The Big Lie that keeps on giving: Trump and the disabled reporter
Recently I was watching a video of WalkAway founder Brandon Straka being interviewed by TimPool and telling the story of why he left the Democratic Party. It’s a good video, with the hallmark political changer experience of an “aha!” moment in which the person previously on the left realizes that much of what he has come to believe via the MSM is based on a lie, and then a series of lies, and that moment sparks a sequence of realizations that leads to a political change.
You can watch the whole thing at YouTube if you like. But I’ve cued it up here to show the particular segment I’m talking about:
Do you remember when the press said Trump was mocking the reporter’s disability? Here’s a clip and commentary from CNN, posted on YouTube five years ago. It has over 8 million views and is still going strong. You can see very recent comments there made by people outraged – just as Brandon Straka was way back when – that Trump would be such a low human being as to mock a reporter’s disability, and that anyone would have voted for him in spite of that.
So the story had a dual purpose: turning people off from Trump and making them not just dislike his policies but despise him as a person, and causing them to detest Trump’s followers as well. The video has never been taken down or corrected, either by CNN (which undoubtedly knows better because their claim was debunked quite quickly) or by YouTube:
And yet, as Straka says, Trump was not making fun of the reporter’s disability at all. He was using a mocking gesture he’s used many times (and for years) to indicate a person who is flailing around in terms of an answer, either lying or pretending not to know or just acting confused:
Notice also that although the original video has over eight million views and almost twenty thousand comments, the video correcting it has a relatively small view count (the same is true of other videos making the same point). The lie gets many times around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on. And this is a lie that has mattered to voters.
But as Brandon Straka discovered, it’s not just about this lie. Nearly every day something about Trump is blatantly lied about, or covered up, or distorted by the media. Sometimes it’s done the way it’s done in this instance. Sometimes it’s done by simply not covering an important story that would make Trump look good or make his opponents look bad. Sometimes it features a misleading and truncated quote, sometimes just an exaggeration, and there are other techniques used as well. The coverage isn’t just occasionally deceptive; it’s a relentless barrage of it pervading the entire MSM except for the small enclaves of conservatism – and even they are not exempt.
Fox News used to be one of those enclaves, but these days it’s been joining with the rest more often. That leaves us some talk shows, some YouTubers, bloggers, and The Federalist, parts of National Review, and a few other online outlets. The imbalance is profound, and social media acts as an amplifier.
But I wonder how many people would see these videos and, like Brandon Straka, ask themselves, “What else was I wrong about? How else have I been lied to, and how often?” And then how many would start digging into it and find out that the answers are, “A lot, and often, and it matters.” Many of the people giving WalkAway testimonials on YouTube have a similar story to Straka’s, as do I, although mine happened many years ago.
But I think such people are somewhat uncommon. At any rate, not enough people – not nearly enough people – change their minds even when confronted by evidence, or get curious about what other evidence they might be ignoring. Too many never even see the evidence in the first place. Too many who do see the evidence don’t seem to care and would never watch three times as Straka did and then again the next day, deeply disturbed. As Winston Churchill said: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
[NOTE: I’d be curious – if you were to send a link to this post to some Democrat friends who hate Trump, whether they’d read it and if so, how they’d react. Would it cause them to rethink at all?]
I wasn’t a Trump supporter in the primaries. Frequently news items would quote him as saying something outrageous. I learned that when I looked up the actual transcript or video, he didn’t say what they said he did. That has continued throughout his presidency.
Them : How can you support Trump when he lies all of the time?
Me : If the media and Democrats would stop lying about what he says and does all of the time, perhaps I would notice that “Trump lies all of the time.”
To say that Trump is so egregious in his speech and conduct, so much beyond Biden, is totally false.
When Biden removing his mask to cough in his hand, Pelosi and Blasio being mask and distancing hypocrites, Cuomo killing the elderly and denying his orders, when all of these are overlooked or discounted, don’t expect me to believe your take on Trump.
If trump wasn‘t the president the hispanic kids would still be in cages. Democrats can’t be in power simply because the media is so in bed with them that any crimes committed by democrats will be covered up by the media and that would be real bad for the country. I agree that kids should not be in cages but the media had been covering that up for Obama and wasn’t exposed until trump became the president and the media found an angle to use that against trump which I can bet you was something trump wasn’t even aware of until the story was reported.
The Democratic Party and its MSCM and Info-Tech accomplices have decided in their wisdom, humility and patriotism that it is preferable to destroy the US and/or turn it into a quasi-police state than to lose the next election.
Hillary cheated but not quite enough, it seems. (She didn’t have to go all out since she was a “shoo-in”.)
They’re not going to let that happen again, which means that electoral cheating—like the demonization of Donald Trump and his supporters (along with the US Constitution), and like the 24/7 lying of the MSCM—will be off the charts.
You can smell their fear.
I recall a moving column by Christopher Hitchens about how the French felt about the Germans taking the province of Alsace-Lorraine from them after a war.
The French slogan (doubtless imperfectly recalled by me) was “Always think of it, never speak of it.”
Frankly, we need to remember these incidents, recount them in private to one another, and use them to remember what it was like. Oppressed groups, like us, have done this for centuries.
Meanwhile, Hillary continues to position herself on the cutting edge of imbecility:
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/hillary-blm-theological/
H/T Blazingcatfur blog
The Walkaway videos are a treasure trove of PDJT campaign ads. They are some of the best in explaining the duplicity of the left. There are many of them and their stories are fantastic. I send them out to my sitting of the fence friends all the time, because I think at some level they relate. Thank you Brandon, your efforts are making a difference.
Another big lie that just keeps on killing: “Antifa is just an idea”
This afternoon it appears that a leftist murdered another conservative at a rally, this time in the afternoon, in Denver, in broad daylight, caught by a live streamer.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo
Andy Ngô
@MrAndyNgo
·
32m
A left-wing protester at an antifa Denver rally shot and killed a conservative participant of the patriot rally. This follows the August killing of a Trump supporter in Portland by an antifa shooter.
My experience is that you can disprove as many individual instances of lies and they will still believe that Trump is an idiot, a racist, a homophobe etc etc. Facts don’t matter. A big factor is people don’t like to believe they’ve been played, and alot of people are insufficiently honest with themselves to admit it.
“…an idea…”
Indeed, it’s “an idea”, wrapped in “a myth”, inside a “mostly peaceful protest”.
(With apologies….)
“A left-wing protester at an antifa Denver rally shot and killed a conservative participant of the patriot rally. This follows the August killing of a Trump supporter in Portland by an antifa shooter.”
Yike. And that Black street-corner Trump supporter who was murdered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/07/25/black-trump-supporter-executed-in-broad-daylight-n2573120
“A big factor is people don’t like to believe they’ve been played, and alot of people are insufficiently honest with themselves to admit it.” LordAzrael
I’ve concluded that’s pretty much the whole of it. You can’t value the truth while denying provable facts.
dialog from the movie “the Wild Bunch”
Pike:
A hell of a lot of people, Dutch, just can’t stand to be wrong.
Dutch:
Pride.
Pike:
And they can’t forget it… that pride… being wrong. Or learn by it.
I don’t believe that the Left likes to think, they prefer to feel. It is so much easier, thinking takes actual work.
I don’t have any Democrat friends.
The Democrat relatives I had, and most of them were once Democrats, either shifted, or have receeded at near light speed to some inaccessable region of the cosmos.
The two or three – I have 53 cousins – who remain Democrat and also remain on terms with me, navigate by emotion. In essence, they – and this is a rich irony considering the Democrat/Progressive “Republicans are selfish” theme – are affable, and even “generous” … narcissists. If, you can wrap your mind around that.
Meaning this: they store grievances and live in a kind of drama mode, as if they are the stars of a play. Only one has worked in the free market economy. Two are women. The other is that male cousin by adoption who began foaming at the mouth in righteous and homicidal indignation and broke up the Christmas gathering 3 years or more ago.
He works for the state or the Feds as a master of social work counselor type, and apparently has a drinking problem too. It’s a shame. He’s a nice, if not physically prepossesing guy of above average intelligence, who has a real appreciation for people. He, despite his leftism, admired my father’s character enormously. Yet, there is this resentment thing eating away at him … I have not heard from him since the party.
I should note that his (also adoptive) brother, who is much more modestly endowed in the IQ department, lives without resentment. He is even on good terms with his birth family, who he found at age 40 or so years of age.
The last of 12 kids, he was given up in the mid 1950s by an overwhelmed mother: the wife of a sketchy, sometimes violent, and unreliable husband. His natural sibs all recite to him in chorus how fortunate he was to have been raised by a Chrysler pipefitter father and a housekeeper mother in a stable household. Early on this took place in a brick bungalow with a manicured lawn .. with a summer place on tne Great Lakes. And then, in a 4000 sq ft gambrel roofed, white clapboard “mansion” on the straights across from Canada. A boat house with a bedroom above sat out front over the water, and a garage with a kind of summer apartment above was out back, to boot.
He, is humble and grateful. And , if he is too “stupid” to vote, I can forgive him.
His older brother? There is no excuse. And I think he knows it. But what need has he for the freedom to strive? He lives off our taxes.
It’s largely a matter of curiosity, IMO. I am an inquisitive person by nature, always have been. If I see something interesting, I want to know more about it. In later life, this has become extraordinarily easy, with the internet at everyone’s disposal. You can almost instantly substantiate a subject with truth, lies, exaggerations, and historical context; The internet is amazing. Most of the readers here, I would venture to say, are inquisitive and more open-minded than most.
But a lot of people are politically incurious, and even more actively oppose having their ideas shifted around by new data. As DNW mentioned above, a lot of political beliefs are driven by emotions, and facts standing in contrast to emotional beliefs can be scaring and threatening things.
I think things like Walk-Away have an exponential growth feature. I don’t know if it will substantially affect the outcome of voting over the next month, but I suspect it will. I think political awareness is on an upswing, as is disillusionment with the media.
Jim Hoft has some corrections on the Denver shooting.
I recommend the 48-hour rule on this one for sure, maybe 72.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-shooting-denver-protests-patriots-vs-antifa-blm-mob-two-suspects-custody/?ff_source=Twitter&ff_medium=PostTopSharingButtons&ff_campaign=websitesharingbuttons
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-denver-trump-supporter-shot-local-news-reporters-bodyguard/
No speculations yet as to how or why it happened.
Video (in the first post) doesn’t show unruly mobs, and picks up after the shooting.
The shooter knows the protocol and does not resist arrest.
We were up north of Denver visiting friends.
They wanted to do dinner, but we insisted on lunch, so as to be home after dark, because of Antifa’s established pattern.
This took place in broad daylight downtown.
