“Who will ever trust the US again?”
My answer is: no one.
And that’s a well deserved distrust. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – the trifecta, the hat trick of reasons to distrust us.
Who will ever enlist again? I think that’s another good question. Now that the military is mostly involved in being woke, I suppose its mission is changing and the people it attracts will be different.
It’s darkly ironic that the press and the Democrats kept saying that Trump’s presidency made the rest of the world mock us and distrust us. I think that was always a lie, although perhaps some of them believed it was true. And I don’t doubt there was some mockery – just as there was here – but Trump engendered a different kind of respect, the respect earned by being somewhat unpredictable and creative in his approach to solving problems, and keeping his word (for the most part) when threats were issued. In other words, there was some fear that he wasn’t just a paper tiger.
The Biden administration is completely the opposite. Obama was, too, but the Biden administration begins to make the Obama administration look competent in comparison.
This pendulum nature of American foreign policy is relatively new – the swings having gotten wilder in the 21st Century. And such instability leads to distrust. If things can change that way on a dime, best not to rely on our word at all.
Joe Biden wanted to be able to point to having pulled out of Afghanistan for the big 20-year anniversary of 9/11. The haste and the lack of planning and the terrible execution of the withdrawal now ensures a heightened sense of danger from terrorism for that anniversary instead.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s an example, entitled ” Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’.” It has the subtitle, “‘This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West,’ says senior German lawmaker.” The article appeared in Politico, so you’ll see the usual Trump-bashing garbage. It’s the rest of it that’s of interest:
Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.
Sit on that for a minute. How abysmally stupid and unobservant are they, if they actually honestly and truly thought that (which is by no means certain; it’s possible they knew the truth and ignored it)?
More:
Now, the American president’s decision to allow Afghanistan to collapse into the arms of the Taliban has European officials worried he has unwittingly accelerated what his predecessor Donald Trump started: the degradation of the Western alliance and everything it is supposed to stand for in the world.
That’s the obligatory Trump-hate.
More:
Across Europe, officials have reacted with a mix of disbelief and a sense of betrayal. Even those who cheered Biden’s election and believed he could ease the recent tensions in the transatlantic relationship said they regarded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as nothing short of a mistake of historic magnitude.
“I say this with a heavy heart and with horror over what is happening, but the early withdrawal was a serious and far-reaching miscalculation by the current administration,” said Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee. “This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”
True, but it’s not the first time.
Then there’s this:
Röttgen, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is no flamethrower. He has known Biden for decades and was optimistic about his prospects.
How could one know Biden for decades and be optimistic about his prospects? If this is true – and again, I have no way of knowing if it’s just blah-blah-blah or if it really is the case – then Röttgen is as big an ass as Biden. Maybe bigger, because I doubt Röttgen has the excuse of age-related cognitive decline.
I imagine these feelings are not in any way limited to Germany. And the article goes on to describe how widespread the perceptions are of shock and betrayal. Well, then it’s time they woke up to the truth, and so in that way these recent events have accomplished something – getting Europe to at least temporarily and in some small way remove the blinders from their own eyes.]
Trump’s instincts were good: you question underlings to make sure they’ve thought things through.
You question experts in case they’re too siloed and haven’t thought outside their box.
Biden is frivolous. “How will it look to voters?” or “How can I make it look to voters?”
Someone once said “Trust takes years to build, a second to break, and a lifetime to repair”. One of the weaknesses of our system from a foreign policy standpoint is that so much can change from administration to administration. One president can undo all the work of his predecessor.
I used to think that Obama was the worst president in modern times, but Biden seems to have taken that title, and he did it in just a few months!
We are not one people.
We, who variously inhabit this landmass, do not avow the same reality, do not share fundamental values, do not aspire to similar or even compatible life-ways, do not see ourselves as the same “People”, do not share a sense of what constitutes justice, and do not, at base, distributively respect the right of other nominal Americans to live their lives unmolested, or even to continue to exist.
Until there actually is an “us” in the U.S. once again; no foreigner in his right mind should trust the government of the U.S.
Hell, we Americans cannot trust it. Why should anyone else?
Today’s leftists (the Obama-acolyte intelligencia) *hate* America. They are idiots, but they are not stupid. I think they knew what the fallout would be and how it would benefit their subversion of America.
