I agree. The thing to watch out for are the lost. Many are in the media of course. But those on the dissident right need to get better at understanding not everyone can be saved.
I am getting better at simply distancing myself from those lost to the narrative who refuse to see.
That’s where I am at. You can lead the horse to water but you can’t make them drink. After many years of ingesting the propaganda the cognitive thinking skills of some people have been destroyed.
I am less kind. I accept some are like that. But many are avoiding reality, and I am less forgiving of that.
I dislike what I see happening, and I find it distasteful to read and make sense of. But I do try. I am sure you do as well. I put in some effort.
So my take for 2024 is to be harsher. I'm done with the avoiders. I watched Covid unfold and accept some just took time to come around. But I recognize many never will, and that is a choice. So I am saving my energy for the open minded who will at least try to make sense of the world.
I agree with you on this. I do believe that some people are just happy with having others tell them how to live their life's and what is best for them. Avoids any personal responsibility for when things go wrong. You can have someone other than yourself to blame.
Yes, we gotta step back from trying to help those who literally cannot be helped. Timing that is hard. It's when the futility of it becomes overwhelming.
I support a Darwinian approach – Nature will eventually “take” all who don’t accept and adapt to reality. Once I detect opposition to manifestly obvious facts, I just move on.
Fact: you do not appear to understand Darwin's theory of evolution or much of anything else having to do with rational or scientific thought.
Evolution is a process of:
1. variation
2. selection
3. retention
in which traits that better increase survival win in competition with traits that don't. *
There are arguments from evolutionary psychologists about the tendency of "leftists" to have dysfunctional personality traits (neuroticism, authoritarianism). See the Hatemi research scandal.
-----
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
No point at all in arguing with idealogues... they reject all facts at odds with their ideology, and if there are any lefties who are not ideologues, they aren’t making their presence known.
Not completely correct. There are "lefties" that have openly opposed the lunacy of the "woke" stuff and other aspects of the left, but they are usually attacked, frequently viciously, by the kooks, radicals and extremists.
See systems theorist Nassim Taleb on the Dictatorship of Intolerant Minorities.
I read Taleb and understand your point. But when writing for an audience of more than one, generalizations must be made. Of course exceptions exist. Just as there are women and blacks who vote their own best interests rather than in the majority for Progs.. but it's the majority of the cohort that moves the needle.
I actually think we need to get better at discerning who is saveable. An active scanning, if you will. Too many seek comfort in government lies. They don't want reality. So why bother?
Best to save our energies for those open minded enough to at least discuss the major issues without a meltdown. Mass immigration, CBDCs and loss of freedom, medical tyranny etc.
But the middle has shrunk to infinitesimal. The reactions to Oct 7 are a good example. Then there are the adherents to Michelle Obama‘s school of thought that “government does everything for us,” who refuse to consider the economic effect of eliminating the motive to innovate.
I am not convinced the middle is that small. The Oct 7 demos were minimal numbers. Most people were not invested. It seemed mostly to be immigrants and the young.
As usual, you are the one that is out of touch with reality, advancing bizarre groupthink.
Large numbers of people on the center-left ("progressives", "liberals", or whatever) only agree with more radical positions because they have been forced to via subject to psychological violence, bullying, by radicals and extremists.
That is a great way to frame it. The opportunity cost. Plenty are worth the investment, they just need some information and patience to work it out. Others are hostile to anything that bursts their bubble. Why invest in that?
It is always good to know others exist. A big part of the propaganda is the artificial belief we are alone. That you alone are the weirdo questioning healthcare initiatives, economic warfare and other insanities.
That's why they are desperate to regulate the internet.
I look forward to every one of your posts. Lines like “Ruth Ben-Ghiat will fund her lake house this year” warm my cold, dark soul like nothing else. Thanks for continuing to write what’s true.
I cannot wait to see these soulless liars go down in flames. 🔥
It's going to be worse this year than it was in 2020, I think. They're going to toy around with racial violence again, but might really lose control.
It may be time to get off my ass and get a carry permit, even though I don't want to go through the trouble, be on a list, or get in a fight with my spouse. Still better than being brained by some post-BLM lunatic who wants to "de-colonize" me for my car.
Just be very careful. The threshold for legally defensible use of deadly force in a protest/riot situation is higher than most people realize. Kyle Rittenhouse performed brilliantly – his “fire”/“no fire” decisions were perfect – each exactly met the law’s requirements, and look at the Hell he went through.
The amazing thing to me about KR’s performance is that he’d had ZERO training, and yet outperformed most police in reaction time and
almost all police in accuracy (e.g., 5 NYPD plainclothes officers fired 41 rds at Amadou Diallo and struck him only 19 times.) I handled & practiced with weapons since age 17 (52 yrs), qualified as an “Expert Rifleman” in the Army, and could not possibly have come close to KR’s performance even at 17.
