In the first installment I went on and on about how Charlottesville was a perfect test to preserve and protect the sanctity of freedom of speech, expression and assembly.
I’ll let you all determine if Americans get a passing grade.
In this post, I want to touch on a specific example of how the left is not seeing things properly when it comes to freedom of opinion.
A recent development in left-wing dogma is the notion that if you disagree with speech you deem ‘hateful’, it doesn’t deserve First Amendment protection. In Canada, we didn’t even bother to have a debate about it and just scribbled in ‘hate speech’ laws into our Charter. Government balances free speech. It is known.
A charter that isn’t worth shit (I can’t even bring myself to capitalize it) because when taken to its logical end, the government has final say on individual sovereignty and our rights to freedom of expression.
In other words, you’re kinda free until you’re not in Canada.
Sha-wing!
Just ask Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant learned when they got their asses hauled in before the court, and unelected monstrosities like the Human Rights Commission for the crime of wrongthink.
List of punchables please.
HRC talking bacterial virus: “Please explain to us, dear friend, why you hate the environment, Mark? Why won’t you be a good boy and side with science? We fucking love science, so be sciencey with us! Prove to us why we shouldn’t send you to Camp Krusty.”
The idea, if you can call it that, is grotesque for where it can all lead. One of those intellectual cul-de-sacs is thought control. For example, Smugpipi Longnanny commands, “You have white privilege ergo you’re racist but you don’t know it. You just need to accept it and this is why we’re controlling speech or else…”
A variation of this is if you don’t denounce something they deem offensive enough, they will take the moral decision to claim you ‘tacitly accept’ insert bad thing here.
By their admitted logic, because the left refuses to ‘tacitly denounce Islamic terrorism to the degree some may demand’, they’re terrorists. See? Fun.
So if you dare to defend – in the context of Charlottesville – that racists have a right to free speech means you support them.
Oh, the lazy stupidity of it all!
Let’s keep going. I’ve read quite a few of these self-righteous zealots argue that it’s okay to punch a Nazi. Emotionally, sure. The urge to hit something you loathe is great. I loathe Marxist thinking, communist ideology and socialism because they’re illiberal ideologies with a documented track record of murder and mayhem that robs and steals humans of their soul handing it over to a bureaucracy of superiors who control your life. Nothing can be more anti-humanist than these ideologies. I also can’t handle clowns. Clowns are scary.
It was my understanding there’d be no retaliation to the initiation of force.
Am I justified in going to punch out such people in the street?
Or. Let us take this accurate statement of ‘Not all Muslim are terrorists but the majority of political terrorism are committed by Islamic terrorists”. Does this accord me the right to go punch out my Muslim neighbour? No, seriously, a Muslim family live three houses me.
And what happens if the Nazi, Muslim or any body else punches back? Have you considered those inevitable consequences?
Moving goal posts is God’s work.
Are they not in their right to defend themselves since you admitted throwing the first punch is a duty?
I don’t think these people have thought things through. They just want to project and emote arrogantly setting the rules. Like a good game of Calvin Ball.
Let me expand.
If they’re in the moral and intellectual right, as they claim, why do they need violence then? Because history of the Nazis show this is what needs to be done? Again, can’t this be applied to Muslim terrorism? I reckon they won’t want to extend this rope to that end, right?
Progressive visions.
As is always the case with them, they get to determine the parameters of free speech (as we see on campuses and safe spaces). And just like they get to arbitrarily set the rules, the idea violence starts when the other side retaliates gives them one long leash to lash out with impunity.
By not ‘tacitly’ denouncing Antifa’s own antics in Charlottesville, do I get to go punch those people out?
How barbaric, no?
But, Rufus, I fear your monocle is on too tight and squeezing your brain. Antifa is love and peace! They just want to spread their love!
Pish-posh. You have not seen love until you witness the love libertarians have of their orphans.
At best, I see ‘two wrongs make a right’ or ‘might makes right’.
Antifa is a violent, illiterate, and problematic hate group in of itself. That they *claim* to speak for righteousness is hollow and tenuous. Witch-hunters thought they were doing good too. So do villains who feel they’ve been wronged and seek to ‘right’ a perceived injustice.
Speaking of which, I do question the judgment of someone who claims Antifa is good. An identity group that doxxes people resulting in major consequences for the people impacted is a misguided and misplaced act of justice.
For a group that claims to be compassionate and humanist, how can they not see this action destroys (often) innocent lives needlessly? They may see themselves as righteous vigilantes but in effect they’re just lawless renegades with a confused moral and intellectual compass.
How would you feel if that was your son or daughter or friend or cousin who lost their jobs to a wrongful doxxing? Humanize your actions.
People who claim Antifa are not violent are out to lunch. Either they’re ignoring their behaviour or are just plain uninformed. Or they don’t care and aren’t admitting it. Regardless, none of it is good and not supported by documented reports of what we know about them.
Not provoking a bear is a universal principle applied pretty much across the West. It’s basic kindergarten stuff. If you punch first, you were reprimanded. Conversely, if the person struck back, they too would be held to account for their actions.
Even the NHL understands this basic law of nature. It’s called the ‘Instigator rule’. Don’t provoke or else you’ll get the penalty; usefulness of the rule notwithstanding. It’s believed it’s better to let the two parties have a go with the thinking it will police and sort itself out. Maybe this is what needs to be done here. Let these faux-resisters and racists keep banging each other over the heads. Eventually they’ll get the message that their actions are futile and not furthering their respective agendas. No one in the end can tolerate endless, mindless violence. Not even that degenerate, left-wing Berkeley professor who smashed that kid with a bike lock.
Beats the Outer Banks.
He’s a prime example of a coward who would take advantage of the instigator rule in hockey. He’d hit and run away without facing justice. Of course, if someone did hit him back, coward that he is, he’d scream like a little baby about how he faced violence and injustice. After all, this gutless coward has the moral obligation to smash people up, correct?
If a fellow gang member comes up to you and says we need to go take care of the Ducky Boys, the gang is going to carefully consider the possible outcomes and consequences of the provocation. You all understand if you go and provoke them, they will fight back. So someone among you may say, ‘hey man, don’t go and do that. They outnumber us’. Or they’ll conclude, ‘it’s not worth it.’
But none of the considerations are “they will just take what they have coming’.
Only The Wanders can take on the Ducky Boys.
It’s illogical and naive for people who think violence wasn’t inevitable in the context of Charlottesville.
No matter how you dice this thing up, Antifa doesn’t come out looking any better.
Worse even if you ask me.
No, you don’t have a right to punch a Nazi because, by all accounts, you’re are not nice people and don’t hold the higher moral ground.
Do us all a favour and stop pretending you represent the conscience of people, quit pretending you care about civil liberties and put on your blue caps. Here are some ideas you’d wear well.
Needs more alt text.
If you punch first, you were reprimanded. Conversely, if the person struck back, they too would be held to account for their actions.
