Home » It was the leaders who allowed the destruction of their own cities

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It was the leaders who allowed the destruction of their own cities — 54 Comments

  1. A writer named James Altucher has just posted a piece entitled “New York is dead forever”, and it is attracting a good deal of attention. My old neighborhood (UWS) is now experiencing chaos and crime not seen in many a decade, and it is entirely possible that wealthy New Yorkers (and even some businesses) may leave for good. It is certainly not inevitable that Gotham will collapse, but anyone familiar with the post-war history of Detroit (once upon a time, a great American city) should not be overly sanguine.

  2. They planned it, created it, unleashed it, and now they own it. This why the left is frantic to force vote by mail fraud. Otherwise they will lose not only the EC, but also the popular vote. Not all liberals are blind to what the hard left intends.

  3. “The mayor and council members didn’t need to know how to run a city. That wasn’t the point. And when push came to shove, they didn’t even defend the very first principle of a city: to protect it and its citizens.” [Neo]

    They have broken the social covenant they had with their citizens. All bets should be off, but I know better. Defend yourself and you will be arrested and charged (e.g., The McCloskys); run amok with an approved message and your rioting and destruction will be unimpeded (Portland, Minneapolis) if not approved (see Ayana Pressley). I have no problem defending myself against ne’er-do-wells, but I have a big problem suspecting that I will be prosecuted for doing so.

  4. Don’t forget that the mayors and governors of Seattle, Portland, Chicago, NYC, etc., Washington, Oregon, etc. will only serve 4 or 8 (or 12?) years and then can live off generous pensions, for LIFE, paid for by the tax payer.
    Basically they are financially set for life, irrespective of their level of not-giving- a -shite (it’s not incompetence if their policies are intentional – and they are! ).

    Further, they can become MSM “expert commentators,” (i.e., leftist propagandists ) and get paid very generously for a few hours “work” per year.

    These leftist politicians, who aided and abetted the destruction of their cities / states, and conspired to ruin the lives of thousands of people, literally have no skin in the game.

    If their cities go into bankruptcy, so what; they will still get their pensions.

    (Counties/cities that have actually gone into bankruptcy, by very favorable LOCAL court decisions, have preserved city worker’s pensions/benefits, despite being contrary to bond covenants. That is, the bond holders got screwed .

  5. Horrible people go into politics, of course, but voters in these areas commonly have better choices and then reject them. The culture of street-level Democrats is one that excuses and countenances this. The odious state’s attorney in Baltimore responsible for the Freddie Gray fiasco was returned to office. The sorosphere creature in St. Louis recently won a primary. So did Ilhan Omar in a district that’s 63% white. The question is, can we continue to live together?

  6. j e: That Altucher article was excellent and a topic on which I hope neo posts sometime.

    Altucher describes a standard death spiral, but the insight which jumped out at me was “Bandwidth,” which is the maximum rate data can be transferred on the internet.

    Bandwidth has steadily increased and this means teleconferencing software like Zoom now provides high enough quality to replace face-to-face meetings. Therefore, this makes remote work a much more realistic option. Therefore, the need for corporations to pay sky-high rents to be present in urban centers declines.

    This wouldn’t have been possible with 2000 or 2010 tech.

    Bandwidth, combined with Covid and left-wing idiocy, will be the 21st century version of H. Ross Perot’s “Giant Sucking Sound,”* only it will be the jobs being sucked out of urban centers.
    _____________________________

    * I am surprised to discover there is a wiki entry for “Giant sucking sound.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound

  7. I showed my new house to a cafe friend whose daughter works for Google in LA and has been working remotely in Albuquerque for several months now. Google has extended remote work until next June. The daughter and her husband are now looking to buy in Abq and would have snapped up my house if they had seen it first.

  8. However, I assumed naively that even leftist mayors wanted to have a tax base and to not preside over an enormous murder rate. Over time, I thought that they would have to do more to restore a sense of safety, before their cities were damaged in a way that would harm all their citizens.

