The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

But Is It ‘Actual Truth’?

Posted on | November 20, 2023 | 1 Comment

Over the weekend, I saw a lot of headlines about Elon Musk endorsing or promoting an “antisemitic conspiracy theory,” e.g.:

Advertisers Flee X as Outcry
Over Musk’s Endorsement
of Antisemitic Post Grows
— New York Times

Antisemitism was rising online.
Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it.
— Washington Post

Ron DeSantis refuses
to condemn Elon Musk’s endorsement
of antisemitic conspiracy theory
— USA Today

The problem here is that these news reports do not include the full context — which is why I’ve posted the screenshots above — so that readers can evaluate these accusations for themselves. Before condemning someone as an anti-Semite, we ought to first look closely at the proffered evidence. What happened was that Charles Weber, a self-described Jewish conservative, issued a defiant message to “cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting ‘Hitler was right,'” telling them to “say it to our faces.” The account @breakingbaht then responded to Weber’s message with a hasty post (typos suggest haste) saying that “Jewish communities” have (a) “pushed . . . dialectical hatred against whites” and (b) supported “hordes of minorities . . . flooding [western] countries.” It was by replying to @breakingbaht with his “actual truth” endorsement that Musk is alleged to have promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory. But there are several questions here.

First of all, how did the message from @breakingbaht come to Musk’s attention? Was the owner of The Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter actually following the @breakingbaht account? Or did he see the message from someone else’s RT? This matters, because if @breakingbaht can be fairly described as an anti-Semite, what does Musk’s response say about the kinds of accounts he follows? But then again, I haven’t researched the @breakingbaht account enough to know whether he is generally anti-Jewish, or if this particular message was a one-off. He seems to be reacting to the “hordes” of immigrants participating in anti-Israel protests — an observable fact, especially in Europe — and connecting this to the alleged role of Jews in promoting both mass immigration and “dialectical hatred against whites.”

Well, are these accusations true? Is it true that, generally, “Jewish communities” support an open-borders policy that has brought “hordes of minorities” into Western countries in recent years? And is it also true that “Jewish communities” have promoted “hatred against whites”? On that latter count, I suppose @breakingbaht could be referring to what is called “critical race theory,” and readers may investigate for themselves whether Jews have generally supported or opposed this kind of “dialectical hatred.” As for the position of “Jewish communities” on immigration enforcement, again, readers can research this question on their own. However, no one can deny that certain Jewish individuals and organizations have actively opposed efforts to restrict immigration. Furthermore, exit-poll data show Jewish voters in the United States supporting Democrats over Republicans by more than a 2-to-1 margin, a fact which might attract your attention, if you consider Democrats to be the anti-white open-borders party (as perhaps you should).

So where is the antisemitism here? And where is the “conspiracy theory”? Well, on the first count, there are lots of non-Jewish people on the Left who support the harmful ideas and policies criticized by @breakingbaht, so why single out “Jewish communities”? Ah, but recall what prompted this message from @breakingbaht — Charles Weber’s complaint about anonymous “cowards” posting “Hitler was right” message online. If these anonymous Jew-haters are mainly part of the immigrant “horde,” then the actual argument being made is: Jews should stop supporting open-borders policies, which are ultimately harmful to Jews.

That is not antisemitism, but I will not be so disingenuous as to pretend I don’t know why people are concerned about what @breakingbaht posted (and Musk’s agreement with it). The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018 was perpetrated by a man whose motive involved the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization whose spokesman said: “As far as the migrant caravan goes, we are actively advocating for asylum seekers.”

This in turn involves what’s called “The Great Replacement,” taking its name from the title of a book by French author Renaud Camus. The problem with describing this as a “conspiracy theory” is that when you look at the facts — the impact of immigration on demographic trends — it’s hard to deny that something like this is actually happening.

You don’t have to be an anti-Semite to be concerned about the real consequences of mass immigration, and there are plenty of Jews (including many of my personal acquaintances) who are every bit as “right-wing” on this issue as any conservative Republican. Some on the Left have taken to denouncing anyone and everyone who opposes an open-borders policy as a Jew-hating conspiracy theorist, which is just as wrong in its own way as the Pittsburgh gunman’s obsession with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. There are all kinds of groups — including Quakers and Catholics and mainstream Protestants — who are part of the open-borders lobby (not to mention the Chamber of Commerce), so why the obsession with Jews? But meanwhile . . .

Why was CNN demanding that Ron DeSantis denounce Elon Musk over this? As I’ve pointed out, there are issues involved which could be cited in defense of Elon Musk’s “actual truth” message, and it is a crude over-simplication to describe Musk as having endorsed an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” and then demand that everybody denounce him.

