The Other McCain

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

‘I Think She Was Delusional’

Posted on | July 27, 2022 | 1 Comment

Competition for the 2022 Understatement of the Year Award got a little tougher this week, thanks to Colby James, who was in Dallas Love Field Airport when a crazy woman with a gun got shot by cops:

Dallas police released video Tuesday of the incident involving a woman who fired a gun at Dallas Love Field before an officer shot her.
The woman, wearing a black hoodie, looked to be aiming the weapon in the air late Monday morning before she bought it down and pointed it straight, prompting 15-year Dallas police veteran Ronald Cronin to shoot immediately. . . .
“I’m very proud of him,” Police Chief Eddie Garcia told reporters, referring to the officer. “If it was appropriate, I would have given that officer a medal right here in front of all of you today.”
Before the woman pulled a gun, she told bystanders she had an announcement to make, police said.
The suspect “started to ramble, talking about a marriage, incarceration and that she was going to blow up the airport and then pulls a handgun from her sweatshirt,” Garcia said.
She fired “multiple rounds” into the ceiling at 11:06 a.m. CT before Cronin ordered her to drop her weapon, Garcia said.
That’s when the woman lowered the weapon and pointed it toward Cronin and a bystander, Garcia said. . . .
Garcia praised his officer’s fast work in bringing down the armed woman before anyone else could be harmed.
“The goal is to neutralize a threat. You have to shoot to stop the threat,” Garcia said of the officer, who fired eight or nine rounds, striking the woman multiple times.
The suspect, Portia Odufuwa, 37, underwent surgery and will face charges that include aggravated assault on a public servant, Garcia said.
The suspect claimed that she is married to R&B singer Chris Brown, according to a police affidavit and witness Colby James, 33, a machinist from St. Martinville, Louisiana.
“Her husband was cheating, and her husband was Chris Brown,” James told NBC News. “The singer Chris Brown. I think she was delusional.”

(Really? You think so? What was your first clue?)

Odufuwa has a long criminal record, Garcia said.

(Shocked! Shocked!)

She tried to buy a gun twice at the same pawn shop in August 2016 but was denied each time because of an outstanding traffic warrant out of New Mexico.
The gun used in Monday’s incident is not registered to Odufuwa, and investigators are still trying to determine how she got it.
She was also arrested on April 5, 2019, in connection with an alleged bank robbery in Wylie, and she was taken into custody again on Oct. 4 of that year in connection with an allegation of arson in Mesquite, police said.
Police have not disclosed a possible motive for Monday’s shooting; mental health played a role in her long arrest record. The suspect was detained on Sept. 28, 2020, at Love Field for a mental health evaluation, Garcia said.
Court records showed that a judge last year found her incompetent to stand trial after she was charged with making a false report. However, she wasn’t found to be a danger to others, and she was sent to outpatient mental health services.
And in the 2019 bank robbery case, she was found incompetent to stand trial. The case was dismissed after she underwent treatment, court records showed.

So twice in two years, she was found to be non compos mentis — so crazy she couldn’t be put on trial — and yet was turned loose on the streets:

As recently as last summer a Dallas County judge found the woman accused of opening fire inside a terminal at Dallas’ Love Field airport was not a danger to others, Dallas County records show. . . .
Dallas County Judge Kristin Wade found Odufuwa incompetent to stand trial in misdemeanor case in June 2021 and referred her to outpatient mental health services. . . .
Court records show she has previously faced charges including arson, robbery, criminal trespass and false reporting — all filed in cities across North Texas over the past several years. The outcomes of some cases were unclear Monday though several were dismissed. Court records show she has previously told police she is married to celebrity Chris Brown and that she is “God’s prophet.” . . .
In the case where Odufuwa is accused of pulling the fire alarm, Mesquite police said Monday she was arrested April 25, 2021.
Police said Odufuwa was staying at a hotel in the 4000 block of Towne Crossing, and was refused an extension to her stay. Odufuwa became upset and pulled the fire alarm in front of the clerk, police said.
In that case, Odufuwa gave the address for Brown’s mansion as her home.
That filing a false report case was dismissed by Wade, the judge, in November 2021 even though Odufuwa “did not did not successfully complete the program” when she was found incompetent to stand trial, according to Dallas County court records. She was expected to continue mental health services elsewhere. . . .
On Oct. 4, 2019, about 7:50 p.m., officers were sent to the 900 block of Bridgewater Lane, near Valleycreek Road because a house was on fire.
Odufuwa was standing outside, watching it burn, and requested to speak with a police officer. She told the officer she was “responsible for the fire,” according to an arrest-warrant affidavit.
The officer asked her if she started the fire intentionally, and she said “yes,” the affidavit said. When the officer asked why, the affidavit said she responded “I am God’s prophet, and I need an attorney, but I’m basically letting you all know that I am the cause of this fire.” . . .
Odufuwa was also accused of robbing a bank in Wylie on April 5, 2019.
Wylie police said Odufuwa entered the Bank of America in the 1300 block of West FM544 and displayed a note demanding an undisclosed amount of money. Customers were moved to a safe location, and responding officers found Odufuwa nearby as she tried to flee, police said at the time.
She was found incompetent to stand trial and underwent both in-patient and out-patient treatment. The case was eventually dismissed, court records show. It was not clear Monday why she was found incompetent.

“It was not clear”? Could it possibly be any clearer? This woman is deranged, demented, daffy, wacky, cracked, zany, berserk, off her rocker, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Is there any money in the federal budget for building more lunatic asylums? Because it seems to me that we’ve got way too many of these kooks running around causing mayhem, when they obviously need to be locked up somewhere they can do the Haldol shuffle without disturbing the public with their madcap delusions and occasional violent outbursts. We’re shipping billions of dollars to Ukraine when we could be using that money to build mental institutions to protect our society from roaming psychotics: Crazy People Are Dangerous.




 