Back when I was in school, the person who punched first was reprimanded, and the person who struck back was not. The moral equivocation of aggression with self-defense is toxic bullshit that is being trained into children in schools today. Aggression is bad. Self-defense is good. Its as simple as that, but the brainless bureaucrats running our schools, at least, are teaching something else altogether.
When I was in grade school (80’s) everyone involved in a fight was punished. Regardless of who threw the first punch. Mind you, this was a Catholic school, so that may have some bearing on it.
I’ve seen that particular system abused where a group favored by the school administration would one by one start a “fight” with a disfavored student (usually poorer, family issues). Even if the young punk was smart enough to do nothing there were decent odds that the administration would still punish them for being involved in a fight. Especially because the problem child had been involved in so many fights while all the good students had only been involved in a single (hand waved away, warning but no record) incident involving the troubled youth. Predictable outcome: the no good kid figures out the game is rigged and beats the ever loving shit out of some young upstanding future ivy-leaguer in the next encounter leading to expulsion and all kinds of potential for legal troubles. Working as intended.
That was the rule at my public middle and high school back in the 80’s as well.
The main result, as far as I could tell, was that the bullies had free reign over the “good kids” who didn’t want to get suspended.
I’m thinking back to small town Texas schools in the 70s.
That was my dad’s policy, but the Lutheran elementary school and subsequent public middle and high schools I attended punished everyone involved. Initially I thought it was because they were pussified hippies, and that was a part of it, but I found out as an adult talking to teachers that there were some pretty sound reasons for it.
For one, you don’t want a teacher to have to decide who threw the first punch. There could be issues of bias, or it could just be tough to tell. For another, part of the point is to give the combatants some time and space apart, either to cool down or to keep one of them from getting their asses beaten. And a third reason is that by just making it automatic policy everyone involved can deny any requests for exceptions or clemency by falling back to the age-old excuse, “I’d love to, but I can’t. It’s policy.”
WATCH: Reporter Asks Antifa Why They’re Protesting. They’re Just As Clueless And Violent As You’d Expect.
Tellingly, the man with a stuffed penis on his head was the most coherent.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/20085/watch-reporter-asks-antifa-why-theyre-protesting-amanda-prestigiacomo
***
“So the ‘alt-right,’ I would call it a loose connection of this new wave right-wing sort of — not radicals — but they have a strong emphasis on white supremacy,” said another protester. “Maybe not even white supremacy, but more capitalism and closed borders.”
…
Another Laguna beach protester suggested that there are only a small number of estimated Nazis in the country because “that’s probably registered Nazis.”
Ah, yes, many people avoid the “Nazi Registry.”
When Fletcher confronted the hard-core Antifa protesters who covered their faces, they told him that we need to combat neo-Nazis by using violence, including even murder.
….
One “libertarian communist,” whatever the hell that is, insisted that we have “yet to have a communist state,” citing Star Trek as the ideal.
***
A society with faster than light travel, the ability to replicate anything on demand and holodecks… Yeah, maybe you should wait until we have similar capabilities before you agitate against what works in the here and now.
“But the evil KKKorporations are suppressing that technology, because profit$$$!”
I know no one remembers “The Lone Gunmen”, but I am reminded of their water powered car episode.
Oil Company Agent: “I’m not trying to destroy the car, I’m trying to bring it to the world.”
Other character: “Why?”
OCA: “What do you think a water-powered car is lubricated with? And then there are the plastics involved in its construction. I want billions of water-powered cars on the planet…”
Advanced tech creates new profit centers to be exploited. Not everyone is a buggy-whip maker.
I remember it.
It had multiple episodes?
Enough to have a small boxed set.
I remember it well, because I watched the first episode, and it was about a black flag operation where an airliner was hijacked and deliberately flown at the World Trade Center in order to start a war. A few months later, 9/11 happened.
He doesn’t realize that he is a red shirt. At least the DNC views him as a redshirt.
Also, a fictional society, with writers who can make sure it works well, whether it would in reality or not.
It’s like saying Jean Picard is a great leader. Well, of course he is. It says so right there in the script.
Its a shame the Repubs are so inept and stupid, because you could make some epic campaign commercials out of antifa and their brainless supporters in the media and government.
“Maybe not even white supremacy, but more capitalism”
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.
You know who else opposed unfettered capitalism?
Slave traders?
“One “libertarian communist,” whatever the hell that is”
What that means is that when I’ve helped usher in communist utopia, I can still do whatever I like because I’m one of the good people, I don’t have any wrong think, and I’ll only be doing good things that I approve of. See how that works?
I definitely see where the “libertarian communist” label comes from. Its actually old-school communism, where the end-state (so to speak) is after the state withers away following the creation of New Soviet/Communist Man.
Commies are commies. You can put whatever descriptor you want in front of it, its still communism.
Wait, so leftists are 100% opposed to free markets and smaller government. But what they want is to force everyone into communism so that after some magical transformation in human nature, they can have free markets and no government? That makes total sense.
Well, it’s not exactly magical. It would be the result of a eugenics program during the socialism phase to eradicate self-interest and replace it with pure altruism in the entire population. It’s not actually possible, though, due to the economic failure of socialism which will put an added emphasis on the evolutionary pressure for self-preservation. This backfiring is the reason Communist-run countries end up producing extremely selfish people with little regard for human life or property.
In other words, Communism (defined as stateless) is a fantasy and we should know that by now. And any attempt to bring us closer to it will just result in mass murder and starvation but never actually achieve its goals, which are used as justification for the mass murder.
At least when you break a few eggs, you get an omelet. But you will never create the New Soviet Man.
Well, of course, some of us know this. There’s more than one outcome though. You could get a China. So instead of devastating economic collapse, you open up to capitalism while keeping the hardcore communist government in power. Of course, only the favored members of the communist party get to participate in the capitalism. But it keeps you going for a while anyway. Although none of the utopia ever gets achieved and corrupt human nature and vast inequalities remain.
Red China is really just a pallette swap of the old Chinese Empire. You have the same peasantry, Mandarins, and Aristocracy, just with new labels (the proletariat, the general party and the inner party)
citing Star Trek as the ideal.
We are dealing with children who think that fiction ignorant or basic reality or economics is a standard to live up to. Also, as I always like to point out, the Federation Charter specifically makes it illegal to blame or hold responsible any person for the crimes of their ancestors. So I guess the first step would be getting rid of all that whining about things like reparations or privilege right?
“Federation Charter specifically makes it illegal to blame or hold responsible any person for the crimes of their ancestors”
How do you know this? This is like advertising that you want to get beat up
It would be worse if he named the episode that tidbit came from.
You’ll have to get through Benjamin Sisko first.
In the video, the commy says that the utopia of Star Trek is the result of communism winning, although he says there hasn’t been a real communist society yet.
HA! That commie clearly didn’t watch the show.
As of the original series, they still had a very capitalist society. It was noticably after the introduction of two of the advances I mentioned that Smug became the official Federation currency.
Awhile back I posted a fantastic rant by some nerds on a podcast where (even though they’re clearly not that informed on economics) they just tear apart Star Trek’s ‘post scarcity’ and ‘no property’ logic.