Will watch to see what the mayor and governor do.
Ngo’s Tweet has a photo of the confrontation, and accusing Antifa looked like a reasonable assumption in the context, but we should not be guilty of jumping to conclusions immediately, since we despise that on the Left.
(See: Whitmer’s Kidnapping story that was NOT conducted by white supremacist Trump supporters).
IMO conservatives regularly overestimate how rational humans are, including themselves.
We don’t have belief systems in order to be perfect computers, but so we can orient ourselves in the world, make decisions quickly and maintain workable relationships with other humans and groups of humans — all this to survive.
We have large investments in our belief systems for good reasons. We can’t have everything up for grabs each moment of the day if some new data seems to contradict our current trusty belief system.
Of course, we can’t have entirely static belief systems either. We must be able to extend and modify our belief systems, but that’s a process that takes a while and should. Furthermore, it’s unavoidable, because we are human, that our beliefs are partially driven by our emotions.
On the Denver shooting: more details and videos.
The deceased appears to have sprayed Mace in the direction of the shooter.
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-alleged-antifa-militant-shoots-and-kills-conservative-at-patriot-rally-in-denver
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/10/denver-protests-saturday-civic-center-park/
If I would send this link unbidden and suddenly to some of my Democrat friends they would discount it as their “confirmation bias” will not allow them to take in contrary information. That includes my mother who has voted straight Democrat for her whole life as my Grandfather was a “Roosevelt Man” and she saw no reason to change.
But for those for whom I have started a process of RESPECTFUL discussion it would be a step in their examination of their beliefs. Many of them who start out stating that Trump is a racist I always start with the second chance act and ask how it is racist? It repealed the 1994 Biden crime bill. That dissident note starts the process of re-evaluation in a non-threatening fashion. Or long term funding of Historical Black Colleges or lowest unemployment for minorities and women before COVID. They always go back to his words and what was reported. I have handy the example of his Charlottesville speech where he explicitly condemns the KKK and Neo Nazi’s and his other statements. Also be sure to have handy what BLM Manifesto actually states. It would take a much longer post on how I handle that. In short, I challenge them to individually act on their white privilege based on that manifesto. That is a 2×4 hit to their belief system.
Then I start on Biden’s statement and actions. “If you don’t vote for me, you black. I could stay in my quarantine because black women stocked the grocery shelf. That Latinos don’t all think the same like blacks (that really gets them thinking). The capstone (can’t use Coup de’ Grace as that is too violent) is him presiding over the “high tech lynching of Clarence Thomas”. Most people don’t remember that. So I end with who is the racist? Think about it. It softens them up for future conversations.
We have all walked a journey of a change of belief or perspective like our fair host. Changing minds is a process and not a moment. We have to keep that in mind. Every chance encounter that drifts into political discussion you have a chance to plant a seed of doubt. Treat them as a good person and state that they are a good person just like you are. We just disagree on this matter.
Practice Proverbs 15:1 — “A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Wise people learn from others; some learn only from their own experience; fools won’t learn.
Be joyful and live life with gusto. That is the best example for others to see and they will want to emulate. With that I wish all of you happiness.
Antifa / BLM planning “national strike” (see Europe) for election week for Commie/socialist insurrection! That’s the plan….
(Side note shoutout: AesopFan, ur in CO! — CapHill SummitCo Boulder in my recent and long past. I still listen to Dr Mike Dunn / Backbone Radio KNUS 760 Sunday eve, from Auckland, NZ now)
…4 war Green Beret vet Terrence Popp has their op plans and dishes organization and intelligence gathering of Antifa here
“The Coming Insurrection….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lLr5mtzbCE
And part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yPlOiDJjNQ&t=302s
Fortify yourself and get prepared.
Hint: they don’t want it to end until they are forced to end!
CW 2 is the game plan.
AesopFan, so now private security guard for the NBC news affiliate has shot and killed a protester? Is having mace aimed in one’s direction a sufficient reason to shoot someone? (I haven’t ever experienced mace; I really don’t know.)
The current total U.S. mortality rate per year is a bit over 2,800,000. In four years, over 11 million Americans will have died… and it all happened on Trump’s watch!
Or, perhaps we should blame Trump for the 250 million deaths worldwide in that time, making him responsible for the greatest genocide in human history!
A big factor is people don’t like to believe they’ve been played, and alot of people are insufficiently honest with themselves to admit it. –LordAzrael
I would say that’s a factor, but a small factor. It’s tempting for conservatives to believe their opposition is driven by such craven ego needs, but speaking as someone from the left, that’s really not how it works.
neo understands. That’s why she often points us back to Milan Kundera’s “circle dancing.”
____________________________________________________
Circle dancing is magic. It speaks to us through the millennia from the depths of human memory. –Kundera
http://www.thenewneo.com/2017/08/16/it-just-might-be-a-good-time-to-revisit-this-quote-from-milan-kundera-on-circle-dancing/
____________________________________________________
The glory of circle dancing is intoxicating. Most conservatives, unless they are deeply, truly Christian, have no idea. Leftism is, as frequently remarked, a religion, which means it involves primal human emotions and needs.
One does not simply discard those because some conservative pundit once busted CNN for misleading readers about a Trump quote.
The glory of circle dancing is intoxicating. Most conservatives, unless they are deeply, truly Christian, have no idea. Leftism is, as frequently remarked, a religion, which means it involves primal human emotions and needs.
One does not simply discard those because some conservative pundit once busted CNN for misleading readers about a Trump quote.
Humans and their stupid religions.
This is why it takes an energy like Trump or Ymar, to convert people away from their religions. Speak religion to religion, faith to faith, heart to heart.
om on October 10, 2020 at 7:10 pm said:
Meanwhile, conservatives think buying more ammo and arguing with Ymars online is a good way to deal with things like that shooting.
Hah, ridiculous.
Like I told Vanderleun back in 2016 ish. He had better things to do in survival prep, than argue online about pro/anti Trump S tards.
Prepare for the Prologue of this Season Finale, humanity.
Obama made an “it was like the Special Olympics!” joke on The Tonight Show, directly mocking 5.7 million specifically because of their handicaps. Yet him and his linebacker wife are still worshiped celebrities in this moronic country.
Under all this is monarchism.
I think it started with John F. Kennedy. A big chunk of American voters came to believe we were electing royalty, not servants, every four years. They needed someone to look up to, not just to sign bills passed by Congress, but to issue edicts, smite enemies, and show them how to live.
So today, after King Obama stepped down (or didn’t, as it were), that same chunk of electorate resents having an imperfect king over them.
And I think they’re even more enraged that they’ve chosen a debilitated old man as their single-combat warrior against him. Biden will lose, and they know it.
So, to answer the question, I think it does no good to share this clip on social media. My monarchist Facebook friends won’t press PLAY because a) they’ll never vote for Donald Trump to be their king, and b) they have no viable alternative.
The pain these people are suffering is real to them.
“Is having mace aimed in one’s direction a sufficient reason to shoot someone?”
In general, laws match levels of force. If someone is using non-lethal force against you (say, shoving you), then you aren’t justified using lethal force (say, a gun) in your defense.
I haven’t looked at the situation mentioned, but one plausible defense would be if the guard feared for his life. If he were debilitated by the pepper spray, did he have reason to believe his attacker would then go for his gun?
Scott Adams has a recurring topic on his podcasts: his attempt to show a leftist friend that many of his ardent beliefs are myths. He talks about how he proves the Charlottesville incident is a hoax, and eventually gets his friend to agree. But then the friend has another myth to pound on. Adams shows him that the second incident is also a hoax. By now a week has passed, and his friend has forgotten all about admitting the Charlottesville hoax, and now believes it again.
That “gee, if they lied about that, what else…” moment never happens for most of these people. Even if you put the thought right into their head: What else? They never make the connection.
To me, the social media reinforcement is the most obvious thing. Those of us who do see the debunkings, the full transcripts, the missing context, have to remember that those other folks never do.
You are challenging a part of someone’s identity. Years ago I recognized that one could conduct a whole curriculum discrediting the therapeutic vision and you would be wasting your time. Only self-discovery seems to work.
Thanks, Michael Rittenhouse. We’ll have to wait to see what the Denver evidence indicates. It’s on video, in daylight. However, your namesake Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha was charged with murder even though he was assaulted by people who either tried to grab his weapon or who pointed a gun at him. If a thing which emits mace looks like a gun, the security guard may have a case for self-defense.
Well, so I looked at the photo. The mace is clearly coming from an aerosol can, not a gun-like object. I do not see a gun on the guy with the mace.
Another question, if you were to send this on Facebook or Twitter, would it get blocked by someone working there?
There’s a reason no one has seen the Youtube videos. It won’t come up in a search due to interference.
Try searching for Charles Barkley Breanna Taylor, it is #1 most searched, but the results do not show the relevant clips, even though usually Inside the NBA has everything posted.
Yammer:
You are the big lie. No mater what it is you predicted it 5 years ago. And if you aren’t “predicting” something you are just making stuff up to stir stuff up, such a what I posted on October 10, 2020 at 7:10.
You are a malevolent clown Yammer.
Not that I doubt the phenomenon exists, but this circle dancing thing has never made a lick of sense to me. It sounds as though you must be talking about another species if you mean to assert that it has real appeal, and not just that the weak or the cowardly, or those trying to escape from the burden of a troubled self, can be cajoled or coerced, or enticed into it.
If this were not the case, then why would we look upon recordings of such activity with such stone cold unsympathetic indifference, if not actual contempt?
It seems to me that the “dancers” lack some essential capacity for reflective distance, which is the sine qua non of a real human being: as it is surely the ( or one of the) precondition(s) for the application of reason in the adjudication of moral questions. Apart from that you have nothing more a bunch of worthless damned Bonobos clinging to each other in the storm.
“Dancers” look like some effen “pod people” to me. Except that they apparently are emotional as well as hive-minded.
They behave in a way I cannot conceive of a real, thinking, human being, as acting. Best to keep them at arm’s length; neither harming nor helping; and let nature or God deal with them. Because their core sensibilities and satisfactions are obviously so profoundly alien, that I don’t see how one who is disinterested in this melded ego business, could possibly figure out what is, “the good”, in their cases.
Is simple: The media LIES, LIES, LIES. I despise, detest, and totally distrust the media.
…you must be talking about another species if you mean to assert that it has real appeal, and not just that the weak or the cowardly, or those trying to escape from the burden of a troubled self, can be cajoled or coerced, or enticed into it.
DNW: Have you never spoken with a serious Christian about his faith?
Imagine trying to convince someone to give up Catholicism because of a priest scandal or the unlikelihood of the Immaculate Conception. Not to mention the world-changing miracle of the Resurrection.