At the risk of either beating a dead horse or provoking a lively discussion, the common theme of legal advice seems to be that the potential for damage to the body or tires of your car is NOT “imminent danger of great bodily harm or death,” but that hostiles breaking the glass of your vehicle while you occupy it IS “imminent danger…” especially if a tool is used to break it that could easily be used as a weapon, e.g., , an “assault hammer.”
That's my understanding of it as well, and why people can go to prison for shooting someone through a door (I presume a car door applies here as well).
I have no desire at all to use a gun in self defense, so even if the law were not the way it is, I'd exhaust every possible option first, especially avoiding the situation in the first place.
Your last paragraph reminds me of the advice of the first CHL instructor I had (in 1996), a Houston Community College police officer. 2 anecdotes:
1) Student: “Can I shoot a perp multiple times?” Instructor: “Is he still aggressing you?” No response …
Instructor: “If he continues aggressing you, then you may continue shooting him.” I’ve always chuckled at the implied slow, civilized interaction.
2) Near the beginning of class, he briefly adopted a command presence, and told us “Shooting, and especially killing, another human being will change your life forever, and not for the better. Even if you act perfectly, you will question your decision and regret taking that life, at least if you’re sane. You will always ask yourself “Why didn’t I find another way?” I have kept that in the back of my mind when conditions outside the car looked so hinky that, as a precaution, I put my hand on the Glock .40 on the back of my seat.
I'm in a purple state in the northern south. It's home and it is not that bad. We'll get constitutional carry at some point in the near future I think. Crime rates are going up and the bluanon mouth breathers seem to be rubbing their brain cells together a little bit harder these days.
autists will watch the same 30 sec tiktok video over and over for 18 hours straight if left to their own devices.
but autism is a spectrum. the more functional ones still prefer the same simple themes, over and over. has the US childhood vax schedule bred a race of slaves who will always obey because to do otherwise would literally be unthinkable? if your brain is onfire from 72 shots worth of aluminum, all you want is some relief. maybe npr provides that.
and maybe the whole npr crew is on the spectrum. in 2019 i seethed with contempt for the libs of tiktok. these days i just feel sorry for them. they're as brain-damaged as they look.
"Activists" in the education establishment have been indoctrinating the "disabled" (including people with cognitive or personality disorders) with victim narratives for at least 30-40 years.
In one bizarre incident at a national education/disability conference years ago, a fight broke out between the extremists in the wheelchair faction and the extremists in the blind faction about use of elevators over which group had more victim status and should be allowed to get on the elevators first.
There is a larger body of evidence from researchers about correlations between various mental disorders and the personality types on the "left", most of it is about narcissism and sociopathy.
Let me know if you want me to dump my browser bookmarks on the topic.
... white leftist savior was actually a homosexual groomer using drugs to induce a troubled 15-year old black boy into sexual liaisons who was then murdered by the kid he was grooming after attempting to blackmail him with homemade porn turned out to be applicable
I wish I shared your optimism, Chris. I used to be an optimist, but it’s been beaten out of me. The arc of human history is bending toward evil and doesn’t show any signs of stopping.
As obvious as it is that our “leaders” are incompetent, corrupt and dishonest, they’re still confidently pushing forward because they know the masses can easily be distracted with catchphrases (see, eg, the comments from Biden’s speechwriter) and subdued with crumbs from the government table (or by the threat of withholding those crumbs). We are governed by the institutional equivalent of Pablo Escobar: plata o plomo? They lie to our faces and smile while they’re doing it because they know “the people” will do what they’re told.
If a significant majority actually understood what was happening, then there would be an overwhelming number of citizens demanding that people with power (at the local, state and national level) put an end to this nonsense. Yet, except for a few anecdotal flashes of courage, that isn’t happening. For example, only 13 Republicans in Congress can be bothered to take a stand against the Johnson/Schumer government funding deal. We are $34 trillion dollars in debt, have a wide open border, and we’re on the verge of WWIII, and only 13 Republicans(!!) have the nerve to do something about it. If citizens with pitchforks and torches were lined up in front of their local congressperson’s office, wouldn’t that number would be a lot higher? That ain’t happening, and the whole point of the performative hunt for “insurrectionists” is to make sure that it never happens again.
As despicable as our rulers on the Left are, those on the Uniparty-Right (which is nearly all of them) are so much worse. They’ve either thrown their lot in with the Left, or they’re too compromised and weak to take a stand for anything that matters. We can see the lies and call them out (and have to continue to do so), but if there aren’t any “leaders” who are willing to use whatever power and leverage they have to hold people accountable and start pushing back (really pushing back), then how is anything going to change?
I think you’re right about what 2024 has in store, and I hope you’re right about how it ends. But I think the evidence points in a different direction.
And this is why I say that I don't see what tangible outcomes the failure delivers. So the moment I can see coming is that institutions go on down the same tracks, exactly as if nothing is wrong and nothing has changed, while NO ONE believes them at all, ever. That's....late Soviet? Late something. A recipe for literal collapse. The refusal to back down from the explosion in federal deficit spending is fascinating. They just can't, no matter how clear the implications become. It's extremist to stop!