I was on a panel with the great Bernard Lewis a couple of years ago – actually six or seven years ago – and Bernard said that the danger here is that America risks being seen as harmless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend.
–Mark Steyn, https://www.steynonline.com/11598/the-scale-of-humiliation
_________________________________
Afghanistan may be the last straw.
The real threat is China taking over Taiwan. Steve Bannon talks about this frequently. There is no way we could stop the Chinese.
And we have learned that much of our semiconductor capacity is in Taiwan. Bannon says it needs to be moved to Arizona.
China owns us in every way possible. They crippled our economy and helped the Dems steal the election. They owe us at least $30 trillion but no one will talk about it. It is a pure negligence case. The Wuhan Lab had one job: make sure the viruses don’t get out of the lab. This happened either through negligence or intentionally.
“Obligatory Trump hate”
PDJT tried to put the relationship on a sustainable basis. You know, where out allies held up their end. The Europeans didn’t want that. They wanted Uncle Sugar to pay all
Cornhead:
I think that is the most immediate danger to come from this debacle. China is already threatening Taiwan, saying that the U.S. will not aid them, that we cannot be trusted. And the terrifying thing is, they’re right. If China decides to invade, I cannot imagine this administration and this military leadership doing anything to stop them. This is the most dangerous international climate I have seen, including the worst of the Cold War.
I’ve come to believe that the ruling classes are ruled by gossip. They know who is sleeping with who and who is screwing around, but they have little understanding of competence, it isn’t like it is needed in their little world of privilege.
@Cornhead
You say there is no way we could stop them. I believe we could, we just might not bother
.
It depends on if the Chinese remember the lesson of Japan and attack Taiwan while not engaging the US. If they make the mistake of directly attacking us, we might come together long enough to do something at least short term.
I fear that we can no longer unite that way. Half the country seems to hate itself and the values of our country. Although the Democrats voted with the Republicans to go into Iraq. The news media, in other words the Democrat party PR wing, started calling it a quagmire and another Vietnam within the first week of combat operations. They signaled from day one to our enemy, “Hold on we will eventually save you by getting the US to quit.”
I have to admit to misjudging this whole Afghanistan pullout business. It really does appear that Biden in his addled state fixated on withdrawal as one of the “great” accomplishments of his Presidency and then refused to listen to the naysayers from the military and intelligence community
And Biden was CORRECT not to listen to them, since those are the people who’ve kept us in Afghanistan at least 10 years longer than necessary. But that division combined with the general lack of competence to produce a half-assed withdrawal plan where lots of tough questions were never asked or answered.
Mike
I suppose that technically we could stop an invasion of Taiwan, but there’s no will to do that.
And instead of an invasion, the Chinese could just release another virus into Taiwan.
People don’t get it. The criminals running China aren’t like us at all. And the people aren’t much better. I met a real movie guy from China at the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica. I asked him about Hong Kong as it was a hot topic then. He says that most Chinese people don’t care about human rights. All they care about is making money and going on vacation.
Which naysayers? The ones saying Biden’s “plan” didn’t include the Taliban taking the entire country or that giving up Bagram Airfield was a high risk approach? Or the naysayers that said any pullout plan was a bad idea? When will the Cloth Headed Dummy actually tell the truth about what the alternatives were? Has the Cloth Headed Dummy ever told the truth before? Has the Cloth Headed Dummy been correct about anything before?
In the throw away Eddie Murphy movie The Golden Child.
The Old Monk character played by Victor Wong said this line:
“Those magnificent Americans. So much power and so little understanding of what to do with it.”
It struck me then as a pretty good summary of us as a country.
https://twitter.com/75suhair/status/1427727547614351361?s=20
He says that most Chinese people don’t care about human rights. All they care about is making money and going on vacation.
That’s helpful. They’ll have trouble getting their young men in gear if they want to conquer the world.
It struck me then as a pretty good summary of us as a country.
Why?
I can only hope Taiwan has been cheating on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Half the country seems to hate itself and the values of our country.
Actually, they’re quite vain. They despise other people – evangelicals, country music fans, white Southerners, frat brothers, police officers, soldiers, small businessmen, hunters and target shooters – not themselves.
They crippled our economy and helped the Dems steal the election.