In the long view of history you are the exception to the species. Meaning no disrespect.
Tim Pool’s latest take on media lies and misinformation about the leftist murderer from Denver. He is an Occupy dude, a BLM dude, a Bernie bro, but didn’t have an Antifa tat.
Distinction without essential difference. To these leftists all and any means are necessary to achieve their ends. Some just choose to use firearms. Antifa? Plausible deniability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6FtvzED4Ms
The Michigan kidnapp plotters – BLM, Antifa, anarchist affiliations, therefor they must be Trump supporters according to the media.
Info about Denver still coming out but shooter’s social media is definitely anti-Trump. That and the Space Invaders anti racism tattoo (seen on Antifa sites) on his wrist. Was he really working for Pinkerton?
Another thing I observed is a longish video clip of the victim and another younger man in a Black Guns Matter tee shirt having an encounter. The victim is holding an aerosol can, but never is threatening to use it. A third person keeps separating them. The younger man is doing most of the finger pointing. The victim walks off about what – 15-20 feet? … and *almost* immediately he is shot. Seriously. You don’t see it on the clip I viewed but you can hear it.
My question is, was he spraying the substance (Mace?) at the guy because he, the victim, had the gun already pointing at him? The sequence is so fast.
Maybe I am too literal-minded when it comes to so-called circle dancing. Because, I had assumed that although literally dancing in a circle was not being mooted as the primary attraction, the mindless ego release and group immersion that seemed to be involved in it as a paradigm, was. So, broad though I took it to be, still not as broadly as you … seem to.
It seemed to me then, to be about the comfort and escape from personal responsibility which some persons find in group immersion and identification, and not about allegiance to a set of ideas, shared or not, per se.
If that understanding of mine was sound, then, what circle dancing might have to do with regard to that serious Christianity to which you seemingly refered, rather than to a cultural or sodality based religious sensibility, is unclear to me.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but the notion of the immaculate conception seems to me to be a smallish issue in the scheme of choosing hills to die on, as compared with, say, the Catholic doctrine of the virgin birth, with which it is occassionally confused, or as you point out, the resurrection – upon which the whole edifice, insofar as ithe edifice is really worth anything in cosmic terms, stands or falls.
What this means then, regardless of which of us better understands the psychology and phenomenon first intended by the originator of the term “circle dancing”, is that we obviously also have wildly divergent notions of what constitutes a “serious” Christian. That is to say, intellectual comprehension and assent on the one hand (including life altering behavioral changes), as opposed to the reaping of the psychological comfort, and presumably the emotional rewards of affiliation, on the other.
That said, if you do have a soft spot for the latter, then Pope Frankie is likely to be your man. Or appear to be an at least somewhat sympathetic character to you. This, because virtually all his efforts seem directed at peddling feelings and human solidarity, and inclusion, and generous helpings of unconditional, self-sacrificial, positive regard, in the mosr undogmatic, logically circular, and question begging manner possible.
For those interested in exploring such distinctions, especially with regard to the practice of the Roman Catholic faith, I would once agian refer the curious to the Firing Line episode “The Fight Over Catholic Orthodoxy” , covering some of these same themes, including the attrocity of so-called “horizontal” worship. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ERPQaQ1Gn5U
How’s that, for Sunday relevance?
If you haven’t figured out yet that the DNC is a criminal enterprise, then you’re probably too dumb to vote.
One would hope that putting facts in front of an anti-Trumper, which, with a modicum of reasoning, would clearly reveal to the anti-Trumper that his position is false. However, that assumes that the anti-Trumper is capable of reasoning. While the high school, university and (especially) law school of my youth taught critical thinking, it appears, sadly, that 21st century high schools, universities and law schools no longer teach how to reason, how to think, they only teach what to think. Students do not learn to reason, they are taught what to believe. And . . . “You cannot reason a man out of something he did not reason himself into.”
“C”NW?
I need to go outside and limb some saplings rather than playing with this damn Tablet 200 miles out of town.
The sun has now come out, the leaves are bright, and I still have window wells to rake out.
What am I doing finishing off a pot of coffee inside? Later ….
Time for a (much-needed) break with this scintillating appreciation of a remarkable man:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/malcolm-muggeridge-marked-by-mobility-and-a-search-for-morality/
DNW: I’ve circle-danced metaphorically and literally with Christians, leftists, and sometimes both. As far as I’m concerned, it’s much the same experience.
Your condescension to circle-dancers is palpable. And typical of most conservatives, who seem to think they are debating in a college lounge room.
They, you, are not. You are up against religion and identity — very powerful forces. It’s no wonder to me that conservatives keep getting their clocks cleaned in that match-up.
Does anyone here really believe that Trump won in 2016 because he had the better arguments?
I say Trump won because he re-ignited the religion and identity components of conservative America in a way no other Republican candidate could touch.
Make America Great Again.
That’s a vision, not an argument, and it reached just enough people in the middle for Trump to win.
We are in a religious war, not a college debate.
Pingback:Yes, there are | gregormendelblog.com
on on Tim Poole video, so recently up.
This shooter worked security for 9News, a local Fox broadcast affiliate in Denver. Tim is castigating them for sending a hardcore Leftist to cover a Trump rally, even if in support.
But it is worse than that. 9News has deliberately cultivated an identity as the Woke News source in the city. And a certain reporter “Kyle Clark” is a known prevaricatior to favor Leftist narratives, even in his trade-marke investigative reporting.
Legendary Radio talk show host Peter Boyles (in his mid-70s, doing 4 hours of callers, commentary and interviews each week day morning), regards 9News as his bête noir and Kyle the Cretin his verbal punching bag. They Lie. And they get away with it.
They had a showdown over a summer rally “Back The Blue” (ie, pro police service) where the DPD watched and stood by, but obeyed orders to “stand down” as Fascist Antifa/ BLM rotated fist punching and shoving attacks on the out-numbered and generally over 50 years old peaceful and permitted crowd got bruised, bloodied, and beaten up by young thugs.
One almost victim was writer Michelle Malin, in attendance to speak.
But back to the new shooting on a dead Patriot: see Red State for a thorough written and video roundup
https://redstatenation.com/video-denver-shooter-of-patriot-protester-allegedly-has-long-history-of-leftist-activism-msm-says-he-was-a-security-guard/
Here’s where I hope neo will read, because it’s a related Big Picture story that connects Trump and the quadrennial biased Presidential Debate Commission, their Deep State stooges, to State Department, George’s Soros, and the PDJT impeachment and the Color Revolution style tactics of Antifa. Oh, and the 25 years of US slush funding “Democracy” NGOs that Trump has tried to staunch — founded by or run by more Deep State actors like Senator John McCain, whose henchmen circulated the Hillary-Steele dossier about Trump!
Damn. This turd pile just goes deeper and deeper Deep State.
Anyway. This long essay at Revolver.News requires more than one spotty read that I’ve made. And maybe more.
So I’ll simply just excerpt that last of two long paragraphs. It raises the likely fact that our own government has funded or trained street riots this summer of the Antifa / BLM type.
[I SO NEEED TO SCREAM OUT LOUD RIGHT NOW!]
https://www.revolver.news/2020/10/rigged-presidential-debate-commission-frank-fahrenkopf-color-revolution/
In other words, the conspiracy masque is being ripped off, revealing the bi-partisan characters manning the Coup d’Etat against President Trump.
And their globalist connections.
Brian said,
“If you haven’t figured out yet that the DNC is a criminal enterprise, then you’re probably too dumb to vote.”
This is blunt, but there is some truth in it. In the beginning of such movements, there are always sincere true believers. But such people never get into any significant positions of power. Only the guilty can be allowed in the inner circle, because everyone knows that if one of them squeals, they too will hang.
In Venezuela with the Chavistas, I saw how the idealists were sidelined, marginalized, or just murdered. Eventually, all that was left was a criminal cartel.
What few people understand is how deep the Democratic ties are to the criminals in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, China, etc…
CORRECTION: Michelle Malkin, not “Michelle Malin”
Robert Spencer with a perceptive analysis—that the presidential and VP debates were an inquisition, whose intent was to establish Trump’s, and Pence’s unquestionable guilt, creating a constant spectacle of the two (akin to pig-sticking) and leading, they hope, to the inevitable auto-da-fe in November:
https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/robert-spencer/2020/10/10/the-debates-the-grand-inquisition-of-the-heretics-trump-and-pence-n1034321
One could say that this describes perfectly the Democratic Party’s and Mainstream Corrupt Media’s hysterical and insane, non-stop attacks on Trump and his supporters over the past four years.
One thing has become clear to me over the past four years: if you are interested in a story that appears in the news, go look at the original source material if you can. The news people ALWAYS distort it in some way, usually to fit into a pre-determined narrative. Find the the legal filing, look at the press conference, read the court opinion, review the report, read the transcript. The press always gets it wrong, sometimes in a major way so that black is reported as white.
This, of course, is the essence of Michael Crichton’s observations about the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. If you don’t know about it, look it up. You will be amused.
Huxley & DNW (or your alter ego CNW, as the case may be 😉 ) – jumping in here because, although I am a serious Christian, I don’t do circle dancing; however, I know many people who do, and I can understand it in an intellectual way.
IMO, whether you grok the circle dancing or not can be illuminated with a personality theory approach (see the Myers-Briggs / Keirsey formulations, for instance):
People who are of a certain temperament or type, call it A, do A-things; people of temperament B don’t really understand those things, and they do B-things, which temp-A people don’t understand.*
Repeat for the four temperaments or 16 MBTI classification types; duplicate in whatever personality theory you prefer.
To pick a couple of well-known figures**: I would suspect that the doctrine-codifier Thomas Aquinas would be more at home in a college debate than would the mystic Teresa of Avila, but both fought the religious “wars” on their own territory. (FWIW, she was also a formidable theologian, but in a different way than he was.)
However, while no ideology or religion (an ideology with a deity) has a monopoly on temperaments/types, some have more affinity for As than for Bs (or vice-versa). The more narrow the doctrines/theology of the religion, or the focus/agenda of the ideology, the more likely it is for its affinity to be reduced to fewer types.
I concur that there is more circle-dancing among liberals than among conservatives, and a LOT more circle-dancing on the Left than on the Right. However, while no hard-line Leftists are classical liberals (despite their sometimes-claims to that label, they are illiberal extremists), not all self-styled liberals are leftists; some self-styled conservatives are quasi-liberals; and some Right-wingers are extremists rather than conservatives.***
It seems to me that the RW prepper-militia groups are as narrow in their own way as any Leftist organizations (or Ideas 😉 ), just with a different agenda and focus; and are similarly inclined to circle-dancing, but in a different key-signature and to a different beat.