    For the most part, I assumed wrong. They’ve only acted when their backs were to the wall, and in very tepid and temporary fashion.

    neo: Me too. I almost can’t believe it.

    I’ve heard the saying that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

    Apparently socialism is.

  9. Art Deco-
    Per Wiki, “According to the 2010 Census, Baltimore’s population is 63.7% Black, 29.6% White”.
    -Chicago: “Per U.S. Census estimates as of July 2019, Chicago’s largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the population”
    -NYC: “The city’s population in 2010 was 44% white (33.3% non-Hispanic white), 25.5% Black (23% non-Hispanic black), 0.7% Native American or Alaska Native, and 12.7% Asian. Hispanics or Latinos of any race represented 28.6% of the population”
    -Washington, DC: “47.1% Black, 45.1% White (36.8% non-Hispanic White)”

    There is a pattern here, with Euro-Whites composing ~33% of these population centers.
    Omar’s district is a fluke, the most leftist in Minnesota.

    The great black migration from the South was northward, not westward or northwestward. They did not venture west of Detroit, Michigan because IMO those more westward states were primarily rural in the 1920s, with brutal winters to boot.

    Can we continue to all live together? I doubt it.

  10. “Resistance is futile” isn’t just a screed from Star Trek. Some conservatives used to comfort themselves with the idea that the great middle was strong; and well armed, so tyranny was not possible. The truth is that the great middle is fractured and isolated to the point that being well armed is likely to get you jailed; with no one to come to your aid. The Left has gained control of the police and justice systems in so many states and municipalities, and may still wield the power at the Federal level, that resistance does indeed seem to be futile. Ironically, the police forces that are the primary target of the day doesn’t react to over reach; or reacts passively by withdrawing.

    Being numerous and armed only matters if you are organized. As has been shown in instance after instance, the only ones organized are the Leftist thugs; and their political appeasers or outright accomplices. If anyone opposes them, it is a lonely, individual effort.

    Trump better win; and then he better loose the “dogs of war” (metaphorically speaking of course) on the enemies of society.

  11. There is a pattern here, with Euro-Whites composing ~33% of these population centers. Omar’s district is a fluke, the most leftist in Minnesota.

    The black population in Chicago has a lower share of the whole than it did 35 years ago. NB, Kim Foxx’s constituency is all of Cook County. where blacks are just a quarter of the population.

  12. Art Deco: “The question is, can we continue to live together?”

    I have been intermittently obsessed by this question for some years. The periods of obsession are the periods in which I think about politics. I don’t think we can, except under conditions which no one here would like–the kind of “soft totalitarianism” that Rod Dreher documents, or a general sinking to a third-world (or Democrat-run city) condition, perhaps the sort of “new feudalism” that a recent book discusses. Or, well, there could be the situation where an actual civil war results in the subjugation of one side or the other, but I don’t think that’s actually very likely.

    The solution would be a devolution of power away from the federal government, defusing the situation in which each of the two major tribes believes that taking control of the nation as a whole is a matter of life and death for itself.

    I’ve put that case to Democrats and they don’t get it at all. To them, giving up that all-encompassing power is to give up on their dream of A Better World For All. How can a feminist in New York rest if there are obstacles to someone getting an abortion in Mississippi? Or if someone in South Dakota is teaching her children that homosexual behavior is immoral?

    Part of the anti-Trump rage, the part that shades into a quasi-religious sense that his presidency is a kind of blasphemy, is that progressives thought the subjugation of the bad people was essentially complete in 2008.

  13. I’ve put that case to Democrats and they don’t get it at all.

    That’s their signature.

  14. Cicero gets it.

    You may not be interested in Race.

    You may feel toe-curling distaste for those who are.

    Regardless, Race is Interested in You. Very interested. And in everything you think you own. And your heritage – all that you come from. All that your children’s grandchildren could become.

    And all the wishing, hoping, praying, constitutions, Ben Schapiros, Burnt Offerings, deplatformings, Great Books Programs, and other clutchings at shamanistic fetishes will not change one jot.

    Race is Interested in You.