This is why people don’t trust the media. They’re always running around looking for some kind of bogus “scandal” like this about anyone remotely conservative, and then demanding that Republican politicians denounce the targeted person. You never see them doing things like this to Democrats. Liberals get away with saying all kinds of crazy stuff, without CNN ever demanding that Democrats denounce their craziness.



 

Category: Israel, Racism

Rule Five Sunday: Meanwhile, In The Mountains

Posted on | November 20, 2023 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s been cold enough here that if this young lady was posing like this, she would have sliced her top open with her nipples. Pic courtesy of Rule 5 Texan on X.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas esse delendam.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, The Pacific, Crabs, MAGA Mistrial Motion, AI-Generated Women, Daliland, Ben Shapiro & Candace Owens – Get A Room!, The Killer, Karliene, Marion Cotillard, Christa Miller, and Shrinking. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Have a Tall One, Kyra Marie Belanger, Fish Pic Friday – Sara Briggs, Thursday Tanlines, The Wednesday Wetness, Running to the Other Side, Scott Drops Out, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News, Palm Sunday and Manchin Still Out, FBI Grabs NYC Mayor’s Phones

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. For November 17

AVERAGE BUBBA: Rule Five Friday – Travel Edition

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: New York. Feh.

Posted on | November 19, 2023 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Not a fun week for Senators fans. We had both sets of New Yorkers in town, the Daytraders and Yankees, and we lost two out of three to both of them. Marichal got his 20th win against the Daytraders in a 7-2 laugher, and Jim Kaat held the Yankees to one run for his 13th win, but otherwise it was a string of tough losses at home. Next week, we’ll head for St. Louis for three against the Cardinals before coming home to face the Tribe on Black Friday. The rosters have expanded, but except for Randy Hundley and Richie Scheinblum, none of the rookies and spare parts are worth much. Still, we’re 79-60, 8.5 in back of Oakland and twelve games ahead of Boston in the AL West, and eight games ahead of the Angels in the race for the second wild card slot.

In other news, Juliette Ochieng, better known as Baldilocks, could use your help. 

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas esse delendam.

Nobody hates New York like Bostonians and Washingtonians.

The High Price of Forgetting
The Pirate’s Cove
The Political Hat
The Daley Gator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: One Last Glimpse Of Bikini
Animal Magnetism
Average Bubba
Flappr
A View From The Beach
EBL





Can You Guess Which One of These Men Is (Allegedly) a Homosexual Pedophile?
The Daley Gator
Battleswarm Blog
Flappr
357 Magnum
EBL

Still Living Rent-Free in Their Heads
The Daley Gator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Electric Eye
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

The Strange Return of ‘Radical Chic’
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.13.23
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Secret Service Agents Open Fire on D.C. ‘Youth’ Breaking Into Their Car
The Daley Gator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.14.23
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Not Rule 5: ‘Intersectional’ Craziness
Flappr
357 Magnum
EBL

Married, carnivorous, pro-life, athletic, heterosexual, male, combat veteran, NRA life member, stick-driving, Trump-supporting, Messianic Jew CEO awarded “ScapeGOAT”
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.15.23
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.16.23
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Pro-Hamas ‘Liberals’ and Other Thoughts on the Binary Nature of Choices
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.17.23
A View From The Beach
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending November 17:

  1.  EBL (15)
  2.  (tied) A View From The Beach and 357 Magnum (12)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

‘Real Wrath of God Type Stuff’

Posted on | November 18, 2023 | 1 Comment

Dr. Peter Venkman: “This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.”
Mayor: “What do you mean, ‘biblical’?”
Dr. Raymond Stantz: “What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.”
Dr. Peter Venkman: “Exactly.”
Dr. Raymond Stantz: “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!”
Dr. Egon Spengler: “Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes …”
Winston Zeddemore: “The dead rising from the grave!”
Dr. Peter Venkman: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria!”
— Ghostbusters, 1984

What makes that scene so funny — and I still laugh at it, nearly 40 years later — is the line by Bill Murray, inserting “dogs and cats living together” in the list of cataclysms in this “wrath of God” disaster.

Compared to a rain of fire and brimstone, the unnatural cohabitation of cats and dogs seems rather trivial, see? As an example of comic screenwriting, this scene from Ghostbusters is pure genius, but what I want to connect it to is the theme of choices and consequences that I undertook to address in last night’s post (“Pro-Hamas ‘Liberals’ and Other Thoughts on the Binary Nature of Choices”). Seemingly trivial things can be indicative of larger problems, and when things go off the rails — we seem to be living through “a disaster of biblical proportions” lately — it behooves us to take note of such omens and portents, however minor they may appear when viewed in isolation.

Say hello to Tiffanie Lucas, who is jailed on $2 million bond in Bullitt County, Kentucky. Among other things, she is a bad housekeeper.