“Fuck that, Picard’s got a fucking winery in the south of France! Do we have infinite southern French wineries now? No we fucking don’t! Sisko’s dad runs a restaurant. Where he makes food for customers. For free. When replicators exist. Goddammit Roddenberry make your stupid world make sense!”
Also, wasn’t this world nuked to hell? Is that why the French now speak English? But that doesn’t explain why the cajuns haven’t been displaced one iota.
This article thinks through a post-scarcity society and why it would suck and eventually collapse:
https://cameronharwick.com/blog/what-would-post-scarcity-really-look-like/
***
It’s entirely wishful thinking to imagine that competition will vanish in a post-scarcity society. Indeed, for such a society, the problem of approbation will be the primary problem its institutions must solve: as status competition becomes more salient, what institutions are necessary to channel status competition into socially beneficial avenues?
Whatever such institutions look like, they’re probably not compatible with free speech. If wealthier societies are more likely to have harmful status competition, if they’re more likely to see the emergence of ideologies that make destruction high-status, the single most important institution in a post-scarcity society may be something like a thought police to forcibly prevent such ideologies from emerging.
….
For the sake of argument, let’s assume this society manages to successfully navigate the problems of ideological conformity. Competition will obviously not disappear with the advent of material abundance. But might it disappear over the very long run? If the conditions necessitating competition are absent, might the competitive drive also disappear?
This is a real possibility. But, unfortunately, again a rather dark one. As was shown in the first section, status competition is the basis of human sociality. To remove the conditions for human competition, therefore, is also to remove the conditions for human sociality.
A few thousand years of material abundance, therefore, is not likely to turn human society into a cooperative paradise. More likely the human condition will be substantially more solitary than at present, with a concomitant decay of the mental correlates of sociality, such as language and intelligence.
***
I think the best that can be done is a society where deaths from hunger, disease, and violence are rare.
I predict a rise in bloodsports, rioting for the sake of it, and an ongoing quest for new cultural excesses.
And then, eventually, a tear in spacetime centered on Earth as the above brings Slaanesh into existence.
Wait, if we’re the Eldar, then where’s Terra?
The Astronomicon points that-a-way.
Just make sure you take a left at Albuquerque.
The entire “post-scarcity world” thing is just Roddenberry projecting his whole idiot politics into the story. In TOS he even couldn’t get around the fact that there were merchant-traders. Moreover, how ridiculous does one have to be to assume the Ferengi don’t have replication technology? The technology was often suggested to be closely linked to holodeck technology, and the Ferengi were considered masters of the latter. But if the Ferengi were also “post-scarcity”, the entire premise falls apart. And that makes sense. Many successful businessmen reference money as “a way of keeping score”.
As long as I get to be Kirk, I’m A-OK with that.
Sorry, you’re a blue shirt who studies comets.
*clubs UCS with a lirpa, Vulcan mind-fucks his corpse*
You really shouldn’t be playing around on the holodeck during your shift. Your report on the phasic polarity of the particulate cloud is three weeks overdue.
“I’ll let you all determine if Americans get a passing grade.”
Barely a passing grade, because the courts remain steadfastly committed to free speech. The so called ‘free speech’ community in this country gets a resounding ‘F’. The ACLU announced that they will pick and choose whether or not to defend ‘hate groups’ anymore (which means they will just quietly stop defending them) and so called ‘libertarians’ were too busy virtue signaling to even ask “where were the police?” or “why do police keep standing down and allowing these assaults to occur?”. Probably the only time you’d ever see these people not fault the police (when in doubt, you should always question the police).
The only people that have been steadfast in the defense of free speech and opposed to ‘call out culture’ (‘you said wrong think- get him!’) over the past two years has been conservatives, who are now more individualist oriented than many so called ‘libertarians’.
All in all, the event was disgraceful from many ends. From our president, to people who are suppose to care about free speech, to our local governments.
Barely a passing grade, because the courts remain steadfastly committed to free speech.
Well, except for carving commercial speech, political speech, and workplace speech out of the First Amendment.
Political speech is secure and there has been some key victories on commercial speech recently, including with ‘The Slants’ ruling. Workplace speech is a private matter
Political speech is secure
McCain-Feingold is still on the books, so no.
some key victories on commercial speech recently
Perhaps, but the doctrine itself is firmly entrenched.
Workplace speech is a private matter
The Department of Labor and Office of Civil Rights beg to disagree.
“McCain-Feingold is still on the books, so no.”
True, but Citizens United was a significant triumph.
“Workplace speech is a private matter
The Department of Labor and Office of Civil Rights beg to disagree.”
Right. I guess I misunderstood the sentiment
Yeah, don’t get caught saying anything a feminist might object to.
FIRE does a good job, fwiw.
Yes, but they only serve college campuses. There needs to be a free speech alternative to the ACLU
I am a big fan of these guys, too.
Institute for Justice is good, too. I remember when they use to advertise on the back of Liberty Magazine. But, I think they only deal with economic regulation.
They work the free speech beat at times, but usually when it intersects with their other issues. Example: http://ij.org/case/mn-special-sources-limit/
Niche groups are better than some centralized cluster fuck. Fuck the ACLU – the market will provide.
I just can’t imagine why people who hate the state hate the people who point guns at you to make sure you do what the state says.
What I want to know is should I take a taxi home from the bar or walk. We’re talking 5 km and I’m just proud of myself for not banging the 27 year old divorcée I was talking to.
Taxi.
I mean, you’re clearly too drunk to walk.
I’ll make it. *Hoosiers*
Wait, you’re proud of yourself for NOT banging her?
I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.
Hense my “Too drunk to walk” assessment.
27 year old divorcée
There’s definitely a red flag or two in that description.
A marriage red flag, maybe. An awesome night green light for sure though.
I’m just sayin’, run the hot/crazy matrix first, is all.
fun zone.
In my 30’s I could’ve pulled it wiihout much hassle. Late 40’s means a lot more BS. I’d rather walk, so make yourself useful and give me some walking music.
*Cop eyeballing me*
*wife calling*. Ha! I’m fucked.
Yes you are.
oops
We’ll vouch for you that you didn’t bork the 27 year old.
But that’s just what he would say if he had!
I don’t know what time zone you’re in, but it’s definitely not Friday yet.
Here’s some walking music:
Green Light.
Thanks, man. Nice drums.
You were supposed to be listening to the words. I picked the song especially for this occasion.
You ever talk to a drunk person before?
“We’re talking 5 km”
Miles or GTFO
Three. Three miles.
Bets are open – how far along before Straffin passes out in the gutter?
Really, I wouldn’t be walking three miles if I was drunk.
Change your tampon, Nancy. BTW where the fuck am I?
It’s WW2 man and you’re behind enemy lines.
BTW where the fuck am I?
Exactly.
BTW, nice use of my own crack against me. I LOL’d.
Staffinrun trying to get home.
Stumble home. It will give you time to reminisce on the lousy, drunken sex you didn’t have.
Good call. Halfway.
