It's extra hilarious because Paul and Lee are two of the best free speech defenders in Congress -- OF COURSE they would be against the idea that government can define and punish hate speech.
No, see you don't understand. They can't possible do anything that Tucker Carlson didn't tell them to do. They can't possibly *gasp* think for themselves.
We don't need yet another law that extorts us to follow the golden rule. We have hate speech laws and hate crime laws already on the books. Nobody used them during the G Floyd riots or when Antifa took over blocks and killed people. They aren't used against Muslims that call for the death of Christians, but will be used against White people and Christians.
The belief by some that there are actually hate speech laws in the US stands as a solid testament to the success of the psyop they've waged in this country.
Next time you run across one, ask any Gen Z or millennial if there are hate speech laws in the US. Their answers will be interesting.
It is so so so so hard to stop believing what you're reading.
As much as those of us here on Substack, and subscribers of Bray, to completely stop trusting mainstream media is nearly impossible for so many of us. It is what we've been 'groomed' to trust for as long as we learned to read.
How many former paperboys here? I'm one.
Where did you get your box scores? Prep of the week? (Modesto Bee's version of top high school athlete) Classifieds. Crossword puzzles. The daily paper was such a huge part of my life that it fell into the 'given' column if this were a math/logic problem. I read the paper everyday of my life for 35-ish years...and I finally dropped the daily delivery only 10 years ago.
Evening news? Cable news?
For 50+ years staying on top of current events has been considered being a 'responsible adult'.
As maddening as it is to see those headlines, we have all been caught up in it--and can fall back into the narrative quite easily.
We live in a post-truth, post-betrayal America.
It requires a constant, tireless vigilance to maintain healthy skepticism about everything we read, see, hear. It is exhausting. I need a new strategy(ies) to maintain equilibrium and optimism without utter ignorance of the world.
I'm trying my own media fast-lite experiment. I'll read a few of my favs here on substack, the hyper-local news, and ignore nearly everything else. CFP is my current news-aggregator of choice, but I'm going to stop going there for a week and see how I feel.
Well trust your gut. Times are different. Cynicism is a good attribute right now as well as thinking counterintuitively.
The checkerboard has been turned over. For example now is one of the few times being illiquid in hard assets is a good thing...even if levered by debt.
True. I guess in some ways I was answering some of the posts I saw about those 'still in the matrix' of legacy media. It is hard to break away. To question the media, for a significant number of people, is to question EVERYTHING we've ever trusted.
It is a big ask. I agree that it is necessary, and post COVID it is hard to imagine how people continue to drink this Kool-Aid--but wise people would point out to me the lies I swallowed for years about Iraq/Afghanistan.
Might I add I was making more money selling newspapers when I was 16 than if I had worked 3 different jobs at once. You know why? Because I was willing to get up at 3.30 AM 5 days/week and work my butt off. Very few would and I saw that as opportunity, at the very least, to "win" by default .
Darn near saved enough money to get through college.
I used to subscribe to the NYTimes and watch the NBC evening News, just to know what the government wanted us to think.
My cynicism is based on having a father who bought an encyclopedia set and told my brother and I to read the whole thing. "Want to know something, look it up." It was very apparent to me by the time I was 9 or 10 that the biggest killer of people in the world were their own governments. Add in more modern interests like Air America, the Tuskegee Experiment, Fauci's refusal to allow AIDS sufferers to have Bactrim, and you know you are a liberated serf, but a serf nonetheless. The first war America fought after the Revolutionary War was the Whisky Rebellion, a war instituted on the western settlers by the coastal dwellers, to make the westerners pay their fair share of taxes!!! The iro y should send shivers down everyone's back.
I think the only people who trust the government are those who don't want to admit what has been by governments to their citizens throughout history will happen to them.
I read the local news, such as it is, from the SacBee and CalMatters. My wife fills me in on Nextdoor craziness, the rest I just skip, because our leaders hate us and want to increase our subjugation, I don't have enough time left in life to waste on them trying to terrorize me.