They didn’t cripple our economy. Policy mistakes crippled our economy, which Pres. Trump ruefully recognized later (“we’re not going to shut down the economy again”). The Democrats are now multiplying the mistakes.
MBunge: “It really does appear that Biden in his addled state fixated on withdrawal as one of the “great” accomplishments of his Presidency”
He was trying to make a 9/11 deadline to have the announcement?
Yike.
“Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.”
Europe, and the rest of the world, get their US news from CNN. They think our media, like theirs, is state-run so what is said must be the official government position. They simply don’t understand that CNN is Chinese/Russian/Iranian Propaganda.
I have alternated between feeling giddy over all the criticism directed at Biden today but also feeling devastated by the humiliation of our country and anguished over the innocent lives in peril in Afghanistan.
There are attempts to link Biden to Jimmy Carter. I don’t buy that. The stupidity and evil go far deeper with Biden, his idiotic administration and all the fools who voted for him.
We are in uncharted waters.
They own this. Spin is not going to save them.
Re who will enlist now?–maybe that’s why they’ve been floating the idea of making all eligible females register for the draft just like males must do.
Taiwan should be very afraid, they are going to be China’s play thing and the White House is only going to turn a blind eye.
No strong man government will be afraid of being taken down a peg.
A respectable version of the USA is receding in the rear view mirror. We’ve sunken well below that standard. https://www.bitchute.com/video/MEvyflSLcEH0/
Art Deco:
After the first couple of months, those shutdown decisions were made by the states – mostly blue states – as well as private companies, not the federal government or Trump.
@ArtDeco
I don’t know, it just seems like most of the time we are afraid of the power we have. The left focuses us backwards and magnifies the failures while denying the good and we have listened. Half of the country believes that we are rotten from our founding and part of the other half is to afraid to say different.
Art Deco on August 17, 2021 at 6:07 pm said:
They’ll have trouble getting their young men
Did you see any chines young men came forward about Covid-19 problem, where it started what they believe and did they against their government?
Cornhead: People don’t get it. The criminals running China aren’t like us at all.
Wait.
I thought Zaphod makes this point daily. Multiple times a day, actually.
His argument, if I understand correctly, is that we should not believe that we have superior Moral Values which guarantee that we are sure to win.
He seems to anger people by saying that Moral Righteousness is not a precondition of winning. Instead, a clear view of actual reality is a stronger determinant.
Is that not a correct perception?
I served, and I will do everything in my power to prevent my sons from serving, their friends too.
Your sons or daughters may pay the price, while junkies like Hunter continue to steal oxygen.
The European leadership is not nearly as upset about our disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, as they are horrified to realize that the days when America was willing to fight (in their case the Russian bear)… are over. Right about now the more astute within the Ukraine must be pretty nervous. Kiev is just 80 miles from Moscow and that’s far too narrow a buffer for a nation whose leadership has read its history of being invaded by other powers. First Napoleon and then Hitler, Westerners cannot imagine the effect that the truly desperate Battle for Stalingrad had upon the Russian psyche.
Probably within the year, Taiwan will fall to Chinese invasion. The time to strike is in the near future. The Biden administration won’t do anything about it because of the fearful possibility that a conventional war between China and the US could spiral into a nuclear war.
About 50% of the world’s computer chips are made in Taiwanese factories. The fallout from that alone may lead to a world wide depression and/or coupled with our astronomical debt, sovereign bankruptcy.
The problem JimNorCal with a strictly pragmatic approach is that it places liberty into a risk/reward category. A society that doesn’t believe in itself has no chance of remaining free. Zaphod is a perfect example of this truth, he’s ‘comfortable’ keeping his head down and his mouth shut and goes along to get along. He’s willing to sell his soul on the bet that by doing so, he’ll never be turned into fertilizer. An example of one who “understands the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
The problem Josh with young patriots refusing to enlist is that it turns the military into a woke military. One willing to follow orders regarding “domestic terrorists”.
JimNorCal:
That’s not what angered people. It’s that it was a typical straw man argument that incorrectly stated what people believed and then arrogantly ridiculed that.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Like a good lefist – which he wasn’t, but in this regard he resembled a leftist – he saw everything in racial and ethnic terms.
Is Zaphod banned?
The fallout from that alone may lead to a world wide depression and/or coupled with our astronomical debt, sovereign bankruptcy.
