowds”“

    Unsurprisingly, the Doughy Pantload gets it wrong. What he’s offering up is a philosophical justification for his being a lazy ass who’s always too “sophisticated” to, you know, actually join in and support the conservative masses yearning to breathe free.

    Mike

  67. Hmm, all this about choking off funds. What about China, where we buy trillions of dollars of stuff from from, those trillions used to fund the Chicomm battles against us?

  68. Mac,

    You are absolutely correct and that is why we need to get a movement going (I know it already exists, but we need exponential growth, fast!) to identify companies that dabble in politics, and out them and their political beliefs; right, left or both.

    A quick dip in revenue will be enough to get most of them to stop playing footsie with Marxists and get back to their core mission of making widgets, but some will fight back and double down. Then we have to find similar companies who want our money and are willing to take it without spitting at us after they cash the check.

  69. Unsurprisingly, the Doughy Pantload gets it wrong. What he’s offering up is a philosophical justification for his being a lazy ass who’s always too “sophisticated” to, you know, actually join in and support the conservative masses yearning to breathe free.

    Sometimes the misconceptions of crowds cancel each other out, sometimes they are additive.

    The premises of ‘Black Lives Matter” are utter humbug when they’re not frankly malicious. (And a great deal of it is indubitably sorosphere rent-a-crowd).

    Goldberg, McLaughlin and others have spent the last four years being vain fools and paying no attention to actual events.

  70. DNW,

    I want to reiterate that I meant no offense, and your measured response implies none was taken. Of course there is academic value to studying history and accurately identifying and codifying things, and I have learned much from your comments here on the subject of political history.

    We also have to understand that the majority of U.S. citizens don’t care about this stuff. They aren’t much interested in political science. For the purpose of change and education we need to speak and write in basic terms; freedom and individual rights. Most everyone wants to be free to do as they wish. Who is making demands? Who is using force? Will you be free in a world run by Anti-fa or BLM? Should a BLM supporter who owns a bakery be forced to bake a cake for a clan rally? Should an Antifa member be forced to photograph a Christian wedding?

    These are concepts people can understand.

  72. Hmm, all this about choking off funds. What about China, where we buy trillions of dollars of stuff from from, those trillions used to fund the Chicomm battles against us?

    About $103 bn in imports from China over the period running from 1 November 2018 to 31 October 2019.

  73. Seems to me that the core problem is the deification of the “victim”, the worship of “victimization”, the elevation of the “victim” to uber-moral status.

    Because being elevated to “uber-moral” status simply means that everything is permitted.

    It also means that if someone refuses to express himself or herself as a supporter of the “victim” or the “victim’s movement”, then that person is branded an “enemy of the people” (even should that person be basically in sympathy to the cause).

    Yes, one must support the victim!

    It’s a seductive, since to stand up for a victim, to support a victim, to defend a victim has traditionally been viewed as an ethical imperative (the same is true of the pursuit of so-called “equality” and the necessary perversions that result from such an ideological abstraction—which is why it is the “pursuit of happiness” that is the far-more revolutionary credo).

    Yes, seductive but false.

    Since what happens when the “victims” group together to themselves victimize, to intimidate, to demand “justice”, to wreak the “people’s justice”—without the overarching framework of a system of justice (which they claim they have to jettison because they are “victims” of it)?

    What happens is they become just another violent, criminal, shake-down mob that vies for power (the ultimate motive)—often manipulated by smooth-communicating operators who know all the slogans inside out and who almost always end up craving power for themselves as they stomp on all perceived opponents.

    To be sure, the refusal to take any responsibility for oneself (or one’s own group) is often a pre-requisite for claiming victimhood status.

    And then, for many, there’s the seduction of the mob (even if it’s also a form of self-preservation).

    Keeping in mind that the proletariat was the victim of the Capitalist. The Germans were the victims of Versailles. Latin America is the victim of the Gringo. China is a victim of Trump’s USA, etc.

  75. Rufus T. Firefly:

    I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestion that we vote with our pocketbook and cut off those vendors/broadcasters/sports teams whose social and political preening offends us. (Is that a fair characterization of your position?). I heard just recently that there is some threat truckers will stop delivering to places like CHAZ in Seattle — a move I fully agree with. But I’m not a trucker, so that doesn’t work very well.