With respect to your comment about our representatives, being “too compromised,” considering that every senator and congressman is thoroughly vetted (i.e. investigated by the FBI) prior to running for office, and considering the demonstrable lack of integrity we’ve recently witnessed on the part of that once august top notch law enforcement agency, it’s not only possible, but seems very likely to me that there exists dossiers on most, if not all of our representatives retained by that law enforcement agency in case some form of future “persuasion” is needed.
I suspect our elected representatives know it, and the FBI knows our representatives know it.
Why do I keep reading "Reichstag fire" instead of "Insurrection"?
The "beauty" of it is of course the same as it was with the original event in 1933: it doesn't matter who /really/ did what, only how it can be exploited to crush political opponents.
Word is getting out. Clay Higgins, a member of the House Oversight Committee (and ex-military, ex-law enforcement), says there were a minimum of 200 FBI operatives disguised as Trump supporters on Jan 6, some of them inside the Capitol prior to the doors being opened, ready to lead protestors through the maze of the building to where the FBI wanted them (like maybe the Speaker's Lobby for the kill shot?):
As Lenin said, "More chaos". Blue cities and states will be the worst places to live, or travel to for business, because that's where the "D"s control everything. As long as the chaos stays in the poor and middle class areas, most of the white cognitive elites, "D"s and "R"s, will not care. The problem is that with bringing millions of young military age males in from violent 3rd world societies that are almost entirely antithetical to our culture, this will not be the case for long. As you say, reality will rear it's head at this degradation and all of us will be brought under it's revenge. Maybe we can muddle along without much more destruction than what we've already seen but my guess it's going to get worse. The communists and anarchists, with help from the Islamacists, are not going to give up power and will pursue any policy, behavior, oor actions, that bring the most destruction.
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
1º) La [lain] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en [latin] América es emigrar.
---> 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
It’s gonna be a very interesting year. You wanna talk insurrection? Just wait until the day that Trump is getting sworn in (if that occurs). The left is gonna go crazy. It’ll be interesting to watch the media cover DC in flames as a peaceful protest.
If in 2024, more and more people come to just switch off the rabidly biased, editorially selective, click-baity MSM 'News'....that would be the best news of all.
I am experiencing many comments from normals about mainstream content. These aren't the hardcore racists or conspiracy types, and few are deep thinkers. But they see it. They lack a mental framework to accommodate it, but the noticing is the start. What they are noticing of course is the total disconnect of the mainstream media and reality.
No, not shut down as such. My own hope is that the 'impartial' BBC (with its 25000 Labour/Lib Dem-voting staff and its 10-or-so conservative-voting staff) will just eventually wither on the vine. It has had an immensely distorting effect on the British political consciousness for 50 years and more.
Bear with me on this analogy: The movie “Forbidden Planet” involves a mind reading machine on an alien planet that creates what the user thinks. The machine is connected to a limitless planetary power source. A dying scientist tells a visitor “Beware the monsters of the Id,” as one such monster he unknowingly created draws upon that vast power source to melt thru impervious metal to attack its creator.
Government funded media sources are like that alien machine, drawing whatever “power” they need from the Treasury’s coffers. They will never “wither on the vine.”
The Canadian government BUILDS on the BBC model, and pumps money directly into privately owned TV & digital media as well. The “Canada Media Fund” pumps money to support favored subjects like “Equity and Inclusion Strategy,” which in Year 1 will fund “inclusive Canadian media projects covering Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Communities.” In Year 2, this will expand to “include 2SLGBTQ+ and Persons with Disabilities communities.”
Separately, the CMF will fund “Persona-ID…a new self-identification system for measuring and monitoring the demographic representation and participation of those responsible for CMF-funded projects and key personnel. Participation in the Persona-ID process is voluntary but will be a necessary step for any director/shareholder or key personnel involved with a program with a CMF Diverse Community initiative.” “The CMF is encouraging all individuals working in key roles within Canada’s audiovisual industries to sign up for a Persona-ID number. You can learn more about how your business can receive grant funding through the Canada Media Fund: Experimental Stream.”
Separately, Canada has the “Labour Journalism Tax Credit” which pays print and digital news media organizations 35% of journalists’ salaries up to a max credit C$29,750 per journalist.
I’m sure this tidal wave of money from Ottawa (which can be switched off at the end of every fiscal year) has not a SCINTILLA of influence on the recipients’ coverage of the Trudeau government…
Very few Canadian media organizations can resist this, but one that does is Rebel News, of which one of its reporters was arrested (for one hour!) for questioning Chrystia Freeland on a public street.
I don't need any persuading about just how awful the BBC and its ilk are. The point of my comment was more that - in order to "shut it down" - you would need the kind of sane and popular government that we don't have any prospect of either in the UK or Canada.