Pick up some Squid Potato Chips to eat in bed
I walk 5km home all the time. It’s awesome late at night.
“By their admitted logic, because the left refuses to ‘tacitly denounce Islamic terrorism to the degree some may demand’, they’re terrorists. See? Fun.”
Yeah, right. What that actually means is that YOU are Islamaphobic.
There’s no such thing as islamophobia.
Islam has taught the world that fear of it is perfectly rational.
Nazi!
Gesundheit.
Islamaphobic
In this country, its certainly possible to have an irrational fear of Islam.
In many other places around the world, we may want to give some thought to what level of fear would be irrational.
*watches Rufus head 3 doors down(Rufus is the libertarian krypotonite) with hockey stick*
My favorite comparison was the Nazi freak out in Virginia to the muted ‘not all Muslims’ pontificating after Spain. No, not all Muslims are violent. This is true. But, Islamic terrorism is a more pressing concern than two hundred Nazis in a country of 300 million.
In unrelated news: Low hanging fruit is easy to pick.
Bill Burr
Bravo. What’s the Canucki way to applaud loudly? Ah..
*bangs hockey stick against glass*
Oooh, look at Mr. Fancy, drinking out of a glass instead of a can, like God intended.
Whatever Rufus drinks out of, I’ll give you 10 to 1 odds that it has antlers.
Um…I meant boards/glass partition at hockey rink.
Ohhhh. You mean acrylic! Why didn’t you say so?
He’s only Bacon, not a materials scientist, cut the rasher some slack.
The term is glass/boards. Kiss off, eh?
And I worked at one time with a plastic company so go shove a nylon phallic object up your brain hole.
Plastic Bacon does not sound good.
Ew right?
Moose Skull goblet?
I just finished listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast. This season he spent a lot of time on segregation and civil rights. One thing that stuck out is that the entire strategy of the civil rights movement counted on non-violent protest in contrast to violent counter-protest. The narrative was that they were just trying to be treated equally, and using peaceful protests to obtain that. But they were met with violence. That got the attention of the country, and the world, and it worked, because they had the moral high ground and those opposed looked like violent thugs. If those civil rights marchers resorted to violence every time, they wouldn’t have won anyone over and the movement would have gotten nowhere.
It’s sad and scary that in 2017, we have so many people who are just reacting and not bothering to think.
It clear that MLK Jr was a Nazi sympathizer, just like Gandhi before him.
And the funny thing about both is if the Brits in India and Americans in the 1950’s were even a third as bad as Progressives claim they are today then the peaceful protest route would not have worked. Ghandi and MLK would have been killed along with massive numbers of their followers much like what happened in China following Tianamen square.
Peaceful protests for freedom do not work when your oppressors are actually evil, they just get a lot of people killed. They work when your oppressors see themselves as “the good guys” with a moral core and are just blinded to the oppression by tradition.
Ghandi and MLK would have been killed
…they were…? Or did you mean more people besides them would have been?
(I know this is super late, I’m just catching up on the day)
Immediately responding to any kind of protest with violence tends to immediately validate them in some way, because the public looking in starts to think “what do they know/speak that needs to be suppressed?” It’s certainly more powerful when the government and those in power do it, but antifa does no one any favours by continuing to legitimize the alt-right (and note that even with the past year of freakouts over it, they’re still only a whiny group on the internet and a couple hundred guys at a protest).
It isn’t “people” who are reacting and not bothering to think. In the 60’s it was an intentional choice by leaders to use a strategy of nonviolence. They lead the people in practicing this strategy.
Today, it is not “the people” who are choosing to be violent. There is leadership behind this. There has been a concerted effort across a number of fronts: college campuses, civil rights groups, left-leaning liberties activists, feminists…. all across the left spectrum there has been one drum being beaten for nearly a decade. “Hate Speech is violence”. From “rape culture” to the once percent to “right wing fascists on campus”, the message has been consistent.
They did manage to pervert the police reform movement into a race agenda movement after Ferguson (following Trayvon Martin and a couple of oth6er attempts), but It didn’t gain much traction until Trump got elected. Then suddenly it took off, like Rachel Maddow’s ratings. Now every true believer has been activated, and the leftist memes are finally taking root.
This isn’t haphazard. They’ve been working on this since Bush took office. With Trump getting elected, they finally galvanized Democrat office holders and black activists across the south to revive race as an issue by inventing the “remove confederate monuments” issue. They had their confederate flag issue for a couple of decades, but since then they have been adrift. But with Trump they finally found enough momentum to create a new fake racism issue to push their agenda. And this time they are pushing violence, not as a solution, but as a way to whip up dissension and get more attention for hate.
What does Burt have to say aboot all this, eh?
What’s with the dig at the Outer Banks, man? Cape Hatteras is pretty much my favorite place in the world.
They don’t pay enough interest on CDs.
Can you still spend the day barefoot, shirtless, with a beer cozy and a corn-dog, and not be given a second glance anywhere?
As far as I know, sure. Haven’t been back there in 7 or 8 years though.
My aunt/uncle live there. I went every summer in my teens. also haven’t been back since…(represses age)
No dig. I love OBX. I was being facetious.
Just fired a driver for driving erratically enough to inspire people to call him in. He protested, saying it was untrue and I was an asshole for believing some person who just called instead of him.
The GPS on his truck says otherwise. I love it when they make it easy.
How many people complained?
One, but this wasn’t the first incident.
At least you have the GPS data that removes any ambiguity.
Outside of dealing with the unemployment gods, it doesn’t matter much. Virginia is an at-will state, so I don’t have to provide justification (as long as I am not dismissing for one of the verboten reasons).
Fun fact, I fired so many people when I first took over the business, they called me Donald Trump.
But you replace them all with orphans, right?
Foster kids. It’s easier to find those old enough to drive.
I’m always tempted to do that whenever I see a trucker driving irresponsibly.
You’re doing the business a favor if you call. I’m liable for anything my drivers do on the road.
Conversely, I have fielded phone calls from people that were just trying to screw with the driver. GPS comes in handy for that. In those instances, the complainers are almost always women.
What? The driver wouldn’t look when she flashed her tits?
Usually someone who was going under the speed limit in the left lane and the driver flashed their headlights at them.
They’ll do that here no matter how fast you’re going in the left lane if they want to go faster.
Which is why I only drive in the left lane to get around someone. There’s always someone who wants to go faster, I don’t care if you’re doing 100.
I thought so. I will act on it next time.
How’s My Driving?
Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
What did the GPS tell you?
Just excessive speed?
Speeding. 50 in a 35. When he denied that he was speeding, it made the accusation that he was weaving much more likely.
We’re talking a large truck, right?
Speeding in a car is fine. 15 over in a truck is going to kill someone.
Medium duty, quite often with a heavy load trailer.
yeah, weaving isn’t great.
What about truckers who clog up the passing lane refusing to change lane?
On the interstate, we have signs that say “Slow traffic keep right”.
It’s a citable offense.
Legally in Virginia, if you’re blocking traffic you have to move over. It varies from state to state.
