It's especially jarring when you consider they believe actual violent criminals shouldn't go to jail -- only those dastardly Republicans who dare have different thoughts.
I'm old enough to remember when they cleared out jails and prisons in early 2020, rapists, thieves, murderers set free because bad 'ole Covid would kill them. And whatever their crimes, the death penalty was excessive, so the accused and convicted criminals had to be set free.
And as the rapists, thieves and murderers were set free, gym owners, hair stylists, hardware store owners and mask refuseniks were arrested and put in those newly-emptied cells. Because their selfishness and disobedience was worthy of the death penalty. Or something like that.
It was never about health and public safety. Never. Obedience is the only objective. Marxist old loon Chomsky said what they all think when he said the disobedient deserved to die.
Good point. The mass release of violent prisoners was maybe the most bizarre episode of Covid. Thanks for the reminder; I think a lot of people had pretty much forgotten about it. So much to remember . . So easy to forget.
This is a worldwide phenomenon. The same thing is happening all across Europe, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia, Brazil, South and Central America. It's obviously coordinated by the same people who coordinated the plandemic policies. This group of people pulls the strings of our greedy corrupt Muppet politicians and their court jesters in the media. They seem to rule the world and continue to wish for technology to close the door on freedom forever. Only they will remain free, if they get their way.
Anyone who was paying attention during the Clinton administration and forward knows that Robert Reich is a right little Bolshevik of the Lavrenty Beria ilk. He oozes totalitarianism, the urge to purge. He isn't even an economist. He is a smarmy old school Saul Alinksy lawyer with sadistic tendencies. As Labor Secretary he was so CONSISTENTLY wrong that even Clinton ignored his advice. It is an embarrassment to our society that he is given a platform. Paging Dr. Freud.
That the likes of Reich (quite the name!) and Salon can publish their authoritarian screeds with a straight face and receive no push back from corporate media reiterates everything you’ve been writing about for a while, Chris. Worse yet, people read this crap and believe it.
Not only no push back, mega corporations place advertisements inside their authoritarian screeds. Same corporations that boycotted advertising in the Boy's Life scouting magazine for not accepting pedophiles as Scoutmasters...until they caved to pressure and did.
Look at every single corporate woke boycott of people and organizations, alt media, the debanking and all of the other weapons that big corporations wield against those who aren't woke to know who isn't just not on your side, but who's actively against you. And then look at who and what they do advertise in, who they do bank with, promote, sponsor. And you no who they actively support.
And then try boycotting them. Nearly impossible or prohibitively expensive to locally source. But it's really the only power we have. Pay more, or do without. How committed are we to our ideals? I see friends, family complain about these things, but won't put their money where their mouth is. "It's too hard. I've always done business with them. I don't want to have to move all of my accounts. I don't like the other brands." All sorts of excuses. Yet they still complain that nothing's being done about it. Smh.
This is powerfully written and brilliant. I have never been more concerned for America than these last few months. Kamala’s “future unburdened by what has been” is dismissed as mere “word salad” but it actually bears a serious parsing. Essentially it’s a Leninesque call to destroy all tradition and institutions in order to inaugurate the progressive utopia. The First Amendment, the Constitution, the Supreme Court are all impediments to the realization of left fascist dreams. Normally the press would act as a bulwark against the forces that seek to eliminate its independence. But we’ve reached the point where Stalin’s assessment of the Russian Fourth Estate rings more and more true for America today:
“The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party’s sharpest and most powerful weapon.” -speech at The Twelfth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), April 19, 1923
Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place. — Michelle Obama
I always thought that Kamala’s quote was just more nonsense, but you’re right, it’s about destroying tradition—or as in Mao’s cultural revolution, “The Four Olds.”
From the infallible Wikipedia: “The Four Olds” refer to categories used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution to characterize elements of Chinese culture prior to the Chinese Communist Revolution that they were attempting to destroy. The Four Olds were 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'. During the Red August of 1966, shortly after the onset of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards' campaign to destroy the Four Olds began amid the massacres being carried out in Beijing.”
