I’ve been watching Dopesick, and it’s The Big Short. It’s the same story. “We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even baseball.” He forgot medicine. Eventually we’ll have a Big Dopesick Short
I don't know exactly when it happened, but at a certain point I decided I would try to understand and accept the truth regardless of the consequences. For the last 20 years I've seen the consequences get progressively more severe. I don't give a fuck how severe they get though, I'll never regret that decision. I don't know if those who chose compromise are more pitiful or contemptible, but I do know I'd rather die than bend the knee to any of these clowns.
I watched the housing fraud unfold from the safety of my lost job and inability to pay my mortgage. I saw Obama and the rest of the criminal fraudsters hoover up trillions of computer dollars while tens of millions lost their homes and livelihoods. And all my now former liberal friends refused to even acknowledge what was going on. They had voted for "their guy" and that was that.
All I know is that this will break. Not exactly when, but it will. Just as a ball thrown into the air inevitably returns to earth and the tides change, reality will assert itself and this era of profound corruption will end when our fake economy finally hits the wall or some other catastrophe lays bare all the lies and deceit.
Unfortunately (as I commented over at Instapundit open thread when someone quoted this essay), we see too much "package deal" behavior on the right as well: "The MSM is flogging the Ukraine story and Biden is sending them arms, therefore it MUST be a bad idea and Putin MUST be the good guy here. Burisma! Azov!"
Sigh. "If they're fer it I'm agin' it" is no way to go about life. We're supposed to be the ones who value critical thinking, and yet I see so little of it.
When I found you shortly after "Chris Bray is Stupid and Evil" alerted thousands of us to your presence, I thought I went through your back posts carefully to catch up, but I missed this great piece.
Without any agreed upon values (including the primacy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights) that are taught the nation becomes chaos and madness in the streets which is being orchestrated by Democrats as some Republicans join them to create the mythical Uniparty. My guess is that the big hand of govenment will emerge larger creating massive socialism which leads to communist dictatorsip as the savior to the destruction elected Democrats and Republicans have wrought upon the nation. Only if Democrats become a minority politically and Uniparty Republicans are removed from office at the ballot box for a prolonged period of time is there any hope of positive national change.
My comment on a different recent post here was that social media has short-circuited our brains. You can feel this happening when you spend a half-hour on Twitter, or Youtube.
Also, perhaps now, in the 2020s, the average American is smarter than in the 1840s. But, now we can access constant streams of falseness.
The shouty man's behaviour was narcissism. His self image was threatened by people not playing along. I mean, EVERYONE knew masks were needed, just like him.
A narcissist's kryptonite is real life, being forced to confront actual reality. In this case 1) some people disagree with the government position he automatically accepted; and 2) it probably challenged some aspect of how he saw himself, a rational capable fellow who can make sense of complex information unlike all the morons around him.
Seeing a group of polite, capable truckers would challenge that view. This would really sting if he was some kind of professional and viewed these guys as working class plebs.
All too common nowadays. The narcissist's response to being challenged is always rage, never debate.
People have done "shitty and illegal things" throughout history. Human nature hasn't changed in the last 20 years.
It's just that these events are faster and easier to parse for truths and lies, mostly due to changes in technology.
Example: Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964). It took longer, but the truth eventually found daylight. It was effectively a psy-op on the American public, designed to increase support for going into a war that would eventually cost over a million lives, including nearly 60,000 Americans. Just one of many incidents in which powerful people decided they weren't interested in what the average person thought, or how that person's life might be impacted. Really not much different than Colin Powell showing "missile tubes" to the U.N., justifying an unnecessary war with Iraq.
Money and power. It's an old story.
Maybe we should celebrate that we're getting to the truth faster than before, which makes it easier for a writer like Chris to highlight these patterns.
When Trump got elected in 2016, a coworker who I formally respected and liked a lot, an old attorney who actually worked with Bernie Sanders when Bernie was mayor of Burlington, said that the Trump got elected because "people in Iowa can't read." No discussion of why Trump got elected, why people might have voted for him (other than pure racism and stupidity)... I stopped being a Democrat that day, lol.
So 'that's' why i find my brother-in-law so irritating -- he's just a slogan spouting machine. You can't get him to talk like a real person with actual ideas and emotions, no matter what you confront him with. He's a salesman who lives in Pasadena, so you know what kind of incessant BS comes out of his mouth...lol.
