It occurs to me, twenty minutes after hitting "post," that people have been arguing for more than a century that Harvard trains young people to uniformity. But C. Wright Mills described a uniformity that was built around a slightly different set of symbols than everybody wearing kaffiyehs.
Yes. This explains the social context in which a 3 year global Chernobyl can occur and the cheerful robots are not concerned (or aware) that "mistakes were made" because we must've learned from them if the elites of the milieu just awarded themselves an award for ending the poisoning by giving us poison.
Look at this way. Marx once wrote about the alienation of the worker from the PRODUCT of his labor. Now we have the phenomenon of the "worker" alienated from labor itself. From worker to woker! That photo is packed with ELECTRIC ANXIETY. The tension is massively HORNY.
"plan for a way to live apart from those systems." Yes. Next year I plan to move away from a blue state to a deep red state just for self-preservation. Preservation of my money, my censorship-free mind, and my sanity. It makes me sad. I love my house. I will miss my friends. But as a straight white guy with a decent income living in a blue state I have a giant target on my forehead and the crosshairs are starting to line up. I am what's now called a 'classic liberal,' I grew up and lived on the Left, but I don't know what happened. What I do know is that my conservative friends are nicer, happier and more tolerant than any of the Wokies I know or encounter. So it's time to migrate.
Come here to Oklahoma. We’ll take you in and not pass judgement unless you start trying to make us like the shithole you’re leaving. Speaking about happiness, I was once married to a liberal. She was the most angry and unhappy woman I’ve ever had the misfortune to be around.
Funny you mention that, Oklahoma has been on my "scouting" list. And yes respecting local culture is so important. When I moved to Denver a zillion years ago, people just got it--its a cattle town, a mining town, a railroad town. You adapted and adopted. Now the Californians and their ilk are turning it into a California suburb. They want to raise taxes. They want to close the slaughterhouses (and we have the Western Stock Show). They want to ban guns. Saw today the state Dems want to "quantify" Colorado's slavery history--in a state that never had slaves and wasn't even a state at that point. Time to git while the gittin is good.
There is a faint but growing sound in Colorado. The sound of a toilet being flushed. I love Colorado, rural Colorado. Denver, Boulder, and sadly now even Colorado Springs, are worshiping The Machine. Sacrificing their beautiful children to The Machine, smiling as they do it, getting knowing nods of approval from their neighbors and friends, as they do it.
WEF speaks glowingly of a Great Reset. Yeah. There will be a reset. And yeah, it will be great. Just not the reset they were planning. The Worm is beyond unhappy. The Worm is going to turn. It is not going to be pleasant when that happens.
Classical liberalism led to what? It is essentially what American political philosophy, which includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Last I check, what is commonly called Classical Liberalism is the creation of the Enlightenment, which was a reaction to such fun things as the Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War, and the despotic Divine Right of Kings. It specifically had little to say about economics.
If you are talking about this modern pseudo liberalism or neoliberalism, which has arisen in the past fifty years, I think that it needs to be staked, beheaded, burnt to ashes, and scattered to the winds.
Liberalism has always been the untrammeled pursuit of money.
That's why they needed to get rid of the Church in certain countries such as Mexico for example [the Church banned Usury].
Liberalism is the pursuit of personal gain, wealth.
Well it turns out to be empty and leads to Nihilism.
Liberalism leads to nihilism, which then led the Russians to Communism, the Germans to Nazism, and this nihilism has led us ...here.
Can you get more nihilistic than wearing the keffiyeh after the Oct 7 raid?
Before the kids decided to embrace something real, their parents the neoliberals embraced MONEY, or as you call it neoliberalism.
The kids find this empty and embrace something real, it's not just conformism.
I'm not sure the Founders can quite be called Liberals, although many wish to claim the Founders were Liberals. I've read them extensively, the Federalist Papers, etc. They seem mainly to be concerned with political rights, they seem to be concerned with a working government for America. They are interested in Liberty, they are interested in forging a nation.
The Wars of Religion and in particular the Thirty Years war may be less about religion than you think, as much about dynastic rights and statecraft, the emerging nations as religion. Richelieu a Cardinal was the chief backer of Gustavas Adolphus the Protestant King of Sweden.
No King and few Despots in history by the way approach our current level of tyranny, this is Eastern Europe and the USSR in the 1980s and we're moving in the wrong direction. The King's Divine Right was conceived as alternative to the anarchy that often reigned instead, essentially making the King dictator.
Sensing perhaps a hostility to religion here...the Founders weren't hostile to religion. So I'm afraid you might not like the suggestion that the spiritual void where religion used to can't be filled adequately by money nor safely by politics. We see now both the emptiness of Greed and the danger of making politics a fanatical religious faith.
Politics makes a poor religion, power and poor God, government a poor Church. But that's what we've got...
So you see, all the liberalism, in particular getting rid of religion was for naught.
It's been replaced as Chris laid out here by what is absolutely an official Leftist religion, very dogmatic, enforced, and the children comply, if they know what's good for them. That's why they're all wearing keffiyehs.
You see. Full circle, here we are, the Christianity replaced with the keffiyeh wearing young Communists, off to Harvard Yard [Harvard itself founded as a Seminary, you know]. Karen has replaced the Nuns. How Droll.
Liberalism leads...here.... In 1944 Ernst Junger wrote an essay for the allies in which he urged them not to make the mistake of restoring an empty liberal regime in Europe as this returns to the starting point. But - We did. Junger's "The Peace' is where I got the phrase Liberalism led to Nihilism, which led to Russian Nihilism [Communism], which led to German Nihilism [the Nazis].