Readers may infer from the $2 million bond that Ms. Lucas is accused of wrongdoing much worse than a failure to do household chores, but it’s one of those minor things that is symptomatic of larger problems.

“Clean your room,” Dr. Jordan Peterson advises. “If you can’t even clean up your own room, who the hell are you to give advice to the world? . . . My sense is that if you want to change the world, you start with yourself and work outward because you build your competence that way. I don’t know how you can go out and protest the structure of the entire economic system if you can’t keep your room organized.”

What Dr. Peterson is commenting on here is the mobs of young “activists” who posture as social critics, considering themselves qualified to lecture the rest of us about the ills of society, despite the fact that their own personal lives are typically disordered and unimpressive.

A major factor in what has gone wrong with the world is that so many people aren’t doing the ordinary little things necessary to the good life — finish school, stay sober, work hard, save your money, etc.

Arguably the most important book of the 1980s, Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, was widely seen as a criticism of “Great Society” programs:

“Murray’s main thesis is that social welfare programs, as they have historically been implemented in the United States, tend to increase poverty rather than decrease it because they create incentives rewarding short-sighted behavior not conducive to escaping poverty in the long term.”

However, one of the key insights Murray found from studying poverty statistics was that any young American had a 97% chance of avoiding long-term poverty if they accomplished just four simple things:

1. Get at least a high school diploma.
2. Get a job and keep working.
3. Get married and stay married.
4. Don’t have children before you’re married.

Is this too much to expect? Is this an impossible obstacle to overcome? These basic steps to success — and, if you’re born into poverty, escaping it is a major success — do not require exceptional ability, nor is their value negated by racial prejudice or other disadvantages any individual may face. However, what these steps do require are good behavioral habits, such as patience and a willingness to endure short-term difficulty in order to achieve long-term goals. Anyone who’s ever had an entry-level, low-wage job has had to deal with the common hardships involved, being bossed around while doing menial tasks. Having spent two years driving a forklift in an industrial warehouse after I’d graduated college, I’m quite familiar with the mental toughness required to endure such work.

The key point here is that, if you wish to have nice things, you must develop certain behavioral habits, and that much of what liberals decry as “oppression” is actually the consequence of bad choices made by people who failed in basic ways. What do you notice about this photograph?

Yes, of course you notice the crime-scene tape and the two police cruisers, but what else? Here’s what I see — it’s a nice neighborhood.

These aren’t some neglected old tumble-down shacks. It’s not a trailer park or a public housing complex. It’s a middle-class suburban community with relatively new homes, well-kept lawns, etc. If one of my kids purchased a home in such a prosperous-looking neighborhood, I’d consider them to have done quite well for themselves.

This home is on Bentwood Drive, in Bullitt County, Kentucky, about 15 miles south of downtown Louisville. Tiffanie Lucas lived here:

Family members told WDRB News on Tuesday that they’ve cleaned out the home she was renting. They said it was filthy, with the utilities turned off and an eviction notice on the counter.

Oh, yes, she was a bad housekeeper. She also hadn’t been paying her rent or utilities. And while this is not why she’s in jail on $2 million bond, am I the only one who thinks this information is relevant to her case?

What do we know about Bullitt County, Kentucky? Whenever the news focuses on some situation of alleged “oppression” — whether it’s in Gaza or Baltimore — the location itself is depicted as one of complete hopelessness, as if geography had decreed that no one living there had any chance at a decent life. Yet we can look at the tidy lawns on Bentwood Drive and see that this is not such a place. According to the Census Bureau, the median household income in Bullitt County is $67,892, and the median home value is $182,000. Furthermore, the population of Bullitt County is about 93% white, so it’s not the kind of place where “social justice” activists would expect to find oppression. Yet here was Tiffanie Lucas living in a house she’d rented, where she was being evicted, the utilities had been turned off and the house was “filthy.”

By now, I’m sure some curious readers have done the Google search and learned that the reason Tiffanie Lucas, 32, is being held on $2 million bond is because she is accused of murdering her two sons, ages 9 and 6.

Do some more research, and you’ll learn that Tiffanie Lucas had a history of using drugs. Also — this seems relevant — her two sons had two different fathers, and it doesn’t seem she married either one.

Perhaps now readers understand why I went on that digression about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, because Tiffanie Lucas made some choices that had consequences. Almost anyone can avoid poverty if they do a few basic things right and having children out of wedlock is a basic error which, although it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doomed, certainly suggests that your behavioral habits are problematic.

And also: “CLEAN YOUR ROOM!”

Far be it from me, with my messy desk, to hold myself up as an exemplar of tidiness, a role model of efficient housekeeping. However, when your own family denounces your house as being “filthy,” this suggests a very basic failure. We don’t know for certain if Tiffanie Lucas was on a drug binge or perhaps suffering from some kind of psychiatric problem, but it appears that it had been a long time since she did the kind of basic work necessary to keep her home livable. People make choices, and these choices lead to consequences, which may include murder and prison.