Brilliant add to Chris’ powerful essay BigW! You’re so right that Kamala’s “future unburdened” comment is not the usual word salad but is actually imbued with meaning referring to the “progressive utopia” she and her colleagues hope to usher us into. I also share your and Chris’ gave concern for America’s future based on these last few months. The American electorate must awaken to this - and without help from the useful idiots in corporate media.
I guarantee you many of the parishioners at Sacred Heart swear a blue streak at home. I was raised Southern Baptist, threatened every day with literal hellfire in the person of my Bible-thumping, Valium-popping church organist mother, and the “fucks” ricocheted like bullets off our walls. Don’t worry you’ll offend. There isn’t anything you can say that they haven’t, or wouldn’t. Let ‘er rip! Besides, God loves a siinner.
when I read this: "an attitude about authority that presumes the correctness of obedience and the proper absence of checks and balances" I thought: China. We must be at war with China, a secret war, a hidden war. Everything else you just wrote makes perfect sense through the lens of "China will remake America from the inside out to be be just like China." China's weapons are bribed politicians, idiotic liberals and a captured mass media. (Also, fake scientific studies and vaccines that make you sick.)
I was reading something a couple of months ago about Second Order Thinking. The notion that you need to not just consider what will happen if you do X right now, but also think about what doing X might lead to down the road. As a result of reading that, I have started to view a lot of (most) political arguments in terms of whether the person arguing the point is engaging in Second Order Thinking. And, sadly, it appears that most decision makers are truly incapable of Second Order Thinking. Even the ones who probably consider themselves "deep thinkers."
I’ve noticed this as well. For a bunch of educated people, they’re remarkably obtuse about what unintended consequences their policies might have. Or they’re just midwits following orders and they’re only in elected office because their donors want them to be obedient midwits.
Their voters though have no excuse for such ignorance and stupidity other than maybe they’re also just kind of dumb.
The educational system is designed to produce obedient midwits. Public sector jobs continue to reward such behavior, and large private sector companies like to keep plenty of them around too.
How many of these fools “caught Covid after doing everything right “? These narcissistic lemmings would rather obey instructions than do the smart thing. Because following instructions means it’s someone else’s fault if something goes bad.
"Principiis obsta and Finem respice - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'Consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings."
"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your 'little men,' your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about-we were decent people-and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it-please try to believe me-unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no 'patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'Consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might."
Stage One Thinking: that's from Thomas Sowell... a brilliant sage of our times. Sadly, he is persona non grata in today's intellectual world, due to being inconveniently conservative while black.
“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis
If the Constitution to which I swore allegiance as a commissioned officer is no longer in effect, then I guess I’m not bound by my oath any longer. Be careful what you ask for.
“Democracy” is fast becoming another word with no meaning, or even negative meaning, at least as the Left uses it. Reminds me of other management-speak, like transparency, values, and -affirming.
And everyone who talks to me about “defending democracy” gets the rejoinder that we live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
Authority hates being disrespected more than it hates being disobeyed, because the former is an existential threat and the latter is just another day at the office.
Which is to say, “perfect” for my tastes. I like when Walter gets worked up, but you can see he restrains himself with Matt T. On ATW. I want the Walter with a couple of scotches who doesn’t hold back. Chris covers that for me.
I think you need to be reined in and brought to heel, and of course, disciplined, especially disciplined, for writing this fascist diatribe against your betters! You're obviously a supporter of Hitler Trump, who in his 1st term, arrested hundreds of thousands of innocents, as you know, and that has been proven by someone. These innocents were forced to watch all the episodes of "The Apprentice" for their reeducation. It's a good thing Biden/Harris won in a mostly free and fair election, with almost no chicanery. Lastly, I think taking away the Supreme Court's power and giving it to more responsible judges is perfectly acceptable, especially if the great thinker Robert Reich, is brought in to assist the lower courts so that they, too, do not revert back to that racists document The Constitution.