  15. Zaphod:

    There are millions of people of every race in this country who are good citizens and who are devoted to the tenets of western civilization. The differences are not a race thing; they are a culture thing.

    In addition, our culture in general has lost its way, and people of all races are losing that devotion and that respect for western civilization.

    The work of Thomas Sowell on race and culture is very informative, although I doubt you will agree with him. For examples, however, see this, this, and this.

  16. As a European who is familiar with US politics I have always been puzzled by the behaviour of the centre-left in US. I think the Democratic party is very unique in that race always been at the core of the party. Earlier they were white supremacist in the form of KKK and now they are black supremacist in the form of BLM. The other thing that is unique in US is that the Republican party is definitely centre-right. In most countries in Europe the conservative end of the political spectrum has given up the ghost. The Conservative party in UK and Canada are hardly centre-right. That I think that drives the centre-left in US crazy because it is the only place where a proper conservative party still holds forth. I think if the Republican party was more to the left then they would siphon off a lot of the Democrat voters and the Democrats would have no choice but to weed out the crazies in their midst. Lot of these crazies are weeded out before they get to the federal level but at local level they hold supreme. The willful and wanton destruction of a city is simply incomprehensible. I think it is best to let it just play out because it is the only way sanity will return.

  17. Where are the women who are not left in these places?
    or didn’t ya notice…

  18. “I think the Democratic party is very unique in that race always been at the core of the party.”

    It might be that making race the issue is a useful diversion from discussing social class and social pathologies.

  19. People talk about the look on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s face when he got a sharp question from the press during the riots. He’s had that look before. 8 months before George Floyd Frey had to deal with a large homeless encampment that had sprung up (by LA standards, it was not large).

    He had that “well, what do I do now?” look. He didn’t run for city council and then mayor to be the tough guy who says no. He wanted to build his brand and get all set to run for US Senate. He wanted to be the guy who put in bike lanes and light rail trains.

    Then reality hit, and he had no clue. He still has none.

  20. “To them, giving up that all-encompassing power is to give up on their dream of A Better World For All. How can a feminist in New York rest if there are obstacles to someone getting an abortion in Mississippi? Or if someone in South Dakota is teaching her children that homosexual behavior is immoral?” Mac

    Indeed. Which is why the Left will not stop until they’ve forced us into another Civil War. Totalitarian ideologies are incapable of “live and let live”.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

    It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

    The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end… for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    C.S. Lewis

    “There are millions of people of every race in this country who are good citizens and who are devoted to the tenets of western civilization. The differences are not a race thing; they are a culture thing. neo

    Indeed and it is those millions upon millions people, “devoted to the tenets of western civilization”…who will, when push comes to shove, fight to preserve liberty.

    Oldflyer,

    It is the very tyranny that the radical Left leaders of the democrat party would impose upon those who disagree that will result in organized, effective armed resistance.

    When the Left ‘legalizes’ “hate speech codes”, in which disagreement itself is labeled hate speech with mandatory imprisonment and naive NeverTrumpers speak out and become political prisoners, when the Left attempts gun confiscation, when endless “reparations” are imposed…

    Then the Left will learn just how dependent and vulnerable the supply chains of their great cities and supporting suburbs are to fatal disruption. Nor are there enough police and military personnel to prevent that disruption.

    Nor are guns even needed, IEDs are even more effective than guns. Water, food, and medical supplies… and electrical transmission are easily disrupted. Fourth Generation Warfare, i.e. updated guerrilla warfare… plays hell with basic infrastructure.

    The radical Left’s planned re-education camps for the “deplorables” and killing fields for the “irredeemables” will leave us no other recourse.

    “Those who make peaceful resolution of differences impossible will make violent resolution of differences inevitable.” Pres. John F Kennedy paraphrased

  21. I disagree. It wasn’t the leaders that did this it was the VOTERS who did this. To blame the people put in charge absolves the people who placed them there.

    I live in Michigan and I tell everyone who will listen is that “we voted for this” either by voting for Whitmer or not persuading enough people to vote against her. She had a record and most voter glossed over it whipped up by media hysteria against Trump. It makes a lot of people mad when I tell them but it does have an impact as they have a chance to reflect on it.