We've talked about 'The News' but in my view there's something even more poisonous (that I wrote about in this piece) ..... "bias in tv DRAMA (precisely because it is ostensibly apolitical) is actually more insidious – and its subliminal messaging all the more powerful. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
I just mean that is the call from people I know, which is new. They no longer see a need for it. And of course an entire generation has grown up with no television habit. So the world has changed.
With the way it is funded the BBC needs a significant change in mood to make changes. But I sense it is coming. Even a shift to subscription will begin its decline.
I’m not a nutjob (unless being a constitutional Originalist makes me one). But I started switching off the MSM in the late 90’s, possibly because of its full-throated defense of Bill Clinton (double entendre intentional). Eventually I found my way to FNC. I found that the ONLY thing CNN did well was live coverage of disasters. But eventually I just deleted the channels from my lineup due to their universal detachment from reality.
I ditched all tv and cable 'news' years ago. It has always been a fraud on account of the inevitable Editorial Selectivity (whereby for instance, some murders warrant months of agonising and outrage whereas others don't even get a mention). There has only ever been one way to be genuinely informed about the world beyond one's own direct experience.... wide reading (and for anyone with the time and inclination, the internet provides the opportunity to do that).
"I should mention that I mean this as good news." Oookayyyy....
It's good news in the same way that when you stop hitting your thumb with a hammer, it's good news.
Ultimately, this election, like the last several, are really personality and mental health inventories on the voters. Well there is all the cheating behind the scenes coordinated with the CIA, CCP, Boris and Natascha, Chocolate Jesus, et al. But if you are susceptible to the messaging, and cognitive dissonance is just a thing for other people, you'll vote for creepy husk Dark Brandon or whoever they take him out for at the convention, maybe Bryllcream Dracula.
Just keep plugging away on this, Chris. Proceed until apprehended with righteous fury and stout beer, if available in your area.
There is nothing wrong with people, they are not stupid, they do not suffer from mass hypnosis, they do not belive a word that comes out of FJB's mouth. They, those that seem to not see or understand, understand. They are acting like most humans, they have a self interest that is being fulfilled by this regime. The only question, is when or if they decide their self interest no longer is worth the damage being done to the country.
Yes! Another tightly written piece by Chris Bray that I wanted to read to the end. We lived this in 2020 and the emotions we witnessed were hard to pin down. Bray does it!
American cities burning, but they were just protests and crowds could gather and cities could burn for such exercises in freedom. Shepard Smith bawling on CNBC because the nation’s capitol was overrun by hoodlums. Canadian truckers trying to… When black is white and white is black … When what we are seeing does not match up to the narratives… What do we do?! When the 2024 political environment unravels before our eyes and all is seen for what it is — Bray’s good news prediction — what is the outcome?! Asking for a friend.
I’m trying to figure out what audience this Hitlerian Ground & Pound propaganda is aimed at. FJB already has the 20 yr old “no information” voters. No medium or high information voters can possibly believe it. They might detest Trump, but they know he’s not Hitler. And then we have the awakening portion of the voters who trusted FJB and realize they got utterly fucked. I just see it as a campaign theme without an audience.
"It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality."
https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
I agree. The thing to watch out for are the lost. Many are in the media of course. But those on the dissident right need to get better at understanding not everyone can be saved.
I am getting better at simply distancing myself from those lost to the narrative who refuse to see.
That’s where I am at. You can lead the horse to water but you can’t make them drink. After many years of ingesting the propaganda the cognitive thinking skills of some people have been destroyed.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30884.html
To compare whores to these people is an insult to all whores. At least whores have some sort of purpose.
AHAHAHAHAHA why have I never seen this quote before?!?! 🙌🏼 the context in which it was given made it EVEN BETTER
I am less kind. I accept some are like that. But many are avoiding reality, and I am less forgiving of that.
I dislike what I see happening, and I find it distasteful to read and make sense of. But I do try. I am sure you do as well. I put in some effort.
So my take for 2024 is to be harsher. I'm done with the avoiders. I watched Covid unfold and accept some just took time to come around. But I recognize many never will, and that is a choice. So I am saving my energy for the open minded who will at least try to make sense of the world.
I agree with you on this. I do believe that some people are just happy with having others tell them how to live their life's and what is best for them. Avoids any personal responsibility for when things go wrong. You can have someone other than yourself to blame.
Or as Dr. Malone says, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30884.html
Oh, they’ll eventually drink...the question is, will they drink the water, or will they drink the kool-aid?
Yes, we gotta step back from trying to help those who literally cannot be helped. Timing that is hard. It's when the futility of it becomes overwhelming.
I support a Darwinian approach – Nature will eventually “take” all who don’t accept and adapt to reality. Once I detect opposition to manifestly obvious facts, I just move on.
Fact: you do not appear to understand Darwin's theory of evolution or much of anything else having to do with rational or scientific thought.