Where we're going now, I don' t know, I doubt if it's a replay of the past.
It's certainly not good. These brats aren't the only young men around.
I agree with much of what you just wrote, but I also have to note that history and ideas are rarely simple. Just as how capitalism was created to replace feudalism and as a counter to the 17th century socialistic ideas usually supported by the peasants. It was created as a practical solution against the outmoded system of feudalism, as a means of creating businesses, and as a class weapon.
Liberalism has the same tangled roots, including its use against social classes, traditional culture, and religion. However, unless one is against equality under the law, freedom of speech, democracy, and resistance to practices such as using torture in interrogation or execution, all of which Classical Liberalism was created for, then one must accept at least much of its ideas.
People insist on using liberalism as a complete means of thinking and as a religious faith. It was not created as such. It was created to give individuals and their society someway to coexist while dealing with often severe disagreements. People were expected to have their own beliefs aside from the tool of liberalism.
It is the same with science, or rather the scientific method, which was developed as a means to explore and explain the world. Nowadays, too many people treat it just like a religion, and mainstream science has its religious texts and holy orders. It is Scientism.
I could give a similar rant about Free Market Capitalism, which too many also treat as something handed down by God to Moses along with the Ten Commandments instead of an economic system with its own flaws and strengths. Communism as well. Marxian analysis is a tool and Karl Marx, whatever his flaws, used his methods to describe some brutal defects in unregulated free market capitalism.
One should use tools for what they were intended for. Maybe the tools are defective, but if one uses them in the wrong task, do not blame them for the bad results.
Liberalism is the ideology distilled from the political practices that suited the landed interests (and their allies in transnational commerce) in England in the two centuries after the Henrician Reformation. This ideology got used as a cudgel following the emergence of capitalism after the Napoleonic Wars.
Now liberalism still suits the class interests of the comfortable but it is being weaponised by the strivers in the Ivy League who are making common cause with the privileged classes of the Global South or Global Majority. No argument or shared beliefs can resolve the ensuing clash of interests/wills.
Fully agree that a replay of the past is unlikely. Wilson and his successors championed upheaval abroad to target the British and French empires not the continental USA. Kipling's THE CITY OF BRASS has proven truly prophetic.
Laugh all you want. The dust bowl is over. Okies moved because the faring practices of the day made the land untenable. Now, people are coming back because Blue practices have made their states untenable.
I’ve been to CA several times, before it became what it is now. Other than some beautiful views, I can’t see why anyone would live there voluntarily until you take back your state government.
“...plan for a way to live apart...” exactly. It starts with “living local” - involved in all local politics, especially school boards, elections, and sheriffs. Then Line-of-sight on your food sources, then a local tribe/ support system for barter, knowledge base, and mutual protection. Finishes with non-compliance and being ungovernable where required. Unfortunately, the Michelle Wu’s of the world have zero interest in letting you/us live apart. It’s antithetical to their tyranny genes.
I congratulate you & wish you well, but remember your lessons learned & don’t contaminate your new red state home by supporting blue state type, leftist policies. It can be a hard habit to break.
Sounds good, as long as you promise never to vote for a Democrat, no matter how "reasonable" they seem to be. In 2008, my late husband persuaded me to vote for Mark Warner, who used to be a good guy, apparently. 'Nuff said. It's NEVER safe to vote Democrat.
Do it! I left deep blue Malibu 18 months ago and haven’t regretted it for a single minute. There are many places left in this great country where sanity rules and, probably not coincidentally, freedom reigns. Yes, it’s a hassle to move and yes, I miss our friends there, but the joys that have returned to my everyday life are innumerable and profound. Worth it, by far.
Wise words, sir. I am chief of staff in a high education level company. What continually disorients me are employees under 30. They speak performatively, as you say. I think, after a couple of years, I am finally used to it. I used to think they were much, much smarter than they actually are. Now I want to hire from the gas station hangabouts pool.
I think you will find much smarter, creative, self motivated people with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and work through them- NOT plastics that all think alike and instead of conquering an issue they either huddle in a corner screaming for a safe space or simply comply without any thought of their own.
This is why I am ok with the vax injuries and deaths... these only impact the zombie hordes who shot the poison for a donut... all the while suggesting I was a conspiracy theorist for suggesting it was a very bad idea.
Nothing wrong with a bit of Schadenfreude to start one's day (pulling up the latest SADS involving celebs...)
I took it and regretted it since, but have been in good health and am determined to remain so. So I do worry if only selfishly for myself hahaha but do get what you mean Mr. Eddy.
Which is the problem, having been one of them and quit and left the academic world it sucks and no one is really happy amongst them, none of those people really know much of anything except for one or two.
People love to fit in and hate to be different, excluded, unpopular. When I was in high school, girls were supposed to wear miniskirts and transparent blouses with a crocheted vest on top (to maintain decency). If you dressed like me--long tweed skirt, turtleneck, trench coat, knee socks, etc--you got some very strange looks and had zero chance socially. The top layer is no more inclined toward risk-taking than the middle or bottom. People are sheep, sadly enough.
The top layer seems to be LEAST inclined toward risk-taking. Or rather the kind of middle-top, the managerial class rather than the Elon Musks. The salary-earners.
It's so sad that these pitiable trained seals don't even get to pick so much as the color of the balls they balance on their noses. They are "trained to perform their words", indeed! And it's such a waste of a life, multiplied by how many poor NPCs who could have been actual human beings, living their own lives?!! And I love your phrase "... without being tainted by interiority" --- who would chose to volunteer to be a conformist non-entity, with no thoughts of one's own?!! I know, sadly -- too many benighted people.