Category: Crime, Texas

In The Mailbox: 07.27.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | July 27, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.27.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Paul Sorvino, RIP
Twitchy: Gov. DeSantis Drops The Hammer On ESG Funds, also, WaPo Bummed By New Poll On Gov. Youngkin
Louder With Crowder: Rapper Shot Dead After Post on Instagram Telling Anyone Who Wants to Smoke Him, ‘I’m at My Crib’, also, Kid Gets Excited for First Paycheck…Until His First Lesson on Taxes
Vox Popoli: The Abyss Stalks Back, Monkeypox Joe Defends Homogamy, and The Perfect Convergence
Gab News: Gab On The Rachel Maddow Show
Stoic Observations: Nope – A New American Gothic?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The real smoking ceremony that Australia needs to see
American Conservative: Three Cheers for the Patriarchy, also. Viktor Orbán’s Ukraine Realism
American Greatness: Major Military Academies Have Been Teaching Critical Race Theory for Some Time
American Power: January 6th Hearings Succeeded Not Just through Good Intentions but With Teasers, Previews, Recaps, and Diagrams to Turn Congressional Inquest Into Great Television
American Thinker: The Final Months of a Bad Employee
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Grifter News
Babalu Blog: What ‘economic growth’ looks like in communist Cuba, also, Cuban exile baseball players say MLB commissioner is complicit with the Castro dictatorship
BattleSwarm: Russia Signs Grain Export Corridor Agreement With Ukraine, Then Promptly Attacks Export Port, also, Dispatches From The Burning Land
Behind The Black: OneWeb and Eutelsat sign merger deal, New boss of Roscosmos confirms decision to leave ISS in 2024, and Today’s blacklisted Americans: Pro-abortion terrorists vandalize 77 churches and pregnancy centers in last ten weeks
Cafe Hayek: In Defense of Consumer Sovereignty, also, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Minimum questions about minimum wage”
CDR Salamander: Making a Great Maritime Partnership Better, with Emma Salisbury, also, A Ship Adrift is Never an Accident
Chicago Boyz: Out Of All Patience
Da Tech Guy: Pritzker meddled in GOP gubernatorial primaries, 5 Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora, and Answer:  $425,308,966 and $180,734,472
Don Surber: Thugs vandalize 77 churches and centers over abortion, DeSantis rewrites media rules for Republicans, and AOC ’24
First Street Journal: Have Pope Francis and Cardinal Wilton Gregory forgotten the duty of pastoral care?
Gates Of Vienna: Migrants Storm the Trains at Peschiera del Garda, Nice Work If You Can Get It, And You Can Get It If You’re Ukrainian, and They Know the Pitchforks and Torches are Coming
The Geller Report: Doctor Punished For Questioning COVID Vaccine and Using Therapeutics Sues Hospital for $25 Million, also, Why Democrats Have Waged War On Pregnancy Centers
Hogewash: I’m Not Making This Up, You Know, Sauces, Geese, and Ganders, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Chappelle Joins Rock, Hart to Tell Cancel Culture to Pound Sand, Russell Brand: Mainstream Media Think That You Are Stupid, and Joyce Carol Oates: Yes, White Authors Face Discrimination
The Lid: Two Huge Republican Senate Primaries Set For Next Week
Legal Insurrection: NYC Mayor Adams Still Trying to Blame Other States for the Influx of Illegal Immigrants, Harvard and Other Ivy League Schools Push Congress for Special Tax Cut on Endowments, and ‘Full Frontal’ With Samantha Bee Gets Canceled by TBS
Nebraska Energy Observer: Facing the Beast, also, Lupus Tenebrosus: Chapter 22
Outkick: Brittney Griner Speaks To The Media, Defense Makes New Argument About Her Cannabis Use, The Best Reactions To Aaron Rodgers’ Con Air Look, and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh Doubles Down On Abortion Stance, Offers To ‘Raise That Baby’
Power Line: Grassley’s FBI whistleblowers, “Far Right” Favored to Win Italian Election, and Recessional
Shark Tank: Angie Nixon Doubles Down On Vote-Buying Allegations
Shot In The Dark: Your Lying Eyes
This Ain’t Hell: Which one do you chose, Army, readiness or wokeness?, Army Chief Warrant Admits Stealing Millions, ‘Jarheads’ killer’s trial finally starting, and Chechens reportedly want to step up
Transterrestrial Musings: Academia Is Neglecting Its Most Basic Function, Weird Fedora Problem, and The 1619 Project
Victory Girls: Alaska Senate Race-Murkowski, RINO V. Tshibaka, Trumper, also, DOJ, FBI Accused Of Burying Hunter Biden Laptop Info
Volokh Conspiracy: Breaking Down Joan Biskupic’s Latest Reporting On The Dobbs Leak
Watts Up With That: Get Ready for the 100 Year Long Climate “Emergency”
Weasel Zippers: Fauci: I Never Said To Lock Anything Down, also, Multiple Intelligence Sources Indicate FBI Helping To Bury Hunter Biden Stories
The Federalist: FBI Agent Who Failed To Vet Steele Dossier Is Named As One Who Helped Paint Hunter Biden Exploits As ‘Disinformation’, The Left’s Response To Failure Is To Redefine It As Success, and Make Baseball Great Again
Mark Steyn: At Last/Serenade In Blue, also, Known Unknowns

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Category: Linkagery

‘We Were Somewhere Around Barstow on the Edge of the Desert When the Trump Derangement Syndrome Began to Take Hold …’

Posted on | July 26, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘We Were Somewhere Around Barstow on the Edge of the Desert When the Trump Derangement Syndrome Began to Take Hold …’

Look, if Ed Driscoll wants to play the literary allusion sweepstakes, I’ll see his Allen Ginsberg and raise him a Hunter S. Thompson. But the important point, really, is not about trying to win a silly game of Internet one-upsmanship, but rather that Bill Kristol has become a pathetic joke — a caricature of a parody of a satire of a stereotype. Remember how the anti-Trumpers were supposed to be “the adults in the room,” who resisted the allegedly immature appeal of the celebrity candidate? Trump supporters were just not serious people, you see, whereas Bill Kristol & Co. were devoted to principles of responsible statesmanship.

Fast-forward seven short years, and Bill’s gushing about some pop star like a silly teenager fangirling for Harry Styles. And we learn that not only is Bill on the Democratic Party’s fundraising email list, but he actually reads whatever dreck they spam out to their liberal donor base. He has not only abandoned whatever Conservative Principles™ led him into the anti-Trump camp, but Kristol has lost all sense of personal dignity.