You sound sad. Me too. I watched 5 seconds of that dogshit from the CBC. It reminded me of 2022. I collected some of my Substack essays of 2022 about Canada. I haven't printed the thing in hard copy yet but I will, for what it's worth. The title is How I Lost My Country in 2022. I wrote a preface. at least it accurately reflects how I felt and basically I still do. I'm sad to feel like this. But I do. :
" In 2022 I lost my country and my country lost me. I live in a nice subsidized place because bureaucracies established by good Canadians in the 1960s still are entrenched and still provide decency for old people like me. But in my heart I cannot sing O Canada anymore. That is a quiet and tragic revolution in the heart of this lonely old Pierre Trudeau, Expo ’67 kid. I do know there are more of us scattered all over this betrayed land. Only the goodness of ordinary people still stands against the encroaching perversions of the Wokeness Revolution which seized control of our governments in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Him and her became they, sex became gender, lies became mandatory, truth became forbidden and the spirits of Stepan Bandera and of Joseph Mengele rose up from hell and stepped out from the history books and used our parliaments and our courts like a prison punk.
"In 2022 the Canadian governments, federal and provincial, broke our laws and defiled our constitutionally guaranteed rights and trampled literally and figuratively on the liberties of the decent and good people of our land and ridiculed and vandalized our cultural and spiritual norms. Ridiculing men for being men, women for being women, violating the sexual identity of children in school and then making it a privilege for children to breath freely in school, these became government policy. And then the politicians whom we nominally elect went on to threaten and destroy the lives of pregnant mothers, babies, children, teens, working young people, parents and old people with drugs known to be unnecessary, dangerous, permanently damaging and even fatal. This caused me to say in my heart that Confederation is dead to me.
Sad and angry and bored. If we're going to have enemies who fantasize about crushing us into submission, I'd prefer that they not be dullards. It's all so tedious.
I dunno. Seeing them to be dullards is less demoralizing than believing them to be evil geniuses. Watching that CBC thing sure didn't give me any inferiority complexes.
I like how you fuse American and Canadian stupidity. We're one big stupid mentally ill family.
This Hour has pumped out not one, not two but THREE of those shameless pieces of CBC propaganda taking dead aim at people for its own sake. What's amazing, bizarre, depressing - whatever - about all this is that the mocking is predicated on LIES. It's all been revealed in court and POEC that 'media' and government narratives were wrong. It was all politics. And yet, here we are in....2024 and they put out this kind of satire? What in John Candy's tombstone is this shit?
I don't care This Hour did this. Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel etc. are all just as pathetic. What I resent is they expropriate my taxes to pay for it.
The CBC is utter garbage. If Poliviere gets elected - and we're still not sure that will happen - and defunds it then I can forgive him for all his other waffling and pandering.
You mock the Lefty midwits who know nothing, and rightly so. But one thing they fully understand is power and how to get it. So yes, they ARE going to steal the election again, for both the Presidency and the Congress. The Dems will have complete power, and boy are they gonna use it. If (rather when) the despicable Harris/Walz tickets wins, it's going to be the final American election.
If they win, it won't be the last election, but it'll be the last election-election. Starting with the anointment of nominees by party bosses rather than by primary voters. We'll still have regular "elections."
Personally I am against party primaries. Political parties are price entities that should not be entitled to public monies or property to help them decide their candidates. If a political party wants to decide their slate by polling, they can have local caucuses and convene their various local branches at a national convention.
The primary system does more to mask party corruption than expose it by giving it a veneer of legitimacy. Unlike the GOP, the DNC’s rules don’t even require the primary winner to get the nomination.
Not to mention the campaign costs that candidates need to raise money for - twice. I remember not too long ago 'campaign finance reform' blew in and then ta da!
The super pac was born. This is how they distract us, this endless "running".
It won't be the end of elections. Elections are too valuable a tool of control to be abolished. Even the Soviet Union had elections - they just didn't mean anything. You'll be allowed to vote for whoever is selected by your betters, but the elections themselves will not only be held but celebrated as "our democracy at work".
It's especially jarring when you consider they believe actual violent criminals shouldn't go to jail -- only those dastardly Republicans who dare have different thoughts.