Leftists (or, more generally, extremists) may be more inclined to be circle-dancers than conservatives because of the psychological affinities of an ideology that promotes socialism and its attendant control over other people “for their own good” (and just coincidentally, “for ours!”). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt is often cited as an exploration of how liberals and conservatives differ in psychology; I don’t agree with all of his assertions, but it’s a valuable source of data and analysis. (BTW, he specifically mentions physical dancing as a way in which groups reinforce their social cohesion; this isn’t the same as “circle dancing” but it is a relevant factor)****.
* * * *
PS “in the long view” — per the MBTI research, “thinkers” actually are a much smaller fraction of humanity than “feelers.”
*We learned about those distinctions in our own family with regard to just the basic introvert-extrovert division among our kids (Number Three Son still has to decode “feeling things” for the rest of us “thinking” folks).
**BION – I am not the first to make this connection, although I only found that out a few minutes ago; Philip Neri appears to be a more complete opposite to Aquinas, who shares two types (NT) with Teresa.
https://grottonetwork.com/keep-the-faith/community/catholic-saints-myers-briggs/
https://catholicstand.com/a-quick-catholic-guide-to-personality-types/
For any LDS readers: I would say that Dallin Oaks is definitely on the Debate Team, and other General Authorities (who are in no way his intellectual inferiors) speak more to the emotional aspects of spirituality. None of them are circle dancers IMO, although some members seem to be.
***I will not try to parse membership in the Republican and Democrat Parties at the current time; I think they are both on the verge of meiosis and recombination of their leaders and members.
However, the personality typing is too irresistible as an explanation – it’s been done, and matched my off-the-cuff assessment that the Left is more NFP and the Right more STJ.
Keep in mind that “Judging” and “Perceiving” in the MBTI really mean “prefers closure” to “prefers open-ended” situations. I think we can agree that the left and right both include substantial numbers of people who are judgmental and imperceptive.
https://www.slayerment.com/mbti-politics
https://www.16personalities.com/articles/the-us-political-personality-i-parties
https://www.usadailytimes.com/2017/12/26/myers-briggs-personality-type-and-political-affiliation/
****Dancing is not the same as circle-dancing: our family “thinkers” include an avid social/ballroom dancer, and AesopSpouse and I do folk dancing (we are not coordinated enough for the ballroom styles!).
One more link on political parties and personality.
Note especially in this one that by “liberal” the author means actual classical liberals, not leftists.
https://personalityjunkie.com/08/personality-politics-liberals-conservatives-myers-briggs-big-five/
“Based on this, we might predict the ENFP personality type to be the most politically liberal and the ISTJ to be the most conservative, with the remaining fourteen types falling somewhere in between. Keep in mind that because the S-N preference is the most politically potent, it would not at all be unusual for a type like an INTJ to be politically liberal or an ESFP to lean conservative.”
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. In the Republican primaries there were numerous candidates I would have been excited to vote for, Trump wasn’t one of them. There was no way I would vote for Hillary either, but for the first time in my life I didn’t vote for the Republican candidate. (I voted for the Libertarian without knowing a whole lot about him on the assumption that he couldn’t possibly be as bad as I thought the two major party candidate were.) I didn’t really pay much attention to the campaign after the primaries because I’d already decided I didn’t like either candidate, and anyway everyone said it was no contest. When Trump actually won, I decided it was time to take a second look at him since he was going to be president. So between the election and the inauguration I began to look more closely at the news about (then) President-Elect Trump. The first thing I noticed was that he was seldom directly quoted. Instead views were attributed to him without any substantiation, and supposed quotes were really simply paraphrases. So I began to try to find the original source, in context, of the various ideas and statements being attributed to him. Sometimes I couldn’t find anything. Sometime I found statements which, in context, were clearly meant as jokes. Sometimes I found him stating a case that he then argued against, only to have the thing he was arguing against attributed to him as something he said and believed. The things he was really trying to say were sometimes things I agreed with. Sometimes they were things I disagreed with. And sometimes they were said in a way that I found a little objectionable. But in every case, even the ones where I didn’t agree with him and/or found the way he said it a little objectionable, the way it was reported was dishonestly misleading (at best) in a way to make it seem completely beyond the pale.
Around the inauguration I decided I’d done enough. I don’t have time to fact check everything I see in the political press. So from then on I’ve had two rules: first, don’t believe anything the press says about President Trump. Second, pay attention to what he actually does as President, and on how well it works out for the country, instead of what he is reported to believe and/or say. On that basis I now believe that Trump may be the best president in my lifetime, and I only say ‘may’ because I’m old enough to have voted for Reagan twice.
Turley describes, if a bit too dispassionately, the overarching, serial fraudulence of the Democratic Party and the MSCM as he hints somewhat mysteriously at what’s on the line in three weeks:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/520464-democrats-want-voters-in-the-dark-with-this-version-of-truman-show
H/T Powerline blog.
In any event, whatever one says or thinks about them, it cannot be denied that the Democrats (and their stalwart allies) have been studying their Orwell good and hard such that the scoundrels have developed undeniable mastery, an eerie expertise…which would go far to explain their affinity to Iran, to Venezuela, to Russia and above all to China.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/10/dems-and-media-redefine-court-packing-to-mean-opposite-of-what-it-really-means-to-help-biden-out-of-jam/
An excellent summary, Darnok.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. I really enjoy your blog now and again.
I wanted to mention something that I found really fascinating about the first video you posted. I had copied the URL in order to watch then entire video at https://www.viveos.net/video/HSmnwGCdFOU/former-liberal-ex.html
And I thought, “How nice, an alternative site to Alphabet’s youtube.”
Then I noticed that autoplay was selected, and it was completely blank except for one video, which would automatically play next. Can you guess what it was?
“Uninformed Democrat turns Republican Propagandist?”
Well, I didn’t watch it, but recommending that title seems to imply a very interesting site bias at viveos.net.
Anyway, thanks for keeping up with the blog, and good fortune to you!
The large number of comments describing Dem/Leftist dishonesty here is a sad tribute to the fact that the USA is Venezuelanizing itself. There is NO right-wing media anymore, no public voice; even the Drudge Report has been seized by the Left. It is all Dem/Leftist evasions and lies. Trump will lose, and America will be no more. Ever.
My taxes will rise to fund my oppression.
Based on this, we might predict the ENFP personality type to be the most politically liberal and the ISTJ to be the most conservative
AesopFan: In the Climate Etc blog I once mentioned I was INTJ and I guessed that a quarter of the commenters were likewise. Given that there are 16 Meyers-Briggs categories and assuming even distribution, there should only have been 6.25% INTJs, not 25%. However, those who shared their MBs were over 50% INTJ!
In practice it’s even worse. Statistically INTJs turn out to be rare — only 2.1% of the population:
https://www.careerplanner.com/MB2/TypeInPopulation.cfm
BTW Climate Etc commenters are mostly climate skeptics and I imagine skew conservative in today’s politics. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a high percentage of INTJs here.
OTOH I’m not sure how reliable Myers-Briggs is. Apparently re-testing often yields different results. As a traditionalist, I think we ought to stick to astrology. 🙂
https://www.skeptical-science.com/skepticism-2/is-myers-briggs-scientific/
Cicero:
Try the Bongino Report.com as an replacement for the “Dregs (of society) Report”
Returning to circle dancing. Here’s the defining part of the Kundera quote:
____________________________________________
Circle dancing is magic. It speaks to us through the millennia from the depths of human memory. Madame Raphael had cut the picture out of the magazine and would stare at it and dream. She too longed to dance in a ring. All her life she had looked for a group of people she could hold hands with and dance with in a ring.
http://www.thenewneo.com/2017/08/16/it-just-might-be-a-good-time-to-revisit-this-quote-from-milan-kundera-on-circle-dancing/
____________________________________________
This is a deep part of what it is to be human. It’s what most people look for in their families, groups and churches. It’s not often fulfilled very well, but that hardly makes those who seek it weak, cowardly or escapist, as DNW uncharitably characterized them.
DNW, AesopFan: If you don’t believe people circle-dance in Christianity, you’re not looking hard enough or your empathy meter is set way too low.
Here’s a real Israeli circle dance that I found ecstatic when I encountered it in college from the same record we danced to.
–Oranim Zabar Troupe, “Mayim Mayim”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkNzHIPbC-k
I would love to have continued Israeli folk dancing after college and even went to a few Jewish Community Centers, but I’m not Jewish in the least, sadly, and it felt too weird.
Content, sharing it free: “The Plot Against The President.”
Filmmaker Amanda Milius examines evidence of a conspiracy to sabotage President Donald Trump.
Watch here while it lasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A3a1LNlf0Y&feature=youtu.be
I believe this documentary, based on Lee Smith’s most recent book, premiered at FoxNews on October 10th.
(“Amanda Milius was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of director/screenwriter John Milius [Apocalypse Now, Jeremiah Johnson, Dirty Harry, Big Wednesday, Conan The Barbarian].” And Red Dawn!)
TJ: The Force is strong in Miliuses….
For what it is worth, I am an ENFP (although close to the middle on everything except intuition) and I am a classical liberal — NOT a statist. Based on history, experience, and observation, I believe that most individuals can decide what is best for themselves, particularly if they believe that they have to be fundamentally self-reliant and they are reasonably well-informed about human nature and history. I also believe that social changes should be made gradually, because there are always unknown and unintended consequences. All utopian schemes are bound to fail and are likely to lead to further human misery.
“the conspiracy masque is being ripped off, revealing the bi-partisan characters manning the Coup d’Etat against President Trump.
And their globalist connections.” – TJ
The Revolver article was quite shocking; I read a couple more in the series.
Excellent detective work.
But if the masque is ripped off in a dark alley at midnight (that is, in non-MSM posts), who will know?
“If you don’t believe people circle-dance in Christianity, you’re not looking hard enough or your empathy meter is set way too low.” – huxley
I know they do, and sometimes I can get with the flow, but my empathy meter is a conscious intellectual abstract construction, not a natural part of my personalty.
I am an ISTJ all the way; would have pegged you for an INTP, but maybe it was the J that helped propel you out of the hippie culture.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a high percentage of INTJs here.”
We could take a poll.
Darnok looks to be a good candidate (excellent comment BTW).
“OTOH I’m not sure how reliable Myers-Briggs is. Apparently re-testing often yields different results.”
People who are borderline can end up in different Types depending on the actual questions in the test they take; they are supposed to yield the same result, but there are nuances that the question writers often seem oblivious too (same as with some SAT questions — they often force a choice between two not-quite-right answers).