My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. . . .

“There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.”




 

Category: Donald Trump, Intellectuals, Liberals

In The Mailbox: 07.25.22

Posted on | July 25, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.25.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Extra-chunky Monday edition to make up for the lean, mean Friday post. Enjoy.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How Should She Have Responded?
EBL: Democrats Prepare To Unleash Hell on Fed Chairman Powell For The Coming Recession, Soros-Backed DA Marilyn Mosby Loses Primary for Re-Election, and Saint James [Matamoros]
Twitchy:  A Lot Of “Honest Citizens” Allegedly Think Joe Biden Is One Of The Best Presidents, also, “Lives Were Lost”
Louder With Crowder: “Stick Your Progress Where the Sun Don’t Shine”, Blinged-Out Bishop Robbed During Livestream, and “Who is Paying You to Lie This Time?”
Vox Popoli: Where Were These Guys 3 Years Ago?, Europe’s First White Flag, Leaving the West Behind, and On Awards
Stoic Observations: An Interim Geopolitical Course Correction

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Top Gun: Maverick — Not Feelin’ It, Why Did Sebastian Köhn Get Monkeypox?, and Why I Was Wrong About Top Gun: Maverick
American Greatness: Biden Regime Accused of Gaslighting Nation With ‘Soviet Level Propaganda’, Cheney Bracing for Massive Primary Loss in August, and Pentagon Memo Says Trump Gave Order to ‘Make Sure’ January 6th was ‘Safe Event’
American Power: Members of Pence’s Secret Service Detail Feared for Their Lives, also, He Built a Home to Survive a Civil War. Tragedy Found Him Anyway
American Thinker: The Globalist Effort to ‘Get Trump’ Is Backfiring…Bigly!, A Red Chinese Intelligence Operation in America’s Great Plains?, and Some Lessons from January 6 Committee Finale
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship declares capitalism for itself, communism for everyone else, Official Cuban government newspaper calls Health Minister a liar, reveals health crisis overwhelming island’s hospitals, and Cuban baseball legends Tony Oliva and Minnie Miñoso inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame
BattleSwarm: The Bomb That Ended A War, also, LinkSwarm for July 23, 2022
Behind The Black: Red China rethinking its proposed heavy lift rocket to make it a Starship clone, A large majority of today’s college students think blacklisting is a good thing, and Completely misunderstanding Trump’s influence in the Republican Party
Cafe Hayek: “Silence golden for market economy”, Getting Cause and Effect Straight, and Thinking Seriously About Responding to the Theft of IP
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday, also, Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Visit to a Noteworthy Robot – The Amazon No-Check-Out System
Da Tech Guy: The Left: from Avant-Garde to Garde to Red Guards in One Lifetime, Cheney 2024? She’d be Running for the Cash & Status, and Why we’re not solving the veteran suicide problem
Don Surber: Taliban may get nukes thanks to Biden, J6 witch hunt ratings dropped 21%, and Trump will fire 50,000 upon his return
First Street Journal: It’s not just the killings – Philadelphia has become virtually uncivilized, Resistance is not futile. I will not be assimilated, and The poor Special Snowflakes™ are getting their precious little feelings hurt!