Evolution is a process of:
1. variation
2. selection
3. retention
in which traits that better increase survival win in competition with traits that don't. *
There are arguments from evolutionary psychologists about the tendency of "leftists" to have dysfunctional personality traits (neuroticism, authoritarianism). See the Hatemi research scandal.
-----
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
No point at all in arguing with idealogues... they reject all facts at odds with their ideology, and if there are any lefties who are not ideologues, they aren’t making their presence known.
Not completely correct. There are "lefties" that have openly opposed the lunacy of the "woke" stuff and other aspects of the left, but they are usually attacked, frequently viciously, by the kooks, radicals and extremists.
See systems theorist Nassim Taleb on the Dictatorship of Intolerant Minorities.
I read Taleb and understand your point. But when writing for an audience of more than one, generalizations must be made. Of course exceptions exist. Just as there are women and blacks who vote their own best interests rather than in the majority for Progs.. but it's the majority of the cohort that moves the needle.
example:
https://www.newsweek.com/dei-college-director-fired-not-being-right-kind-black-person-1813481
I actually think we need to get better at discerning who is saveable. An active scanning, if you will. Too many seek comfort in government lies. They don't want reality. So why bother?
Best to save our energies for those open minded enough to at least discuss the major issues without a meltdown. Mass immigration, CBDCs and loss of freedom, medical tyranny etc.
But the middle has shrunk to infinitesimal. The reactions to Oct 7 are a good example. Then there are the adherents to Michelle Obama‘s school of thought that “government does everything for us,” who refuse to consider the economic effect of eliminating the motive to innovate.
I am not convinced the middle is that small. The Oct 7 demos were minimal numbers. Most people were not invested. It seemed mostly to be immigrants and the young.
Geis is a dotard that babbles gibberish frequently.
As usual, you are the one that is out of touch with reality, advancing bizarre groupthink.
Large numbers of people on the center-left ("progressives", "liberals", or whatever) only agree with more radical positions because they have been forced to via subject to psychological violence, bullying, by radicals and extremists.
https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/
Agree 100%. Those people represent opportunity cost.
That is a great way to frame it. The opportunity cost. Plenty are worth the investment, they just need some information and patience to work it out. Others are hostile to anything that bursts their bubble. Why invest in that?
Exactly. The two shot a done folks are the lowest hanging fruit. It's an indicator they're thinking...so probably receptive on other issues.
❤️. Thank you so much, Chris for being here and helping us through all this crazy shit. You help me face it with more courage to fight.
I came to say much the same thing.
It is always good to know others exist. A big part of the propaganda is the artificial belief we are alone. That you alone are the weirdo questioning healthcare initiatives, economic warfare and other insanities.
That's why they are desperate to regulate the internet.
I look forward to every one of your posts. Lines like “Ruth Ben-Ghiat will fund her lake house this year” warm my cold, dark soul like nothing else. Thanks for continuing to write what’s true.
I cannot wait to see these soulless liars go down in flames. 🔥
In the meantime, isn't it delicious to watch Harvard and M.I.T. go up in flames? Plagiarism everywhere....
It's going to be worse this year than it was in 2020, I think. They're going to toy around with racial violence again, but might really lose control.
It may be time to get off my ass and get a carry permit, even though I don't want to go through the trouble, be on a list, or get in a fight with my spouse. Still better than being brained by some post-BLM lunatic who wants to "de-colonize" me for my car.
Just be very careful. The threshold for legally defensible use of deadly force in a protest/riot situation is higher than most people realize. Kyle Rittenhouse performed brilliantly – his “fire”/“no fire” decisions were perfect – each exactly met the law’s requirements, and look at the Hell he went through.
Yeah, I'll do everything I can to avoid it. That kid is a hero, and I'm proud to live in the same country, but that's not on my list of things to do.
The amazing thing to me about KR’s performance is that he’d had ZERO training, and yet outperformed most police in reaction time and
almost all police in accuracy (e.g., 5 NYPD plainclothes officers fired 41 rds at Amadou Diallo and struck him only 19 times.) I handled & practiced with weapons since age 17 (52 yrs), qualified as an “Expert Rifleman” in the Army, and could not possibly have come close to KR’s performance even at 17.
At the risk of either beating a dead horse or provoking a lively discussion, the common theme of legal advice seems to be that the potential for damage to the body or tires of your car is NOT “imminent danger of great bodily harm or death,” but that hostiles breaking the glass of your vehicle while you occupy it IS “imminent danger…” especially if a tool is used to break it that could easily be used as a weapon, e.g., , an “assault hammer.”
That's my understanding of it as well, and why people can go to prison for shooting someone through a door (I presume a car door applies here as well).
I have no desire at all to use a gun in self defense, so even if the law were not the way it is, I'd exhaust every possible option first, especially avoiding the situation in the first place.
Your last paragraph reminds me of the advice of the first CHL instructor I had (in 1996), a Houston Community College police officer. 2 anecdotes:
1) Student: “Can I shoot a perp multiple times?” Instructor: “Is he still aggressing you?” No response …
Instructor: “If he continues aggressing you, then you may continue shooting him.” I’ve always chuckled at the implied slow, civilized interaction.