Also, there may be the problem of misunderstanding by the test-taker: I had to have one son repeat the questionnaire we used because he was answering with what he thought he ought to be, or wanted to be, rather than what he was.
“As a traditionalist, I think we ought to stick to astrology”
I think that probably developed as an antediluvian first stab at personality theory. It was obvious people thought and behaved differently, for no apparent earthly reason, and there had to be an explanation, so they reached for the most obvious one of celestial determination.
As a team-building activity at work last year, we did the Myers-Briggs thing. It was interesting, but I remember thinking at the time that I distrusted some of the underlying assumptions about the test crafters’ understanding of personality and the possibility of changes in same. Are you all going to make me haul out my paperwork from that exercise for this poll? I’ve got it around here somewhere, but it could take me a while to dig it out.
I will note that I was surprised at some of the results for certain coworkers at the time, but not extremely so. There was a considerable but not ironclad correlation between our job functions and personality types, which I thought amusing.
(I did not put that plus sign in my name, btw. That was strange. Something on my end.)
In response to Neo’s suggestion, I’ve tried discussing facts with “liberal” friends.
They are impervious to information. They exhibit a defensive posture of condescension or anger. I’m the “ wing nut” who doesn’t know 98% of scientists have declared that AGW is settled science. Trump is insane, stupid, a crook, a Putin flunky etc.
The sad thing is that they, their families, and closest circle think identically. True hive mind, completely credulous of anything their media sources pour into their heads, and zero curiosity about other facts or opinions.
IQ is not the issue. Intellectual honesty, ability to think critically about something in which they are emotionally invested, quick to argue “shut up” are their hallmarks. And these are t the bombthrowers who get so angry they turn purple and spittle flies as they remonstrate.
I told one of these friends he’s become a cliche. I think he’s proud of it.
Trump didn’t mock a disabled reporter, but Antifa did harass a disabled candidate.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/10/10/joe-bidens-contempt-for-the-american-public-and-for-the-facts/#comment-2519168
Barry Meislin on October 11, 2020 at 6:07 am said:
Remember kids, Antifa is “an idea”…
https://www.dailywire.com/news/you-have-no-soul-far-left-activists-allegedly-vandalize-home-of-north-carolina-congressional-candidate
Kate on October 11, 2020 at 7:21 am said:
Good grief, Barry Meislin. That congressional candidate is the disabled young man who “stood up” for the flag. The vandalism, as described, and the quoted tweets from the Dem candidate are violent and disgusting. Fortunately, this district in the mountains of western NC is not going to elect the creepy Democrat.
“There was a considerable but not ironclad correlation between our job functions and personality types, which I thought amusing.” – Philip
Fitting people to jobs was, in fact, the rationale behind some of the research that went into the development of the MBTI in the first place.
https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/original-research.htm
It has problems, as you say, (“I remember thinking at the time that I distrusted some of the underlying assumptions about the test crafters’ understanding of personality and the possibility of changes in same.”) but is “good enough for government work.”
The assumptions are Jungian, and the test crafters are bound by their own personality biases (presumably they are of more than one type, but we know that certain types have an affinity for certain jobs so….).
As for changing personality, that’s another BIG question. FWIW, I believe that we can change our behavior even if we can’t change our basic psychological preferences; that’s the whole point of Christian ethics, and the foundational idea of repentance for bad behavior (aka sin).
I think the MBTI is more useful than many of the other typing systems that have attracted attention over the years (but then, as an ISTJ, I would like its logical structure), but it doesn’t capture every facet of interest, much like the SAT works for its original purpose of predicting success in university studies (or did), but doesn’t measure every aspect of intelligence.
I hope you find your paperwork – but you can always take the test again at one of the tabs on the link I gave.
I find Neo’s posts to be incredibly interesting, on multiple levels. But then I take the time to read through the comments, and I am often pleasantly surprised at the nuggets of insight here. I appreciate this site, and the commentators, a great deal.
We ought to tie this back to the subject of the post:
What personality types are most likely to (a) lie for political reasons; (b) decline to look at evidence of lying, for political reasons; (c) refuse to accept evidence when forced to look at it, for political reasons.
Extravert / Introvert probably doesn’t matter. (Spellcheck is wrong; it is not Extrovert), but street activists probably trend E and the string-pullers I.
Judging / Perceiving (remember this is really about preferring closure or open-ended situations, not being judgmental or perceptive) is also a close call, because “liberals” THINK they are open-minded, but since they are showing themselves to be lock-step decision-copy-cats (“the science is settled”), they are probably mostly J.
N (intuitive interpretation) and F (feelings oriented) are obvious.
So: ENFJ.
Annnnnd the answer in that box is — too optimistic and positive, as befits a publicly available website; the profile your HR department gets will be much more detailed and problematic
Interesting point by Roger Kimball, as the conclusion of a long, somewhat rambling but interesting, essay: (h/t PowerLine)
https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/10/the-cultural-roots-of-conservatism/
Let me end by noting that the opposite of “conservative” is not “liberal” but ephemeral. Russell Kirk once observed that he was conservative because he was liberal, that is, committed to freedom. Kirk’s formulation may sound paradoxical, but it touches on a great truth. To be conservative: that means wanting to conserve what is worth preserving from the ravages of time and ideology, evil and stupidity, so that freedom may thrive. In some plump eras the task is so easy we can almost forget how necessary it is. At other times, the enemies of civilization transform the task of preserving our culture into a battle for survival. That, I believe—and I say it regretfully—is where we are today.
More on lying from PowerLine:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/10/how-newspapers-lie.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/10/how-politicians-lie.php
If the establishment media is all some voters ever read, it is no surprise that Biden leads in the polls.
However, some voters read PowerLine and Neo!
A@AesopFan I have long used the Myers Briggs personality types so I get your observation that the analysis is “too optimistic and positive, as befits a publicly available website.” I’ll just add that I think Jordan Peterson’s observations on how personality types map onto the political spectrum using the Big Five personality inventory are also helpful. He observes that trait Openness correlates with liberalism (In the North American sense, ie not classical sense), while trait Conscientiousness correlates with conservatism. So he says entrepreneurs are high in openness and the accountants who help ground them high in conscientiousness. But we live in extraordinary times where the interplay of these traits is not happy at all. So from a grounded debate between openness and structure we have broken down the boundaries that constrain the movement of capital and gone on to break down the boundaries that constrain the free movement of people. And before we know it a red headed, serial entrepreneur is coming down an escalator telling us we need to build a wall and a few years later the champions of open borders are in the streets rioting. And somehow beneath the surface of this American struggle between Order and Chaos there is the very different but connected struggle between the EU and the UK in the Brexit negotiations.
Okay. Lefty here. I looked at all you videos more than once. So maybe there is a case here? Next morning I reviewed them (on Sunday). I looked at the full video of the rally in November 2015 from Myrtle Beach South Carolina. I looked at the full Washington Post article that Trump used to back up his claim that thousands of people in NJ had celebrated the towers falling on 9/11. I looked at the statement Serge had made that Trump indicated was Serge not remembering what he had said in the 9/18 article. I looked at Trumps later statement that Serge was groveling after Serge had changed his story and was using his disability to grandstand. I looked at Serge’s comments about reporting on as well as meeting Trump.
My conclusion is that it was likely that he was mocking the reporter’s disability. But I can’t know what was in his mind and he has indeed made similar gestures (though not quit as sustained or “flailing).” What I am pretty clear on is that Trump tried to use Serge’s article to prove his claim of thousands celebrating 9/11, which the reporter’s article clearly did not support. Serge never changed his story, what he said was:
“I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember.”
That is all, that is not changing his story, it is not flailing, it is not groveling. Trump used the “poor man” the “nice man” as a foil to deceive his audience. I find it pretty despicable.
I also went to look at the walkaway’s posts on youtube. I looked at Brandon’s newest post and five others who were featured as walking away (Shannon, Officer Tatum, Lucretia, Kristal, and Lynzee). Shannon is an Independent, Lynzee is a Conservative so neither of those walked away. Kristal seems to have walked away based on a few encounters with one person. I didn’t really find anything specific that I could research. Too much generalization.
I did try to find out more about the group and one thing that came up on Volokh (which you might want to remove from your blogroll since the trustworthy “enclaves” seem to be diminishing so quickly for some strange reason) was a court case of Strata vs the LGBQTCC in NYC that was dismissed that has a summary of why the case was dismissed as well as a link to the full pdf. It is quite interesting. And confirmed my opinion that he is a provocateur with some rather reprehensible views about LGBQT people–especially QTs.
BTW. Neo, no one sent this link to me, I have been looking at your site for years–beginning from sometime after you started your old blog. But I thought it might be interesting to respond to your post and wanted to ask my own question. Why did you not send a link to this post to some of your own “Democrat friends?” I don’t know if you didn’t but am pretty sure it is true based on the post where your friend screeched away!
Doing all this checking is rather exhausting and one of the reasons I’m not apt to repeat this exercise often. I have certainly seen many cases were the MSM and lefty blogs get things wrong. I do not idealize lefty politicians and recognize they don’t get things right; that they spin, hyperbolize and sometimes lie. Sometimes they will apologize. Hillary apologized for the deplorable comment, Obama did so for the Special Olympics joke. I’ve never seen Trump apologize and I do think Serge Kovaleski was owed one.
“…get things wrong…” is an interesting way of putting it.
(By the way, speaking of “apologies”, which Trump never quite seems to be able to make, alas, do you think Clinton will apologize for her most “ingenious” hoax, for slandering, smearing, traducing and trashing Trump ad infinitum and for starting Civil War 2? While we’re at it, do you think Obama will apologize for his role in trampling the Constitution to shreds, for weaponizing government agencies against his political opponents, for subverting the court system, for destroying people’s lives, for trying to destroy—sorry, make that “fundamentally transform”—the country his wife claimed once-upon-a-very-short-time she was so “finally proud” of?… Or maybe it’s just “bad optics”? Curious minds, such as they are, etc…)
I convert enemies to allies and resources. No need to fight them once Sun Tzu’s highest war skill is obtained.
All that civil war 2 prep and ammo buying prep and learning Alinsky to fight Alinsky, is a waste of energy in the Golden Age. For I am opening the way to the light and truth.
Trump mocks many people for being losers and liars or hypocrites. THis is not something special. Nor was he all that sorry that Ted Cruz’s father was accused by him as being in on the JFK Mafia hit. This is what makes him an easy target and why the media thought they had a gotcha.
But Trump is like Ymar, hard to gotcha.
Filmmaker Amanda Milius examines evidence of a conspiracy to sabotage President Donald Trump.
I remember when people wrote I was a conspiracy theorist, including some conservatives (so called) here.