Tiffanie Lucas’ friend says
‘killer mom’ had a ‘dark side’
and would ‘flip a switch’ before
she ‘murdered her two sons’
— The Sun (U.K.)

What went wrong? Was this fate? Was it her destiny? Was there never any hope that Tiffanie Lucas could have had a better life?

When I was a young man, I was full of wild and reckless ambition. My dream was to become a multimillionaire rock star, to record a string of platinum-selling albums, tour the world, marry Brooke Shields and retire by age 30 to enjoy my wealth in a mansion on my own private island.

Readers may laugh at this, but I was very serious about it — driving a forklift in an industrial warehouse, saving up to buy a P.A. system for my band — and my idea was, “Why bother with small dreams?”

Things didn’t work out the way I’d planned, of course, and becoming a mere journalist would have once seemed to me a great disappointment, but certainly I’ve succeeded in many ways that others might envy. My lovely wife and I have raised six children and now have five grandchildren, and in my maturity, I’ve come to appreciate the value of something I once viewed with disdain, i.e., middle-class respectability.

If you asked me what I want for my children and grandchildren, that’s it in a nutshell. Becoming a reputable, law-abiding member of the bourgeoisie is a worthy goal, and achieving this goal has become more difficult than it was when I was growing up in the middle-class suburbs of Atlanta, where adults lived by the old-fashioned rules, and expected their kids to do the same. Because I was a wild and rebellious child, I chafed under the yoke of these rules, and because middle-class life seemed so ordinary — living in a place where nearly everybody was middle class — it didn’t strike me as something to dream about achieving. Somewhere in the past 50 years, however, even as I have found satisfaction in the small pleasures of bourgeois life, the old-fashioned rules of my parents’ generation have been forgotten, and society seems to be breaking down as a result. “A disaster of biblical proportions,” indeed.

Readers are welcome to draw their own inferences from the sad case of Tiffanie Lucas — why did her mother spell her name that way? — and some may find relevance in information that I have omitted, but I return to my original point, that people make choices and these choices have consequences. Failing to anticipate such cause-and-effect sequences in one’s individual life can lead to very bad outcomes. When this kind of misguided decision-making becomes commonplace in a society, when harmful behavioral patterns are so tolerated as to become normalized, the results can be catastrophic. It occurs to me that American society is approaching the point at which “mass hysteria” is to be expected.

Dr. Peter Venkman could not be reached for comment.



