Home » Open thread 5/17/21

Comments

Open thread 5/17/21 — 36 Comments

  1. Interesting that today Mark Steyn posits that those ‘protesters’ who’ve been jailed indefinitely since the January 6 Capitol uproar are the equivalent of political prisoners, and that the Capitol Police, who enjoy immunity from freedom-of-information laws, enjoy a sort of Praetorian Guard status. Guess it takes an immigrant to point out the irregularities in our Constitutional processes of law.

  2. Neo – Thought you might find this interesting since you are a changer. https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/woke-breaking-point/ The article is very good but the comments are supremely interesting. Lots of changer stories there. And, people are still commenting even recently. Sounds like some liberals are waking up to the fact that being woke is not so cool.

  3. On the gas front, “only” 58% of NC gas stations are out of gas this morning, down from nearly 80% a few days ago. I drove by or through six or seven stations this morning on my way to an errand. Two were out of gas, and the others had only regular. On the way another direction, I found one that had premium, so my SUV is now good for 400 miles or so.

  4. % stations out of gas, per Gas Buddy:

    NC – 52%
    SC – 47%
    GA – 41%
    VA – 31%
    MD – 26%

  5. Tomorrow, David (me) takes on Goliath. Goliath is the $4b in assets and $1b in revenue Omaha Public Power District. OPPD wants to build an industrial solar facility on 500 acres of prime Nebraska irrigated farmland.

  6. The renewable folks are going to go crazy when the full implications of their desires are faced: huge amounts of land involved; mining of all kinds of metals and rare earths; new equipment that is very expensive to shape the voltage and current and phase before it enters the grid; large energy storage systems that are very expensive including batteries, all kinds of new transmission equipment; hydro-gravity, hydrogen production via electrolysis, hot rocks, weights going up and down deep well-holes, and other un-invented but needed technologies.

    And the entire enterprise could be thrown into a cocked hat if there is a reversal in global warming. We may want more CO2 in our air if it gets too cold. This is iffy as of right now.

    If they maintain fossil fuel infrastructure they can safely back up all these experiments in sustainable energy but this is going to eventually be too expensive to duplicate everything and we are surely going to have magnificent costly black-outs and brown-outs over the U.S.

    Plus the environmentalists are going to be nutty over all the birds killed in the windmills and by the focused sunlight from the solar panels; and the all the TV interruptions caused by the whirling fan blades.

  7. A German friend says that efforts are being made to get people accustomed to the idea that you can’t expect to get electricity when you want it, you will get electricity at the convenience of the grid (ie, the sun and the wind)

    Of course, there is bound to be a priority system…and which people & business get the priority will be determined by the politicians. So intermittent energy, with all of its problems, may actually be a *benefit* to politicians.

  8. david foster, when we were in India we had German friends there. Together we all managed to cope with intermittent and unreliable electric service. Back in Germany now, they will feel it’s like old times!

    The German government did this deliberately when it shut down the nuclear plants.

  9. I was wondering too: Is it a Mutabilis rose? One of my favorites, the bloom changing color as it matures.

  10. I took that rose photo about five years ago in a beautiful rose garden, and I no longer remember what variety it was. But it seemed such a lovely shape and color.

  11. The rose is pink, I think. While eating my green eggs and ham. Sitting on a lamb. Contemplating my curds and whey.

  12. This is Antico, not Constitutional: Amendment 6 – Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses, and all that due process.

  13. A Dissident Right blogger talks about his awakening:

    https://www.amren.com/commentary/2021/05/my-awakening/

    “My awakening was about the white people oblivious to the reality of human biology that was so obvious to me. I went to college in New England, where I was surrounded by white people who could be generously described as obtuse on the issue of race. They were sure they knew everything about the evils of racism, but had almost no experience with non-whites. Their breathtaking mix of ignorance and confidence about race was dumbfounding.

    While in college, I got a job at a local warehouse. The owner was a little worried about hiring me, because I was from the South and the workforce was mostly black and Hispanic. When I told him I spoke some Spanish, he was shocked. He just assumed that everyone south of New York was either an inbred hillbilly or a slave owner. This was a man who did not know what he did not know, but he was sure of it.

    Over time I adjusted, but those initial months slamming into this alternative reality was what started me down the road to biological realism. Every day I was interacting with people who lived in frosty white neighborhoods, often 100 percent white, yet they were sure that white people who lived, worked, and mingled with other races around the country were raging bigots. Their views on race was a puzzling religion that had no basis in reality.
    .
    .
    .
    The final leg of my journey to this side of the great divide was accepting that the demographic and racial problems in America and the West are not just facts to be learned and contextualized. The root cause of the current crisis is a class of white people who no longer see themselves as part of the same species as the rest of their race. The spiritual heirs of the men who burned Atlanta have evolved into a new breed of white person, one in a constant struggle with whiteness. Not their whiteness, mind you, but your whiteness, the bad whiteness. The struggle of white people is not with non-whites, but with those whites who see whiteness as a sin.”