Most highways in NJ don’t even allow trucks in the left lane. And the law is “Keep right except to pass”. So unless you are passing people, you are breaking the law being in the left lane.
I know in some areas truckers are supposed to stay in the left lane unless they’re exiting to keep the on ramps clear.
and, as you know, here in Virginia 50 in a 35 is the magic 15 over that turns a ticket into a reckless driving charge.
why is it hard for some people to drive in a professional manner?
I don’t know. I’ve employed a lot of drivers over the years and driving styles are highly personal. Some guys will always follow the speed limit, some will occasionally speed and move with traffic, and some will always push the limits of safety. Education and training seem to have little to no effect on their behavior.
I had a friend who got a job working for an intermodal trucking company. He worked in a double wide helping get containers off the train and onto local trucks.
One of his collateral duties was to run the training program. He was supposed to make sure all the truckers took the basic safety test each year. He would put the trucker into the back room and tell them “All the answers to the test are in this three ring binder. Study it for as long as you think you need. When you are ready, take the test out of this envelope and fill it out. I’ll stay outside and make sure no one comes in and disturbs you.”
Then a good portion of them would fail the test. They all complained that the old guy just filled out the test for them.
Back in California, I had an employee who was applying to be a state trooper.
When he went in for the interview, they asked him “What is the primary duty of the state police?”
His answer (after pondering it for a minute) “To write tickets”
Needless to say, he didn’t get the job. He was apparently too intelligent.
Some speeding I get. Traffic moves at a rate that isn’t always the speed limit. it’s more the dickishness.
There’s 2 ways to instantly transform the nicest most well behaved people into instant assholes. Put them behind the wheel of a car or on the internet.
Well fuck you too.
You forgot “put them on the seat of a bicycle.”
In the early 2000’s I was working at a company that did lots of package consolidation and deliveries. My cube was near the dispatchers, so I got to hear all sorts of shenanigans being called by the drivers.
The best one was a driver who was running way late and decided that he would skip picking up the full load, so he slammed the back door closed and took off with a few of the depot dock workers still in the back.
Pretty funny listening to the dispatchers try to figure out what to do.
“Was that wrong?!? Was I not supposed to do that?”
My buddy owns a trucking company. The shit that truck drivers do is almost unbelievable. Like deciding they didn’t like the gig any more, unhooking the trailer and just leaving it in bumfuck Kansas or something.
They aren’t at all like Snowman.
One of my personal favorites was the guy who decided to visit a strip club while out on a delivery run. It’s like they forget that there is GPS on the truck and are completely baffled when they get fired.
Instrumenting trucks with GPS and acceleration sensors is making a ton of those old time truckers nuts. Now that everything is electronic, you can’t take a bunch of speed and drive for 3 days straight and then doctor the paper logbook to conform to all the mandated breaks you were supposed to take.
And like you said, Scruffy, they now have to explain why they were stopped at questionable places or deviating from the approved route.
You don’t happen to work for Estes, do you?
No. I own a construction equipment rental house. Delivery is a fundamental part of the business.
Aha. I only asked because a guy I know who works for Estes told me a story about a driver who was fired for going to strip clubs while on the clock.
They usually do make it easy.
My example for this was a young lady who worked for us as a clerk. She was chronically late, and had been talked to by her supervisor and HR several times. Finally they told her “if you are late one more time, we will have to fire you.” They even gave her a written notice of the consequences. This was on Friday.
Monday morning, she’s two hours late…. no phone call or anything. Punch line? She was still shocked when we let her go.
And here’s the problem. There aren’t enough actual for-real Nazis or true racists in the whole country to fill a small park. The “Unite the Right” thing in Charlottesville was promoted for months and only got a few of each along with less radial right-wingers.
So, lacking enough racists to have a proper street-brawl, antifa just makes up more imaginary enemies. Trump-supporters, basic Republicans, journalists, guys wearing collared shirts, people who don’t look homeless, cops, whatever…
When you do not see a nazi, it is hard to look at someone and not see a nazi.
AntiFA hasn’t made up fake enemies. They are marxists, all of those capitalists and bourgeois are their enemies, Trump, repubs, 3rd way, blue dogs, democratic socialists, national socialsts, everyone that isn’t a hardcore marxist, with AntiFA as the vanguard. It is the other leftists and the media that was playing cover for them, trying to use them as their bully boys. Since AntiFA was attacking everyone, they had to paint everyone as the “bad” group.. hence Nazi’s.
you have a point. Libertarianism is the opposite of marxism. The antifa should hate me more an honest to god nazi.
They have to first get a solid rep as fighters of evil. Who can be against fighting Nazis? Everyone hates Nazis. So they start there, get the full support of the media and the left including Democrats. Then they go after the real enemy, capitalism. Next it may be anyone who doesn’t support single payer because that’s people who are against healthcare. And that includes any GOP voters or libertarians.
I often wonder why Nazis are painted as the most evil ever and are universally hated, while the marxists get a pass. Marxism has a worse track record of killing people than nazism. Hitler was pretty bad, but Mao and Stalin killed in numbers that would make him blush.
I chalk it up to societal ignorance and I blame public schools. In school I learned about the holocaust, we all did. I didn’t know about the great terror, the mass famines caused by forced collectivism amongst the Russian and ukranians peasantry, the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, the killing fields, and any other number of communist atrocities until I did some reading on my own.
The one thing is that the Nazis did their killing in a very short time frame. So I think their bodycount per year total is up there. On the other hand, nobody beat the Khmer Rouge, who didn’t even have the benefit of industrial equipment.
But yea. It pisses me off; I had a neighbor who used to wear the hammer and sickle (and keep a portrait of Obama over his mantlepiece).
I think there’s something to the idea that the Teutonic efficiency and precision of the Nazi murder machine particularly stands out. There have been plenty of commie regimes that murdered a helluva lot more people, but they just shot them or worked/starved them to death in camps. If you’ve read a lot about the Holocaust, which I have, there’s something especially disquieting about what is essentially a killing factory, where large trainloads of people are shipped in and killed within a few hours.
Not to say that there wasn’t plenty of old-fashioned disorganized killing by Nazi Germany – read up on people like Friedrich Jeckeln, Karl Jäger, or Paul Blobel if you wish (I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s as depressing as anything you’ll ever read) – but to my knowledge there has never been anything remotely like the death camps of the Third Reich anywhere else.
Also, we got to take tours of their camps, literally days after operations were still going on, and document them fully. The gulags and working camps of various communist regimes, however, are usually abstracted by either just individual accounts of prisoners or representations of them in the past tense (a mountain of skulls produced by the Khmer Rouge is far more abstract than an actual liberated camp of living, mistreated prisoners).
I still think it’s just plain old historical ignorance. I would be willing to bet that most Erica ns have never heard of the Khmere rouge or the gulags. Even more have no idea about the cultural revolution and Mao’s great leap forward.