Gates Of Vienna: Escalation is Inevitable, Annalena Starts to Worry, and Three Culture-Enrichers Sentenced for Their Roles in the Easter Riots
The Geller Report: Steve Bannon Found “Guilty” Of Contempt of Congress,, also, CHILD ABUSE: Families flee Pennsylvania School After Boys ‘Encouraged To Wear Dresses’
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Eleven and Forty-Three, and Apollo 11 Panorama
Hollywood In Toto: Woke Scolds Come After Jimmy Carr (Again) for 9/11 Joke, Nope Disappoints at Box Office, Media Rush to the Rescue, and Yes, a Hollywood Legend Made Annie
The Lid: Source Documents Blow HUGE Holes In J6 Committee’s ‘Insurrection’ Narrative, California’s Green Obsession Created Toxic Waste Disaster, and The House Jan. 6th “Star Chamber” Shall Not be Opposed
Legal Insurrection: SCOTUS Leaves In Place Lower Court Order Vacating Biden Admin Immigration Enforcement Dodge, For Now, Twitter to Ban Use of ‘Groomers’ After Pressure From Liberal Outrage Mongers, and PM Zoolander Wants To Impose Drastic ‘Climate Change’ Restrictions On Farmers Just Like The Netherlands
Nebraska Energy Observer: Sometimes You Need Ajax, also, Change is good
Outkick: Pete Rose Set To Appear On Phillies’ Field For First Time In Over 30 Years, Jerry West Goes After J.J. Redick For Disparaging Older NBA Stars, Apple’s Likely NFL Sunday Ticket Win Signals Bigger Problem For ESPN & Traditional Networks, and MLB Analyst Confuses Ron Burgundy With Disgraced Porn Star Ron Jeremy
Power Line: More Evidence of the Pointlessness of Wind and Solar, When Reality Bites, and If I had a hammer & sickle
Shark Tank: Broward County Soil & Water Board Promotes Abortions & Democratic Officials
Shot In The Dark: Your Wish Is My Command, Uncancellation, and The Thing About Progressives Is
STUMP: Millennial Massacre Part 2
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: Is There an Ecological Crisis?, also, Queering Los Angeles Schools
This Ain’t Hell: A military staple is coming to an end, 17 weird things the military might teach you, Medals of Honor for soldiers who perpetrated Wounded Knee massacre may be rescinded, and Valor Friday
Transterrestrial Musings: Our Woke Military, The Value Of Space Exploration, and They Make It Sound Like A Bad Thing
Victory Girls: Bad News for George Gascon Is Rolling In, Florida Lawmaker Goes After Libs of TikTok, and 
Volokh Conspiracy: A Breakthrough on Reforming the Electoral Count Act [Updated], Colorado U.S. District Court issues TRO against magazine and gun ban, and California Enacts Gun Control Law Modeled on Texas’ SB 8 Anti-Abortion Law
Watts Up With That: Wrong, Legacy Media, Climate Change Is Not Causing Summer Heatwaves in the U.S. and Europe, Wind and Solar Fail to Reduce PJM’s CO2 Emissions, and Reuters:  How to Lie with Facts
Weasel Zippers: Kamala Harris Calls For Violence, House Dems Block Bill Preventing Oil Sales To Red China, and Residents In Portland Finally Fed Up With Drug Addicts In Their City
The Federalist: Recession? No Problem. Just Pretend It Doesn’t Exist, Canada Joins The Netherlands In Declaring Climate-Crazed War On Farmers, J6 Committee Hires Another Television Producer To Dramatize Show Trials, and More Than 100 Trump-Affiliated Lawyers Targeted By Dark Money Group
Mark Steyn: Trudeau the Truckulent, Coming Apart Together: John Carpenter and They Live, and Groom and Doom