    Please share with us (on another site so we don’t hog Neo’s bandwidth) thoughts on concrete steps we can take — and urge others to take. I like the idea. But then I’m not giving much up, as I haven’t been inside a movie theater in years.

  76. As an ex-liberal turned conservative who’s in the ‘helping field’ (intersection of education & social work … hoo boy), it’s absolutely fascinating to see The Left turn into things they vehemently accuse their opposition of being. The Left talks about kindness and being self-aware (of ones privilege) – they display no such things.

    I post on Reddit and was met with a response that angrily asked why should anyone listen to Trump supporters who, in their minds, were mean, bigoted and stupid, amongst other fine qualities and attributes. They declared they “spent the last 3.5 years” being patient and understanding towards Trump supporters. I simply replied, “I doubt it.”

  78. >“Political Correctness is Fascism disguised as manners.” George Carlin

    Did anyone see that one video that, I think, went viral of a young black man approaching a white woman in urban America to kneel for the “sins” of her white ancestors? The young man was quite polite at first, yelling “Excuse me ma’m!” to catch her attention as she walked. She was taken by surprise by his rush to approach her where he apologized for scaring her. Then it happened. He told her about her white privilege and commanded her to kneel before him. She nodded and knelt. He then thanked for her obliging and let her go.

    See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKF5LsTe6KM

    Of course, “fact checkers” have said this is fake and a setup.

  79. A quick dip in revenue will be enough to get most of them to stop playing footsie with Marxists and get back to their core mission of making widgets,

    Rufus T. Firefly: I’ve been following Gillette to see how that works. In 2019 they put out an SJW #MeToo ad. That garnered unfavorable publicity and many customers announced their decision to stop buying Gillette.

    Their revenues got hit, then their stock price.

    https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NSE-GILLETTE/

    But Gillette did two more SJW ads — one on “fat acceptance” and the other on a “transgender son” learning to shave.

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/update-hows-gillette-doing-its-toxic-masculinity-james-barrett

    You’re down with that, right?

    So, we’ll see how their revenues and stock price goes from here.

  80. huxley,

    I have been a Gillette customer for most of my adult life. No rhyme or reason to it, May simply just be the first razor I bought in my youth. When that ad came out I finished the cartridges I had, switched to a different band and have never looked back.

    Incredibly stupid on their part because, really, how much of a different is there in razor blades?

  81. Incredibly stupid on their part because, really, how much of a different is there in razor blades?

    The only thing which makes much sense to me is that they hire witless millennials in their marketing department, who hire ad agencies staffed with witless millennials. Who then proceed to wreck the brand because they have no real understanding of or respect for their customers (and want different customers because they fancy the people who actually buy their products are icky).

    You see it again and again: Marvel Comics, ESPN, Gillette. It’s a real puzzle.

    Note Rod Dreher’s account of his time in newspaper management. He circulates a memo suggesting that the paper cover things their actual readers (who skew suburban and older) might be interested in. He was ignored because the reporters and editors simply did not feel like covering those stories. Decades of monopoly in the metropolitan newspaper business had fostered this mentality. No clue why you see it in competitive enterprises.

  82. Rufus T. Firefly-
    My moniker is in honored remembrance of Marcus Tullius Cicero, a thoughtful, somewhat cynical and very articulate Roman who believed in the Republic, which he tried to preserve. But he was murdered as the Republic descended into Empire and imperial rule.
    It is my hope to emulate Cicero in articulating my thoughts.

    And yes, I have been to and thru Cicero, IL! Is it still a functional part of the Southland?

  83. Darrell: I was drafted as a GMO for the Navy in 1968, and wanted to serve, but because of a chronic medical condition was deemed ineligible for service, with the remark that “This decision is not subject to appeal.” I have used that phrase since in terminating poor employees.
    Thanks for the link.
    It reads in part, “You have kids who are inculcated in the etiology of the Civil Rights movement, but do not have the education to move up into higher skilled jobs,” Sherwood said. “That is what really leads to a blowup in the fleet — it was that situation that really created the powder keg that led to this explosion.”

    Nothing has changed in much of our society since except that standards have been lowered for accommodation. See the Asians’ lawsuit against Harvard: merit and achievement are secondary to blackness.