We don't have paper boys here - morning papers are delivered between 0330-0530, and you wouldn't send a kid on a paper route at that time in a city. I've done some extra-hours as a delivery man, the main newspapers own a mutual distribution company who I worked for when I was a student. Fun times. Joggin through attics and basements because it was faster than going by the street (14 stories takes time, even when using elevators), dodging junkies. Being accosted by drunk revellers wanting a free paper. Phoning in stuff to the police and ER. Opening a mail-slot and getting a whiff of eau de composting corpse.
Talking with journalists "mellan skål och vägg" (between goblet and wall, means on the quiet, informal-like) made me lose all respect for them decades ago.
Working for artists when I was 19-20 made me lose respect for them: "Roll on the paint according to my list, and I'll drop by this evening to sign each canvas before you frame them".
Seeing in real life how courts hand out sentencing based on whether or not you can afford a good schyster or not.
Experiencing first-hand how police act like just another gang.
And more like the above made me decide 30 years ago to never award respect unless earned; never award it based on a title alone.
Brilliant, Brian - and something I have experienced first hand since the MSM abandoned all pretense of objectivity and fairness. Independent journalists here and in the blogosphere are now a major source - along with hyper local news without an agenda. It's definitely a brave new world of news.
A few years ago I did a 3-day ayahuasca ceremony. There is a bit of 'pre-work' before, one is to have a very bland diet for 7 days prior to the ceremony. I did a 90 day 'water fast' of news. I had a few favorite podcasts that I trusted & kinda 'brushed' current events/news, and did LinkedIn -- but basically tuned out. I started Jan 6 2021--no shit, so I missed all of the news about Jan 6 until sometime around April/May of 21.
My point? I was more present, less anxious, and happier. Why oh why? I'm a dog returning to his own vomit at times...
I was in Mexico at the time and of course their news didn't cover it at all because the Mexicans have long been aware of the theatrical nature of US politics. They at least pretend to still have some ideals and scruples. I only found out about January 6 et al a couple of months later. And I realized then that there was something very off about the entire situation.
Yes, indeed Brian. I, too, strive to be a responsible adult. Why I appreciate Substack so much: In order to learn a little bit about what is going on, I have to read the headlines in some awful mainstream news source, identify the articles I am interested in and then spend a lot of time searching for alternate coverage of the same issues. Sometimes this allows me to figure out for myself what may or may not be happening. (I refuse to have anything to do with TV network news coverage, which is universally a pack of lies delivered by marginally literate robots with good hair.) Aside from Substack, I have the best luck with science news (excluding "climate" news) and financial news. I understand why some people take the easy way out and just believe and parrot whatever the TV news tells them, because it has become such an effort to keep up.
I spent 25+ years in military intelligence--which is nothing more than world events. I found it to be interesting. Now-meh-I've come to recognize that most of what I used to pay attention to has very little to do with my day to day. It is a distraction from what matters.
Paper route in the 80s. Nuff said. That is the same kinda trust & admiration I have for all of my fellow military veterans.
You're right about 'glancing' and reading/listening to old books. Fiction is one of my coping strategies, has been since I was about 10. I love good stories, they can take me away better than any drug/alcohol.
Thanks for the names, adding them to my list. I need to return to actual reading as I've been an Audible user for 23+ years now--trying to maximize 'sunk cost time' by listening to books instead of the radio. BUT Audible can kill my library at any time...so I need to re-build my paperback library.
I’m grateful that we finally got to the bottom of the muck in the DC swamp and lo and behold we find out that Tucker Carlson is el jefe supremo. Who’d a thunk it?
I’m also grateful for a stupid nothingburger bill that does virtually nothing, is making everybody angry again. Because we don’t have enough anger over meaningless shit. We have no big problems to solve. We need these picayune distractions. Everything is turned up to 11.
List your top 10 problems in this country, and tell me which have been meaningfully addressed by the Republican representatives?
Who has done anything significant since Jan 6, 2021? Not talked about doing something, but actually walked the walk?
The media? In case you were wondering, the Commies are taking over and it’s going to be wonderful. For realz. I saw it on TMZ.
I’m finna go grill some ribeyes before ribeyes and me are both illegal.