Funny, I had a lunch with a few veterans on Friday in LA who are all in law, or investment banking or private equity, and the discussion was about how PE and corporate culture is killing innovation in America because of the fear of risk and danger. In China, they fire up a new foundry, the foundry operator might lose his hand in an "accident", and the foundry is back on line in 24 hours. As one jarhead said, "they have not translated Upton Sinclair into Mandarin"... so the national-cultural impetus is discouraging to say the least....
Well, the “almost top” have a lot to gain by performing well. If you’re a weirdo from Day 1, or some kind of “overachieving trailer trash” you’ll never fit in enough to matter—even if you get into Harvard as the “token freak.” (Remember that wave of “hillbilly” memoirs not so long ago?”) the best option, ironically, for low status overachievers who don’t fit in is the military.
Notice how the fat chicks with the giant bottoms used to hide the caboose with long sweaters?
Now they flaunt that giant waddling ham hocks... they are convinced they are sexy...
I was in the gym the other day and there was one of these big ol beasts... tight leggings with a mega back end ... and a massive drooping gut to match midriff exposed with a bra top to finish off the look.
Flopping around staring at her phone ... dawdling on the stair master at the slowest speed... then soon wandering off no doubt headed for KFC.
"Cultural appropriation" is what people who can be duped into being bullied are told that they do. The people who accuse other people of "cultural appropriation," well, they just do whatever dang thing they want. Everyone else uses some measure of the common sense God gave geese when they engage in normal human activities (like, oh say, speaking English, eating spaghetti, or using an umbrella when going out in the rain) and when exercising their personal sense of fun and flair.
I don’t know what to say anymore... I guess I can make it the rest of the way, since I’m 72, but it is getting harder...I started typing this comment and went way down into, well, you know, how I’m feeling, but I erased all of that, it’s no different than your other subscribers Chris, and yourself. I circled back to my original statement, that sums it up pretty much. Thank God I am in Florida, and thank goodness for you and some others on Substack.
It is so very easy to get depressed, Denise, feel demoralized, defeated. Been there, done that, have the tee shirts. Then I do my own little reset. I remind myself that there are MANY MANNNNY people out there who are GOOD. Who think for themselves. Chris Bray freaking astounds me with his insanely articulate BULLSEYE musings. And I am finding MANY like him, praise be to God.
Plotting our current trajectory certainly appears to bleakly lead straight to a gulag. However. I think the Worm is slowly waking up to that reality. The Worm does NOT LIKE that pending reality. I thinking either:
1. The Worm is going to turn, (a) gradually or (b) violently, I am not sure which, or;
2. Other external-internal events are going to intervene (think Oct 7 on steroids), to wake the Worm the hell up, right now.
I could be wrong on these future forks-in-the-road, my gut tells me otherwise.
Point is, take heart, speak the Truth, and stay frosty.
Yes, this is where I am at: the fork in the road where you accept and prepare and try to turn it off to some degree, or lose one's f-ing mind. That choice is easy on paper, but harder in reality. You are correct in the un-woken hordes, but will there be too many roadblocks, barriers, legal maneuvering, mandates, internet restrictions, social media and communication restrictions, etc to allow them to convene, organize, become aware, create and execute plans? We are getting closer and closer to that point, the door is closing. So, yes, there are numbers, very large numbers, but they tend to believe in the process so are slow in seeing the degree of rot and to respond with urgency. I believe those that are pulling strings are not fools, they see the stirring beast too (Schwab obliquely refers to their eventual reactions, already), and they are responding accordingly. I too am taking my family and running to red, but there will be limits there too. Nullification can only work as long as the Constitution remains intact and the courts neutral and actually rule upon existing law, but I see lots of attention on altering the courts (activists judges already "legislate from the bench" and DAs run amok in their assault on rule of law). More SCOTUS judges anyone? I am fearful and do not know exactly how to respond to the threat. WEF members are talking about manipulating water access, Gates is talking about the next pandemic that will "get their attention", and our currency is being compromised. Not to mention food concerns. And there are many other attacks, as you all know. I don't see a way out overall, so focus more on the near-term and short-term tactics. Eventually those won't be enough. Time is the only variable that I can't nail down. Could be 50 years, could be 5 - there will be ebb and flow, but they have been at it for decades and are patient and very, very intent.
Yes, Jesus or Aliens, or illegal aliens that came here not for a better life, but with extreme malintent, any of those would be a reset for sure. The Second Coming would be THE Reset, most definitely.
I ponder, with great trepidation, what God must think, seeing people celebrate abortion, celebrate when children are sexually mutilated or trafficked. I do not want to be in the same universe when THE Reset comes. Thankfully I won’t be.
... as they protest child marriage and the beating to death of a woman in Iran for not covering her hair in public. They - laughingly - pretend they are multiculturalists while demanding Western behaviors wherever they go.
Omg this. The 8th grade philosophy teacher took it upon himself to engage the class in a “debate” about Geert Wilders in complete bad faith. Ranting on and on about how illiberal it was to want to forbid Islam. Ignoring utterly the reason Wilders has taken that stance. Because he does not want to sacrifice the liberal Dutch state on the altar of multiculturalism. I asked my daughter: did anyone claim it was better in Saudi Arabia? Or Turkey? All we hear about these days is how Turkey is changing for the worse, but by no means would that happen here! Obviously none of the kids dared to open their mouths.
Our government is sacrificing Ukraine and esp Ukraine's young men to enrich weapons contractors and bleed Russia. That has been in the works since 2013 and Obama. The average age of men in the Ukrainian military is 43, so many are dead. There would never had been a war had not been poking the Bear with NATO for the last decade at least.
