How to Die in Philadelphia

Posted on | February 11, 2022 | Comments Off on How to Die in Philadelphia

Even though Philadelphia set an all-time record for homicides last year, nearly twice as many people died of drug overdoses as died of gunshot wounds in “Killadelphia” in 2021.

Dana Pico notes that Philadelphia wanted to open a “supervised injection site” where junkies could presumably shoot up more safely than where they would otherwise shoot up, but the city ran up against the problem that such a site would violate federal law that makes it a felony to operate such a place. And the city’s lenient attitude toward junkies is not unrelated to the surge of deadly violence in “Killadelphia”:

Drug users are not somehow ‘not criminals’, no matter what District Attorney Krasner likes to think. To obtain their recreational pharmaceuticals, they have to buy them from a drug dealer, and Philadelphia’s record-setting 562 murders in 2021 were largely fueled by gang warfare, mostly drug gang warfare. Junkies buying heroin and fentanyl are a captive market which keeps the dealers in operation, and that endangers all Philadelphians.

Heroin, meth and cocaine are soul-destroying addictions, even among those who don’t die of overdoses, and drug abuse is highly correlated to other criminal activity, including not only the gang violence by drug dealers, but also the theft and burglary committed by dopeheads trying to get money to feed their habits. If it were possible to solve that problem with “social justice” approaches, wouldn’t progressives be able to point to successful programs somewhere? Instead, everywhere the progressives are in charge, these problems have skyrocketed out of control.

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

Aspiring Rapper Update: Bloods Gangster Arrested for Shooting Atlanta Cop 6 Times

Posted on | February 11, 2022 | Comments Off on Aspiring Rapper Update: Bloods Gangster Arrested for Shooting Atlanta Cop 6 Times

We’re going to disregard standard journalistic practice in this case by omitting the customary “alleged” about the felony charges against aspiring Atlanta rapper Christian Eppinger, a/k/a “Big Bhris”:

A 22-year-old rapper who goes by the moniker Big Bhris was reportedly arrested for shooting an Atlanta Police Department officer six times on Monday (February 7). According to 11 Alive, Big Bhris (real name Christian Eppinger) is a member of the Bloods sect Young Slime Life and now faces attempted murder and street gang activity charges in relation to the shooting.
As noted in the warrant, Officer David Rodgers was attempting to take Eppinger into custody on an armed robbery warrant from 2021 when the shooting occurred. Rodgers caught four bullets to the shoulder, one to the knee and another in the side of his head. He was rushed to the Emergency Room at Grady Hospital in serious condition. . . .
Young Slime Life reportedly operates out of strongholds along Cleveland Avenue and the APD says the gang is known for its “ruthless pedestrian and home invasion style robberies” as well as “drive-by shootings resulting in death and serious injury.” Members are also “known to sell and possess illegal narcotics ranging from marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and liquid promethazine/codeine cough syrup.”
Eppinger appeared in court on Tuesday (February 8) and was denied bond on charges related to the shooting as well as the original armed robbery charges. A judge ruled he was likely to reoffend if out on the street and imposed a flight risk. . . .
A quick search of the Big Bhris YouTube channel pulls up videos with titles such as “Homicide” and “Murder On My Mind.”
The warrant states, “Numerous videos featuring ‘Big Bhris’ have been posted on YouTube of which Mr. Eppinger and other documented YSL gang members wearing YSL clothing can be observed displaying firearms and throwing up YSL gang hand signs pledging their allegiance to the gang and taunting rival gang members.”

Hey, aspiring rappers: Please keep recording these videos to provide police with conclusive evidence of your gang membership. Between this evidence and the bodycam video when you shoot a cop, your attempted murder conviction will be a cinch. That’s why I’m not even bothering to use “alleged” in describing this aspiring rapper’s crimes, because (a) there’s not any real doubt about his guilt, besides which (b) he’s got too many problems to even be thinking about a libel suit.