I'm old enough to remember when they cleared out jails and prisons in early 2020, rapists, thieves, murderers set free because bad 'ole Covid would kill them. And whatever their crimes, the death penalty was excessive, so the accused and convicted criminals had to be set free.
And as the rapists, thieves and murderers were set free, gym owners, hair stylists, hardware store owners and mask refuseniks were arrested and put in those newly-emptied cells. Because their selfishness and disobedience was worthy of the death penalty. Or something like that.
It was never about health and public safety. Never. Obedience is the only objective. Marxist old loon Chomsky said what they all think when he said the disobedient deserved to die.
Good point. The mass release of violent prisoners was maybe the most bizarre episode of Covid. Thanks for the reminder; I think a lot of people had pretty much forgotten about it. So much to remember . . So easy to forget.
💯
Like x100!
This is a worldwide phenomenon. The same thing is happening all across Europe, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia, Brazil, South and Central America. It's obviously coordinated by the same people who coordinated the plandemic policies. This group of people pulls the strings of our greedy corrupt Muppet politicians and their court jesters in the media. They seem to rule the world and continue to wish for technology to close the door on freedom forever. Only they will remain free, if they get their way.
Well what they don't know is we are fighting for our lives...they're just fighting for a "meal".
I like our chances.
I'm old enough to remember when different nations had different thoughts on policies.
Wow, you must really be old...
I'm ten, ten years old.
LOLOL
lol, like
…and only if they remain!
jailing criminals is election interference to them because felons are their voting base.
😂
True. Very true. 😖
😅
And people who make tweets unflattering to the government! Don't forget them.
Or is that just the UK and Canada?
And Ireland. And Brazil. And soon to be here.
and Germany
That's how thoughtcrime works. It's the only crime there is.
For all of us who have raised kids (and especially teenagers), this exercise is familiar. You can say "yes"
to your teen's various requests twenty consecutive times---and they'll think you're great.
Should you say "no" to the twenty-first request, you at some point heard the following response:
"You NEVER let me do ANYTHING!"---and you are immediately a creep.
Liberals/Wokies/Marxists---they never moved beyond adolescence (and plainly don't wish to).
Soooo right on
And don't have the IQ to.
Anyone who was paying attention during the Clinton administration and forward knows that Robert Reich is a right little Bolshevik of the Lavrenty Beria ilk. He oozes totalitarianism, the urge to purge. He isn't even an economist. He is a smarmy old school Saul Alinksy lawyer with sadistic tendencies. As Labor Secretary he was so CONSISTENTLY wrong that even Clinton ignored his advice. It is an embarrassment to our society that he is given a platform. Paging Dr. Freud.
Repulsive figure. For decades. A horrible little man.
That the likes of Reich (quite the name!) and Salon can publish their authoritarian screeds with a straight face and receive no push back from corporate media reiterates everything you’ve been writing about for a while, Chris. Worse yet, people read this crap and believe it.
Not only no push back, mega corporations place advertisements inside their authoritarian screeds. Same corporations that boycotted advertising in the Boy's Life scouting magazine for not accepting pedophiles as Scoutmasters...until they caved to pressure and did.
Look at every single corporate woke boycott of people and organizations, alt media, the debanking and all of the other weapons that big corporations wield against those who aren't woke to know who isn't just not on your side, but who's actively against you. And then look at who and what they do advertise in, who they do bank with, promote, sponsor. And you no who they actively support.
And then try boycotting them. Nearly impossible or prohibitively expensive to locally source. But it's really the only power we have. Pay more, or do without. How committed are we to our ideals? I see friends, family complain about these things, but won't put their money where their mouth is. "It's too hard. I've always done business with them. I don't want to have to move all of my accounts. I don't like the other brands." All sorts of excuses. Yet they still complain that nothing's being done about it. Smh.
Like!
Reich (wow, that name! I mean.. c'mon) is so repulsive he's often heard on National "Public" Radio! What a disgusting little worm.
"Little?!"
What are you some kind of size-ist?
"Just played miniature golf with Robert Reich. He just called it golf."