    Now we live with the consequences.

  22. There is a spiritual element to the mass insanity. A few years ago , one of my uncles who is a mechanical engineer observed that something was happening to the higher ups in US corporations where they were making crazy decisions. I think its spiritual. It shows itself in the physical realm, but it is there. Talk, or try to talk, to some of the militant atheists and you get a glimpse. They may have jobs, degrees, etc, but they are almost insane and rabid and hateful towards the nation .

  23. @ Mac,

    Your last three paragraphs were perfect. We have heard as much before perhaps, but need to hear it stated afresh, and as well, now and again.

    @ Geoff Britain ,

    Yes if the occasional blackouts have reminded us of our vulnerabilities, they have reminded us of their vulnerabilities as well. When half the country wants the plug pulled, the trains stopped, and the freeways made impassable in order to halt existential assaults on their lives, and therefore no longer care about the cost or the fallout to themselves, the trimmers, or the enemy, we shall see how long urban America can maintain itself.

    And of course, most dwellings with private water supplies, about 40% of households last I checked, are not in the city.

    Yet, when a hostile son or daughter who 6 months before was planning on expropriating the house and sending mom and dad to a reeducation camp comes crawling to the old homestead door, many will open it. They probably will not recall that the prodigal they refer to as an example, wasted his share of his prematurely granted ineritance on riotous living, not on making plans to destroy the rest of the family.

    People are a forgiving and forgetting lot. Which is why so many are stabbed in the back when they should apparently know better.

    But then maybe cities will survive to eventually become the new castles – sending automated warriors out to compel service and ensure that a former yeomanry now reduced to serfdom in the name of collective progress, never rises again. Or maybe elimination will become their plan, rather than domination. The kind have already demonstrated a readiness to commit murder and mayhem on precious little or no provovation, as it is.

    Let`s hope it never gets near to any of this and it remains fanciful speculation. If it does start down that path in reality, it will become so incredibly vicious it will make that cowardly and murderous battery of a helpless man in the street, look like a love tap.

  24. I am Sparticus,

    Yes voters did do this but mostly out of a deep ignorance and a very cunning deception of them. A deception that perhaps ranks as the most facile indoctrination ever accomplished.

    To focus upon those deceived voters is to ignore that it was that leadership; political, academic, religious, the media and throughout our institutions that wrought that most deceptive, generations long propaganda.

    DNW,

    A progital son or daughter must have sincere regret, as forgiveness extended without repentance is sin without consequence.

    Automated warriors won’t be able to restore blown up transformer stations. Prevent caltrops shredding semitrailer tires. Torn up train tracks and polluted water supplies.

    But yes, a civil war is only exceeded in cruelty by a religious or race war. God forbid it. But if they force it upon us another reality will apply; there are things far worse than death. As any N. Korean not among the elite can testify.

    “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” – William Tecumseh Sherman

  25. “Once a critical mass of leftists has been reached, it’s game over for all those hard-won liberties.” – Neo

    I have seen the same sentiment expressed about the growth in percentage of Muslims in a country before it becomes de facto part of the Ummah, and the parallels are frighteningly similar to the growth of the hard left in the Democrat party.

    Examples by country are listed (…), but that is correlation, not causation.
    Looking at the numbers today in those countries and observing their situation would give a longitudinal study that would test the hypothesis.

    http://shoebat.com/2011/07/02/what-to-expect-the-effect-of-muslim-population-growth-on-a-society/

    As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.

    At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.

    From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply.

    At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

    When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we are already seeing car burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam.

    After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues,

    At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare

    From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia law as a weapon, and jizya, the tax placed on infidels,

    After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some state-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim,

    100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace. Here there’s supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word,

    Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

    The interior links are “broken” — FWIW.