Atlanta Police Officer David Rodgers

I mean, obviously Atlanta’s a lot more liberal than most of Georgia, but when you shoot a black cop in Atlanta? Oh, you’ll be a very old aspiring rapper before you can ever hope to get out of prison.

By the way, the October robbery that “Big Bhris” Eppinger was being sought for when he shot Officer Rodgers? Quite a caper:

According to the warrants, Eppinger had been originally wanted for allegedly robbing someone who’d been filming a rap video at the park behind Cleveland Avenue Library in October. In that incident, Eppinger and another man allegedly stole someone’s Rolex watch, iPhone, Gucci wallet and diamond earrings, then later posted about it on social media.

So you were robbing other rappers and bragging about your crimes on social media? Way to go, “aspiring rapper”! This is an agenda I fully support: Criminals ripping off other criminals, then making evidence of their crimes publicly available on Facebook and Instagram. Just next time, don’t shoot the cops when they show up to arrest your stupid ass.

Category: Aspiring Rapper Update, Georgia

In The Mailbox: 02.10.22

Posted on | February 11, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.10.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Turns out I’m working both Saturday and Sunday in the tax mines this weekend, so that promised book post may not emerge until I’m home in Tonopah next weekend.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Col. Walter E. Kurtz contemplates the choice between a senile old fool and an utterly incompetent whore as CinC.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Appleton, Wisconsin – Dump Lee Snodgrass!
Twitchy: “Never EVER Just Let It Go”, also, “As He Has Another Aneurysm”
Louder With Crowder: Couple Goes To Freedom Convoy To See For Themselves, Discover Media Narrative Is Complete Garbage
Vox Popoli: Killshot Is Cancer Shot, How We Succeed, and We Wuz Alfs
Gab News: The Parallel Economy Takes Off!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: A Clear Example Of The Government Using The Media To Lie To Us About The Jab
American Conservative: How Lefty Urbanists Quash Housing Supply
American Greatness: Biden Taps Drag Queen Pup Fetishist For HIgh-Level Energy Department Post
American Power: Joe Rogan Experience – Stephen Pinker On What Has Happened To Being Rational
American Thinker: A Color Map Of The Fronts Of WWIII
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Toxic Skwerls News
Babalu Blog: Price Of Food Skyrockets In Communist Cuba, also, How Red China & Russia Are Trying To Save Communism In Cuba
BattleSwarm: Ben Shapiro On Biden’s Pivot Dilemma
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans – Private School Makes Enemies List Of Parents, ArianeSpace Launches 34 OneWeb Satellites, and “We Need To Seize The Opportunity And Do It As Quickly As Possible”
Cafe Hayek: J.P. Sears Reports On The Recent March Against The Mandates
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: The Impossible 9th Inning – Yanks At Twins Game 2 With An Ironic Twist, also, Doing Hard Time In Facebook Jail
Don Surber: Occasional Cortex Starts Democrat Catfight In Texas, also, Manchin May Save The Democrats
First Street Journal: Voting With Their Faces, also, Bidenomics
Gates Of Vienna: Terror Roundup In Antwerp, Death To The Unvaxxed! and Germany Plans To Secure Its Future Energy Supply With Phlogiston
The Geller Report: Biden’s Average Approval Rating Drops To 39%, also, Inflation Explodes
Hogewash: New Views Of Venus, Deja Vu All Over Again, and Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Neeson’s Blacklight Scrapes The Bottom Of The Taken Barrel, also, A Terrible, Awful, No Good Week For The Oscars
The Lid: Mayor Claims Ice Fishing Could Lead To Prostitution
Legal Insurrection: NC Elections Board Claims It Can Prevent Madison Cawthorn From Running Over J6, Jill Biden Announces “Free” Community College No Longer In Spending Bill, and NPR Wants You To Be Concerned About What Skin Color Emoji You Should Use
Nebraska Energy Observer: Long Green – The Dark Kind
Outkick: Tennessee’s Heupel Has A Plan For The Transfer Portal, Jemele Hill Signs With CNN’s Streaming Service, and LA Hosts Glitz Of Super Bowl Amid Homeless Epidemic
Power Line: Today In Race Obsession, Blue Governors Retreat On Mandates, and Trump Responds To Document Mishandling Allegations
Shark Tank: Mills Draws First Blood Against “No Show” Sabatini In Contentious Race To Replace Murphy
Shot In The Dark: The Next Battle, also, Who’s Not There?
The Political Hat: Diagnosis Woke – AMA Embraces “Equity”, Anti-Racism Mandate For Pharmacists, & Medical Meritocracy Ban, also, What Does America Look Like?
This Ain’t Hell: Nurse Trying To Become First Pre-Service Amputee To Join The Navy, Braxton Anderson – Still Rocking The Lies For Imaginary Internet Points, and San Francisco Solves The Homeless Crisis
Transterrestrial Musings: The Gun Grabbers, The Trucker Rebellion, and The Revolution Isn’t Over
Victory Girls: DHS – “The Truckers Ae Coming! The Truckers Are Coming!”
Volokh Conspiracy: NY Appellate Court Stays (Pending Appeal) Injunction Against NYT In Project Veritas Case
Weasel Zippers: Biden Promises To Bring Down Gas Prices, Bad Orange Woman Defends Masking Toddlers, and Red China Imports Ringers For Its Hockey Team, Still Gets Ass Kicked By America
The Federalist: Oregon Dems Want To Bar School Boards From Firing Far-Left Superintendents, Biden Fed Nominee Raked In $1.5 Million From Startup She Pulled Strings For, and How Vax Discrimination Caused Dangerous Care Shortages In Wisconsin
Mark Steyn: The Beginning Of The End Of The COVID Era, also, Fun With Dick & Khan