  14. Art Deco:

    That article you linked from Unz seems to me to be barking up the wrong tree. First of all, of course it’s not classic, historical Marxism, which was founded and then came to power originally in areas with pretty much solely white people. It pitted white people against other white people on the basis of class, for the most part. Then in China and other Asian countries it did the same thing, Chinese vs. other Chinese, etc.. That doesn’t mean that critical race theory isn’t allied with Marxism in a more “modern” and adapted guise; it is. It is Marxism with the substitution of race for class, and instead of a class war it’s a race war it is fomenting.

    Critical Race Theory had its origin in Critical Legal Studies, which was and remains a leftist movement. In both CLS and CRT and Marxism it is all about separating people on the basis of their group identities (race, and for Marxism class) and pitting the former supposedly powerless group against the former supposedly powerful group, and flipping the hierarchy so that the formerly powerless group is in charge now.

    In addition, the BLM leaders have said they are “trained Marxists.”

    I have no idea what the author of that article thinks is to be gained by separating CRT and Marxism. Sure, they are not the exact same thing. Marxism can definitely exist without hatred of whites, and I’m pretty sure hatred of whites can exist without Marxism, but in the case of CRT they have a linkage.

  15. “The root cause of the current crisis is a class of white people who no longer see themselves as part of the same species as the rest of their race.”

    You enjoy throwing throwing bombs among the complacent, or the indignant but – to borrow a word from above – “obtuse”.

    I like explosive examinations. Perhaps we can pick up a couple strands from that previous thread. But I cannot return til tomorrow.

    To start, I’d begin by examining the sense in which the third person possessive pronoun “their” is being used by the author.

    You know where I am going with this: There is no definite “white” race; but not “Not” in the sense an antiracist activist would claim that there is not.

    There is not, because apart from a relative similarity in skin tone, there are not, so far as I can tell, any consistent attributes, in character, psychology, moral sensibilities, or any other constellation of moral or intellectual attributes that span the category of “white complexion”.

    There are probably at least 6 or 7 white races of Europeans [I’m not talking current ethnicities with perfect congruence] if you cared to get into categorization exercises, as you yourself certainly know from reading about male haplotypes and those prehistoric cultures found from Eurasia to the Atlantic.

    The Southerner you quote has it partly right. But it is not because north easterners have lately outgrown the rest of the so-called “white race”. It is because they have always been – or had within their population – from founder times, a class of ideological crazies.

    I would in make some distinctions there too, even in Massachusetts; between say, Plymouth Plantation relative normals, and the nut jobs of the Great Migration who came to dominate the colony, and within a few generations morphed into Unitarians, burnt over district enthusiasts, and eventually Social Gospel activists.

    No, they are not the same. But it is not because they have recently become something different. They have always been that way; emotional, hypocrites, neurotic, hardworking, intelligent, unstable, proud, overbearing, achievement oriented, self-serving, meddling …. etc.

    I would encourage everyone once again, not only to take a second or third look at the often discussed (here) book, Albion’s Seed; but, to revisit the early social history of the US; and to note how from the earliest days the Federalist Party had an incipient totalitarian flavor to it, despite the many noble figures who were known Federalists.

    And too, re-read the early abolitionist and feminist literature dating from the “Era of Good Feelings”.

    If you do not come away wanting to beat half of the New Englander’s whose letters and journals you read, half to death, well, then I’d say that that is just proof that there is no unified white race identity. (How’s that last for a dilemma? haha)

  16. The new expose of the fascism controlling SWJs is soon coming. “The Woke Reformation” by Travis Brown views this as a poisonous cult like the Christian fundamentalism he left.

    Supported by Douglas Murray, Petter Boghossian, as well as several new to me, the documentary gets a Roundtable discussion hosted by Dave Rubin.

    This leads to solidarity to reject and extirpate Social Justice-CRT completely, because any concession to this circle mad poison kills free thought and people’s lives.

    When they talk equity or social justice they really mean revenge, says Murray, and aspire to achieve totalitarian power.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WAsqzanYRQ

    “Full scale ideological warfare against the enemies of Western Civilization” is coming, says Boghossian. And Murray adds “this battle can be won.”

    This mad craze will end because it must be ended.

  17. Audit wars to expose the fake election held last years are exploding. From suppression and intimidation and threats in Michigan to flame throwing in Arizona, finally we have some hard core vote counting machine flaws…from Democrats in New Hampshire?

    Yes. Go here for some preliminary data in 8 minutes
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vx7IUqio54

    And then go elsewhere like The Gateway Pundit for much more.

    Sundance at CT notes
    “ The current audit started after an initial hand count (recount requested by a Democrat who narrowly lost) discovered that votes from a ballot counting machine specifically undercounted votes for republicans and mysteriously transferred those same votes to the Democrats (the Democrat candidate lost by a much wider margin).