Crisis in your financial sector can do incredible damage. Not in any other discrete sector (short of famine).
Did you see any chines young men came forward about Covid-19 problem, where it started what they believe and did they against their government?
English isn’t your 1st language, is it?
I’ve come to believe that the ruling classes are ruled by gossip.
As good an explanation as any for their conduct.
Neo Said:
“Who will ever trust the US again?”
The trust of US vanished after 2003 Iraq invasion and specifically after Abu Ghraib and its Shadow
“He says that most Chinese people don’t care about human rights. All they care about is making money and going on vacation.”
I’m afraid that characterisation applies to the vast majority of people on the planet.
Z’s feelings got hurt because his “reality dumps” were not sufficeintly praised and affirmed? Something about casting your pearls before swine ….
Zaphod was certainly banned yesterday. This is a test to see if he still is.
Oh yes Abu Ghraib and the pride of Iraqui men laid low by US Army woman MPs. Not that those prisoners were treated in the tender, Baath, ISIS, or Taliban fashion. After the US military cleaned Saddam’s clock, again. The post invasion phase, now that would certainly cause a loss of confidence and trust, including 8 years of leading from behind. But this is supposed to be a happy occassion (in A-stan anyway).
I have alternated between feeling giddy over all the criticism directed at Biden today but also feeling devastated by the humiliation of our country and anguished over the innocent lives in peril in Afghanistan.
Jeanne:
Well said.
Elections have consequences. We knew that, some ignored it. Mean tweets.
DNW–
Yep, and Chief Heap Big Ego is over at Gerard’s blog complaining about it.
This seems to pretty well describe the Europeans who thought Biden had even an inkling of foreign policy expertise:
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
This is a response to my question as to whether Zaphod had gotten banned?
I don’t know who Gerald is, but I take it he has a blog some here visit.
Oh – edit – Gerard.
Well, if so I’m sorry to hear it as he changed things up a bit.
Unfortunately it seems he could not back off from the edge slightly. Or something
FWIW, I’m seeing a lot of reliably progressive lefty types on my FB feed posting things like “I was a big Biden supporter in the election but this f***up is just too much” and “I can’t sleep over all the laughter coming from Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran”.
It remains to be seen if this disillusionment lasts past the next Look A Squirrel moment, but it was there for a while at least.
Gerald van derLeuven (sorry if sic) AmericanDigest is the blog IIRC.
Gerald comments here, he lost his home last summer in the Paradise CA fire.
https://americandigest.org/noted-in-passing-george-w-bush-says-who-me/#comment-59688
DNW; Zaphod:
I put Zaphod in comments moderation. I believe he knows why; he certainly should. One reason, just to take an example, is this comment of his, as well as some others that I deleted.
People’s deaths are not a joke – “Boys and Xirls” – particularly the deaths of those who have helped us, as well as their families. And no, they’re not all a bunch of terrorists come to kill us, just because they’re Afghans. There was more in that vein, too.
For many months, quite a few of Zaphod’s comments have been degenerating into fairly relentless and repetitive snark, straw man arguments, and cutesy insults. I don’t mind disagreement and I don’t even mind some snark – and Zaphod is a clever and entertaining writer at times. But he had become mostly a troll, and that was starting to dominate.
If I place his comments back out of moderation, I would expect him to cut that stuff out. However, I doubt he wants to do so, although perhaps he is willing to. I just allowed a short comment of his in this thread, that came in at 9 PM.
I don’t have the time or the inclination to police the comments of one person who is doing that. It’s too labor-intensive. As I’ve said before many times on this blog, I try to err on the side of letting people comment, but after a while if someone turns into a troll I run out of patience with it.
Bryan Lovely:
That’s certainly interesting. I haven’t spoken to any of my liberal friends about it yet.
Bryan Lovely, neo:
I’m recalibrating on the Afghan Downfall. This has gone beyond what the Democrats et allies can kick under the rug with “Republicans Pounce.”
And if there is a prolonged hostage situation, that goes up massively.
I suspect there will be hostages and the Biden administration will make some terrible deals behind the scenes.
huxley:
It will be interesting to see if a significant number of Democrats start to pounce.