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

President Crack-Pipe’s Very Bad Week

Posted on | February 10, 2022 | Comments Off on President Crack-Pipe’s Very Bad Week

First of all, Jen Psaki wants you to know that “inaccurate reporting” is to blame for all those stories about Joe Biden wanting to spend $30 million to give crack pipes to drug addicts:

The original request for funding proposals from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had listed “safe smoking kits/supplies” among the items that could be purchased with taxpayer money. They were among a dozen categories that included overdose prevention drugs, medication lockboxes, test kits for infectious diseases, and syringe disposal containers. The grant solicitation did not specifically mention pipes, although they can be a part of safe smoking kits.
Daniel Raymond, director of policy for the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, said only a few programs in the U.S. have handed out safe smoking kits.
“None of this was being done with federal funds,” Raymond said. “I feel very confident in saying that. I would have been aware if that were true.”
Nonetheless reports that the Biden administration was using federal dollars to pay for “crack pipes” took off. Some Republican senators piled on, castigating the administration.
Misleading claims about the HHS program dominated social media early Wednesday, many of them from conservative commentators and Republican politicians sharing memes and tweets that received tens of thousands of likes.

Got that? Anything about this program that looks bad for Biden is because of “misleading claims,” despite the fact that “safe smoking kits” are indeed part of what the federal government is proposing to provide dopeheads at taxpayer expense. So, as far as official White House policy is concerned, Hunter Biden is the only drug addict that the president is helping get high. And Hunter’s drug habit is being funded by Chinese “investors,” not taxpayers, so don’t worry about it.

Good news. Biden’s HHS is no longer funding crack pipes.

But make no mistake: yesterday’s change in policy is because HHS got caught. pic.twitter.com/s7nW1mN3GS

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) February 10, 2022

Alas, this fiasco, bad as it was, wasn’t the worst news for Biden this week:

U.S. consumer prices jumped by the most in nearly four decades as the new year started, sapping the savings of American families, diminishing the purchasing power of worker paychecks, and putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates beginning in March.
The consumer price index climbed 0.6 percent from a month before, the Department of Labor said Thursday. Compared with January of last year, consumer prices are up 7.5 percent. . . .
Polls show the public’s rating of Biden’s handling of the economy is at a record low. Biden’s overall approval rating has plummeted. Forty-five percent of Americans say inflation has put a strain on household finances.