How times have changed, as the hammer fell in 2020 forcing people to wake up and stop being slave clowns of the Deep State.
“As a traditionalist, I think we ought to stick to astrology”
I think that probably developed as an antediluvian first stab at personality theory. It was obvious people thought and behaved differently, for no apparent earthly reason, and there had to be an explanation, so they reached for the most obvious one of celestial determination.
*raises hand* Expert here.
No, what the Vedics did was to gather actual data on people’s celestial configuration at First Breath (the birth does not matter in and of itself) and noticed correlations between celestial configurations in the sky vs how people turned out.
Over 4000 years.
Meanwhile, Jungian psychoanalysis and Freud stuff is… 400 years? Not even that.
Also for those that don’t realize this, Carl Jung channeled from the aether, much of his concepts. He was big into spiritual testing and what might be called seances now a days.
https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Carl+Jung+seances&cat=web&pl=opensearch
Hehe, st uff they don’t teach you in public re education camp, heh.
Isaac Newton, alchemist. Big in alchemy and that whole Hebrew Kabbalah thing.
Perhaps it is a mark of successful geniuses that they actually look at things from the past, rather than merely adhere to fake news narratives that tell them how and when to think.
I don’t do circle dancing; however, I know many people who do, and I can understand it in an intellectual way.
You did circle the wagons when you thought a comment of mine was “anti Mormon”. I can read your responses and your emotions. This is a result of that hard heart “defensiveness” in the DNA and traditions. It is not a circle dance, but it is circling the wagons and thinking everything outside your traditions is a threat.
With so many teachings from General Conference that your traditions are not enough… I wonder if you have made any spiritual repentance progress on that issue yet, Aesop.
Not that I doubt the phenomenon exists, but this circle dancing thing has never made a lick of sense to me.
Most likely because when it happens to you, DNW, you are not aware of it. Such as your reaction to my comments about the Vatican/Inquisition persecuting and torturing the saints of the Most High. You didn’t even realize that you had been triggered. That is not because you are, you know, Pro Catholic or something religious like that, but merely because that is how you were brought up or at least as a kid you still hold certain conditioning from the Catholic schools.
jes, thanks for your calm comment.
Sorry you remain unconvinced but that’s life. As far as #WalkAway, let me simply say: it’s real. Like so many here on this blog I’m a former Dem voter who no longer pulls the lever for Dems, ever.
I don’t think we can reasonably ask more of you. So take care.
Ymar, thanks for your weird comment.
As far as I can remember I’ve never had an inkling what you are talking about. Although I’m not enlightened or enraged by your comments I am entertained. I’m also a bit disturbed by your criticism of specific people but doubtless they can handle it.
Anyway, in my mental cupboards you’re filed under “intellectual diversity”.
The Narrative(TM) takes a hit. (Don’t worry: it will recover no problem.)
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/288911
This series doesn’t have to be posted, of course, because (no doubt) it’s all over the MSCM. But just in case:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16503/black-lives-matter-appraisals
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16560/black-lives-matter-appraisals-2
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16610/black-lives-matter-appraisals-3
And a bonus endorsement:
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/the-leader-of-the-us-communist-party-just-endorsed-biden/
Regarding my read-through of Barry’s final link, I must admit that it had never previously occurred to me that the candidate for the National Pot Legalization Party [once known as the multi- issue Libertarian Party] was nowhere to be seen.
Is there a Libertarian candidate? Does the Libertarian Pot for All Party even exist anymore? Has Gary Johnson recovered fron his bout of the pouts? And will sensitive Republican conservatives ever find any candidate good, and pure, and caring enough to vote for again? Other than Democrats, of course.
And what about Jill Whatshername of the Green Party? What became of her?
Maybe what we are not seeing this election, tells us – if we did not already know – something about the stakes.
And finally, why did I write “straights” instead of “straits” the other day, when I was referring to a body of water, and not the bodies of the non-perverted? Damn tablet …
“What personality types are most likely to (a) lie for political reasons; (b) decline to look at evidence of lying, for political reasons; (c) refuse to accept evidence when forced to look at it, for political reasons.” – Aesop
In case any ENFJs here think I am tossing them overboard above with the armchair psychological assertions, remember the important caveats that personality is NOT character (it is a behavioral style; ethics are a separate factor); and any type can be a member of any group, political or otherwise, because of personal situations.
I certainly am not saying that all ENFJs are Democrats (which would be a very unlikely occurrence).
I’m not even saying that all Democrat activists are ENFJs (probably they aren’t).
In other words (1) any personality type can, and will, lie for the appropriate incentive, and every type includes people who will not lie for any reason; (2) Ns are more likely than Ss to prioritize subjective interpretations over objective facts (“have their own truths”); (3) Fs are more likely than Ts to make decisions based on feelings rather than on logic or rational analysis (“if it saves one life” – but never look at what “it” actually accomplishes); (4) Js are more likely than Ps to stop looking for evidence once they have reached a conclusion (on whatever basis), because they don’t want ambiguity about their chosen causes (“the science is settled”).
The other thing to remember is that we have seen it amply demonstrated that what the Left professes to hold as behavioral preferences are almost the exact opposite of what they actually do (that is, they are not tolerant of opposition, inclusive of skeptics, or open-minded about dissension).
Ymarsakar – yes, circle dancing is not the same as circling the wagons.
However, the defenders handling the wagons are encircling their dancers to protect them.
Barry – excellent series from Gatestone –
“This new multi-part series focuses on the perspectives of blacks — conservative, liberal or libertarian — who appraise BLM and its agenda. The following selection of commentary by blacks from all walks of life — actors, athletes, businesspeople, civil rights activists, clergy, commentators, physicians and politicians — demonstrates that black public opinion is not monolithic and that BLM does not speak for all African Americans.”
These are the people the Left wants to shut down (see Star Parker’s quote).
The Democrats and their Media are complicit.
Excellent comments also.
Funny. So yeah, what do you do with a trollish tarbaby? The standard advice is to just ignore it. But this overlooks the fact that even mentally unbalanced types can occasionally say curiously interesting things. The trouble is of course, that they are only interested in attracting attention to themselves, and never in explaining the same once they have gotten it.
At best they will go all gnomic, as an evasion, and a ploy to keep one “hooked”
For example I was genuinely ( or almost genuinely) interested in just who these “saints” of the Mostest Highest that the Vatican burned, were. Lucretia MacEvil? Philo of Vance? DiGiorno of Pizza?
And since the realm of superlatives has been incanted by the theologian of Sun Dat or DatSun as the case may or may not be, what about the presumably Less High and its band of – if not saints exactly – the adequately competent? So what is their role, huh?
Who are these people? Liberal-minded and tolerant folks naturally want to know.
And now, that my interest has been piqued by yet another year of veiled and not so veiled references to me and to the Mostest Highest in the same context, by one of his leading and unrelentingly determined acolytes no less, so do I.
Yammer is what Yammer does.
A veritable bag of word salad long past it’s expiration date.
I still don’t get this cricle dancing stuff unless it is reduced to a synonym for incidental-to-the-aim fellowship and fellow-feelings: in which case it covers way more ground than makes it seem a useful term to me.
Circle dancing seemed, I thought, to refer to a nearly mesmeric attraction to an immersive, ego releasing, collective identification per se, which some people were attracted to [ not shouting here, just emphasizing] FOR ITS OWN SAKE.
Now if I’m wrong about the character of this circle dancing business, and it includes the average family reunion, or barn raisings, or painting grandma’s house, or getting a job at NASA and feeling part of an important shared interest and civilizational project, then so be it. I guess we are all circle dancing whether or not we know it or feel it, almost constantly.
JimMorCal—Yeah, about jes, he is. Your comment is thoughtful, probably helpful.It may be no help here for me to echo Darnak’s…conviction conversion?
Like many here and elsewhere, I became a Trump supporter by dint of Marxist media lies. It’s growth and persistence led me from August 2015 to the spring of 2016 to support him.
Like many, I did not lean Trump. But my new hair cutter Jim did.
He turned out to have moved from Minneapolis to Denver a couple decades earlier. He was retirement aged with three adult children, divorced, conservative Catholic, but still a smoker with respiratory ailments (COPD taking his life by May of 2017).
But besides being older, he was not a typical hair stylist. He read three or four daily newspapers, for instance. And finding out that he was a neighbour made needful political discussion inevitable.
By contrast With me, Jim was a Trump fan from the June, 2015 announcement. He had been a Michael Medved fan (who disappeared from the airwaves in Denver for 2016 or longer).
Of course, I knew the media leaned very Left and lied fervently by omission — by not covering salient stories (eg, Obama’s 20 years with a Black “hate America First” Marxist minister), as well as by distorting facts (eg, headlines hiding the econ recovery in the data during George H W Bush re-election).
But the radical transformation of “news” into an aggressive propaganda and cover-up tool throughout 2016 convinced me that the ruling class had a lot to hide. And that they had moved beyond being a Praetorian Ruling Class guardian class, into their calculating cheerleaders and activist brain trust.
In other words, Ruling Class management by changing the people they rule over, effectively described our devolutionary decline. St. Obama postured to volunteer “managed decline.” Just as my Tea Party friends thought in 2012, Obama’s Red fascist re-election signalled the terminal decline of the USA.
Too many Constitutional barriers had been broken (cf, GMU law prof David Bernstein’s shocked book on the subject), too many laws were ignored entirely (eg, borders as a suggestion), and there was too much corruption going on beyond the visible (eg, Obama paid off contributors by setting up Dem donors with Federal guaranteed backing for solar energy company Solyndra; Boulder County had its own half billion dollar solar windmill maker maker that failed, just like Solyndra). Because Wall Street had moved to DC in 2009, this meant corruption on steriods.
Thus, in September 2016, I was already primed to embrace Michael Anton’s “Flight 93” Election thesis: that a Left victory meant the final end of American Liberty.
But back to the Marxist media and Darnak’s story, the increasingly maliciously lying “news.”
Phony and false stories that one could fact check online by video or recording or transcripts used to be a weekly problem. During the 2016, this grew to be a daily or more problem.
What are the Marxist media covering up? If Obama’s legacy as President was “scandal free,” why hide the facts? The FBI Director blatantly lied about Dem candidate Hillary (Eg, Hillary would not reasonably be prosecuted…despite the fact that intent is nowhere in the statutes law, nor has such discretion about espionage been exercised with the little guys). Blatant double standard injustice: Democrats get waived, opponents get Swat Teams and an anal probe.
A truism from military history applies to political combat: if you ain’t getting flak, you ain’t over the target! And the constant death scream over a Trump told me then that he threatened the Ruling Class with an overthrow of their power.