The hard core woke-left are a brainwashed cult. Rational, systematic thinking and objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases will, by definition, be rejected by such cultists.
I use only Duck-Duck-Go for search. Period. I get my news from FNC (cable & app), and commentary from Epoch TV, BlazeTV and the Federalist. I used to be concerned that might give me a biased view of current events, but the last 9 years have shown that these are so much more accurate than most sources available. I don't need to be harangued. Just tell me the facts, and I'll figure out what matters. The Left can't possibly stand for that - individuals thinking (shudder).
As to Chris' examples, I'm not surprised - they've been making shit up for decades. All that's changed is the fabrication has been decentralized.
Duck duck go shadow-bans. Been doing it to my work, and that of others, for years. It's converged. I use Yandex now when I need a search without bias and censorship.
Censoring "hate speech" against Jews in an environment where Whites have been bashed openly all over MSM outlets and social media for years is going to create more antisemitism, which is what they want, so they can blame it on whites and conservatives in order to play the equivocation game.
It won't work.
First, there is no such thing as "hate speech", but hypothetically if there were, it would be what they have done incessantly (against cops, white people, the unvaccinated, Trump, his supporters, "conspiracy theorists"...)
Second, the people they will bait into more antisemitism will mostly be themselves and members of their coalition.
Finally, if they succeed in the equivocation game, it would be easy to justify examining university curricula, as that is at least partially publicly funded.
This gaslighting is going to fuck them in the ass.
I'm Jewish and recently turned seventy. People have said the most vile things about Jews to my face or in my presence pretty much for as long as I can remember. When I was eight or nine someone scrawled a swastika on our garage door and wrote, "what a jew." It turned out to be a teenaged kid who lived next door. He copped to it and his dad had him clean it up and apologize, but it stung. However, you either believe in free speech, or don't. Let my wanna-be NAZI neighbor speak, in fact, bring him to the front of the line. Idiots first. I'm more disturbed by someone who says, "I believe in free speech, but....." than anything some moron says about Jews. No legislation will end anti-semitism, but it will divide us even more and bottle it up so it manifests in ways more toxic than chanted slogans.
It's extra hilarious because Paul and Lee are two of the best free speech defenders in Congress -- OF COURSE they would be against the idea that government can define and punish hate speech.
No, see you don't understand. They can't possible do anything that Tucker Carlson didn't tell them to do. They can't possibly *gasp* think for themselves.
I'll respond as soon as Tucker tells me what to write.
I think you have to sacrifice a goat to him first, but I haven't checked the rules.
Lmao
Are Tucker’s instructions delivered daily or weekly?
Depends on how often I wear my tinfoil hat.....that's how we communicate, you know.
What did he say?
"Watch Tucker on X."
I was hoping for the inside poop. Just sayin’
Here it is: 💩
not sure if you caught this piece - pretty good I think, about thinking for one's self:
https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/growing-up-is-hard-to-do?publication_id=423962&post_id=144156803&isFreemail=true&r=kg9rt&triedRedirect=true
That was an excellent piece. I'm not surprised that she's Bret Weinstein's wife.
Lee and Paul's Senate sitters won't be happy until they PREP Act the hell out of us and chase us all into into the graveyard.
Classic Chris Bray to wrap up this superb piece describing Absurdistan (aka, the US with Congress "in action," and the MSM's reaction to it):
"The political right is forgainst it."
Only the ones that pounce.
We don't need yet another law that extorts us to follow the golden rule. We have hate speech laws and hate crime laws already on the books. Nobody used them during the G Floyd riots or when Antifa took over blocks and killed people. They aren't used against Muslims that call for the death of Christians, but will be used against White people and Christians.
Th3re is no such thing as hate speech.
The belief by some that there are actually hate speech laws in the US stands as a solid testament to the success of the psyop they've waged in this country.
Next time you run across one, ask any Gen Z or millennial if there are hate speech laws in the US. Their answers will be interesting.
Dammit Bray, you pulled me off task AGAIN!
It is so so so so hard to stop believing what you're reading.