Wait, there’s more:

Rising inflation is eating away at strong wage gains that American workers have seen in recent months: Real average hourly earnings rose just 0.1% in January from the previous month, as the 0.6% inflation increase eroded the 0.7% total wage gain, according to the Labor Department. On an annual basis, real earnings actually declined 1.7% in January.
Price increases were widespread: Although energy prices rose just 0.9% in January from the previous month, they’re still up 27% from last year. Gasoline, on average, costs 40% than it did last year. Food prices have also climbed 7% higher over the year, while used car and truck prices – a major component of the inflation increase – are up 40.5%. Shelter costs jumped 0.3% for the month and 4% year-over-year.
The inflation spike has been bad news for President Biden, who has seen his approval rating tumble as consumer prices rise. The White House has blamed the price spike on supply-chain bottlenecks and other pandemic-induced disruptions in the economy, while Republicans have pinned it on the president’s massive spending agenda and his energy policies targeting the oil and gas industries.

Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline on Day One of his presidency — so he’s anti-pipeline, but pro-crackpipe. However, you can’t use wind mills and solar panels to deliver food to grocery stores, so the 40% spike in fuel prices is driving prices up across the board. And speaking of “across the board,” let’s talk about Biden’s plummeting poll numbers:

The good news for Joe Biden in today’s CNN poll: his job approval got above 40%. The bad news is that there are nearly no undecideds when it comes to his performance as president. Biden hits a high of 58% disapproval in the latest CNN survey and gets a -17 gap in approval that manages to outstrip his already-pathetic RCP aggregate gap.
CNN’s data provides the real takeaway, which is that Biden’s confidence-crisis cascade has accelerated rather than slowed:

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Joe Biden is handling his presidency, with most of that group saying there’s literally nothing Biden has done since taking office that they approve of. The finding, from a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS in January and February, highlights the entrenched politics driving the nation at the start of the midterm year, with little agreement across party lines on priorities for the government or how to handle the coronavirus pandemic.
The President’s ratings have fallen across the board, the survey found. Just 41% approved of the way he’s handling his job while 58% disapproved, a significant drop from his approval numbers in CNN polling last year. Just 36% of independents and 9% of Republicans approved. Although his approval rating still stood at 83% among Democrats, that was down from 94% late last summer. Biden also continues to have more strong detractors than he does fervent supporters: 41% of Americans disapproved strongly of his performance as President versus 15% who strongly approved. Some of the shift in Biden’s numbers comes from a change in Americans’ partisan tilt: Republicans and Democrats were about at parity in the new poll, with fewer identifying as Democrats than in other recent CNN polling.

Biden is so unpopular, Democrats are ashamed to admit they voted for him. They don’t even want to call themselves Democrats anymore.

Except the crackheads. They love Biden. Next time you see a poll and wonder how anyone could possibly approve of the job Biden’s doing as president, that’s your answer — the crackheads are now Biden’s “base.”

Category: Joe Biden, Polls

The Destructive Cult of Racial ‘Liberation’

Posted on | February 10, 2022 | Comments Off on The Destructive Cult of Racial ‘Liberation’

For many years, one of my journalistic specialties was covering the political fringe. This is important work — and frankly, a lot more fun than covering “mainstream” politics — because most of the real action in politics happens on the fringe. All movements that have significant impact on society begin on the fringe, where seemingly impossible goals are embraced by people that are widely viewed as kooks. The classic example of this is Hitler and the Nazis, who started out as an obscure group of eccentrics and damned near conquered the world.