I think that leftism will not die because there is always lazy people who figure they’ll always be on the losing side in a capitalist society, because they are too lazy to work hard for success. So they insulate themselves from feeling like a loser by claiming to be a victim and blaming that, instead of on themselves, on people who worked hard and became successful. So they rave against the 1%, but it’s not the 1% they’re actually envious of. It’s everyone who works and achieves any degree of success or happiness. It’s those peoples fault because they won’t join the revolution and demand we be given what we have a right to, by birth, which to them is our fair share of everything. Most of them don’t really believe in some commie utopia, they just want to bring everyone else down to their level so they can somehow stop feeling like losers. But there are also some who really believe it because they have the intellectual makeup of small children who still believe in Santa.
It’s a utopian philosophy. Those never die. The only difference between commies/socialists and religion is that most religions are smart enough to postpone the promise of utopia until after you’re dead.
“The only difference between commies/socialists and religion is that most religions are smart enough to postpone the promise of utopia until after you’re dead.”
Well said, I’m stealing that.
Because the USA didn’t do dick to stop those other monsters, so we harp on the monster we did stop.
They can pretend that the Nazis were right wing and get away with it. Nazis were bad, and therefore not socialists. Socialists are good. The Soviets weren’t really bad, they just didn’t commie hard enough or it would have worked. All of those dead people were kulaks and wreckers, they deserved it for being sort of right wing and therefore like Nazis.
Indiana Jones wasn’t trying to beat Marxists to get the Holy Grail
In a Marxist society, everyone would have a Holy Grail, or no one would.
If you read the comments on any anti-commie youtube video (I wouldn’t recommend it) you’d learn that the holodomor was just an accident and Stalin was only 5 years away from having a surplus of bread and being able to create a state where no one went hungry. Seriously, these people believe shit like this.
I think there are a couple of reasons why Nazis are hated, while Marxists aren’t.
First, we read about the gulags, we actually saw Auschwitz (sp?). Pictures are very powerful.
Secondly, the popular culture was infested with communists in the 40’s and 50’s, so the Soviets’ sins were papered over, while Germany’s were emphasized (probably because Hitler stabbed Stalin in the back during the WWII era).
Also, the people who ran the gulag organs never faced justice like Nazis did.
Russia never atoned for it.
I think that’s another reason.
Not to mention the instant conflation of Fascism with Nazism.
I have had far too many people to count try to argue that anti semitism and death camps are an essential element of Fascism however the reality is of all of the Fascist countries in the history of the world only 2 were strongly anti Jew and only 1 had death camps. Italy did not have concentration camps and did not send their Jews to the ones in Germany until after Mussolini was dead and Germany took it over. Spain never did. Japan never really had any Jews and while their atrocities in Nanking were pretty bad that can be blamed on long standing cultural hatred between Japan and China than the Fascism of the government. Then in more modern times Chile was not anti Semitic and while Iraq was again that was due to the long standing cultural hatred of Jews that existed in the region a thousand years before the Fascist Ba’ath government was founded.
So out of the 6 historical examples of Fascist states only 1 of them became a death cult because of their Fascist government.
Yeah, Fascism is a horrible governmental and economic system but it cannot hold a candle to the evils of Communism.
Fascism, Marxism, communism, and socialism are all on the left-wing scale. They’re defective offshoots of liberalism. Fascism is to the *right* of those.
Hence people call it ‘right-wing’.
Feels > Reals
Here’s a link to a Twitter account. This comedian ‘gets it” and I appreciate his takes:
https://twitter.com/TheHolyAtheist
Pretty good musings.
Post-retard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuRNXFkQZkk
Are you confusing post retard with peak retard?
Possibly.
Explain the difference.
I yearn to learn.
Prepare your shocked faces, glibs:
Louis C.K. is kind of a douche.
Im hoping this is just a bit for him.
He used the term “predatory businesses” in a serious manner. He’s an asshole.
They should have booked Yakov on that same show.
I don’t like him that much, but I like this joke of his:
***
I was driving in Manhattan. There’s traffic, nobody’s moving… The guy behind me is honking just at me. He kept yelling at me. I decided that I’m gonna argue with this guy, but I’m gonna argue about something else. I’m not having his argument; I’m having mine. So, he’s like, ‘Go!’ And I go, ‘Well give me back my jacket!’ And he stopped. I was like, ‘Yeah, you got my jacket! Give it back! I said you could borrow it, not have it! You’re stretching it out, you fat pig! Give it back, now!’ He got back in his car, and he locked his doors.
***
I saw him live once in Aspen. I like most of his stuff, but he seems to be going away from his asshole schtick into more of a smug douchebag routine which I like less.
He suffers from the problem that a lot of comedians who get unfunny suffer from: he decided there are sacred cows, and he’s gonna talk about them seriously.
More comedians need to look to Daniel Tosh and Anthony Jeselnik
That’s why I always enjoyed Carlin. His politics were pretty bad, but he had no sacred cows.
Jeselnik is hilarious.
Dude had a picture of Obama in his show.
That’s all you need to know about where his politics lie.
That is, in a desolate no-man’s land of left-wing derp.
As he cashes in on his millions in a capitalist system.
Rufus, for your well being, please avoid last week’s 5th Column podcast.
Their guest guy said (paraphrasing): “sure everyone should be able to have free speech without fearing for their safety, BUT wearing a MAGA hat to the Boston rally is pretty dumb.”
If it wasn’t for Kmele continuing to fight the good fight, I’d be done with that podcast because I can’t stand Welch reading all sorts of crypto messages into Trump’s C-ville comments.
I love Kmele. Want to work on his campaign for whatever he runs for. Hopefully 2020 LP.
Last week Welch kept going on and on about Trump saying that we have to “honor our past” and saying that that was clearly him supporting Civil War statues and white supremecists. Kmele kept repeating the entire quote “we have to honor our past and present together.”
Didn’t make a dent. Welch kept truncating the entire quote and using that as proof that Trump loved the Conferacy.
moron.
not you, Pope.
It’s ‘Your Holiness’, sinner.
Don’t worry Tundra. DOOM is going to pay a premium for his next indulgence.
2020 is Almanian!’s year.
*pours out ballot box on ground in memoriam*
Ugh Siegal. He was way too emotional. He kept contradicting himself like a 10 different times about the antifa.
Yeah, he kept going on about how antifa started all the violent shit and attacked even their own side and then saying they weren’t the story. I think he was trying to say they shouldn’t be held as some sort of good guys that people should look to join, or something, but it was very convoluted.
Yeah, that was the guy. He was also convinced that there was no such thing as trolls pretending to be nazis on the internet. At least that is what I think he was trying to say. He got bent out of shape by some people saying that not everyone on the alt-right was really a nazi.
WHATABOUTISM
Rufus, I apologize for filling your thread with drunken nonsense. I luv you, man.
Go home, Straf. You’re drunk.
What seems to be the occifer, problem? *hic*
Eh, public drunkenness is pretty accepted in Japan (or used to be, anyway) A couple docs I saw showed salarymen staggering around Tokyo.
Also, I forgot – for a while – straffin was in Japan, and was thinking “wow, it early – even for me.”