2) Near the beginning of class, he briefly adopted a command presence, and told us “Shooting, and especially killing, another human being will change your life forever, and not for the better. Even if you act perfectly, you will question your decision and regret taking that life, at least if you’re sane. You will always ask yourself “Why didn’t I find another way?” I have kept that in the back of my mind when conditions outside the car looked so hinky that, as a precaution, I put my hand on the Glock .40 on the back of my seat.
I’m sorry you live in a state where your God given freedoms are so restricted. Get out whilst you can
I'm in a purple state in the northern south. It's home and it is not that bad. We'll get constitutional carry at some point in the near future I think. Crime rates are going up and the bluanon mouth breathers seem to be rubbing their brain cells together a little bit harder these days.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Mmm
Well
You can get on the list for a permit
Or you could just...
maybe there's a connection between the aggressive npr fearpounding and autism? toby rogers' work is central to this hypothesis https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/the-political-economy-of-autism
autists will watch the same 30 sec tiktok video over and over for 18 hours straight if left to their own devices.
but autism is a spectrum. the more functional ones still prefer the same simple themes, over and over. has the US childhood vax schedule bred a race of slaves who will always obey because to do otherwise would literally be unthinkable? if your brain is onfire from 72 shots worth of aluminum, all you want is some relief. maybe npr provides that.
and maybe the whole npr crew is on the spectrum. in 2019 i seethed with contempt for the libs of tiktok. these days i just feel sorry for them. they're as brain-damaged as they look.
edited to add this study just came in today https://ashmedai.substack.com/p/new-study-prenatal-exposure-to-covid
Funny you bring this up. Autism is exactly what came to mind as I was reading about their strategy of repetitive lies and stories.
Interesting. Hadn't occurred to me.
"Activists" in the education establishment have been indoctrinating the "disabled" (including people with cognitive or personality disorders) with victim narratives for at least 30-40 years.
In one bizarre incident at a national education/disability conference years ago, a fight broke out between the extremists in the wheelchair faction and the extremists in the blind faction about use of elevators over which group had more victim status and should be allowed to get on the elevators first.
Glad to hear you were finally able to get treated.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/systemic-mastocytosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20352859
But they VOTE! No forgiveness or quarter.
In Democracy none are innocent.
Kinda puts a high burden on the electoral losers when the crazies win…
Humm, sounds like making excuses for fools just achieved inner escape velocity…..
There is a larger body of evidence from researchers about correlations between various mental disorders and the personality types on the "left", most of it is about narcissism and sociopathy.
Let me know if you want me to dump my browser bookmarks on the topic.
Meanwhile:
https://twitter.com/wesyang/status/1712505992540274708
twitter. com /wesyang/status/1712505992540274708
excerpt:
... white leftist savior was actually a homosexual groomer using drugs to induce a troubled 15-year old black boy into sexual liaisons who was then murdered by the kid he was grooming after attempting to blackmail him with homemade porn turned out to be applicable
...
What does NPR mean?
No Personal Responsibility
National Public Radio
Or National Propaganda Radio or even New Pravda Radio, both entirely appropriate.
If the shoe fits.
National
Progressive
Retards
NYT = Pravda on the Hudson
WaPo = Pravda on the Potomac
I wish I shared your optimism, Chris. I used to be an optimist, but it’s been beaten out of me. The arc of human history is bending toward evil and doesn’t show any signs of stopping.
As obvious as it is that our “leaders” are incompetent, corrupt and dishonest, they’re still confidently pushing forward because they know the masses can easily be distracted with catchphrases (see, eg, the comments from Biden’s speechwriter) and subdued with crumbs from the government table (or by the threat of withholding those crumbs). We are governed by the institutional equivalent of Pablo Escobar: plata o plomo? They lie to our faces and smile while they’re doing it because they know “the people” will do what they’re told.
If a significant majority actually understood what was happening, then there would be an overwhelming number of citizens demanding that people with power (at the local, state and national level) put an end to this nonsense. Yet, except for a few anecdotal flashes of courage, that isn’t happening. For example, only 13 Republicans in Congress can be bothered to take a stand against the Johnson/Schumer government funding deal. We are $34 trillion dollars in debt, have a wide open border, and we’re on the verge of WWIII, and only 13 Republicans(!!) have the nerve to do something about it. If citizens with pitchforks and torches were lined up in front of their local congressperson’s office, wouldn’t that number would be a lot higher? That ain’t happening, and the whole point of the performative hunt for “insurrectionists” is to make sure that it never happens again.
As despicable as our rulers on the Left are, those on the Uniparty-Right (which is nearly all of them) are so much worse. They’ve either thrown their lot in with the Left, or they’re too compromised and weak to take a stand for anything that matters. We can see the lies and call them out (and have to continue to do so), but if there aren’t any “leaders” who are willing to use whatever power and leverage they have to hold people accountable and start pushing back (really pushing back), then how is anything going to change?