  26. Food for thought.
    Yeah, it really is that frightening.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/08/18/what-defund-police-really-means-or-time-to-take-the-training-wheels-off-of-our-political-thinking/#!/back

    It isn’t good enough, in America’s perilous situation, to perceive only that some very foolish-sounding city councils are voting to drastically cut police forces and funding for them. To let the thinking stop there is to set our communities up for defeat.

    The city councils are touting vague plans to replace police with squads of community relations specialists, such as counselors for domestic violence situations and for misdemeanors among homeless people. But to accept that concept at face value is also to think in a limited way, with training wheels on.

    Setting aside whether such an idea would work or not – and first there’d have to be a definition of what “working” means – the questions must arise: where is the evidence that any of the radical leftists involved actually have a structured plan for this? Where are the counselors? Where are the specialists? Who are they, what are their bona fides, what is the vision for their ministrations?

    There is absolutely zero on this. “Reimagining policing” doesn’t come with an executable plan anyone will get to inspect and vote on. At most, it comes with sophomore seminar slogans and bullet-point outlines.

    Instead, “reimagining police” is very much about replacing police: it’s not about leaving the streets with no representatives of government authority on them. But the “defund police” effort wants to install as a replacement something yet undefined, with no fealty to existing law and no accountability to the taxpayers.

    That ought to make our blood run cold. The point of having police organized as they are today is that they are faithful to existing law, and they are accountable to the taxpayers. That’s what the concept of the “sworn officer” is about: reserving the power to detain and use armed force against citizens to officers who are sworn before all else to abide by and uphold the law.

    Americans must take the training wheels off their brains, and understand that the “defund police” effort isn’t ultimately about eliminating the power of the sworn officer. It’s about replacing him with the UNSWORN.

    The point of “reimagining policing” is to decouple armed force in the streets from statute law. It’s to put the citizen – not the “law officer” and not the government – in the position of perpetual risk.

    Laws exist to protect the citizen and constrain and restrain government, and that’s the basis on which we operate police and sheriff forces today. The “defund police” movement is trying to railroad us into giving up that precious restraint on what our local governments can do to us.

    The movement isn’t telling us that, of course. But it is behaving exactly as such movements always have, whether their storm troops were anarcho-terrorists, Bolsheviks and sons of Bolsheviks, or Nazis.

    If you want to understand how the defund police movement views you, Joe and Jane Public, in terms of the rights and dignity you merit before the movement, you can’t do better than to watch the video clips in this thread from a recent incident in Portland.

  27. Here is someone who is pushing back against the leaders and voters.
    h/t Power Line.
    Wish I could vote for her!
    https://twitter.com/kimKBaltimore/status/1295461903268040707

    Kimberly Klacik
    @kimKBaltimore

    US House candidate, MD-7
    Democrats don’t want you to see this.

    They’re scared that I’m exposing what life is like in Democrat run cities.

    That’s why I’m running for Congress
    Because All Black Lives Matter
    Baltimore Matters
    And black people don’t have to vote Democrat

    https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-whos-who-district-7-klacik-20200205-tpuj4p6ofng25e6p5i4oisxvgy-story.html

  28. DAs were chosen in an Orwellian manner: for their propensity to negate the system they were elected to supposedly follow.

    Sign of the times. Catholic priests, teachers, professors, and Democrats were chosen the same way. Have been for decades.

  29. Kim Klacik (R) is a smart black woman in Baltimore running for US House district MD-7 who is running against defunding the police and against failed black and Democrat leadership to protect black folks. This killer video is the best classic of the election season, so far. And I believe she may well deserve your support! Check it out!
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/394795/

  30. Surefire conversation stopper with two high school classmates, one a never Trump Republican, the other a liberal Democrat with a few remaining brain cells and some testosterone level, in discussing the rioting.

    “Who will stop them?”.

  31. Then reality hit, and he had no clue. He still has none.

    At the time he was elected, he was a 32 year old childless divorcé who had never held an executive position in his life. He grew up in Northern Virginia and had lived in Minneapolis for only a few years before running for public office.