Long before the Black Lives Matter movement made headlines, the ideas behind the movement were embraced by fringe kooks who asserted that they were living in a fascist white supremacist police state they sometime called the “United Snakes of AmeriKKKa.” This explicit anti-patriotism — the denunciation of the United States, per se, as inherently oppressive — is a hallmark of the radical Left, a leftover from the days when the CPUSA was the main conduit for Stalinist anti-American propaganda. This rhetoric was subsequently embraced by the New Left of the 1960s, the core leadership of which was composed of so-called “Red Diaper Babies,” the children of CPUSA members who had been indoctrinated with an anti-American belief system from birth. The CPUSA always viewed black Americans as a potential revolutionary force, and so a lot of their anti-American propaganda was aimed at the black community, and it was effective enough to give rise to radical tendencies that persist to this day.

Being old enough to remember the Symbionese Liberation Army (“Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life ot the people!”), I realize how easy it is to dismiss such cults with sarcastic ridicule. No intelligent or reasonably well-educated person could fall for that “liberation” hustle, and yet there are enough stupid or badly educated people in America that the hustlers are still able to find an audience. One such hustler is Augustus Claudius Romain, Jr., a Brooklyn native who styles himself “Gazi Kodzo,” supreme commander of the Black Hammer Organization.

Stephen Green at Instapundit linked to a recent account of the May 2021 incident in which Romain/Kodzo and a couple dozen of his followers engaged in a failed attempt to “take back the land” in a remote area of San Miguel County, Colorado. That abortive project followed months of online fundraising by Black Hammer activists, and was reported contemporaneously by Santi Ruiz at the Free Beacon.

A fairly detailed history of Romain/Kodzo and Black Hammer was put together last September by a black Marxist group, and here’s a thumbnail summary: Romain was born in Brooklyn and grew up around Atlanta. In his early 20s, he went to Los Angeles and apparently worked as some kind of personal assistant for the head of a small modeling agency, helping to stage “mansion parties,” among other things. Sometime after 2015, Romain was recruited by the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and moved to the party’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida, where his duties were mainly about running social-media accounts. In 2018, Romain — now calling himself Kodzo — left the APSP and moved back to Atlanta, where he established the Black Hammer Organization in February 2019. Romain/Kodzo claimed he quit the APSP because it was secretly controlled by white people; the APSP says he was expelled for unspecified misconduct. You can believe whatever you want, but the point is that he learned his ideology and tactics at one black “liberation” organization and then employed this knowledge to create his own organization with himself as “Commander-in-Chief.”

At one point, Black Hammer had hundreds of members, recruited via the organization’s social media presence. Romain/Kodzo was always doing livestream videos and in April 2020 stirred up a rather significant online firestorm by trashing Anne Frank.

That someone could do this and still raise tens of thousands of dollars for their “take back the land” project in Colorado should disturb anyone who remembers that Hitler was once just an obscure kook on the fringe.

In fact, as the three-part report at Red Voice makes clear, Black Hammer was a cult, which exploited the unpaid labor of members who were practically held hostage and subjected to psychological abuse. The failure of the “take back the land” project, subsequent defections, and negative publicity have shrunk Romain/Kodzo’s group down to a tiny core of followers who, one may suppose, are simply too stupid to get wise to the hustle. There is probably little reason to fear that Romain/Kodzo and his band of dimwits could be dangerous in the future, but the brief heyday of Black Hammer — when they had their 15 minutes of fame, such as it was — illustrates a larger problem, i.e., that the ideology of racial “liberation” has a persistent appeal to alienated elements of the black community.

The practical common-sense arguments against such a belief system are powerless to dissuade those who are radicalized by a combination of personal misfortune, radical recruitment and the general craziness of American life in the 21st century. Once someone surrenders to pessimism about the prospects of improving their life within the existing social structure, they are vulnerable to even the most extreme “answers” offered by any would-be leader. “Burn it all down” is a sentiment I’ve sometimes heard from conservatives disgusted by the bipartisan fraudulence of D.C. politics, and we can see the January 6 Capitol riot as evidence of how widespread that sentiment has become. But here’s the thing: If middle-class white people are willing to ruin their lives for a futile “protest” gesture (and about 700 rioters have been charged in connection with January 6), how many more alienated black people might be tempted to do something dangerously crazy in the name of “liberation”?