I think you’re right about what 2024 has in store, and I hope you’re right about how it ends. But I think the evidence points in a different direction.
And this is why I say that I don't see what tangible outcomes the failure delivers. So the moment I can see coming is that institutions go on down the same tracks, exactly as if nothing is wrong and nothing has changed, while NO ONE believes them at all, ever. That's....late Soviet? Late something. A recipe for literal collapse. The refusal to back down from the explosion in federal deficit spending is fascinating. They just can't, no matter how clear the implications become. It's extremist to stop!
Late-Soviet is pretty close. As for tangible outcomes, maybe the gallows humor gets even better?
With respect to your comment about our representatives, being “too compromised,” considering that every senator and congressman is thoroughly vetted (i.e. investigated by the FBI) prior to running for office, and considering the demonstrable lack of integrity we’ve recently witnessed on the part of that once august top notch law enforcement agency, it’s not only possible, but seems very likely to me that there exists dossiers on most, if not all of our representatives retained by that law enforcement agency in case some form of future “persuasion” is needed.
I suspect our elected representatives know it, and the FBI knows our representatives know it.
Watch the Warroom, belive it or not, but it will actually give you your optimism back.
Why do I keep reading "Reichstag fire" instead of "Insurrection"?
The "beauty" of it is of course the same as it was with the original event in 1933: it doesn't matter who /really/ did what, only how it can be exploited to crush political opponents.
Word is getting out. Clay Higgins, a member of the House Oversight Committee (and ex-military, ex-law enforcement), says there were a minimum of 200 FBI operatives disguised as Trump supporters on Jan 6, some of them inside the Capitol prior to the doors being opened, ready to lead protestors through the maze of the building to where the FBI wanted them (like maybe the Speaker's Lobby for the kill shot?):
https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-clay-higgins/
As Lenin said, "More chaos". Blue cities and states will be the worst places to live, or travel to for business, because that's where the "D"s control everything. As long as the chaos stays in the poor and middle class areas, most of the white cognitive elites, "D"s and "R"s, will not care. The problem is that with bringing millions of young military age males in from violent 3rd world societies that are almost entirely antithetical to our culture, this will not be the case for long. As you say, reality will rear it's head at this degradation and all of us will be brought under it's revenge. Maybe we can muddle along without much more destruction than what we've already seen but my guess it's going to get worse. The communists and anarchists, with help from the Islamacists, are not going to give up power and will pursue any policy, behavior, oor actions, that bring the most destruction.
Danny Huckabee
"He who serves a revolution plows the sea."
digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/28362/1/BolivarPen.pdf
...
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
1º) La [lain] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en [latin] América es emigrar.
---> 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar#Letter_near_the_end_of_his_life_(November_9,_1830)
Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
Simon Bolivar
“like the Stasi but with Yakety Sax playing as they raid homes...”
I can’t say I wouldn’t enjoy watching FBI agents trying to apprehend the Q-anon Shaman in a Benny Hill style chase scene throughout the capital.
A modern "Keystone Cops".
Utter ineptitude with a pie in the face.
It’s gonna be a very interesting year. You wanna talk insurrection? Just wait until the day that Trump is getting sworn in (if that occurs). The left is gonna go crazy. It’ll be interesting to watch the media cover DC in flames as a peaceful protest.
Actually, it will be reported as "a mostly peaceful protest".
By "reporters" that are "mostly sane"!
An increasingly rare group.
If in 2024, more and more people come to just switch off the rabidly biased, editorially selective, click-baity MSM 'News'....that would be the best news of all.
I am experiencing many comments from normals about mainstream content. These aren't the hardcore racists or conspiracy types, and few are deep thinkers. But they see it. They lack a mental framework to accommodate it, but the noticing is the start. What they are noticing of course is the total disconnect of the mainstream media and reality.
Yes....let's hope that 2024 is the year that this 'let's-us and-the-MSM-get-a-divorce' reaches critical mass.
I am aware of people wanting the BBC shut down. Not reigned in but total destruction. That to me is a sea change.
No, not shut down as such. My own hope is that the 'impartial' BBC (with its 25000 Labour/Lib Dem-voting staff and its 10-or-so conservative-voting staff) will just eventually wither on the vine. It has had an immensely distorting effect on the British political consciousness for 50 years and more.
Bear with me on this analogy: The movie “Forbidden Planet” involves a mind reading machine on an alien planet that creates what the user thinks. The machine is connected to a limitless planetary power source. A dying scientist tells a visitor “Beware the monsters of the Id,” as one such monster he unknowingly created draws upon that vast power source to melt thru impervious metal to attack its creator.
Government funded media sources are like that alien machine, drawing whatever “power” they need from the Treasury’s coffers. They will never “wither on the vine.”