    “The four machines being audited are AccuVote optical scanning systems, which were manufactured by Global Elections Systems Inc., which was ultimately acquired in 2010 by Dominion Voting systems”

    Republicans were cheated and there are now calls for only paper ballots in New Hampshire.

  18. @DNW:

    Agreed that it’s complicated. It’s also necessary to give Joe Normie a simple explanation without the footnotes, epicycles, and curlicues — one way in which the ‘Cathedral’, NYT, Atlantic, New Yorker crowds bamboozle well-meaning simple folks is with Muh Sophisticated Lapidary Nuance… Time and place.

    Very, very much agree with the Albion’s Seed thing — we could even dig into later Scandinavian and Eastern European White Immigrants, Hajnal Line and other things. To quote my favourite Steppe Person Yul Brynner — It’s a Puzzlement! It just complicates things for Normie.

    You’ll find no greater fan of the Blame the Puritan Strain than me. Had my doubts about them for a while and final nail in that coffin was some of Yarvin’s earlier writings where he made a point of quoting at length period sources from both sides during run up to the Civil War. The Brahminate was out for blood and determined to have at it.

    Great Awakenings were annoying enough, but Great Awokenings… Jaysus Wept! One problem with the Far Right is that like the Far Left it goes straight for the Mimetic Jugular rather than looking at the bigger historical picture. The Usual Suspects have played their usual disproportionate parts both good and bad in this, but if there’s to be a reckoning, Pareto would say have at the GoodWhites ™ — it’s the Shark that chomps off your leg, not the Remora.

  19. TJ:

    New Hampshire already has only paper ballots. What they are calling for is to hand count the paper ballots. Previously, they have used machines to count them.

  20. The US Supreme Court reached a decision today, Caniglia v. Strom. It is such an important decision, that almost no one reported on it. The crux of it is that the police may manage the safety and proper functioning of things like cars and freeways, without warrants, but may not act similarly (confiscating firearms) with regard to a person’s home. Warrantless searches and seizures are still forbidden, in the home.

    So what? Well, the SCOTUS held that Mr. Caniglia’s rights were violated, by a vote of 9 – 0; but only after two other courts found in favor of the police. Should we feel good that the SCOTUS is still capable of doing the right thing, or depressed that two other courts could not figure that out?

    While police departments vary, many have no mechanism for returning confiscated firearms without the owner filing a lawsuit in court.

    https://www.streetlaw.org/scotus-in-the-classroom/caniglia-v-strom
    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-157_8mjp.pdf

  21. Stolen from a comment thread elsewhere:

    “…can we all agree that the official state religion of America In Name Only should be called “Dinduism”? It’s got a caste system and everything — we’re the Dalits.”

    For any Normies of Good Will present here today, a ‘Dindu’ is one of your Magical Black Shamans. Named thusly because are often heard to utter the word ‘Dindu’ when approached by the Polizei: “I dindu that!”

    And sure enough, turns out that they Dindu That, and even if they Done Did Du That, it’s your fault anyway, you Horrid Bad White ™ Untouchable!

    Description of the remainder of the Caste System as currently instituted is left as an Exercise for the Reader.

  22. Over time I adjusted, but those initial months slamming into this alternative reality was what started me down the road to biological realism. Every day I was interacting with people who lived in frosty white neighborhoods, often 100 percent white, yet they were sure that white people who lived, worked, and mingled with other races around the country were raging bigots. Their views on race was a puzzling religion that had no basis in reality.

    The phenomenon he’s describing has zip to do with biology.

  23. Travis Brown views this as a poisonous cult like the Christian fundamentalism he left.

    You’ll find no greater fan of the Blame the Puritan Strain than me.

    You people are hopeless. You can’t manage to assess this without insulting someone else, in these cases, someone quite dissimilar to the creatures under review here.

  24. First of all, of course it’s not classic, historical Marxism,

    That’s the only kind of Marxism there is.

  25. Art Deco:

    No, it’s not the only kind of Marxism there is today. I know Marxists who call themselves Marxists (particularly in academia) who espouse various refinements on Marxism that change some of the original premises. Just to take one example, there’s this, as opposed to what might be called orthodox Marxism (what I called “classical Marxism” in my comment). It all falls under the general heading of “Marxism,” a word I actually don’t prefer to use. I prefer “leftism” or “far-leftism” because it covers a lot more.

    There’s a reason some of the founders of BLM called themselves “trained Marxists,” though.

  26. Classical Marxism is about the state controlled economy and central planning, premised on Hegelian infused “scientific history.” Lenin dressed up economics historicism, hence communism is true socialism, and anything less isn’t.

    Today’s neoMarxism or Born Again Marxism eschews historical forces and inevitability for simplistic oppositional dogma of oppressor versus oppressed.

    This ludicrous presentism is what boggles my mind. Childish, infantile, and narcissistic in the extreme — it lacks any ambitions or romance formerly found attractive in classical Marxism.

    And it’s war against excellence and hierarchies is only further proof of inainity, opportunistically infusing PoMo lies into the metaphysics of pablum.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>