As much as those of us here on Substack, and subscribers of Bray, to completely stop trusting mainstream media is nearly impossible for so many of us. It is what we've been 'groomed' to trust for as long as we learned to read.
How many former paperboys here? I'm one.
Where did you get your box scores? Prep of the week? (Modesto Bee's version of top high school athlete) Classifieds. Crossword puzzles. The daily paper was such a huge part of my life that it fell into the 'given' column if this were a math/logic problem. I read the paper everyday of my life for 35-ish years...and I finally dropped the daily delivery only 10 years ago.
Evening news? Cable news?
For 50+ years staying on top of current events has been considered being a 'responsible adult'.
As maddening as it is to see those headlines, we have all been caught up in it--and can fall back into the narrative quite easily.
We live in a post-truth, post-betrayal America.
It requires a constant, tireless vigilance to maintain healthy skepticism about everything we read, see, hear. It is exhausting. I need a new strategy(ies) to maintain equilibrium and optimism without utter ignorance of the world.
I'm trying my own media fast-lite experiment. I'll read a few of my favs here on substack, the hyper-local news, and ignore nearly everything else. CFP is my current news-aggregator of choice, but I'm going to stop going there for a week and see how I feel.
bsn
Well trust your gut. Times are different. Cynicism is a good attribute right now as well as thinking counterintuitively.
The checkerboard has been turned over. For example now is one of the few times being illiquid in hard assets is a good thing...even if levered by debt.
True. I guess in some ways I was answering some of the posts I saw about those 'still in the matrix' of legacy media. It is hard to break away. To question the media, for a significant number of people, is to question EVERYTHING we've ever trusted.
It is a big ask. I agree that it is necessary, and post COVID it is hard to imagine how people continue to drink this Kool-Aid--but wise people would point out to me the lies I swallowed for years about Iraq/Afghanistan.
bsn
I'm right there with you on Iraq. But i think that helps now to see IT for what it is.
We're all growns up now BSN!...not...:p]
The most important vetting question yet....were you a paperboy?
bsn
I sold the paper from the time I was 15 to 20.
Door to door.
Might I add I was making more money selling newspapers when I was 16 than if I had worked 3 different jobs at once. You know why? Because I was willing to get up at 3.30 AM 5 days/week and work my butt off. Very few would and I saw that as opportunity, at the very least, to "win" by default .
Darn near saved enough money to get through college.
So I "delivered" in a way
Love it!!
bsn
I used to subscribe to the NYTimes and watch the NBC evening News, just to know what the government wanted us to think.
My cynicism is based on having a father who bought an encyclopedia set and told my brother and I to read the whole thing. "Want to know something, look it up." It was very apparent to me by the time I was 9 or 10 that the biggest killer of people in the world were their own governments. Add in more modern interests like Air America, the Tuskegee Experiment, Fauci's refusal to allow AIDS sufferers to have Bactrim, and you know you are a liberated serf, but a serf nonetheless. The first war America fought after the Revolutionary War was the Whisky Rebellion, a war instituted on the western settlers by the coastal dwellers, to make the westerners pay their fair share of taxes!!! The iro y should send shivers down everyone's back.
I think the only people who trust the government are those who don't want to admit what has been by governments to their citizens throughout history will happen to them.
I read the local news, such as it is, from the SacBee and CalMatters. My wife fills me in on Nextdoor craziness, the rest I just skip, because our leaders hate us and want to increase our subjugation, I don't have enough time left in life to waste on them trying to terrorize me.
CaliLost,
You, Sir, are a quick learner!
...because our leaders hate us and want to increase our subjugation, I don't have enough time left in life to waste on them trying to terrorize me...
Brilliant.
bsn
Brian, I agree. I stopped reading all newspapers because even the local paper had become too biased.
The local newscast on tv is nothing more than entertainment, especially the weather. The only real thing on local news are the police car chases.
I really appreciate Substack, especially Chris—-
Wait, I’m get new instructions from Tucker Carlson.
Just a moment.
Okay, while I’m receiving my new Tucker orders, I will be offline until I restart.