  84. Rufus T Firefly and huxley:

    With me it was Nike after the Colon Kapernuts, of national anthem kneeling and cops are pigs socks fame, becoming their image dude. I never will buy anything from Nike again. It was sad (not) seeing their store getting looted in NYC. And then it was REI Co-Op after they dumped a prominent brand because they were a subsidiary of a gun manufacturer. I was a REI member for 30+ years. Maybe the CHAZites can repurpose all the inventory of the REI CoOp store in Seattle, it’s only about 2 or 3 miles away.

  85. Cicero,

    I should have said, “town of my birth.” It’s been a while since I’ve lived there, but I still have family there and visit often. I doubt if there is a city less reflective of Marcus Tullius’ ethos!

    It borders Chicago on Chicago’s south, west side. Al Capone found it cheaper to buy the Cicero police department than Chicago’s larger force (although the Chicago force was no less corrupt), so he made his domicile there, which started a tradition of lawlessness and corruption that continues to this day. It would be tough to count how many Cicero mayors and aldermen and women have spent time in prison.

    During my youth it was a typical, melting pot, Chicago style; Italians, Irish, Germans, but a majority sprinkling of Czech and Polish, but today is predominantly Mexican. There were two horse tracks in its rather tight borders (one is now defunct) and one is never more than a few hundred feet from a tavern, or “gin mill” as the locals called them. I grew up among many “Runyonesque” characters. My father was one. Damon Runyon fans will recognize the name Big Julie, from “East Cicero, Illinoize” as the antagonist with pipless dice in “Guys and Dolls.” Musical theater fans will also recognize the town’s name in the song, “Cell Block Tango” from “Chicago.”

    In 1905 the American Telegraph and Teletype company built the Hawthorne works there. At one point 90% of the telephone equipment in the nation was made there. I think their peak employment was 45,000 people!

    It’s also famous for the Eastland tragedy, still one of the top 15 peacetime maritime disasters with 844 deaths (more than the Chicago fire) and second worst peacetime maritime disaster in U.S. history. The Eastland was hired to take Western Electric employees on a picnic when it listed into the Chicago river due to improper ballast. Most everyone died mere feet from the shore. Entire families were wiped out.

    You may have also encountered the “Hawthorne effect” in Psychology or Engineering. Industrial engineers were doing work studies on factory workers at the Hawthorne works to learn to make them more productive. They tried different lighting, different colored walls… They found some things created more improvement than others, but, to their amazement everything caused improvement; which lead to the understanding that when people are aware they are part of a study they tend to become more focused and conscientious.

    Although it is less diverse it still has a lot of great ethnic food, and, of course, pizza and hot dogs (it is Chicago, after all). Although Midway airport it technically in Chicago’s city limits (the city was going to miss the tax revenue from that!), if you’ve ever landed at Midway you’ve basically seen Cicero, Illinois.

  86. Art Deco:
    you must be a journalist, cherry-picking to suit your narrative.
    Here are the data:
    The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2019 was $345.6 billion. That’s 18% less than 2018’s $419.5 billion deficit. The trade deficit exists because U.S. exports to China were only $106.6 billion while imports from China were $452.2 billion.

    A few hundred billion here and there and pretty soon you’re in the trillions.

  87. you must be a journalist, cherry-picking to suit your narrative.

    No, I consulted the Direction of Trade Statistics from the IMF. I had the table turned around $107 bn was our exports to China. Imports amounted to $450 bn in 2019. ‘Trillions of Dollars” would have to refer to the five calendar years from the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2019.

  88. Ahh, the accidental cherry-picker.
    Didn’t the low number even rig your bell?
    A Trillion takes 5 years? No. Calendar 2018 plus 2019 deficits total $746 billion. One more year and one sees a trillion.
    Now consider the past 30 years’ total trade deficits with China.
    Perhaps you now grudgingly concede my point.

  89. Ahh, the accidental cherry-picker.

    The term ‘cherry pick’ does not mean what you fancy it means. The data at issue are the imports and exports from China. That’s what he referred to. There is no vat of data from which I made a contrived selection.

    If you’re going to ape other commenters, you have better models than ‘Om’, by the way.

  90. Art Deco:

    Try to focus or find a stat since you are lost without them, don’t be an old chimp flinging excrement.

  91. Rufus – in re labels – I actually now favor Orson Scott Card’s polarization of Maker and Unmaker, which roughly corresponds to conservatives/classical liberals and whatever-the-heck-we-call-TWANLOC-these-days.