    And among the candidates for mayor, he was the least comical. He had about four assets: a certain amount of ‘g’, a history of having worked in a demanding trade (law), interests outside of public affairs (accomplished amateur athlete), and (compared with his opponents) and disinclination to say crazy sh!t. The incumbent mayor was such a tool and her performance in office such a train-wreck that she had to be voted out. He’s outdone her several times over, and, compared with the sh!tty council, he’s the adult in the room. Again, 10 out of the 12 members of the sh!tty council are childless and most of them have embarrassing work histories – staff positions working for twee NGOs, &c. Two of them are self-identified ‘transgenders’ (head cases).

    Note, betwixt and between the grotesque Ilhan Omar won her primary for re-election (running against a black lawyer who wasn’t impressive but was at least not criminally insane). This, in a district that’s 63% white. The gentry liberals of Minneapolis have brought this upon themselves (and upon the decent people who live among them). To hell with them.

  32. Jon Baker: yes.
    The New Atheists were provoked into debate over the wreckage of 9/11 and the naive discovery of Evil in the world. Leftist atheists, which is most of them, were forced to rethink Islam and Islamism.

    Unable to do this well or honestly or incompletely, they wound up projecting on conservatives, the religious, and BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Charles Krauthammer, himself a trained psychiatrist, came up with the diagnosis, and http://www.drsanity.com analysed the cultural politics grew out of it.

    Thus, these New Atheists became among the first swallowing Social Justice politics, with all the projection and contradictions that going with it. A poisonous course.

    When Dinesh D’Souza debated Christopher Hitchens on this subject, Catholic raised Dinesh won, by my estimate. (It’s still online, I think.)

    Atheist (and classical liberal) Carl Benjamin, who vblogs as Sargon of Akkad, replies to the New Atheist with Aristotle and respect for Christianity’s great universalism and humanising successes. Western Civilization itself grew because of the Truth-seeking absolutism of Christians. Own it, even one cannot live it and Walk With Christ.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXrjwLBEOwo

    Similarly, I myself have contemplated ageing among British retires in some Mediterranean island. What would I do?

    As an American, qua Alexis de Tocqueville, Americans are a church-going nation. It is better to support fellowship in Christ as a dissenter p than to go without community and enjoying life and sharing others griefs.

    Therefore, sensible atheists do not practice rejection or obstinance towards Christians. (Nevertheless, there is a remaining group of newly convinced atheists who believe religion has harmed them, typically through their family. I know of no easy course for those so conflicted. It’s simply worth noting that there’s such a group there, and many have found support, even if confused or misled, by New Atheist writings.)

    Corporate culture and even entrepreneurs have been fought up in this cultural conflict. I guess my strategy advocates a philosophical de-escalation of the psycho-social conflict of these atheists and traditional Americans. Start with de Tocqueville — even brief excerpts from Democracy in America can show those mal-educated how ordinary Americans make sense of themselves in action, in communal worship, and with family.

  33. Other than voting these people out of office–and that has to wait for the next election, unless there is some “recall” provision in their local or state law (I’m pretty sure that they are just ignoring the howls of pain and growls of anger from their citizens and businessmen)–there is, it seems, no immediate way to remove them from office, no way to indict and prosecute them for their actions and deliberate lack of action, no way to penalize them by cancelling their pension benefits for nonfeasance or malfeasance, no higher authority or court which will remove them from office, since such higher authorities are–it appears–almost always also on the Left, are their co-conspirators–and they all know it.

    Comes the realization that, while we all were living our lives–our eyes and attention focused on other things, and oblivious–the Left managed to slither into virtually all of the positions of power.

    And, by the time the next election rolls around?

    Presuming the electorate that originally put them into office wants to remove them from office–the city will be in ruins, a ghost of it’s former self, a place to be avoided.

    And the “officials” who presided over it’s destruction?

    They’ll be off somewhere enjoying their retirement, or in some cushy new position that those on the Left have provided for them.

  34. TJ-The Sargon of Akkad video was well worth the 21 minutes. Take away: “When Christianity was thrown out, Aristotle was thrown out with it.” And other good points. Thank you.