Click whirrrr
So...paperboy or not?
bsn
Yes, I delivered newspapers when I was 12-13 years old, tying bags of folded papers onto the handle bars of my bike.
We don't have paper boys here - morning papers are delivered between 0330-0530, and you wouldn't send a kid on a paper route at that time in a city. I've done some extra-hours as a delivery man, the main newspapers own a mutual distribution company who I worked for when I was a student. Fun times. Joggin through attics and basements because it was faster than going by the street (14 stories takes time, even when using elevators), dodging junkies. Being accosted by drunk revellers wanting a free paper. Phoning in stuff to the police and ER. Opening a mail-slot and getting a whiff of eau de composting corpse.
Talking with journalists "mellan skål och vägg" (between goblet and wall, means on the quiet, informal-like) made me lose all respect for them decades ago.
Working for artists when I was 19-20 made me lose respect for them: "Roll on the paint according to my list, and I'll drop by this evening to sign each canvas before you frame them".
Seeing in real life how courts hand out sentencing based on whether or not you can afford a good schyster or not.
Experiencing first-hand how police act like just another gang.
And more like the above made me decide 30 years ago to never award respect unless earned; never award it based on a title alone.
Brilliant, Brian - and something I have experienced first hand since the MSM abandoned all pretense of objectivity and fairness. Independent journalists here and in the blogosphere are now a major source - along with hyper local news without an agenda. It's definitely a brave new world of news.
A few years ago I did a 3-day ayahuasca ceremony. There is a bit of 'pre-work' before, one is to have a very bland diet for 7 days prior to the ceremony. I did a 90 day 'water fast' of news. I had a few favorite podcasts that I trusted & kinda 'brushed' current events/news, and did LinkedIn -- but basically tuned out. I started Jan 6 2021--no shit, so I missed all of the news about Jan 6 until sometime around April/May of 21.
My point? I was more present, less anxious, and happier. Why oh why? I'm a dog returning to his own vomit at times...
bsn
I have no memory of J6 at all. I must have been traveling or held up in my cabin.
I was in Mexico at the time and of course their news didn't cover it at all because the Mexicans have long been aware of the theatrical nature of US politics. They at least pretend to still have some ideals and scruples. I only found out about January 6 et al a couple of months later. And I realized then that there was something very off about the entire situation.
Yes, indeed Brian. I, too, strive to be a responsible adult. Why I appreciate Substack so much: In order to learn a little bit about what is going on, I have to read the headlines in some awful mainstream news source, identify the articles I am interested in and then spend a lot of time searching for alternate coverage of the same issues. Sometimes this allows me to figure out for myself what may or may not be happening. (I refuse to have anything to do with TV network news coverage, which is universally a pack of lies delivered by marginally literate robots with good hair.) Aside from Substack, I have the best luck with science news (excluding "climate" news) and financial news. I understand why some people take the easy way out and just believe and parrot whatever the TV news tells them, because it has become such an effort to keep up.
I spent 25+ years in military intelligence--which is nothing more than world events. I found it to be interesting. Now-meh-I've come to recognize that most of what I used to pay attention to has very little to do with my day to day. It is a distraction from what matters.
bsn
Paper route in the 80s. Nuff said. That is the same kinda trust & admiration I have for all of my fellow military veterans.
You're right about 'glancing' and reading/listening to old books. Fiction is one of my coping strategies, has been since I was about 10. I love good stories, they can take me away better than any drug/alcohol.
bsn
Thanks for the names, adding them to my list. I need to return to actual reading as I've been an Audible user for 23+ years now--trying to maximize 'sunk cost time' by listening to books instead of the radio. BUT Audible can kill my library at any time...so I need to re-build my paperback library.
bsn
That’s great: reading old books to find out what is happening now! Exactly.
I also ignore zero hedge and epoch. What am I missing?
Chris, thanks for clearing that up.
I’m grateful that we finally got to the bottom of the muck in the DC swamp and lo and behold we find out that Tucker Carlson is el jefe supremo. Who’d a thunk it?