I fear, though, that the damage is done. And the damage is massive – and I don’t just mean to Afghanistan. I’m talking global. And it’s been building for a long time.
huxley:
What would the Cloth Headed Dummy agree to? Operations, maintenance, and sustainment contractors for the helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and drones that the Taliban now possess?
om:
I’m sure pallets of cash would be appreciated. That’s a Democratic tradition when dealing with Muslims who hate us and wish us Death.
The US Government is not the only organization that reneges on its promises.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/17/taliban-kill-woman-not-wearing-burqa-after-vowing-to-honor-womens-rights/
And I agree that the instability of these whip-lash reversals at every election are not a good way to go about doing business.
That’s why the President should be submitting his foreign programs to Congress as Treaties to be agreed to (or not), and implemented with some assurance of remaining in force longer than the lifespan of a fruit fly.
huxley:
I was casting about for something worse than pallets of cash.
Another possibility would be the burning all the human intelligence assets that the US and NATO are operating in areas of interest to the Taliban or Taliban affiliates.
“The problem JimNorCal with a strictly pragmatic approach …”
I’m not too concerned with advocating one approach over another. I was just trying to fairly describe what was going on.
I’m doubtless more like om in my approach but Zaphod’s comments don’t bother me in the slightest. To be more clear, they don’t threaten me, or threaten my view of the world.
Obviously, I’m in a minority there.
“if there is a prolonged hostage situation”
I’m beginning to relax a little. I read today that there may be from 15,000 to 40,000 Americans in A-stan. Nothing is happening. Yet. If it was going to happen, it would’ve started by now, yes?
In such a chaotic situation, a trigger happy jihadi or even one of our Marines could “start something” in the blink of an eye, though.
For the present:
1) There seems to be an agreement with Taliban/America that Americans will be allowed to leave. Despite the speed of the A-stan gov’ts fall, the Taliban are respecting that agreement so far.
2) I read that Americans are advised to proceed to Kabul for extraction. The journey to Kabul is not protected. But once at the airport, the US now seems to think things will be under control. That was not the case even yesterday as it was reported that Americans were advised to quietly shelter in place and NOT come to Kabul as things were too uncontrolled.
If everyone on the American side shuts up and cowers sufficiently we may get everyone out.
Example:
“I can’t tell you how appalled I am at what I’m reading.
Kim Staffieri @kim_staffieri 1hr
“It’s 4:00am in Kabul. The Taliban are currently going through the crowd outside of the airport and beating the SIV men with chains. While thousands of our Marines are just the other side of the gate, ordered to stand down and not engage.”
SIV: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/siv-iraqi-afghan-translators-interpreters.html
Amorality, indifference, and pragmatism has it’s uses as has been shown in history. What ever works, goes around and comes around. Takes all kinds eventually to fill the mass graves.
I am disappointed that Zaphod was censored, but that is Neo’s prerogative.
He brought a fresh, may I say diverse, viewpoint to the blog, and posted some good links.
It’s more of a drowsy echo chamber without him.
@GB:
“Zaphod is a perfect example of this truth, he’s ‘comfortable’ keeping his head down and his mouth shut and goes along to get along. He’s willing to sell his soul on the bet that by doing so, he’ll never be turned into fertilizer. An example of one who “understands the price of everything and the value of nothing”.”
Well well…. Now this is something I wouldn’t mind having the right of reply to, if you don’t mind Neo.
I do NOT sell my soul and go along to get along. I differ with many here on what constitutes a hill worth dying on.
For example, while I disagree intensely with the PRC policy toward Hong Kong (is complicated… a long of issues came to a boil while they were more hands off and home-grown Quislings were running the joint on their behalf), I don’t see any point in dying for the cause. And in fact, nor does the young generation of 2019 protesters who have now gotten the best possible deal and have been granted blanket asylum in the UK — where pretty soon a bunch of Afghan ‘Refugees’ will be arriving to prey upon them.
Moral preening is such a bore. This is the real world and real people get hurt by other people’s grand ideas. Even with Taiwan, as another example. I feel very sorry for them. But how many people should die and do you want to trade LA or San Diego so that GloboHomo can bring Drag Queen Story Hour to the pre-schoolers of Keelung?
Best be thinking of moving the TSMC Fabs and their Big Brains to Flyover Country and spreading them out widely if you like the idea of having an Internet or an Insulin Pump that works.