    Sadly, he was/is one of the useful idiots of the Democrats (of the “Republicans are meanies” subgenre), who got mugged by reality over his stance against same-sex marriage — but I don’t think he was converted, as Neo was, into seeing that Democrat leaders were just pretending to be liberals all along.

    And he is a very smart man, perceptive about society and people — it’s amazing what kind of blinders we all wear.

  93. Matt Taibbi speaks out fearlessly — about how people are afraid, and rightly so.
    He may well be the last honest left-liberal on the planet, one who is not an Unmaker.

    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself

    Note – some days back, I mentioned an interview I saw with a young black man, Max, observing that black lives only seemed to matter if they were taken by whites; Taibbi gives some of the details of that interview, which resulted in the interviewer being “cancelled” by his media outlet.

    Also:
    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/10/this-has-become-a-neo-maoist-war-on-the-past/
    “This has become a neo-Maoist war on the past
    The woke elites have launched a Cultural Revolution. They must be stopped.”

    Considering how the Maoist thing turned out, people have good reason for fear.

  94. People on the left are afraid — but still don’t take responsibility for creating their own monster.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/chronicles-of-the-crazy-times-3.php

    From here Chait engages in an extended hand-wringing about the ill-liberalism of the “progressive” left, all while affirming that the greatest threat to the liberal idea comes from the right, as if this boilerplate will protect Chait from the mob when it comes for him. Who has allowed the progressive left to become a rampaging mob, getting their way at just about every turn? I wonder if Chait owns a mirror.

  95. Paul Mirengoff is onboard with the defunding scheme.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/lessons-from-wichita-state.php

    At this point in the descent of nearly all American colleges and universities, I wonder why any conservative would donate a penny to almost any of these institutions. Such donations subsidize the indoctrination of students by those who dislike conservatives and despise our values. The effects of this leftist indoctrination are there for all to see. In my view, they are undermining America.

    We conservatives should do our best to “defund” the nation’s colleges and universities until such time as they demonstrate a true commitment to free speech and viewpoint diversity, and cease the systematic leftist indoctrination of students.

  96. John Hinderaker wants no part of the woke brigade’s extortion.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/you-must-comply.php

    But these days, there is no such thing as “no politics.” Last week, Instagram was taken over by “woke” liberals campaigning for the election of Joe Biden as president. Instagramers showed their devotion to the false Black Lives Matter scam (of course black lives matter, like all others, a fact that no one in the current millennium has questioned, but the BLM organization is a corrupt political machine that tries to get anyone fired who timidly suggests that all lives, not just black ones, matter) by posting, on a designated day, a black rectangle. These black rectangles flooded across my Instagram feed, many coming from people I know to be conservatives.

    This kind of coerced political speech is, in my opinion, scary. Silence, contrary to the Leftist meme of the moment, is not violence. The right to remain silent is fundamental to human freedom.

  97. Art Deco —

    Who then proceed to wreck the brand because they have no real understanding of or respect for their customers

    It’s the same phenomenon* bemoaned by Bari Weiss regarding the Tom Cotton editorial foo-farah at the NYT. The over-40 people expected the under-40 people to drop the campus Marxism and wokeitude when they graduated and had to enter the Real World and get jobs, but it didn’t happen.

    * (doo doooh-de-doo-doo)

  98. Tom Grey —

    Now I have to go watch a whole bunch of videos from The Stranglers. I loved their sound back in the day, probably because the lead singer sings in my range.

  99. AesopFan,

    Regarding folks who seem to see the Left for what it is but refuse to “change,” or “take the red pill.”

    There is plenty to dislike among individuals on the “right.” If one has been a life long Dem and now sees the awfulness of that Party it’s understandable one would not easily embrace Mitch McConnel and Lindsey Graham.

  100. one would not easily embrace Mitch McConnel and Lindsey Graham.

    McConnell is a cheesy careerist with skeletons in his closet. He also refuses to retire even though he is 77 years old, has been in Congress for 35 years, has a handsome pension coming, and has a wife with an 8-digit net worth. Such pests are a dime-a-dozen in Congress on both sides of the isle. If your friend can tolerate Nancy Pelosi, he can tolerate McConnell. As for Graham, there’s nothing notably wrong with him aside from his episodic support for amnesty, which is seldom if ever a deal-breaker for a Democrat. He gets slammed by various parties not due to anything he ever did or said, but because high school never ends for some people.