As we’ve seen, Russiagate became Spygate became Obamagate. Unsurprisingly, my Tea Party friends in 2012 were correct. The Far Left has taken over the Democrats and turned them into CommieCrats; they are the enemies of the USA and the American People and freedom because the Constitution is their enemy, as is the Rule of Law.
Who will stop them? The last man standing, Donald J Trump. And the oldest and most powerful bureaucratic arms of the federal government are the most corrupt and evil, as time has proved.
With the Antifa tattooed killing of a 49 year old peaceful protesting vet and Patriot shot dead in Denver, and today the 40 years political radio icon Peter Boyles states that we were once near to a Civil War — but “I believe we may now be in one.”
I welcome the violent and blood lust filled extirpation of the Hate America First Marxist CommieCrats. We cannot live together in peace with coup currying traitors who will kill dissenters anyway! The New Rules: kill or be killed.
Death to the lying, hating, traitor Democrats. I don’t give a flying f-tard like Jed a nice guy the time of day. Death must be imposed upon Democrats for Liberty to be safe and justice to breath (cf, Deep State tool Judge Sullivan, tenth circus court of DC, vs Gen. Flynn).
Our patriot militias must hunt red fascist Dems to the death this coming election week. This isn’t about words or politeness. This is a Sickness Unto the Death.
The Obamunists began exercising their Evils upon innocent people. Only Patriots will End It. Let is be.
By your enemies friends you may know them. (Isn’t that a Bible quote?)
Biden has been endorsed for US President by the CCP, and Putin effectively did so, comparing him to Soviet Communists. Even that savant Greta Thunderbird agrees.
Now, Barry adds the CPUSA. (Actually, they’ve backed Democrats at least since a Kerry in 2004.)
YouGov poll asks Americans whether violence is acceptable to achieve political goals? (Politico via Zerohedge):
From 6 or 8% in 2017 to 30 or 36% by September 2020 (Dems vs Republicans, respectively). Hey. At least we agree on violence to get our own way!
See bar chart here
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/adjustment-day-looms-americas-headed-violent-civil-war
Jes, THANKS! Please come and post your Lefty views more often. We are in a neo-bubble, despite trying to be open to other ideas. Your thoughtfulness was better than Montage, for instance, who I’m also glad is here occasionally.
On checking Trump, it’s certainly true that he’s aggressive, even a “bully”, against those who disagree with him. Perhaps especially those who call out his exaggerations as wrong, or as a lie, and it seems he’s insensitive to their handicapped, racial, or sexual status. He seems to counterpunch equally.
A current Big Lie by Biden is about Trump calling white supremacists “very fine people”. Here’s the Charlottesville context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs
Is the press reporting Trump’s words accurately? Here, no. Mostly, not so much. Trump accurately noted then about fine people being against pulling down statues of R.E. Lee, and asked about pulling down statues of slave-owning George Washington & Thomas Jefferson.
Very often the Dem news is taking a phrase out of context. Commonly it is a sentence, but then the news liar says something like Trump thus “means something bad / obnoxious / racist / sexist / deplorable” but the bad stuff is in words that Trump didn’t say.
I check Trump’s twitter feed (but not as much as I check here at Neo):
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump
He’s recently retweeted #blackvoicesfortrump. He could win in a landslide.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/trump-unthinkable-liz-conklin/ Has more stories about Trump good deeds, tho the claim that they were not publicized before he became president is listed as False.
He could lose, still.
.
As an INTP, I really like the Myers-Briggs personality profile, and the great book explaining it:
Please Understand Me.
I’m an I-introvert with lots of E-extravert skills, can test E or I. (Thx for note on NOT extro as opposite of intro in the vert version!) Not quite mentioned above is that about ¼ of the folk are N- intuitive, abstract compared to ¾ who are S-sensitive, concrete. Plus, for N abstract folk, like me, the Thinking/Feeling way of making decisions is more important. For S concrete folk, the closure J / open-ended P life style is more important. (NT, NF; SJ, SP are the four main temperaments).
So what is Donald? My guess is ENxJ, where he can think like an NT but also feel like an NF, while looking to close the deal. Vast majority of artists are NF, as are most “wordsmith” writers. Yet plenty of smart S folk. So Trump could easily be ESFJ or even ESTJ. Tho I’m sure of E . . J.
Jordan Peterson and most pro psych folk use the Big 5 model of personality, which seems more helpful in their work on reducing mental problems. They only have a single label, like Extraversion, for each of five axes and folk are high or low. On Openness. Conscientiousness. Neuroticism. And … need to look it up. I don’t like it as well, and it doesn’t explain normal folk to me, or me to myself, as well as MBTI. Not Likeability, no – Agreeableness. Oh yeah, the OCEAN traits.
I very much like the value neutrality of the MBTI, without “better” answers, while the Big 5 seems to have 3 clearly “more” desirable traits, plus Extraversion which is known to be common and different yet not particularly better than Introversion. Then there’s the negative Neuroticism, where most folk want to score low. Not really a renaming of the 4 MBTI plus neurotics, and it’s not clear to this layman how it’s better, tho for statistics it might well be. Especially that 5th neurotic trait that MBTI fails to account for.
Tho maybe it’s particularly useful in treating the mentally ill, where getting along with, or selling to, normal folk, the MBTI is easier to understand and apply. And remember! Then there’s the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and psychopathy from a 2002 paper) and a newer HEXACO 6 axis model.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886914000683
As far as I know, there are no clear tests for gullibility. In this post-Truth age, there’s not even agreement on who is being gullible. However, as with Darnak’s conclusion on Trump.
Follow the results.
Trump has done more good than any President since Reagan.
DNW doesn’t get circle dancing? Do you even dance? Two or more people, moving in unison. I love dancing with wife, and getting lost in the dance (horizontal dancing can be even better! But not as long.) I loved folk dancing, often in circles, with all of knowing/ learning the steps and doing them. Together. I believe in the Human Spirit, and how in groups of like minded folk, thinking holy thoughts, the group creates a Holy Spirit. A totality greater than the sum of the individuals.
It’s the same but opposite if the group thinks unholy thoughts – mob togetherness, loss/forgetfulness of individuality, but strong feelings of closeness to others. It’s even the same at sport matches or music concerts, folk experiencing life. Together. Yet being with others. The circle dance difference is that with sport or music, part of the togetherness is deliberately limited to the sport or music. Within the circle, it’s an attempt to get unlimited non-physical togetherness. United in spirit. Fitting in. Not quite “for its own sake”, but definitely yes to be part of the collective.
Religions almost offer this. I sort of feel that as most Christian religions have reduced their rituals, and the need to dress up for Church, and go every week, they have accepted too much individualism as compared to community.
TJ – we don’t need war. Violence is a big mistake. “I welcome the violent and blood lust filled extirpation of the Hate America First Marxist CommieCrats. We cannot live together in peace with coup currying traitors who will kill dissenters anyway! The New Rules: kill or be killed.”
This kind of rant mostly invalidates your prior mostly good critique. You can get flak even when you’re not over the target.
I believe 70% Trump wins, 30% Biden. And only 1% that there will be significant political violence (>1000 killed in any month for politics) if it is Biden. It’s really not a Flight 93 election, not really, not yet. Biden is terrible, but partly because so many Dems seem unhinged. You seem to be a bit of an unhinged pro-Trump Biden hater. The kind that might be seen in a CNN broadcast showing the “true feelings” of a Trump supporter, in order to discredit all law-abiding, and law-upholding Trump supporters.
We need to end PC violence and lawlessness with legal law enforcement, and legal punishment to the guilty, and equality under the law.
I pray we get more rule of law.
Only legitimate gov’t has a monopoly on legitimate use of force … (tho if the election is “stolen”???)
Trump is retweeting many ads from Republicans. Like this one from Joe Collins, a black veteran running against Maxine Waters, and her $6 million mansion outside of her South LA district.
https://twitter.com/joecollins43rd
I think this was just South of my South Gate suburb growing up.
I suspect Trump’s Rep org has a large number of Black Reps running against deep blue, long time incumbents. Most are likely to lose … but some might win, and all will get more local votes than Romney got. (all ~ 90% of districts Romney lost)
Personnel is policy. Trump’s Republicans might be fighting (= competing, not really fighting) in every district this year. Where is the publicity about how many Black Republican candidates there are?
Tom Grey:
It’s worse than 2016 Flight 93.
Pack the Supreme Court? Eliminate the filibuster in the Senate? Add Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states? Assassinate your political opponents in broad daylight without the cover of a riot (aka peaceful protest). Eliminated worship services for disfavored religious practices vs the favored religion of “wokeness.” Shut down much of the economy and rule the public by emergency orders from Governors, for the health of the public. Critical Race Theory running rampant in the schools, big business HR, State and Federal Government, and in the military academies. Nothing to see?
These are a few things you may have missed. All may be well in eastern Europe but it ain’t ducky here.
Circle dancing seemed, I thought, to refer to a nearly mesmeric attraction to an immersive, ego releasing, collective identification per se, which some people were attracted to [ not shouting here, just emphasizing] FOR ITS OWN SAKE.
DNW: Circle dancing, in Kundera’s sense, is quite broad and can cover almost anything people do together, but presumably is intended for the stronger varieties.
However, circle dancing is never purely for its own sake. Humans survive because they can join together in groups and maintain that unity. The more ecstatic that experience, the stronger the bonds and the better the survival odds, generally.
Circle dancing must not be underestimated. What conservatives miss in this question of why do Democrats accept lies and ignore the debunkings is that Democrats realize, likely unconsciously, that their place in the circle is being jeopardized. It’s a tiny threat to their survival and they know better than to do that.
This is what raises the #walkaway videos to acts of courage. I guarantee each walkaway person is going to suffer socially.
Meanwhile, conservatives act like the Village Atheist wondering why his arguments from Tom Paine and Bertrand Russell fall flat against Christians.
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I am an ISTJ all the way; would have pegged you for an INTP, but maybe it was the J that helped propel you out of the hippie culture.
AesopFan: Well, not just the hippie culture. My J, for judgment, didn’t help me in the Catholic, est/Landmark, Christian, and other, tinier subcultures either.
BTW, I’m also a textbook Enneagram 6, if you track that world, which was partly popularized by the Jesuits in the 1970s.
So where do these guys fit in on the M-B scale?
https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/10/11/rioters-still-looting-high-end-soho-shops-weekly-using-threats-racist-accusations/
Extravert?
Innovative?
Empathetic?
Improvisational?
Feeling?
Savvy?
Take the stairs two at a time?
….As they demonstrate, with great feeling and seriousness, that the US is guilty of systematic racism…
(…even though a Black president was elected in two straight elections (by the country where systematic racism reigns…but maybe the electorate only voted for his white half?—I mean how can we ever know?)