We don’t live in Cartoon World.
With regard to my own personal situation, I’ve said before that I’m more free in this appendage of the PRC than I would be in nearly all of the West. There is only small area I cannot engage with. The Chinese are not great, but they have mostly it seems passed through one of their periodic madnesses. The West is getting started with its latest bout and is shaping up for some really fun times.
Said enough about Afghanistan already. If not more than enough.
There. I’ve kept it brief. For me.
“Who will ever trust us again?”
I predict the American people, living and dead, legal and illegal, single and dual resident, will continue to trust the Democrat party with the governance of large cities, populous states, and the nation as a whole (though maybe with a 2-year interruption).
Why? Because the Democrat Party of SJW/BLM/Antifa/CRT best represent the real desires of the American people.
“Senior German Lawmaker”
Would these be the same senior German lawmakers who are continually exposed as Russia toadies, pedophiles, and socialists. We need them like we need syphilis. Don’t pretend they were ever on our side.
“This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”
The last time German politicians felt the West had been fundamentally damaged, they turned away from Western Christian values to National Socialist values.
If we have to persuade Germans that the West is good, well, f* em. This time use the nukes which were intended for use against Germany all along.
“Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.”
This is why the displeasure and lack of trust European leaders are expressing about Afghanistan will be short lived. Biden, and the people with their hand in his back, are fellow travelers. European leaders will get over this, relatively quickly.
There will be no PRC invasion of Taiwan. The Taiwanese aren’t so stupid as to fight a hopelessly losing battle that will leave their homeland in ruins. If the Taiwanese government believes no one will help them, then they are already negotiating the “peaceful union with the renegade province.”
One measure: look to where are the bank accounts of those the PRC regards as criminals. That is where those Taiwanese will feel safe. (It won’t be Canada.)
European leaders known Biden’s one of them. He didn’t do anything they wouldn’t have done. European leaders are proud American is becoming a European-style democracy. They’ll get over this.
European leaders are proud American is becoming a European-style democracy. They’ll get over this.
I don’t think vote fraud is a problem in Europe outside of Russia. Also, I think it’s normal in Europe (certainly in Britain and in France) to recruit and promote public employees according to the results of blindly-graded competitive examinations. They’re used extensively in schooling at all levels as well. “Diversity” considerations (i.e. race patronage) do not enter into it. It’s also fairly unusual for judges to usurp the authority of elected officials (though Brussels Eurocrats do). We’re not ‘European style’ in these respects.
As for enlistment in the military now – an old military buddy of my daughters’ (from the USMC) is now a recruiter in a big city in Florida. In five months, he hasn’t gotten a single enlistee.
Five months. Imagine that.
I’m thinking that retention figures are going to absolutely crater, if they haven’t already.
Sgt. Mom:
However Afghanistan plays out in current events and the polls, I suspect American military morale has been deeply damaged and we have no idea what the price of that will be.
Twitter thread linked at Ace on situation at Kabul Airport.
https://twitter.com/RespectIsVital
Bryan Lovely on August 17, 2021 at 10:00 pm said:
Think about that for a moment. Think about – assuming you have gotten the gist of it right – what they are actually saying as it relates the subject-object orientation of their damnable mindsets.
This is modern, or postmodern influenced liberalism encapsulated. Their anxieties are provoked, their rest is disturbed, their feelings of identification are distressed.
The fact that conservatives and distressed liberals may come to temporarily agree on the outline of a problem, is, except for transitory and ephemeral results at a particular ballot box, irrelevant in the long haul, as it is based on differing and even antithetical predicates: Principled self-interest, versus subjective feelings of virtue and distress based on psychological projections.
Do X bounded by principle in order to achieve an ordinate instrumental result
versus
Do X by any means necessary in order to make me feel better about myself and relieve my psychological stresses.
The former seems cold. But it is the latter that is really the morally insufferable and self-centered to the point of auto-destruction, stance.
That is why for my money, smirking Seattle Mayor Jenny Summer of Love Durkan can burn in hell with the rest of her enabling population.
Well, isn’t that special.
“I’m seeing a lot of reliably progressive lefty types on my FB feed posting things like “I was a big Biden supporter in the election but this f***up is just too much” and “I can’t sleep over all the laughter coming from Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran”.”