 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 11.17.23

Posted on | November 18, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.17.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: AI generated “women” are screwing lonely men out of lots of money, also, MAGA Mistrial Motion 
Twitchy: Speaker Johnson Posts Link To All J6 Video, Mollie Hemingway Drops Another Bombshell About Judge Engoron, and “Look at the destruction in Gaza…Oh, wait! That’s Syria!”
Louder With Crowder: Oh my! Kid Rock says he confronted the CEO of Bud Light at the UFC over the Dylan Mulvaney debacle, MLB All-Star Game returns to Atlanta, despite Biden’s hissyfit and lies over Georgia’s “Jim Crow” election laws, and New York’s “Clean Slate Act”’ Puts Criminals First, Further “Dismantles Law And Order” In An Already Lawless State
Vox Popoli: A Gatekeeper in Action, A Respite of Rapes, and Meanwhile, on Taiwan
According To Hoyt: HamAss, Hospitals and the MSM by Francis Turner, Social Math, and Attention Huns and Hoydens
Monster Hunter Nation: Facebook and the J-Word
Jon Del Arroz: Heather Antos & Kelly DeConnick Shill Hard For The Marvels, Accomplish Nothing
Flappr: Torts Illustrated – 9/11 was Good, Actually
Gab News: Saying “Christ Is King” Is Anti-Semitic Now? So Be It. 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: A Latin American Lee Kuan Yew
American Greatness: Illinois Library Marks Christmas With Book About a Santa Who is ‘Black and Gay, Married to an Equally Cheery Man’
American Thinker: Terror Attacks on American Soil Are Imminent
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Most Important Election Friday
Babalu Blog: U.S. embassy in Cuba promotes ‘twerking’ event in Havana as ‘free expression’, Italian firm to open apartheid store to rake in dollars from ‘diaspora’ Cuban clientele, and Mexico said what? 
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For November 17
Behind The Black: Sierra Space shakes up its staffing, House committee delays vote on commercial space bill due to new White House proposal, German rocket startup signs deal with Norwegian spaceport, The southernmost extent of Mars’ youngest lava flood event, Salt glaciers on Mercury? and SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites
Cafe Hayek: George Selgin on the New Deal and Recovery (and Relief and Reform), also, The Reality of Communism…and of Capitalism
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Rage
Da Tech Guy: First Amendment 101 in North Andover
Don Surber: Why be a Republican?
First Street Journal: Everything the climate activists want will cost you more money, also, As dumb as a box of rocks
Gates Of Vienna: Palestine Gets Its Évian, also, Culture-Enriching Hero Becomes a Thug
The Geller Report: Jesus’ Birthplace Bethlehem Removes all Christmas Decorations in Honor of Hamas ‘martyrs’, also, NEW PALESTINIAN POLL: 75% Support OCT 7 Massacre, 76% Have a Positive View of Hamas, 80% Support Annihilation of Israel Over “Two States,” 98.2% Have Negative View of America
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Finally, Some Transparency
Hollywood In Toto: Michael Rapaport Open to Voting for ‘Pig D***’ Trump Over Biden, SHOCK – Wish Trashes Big Government, Hails Free Will, and Biggest Documentary Film Festival Bows to Anti-Israel Protesters
The Lid: Walmart Earnings Show Serious Weakness of Biden Economy…Worst is Yet to Come
Legal Insurrection: Oscar Winning Folk Singer Buffy Sainte-Marie Accused of Faking Indigenous Roots, Witness Tells Congress DEI Departments aren’t Able to Handle Anti-Semitism on Campus, Tanzania Announces Death of National Held Hostage by Hamas in Gaza, Every Leader Involved in Awful Response to Loudoun Girls’ Bathroom Rape is Now Out of Office, Anti-Israel Rioters Attack on DNC ‘Rattled’ Democrat Rep. Dingell ‘More than January 6th’, IDF Recovers Body of Hamas Hostage CPL Noa Marciano in Gaza, and LeVar Burton Threatened ‘Physical Violence’ Against Moms for Liberty at Book Ceremony
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Bengals Claim Joe Burrow Injury ‘Looked’ Like A Sprained Wrist But There Are Reasons To Doubt Them, Can Georgia Get Past Tennessee On The Road? Iowa State Looks To Wreck Texas’ Season, Oregon State Can Create CFP Panic In Pac-12, Mike Freeman, Who Lied At Previous Job, Calls For Charissa Thompson To Be Fired For Lying At Previous Job, MLB Could Change A Bunch Of Rules For 2024, LSU Basketball Star Angel Reese Is Suspended, ‘Not With Team’ At Tigers Game Friday Night, Michigan Assistant Chris Partridge Fired In Latest Twist To Wolverines Drama; Reports Of Destroying Evidence Surface, and Ryan Fitzpatrick Shocked When TNF Crew Has Never Heard Of Festivus
Power Line: Where Does the Left Get Its Money? also, Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: DeSantis Suspends Councilwoman Charged With Using False Address
Shot In The Dark: Clarity, Actual Journalism, and Making The Trains Run On Time Part MMMCLVI
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: Do We Need a Foreign Policy Doctrine?
This Ain’t Hell: VA Crisis Hotline: “Please hold for the next available counselor. “*click*, Friday footnotes, Valor Friday, and Service members can leave reviews of military barracks and dining facilities
Transterrestrial Musings: Tomorrow’s Test Flight
Victory Girls: No Charges, Instead Joe Will Be Given A Stern Lecture About Classified Documents
Volokh Conspiracy: No Arbitration of Suit Alleging Stanford Internet Observatory et al. Collaborated with Government to Pressure Social Media Platforms
Watts Up With That: Solar Power Auction Prices Raised By 30%, Peak Cognitive Dissonance for The Climate Scare, and Polar bear sea ice habitat update at 15 November & problem bears in Western Hudson Bay
The Federalist: Biden Fell For Red China’s Empty-Promises Playbook At The San Francisco Summit, Imagine If Donald Trump Rolled Out The Red Carpet For Putin The Way Democrats Did For Xi, Trump’s New York Civil Case Is A Brazen Declaration Of Lawfare, Minnesota And Michigan Courts Block Leftists From Throwing Trump Off Primary Ballots, and Disillusioned Black Voters Come Home To The GOP

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Category: Linkagery

Pro-Hamas ‘Liberals’ and Other Thoughts on the Binary Nature of Choices

Posted on | November 17, 2023 | 1 Comment

Antifa thug punches Richard Spencer, Jan. 20, 2017

“I remember,” says Professor Glenn Reynolds, “when all the best people told us it was okay to punch Nazis.” Some of the same people were chagrined this week when a pro-Hamas mob attempted to storm the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Excuse me, but if you lie down with dogs, you can’t complain about waking up with fleas, and when Democrats — in a mood of derangement and despair after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 — decided to embrace the violent Antifa mob, they made a choice that had consequences.