Looting in SOHO?
Systemic socialism?
Theft is reparations because 1619.
Hands full don’t loot?
Private property is theft, but This Is Fine.
Check their Yelp review, they had it coming those racist oppressors!
n.n. help me out here.
Hey om – it’s bad and in some ways it will get worse before it gets better. At least that’s the most frequent historical case, so it’s the way to bet.
(OK, Don Surber says never bet against Trump: NBADJT)
If Hillary had won (I was Never-Hillary), she would have made things worse, but Reps would have kept fighting and looking for some Rep fighter. The SCOTUS and judges would be in much much worse shape, and maybe the USA would be headed to Venezuela style decay.
Even Venezuela can come back. Rapidly. With good laws and good policies, that support the good people doing good things. But the “good things” need to be agreed upon.
It’s far far easier to agree on being against some specific “bad things”, than get agreement on any specific real good thing. All real things have good points and bad points.
Not all is well in the Euro Union, nor the Central European part (Eastern Europe is Russia), and we wear masks (without much opposition) with limited lockdowns (for which there are increasing calls to end). The arrogant elites are not quite as well entrenched, and more of them are more obviously crooks. Illegal but especially legal migration is a far greater cultural issue in many countries, tho not yet poor Slovakia (because it’s unattractively poor).
Critical Race Theory is a new aspect of PC, with the “systemic racism” being used to hide the truth about why Blacks are poor. Like why Slovak Roma are poor.
Too much sex before and outside of marriage – but that’s a different rant.
The “Revolution” that’s needed is to get more Republicans working on being K-12 teachers, often for less money than what can be gotten in other work. If saving America is not worth becoming a teacher, it’s unlikely to be worth shooting other Americans for.
Tom Grey:
“The “Revolution” that’s needed is to get more Republicans working on being K-12 teachers, often for less money than what can be gotten in other work. If saving America is not worth becoming a teacher, it’s unlikely to be worth shooting other Americans for.”
Wow. Stay in Slovenia.
jes:
To have watched that group of clips in which Trump uses the gesture over and over – and sometimes in a sustained way – going back years, and to conclude nevertheless that he was mocking the reporter’s disability is to reject clear and convincing evidence. It certainly is possible to do so, though, if the emotional need to reject it is great enough.
There’s also no reason to suspect Trump even knew about the reporter’s disability. Plus, I have read that the disability does not make the reporter’s arms flail; they make it difficult for him to move his arms at all. So the mocking gesture doesn’t even match the disability. This is the disability the reporter has. I also saw a short video of the reporter, and the arm that was in the picture did not move.
Aesop, thanks for that material on the psychology testing. It is quite an interesting question how politicians would shake out on that spectrum or grid of possibilities.
“I’m also a textbook Enneagram 6” – huxley
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
THE LOYALIST
Enneagram Type Six
The Committed, Security-Oriented Type:
Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
Sounds like a textbook “sheep-dog” – which is great!
Many years ago, when I was studying the different theories, I tried to correlate them to see if the descriptions of different types could be consolidated.
I no longer remember what I discovered, however.
Most of them seem to have different factors that they consider important, and that throws off any correspondence.
Based on the descriptions, I am close to 6 and to 1, but don’t feel totally “comfortable” there. Not enough self-control, and kind of sloppy about completing tasks.
1 THE REFORMER
The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
Whether the theories are completely valid is important , of course, but kind of beside the point for which I most appreciate them, which is demonstrating that people who are different from you are not weird aliens from space — and neither are you.
Sometimes you’re just a rare type in your usual habitat, and knowing each other’s types can help you get along with them better.
(Works that way for astrology too, of course; but the MBTI doesn’t give you a daily horoscope and investing advice.)
https://treehouseletter.com/2015/01/30/the-sheep-the-wolf-the-sheepdog-ltc-dave-grossman-american-sniper/
It is not a new idea (same source):
A commenter pointed out that the parable has a missing character: the Shepherd.
That’s a subject that would make this thread even longer!
I found this historical bit interesting:
http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=8070
Addendum to the Fable: it’s grounded in reality about the dog’s wolfish ways.
We took a trip to Wales about a decade ago, which included an excursion to a sheep farm and an exhibition of the sheep dog herding the flock.
The shepherd told us several interesting things.
There are an amazing number of breeds of sheep, not just the few we see in standard illustrations.
The black sheep are smarter than the white sheep.
Training a sheepdog involves convincing the puppy that you are the Alpha of the pack.
Dogs have personalities; not every dog with a herding pedigree will become a sheepdog — some of them just don’t like the job, and you can’t force them to learn it.
AND most importantly,
Sheep really do think the dogs are wolves, which is why they can be herded – they are running away from an assumed predator — and the sheepdogs use that to their advantage.
AesopFan: Thanks for the nice reframe on Six as Sheepdog! I ran into that military story on the Sheepdog long ago, maybe from Bill Whittle.
When I first read about Six, I felt kinda bad about being a Six. “Anxious and Suspicious,” you know.
However, as I came to understand the Enneagram, no personal type is better or worse than another. Advantages and disadvantages. Swings and roundabouts.
I don’t know how much credence I put in the Enneagram. Less than M-B anyway.
I am curious how the Jesuits got involved with the Enneagram. Seems like an odd business. But then who knows, other than Ymarsakar, what the Jesuits are really up to.
It was Trump’s mocking of the reporter Serge Kovaleski that I convinced me not to vote for Trump — EVER. The mocking repulsed me because I am crippled. In fact, I have the very same condition as Serge Kovaleski – arthrogryposis multiplex congenita. Though a registered Republican who had walked away during the GW Bush administration, I believed what the MSM was telling me about Trump. The more I watched the video, the angrier I became. Then I caught myself doing the same kind of motions about a co-worker. He was a very detail-oriented engineering CAD (Computer-aided design) specialist who was often discombobulated when changes had to be made to his work. He would flail his arms and complain the whole job was now in jeopardy before he got to work fixing whatever it was that needed fixing. He ha a touch of OCD. I had to ask myself, was I mocking his OCD? No, I was teasing the overwrought behavior. Even he recognized his work pattern. When I researched the Trump event in context, I saw the truth; there was no mocking.
I have a flaming Leftist Democrat sister who was also incensed over the incident. After I had reviewed the videos and the context, I tried to show her that the mocking charge was a lie. Despite my affinity with Serge Kovaleski, she had become so emotionally invested in Trump-hatred that there was no chance she could be dissuaded. Often, I have shown her evidence that Trump did not say or do something, but to no avail. And, she isn’t the only Leftist Democrat I know who cannot and will not be divested of their anti-Trump beliefs.
If you’re ever trekking around the High Caucasus (e.g., northern regions of the Republic of Georgia) you will likely be warned to stay far away from the sheep dogs there and from the sheep they are guarding.
The dogs are big, generally white-haired and can be vicious, bred and trained to take on and drive off marauding wolves. For all they know, you, a stranger, have aggressive intentions towards “their” flock.
They are neither a fairy tale nor a fable and should be given wide berth.
huxley – a quick search on DDG turned up 3 articles mentioning the Jesuits and Enneagrams. Wikipedia is a helpful, bare-bones history and explanation of the system; ennea spexx.pdf is a “scholarly” treatise (Jesuit connection is on the first page); catholicculture.org author considers it useless, fraudulent, and heretical.
Although some people consider MBTI non-scientific (I haven’t assessed the analysis), it seems to me to be much better grounded in data and research than the Enneagram, even though Jung’s original concepts are just as mystic IMO.
Myers & Briggs put a lot of work into making his psychological-spiritual factors applicable to real people.
Have fun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneagram_of_Personality
http://orientations.jesuits.ca/ennea%20spexx.pdf
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2622
Tom, before we all bail on this thread I wanted to reply to your – what I take to be earnest – comment. You remark:
Geez, you are almost alarming me, Tom. And, no, I don’t get circle dancing. Not at all.
I admit there may be some atavistic impulse common to many humans to seek out and participate in such activities, but though I might feel a fleeting interest or attraction to it, I apparently lack the generalized sympathy or identification required to see it as more than a slightly ridiculous, if evolutionarily comprehensible activity.
This is not to say that Hux might not justly accuse me of surreptitious or disguised participation during the hunt, or while listening to music.
I certainly don’t see anything spiritual – if spiritual refers to anything supramundane – in it. There are strands of it which are comprehensible to me, if you rule out the immersion in the collective for the immersion in the collective’s sake interpretations.
I do recall for example as a very young child the experience of being placed with hundreds of others in bleachers and instructed to sing Christmas carols. In spite of the fact that I refused to vocally recite the pledge or sing in class, and despite the teacher grasping my face and trying unsuccessfully to move my jaw around, I finally came to appreciate the power of the Christmas choral experience somewhat. That was probably the year it was banned forevermore. Haha
I do admit to having had a very emotionally rich family life, both nuclear and extended. There was no need for me to work at feeling special. And if there was one drawback to this, it was that I was included by default, and probably developed no sympathy for the emotionally needy and troubled who elicited only feelings, if any, of silent contempt in me. But never outright cruelty. That, was verboten on principle.
Do I dance? Ill give you the half serious answer you probably expect. “Sure I dance. It is one of those social graces you are expected to learn to do, and sometimes even enjoy … like golfing. It also pleases women … as they actually do seem to enjoy it.”
Hey you want some real insight into my attitudes? No? Ill give it to you anyway.
There is this terrible and pathetic movie called Monuments Men. Features Geo Clooney and a pack of has been actors decades too old for the decades too old to serve in the field guys they are supposedly portraying. So, there is this winter scene in a tent where Bill Murray is looking at his care package from home, while his fellow monuent man opens his, and discovers not letters and records, but a selection of “comestibles” as they used to say.
Murray looks on bemused (actial word meaning here) as the other guy begins sniffing and oohing and ahhing and sighing over the cheese and crackers and baloney and chocolate or whatever. The nerd guy then samples some and begins shamelessly moaning and groaning and almost whimpering with pleasure. At which point whatever puzzlement Murray’s character may be intended to impart to us with regard to this unbecoming display, I’m thinking instead that the unmanly little twerp should be punched senseless and then tossed out into the snow along with his little treasure. ‘Moan out there, why don’t you. ‘ Ha.
For some reason, the memory of being on a flight that we expected to crash as it made a forced landing, just came up to me. I remember some of the whining types who just would not shut up, and were busy spewing ignoble crap out of their mouths only minutes if not seconds from presumable death. And all I could think of is “Do I really have to die in the company of these pathetic and ignoble shit bags?”
Neo’s a psychologist, almost. Sort of. Maybe she can figure it out.