    There are unlikable people on the right, but partisan Democrats seldom if ever notice them. The more vociferous partisan Democrats complain about Republicans, but their complaints are derived from social fictions of their own manufacture. They don’t have any insight into the opposition even in the confines of their own family. I can give you some personal examples.

    In certain subcultures, there are attitudes which delineate in-groups and out-groups. Putting yourself in the out group among your peers is something about which people are inhibited. And they don’t want to think of themselves as ‘that sort of person’.

    We have scads of verbiage coming over our Facebook wall every day and I waste time in fora attempting to debate partisan Democrats. Serious and well-constructed arguments among them are rare as hen’s teeth, even in fora where you have reason to believe most of the posters are academicians and highly-paid professionals.

  101. The over-40 people expected the under-40 people to drop the campus Marxism and wokeitude when they graduated and had to enter the Real World and get jobs, but it didn’t happen.

    There was nothing that prevented Sulzberger from telling his employees to suck it up, do their jobs, and quit trying to tell the editorial page editor how to do his. He Just.Does.Not.Feel.Like.It. (It’s not as if it’s a sellers’ market for the labor of newspaper reporters).

    And these young adult mediocrities know nothing of Marxism, campus or otherwise. They know the attitudes and buzzwords they’ve grown up around. Sulzberger and Bennett are mediocrities too and haven’t the intellectual and emotional equipment to argue contra these attitudes or to tell their staff to quit beating their baby spoons on their high chairs.

  102. At this point in the descent of nearly all American colleges and universities, I wonder why any conservative would donate a penny to almost any of these institutions.

    I have no idea why anyone not a sectary would contribute. Now look at the board of Oberlin, the most witlessly governed college in America. It’s a chock-a-block with business types, as are the congeries of alumni bigdonors. The place I used two work had three donors competing with each other to see how many 7-digit donations they could drop on the tools who ran the place. Remember the fiasco at Duke University ca. 2006? The president of the board at Duke, who maneuvered to keep the weasel of a university president from being held accountable for anything, was a banker. In the course of his career he was CEO of Wachovia and a subcabinet officer in the George W Bush administration.

    There is something very puzzling about the behavior of trustees and the sort of alumni who end up as trustees. There is something very puzzling about our business elites generally. As in invasion-of-the-body-snatchers puzzling. Glenn Reynolds keeps saying our elites are terrible. What’s distressing is how ecumenically terrible they are. Politics, law, higher education, professional associations, business (in their civic capacity, at least), the fun never stops. Now we have an insubordinate general officer corps. I do not like this moment in time.

  103. Art,
    I fully, totally, competely agree with your last comment.
    Peace, brother!

  104. I am gong to post this on several threads here. I apologize in advance, and I hope this does not upset our gracious, vivacious and perspicacious hostess, Neo. I’m posting it on multiple threads in hopes it gets seen by many, but if you want to comment on the topic, please do so on the “Musical Interlude” post, so we can keep our thoughts in one place.

    Yesterday (two days ago?) in one of the threads about our current political situation one of you (MBunge?) made a statement that cutting off funding to companies working to eliminate our rights is critical to fighting this scourge. I wholeheartedly agree, and there was some continued discussion in the comments on how to coordinate the effort.

    Since it’s such an obvious and good idea (no offense to MBunge{?}, but I’ve had the thought myself, many times, as I’m certain we all have), I was fairly certain several organizations must already be doing this on the web. With a bit of research today I found this site, https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=C2200

    This seems to be a very good start. The link goes to their page on Cable & Satellite TV Production, but you’ll notice the search boxes in the right margin. Choose a drop down there and hit the magnifying glass and research any industry you prefer.

    Does anyone know anything about this organization, and whether they are fair? Their mission statement on their “About” page sounds good, and the data I looked at seems to be in-line with what I’ve seen in other publications. If this is a reliable resource, let’s spread the word and start taking action.

    (Ignore this section. Simply here to fool neo’s omniscient redundancy algorithm.)

  105. I would encourage you all to read Robert Harris’ wonderful trilogy on the life of Cicero. It is very relevant to the situation we now find ourselves experiencing. Will the republic survive? If so, for how long and in what form. Cicero was a very brave man. He certainly must have been aware of his fate long before he was murdered. Yet he could not do otherwise. He remains an inspiration for this age.