NATO has been encroaching for two decades, after saying it wouldn't. Ukraine wanted to joint the west mostly after the State Dept/CIA orchestrated coup in 2013.
Mostly to provoke the Bear, again after assurances they wouldn't, I'd say. Ukraine not being in NATO not stopping NATO from helping to finance the war.
That’s the delusion and grandiosity driven by the pathological narcissism. I troll males who harm women. There’s a good chance most of these males are on sex offender registry. Do I need to check for you? Is that your legal name?
I think a lot about "how to live apart from those systems". The only real answer is self-employment. The closer I get to a company of any size, the more I feel totally unsuited for it. Having people like this controlling my time is a terrible thought that makes me want to just walk away.
Systems like this are being built because they can be controlled. Make no mistake...this isn't about wide prosperity...it's about narrow control and sucking all the power and authority and money up to a chosen few. Some can't even fake it...like me. So check out and move away...hope they forget about you. Anything is better than "I wore my badge today...did you?"
Coming out of COVID, with ppl in my town hanging on to masks and temperature checks, I went out and bought several wood / hill acres in the nearby red state. People out there super chill and you are left alone to do what you want. That, to me, is a freedom that I am lucky to afford.
Thank you. Excellent article. I'm planning my complete escape as I write...
When I was a senior in High School I stopped attending except on testing days. Many years prior I had learned no one was interested in my thoughts, only my conformity and test results. I have an eidetic memory, so all I ever had to do was scan pages in textbooks and regurgitate from the photographic image in my mind onto the test and I aced classes one after the other.
Finally, by senior year, I realized I could also just stop going to class because I had scored the highest by far on my SAT and was making straight "A"s in all classes and I knew there was nothing the admins would do that could curtail my truancy.
I remember being dragged into the assistant Vice Principal's office, a man named Mr. Prescott, who had the misfortune of being assigned to deal with me and he would lecture me about the benefits of conformity. Asking me if I wanted to drive a Cadillac like he drove and live in a nice house like he lived. I would sit silently as he extolled the virtues of conforming and I didn't listen very much to what he said, but instead watched him and thought, "I pray to God I never end up like Mr. Prescott."
Then I left his office and went and hung out at the gas station.
That's what are being churned out. Millions and millions of Mr. Prescott's.
People call it cultural cancer, but I think perhaps a better analogy is cultural AIDS. This mind virus infects a culture’s defensive systems at the most fundamental level and turns them against the host bodies. And unlike cancer, it’s contagious.
It occurs to me, twenty minutes after hitting "post," that people have been arguing for more than a century that Harvard trains young people to uniformity. But C. Wright Mills described a uniformity that was built around a slightly different set of symbols than everybody wearing kaffiyehs.
Yes. This explains the social context in which a 3 year global Chernobyl can occur and the cheerful robots are not concerned (or aware) that "mistakes were made" because we must've learned from them if the elites of the milieu just awarded themselves an award for ending the poisoning by giving us poison.
🤮
Mistakes were made. Rewards were received regardless.
Look at this way. Marx once wrote about the alienation of the worker from the PRODUCT of his labor. Now we have the phenomenon of the "worker" alienated from labor itself. From worker to woker! That photo is packed with ELECTRIC ANXIETY. The tension is massively HORNY.
"plan for a way to live apart from those systems." Yes. Next year I plan to move away from a blue state to a deep red state just for self-preservation. Preservation of my money, my censorship-free mind, and my sanity. It makes me sad. I love my house. I will miss my friends. But as a straight white guy with a decent income living in a blue state I have a giant target on my forehead and the crosshairs are starting to line up. I am what's now called a 'classic liberal,' I grew up and lived on the Left, but I don't know what happened. What I do know is that my conservative friends are nicer, happier and more tolerant than any of the Wokies I know or encounter. So it's time to migrate.
Come here to Oklahoma. We’ll take you in and not pass judgement unless you start trying to make us like the shithole you’re leaving. Speaking about happiness, I was once married to a liberal. She was the most angry and unhappy woman I’ve ever had the misfortune to be around.
Funny you mention that, Oklahoma has been on my "scouting" list. And yes respecting local culture is so important. When I moved to Denver a zillion years ago, people just got it--its a cattle town, a mining town, a railroad town. You adapted and adopted. Now the Californians and their ilk are turning it into a California suburb. They want to raise taxes. They want to close the slaughterhouses (and we have the Western Stock Show). They want to ban guns. Saw today the state Dems want to "quantify" Colorado's slavery history--in a state that never had slaves and wasn't even a state at that point. Time to git while the gittin is good.
There is a faint but growing sound in Colorado. The sound of a toilet being flushed. I love Colorado, rural Colorado. Denver, Boulder, and sadly now even Colorado Springs, are worshiping The Machine. Sacrificing their beautiful children to The Machine, smiling as they do it, getting knowing nods of approval from their neighbors and friends, as they do it.
WEF speaks glowingly of a Great Reset. Yeah. There will be a reset. And yeah, it will be great. Just not the reset they were planning. The Worm is beyond unhappy. The Worm is going to turn. It is not going to be pleasant when that happens.
We have a lot going for us here, not to mention it doesn’t cost as much as where you are now.
Nebraska is close and beautiful. It is like Montana but without the acclaim and the mountains.
AI can replace anything that things within boundaries. The Ivies have targets on their backs. The kids that hung out at gas stations will remain free.
Angry hippie is redundant.
bsn
Give it time.
They will.
This is what they do.
Classical liberalism led to this in Russia, then Germany.
The Germans had a different take on it.