It turns out the vicious anarchists have ideas about foreign policy that most Democrats consider to be (pardon the phrase) not kosher.

For several weeks — months, perhaps — I’ve been turning over in my mind some ideas about the nature of choices. Many people seem not to understand the binary nature of the choices they make in life. Their way of thinking has become vague, clouded by prejudices, preferences and sentiments that they’ve never bothered to analyze in any kind of critical or objective way. Those of us trained in a more categorical way of thinking are at a loss to comprehend the foolish and often self-destructive choices made by people who seem to believe they can do whatever they please, as it suits their fickle moods, without having to deal with consequences that any prudent person would consider predictable.

Someone once referred to this as the “Nerf life,” where there are no sharp edges and everything is padded with foam. Academic standards are lowered, to prevent stupid or lazy students from encountering bad grades that might damage their fragile self-esteem, and we can’t lock up criminals because “social justice” or whatever, and such projects aimed at protecting people from the consequences of their choices are everywhere advocated by “all the best people,” as Professor Reynolds might say.

It is this tendency toward “Nerf life,” I would argue, that has caused many people (particularly the young) to avoid the kind of categorical thinking wherein we distinguish between A and not A, between truth and error, between wisdom and folly, between right and wrong, good and evil.

Perhaps you and I have different moral belief systems. Perhaps we have different ideas of what is beautiful, what is good, what is just. But so long as we are each free to act upon our beliefs — to put our values in action in our daily lives — then others may observe and judge our values based upon the outcomes we produce. If one of us ends up in a situation of misery and squalor, while the other finds happiness and success, there can be no doubt in the mind of an objective observer which of us has the superior value system. Whose behavior should we emulate? Whose example should we study? Whose advice should we seek? This is why consequences matter, and why trying to protect people from consequences is a bad idea. Why should anyone take care to avoid errors, if they experience no harm from their incorrect choices? And how morally confused must people become, if they’re constantly told that people who make bad choices are victims of unjust “oppression”?

Do I need to explain how this applies to Gaza? Hamas made a choice in their October 7 mass, and the people now demanding a ceasefire are trying to protect Hamas from the consequences of that choice. And they’ll say, “Oh, but what about the innocent civilians?” Well, the people of Gaza elected Hamas, a choice which anyone might have predicted would have bad consequences, the same way the German people had to deal with the consequences of electing Hitler as chancellor in 1933.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings could not be reached for comment.

This evening I watched a YouTube video of a police chase in Savannah, Georgia. Cop pulled over a guy because his tag was expired. Ran the guy’s name through the computer, found out there was a warrant for his arrest on charges of domestic violence and aggravated stalking. The cop asks the guy to step out of the vehicle, instead the guy takes off at high speed, and the cops give chase. A Georgia State Patrol trooper hears the radio call and joins the pursuit. Folks, if you’re ever in Georgia, do not try to outrun the state patrol. This is a choice so bad, you may not live to regret it, because under certain circumstances, state troopers are authorized to conduct PIT maneuvers at any speed. And thus did VanQuan Jaquel Scott join the choir invisible: “He that fucketh around shall findeth out.”

Is the analogy clear enough? Like the people of Gaza, who made a choice in electing Hamas, VanQuan Scott made a choice to run from cops, rather than to submit to arrest and have his day in court. This is how dangerous the world can be, without Nerf foam covering up all the sharp corners: Make the wrong choice, and death is the consequence.

What about the mob that tried to storm the DNC headquarters?

THEY ARE BAD PEOPLE.

See, this is the kind of categorical thinking that is discouraged nowadays. We aren’t supposed to distinguish between “good people” and “bad people.” We aren’t supposed to make judgments like that, according to liberals. The armed carjacker isn’t really a bad person; no, the liberals insist, he’s a misunderstood juvenile who is disadvantaged, suffering from low-esteem, a victim of “systemic racism,” blahblahblah.

You might notice, however, that liberals have no trouble deciding that you are a bad person, if you disagree with them. The liberal has no trouble making categorical distinctions when it comes to politics — people who vote for Democrats are good, and people who vote for Republicans are bad. The confusion comes, however, when the liberal encounters opposition from radical scumbags like that pro-Hamas mob, who are obviously not Republican voters. This was the kind of conflict that tore the Democratic Party apart in 1968 and, indeed, didn’t discontent among the left-wing “Bernie Bros” have something to do with how Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016?

Let the hitherto loyal Democrat ponder the consequences of his choice of allies. Was it really a good idea to cheer Antifa as your chosen bully boys, acting out your post-election rage after Hillary lost? Was it a good idea to applaud the arson and vandalism and looting in the summer of 2020?

You’ve made your choices, see, and if you don’t like the consequences, who’s going to bail you out? Y’all kept telling us Trump was a wannabe Hitler, but which party is now embracing a mob of Jew-hating thugs?