Really?? Are there actually “Progressive lefty types” in this country who are bothered by the US being laughed at by Russia, China and Iran? Perhaps there is a tiny glimmer of hope for our country.
DNW —
I don’t for one second think these friends of mine will suddenly transform into principled thinkers. In fact, I think almost nobody is actually a principled thinker.
Instead, I hope that they’ll discover they like the taste of the coating on the red pill, and consider swallowing it.
You might be right to some extent with that latter observation.
Still, there is a critical difference between different types of motivated reasonings: rationally calculated self-interest, moderated by tested principles on the one hand; versus, an emotion driven social signalling process which inevitably produces counterproductive**, and negatively redounding results, on the other.
“Counterproductive” that is, when compared with the patina of ostensible public policy reasons which liberals spray over their real motivations.
Neo,
Bring back Zaphod. I need him to run interference for me, lest I start replying to the hall monitor.
DNW, Bryan Lovely,
I hold out hope that some on the Left will come to realize the problem isn’t which party is in charge, the problem is people being in charge. I made a bit of headway with a very politically minded Democrat friend who despises Republicans and Conservatives. She was apoplectic during Trump’s Presidency and during one of her rants I smiled and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the President had less power? Then it wouldn’t matter as much if we elect a moron.” She understood my sarcasm. She grew quiet and I could tell it really forced her to stop and think. She has hardly discussed politics since Biden has been in office. I can tell it is not because she thinks things are better. I can tell she is noticing little has improved and some has worsened. In other words; Trump wasn’t the problem.
rongalt:
The quotation on the danger of willful blindness is the first clause of an “as-so”conclusion:
The complete quotation is:
“And as those are most blind who will not see, so their blindness is most dangerous who fancy they do see.”
— Matthew Henry, “Commentary on the Whole Bible” Gospel according to John, Chapter 9, Verses 40,41..
It seems to me that the warning on the degree of danger is the more powerful as a comment on the degree of blindness.
DNW; Zaphod:
Actually, a couple of hours ago I took away the moderation for his comments. So he is free to post comments now. I meant to put something about it up here, but the day is so busy I haven’t gotten around to it till now. Your comment reminded me.
Like anyone else, though, he needs to abide by some basic rules that he was violating fairly often before. I’ve stated them in other comments here and elsewhere. I don’t know if he will choose to return (and rescue you), but the door is open.
Making sure no one trusts the USA is a Feature, NOT a bug when it comes to Leftists. Just like now when we can’t trust our government agencies, it’s all Heads They Win, Tails We Lose. If we don’t like the current system, they got a great new system to replace our Republic – just as long as their low information voters don’t know what the word “Serf” means. Let’s see how many days it takes until this disgraceful abdication of duty & honor is not the story. Gotta get those Capitol “Insurrections” back in the headlines, they are the real threat. And let’s not forget all the lawyers who voluteered to take the cases of the jihadi’s in Guantanamo, while we have actual political prisoners rotting for months in a DC jail with no end in sight. Disgusting! Heads They Win, Tails We Lose. They’ve got it all figured out.
Well it’s not every day that an agnostic(?) damns thousands to burn in hell. That’s what makes it so precious and nuanced.
Carry on.
I have not been able to bring myself to even THINK of EVER trusting anything a Democrat says for many years, but now, it’s NEVER. (Quoth the Raven…)
Trump caused problems with allies because he demanded they actually step up and pull their weight.
Biden caused problems with allies because he demanded the US not pull its weight either.
Henry T:
Excellent point. +90
“Like anyone else, though, he needs to abide by some basic rules that he was violating fairly often before.”
He won’t. He may pretend for a while but what is the saying, like a dog returns to its vomit? His narcissistic character is quite clear.
Cornhead: “And we have learned that much of our semiconductor capacity is in Taiwan. Bannon says it needs to be moved to Arizona.”
It *was* in Arizona. It all moved to Taiwan, Korea, and China. I used to work in that industry in Arizona, I left it because all my clients (I was a field engineer for a vendor) either went out of business or had their fabs moved to Taiwan and China. Why did they move? Because of the punitive US regulations and taxes. Trump attempted to rectify that and some of the semiconductor business started coming back to Arizona. But with these Marxists in charge, that will end once again.