For the followers of Black Hammer, their “take back the land” dream ended with what can only be called a sort of radical Fyre Festival, a bummer of a bad camping trip, with a few minor injuries. But there is no guarantee that the next radical gesture will end so harmlessly.

Remember: Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Category: Racism

In The Mailbox: 02.09.22

Posted on | February 10, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.09.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

A break in the politics.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1623
EBL: Chris Christie Needs To STFU About Ron DeSantis
Twitchy: CNN’s Alisyn Camerota “Out Of Ideas” For What To Do About Joe Rogan
Louder With Crowder: Freedom Trucker Annihilates Smug CBC Reporter
Vox Popoli: Calling Out The Evil Empire, Hultgreen-Curie Strikes Again, and Biologists REALLY Don’t Get Math
Gab News: Introducing Gab Marketplace

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: When Media Whores Cry
American Conservative: What Russia Wants In Ukraine
American Greatness: Alberta & Saskatchewan End Vax Passports; Alberta Premier Calls On Trudeau To Ditch Travel Restrictions
American Power: Slow-Motion Suicide In San Francisco, also, Forthcoming Investigation Of Freedom Convoy’s Seized GoFundMe Donations
American Thinker: The Biden Family Is A Criminal Enterprise As Defined By The RICO Act, also, What’s The Deal With Mike Pence?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: A Message For The Pro-Communist NY “Cuban” Restaurant Opening In Miami, also, Cuba Backs Out Of Under-18 Baseball World Cup – Afraid Players Will Flee
BattleSwarm: Midterm Variant Wrecking Blue State Mandates
Behind The Black: Pushback – Oral Surgeon Sues RI For Shutting Down His Practice After He Refused The Jab, Martian Glaciers On Top Of Glaciers On Top Of Glaciers, and 40 Just-Launched Starlink Satellites Lost From Solar Storm
Cafe Hayek: Beware The Mad Dogs Of Antitrust
CDR Salamander: The Potomac Flotilla’s Potemkin
Da Tech Guy: Joe Rogan, Salman Rushdie, and Chancellor Kent
Don Surber: CNN Won’t Change, Ike Warned Us About Government Science, and Putin Laughs At Us
First Street Journal: If Everyone Is Going To Be Exposed To COVID Anyway…
Gates Of Vienna: Jerry Can Do It, 11-Year-Old Girl Raped By Culture-Enricher In The Castle Garden Of Neustrelitz, and EU People-Trafficking
The Geller Report: NBC On Track For Lowest-Rated Winter Games In History, also, Biden Administration Handing Out Crack Pipes…During Black History Month
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, An Aha! Moment, and A Herbig-Haro Object
Hollywood In Toto: For The Sake Of Vicious Spills More Blood Than Story, also, Hollywood Wanted A Dog Instead Of Vincent Gallo
The Lid: The Logic Democrats Used To Impeach Trump Over Ukraine Requires Them To Impeach Biden
Legal Insurrection: Project Launch – Unmasking National Assn. Of Independent Schools, Theater Event At Arizona State U Excludes White Students, and GWU Reverses Decision To Remove Posters Criticizing Olympics
Michelle Malkin: Who’ll Keep Idaho Free, Safe, & Great?
Nebraska Energy Observer: Tour Of An Anglican Church In The U.S.
Outkick: J.J. Reddick Pulls Back The Curtain On ESPN, Stephen A. Smith, Enes Kanter Freedom Takes Another Shot At Red China In Ad Airing During Olympics, and Former A’s Outfielder Jeremy Giambi Dead At 47
Power Line: Team Biden Reportedly Resisted Military’s Kabul Withdrawal Plan, Are You America’s Top Terrorist Threat? and Felony Murder In A Good Cause – McConnell Holds Luger Nomination
Shark Tank: Rubio Accuses Demings Of “Political Opportunism”
Shot In The Dark: Some Conclusions “Science” Needs To Make, also, Dudley Do-Fus
The Political Hat: Rhode Island Tells Children Orgasms Are Awesome!
This Ain’t Hell: I Call It “The Hunter Biden Project”, Vindman Stuns With Military Acumen, and DOD – Incompetent, Or Hiding Data?
Transterrestrial Musings: Elon’s Thursday Starship Presentation, This Is CNN, and The Fragility Of Complex Technology
Victory Girls: Stacey Abrams Apologizes For Her Maskless Mug
Volokh Conspiracy: Child Pr0n Lawsuit Against Pr0nhub Can Move Forward
Weasel Zippers: Bad Orange Woman Can’t Explain How Biden Will Stop Russia’s NordStream 2 Pipeline If They Invade Ukraine, GOP Urges Biden To Take Cognitive Test, Say Decline Is Apparent, and Biden Advisor Insists Other Countries (Not U.S.) Need To Increase Oil Production
The Federalist: From Joe Rogan To Fight Club, Democrats Think Unmasking Kids Is Only Good When They Do It, and Liz Cheney Snubs Voters To Mingle With Media, Calls Constituents “Crazies”
Mark Steyn: De-Setting The Reset, Morganatically Minded, and The Diminishing Of The Individual