Classical liberalism led to what? It is essentially what American political philosophy, which includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Last I check, what is commonly called Classical Liberalism is the creation of the Enlightenment, which was a reaction to such fun things as the Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War, and the despotic Divine Right of Kings. It specifically had little to say about economics.
If you are talking about this modern pseudo liberalism or neoliberalism, which has arisen in the past fifty years, I think that it needs to be staked, beheaded, burnt to ashes, and scattered to the winds.
We agree on the last point.
We may disagree on the former points.
In fact we do disagree.
Liberalism has always been the untrammeled pursuit of money.
That's why they needed to get rid of the Church in certain countries such as Mexico for example [the Church banned Usury].
Liberalism is the pursuit of personal gain, wealth.
Well it turns out to be empty and leads to Nihilism.
Liberalism leads to nihilism, which then led the Russians to Communism, the Germans to Nazism, and this nihilism has led us ...here.
Can you get more nihilistic than wearing the keffiyeh after the Oct 7 raid?
Before the kids decided to embrace something real, their parents the neoliberals embraced MONEY, or as you call it neoliberalism.
The kids find this empty and embrace something real, it's not just conformism.
I'm not sure the Founders can quite be called Liberals, although many wish to claim the Founders were Liberals. I've read them extensively, the Federalist Papers, etc. They seem mainly to be concerned with political rights, they seem to be concerned with a working government for America. They are interested in Liberty, they are interested in forging a nation.
The Wars of Religion and in particular the Thirty Years war may be less about religion than you think, as much about dynastic rights and statecraft, the emerging nations as religion. Richelieu a Cardinal was the chief backer of Gustavas Adolphus the Protestant King of Sweden.
No King and few Despots in history by the way approach our current level of tyranny, this is Eastern Europe and the USSR in the 1980s and we're moving in the wrong direction. The King's Divine Right was conceived as alternative to the anarchy that often reigned instead, essentially making the King dictator.
Sensing perhaps a hostility to religion here...the Founders weren't hostile to religion. So I'm afraid you might not like the suggestion that the spiritual void where religion used to can't be filled adequately by money nor safely by politics. We see now both the emptiness of Greed and the danger of making politics a fanatical religious faith.
Politics makes a poor religion, power and poor God, government a poor Church. But that's what we've got...
So you see, all the liberalism, in particular getting rid of religion was for naught.
It's been replaced as Chris laid out here by what is absolutely an official Leftist religion, very dogmatic, enforced, and the children comply, if they know what's good for them. That's why they're all wearing keffiyehs.
You see. Full circle, here we are, the Christianity replaced with the keffiyeh wearing young Communists, off to Harvard Yard [Harvard itself founded as a Seminary, you know]. Karen has replaced the Nuns. How Droll.
Liberalism leads...here.... In 1944 Ernst Junger wrote an essay for the allies in which he urged them not to make the mistake of restoring an empty liberal regime in Europe as this returns to the starting point. But - We did. Junger's "The Peace' is where I got the phrase Liberalism led to Nihilism, which led to Russian Nihilism [Communism], which led to German Nihilism [the Nazis].
Where we're going now, I don' t know, I doubt if it's a replay of the past.
It's certainly not good. These brats aren't the only young men around.
I agree with much of what you just wrote, but I also have to note that history and ideas are rarely simple. Just as how capitalism was created to replace feudalism and as a counter to the 17th century socialistic ideas usually supported by the peasants. It was created as a practical solution against the outmoded system of feudalism, as a means of creating businesses, and as a class weapon.
Liberalism has the same tangled roots, including its use against social classes, traditional culture, and religion. However, unless one is against equality under the law, freedom of speech, democracy, and resistance to practices such as using torture in interrogation or execution, all of which Classical Liberalism was created for, then one must accept at least much of its ideas.
People insist on using liberalism as a complete means of thinking and as a religious faith. It was not created as such. It was created to give individuals and their society someway to coexist while dealing with often severe disagreements. People were expected to have their own beliefs aside from the tool of liberalism.
It is the same with science, or rather the scientific method, which was developed as a means to explore and explain the world. Nowadays, too many people treat it just like a religion, and mainstream science has its religious texts and holy orders. It is Scientism.
I could give a similar rant about Free Market Capitalism, which too many also treat as something handed down by God to Moses along with the Ten Commandments instead of an economic system with its own flaws and strengths. Communism as well. Marxian analysis is a tool and Karl Marx, whatever his flaws, used his methods to describe some brutal defects in unregulated free market capitalism.
One should use tools for what they were intended for. Maybe the tools are defective, but if one uses them in the wrong task, do not blame them for the bad results.
Liberalism is the ideology distilled from the political practices that suited the landed interests (and their allies in transnational commerce) in England in the two centuries after the Henrician Reformation. This ideology got used as a cudgel following the emergence of capitalism after the Napoleonic Wars.
Now liberalism still suits the class interests of the comfortable but it is being weaponised by the strivers in the Ivy League who are making common cause with the privileged classes of the Global South or Global Majority. No argument or shared beliefs can resolve the ensuing clash of interests/wills.
Fully agree that a replay of the past is unlikely. Wilson and his successors championed upheaval abroad to target the British and French empires not the continental USA. Kipling's THE CITY OF BRASS has proven truly prophetic.
Laugh all you want. The dust bowl is over. Okies moved because the faring practices of the day made the land untenable. Now, people are coming back because Blue practices have made their states untenable.
I get what you’re saying.
I’ve been to CA several times, before it became what it is now. Other than some beautiful views, I can’t see why anyone would live there voluntarily until you take back your state government.
If you are a Leftist, you aren't an American.