The Canadian government BUILDS on the BBC model, and pumps money directly into privately owned TV & digital media as well. The “Canada Media Fund” pumps money to support favored subjects like “Equity and Inclusion Strategy,” which in Year 1 will fund “inclusive Canadian media projects covering Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Communities.” In Year 2, this will expand to “include 2SLGBTQ+ and Persons with Disabilities communities.”
Separately, the CMF will fund “Persona-ID…a new self-identification system for measuring and monitoring the demographic representation and participation of those responsible for CMF-funded projects and key personnel. Participation in the Persona-ID process is voluntary but will be a necessary step for any director/shareholder or key personnel involved with a program with a CMF Diverse Community initiative.” “The CMF is encouraging all individuals working in key roles within Canada’s audiovisual industries to sign up for a Persona-ID number. You can learn more about how your business can receive grant funding through the Canada Media Fund: Experimental Stream.”
Separately, Canada has the “Labour Journalism Tax Credit” which pays print and digital news media organizations 35% of journalists’ salaries up to a max credit C$29,750 per journalist.
I’m sure this tidal wave of money from Ottawa (which can be switched off at the end of every fiscal year) has not a SCINTILLA of influence on the recipients’ coverage of the Trudeau government…
Very few Canadian media organizations can resist this, but one that does is Rebel News, of which one of its reporters was arrested (for one hour!) for questioning Chrystia Freeland on a public street.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/rebel-news-set-to-sue-police-freeland-after-journalist-s-arrest-1.6718488?clipId=89531
I don't need any persuading about just how awful the BBC and its ilk are. The point of my comment was more that - in order to "shut it down" - you would need the kind of sane and popular government that we don't have any prospect of either in the UK or Canada.
We've talked about 'The News' but in my view there's something even more poisonous (that I wrote about in this piece) ..... "bias in tv DRAMA (precisely because it is ostensibly apolitical) is actually more insidious – and its subliminal messaging all the more powerful. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
I just mean that is the call from people I know, which is new. They no longer see a need for it. And of course an entire generation has grown up with no television habit. So the world has changed.
With the way it is funded the BBC needs a significant change in mood to make changes. But I sense it is coming. Even a shift to subscription will begin its decline.
I’m not a nutjob (unless being a constitutional Originalist makes me one). But I started switching off the MSM in the late 90’s, possibly because of its full-throated defense of Bill Clinton (double entendre intentional). Eventually I found my way to FNC. I found that the ONLY thing CNN did well was live coverage of disasters. But eventually I just deleted the channels from my lineup due to their universal detachment from reality.
I ditched all tv and cable 'news' years ago. It has always been a fraud on account of the inevitable Editorial Selectivity (whereby for instance, some murders warrant months of agonising and outrage whereas others don't even get a mention). There has only ever been one way to be genuinely informed about the world beyond one's own direct experience.... wide reading (and for anyone with the time and inclination, the internet provides the opportunity to do that).
"I should mention that I mean this as good news." Oookayyyy....
It's good news in the same way that when you stop hitting your thumb with a hammer, it's good news.
Ultimately, this election, like the last several, are really personality and mental health inventories on the voters. Well there is all the cheating behind the scenes coordinated with the CIA, CCP, Boris and Natascha, Chocolate Jesus, et al. But if you are susceptible to the messaging, and cognitive dissonance is just a thing for other people, you'll vote for creepy husk Dark Brandon or whoever they take him out for at the convention, maybe Bryllcream Dracula.
Just keep plugging away on this, Chris. Proceed until apprehended with righteous fury and stout beer, if available in your area.
There is nothing wrong with people, they are not stupid, they do not suffer from mass hypnosis, they do not belive a word that comes out of FJB's mouth. They, those that seem to not see or understand, understand. They are acting like most humans, they have a self interest that is being fulfilled by this regime. The only question, is when or if they decide their self interest no longer is worth the damage being done to the country.
Yes! Another tightly written piece by Chris Bray that I wanted to read to the end. We lived this in 2020 and the emotions we witnessed were hard to pin down. Bray does it!
American cities burning, but they were just protests and crowds could gather and cities could burn for such exercises in freedom. Shepard Smith bawling on CNBC because the nation’s capitol was overrun by hoodlums. Canadian truckers trying to… When black is white and white is black … When what we are seeing does not match up to the narratives… What do we do?! When the 2024 political environment unravels before our eyes and all is seen for what it is — Bray’s good news prediction — what is the outcome?! Asking for a friend.
I’m trying to figure out what audience this Hitlerian Ground & Pound propaganda is aimed at. FJB already has the 20 yr old “no information” voters. No medium or high information voters can possibly believe it. They might detest Trump, but they know he’s not Hitler. And then we have the awakening portion of the voters who trusted FJB and realize they got utterly fucked. I just see it as a campaign theme without an audience.
True, but Joe is such a compelling and charismatic figure that he might be able to pull it off.
The last thing he successfully pulled off was his diaper.
😂🤣👍 Thanks for the good laugh!