Short man’s syndrome. One angry elf….
Someone on twitter referred to him as "1/3 Reich", and I'm helping spread that.
😂🤣
Fingers crossed he suffers an end similar to Beria.
We get our revolution and might
Don't know who Beria is, and don't care. I just hope this Reich suffers an end....from old age.....soon.
Head of the NKVD under Stalin. Executed.
Thanks!
Like!
This is powerfully written and brilliant. I have never been more concerned for America than these last few months. Kamala’s “future unburdened by what has been” is dismissed as mere “word salad” but it actually bears a serious parsing. Essentially it’s a Leninesque call to destroy all tradition and institutions in order to inaugurate the progressive utopia. The First Amendment, the Constitution, the Supreme Court are all impediments to the realization of left fascist dreams. Normally the press would act as a bulwark against the forces that seek to eliminate its independence. But we’ve reached the point where Stalin’s assessment of the Russian Fourth Estate rings more and more true for America today:
“The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party’s sharpest and most powerful weapon.” -speech at The Twelfth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), April 19, 1923
"I have never been more concerned for America than these last few months."
Same.
Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place. — Michelle Obama
They need first class tickets on Space Xs next flight to a galaxy far far away. A VERY different place
No on Space X--they need to go Boeing.
Yes!
duh. Of course. Boeing all the way.
🙌
¡Que Mala!
I always thought that Kamala’s quote was just more nonsense, but you’re right, it’s about destroying tradition—or as in Mao’s cultural revolution, “The Four Olds.”
From the infallible Wikipedia: “The Four Olds” refer to categories used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution to characterize elements of Chinese culture prior to the Chinese Communist Revolution that they were attempting to destroy. The Four Olds were 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'. During the Red August of 1966, shortly after the onset of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards' campaign to destroy the Four Olds began amid the massacres being carried out in Beijing.”
Brilliant add to Chris’ powerful essay BigW! You’re so right that Kamala’s “future unburdened” comment is not the usual word salad but is actually imbued with meaning referring to the “progressive utopia” she and her colleagues hope to usher us into. I also share your and Chris’ gave concern for America’s future based on these last few months. The American electorate must awaken to this - and without help from the useful idiots in corporate media.
The Fifth Old. Old people.
Chilling
Then they killed off the people, that had been.
💯!!!
I guarantee you many of the parishioners at Sacred Heart swear a blue streak at home. I was raised Southern Baptist, threatened every day with literal hellfire in the person of my Bible-thumping, Valium-popping church organist mother, and the “fucks” ricocheted like bullets off our walls. Don’t worry you’ll offend. There isn’t anything you can say that they haven’t, or wouldn’t. Let ‘er rip! Besides, God loves a siinner.
Love your substack.
I was just going to ask if the church ladies read the comments. If they do I guess Chris will get another note from his mom.
“Isn’t that special”!
Maybe I should’ve prefaced it with a warning.
when I read this: "an attitude about authority that presumes the correctness of obedience and the proper absence of checks and balances" I thought: China. We must be at war with China, a secret war, a hidden war. Everything else you just wrote makes perfect sense through the lens of "China will remake America from the inside out to be be just like China." China's weapons are bribed politicians, idiotic liberals and a captured mass media. (Also, fake scientific studies and vaccines that make you sick.)
they don't call him "China Joe" without reason
Weird. Just finished watching the original “Manchurian Candidate.” Is modern life imitating art?
I was reading something a couple of months ago about Second Order Thinking. The notion that you need to not just consider what will happen if you do X right now, but also think about what doing X might lead to down the road. As a result of reading that, I have started to view a lot of (most) political arguments in terms of whether the person arguing the point is engaging in Second Order Thinking. And, sadly, it appears that most decision makers are truly incapable of Second Order Thinking. Even the ones who probably consider themselves "deep thinkers."
You're correct. But the problem is even bigger.
Two first order thinkers can not form 2nd order thoughts....for that matter either could a thousand.
But two second order thinkers sharing ideas can go well beyond 2nd order thinking.