“...plan for a way to live apart...” exactly. It starts with “living local” - involved in all local politics, especially school boards, elections, and sheriffs. Then Line-of-sight on your food sources, then a local tribe/ support system for barter, knowledge base, and mutual protection. Finishes with non-compliance and being ungovernable where required. Unfortunately, the Michelle Wu’s of the world have zero interest in letting you/us live apart. It’s antithetical to their tyranny genes.
I congratulate you & wish you well, but remember your lessons learned & don’t contaminate your new red state home by supporting blue state type, leftist policies. It can be a hard habit to break.
to a wokie, you're a farrightfacistdictatornazihitlerpatriarchycolonizer
See you in the redland, soon, CF....I too will miss the house but not the neighbors...
Sounds good, as long as you promise never to vote for a Democrat, no matter how "reasonable" they seem to be. In 2008, my late husband persuaded me to vote for Mark Warner, who used to be a good guy, apparently. 'Nuff said. It's NEVER safe to vote Democrat.
I don't know.
If you leave, they win.
Amen, sounds like my situation too. Getting out of leftist WA state ASAP before they get serious about seizure of property in the name of "equity"
Do it! I left deep blue Malibu 18 months ago and haven’t regretted it for a single minute. There are many places left in this great country where sanity rules and, probably not coincidentally, freedom reigns. Yes, it’s a hassle to move and yes, I miss our friends there, but the joys that have returned to my everyday life are innumerable and profound. Worth it, by far.
Wise words, sir. I am chief of staff in a high education level company. What continually disorients me are employees under 30. They speak performatively, as you say. I think, after a couple of years, I am finally used to it. I used to think they were much, much smarter than they actually are. Now I want to hire from the gas station hangabouts pool.
i hope that when you talk to them, you use real words instead of their very formalized, meaningless patois
Oh yes. They have a bad time with me.
I think you will find much smarter, creative, self motivated people with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and work through them- NOT plastics that all think alike and instead of conquering an issue they either huddle in a corner screaming for a safe space or simply comply without any thought of their own.
WMD....click whirrrrr....
Safe and effective...click whirrrrr.....
Democracy dies in darkness....click whirrrrr...
If it saves one life....click whirrrrr...
To big to fail....click whirrrrr...
Insurrection....click whirrrrr...
My mask protects you....click whirrrrr...
Go Ukraine....click whirrrrr.....
We're all in it together..........click whirrrrr...click whirrrrr....
click whirrrrr....click whirrrrr...click whirrrrr....click whirrrrr...click whirrrrr...
Yes.
This is why I am ok with the vax injuries and deaths... these only impact the zombie hordes who shot the poison for a donut... all the while suggesting I was a conspiracy theorist for suggesting it was a very bad idea.
Nothing wrong with a bit of Schadenfreude to start one's day (pulling up the latest SADS involving celebs...)
Dollars to donuts the "frame-shifting" will continue....
I took it and regretted it since, but have been in good health and am determined to remain so. So I do worry if only selfishly for myself hahaha but do get what you mean Mr. Eddy.
They way to always being right involves the willingness to admit mistakes.
I've done it so many times that by now -- I am almost always right
lmao that's good
Just to make sure you stay in good health you may want to consider the protocol offered by FLCCC for those who took the injections.
How does their care protocol work?
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Go to their website & search for protocol for your situation. Then you’ll find info needed ti detox yourself.
Thanks, I appreciate it I intend to live a very long life writing a great many novels so hopefully this will help with that.
Perfection. Read it. We are ruled by people that know nothing but how to ace a test and comply with “authority”.
Which is the problem, having been one of them and quit and left the academic world it sucks and no one is really happy amongst them, none of those people really know much of anything except for one or two.
People love to fit in and hate to be different, excluded, unpopular. When I was in high school, girls were supposed to wear miniskirts and transparent blouses with a crocheted vest on top (to maintain decency). If you dressed like me--long tweed skirt, turtleneck, trench coat, knee socks, etc--you got some very strange looks and had zero chance socially. The top layer is no more inclined toward risk-taking than the middle or bottom. People are sheep, sadly enough.
The top layer seems to be LEAST inclined toward risk-taking. Or rather the kind of middle-top, the managerial class rather than the Elon Musks. The salary-earners.
It's so sad that these pitiable trained seals don't even get to pick so much as the color of the balls they balance on their noses. They are "trained to perform their words", indeed! And it's such a waste of a life, multiplied by how many poor NPCs who could have been actual human beings, living their own lives?!! And I love your phrase "... without being tainted by interiority" --- who would chose to volunteer to be a conformist non-entity, with no thoughts of one's own?!! I know, sadly -- too many benighted people.
Funny, I had a lunch with a few veterans on Friday in LA who are all in law, or investment banking or private equity, and the discussion was about how PE and corporate culture is killing innovation in America because of the fear of risk and danger. In China, they fire up a new foundry, the foundry operator might lose his hand in an "accident", and the foundry is back on line in 24 hours. As one jarhead said, "they have not translated Upton Sinclair into Mandarin"... so the national-cultural impetus is discouraging to say the least....
Well, the “almost top” have a lot to gain by performing well. If you’re a weirdo from Day 1, or some kind of “overachieving trailer trash” you’ll never fit in enough to matter—even if you get into Harvard as the “token freak.” (Remember that wave of “hillbilly” memoirs not so long ago?”) the best option, ironically, for low status overachievers who don’t fit in is the military.
Or a couple of other "industries" I worked in - The entertainment and fashion bizzes.
I worked with a lot of famous directors and not a single one made it further than one semester at any "film school". Same with fashion designers.