I don't know exactly when it happened, but at a certain point I decided I would try to understand and accept the truth regardless of the consequences. For the last 20 years I've seen the consequences get progressively more severe. I don't give a fuck how severe they get though, I'll never regret that decision. I don't know if those who chose compromise are more pitiful or contemptible, but I do know I'd rather die than bend the knee to any of these clowns.
I watched the housing fraud unfold from the safety of my lost job and inability to pay my mortgage. I saw Obama and the rest of the criminal fraudsters hoover up trillions of computer dollars while tens of millions lost their homes and livelihoods. And all my now former liberal friends refused to even acknowledge what was going on. They had voted for "their guy" and that was that.
All I know is that this will break. Not exactly when, but it will. Just as a ball thrown into the air inevitably returns to earth and the tides change, reality will assert itself and this era of profound corruption will end when our fake economy finally hits the wall or some other catastrophe lays bare all the lies and deceit.
Unfortunately (as I commented over at Instapundit open thread when someone quoted this essay), we see too much "package deal" behavior on the right as well: "The MSM is flogging the Ukraine story and Biden is sending them arms, therefore it MUST be a bad idea and Putin MUST be the good guy here. Burisma! Azov!"
Sigh. "If they're fer it I'm agin' it" is no way to go about life. We're supposed to be the ones who value critical thinking, and yet I see so little of it.
When I found you shortly after "Chris Bray is Stupid and Evil" alerted thousands of us to your presence, I thought I went through your back posts carefully to catch up, but I missed this great piece.
Sadly Michael Lewis failed us on this one https://a.co/d/hyv5F5u
Chef's Kiss to "Watch this person emit symbols like a machine making soap bubbles"
Without any agreed upon values (including the primacy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights) that are taught the nation becomes chaos and madness in the streets which is being orchestrated by Democrats as some Republicans join them to create the mythical Uniparty. My guess is that the big hand of govenment will emerge larger creating massive socialism which leads to communist dictatorsip as the savior to the destruction elected Democrats and Republicans have wrought upon the nation. Only if Democrats become a minority politically and Uniparty Republicans are removed from office at the ballot box for a prolonged period of time is there any hope of positive national change.
My comment on a different recent post here was that social media has short-circuited our brains. You can feel this happening when you spend a half-hour on Twitter, or Youtube.
Also, perhaps now, in the 2020s, the average American is smarter than in the 1840s. But, now we can access constant streams of falseness.
The shouty man's behaviour was narcissism. His self image was threatened by people not playing along. I mean, EVERYONE knew masks were needed, just like him.
A narcissist's kryptonite is real life, being forced to confront actual reality. In this case 1) some people disagree with the government position he automatically accepted; and 2) it probably challenged some aspect of how he saw himself, a rational capable fellow who can make sense of complex information unlike all the morons around him.
Seeing a group of polite, capable truckers would challenge that view. This would really sting if he was some kind of professional and viewed these guys as working class plebs.
All too common nowadays. The narcissist's response to being challenged is always rage, never debate.
This is fabulous. I'm glad I discovered you a few months ago and thanks for pointing me back to this one.
Another incisive and spot on post. You’ve captured current America perfectly.
I'd also like to put a plug in here for Richard Hanania's latest post:
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/how-to-think-about-the-current-thing
People have done "shitty and illegal things" throughout history. Human nature hasn't changed in the last 20 years.
It's just that these events are faster and easier to parse for truths and lies, mostly due to changes in technology.
Example: Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964). It took longer, but the truth eventually found daylight. It was effectively a psy-op on the American public, designed to increase support for going into a war that would eventually cost over a million lives, including nearly 60,000 Americans. Just one of many incidents in which powerful people decided they weren't interested in what the average person thought, or how that person's life might be impacted. Really not much different than Colin Powell showing "missile tubes" to the U.N., justifying an unnecessary war with Iraq.
Money and power. It's an old story.
Maybe we should celebrate that we're getting to the truth faster than before, which makes it easier for a writer like Chris to highlight these patterns.
Thanks for sharing this.
When Trump got elected in 2016, a coworker who I formally respected and liked a lot, an old attorney who actually worked with Bernie Sanders when Bernie was mayor of Burlington, said that the Trump got elected because "people in Iowa can't read." No discussion of why Trump got elected, why people might have voted for him (other than pure racism and stupidity)... I stopped being a Democrat that day, lol.
So 'that's' why i find my brother-in-law so irritating -- he's just a slogan spouting machine. You can't get him to talk like a real person with actual ideas and emotions, no matter what you confront him with. He's a salesman who lives in Pasadena, so you know what kind of incessant BS comes out of his mouth...lol.
Fantastically articulated!
Speaking to my soul here.