When I visited Japan, even stuffy/conservative Kyoto, a drunken-passed-out salaryman was not an uncommon sight on the weekend.
No, you keep it going. I love when we act like idiots.
Looks like you a word, eh.
That niggling (racist!) detail notwithstanding, this is an excellent piece. Bravo.
My editing has been less than sub-par.
I’ve asked the marvellous folks who run this joint to permit me to fix a couple of things.
Alas, looks like we’ll all have to live in this yellow submarine!
On another forum full of progs, I asked them to describe their ideal society. I said mine was basically the US minus the income tax and the war on drugs and Swiss foreign policy. I was roundly chastised for my lack of imagination. Turns out the Garden of Sweden is the the ideal society.
Some internet searching turned up this gem of derp, a letter to the NYT:
***
To the Editor:
Re ”In Guatemalan Jungles, a Bumper Crop of Maya Treasure” (May 11): The article made me wonder if anyone will ever dig up another society that was complex, made good pots and great art and built magnificent buildings, but that also did not torture prisoners or kill any innocent people, including captives.
That would be a real civilization, and even more so if it did not keep slaves.
HERBERT J. GANS
New York
The writer is a professor of sociology at Columbia.
***
And here a hundred versions of Dennis the Peasant describe their anarcho-syndicalist communes:
https://philosophynow.org/issues/73/What_Would_Make_The_Best_Society
It never occurs to them that the reason things like families, tribes, and nations exist is because they work.
***
Whilst each society would decide its own rules, the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made. Communal products could be exchanged freely amongst individuals or between societies. There would be no money, and no hoarding of mutually-owned resources, on pain of banishment to the wilderness. Every year there would be a Global Festival of Gratitude and Giving, during which gifts would be freely exchanged and art, music, dances and games would celebrate and renew the freedom of the Earth from human domination.
According to the constitution, animals culled from the wild may be eaten during the winter in cold climates and during illness. But there would be no domestication or other infringement upon the freedom of animals. Killing would be allowed only if human life is in danger, or to stabilize populations and environmental harmony. All waste would be recycled, and energy derived only from renewable sources such as wind and tide.
If one society threatens aggression against another, the Global Confederation would boycott it for 50 years. Members would be invited to join alternative societies, but may emigrate only to one that has received no other members of the rogue society. All political relationships will be entirely internal to each society and there would be no alliances formed between societies. Societies attempting to form political allegiances or extend their power beyond their own members will be boycotted. Individuals would be free to travel to and form relationships with individuals of other societies, but any group growing too large for its arable resources would have to redistribute.
***
[head desk]
How, if you can’t own anything you did not make, would these gifts and exchanges be valid?
It seems like this ‘Confederation’ fields a hell of a lot of power. What happens when a non-saint gets a hold on all of that power? Oh, I know, the primitive tribes the Confederation lords over, will attack it with sticks and rocks? Oh wait, they can’t co-operate, oops!
“If one society threatens aggression against another, the Global Confederation would boycott it for 50 years.”
who is this true altruist who they will get to head the global confederation who will never agress himself?
I’ve been waiting for someone to make a “if only the right person was in charge” argument to ask them “what happens when that person dies? What about their successor? And their successor? Do you really think a society can find three or four perfect leaders in a row? Would it not be more prudent to plan for imperfect leaders and limit their power?”
Benevolent robot programmed by perfect leader. Now we just need an infallible human and an immortal robot and we are set.
Paging Daneel Olivaw. Daneel Olivaw to the white courtesy phone.
“Whilst each society would decide its own rules, the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made.”
So, no modern technology. That’s swell. Basically what this person is describing in a hunter gatherer society. How long would most of these people advocating this last in that world?
The population of the earth would have to be drastically reduced for humans to be able to survive in hunter gatherer groups. Just like any other leftist utopia, it’s gonna take a whole bunch of killing to make it reality.
And they apparently will not be writing about it on the internet.
“They were second against the wall when the revolution came.”
What’s really sad is that they could start businesses or farms and run them collectively in free societies. I wonder why they don’t…
They just completely ignore human nature to get to the utopia from their imagination. I’d love to put around 50 of them in some very remote region and see how long it lasts.
Actually, this sounds like the person is making up a computer game. Or a plot for a novel. Because nowhere in that is there anything about reality.
One question I would like to ask the little kid who wrote that. So this ‘Confederation’, who exactly are they? And how do they enforce this ‘boycott’? What does that mean?
It means robot stormtroopers kicking the shit out of anyone who decides to trade or interact with the shunned polity.
That would never be abused by some overly ambitious individuals.
I can pretty much guarantee if I get my hands on a robot army, my transition from liberator to villain will be swift.
Welcome to my mines, idiot progs. Now get to work or gruel rations will be rationed further!
“Why are you using slave labor when you have robot armies?”
“I’m using slave labor because I have robot armies.”
So how do the orphans fit into this utopia? Middle management over the progs?
I just want to make the progs work, for once in their life.
*scratches Roomba off FMs Christmas list*
I know you have a tolerance for this stuff, but I almost OD’d.
“the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made”
Ok, so I make a shovel. It is a pretty good shovel and because I made it I own it. So Yeah!
Alright, here is the problem. I don’t need a shovel, I need a Hammer and you, by chance just happen to have made an extra hammer and you even need a shovel.
So we agree to trade, my shovel for your hammer.
Great, we are both better off, you have the shovel you need, I have the hammer I need.
Problem however, since you did not make the shovel and I did not make the hammer Josef can now come over and take them both because he feels he needs them more and they are no longer out personal property.
Somehow the act of trading my property for your property, as defined by this constitution, costs us both the rights to any of the property.
Given that, why would either of us be so foolish as to trade our property? Even though we need what the other has and would be better off if we could conduct the trade the loss of ownership would then deprive us of the resource anyway so we would remain better off just keeping what we had excess of and hoarding it. We would also be discouraged from making any more than absolutely necessary of a good because there would be no possible gain in doing so.
This was either in the links or was linked in the comments a few days ago (Nazi haircut stabbing). I knew it sounded fucking fake. It’s hard to understand how people can be so damn stupid/desperate for attention.
https://www.google.com/amp/denver.cbslocal.com/2017/08/28/stabbing-joshua-witt-neo-nazi-steak-shake/amp/
When I was young, “liberals” used to say things like “No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.” It seems that when liberalism morphed into progressivism, they actually realized the truth of that statement and followed it to its logical end: Words and ideas might change the world… in ways I disagree with.
I really think that’s where the left went off on freedom of speech.
The ‘liberals’ got hijacked and morphed into progressives, who are nothing more than another word for leftists. The ones who refer to themselves as ‘libertarian socialists’ and other such delusional terms can pretend all they want, that they will not be lined up against a wall the minute they step out of line against the hardcore militant leftists once they’ve taken over.
Leftist twitter freaks out and calls the NYT ‘necon corporatist shills’ because they published an op-ed by Erik “Blackwater” Prince supporting more contractors for Afghanistan
then, 5 mins later, the WaPo publishes “Yes, Antifa are the Moral Equivilent of Neo-Nazis”
i said yesterday, ‘i’m not really sure there’s a pivot happening’. I’ve changed my mind.