That's the sad reality for the conformists. They aren't actually valued. Just used.
Being an entrepreneur works.
Notice how the fat chicks with the giant bottoms used to hide the caboose with long sweaters?
Now they flaunt that giant waddling ham hocks... they are convinced they are sexy...
I was in the gym the other day and there was one of these big ol beasts... tight leggings with a mega back end ... and a massive drooping gut to match midriff exposed with a bra top to finish off the look.
Flopping around staring at her phone ... dawdling on the stair master at the slowest speed... then soon wandering off no doubt headed for KFC.
Morbid Obesity is the in thing
https://images.mic.com/78rw8jmkvc6cdujhgagyjljm8nlahyatw0rzvqkddvoaw2e2r6heksc46tq5k4kf.jpg
You certainly have a way with words
That’s it. A “way with words?” Can’t address misogyny in right wing males?
Clearly the Creator knew exactly what he was doing when He referred to the created as “sheep.”
https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktokrachelreenstra/video/7052092917552516398
Yep
Wouldn't wearing that if you're not muslim be cultural appropriation??
Oh wait, it doesn't have to make any damn sense.
I was thinking that EXACTLY - word for word!!!
😃
"Cultural appropriation" is what people who can be duped into being bullied are told that they do. The people who accuse other people of "cultural appropriation," well, they just do whatever dang thing they want. Everyone else uses some measure of the common sense God gave geese when they engage in normal human activities (like, oh say, speaking English, eating spaghetti, or using an umbrella when going out in the rain) and when exercising their personal sense of fun and flair.
I was explaining this photo to my wife and that was the first thing she said!
"wait, wouldn't that be cultural appropriation? isn't that fairly obvious?"
well honey, the rules don't apply to our best and brightest...they make the rules, they don't have to follow them...
Took the words right out of my mouth!
I HADN’T thought of that! That’s great. Next one I see I am going to say that to the person.
I don’t know what to say anymore... I guess I can make it the rest of the way, since I’m 72, but it is getting harder...I started typing this comment and went way down into, well, you know, how I’m feeling, but I erased all of that, it’s no different than your other subscribers Chris, and yourself. I circled back to my original statement, that sums it up pretty much. Thank God I am in Florida, and thank goodness for you and some others on Substack.
It is so very easy to get depressed, Denise, feel demoralized, defeated. Been there, done that, have the tee shirts. Then I do my own little reset. I remind myself that there are MANY MANNNNY people out there who are GOOD. Who think for themselves. Chris Bray freaking astounds me with his insanely articulate BULLSEYE musings. And I am finding MANY like him, praise be to God.
Plotting our current trajectory certainly appears to bleakly lead straight to a gulag. However. I think the Worm is slowly waking up to that reality. The Worm does NOT LIKE that pending reality. I thinking either:
1. The Worm is going to turn, (a) gradually or (b) violently, I am not sure which, or;
2. Other external-internal events are going to intervene (think Oct 7 on steroids), to wake the Worm the hell up, right now.
I could be wrong on these future forks-in-the-road, my gut tells me otherwise.
Point is, take heart, speak the Truth, and stay frosty.
Yes, this is where I am at: the fork in the road where you accept and prepare and try to turn it off to some degree, or lose one's f-ing mind. That choice is easy on paper, but harder in reality. You are correct in the un-woken hordes, but will there be too many roadblocks, barriers, legal maneuvering, mandates, internet restrictions, social media and communication restrictions, etc to allow them to convene, organize, become aware, create and execute plans? We are getting closer and closer to that point, the door is closing. So, yes, there are numbers, very large numbers, but they tend to believe in the process so are slow in seeing the degree of rot and to respond with urgency. I believe those that are pulling strings are not fools, they see the stirring beast too (Schwab obliquely refers to their eventual reactions, already), and they are responding accordingly. I too am taking my family and running to red, but there will be limits there too. Nullification can only work as long as the Constitution remains intact and the courts neutral and actually rule upon existing law, but I see lots of attention on altering the courts (activists judges already "legislate from the bench" and DAs run amok in their assault on rule of law). More SCOTUS judges anyone? I am fearful and do not know exactly how to respond to the threat. WEF members are talking about manipulating water access, Gates is talking about the next pandemic that will "get their attention", and our currency is being compromised. Not to mention food concerns. And there are many other attacks, as you all know. I don't see a way out overall, so focus more on the near-term and short-term tactics. Eventually those won't be enough. Time is the only variable that I can't nail down. Could be 50 years, could be 5 - there will be ebb and flow, but they have been at it for decades and are patient and very, very intent.
Well, push come to shove, in their unparalleled wisdom, The Founders gave us 2A as a last ditch remedy.
If they get so arrogant to push that button, woe to them. And when they do then you'll have a sure sign as to whether apathy or courage won the day.
I think courage will when the rubber meets the road.
I’ve been praying for Jesus or aliens. Thanks for your words of encouragement Rob!
Yes, Jesus or Aliens, or illegal aliens that came here not for a better life, but with extreme malintent, any of those would be a reset for sure. The Second Coming would be THE Reset, most definitely.
I ponder, with great trepidation, what God must think, seeing people celebrate abortion, celebrate when children are sexually mutilated or trafficked. I do not want to be in the same universe when THE Reset comes. Thankfully I won’t be.
😂
... as they protest child marriage and the beating to death of a woman in Iran for not covering her hair in public. They - laughingly - pretend they are multiculturalists while demanding Western behaviors wherever they go.