I’m also grateful for a stupid nothingburger bill that does virtually nothing, is making everybody angry again. Because we don’t have enough anger over meaningless shit. We have no big problems to solve. We need these picayune distractions. Everything is turned up to 11.
List your top 10 problems in this country, and tell me which have been meaningfully addressed by the Republican representatives?
Who has done anything significant since Jan 6, 2021? Not talked about doing something, but actually walked the walk?
The media? In case you were wondering, the Commies are taking over and it’s going to be wonderful. For realz. I saw it on TMZ.
I’m finna go grill some ribeyes before ribeyes and me are both illegal.
The greatest pollution danger we face is pollution of the human knowledge base.
They're all injected with mRNA and the prions are in their brains. Mad Cow disease en masse
Danny Huckabee
It´s all random, like throwing a loaded revolver into a cage full of chimps.
Can we...try that one?
But less entertaining.
Here’s my million dollar question…. How do those of us who see this … how do we explain it to friends watch ‘The View to get both sides of the news “
At a certain point you just have to give up and focus on surviving what's coming next.
Thanks. I have to get over trying to fix them …..
Make sure they know where you stand and where you'll be if they figure it out. The sad truth is that people aren't ready until they're ready.
My friend says he’ll be in New Zealand if Trump wins ….
But they never really go !!! Didn’t really realise until this minute that it’s more of them never meaning what they say
It’s like in the Pirates of Penzance: But you DONT go!
The hard core woke-left are a brainwashed cult. Rational, systematic thinking and objective facts that contradict their confirmation biases will, by definition, be rejected by such cultists.
You cant. If they listen to MSM they cannot be saved. You are wasting your time and energy
If you have friends who are fans of The View, all explanation and discussion is useless. That's been obvious for decades.
Get rid of 'friends' who are enemies of God and country. Wanting to be liked and included by them isn't loving-kindness, it's collusion and weakness.
Who cares what people say?
It’s what they do or don’t.
To pass a new, Congress should be required to repeal 3 existing laws.
That's been proposed before - but I think it was "drop TEN outdated laws for every new one enacted". Either number, I support the motion.
I use only Duck-Duck-Go for search. Period. I get my news from FNC (cable & app), and commentary from Epoch TV, BlazeTV and the Federalist. I used to be concerned that might give me a biased view of current events, but the last 9 years have shown that these are so much more accurate than most sources available. I don't need to be harangued. Just tell me the facts, and I'll figure out what matters. The Left can't possibly stand for that - individuals thinking (shudder).
As to Chris' examples, I'm not surprised - they've been making shit up for decades. All that's changed is the fabrication has been decentralized.
Duck duck go shadow-bans. Been doing it to my work, and that of others, for years. It's converged. I use Yandex now when I need a search without bias and censorship.
Censoring "hate speech" against Jews in an environment where Whites have been bashed openly all over MSM outlets and social media for years is going to create more antisemitism, which is what they want, so they can blame it on whites and conservatives in order to play the equivocation game.
It won't work.
First, there is no such thing as "hate speech", but hypothetically if there were, it would be what they have done incessantly (against cops, white people, the unvaccinated, Trump, his supporters, "conspiracy theorists"...)
Second, the people they will bait into more antisemitism will mostly be themselves and members of their coalition.
Finally, if they succeed in the equivocation game, it would be easy to justify examining university curricula, as that is at least partially publicly funded.
This gaslighting is going to fuck them in the ass.
I'm Jewish and recently turned seventy. People have said the most vile things about Jews to my face or in my presence pretty much for as long as I can remember. When I was eight or nine someone scrawled a swastika on our garage door and wrote, "what a jew." It turned out to be a teenaged kid who lived next door. He copped to it and his dad had him clean it up and apologize, but it stung. However, you either believe in free speech, or don't. Let my wanna-be NAZI neighbor speak, in fact, bring him to the front of the line. Idiots first. I'm more disturbed by someone who says, "I believe in free speech, but....." than anything some moron says about Jews. No legislation will end anti-semitism, but it will divide us even more and bottle it up so it manifests in ways more toxic than chanted slogans.
Anything objectionable in the world is far-right - it’s a dogmatic response.