PC 1.0 lasted what, six years? What’s the over-under on 2.0?
Shit like this makes the NRx theory about “The Cathedral” seem plausible and that makes me uncomfortably annoyed.
the what?
An observation/theory that media institutions, academia and political leaders appear to be working as a conspiracy with identical talking points, preaching a progressive religion, condemning heretics and non-believers. Not necessarily organized or purposefully coordinated but nevertheless operating as priestly class in a uniform direction. Can speak ex-cathedra i.e. the narrative can turn almost on a dime to confirm to the new, woke norm.
The media and Democrat royalty believe that they’re in control of antifa and so they can just turn them on and off when they want to. That’s probably not going to go very well.
Now the big question is, is this a permanent shift or just a lot of CYA for mid terms?
*touches nose*
The old Democrats, what’s left of them, are going to try to run on this Better Deal non-sense they pulled out of their asses. Like anyone is going to buy an economic message from the party of higher taxes and more regulations. They’re not going to win over Trump voters with that. And their loony left, who are now almost the majority, at least the most vocal ones, are going to shout them down and insist on single payer and free everything, and double down on identity politics. Antifa is going to cause trouble during the midterms and otherwise because it’s what they do.
It’s anyones guess as to what that means for the midterms, but I don’t think it looks good for Democrats.
Of course, are they going to admit that Trump was right now, since they are basically admitting Trump was right? I hear a lot of cognitive dissonance over the horizon.
BTW, don’t go into the comments if you’re having a good day.
+1 that wasn’t real communism
It was state capitalism. You don’t even know what socialism means!
Pretty sure it’s when the state plays capitalist.
You’re thinking unpure thoughts, comrade.
*wanders into comments*
*has stroke*
WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?!
This particular commenter is a full blown commie apologist who trades in all of the couches arguments. In fact, it does it so well, it’s probably a troll.
“Beyond that, it’s always been a red herring to conclude humans are too selfish to ever form a sharing, cooperative, fully democratic society with next to no hierarchy.”
In groups of 50 or under hunter gatherer groups, it worked well. When we became sedentary and formed permanent settlements with more people, it stopped working. ‘We’ certainly did not live that way into the 20th century. Was this guy a member of a rain forest tribe, or what? To think it will work with a modern country of 300 million people is pure idiocy.
And what was democratic about tribes? I don’t recall the Zulus taking any votes.
The democracy was typically the alpha male or males would fuck you up if you got out of line. I don’t think there were any votes on that.
Ah, the noble-savage myth.
anthropology 101 would cure a lot of stupid
I imagine it’s the source of a lot of stupid these days
How so? oh, you mean they’ve probably been co-opted by wokeness?
its sort of hard to bury (*pun intended) evidence that mankind for the first 250,000 years was pretty much warring constantly over petty tribal differences, and that tribes were hardly socialist-communes, and more-closely resembled feudal/religious totalitarianism
You say that like people don’t deny the Holocaust or the Holodomor in the face of overwhelming evidence.
When scientist started studying some of the tribes discovered who were the closest to our pre-agricultural years, mountain tribes in Papua New Guinea, they found that those tribes were very war like. Not only were they war like, but when a war would break out between two tribes, the goal was always genocide against the opposing tribe. They also regularly practiced cannibalism and head hunting. Yeah, the noble savage thing is one of the biggest lies ever.
We humans lived just that way for our first 250,000 years, and in parts of the world, we lived that way into the 20th century.
He left out “in small, family-based bands on a pure subsistence basis using stone age technology”
They always forget that part.
……….So, the free market?
I mean….what the hell? You want no one in charge? Everyone in charge? Trading for mutual benefit?
Yes? Well, then–go to your local bodega/stop’n’rob/Aldi and buy some things. Congrats! Your dream achieved, fuck-face.
OK, I waded into the comments and got this gem:
Good grief, can you project any harder than that?
Why would we have to paint them, when they themselves say they are Marxists? If you claim to be a leftist, don’t blame everyone when they call you that.
“You’re absolutely right, miss, Wearing a miniskirt and clear heels doesn’t make you a whore…but you are wearing a whore uniform.”
>> Marc Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
Just a token Republican. Never mind.
“Allowing even token republicans to express their wrongthink opinions in precious progressive media real-estate is basically pretending they’re equally valid! FALSE EQUIVALENCE!!”
Yep, that was the first thing I noticed when I clicked the link.
Thiessen is one of the more contemptible Bushies, by the way.
Why do you think the left is so fond of ex-Bush admin figures representing republicans?
OT:
Apropos the discussion yesterday about IRB studies, Scott Alexander posted his experience setting up a psych study the other day. Completely coincidentally.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/
TW: typical SCC length but it’s all narrative instead of a collection semi-related mini essays glued together
Could he rename it something abstract like “Study 513”?
I’ve never seen a study named like that. But I bet there’s a ‘description’ field in the study application where you can write more detailed text. We have that on ours.
I just looked at a couple of the consent forms for a study for one of my clients. The study title is not on there. There’s a line on there for it, but what is actually there is the study acronym, not the real title.
He does the ‘you know who else’ thing too?! I love him.
Bah! Supposed to wait for others to chime in.
You know who else didn’t put the name of the study on his consent forms?
Dr. Raymond Vonderlehr?
Steve Smith?
Dammit.
STEVE SMITH?
Jack Kevorkian?
Peter Venkman?
Margaret Sanger?
Walter Plecker?
What a piece of shit. Too bad no one ran over him early. Also, fuck state vital statistics departments.
Somebody who recognizes the name. Yes, Plecker was one of the pinnacles of eugenics in America and deserves whatever time in hell he got.
I found one of his memos concerning our family and they were not to be trusted by the authorities because they were probably not white but just pretending to be.
I’m with Lachowsky. I had to look him up as well. The piece of shit was my snap judgment. Just like the Nazis trying to uncover XX passing as YY.
To the website gods, would you like an article on Walter Plecker? I’m interested in expanding my knowledge on him and writing about him would help.
I never heard of him, but I just looked him up. Yep, what a piece of shit.
not a legitimate reason not to put the name of the study in big letters on the consent form
Would “Joe”, or perhaps “Amy”, not work as the name of the study?
Dummies publish dumb things, are dumb enough to think that they can erase them from the internet.
That’s DU level stupid
Coming soon from Slate: We never saw another Trump term coming
Lol.
I saw that floating around the twitters too with some nice points
The first comment is off, though. All American military aircraft, including Coast Guard helicopters, carry that insignia.
Good catch
“Hey, you stupid redneck crackers! Why don’t you vote the way we want you to!?”
These people are lack so much self-awareness that they genuinely believe themselves to be the intellectual superiors of the people they’re mocking. Just unbelievable.
Of course, the vast majority of people in Houston were rescued by rednecks in fishing boats, not pubsecs in, well, any kind of vehicle.