    By the way, Rufus, How do you affix your avatar to your comments?

  106. As I’ve written here before, from what has been happening, it appears that leaders on the Left have decided that the Gramscian “Long March” has done sufficient subversion, propagandizing, and softening up work upon these United States that the time to strike from all sides against a weakened, fragmented, fearful, somewhat demoralized, and confused public and Republic is at hand.

    All of these attacks–the coup attempt against President Trump just one such Leftist attack among many–have brought to light all sorts of decay and lawlessness within our government, brought to light as well, a whole cast of formerly largely concealed characters; agents of the Left/the Deep State.

    Wood that looked as if it was solid, has suddenly been reveled to be just a coat of paint holding together in an apparent form the dust that is all that actually remains after the Left has done its work.

    Now, with the public statements critical of President Trump and his actions by some of our most eminent Generals, and the similarly critical open letter by some West Point grads, we now have evidence that one of the last—if not the last—trusted bulwark protecting our Republic has also been infested—and perhaps deeply infested–with this rot.

    This most recent revelation is an extraordinarily serious one, and immediate corrective actions need to be taken.

    Everyone—his opponents on the Left less so, but also President Trump–is just dancing around, unwilling to bring out into the open this true “Constitutional Crisis”; the deadly game that the two sides are playing for control over the direction of our Republic, indeed, of its very existence.

  107. Snow on Pine:

    The rot in the military was revealed quite some time ago. I don’t recall whether this was the first incident, but it’s the one I remember and it occurred in 2017. See this.

  108. Neo–Thanks. I’d forgotten about this.

    Thing is, Trump can’t fix everything, and–as the evidence pours out and accumulates–it looks like Obama and Co. subverted just about everything; that their “Fundamental Transformation” was very wide-spread and fundamental, indeed.

    Obviously, all of that Leftist subversion and undermining was given a tremendous helping hand and really only made possible by the vast majority of the members of the MSM who–in apparent agreement with this subversion–looked the other way, and just never reported what was going on, this “Fundamental Transformation.”

  109. Snow on Pine:

    Agreed. If Trump only did one good thing, it was to reveal the vastness of the Obama transformation of government and all its institutions, a transformation that was largely accomplished without being noticed by most people.

    It was done. Trump can’t change it. Only the American people can. Now it’s up to them. But I have no confidence that they’re up to the task. The MSM’s influence and PC thought and sheep-like behavior and ignorance are very far advanced.

  110. vastness of the Obama transformation of government and all its institutions, a transformation that was largely accomplished without being noticed by most people.

    Obama is almost certainly a minor vector. What we’re looking at is the systematic decay of the integrity of our leadership class. The ruin of federal agencies is part of a larger story.

  111. Art Deco:

    Mostly agreed. I think Obama was a major rather than minor actor, but he certainly was not the cause.

  112. Xylurgos-
    the choice of my pen name was to serve as a reminder of Cicero’s existence, not as a reference to Cicero in Illinois.

  113. The Chinese Coronavirus that is afflicting the U.S. and the world–and the disruption, death, fear, uncertainty, and confusion it has caused–has presented many on the Left with what they apparently see as the perfect opportunity to rise from concealment (although some are not concealed at all), and to attack key elements in the political, social, psychological, and cultural structure of a weakened and confused U.S.

  114. “…a minor vector…”

    I guess that would depend on how one defines “minor”.

    Here’s just a tip of the “minor vector” (for starters):
    https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/the-scale-to-which-obamas-team-spied-should-be-focus-of-unmasking/

    (…and there’s lots more where that came from…)

    I guess it’s “merely” a “minor” matter of making a concerted, comprehensive and unstinting effort to convert the totally and entirely illegitimate into “FUNDAMENTALLY A-OK”.

    And it’s not JUST making it “Fundamentally A-OK”: it’s making it THE MORAL IMPERATIVE OF OUR COUNTRY and OUR TIME”.

    It’s making it THE LAW OF THE LAND.

    Resist at your peril, your shame, your livelihood, your health and ultimately your life.

    Obama a “minor vector”?

    No. Obama is THE POINT MAN.

  115. A good picture of the interbellum Germans exists in “Before the Deluge” by Otto Friedrich. It helps one understand how desperate people can make seemingly poor decisions, and the allure of a powerful person/idea who seems to have all the answers.

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