“SQUIRREL!” screams the liberal, pointing to something Elon Musk said on The Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.

Yes, of course, the really dangerous Jew-hater must be someone else, some “right-wing” billionaire you can demonize easily, and thereby distract the public from your own Jew-hating allies. You think nobody will spot this for the cheap tactic it is, and perhaps most people will overlook it, but not all of us are blind or stupid.

“See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil . . . I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
— Deuteronomy 30:15, 19 (KJV)

It’s all about choices. Be careful what you choose.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Further thoughts on the theme of choices and consequences: “Real Wrath of God Type Stuff.”



 

Category: Israel, Liberals

In The Mailbox: 11.16.23

Posted on | November 17, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 11.16.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Coming soon: the big Black Friday/Cyber Monday Based Books Sale!

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda est.

Unsolicited plug for the parallel economy.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Electric Vehicles Were No Match For Winter, also, Great Moments In Unexpected Consequences
EBL: The Killer, Ben Shapiro and Candance Owens – Get A Room You Two!, and I did not know this about casting Aragorn in Lord of the Rings
Twitchy: Journalist Claims DNC Building Wasn’t “Completely” Surrounded By Protesters, Sen. Tammy Duckworth Gets Schooled On Bidenomics, and Oilfield Rando Notes The Radicalization Of AWFLs
Louder With Crowder: Watch: Bud Light paid Dylan Mulvaney A LOT more to tank their company than previously reported (Exclusive), Scientists Want Meat Labeled With ‘Cigarette-Style’ Warnings About Climate Change, Hair Salon Owner Accused Of Telling Trans Clients To, Quote,  “Seek Services At Local Pet Groomer”, and Joe Rogan gets The Rock to admit he doesn’t have any friends who like Joe Biden: “Thank you, that’s a good check”
Vox Popoli: The Vanishing Letter, Live By the Big Two, and Why Gen Z Rejects the Jews
Ammo.com: Gun Ownership By State