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Is the Irony Obvious Enough?

Posted on | February 9, 2022 | Comments Off on Is the Irony Obvious Enough?

To extend this quote from Henry Rogers, a/k/a Ibram X. Kendi:

“The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body. The idea that capitalism is merely free markets, competition, free trade, supplying and demanding, and private ownership of the means of production operating for a profit is a whimsical and ahistorical as the White-Supremacist idea that calling something racist is the primary form of racism. Popular definitions of capitalism, like popular racist ideas, do not live in historical and material reality. Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes. Or racial capitalism will live into another epoch of theft and rapacious inequity, especially if activists naively fight the conjoined twins independently, as if they not the same.”

Do you see the method here? It’s argument by assertion — Rogers/Kendi believes that he has proven something merely by writing it. Pejorative adjectives — e.g., “destructive,” “ahistorical,” “unnatural,” “rapacious” — are employed to provoke feelings of hatred. Ludwig von Mises once remarked on the rhetorical methods of Marxists:

Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person.

By declaring himself an anti-racist, and arrogating to himself the moral authority to lecture others, Rogers/Kendi sets up a trap by which anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes him is automatically condemned as a defender of racism. This a tautology, and the fact that he categorizes racism and capitalism as identical and inseparable — two features of the same system of “rapacious inequity” — is placed beyond scrutiny, since only a racist would doubt anything this eminent anti-racist says.

We must therefore abandon any hope of avoiding the “white supremacist” label, if we are disposed to question this astounding doctrine promulgated by Rogers/Kendi. Devotees of “anti-racism” are certain that Rogers/Kendi has delivered a sort of inerrant scripture, a Holy Book of Truth. All who doubt Rogers/Kendi are, according to the “anti-racist” cult, adherents and defenders of white supremacy.

Well, who is paying Henry Rogers/Ibram X. Kendi $20,000 an hour? Are black people throwing money at him? No, of course not — this money is being paid by white liberals who seek to purchase racial salvation.

This is what some people would call a sweet hustle. Others might call it a racket. But the point is, the person calling himself Ibram X, Kendi has gotten filthy rich peddling “anti-racism” this way, and I suppose I’m not the only one who suspects that he’s invested his new-gotten wealth in mutual funds and other instruments of capitalist profit-seeking — no matter how “essentially racist” profit-seeking may be. Furthermore, I suspect that Kendi has purchased expensive homes and luxury cars, and that he expects first-class accommodations when he travels, for business or pleasure. He is laughing all the way to the (racist capitalist) bank, and the joke is on the white fools who paid him to denounce them as racists.

Category: Intellectuals, Racism