  35. It looks to me like a child throwing over the game board when he realizes that he is going to lose. Is there anything that the left controls they are not burning to ground? Education? Media? The Arts? Law? State and local government? National government? Civic life in urban centers? Major league sports? Tech?

  36. Exactly, Chases Eagles: It’s the final, desperate eruption of the left against Trump’s election and probable reelection. It’s partly rational, based on the hope that ‘chaos’ (which the MSM helpfully attributes to Trump) might increase the chance that the left seizes power, and partly just anger and frustration that they are not in power now and might not get it back for at least four years. They are like toddlers who yell and scream and throw their toys when they don’t get their way. We just have to hope and pray that civilized and patriotic Americans see this tantrum for what it is and stand firm, like parents and “tough love.”

  37. Which is why the Left will not stop until they’ve forced us into another Civil War.

    So why didn’t anyone here figure out that CW2 was inevitable, in 2007 or even 2012?

    They did not understand themselves, and assumed in their prideful egotistical arrogance, they understood the Leftist alliance, the Deep State, and Satan.

    None of you understand any of the 3 above. Not even in 2020.

    Your very mind is contaminated by the shackles of the slave dark Matrix crafted by what you consider Satan. That is why your mind continually seeks for “evidence” and “proof” of what is easily observed. If you could stop thinking you know for a second, you would observe what is going on and then realize the truth. But by blocking the truth via your mental distortions and self deceptions and lies, you are kept from being liberated.

    The truth, the light, the way, is closed to the materialistic mind that seeks intellectual understanding.

  38. Ymarsakar:

    Whether or not a civil war is inevitable has been a topic of much discussion on this blog, off and on since at least 2008. One example of such a thread begins here, and that’s just one. There were always some people who felt it was inevitable or nearly so, and others who didn’t feel that way.

    And of course there have also been some discussions of whether it would be a hot war or just a takeover by the left, and whether either of those things would happen.

    I don’t think that any of those discussions featured someone other than you who agreed with your worldview of how it would happen, however.

  39. Neo. Wrt your comment of 3:21: I think it’s relevant.
    My wife and I this morning went to help a couple we know who are having health problems. Husband is bed ridden and can’t be left alone and a couple of errands involving two cars were needed.
    Got it taken care of, brought a meal, arranged for them to be on the church Meal Train, scheduled a couple of other items later in the week.
    The usual stuff you do or have done for you…depending…at our age(s).
    They wouldn’t have asked us except their neighbors, once great friends, have cut off all contact on finding our friends support Trump.

    I have split some wood and done other things to get my BP down. I am now imagining the neighbors’ highly moral self-righteousness and their ambition to tell others of their wonderfulness, with a soupcon of justified sadism.

    Honest to God. Comes the revolution……

  40. Chases Eagles,

    I have had that same association in my mind through much of this unrest; immature, spoiled children throwing tantrums. It truly seems that simple and basic.

    On an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program yesterday Jason Whitlock gave an excellent segment on the current state of affairs in the U.S. regarding race. He spoke very eloquently on something I have been struggling to express succinctly; The perversion of raising young children with the message that they are unable to achieve greatness (or anything worthwhile) because the system they live in and under is and always will be against them succeeding. The most pusillanimous humans are those who will destroy children to further their own, personal cause.

  41. Richard Aubrey,

    How incredibly sad. I know many people explain behavior like that of your neighbors as they are substituting politics for religion. And I often feel that is the case myself. However, if your sick neighbor was Muslim, or Jewish or Buddhist, and the other neighbors were Mormon, or Christian or Zoroastrian…. Would they ask so steadfast and belligerent? Americans typically help one another even across religious divides. What new type of zeal is this that would cause former friends to allow a neighbor to suffer while feeling no remorse?

  42. Neo sez,
    “There are millions of people of every race in this country who are good citizens and who are devoted to the tenets of western civilization. The differences are not a race thing; they are a culture thing.
    “In addition, our culture in general has lost its way, and people of all races are losing that devotion and that respect for western civilization.”