Omg this. The 8th grade philosophy teacher took it upon himself to engage the class in a “debate” about Geert Wilders in complete bad faith. Ranting on and on about how illiberal it was to want to forbid Islam. Ignoring utterly the reason Wilders has taken that stance. Because he does not want to sacrifice the liberal Dutch state on the altar of multiculturalism. I asked my daughter: did anyone claim it was better in Saudi Arabia? Or Turkey? All we hear about these days is how Turkey is changing for the worse, but by no means would that happen here! Obviously none of the kids dared to open their mouths.
Seems more like they detest Western behaviours and are determined to beat us into some sort of other behaviour or something.
Everyone knows Harvard's Gay, but have you met her bootlicking board and Bobo? Like Boston Maskachussetts Mayor Mu, they are all part of a morally and intellectually bankrupt elite culture: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-gay-bobo-corporation
Good, Yuri. Stay the fuck out of my home state of Massachusetts where I was born and raised to adulthood. WE DON’T WANT YOU there, misogynist.
Stop the genocide of Ukraine by the war pigs in America...oh snap, off script...censor censor!
WTF, are you talking about? How are you conflating providing military aid to help defend themselves against an invasion with genocide?
Our government is sacrificing Ukraine and esp Ukraine's young men to enrich weapons contractors and bleed Russia. That has been in the works since 2013 and Obama. The average age of men in the Ukrainian military is 43, so many are dead. There would never had been a war had not been poking the Bear with NATO for the last decade at least.
Most of said "poking the bear" consisted of not saying "no" to Ukraine when it wanted to join the West.
Although I'll grant our involvement in Serbia was idiotic.
NATO has been encroaching for two decades, after saying it wouldn't. Ukraine wanted to joint the west mostly after the State Dept/CIA orchestrated coup in 2013.
> NATO has been encroaching for two decades
Mostly because the former Soviet satellites wanted to join.
> Ukraine wanted to joint the west mostly after the State Dept/CIA orchestrated coup in 2013.
Believe it or not, people outside the US have independent agency and not everything that happens outside the US is a CIA plot.
Mostly to provoke the Bear, again after assurances they wouldn't, I'd say. Ukraine not being in NATO not stopping NATO from helping to finance the war.
You’re still a dumb white male of the right wing. Such bro culture here. Hey, you all prefer males over women, but “don’t say gay!” 🙄
Chandra actually has a crush on me, but has a masochist way of lavishing attention.
That’s the delusion and grandiosity driven by the pathological narcissism. I troll males who harm women. There’s a good chance most of these males are on sex offender registry. Do I need to check for you? Is that your legal name?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/17/florida-republican-party-chair-christian-ziegler-suspended-rape-accusation
Chandra, it's extremely frustrating to watch you have this mental health episode in public. You should stop.
The problem is she isn't mentally healthy enough to do that.
I think a lot about "how to live apart from those systems". The only real answer is self-employment. The closer I get to a company of any size, the more I feel totally unsuited for it. Having people like this controlling my time is a terrible thought that makes me want to just walk away.
Systems like this are being built because they can be controlled. Make no mistake...this isn't about wide prosperity...it's about narrow control and sucking all the power and authority and money up to a chosen few. Some can't even fake it...like me. So check out and move away...hope they forget about you. Anything is better than "I wore my badge today...did you?"
All of the Founding Fathers were "self-employed"; none of them received a W-2.
Yes...thank God for them.
They are farming us
UI so know the feeling. I hate working for males. You exploit and sexually harass women in the workplaces and create hostile environments for us.
Coming out of COVID, with ppl in my town hanging on to masks and temperature checks, I went out and bought several wood / hill acres in the nearby red state. People out there super chill and you are left alone to do what you want. That, to me, is a freedom that I am lucky to afford.
🎯
holy crap! who voted for a sorority girl to be mayor of a major US city?
I’m still trying to find out if she allowed her white husband (yes she is married to a white guy) to attend her non white’s holiday party. SMH.
wow! i didn't know that. and can she even go to the party? aren't asian people considered "white adjacent"?
Lol, yes but she probably exempted herself from that classification.
Dude must be a simp.
OK, misogynist. I know who doesn’t get laid. 😉
Man! That is so sexist. Anyway, ‘mzlizzi’ is almost for certain a female.
Who voted for Marjorie Taylor Greene? 😳
If she lived in my state I would have. Go Marjorie. There’s a woman who says what she thinks.
Thank you. Excellent article. I'm planning my complete escape as I write...
When I was a senior in High School I stopped attending except on testing days. Many years prior I had learned no one was interested in my thoughts, only my conformity and test results. I have an eidetic memory, so all I ever had to do was scan pages in textbooks and regurgitate from the photographic image in my mind onto the test and I aced classes one after the other.
Finally, by senior year, I realized I could also just stop going to class because I had scored the highest by far on my SAT and was making straight "A"s in all classes and I knew there was nothing the admins would do that could curtail my truancy.
I remember being dragged into the assistant Vice Principal's office, a man named Mr. Prescott, who had the misfortune of being assigned to deal with me and he would lecture me about the benefits of conformity. Asking me if I wanted to drive a Cadillac like he drove and live in a nice house like he lived. I would sit silently as he extolled the virtues of conforming and I didn't listen very much to what he said, but instead watched him and thought, "I pray to God I never end up like Mr. Prescott."
Then I left his office and went and hung out at the gas station.
That's what are being churned out. Millions and millions of Mr. Prescott's.
People call it cultural cancer, but I think perhaps a better analogy is cultural AIDS. This mind virus infects a culture’s defensive systems at the most fundamental level and turns them against the host bodies. And unlike cancer, it’s contagious.
Or a societal auto immune disease.
I see you’re still a dumb male of the right wing. Just an apology so I would leave you alone?