In a world of first order thinkers a second order thinker will be burned at the stake by the very same people he taught how to make fire.
I’ve noticed this as well. For a bunch of educated people, they’re remarkably obtuse about what unintended consequences their policies might have. Or they’re just midwits following orders and they’re only in elected office because their donors want them to be obedient midwits.
Their voters though have no excuse for such ignorance and stupidity other than maybe they’re also just kind of dumb.
The educational system is designed to produce obedient midwits. Public sector jobs continue to reward such behavior, and large private sector companies like to keep plenty of them around too.
How many of these fools “caught Covid after doing everything right “? These narcissistic lemmings would rather obey instructions than do the smart thing. Because following instructions means it’s someone else’s fault if something goes bad.
Educated people are often just schooled people.
Credentials with no wisdom
They're full blown stupid!
"Principiis obsta and Finem respice - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'Consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings."
Excerpted from:
"They Thought They Were Free"
The Germans 1933-45
by Milton Mayer, 1955
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
More of that excerpt:
"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your 'little men,' your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about-we were decent people-and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it-please try to believe me-unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no 'patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'Consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might."
Since I can’t bookmark comments, this is the next best thing.
Actually, you could save the link off the share menu.
Stage One Thinking: that's from Thomas Sowell... a brilliant sage of our times. Sadly, he is persona non grata in today's intellectual world, due to being inconveniently conservative while black.
“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis
Perfect description of a liberal scold.
If the Constitution to which I swore allegiance as a commissioned officer is no longer in effect, then I guess I’m not bound by my oath any longer. Be careful what you ask for.
It's in effect for anything that might restrain you, but not for anything that might restrain them. Calvinball!
Democracy no longer means the will of the people. It now means the will of the government and the bureaucrats. It's the beginning phase of communism.
Ironically, we spent 50 years fighting Communism in Russia and China only to become like them.
“Democracy” is fast becoming another word with no meaning, or even negative meaning, at least as the Left uses it. Reminds me of other management-speak, like transparency, values, and -affirming.
And everyone who talks to me about “defending democracy” gets the rejoinder that we live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
Authority hates being disrespected more than it hates being disobeyed, because the former is an existential threat and the latter is just another day at the office.
you actually remind me a lot of Walter Kirn
Tragically, the publishing industry doesn't agree.
Chris is what Walter would be if he had a couple of scotches and let his generational decorum slide about 30%, give or take. 😃
Which is to say, “perfect” for my tastes. I like when Walter gets worked up, but you can see he restrains himself with Matt T. On ATW. I want the Walter with a couple of scotches who doesn’t hold back. Chris covers that for me.
well said
I think you need to be reined in and brought to heel, and of course, disciplined, especially disciplined, for writing this fascist diatribe against your betters! You're obviously a supporter of Hitler Trump, who in his 1st term, arrested hundreds of thousands of innocents, as you know, and that has been proven by someone. These innocents were forced to watch all the episodes of "The Apprentice" for their reeducation. It's a good thing Biden/Harris won in a mostly free and fair election, with almost no chicanery. Lastly, I think taking away the Supreme Court's power and giving it to more responsible judges is perfectly acceptable, especially if the great thinker Robert Reich, is brought in to assist the lower courts so that they, too, do not revert back to that racists document The Constitution.
Danny Huckabee.
You sound sad. Me too. I watched 5 seconds of that dogshit from the CBC. It reminded me of 2022. I collected some of my Substack essays of 2022 about Canada. I haven't printed the thing in hard copy yet but I will, for what it's worth. The title is How I Lost My Country in 2022. I wrote a preface. at least it accurately reflects how I felt and basically I still do. I'm sad to feel like this. But I do. :
" In 2022 I lost my country and my country lost me. I live in a nice subsidized place because bureaucracies established by good Canadians in the 1960s still are entrenched and still provide decency for old people like me. But in my heart I cannot sing O Canada anymore. That is a quiet and tragic revolution in the heart of this lonely old Pierre Trudeau, Expo ’67 kid. I do know there are more of us scattered all over this betrayed land. Only the goodness of ordinary people still stands against the encroaching perversions of the Wokeness Revolution which seized control of our governments in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Him and her became they, sex became gender, lies became mandatory, truth became forbidden and the spirits of Stepan Bandera and of Joseph Mengele rose up from hell and stepped out from the history books and used our parliaments and our courts like a prison punk.