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Male Malaise Is Not Just About ‘the Culture’
American Greatness: When Has War Even Been ‘Proportional?’ also, GOP Lawmaker Asks Wray About ‘Ghost Buses’ ‘Filled With FBI Informants Dressed as Trump Supporters’ on J6
American Thinker: The Catastrophic Death of Fairness
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Iran is Asshoe News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship adds 16 more political prisoners in October, total rises to 1,062, Castro dictatorship’s ‘exploding croquettes’ claims another victim in Cuba, Reports from Cuba: ‘What he wants is green,’ not Cuban pesos, and Norah Jones’ ‘cultural exchange’ with her Cuban manipulators
BattleSwarm: Second Mistrial Declared in Garza Political APD Prosecution
Behind The Black: Red China launches ocean observation satellite, Biden White House proposes major expansion of the regulations governing commercial space, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot continues to shrink, possibly to its smallest size ever measured, Amazon’s first two Kuiper satellites in orbit worked exactly as planned, and Starship/Superheavy test launch delayed to November 18, 2023
Cafe Hayek: On Hayek and His ‘Constitution of Liberty’
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Three interesting Hospital Videos from the Israel Hamas War, also, I’m am proud to be on the FBI’s Anti Government Antiauthority Violent Extremist List
Don Surber: Jewish Group Bets $100 Million Against The Squad
First Street Journal: Has your income increased 58.39% since November of 2020? Gasoline prices have increased that much!
Gates Of Vienna: The Silence of the Muslims, Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Culture-Enrichers, “Swedes” in Gaza Will Have to Take Their Chances, and The Puir Wee Migrant Bairns of Hamburg Are Packing Heat
The Geller Report: Ahmed Mohamed Nassar Who Shot and Killed Hero Austin SWAT Officer Was On FBI’s JIHAD TERROR Watchlist
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, NGC 1556, When Your Customer Base Becomes More Selective, Everything Is Proceeding As I Have Foreseen, and The Past Few Weeks, The Next Couple of Days
Hollywood In Toto: Dan Aykroyd on The Blues Brothers – ‘You’d Never Make It Today’
The Lid: A Federal Judge Just Falsely Declared That There Is NO Right To Acquire A Gun
Legal Insurrection: Republican Lawmakers in Florida Target Scholarships and Grants of Students Who Support Hamas, NYC Mayor Adams Cuts School and NYPD Budgets Due to Migrant Crisis, Jewish Students Escorted From Meeting at Arizona State by Police After Protesters Throw Rocks, “Multiple Organs in Transit for Multiple Patients” Delayed By Pro-Hamas Shutdown Of San Francisco Bay Bridge, IDF Found Hamas Weapons, Including Rockets, Hidden in a Child’s Bed, George Washington University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine Over Anti-Semitic Projections on Building, and TikTok Influencers Encouraging People to Read, Embrace Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Fr. Pavone
Outkick: The Chiefs Can Have Taylor Swift, Tennessee Has Dolly Parton: Tennessee’s Tony Vitello Is Stoked For Saturday, With Dolly In Knoxville, JimMichigan’s Jim Harbaugh Accepts Suspension, Will Not Fight In Court After Big Ten Agrees To Close Inquiry, Deion Sanders Claims Coaches Are Lying To Recruits About Him Amid Texas A&M Rumors, Rob Gronkowski Calls Out Whining Diggs Brothers Worried About Bills: ‘Just Suck It Up’, Georgetown Basketball Coach Ed Cooley Tells Young Reporters To ‘Grow Up’ And Ask Questions, Trouble In LSU Women’s Basketball Paradise? Angel Reese May Have Been Suspended After Benching, And Social Media Drama, and MLB Tacitly Admits Defeat, Awards 2025 All-Star Game To Atlanta; Commissioner Apology Next?
Power Line: Will America Lose the Next War? The Fall of Minneapolis: The film, and Canceling Magellan
Shark Tank: Rep. Aaron Bean Introduces Bill Targeting Campus Anti-semitism
Shot In The Dark: The Army of Davids, also, Want To Feel Depressed Out of Your Mind?
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – “DEI”: Diversity Failing Science; Excluding Biological Reality From Medicine; Inequality Mandated For Faculty Statements In Aerospace Programs
This Ain’t Hell: Wrongthink vs. rightthink? Coasties Rescued, and Senators ask the VA to stop needless foreclosures on veterans
Transterrestrial Musings: THe WHite House’s SPace-POlicy PRoposal
Victory Girls: Commie American Millionaires Funding Death Celebrations
Volokh Conspiracy: Bans on Approaching or Videorecording Hunters Struck Down by Seventh Circuit
Watts Up With That: India To Increase Coal Production By 60%, Lions and Tigers?  No, Beavers and Wolves, and How China Dominates the World – And Lies about Climate Commitment
The Federalist: How Congress Can Do Away With Spendy Government Shutdown Theater For Good, Special Counsel Lets Biden Off Scot-Free In Classified Docs Case While DOJ Tries To Imprison Trump For The Same Thing, What This Pro-Life Ohioan Learned From Losing To Pro-Abortion Radicals, Mike Lee Blasts GOP Colleagues Protesting Tuberville Hold, ‘I Can’t Believe Anybody Buys This Crap’, The Media Aren’t Quite Hackish Enough For The Biden White House, FBI, CDC Ignored Concerns Over California-Based Chinese Biolab Containing Deadly Pathogens, and Don’t Trans The Tomboys
Mark Steyn: Buyer’s Remorse, also, Suits Across the Atlantic

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Category: Linkagery

Can You Guess Which One of These Men Is (Allegedly) a Homosexual Pedophile?

Posted on | November 16, 2023 | 3 Comments

Let me begin by thanking Ace of Spades for inspiring this little contest.

Both of the two men pictured above are liberal journalists. One of them is a frequent guest on the MSNBC program Morning Joe, and the other one was recently arrested on child pornography charges:

Court documents cited by the Berkshire Eagle earlier this week allege that [the suspect’s] phone contained disturbing video clips showing boys believed to be as young as 3 years of age being raped and forced to perform sex acts by adults.
Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey said this was one of the most “egregious” cases of its kind she has come across.
If convicted, [the suspect] faces mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years in state prison if convicted of dissemination of child pornography and five years if convicted of possession of child pornography.

While I could keep you in suspense a while longer, I’ll go ahead and tell you that the suspect charged with child pornography is Slade Sohmer (the one in the photo on the right above), and not frequent MSNBC guest John Heilemann (in the photo at top left). However, the two men had a past business relationship. In 2019, Heilemann co-founded a video-news website called The Recount. Slade Sohmer was editor-in-chief of The Recount. More than $30 million in investment capital was plowed into The Recount before it went broke in December 2022. Two months later, it was announced that The Recount would be acquired by another video-media startup, the News Movement. Burning through $30 million in venture capital in four years is not a crime, but it certainly raises questions about Heilemann’s judgment, beyond the fact that his choice to be the site’s editor-in-chief is now facing child pornography charges.

By the time Sohmer was arrested, however, Heilemann had apparently exited The Recount — a site so obscure that I hadn’t even heard of it — and I wouldn’t have known of his connection to Sohmer if Ace hadn’t stuck Heilemann’s mugshot into his post. It seemed important to me to clarify that John Heilemann is not a homosexual pedophile who allegedly possessed “hundreds” of videos of young boys being raped.

As far as we know.

You’re welcome.



 

Category: Crime, Media Bias
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