    So Neo really says the millions who are devoted are a shrinking number. Our culture has lost its way. Secularism increases, tattoos are everywhere as if this was New Guinea, and our western culture is disappearing before our very eyes.

    I submit that in America races and cultures are tightly interwoven. It is patently obvious that blackness is now a virtue inherently worthy of rewards. see Harvard medical school admitting criteria; see Affirm Action. As 2 examples.

    Yet ‘systemic racism’ is everyhere; blacks deserve more and more!
    Reparations! Now! BLM!

    Watch your TV commercials; by my estimate some 30-40% feature blacks, though blacks are only ~15% of the population. Maybe blacks watch more TV, I don’t know, but corporate CEOs are not throwing money away. The implication is that blackness is good, that blacks are just like the rest of us, but clearly we as a nation do not follow that. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said about fifteen years ago, we’ll need Affirmative Action for another twenty years. Still going strong, stronger than ever.

    Being black has its own culture. That culture has no “respect for western civilization”, I submit. None. Who heeds Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas? Not blacks. My black housekeeper of 20 years sneers at Thomas, for being married to a white, inter alia.

    Look at post-colonial Africa, for gosh sakes! Botswana is the sole respectworthy nation. South Africa amended its constitution last year to allow seizure of white farmers’ lands with zero compensation.

  43. Richard Aubrey:

    How sad. And it’s also sad that your neighbors’ friends’ desertion doesn’t surprise me.

  44. Richard, Rufus, and Neo.

    I remember reading an article by a Democrat some fifteen years ago or so.
    She was driving on the highway, and noticed a van stopped along the side, obviously with children inside. She related that her first impulse was to pull over and help, but then she noticed the “Bush” sticker on the disabled vehicle and drove past.
    She was posting the story because she was proud of her decision.

  45. Thanks back at you, Sharon W.
    The great western tradition of humanism grows out of basic Christian doctrines. Humility (because God is in charge; He judges us, ultimately).
    Empathy, other regard (being thy brother’s keeper). The ethical power of consciousness, self-consciousness, and the virtue of being conscientiousness (from Protestant tradition). The universal value of individual life, which gives us the concept of individual rights, and natural rights.

    And all of these doctrines filtered and focused by reason and modes of analysis from Aristotle. Heady, powerful stuff — denied by Educrats today.

    Thus, the moronielle insistence that racism means we overturn everything and start over? Ridiculous, unless one is ignorant. Right now I’m looking at a long claim at YouTube by an East Indian saying that classical liberalism foisted exploitation, slavery and genocide on the people. It’s a complete failure, he claims.

    Liar or insanely ignorant? How does one say that while your concerns might be touching, your certainty betrays your victimisation…by your “teachers!”

  46. Yet ‘systemic racism’ is everyhere

    Systemic diversity (i.e. class-based color judgments), not limited to racism, sexism, is a progressive condition. A prototypical example of class-based labels and judgments is the Pro-Choice religion or ethics’ selective-child doctrine, and Planned Parenthood et al clinical cannibalism (e.g. redistributive change) of her profitable parts with social and quasi-legal (i.e. Twilight Amendment) justification under Roe. Some, Select Black Lives Matter is another example, which has found corporate patrons at Amazon, Goodyear, and other major corporations.

  47. Because All Black Lives Matter

    That’s an improvement over Some, Select Black Lives Matter, which was founded and progresses on false premises. Baby steps, I suppose.

  48. “…How sad….”

    Actually, it’s sick.
    Well, gotta give credit where it’s due:
    Thanks, Hillary!
    Thanks, Obama!
    Thanks, Pelosi!
    Thanks Democrats!
    Thanks, MSCM!

  49. They wouldn’t have asked us except their neighbors, once great friends, have cut off all contact on finding our friends support Trump.

    I’m betting the origin of this tiff was when your elderly friends demurred when the neighbors were mouthing off on political topics. We have Republican friends and Democratic friends. The Republican friends use Facebook to post pictures of their grandchildren &c. Our Democrat friends mouth off about politics. They think in slogans and memes and have no critical engagement with anything they read from talking point mills.

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