"In 2022 the Canadian governments, federal and provincial, broke our laws and defiled our constitutionally guaranteed rights and trampled literally and figuratively on the liberties of the decent and good people of our land and ridiculed and vandalized our cultural and spiritual norms. Ridiculing men for being men, women for being women, violating the sexual identity of children in school and then making it a privilege for children to breath freely in school, these became government policy. And then the politicians whom we nominally elect went on to threaten and destroy the lives of pregnant mothers, babies, children, teens, working young people, parents and old people with drugs known to be unnecessary, dangerous, permanently damaging and even fatal. This caused me to say in my heart that Confederation is dead to me.
"Canada can go fuck itself..."
Sad and angry and bored. If we're going to have enemies who fantasize about crushing us into submission, I'd prefer that they not be dullards. It's all so tedious.
I dunno. Seeing them to be dullards is less demoralizing than believing them to be evil geniuses. Watching that CBC thing sure didn't give me any inferiority complexes.
At least have the decency to tell me clever lies...
I like how you fuse American and Canadian stupidity. We're one big stupid mentally ill family.
This Hour has pumped out not one, not two but THREE of those shameless pieces of CBC propaganda taking dead aim at people for its own sake. What's amazing, bizarre, depressing - whatever - about all this is that the mocking is predicated on LIES. It's all been revealed in court and POEC that 'media' and government narratives were wrong. It was all politics. And yet, here we are in....2024 and they put out this kind of satire? What in John Candy's tombstone is this shit?
I don't care This Hour did this. Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel etc. are all just as pathetic. What I resent is they expropriate my taxes to pay for it.
Thundertards rule over us.
The CBC is utter garbage. If Poliviere gets elected - and we're still not sure that will happen - and defunds it then I can forgive him for all his other waffling and pandering.
You mock the Lefty midwits who know nothing, and rightly so. But one thing they fully understand is power and how to get it. So yes, they ARE going to steal the election again, for both the Presidency and the Congress. The Dems will have complete power, and boy are they gonna use it. If (rather when) the despicable Harris/Walz tickets wins, it's going to be the final American election.
If they win, it won't be the last election, but it'll be the last election-election. Starting with the anointment of nominees by party bosses rather than by primary voters. We'll still have regular "elections."
Personally I am against party primaries. Political parties are price entities that should not be entitled to public monies or property to help them decide their candidates. If a political party wants to decide their slate by polling, they can have local caucuses and convene their various local branches at a national convention.
The primary system does more to mask party corruption than expose it by giving it a veneer of legitimacy. Unlike the GOP, the DNC’s rules don’t even require the primary winner to get the nomination.
Not to mention the campaign costs that candidates need to raise money for - twice. I remember not too long ago 'campaign finance reform' blew in and then ta da!
The super pac was born. This is how they distract us, this endless "running".
Those will inevitably turn into Saddam Hussein-style, 98 percent of the vote-type of s(elections).
It won't be the end of elections. Elections are too valuable a tool of control to be abolished. Even the Soviet Union had elections - they just didn't mean anything. You'll be allowed to vote for whoever is selected by your betters, but the elections themselves will not only be held but celebrated as "our democracy at work".
Read this idea on how to stop the steal. This guy has quite the credentials, read his bio: https://open.substack.com/pub/omega4america/p/can-american-elections-be-saved?r=nl3ud&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Where's his bio?
https://www.omega4america.com/
He normally adds it at the end of his Substack. Wasn’t on the piece I linked to. Here’s a link to an earlier Substack, his bio info is at the end / bottom of the column. https://open.substack.com/pub/omega4america/p/trump-swamped-by-ballots-from-walmarts?r=nl3ud&utm_medium=ios
Thank you very much.