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Category: Linkagery

Paying Attention NOW, Democrats?

Posted on | July 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Paying Attention NOW, Democrats?

When Democrats embraced “criminal justice reform,” the consequences were predictable, especially to anyone who remembers the 1970s, an era of lawlessness that inspired movies like Dirty Harry and Death Wish. The basic idea behind New York’s misguided 2019 “bail reform” law was that it was racist to keep suspects locked up before trial unless they could find someone to post their bail. Why was it racist? “Disparate impact” — i.e., because more black and Hispanic suspects than whites were kept in jail. This is an interesting theory, but the Democrats who insisted on changing the law, to release most suspects without requiring cash bail, apparently didn’t stop to consider all the possible ramifications of this so-called “reform.” There has been a dramatic increase in violent crime which has been particularly harmful to blacks and Hispanics, there very people on whose behalf the “reform” was promoted, reminding us of what Ronald Reagan said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”

Republican congressman Lee Zeldin is running for governor of New York and has targeted the state’s bail reform law as a main part of his tough-on-crime agenda, He was actually giving a speech on this topic last week at a Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge when he was attacked onstage. His attacker David Jakubonis is an Iraq War veteran with a history of alcoholism who was apparently drunk at the time. Under New York’s “bail reform,” a state judge released Jakubonis on his own recognizance (i.e., without bail), but the feds were like, “Uh uh”:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York announced David Jakubonis, the suspect in the attack on Rep. Lee Zeldin, faces a federal assault charge.
The attack occurred during a campaign stop. Zeldin is the GOP gubernatorial candidate.
“Title 18, United States Code, Section 351(e) makes it a federal crime to willfully assault a Member of Congress,” the filing says. “Section 351(e) provides for an increased penalty where the assault involves the use of a dangerous weapon.” . . .
The judge released Jakubonis on his own recognizance.
That changed on Saturday when “FBI, New York state police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office took him into custody.” He went in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Marian W. Payson.
Jakubonis is now behind bars.
The Department of Justice said Jakubonis “is due back in federal court Wednesday morning.”

Where he belongs, I hasten to add. Note that the J6 rioters were held without bail for months on end, but this guy attacks a congressman? Oh, New York was just going to turn him loose, because apparently attacking congressmen in New York is OK, as long as it’s a Republican congressman. This situation handed Zeldin a perfect example of the problems caused by turning the state over to corrupt Democrats like Kathy Hochul. Given the growing evidence pointing to a massive “red wave” in November, I expect Hochul (and many other Democrats in New York) will soon have plenty of leisure to contemplate their errors.




 

Category: Crime, New York

Rule 5 Sunday: Marine LeCourt

Posted on | July 24, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ms. LeCourt is from northern France and first appeared in Playboy in 2019. Her Instagram can be found here; she has also appeared in nude photoshoots under the name Lea Guerlin. Given how hot much of the country has been lately, here she is by the pool.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1785, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Attracting The Best Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: MAGA Arizona & Kari Lake, The Last Movie Stars, Sara Bareilles, “Surfer Girl”, Hotel Portofino, The Americans, Anna Netrebko, and Willis H. Carrier [A historically cool guy.]

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Nicole Pedra, Fish Pic Friday – Audrey Wikan, Tattoo Thursday, More ‘Random’ Celebrity News, The Wednesday Wetness, Bad Penny, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News and Palm Sunday

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Starface

Posted on | July 23, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Starface

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Not a great week for my Senators – we split a two-game series against the Red Sox and then lost two out of three in Minneapolis. Playing baseball in 35-degree weather sucks.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
Historic Thoughts on ‘Our Democracy’
Patriots’ Soapbox
Citrix News
The Political Hat
From The Ground
The Universal Spectator
EBL
357 Magnum

 

Rule 5 Sunday: Archer/Summer Illya
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
EBL
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive

Transgender ‘Rights’ vs. Common Sense
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL
A View From The Beach

‘White People Don’t Ride the Bus’
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Floating
EBL
A View From The Beach

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Okrahead
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Biden Just Had Such Bad Luck, Y’all
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.18.22
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous
Okrahead
EBL
357 Magnum

Aspiring Rapper Updates
Okrahead
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.20.22 (Early Morning Edition)
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 07.20.22 (Evening Edition)
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Despite the Media’s Deranged Obsession, Not Everything Is About Trump
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.21.22
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous, and Yes, Black Hammer Is a Dangerous Cult
Okrahead
The DaleyGator
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.22.22
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending July 22:

  1.  EBL (16)
  2.  357 Magnum (13)
  3.  A View From The Beach (10)
  4.  Proof Positive (6)

Honorable mention to Okrahead, who missed the top 5 by *that* much. Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Academic Stasi Protecting Students From White Supremacist Menace of (Checks Notes) 18th-Century Scottish Philosopher

Posted on | July 23, 2022 | Comments Off on Academic Stasi Protecting Students From White Supremacist Menace of (Checks Notes) 18th-Century Scottish Philosopher

David Hume: A premature neo-Confederate?

“Don’t worry,” they told us, “it’s just a few Confederate statues.”

Next thing you know, the woke mob has come for . . . David Hume?

The University of Edinburgh has seen its donations slump by almost £2 million after it “cancelled” the philosopher David Hume over his slavery links.
The institution said that 24 donations and 12 legacies had been “cancelled, amended or withdrawn” in response to the September 2020 renaming of a prominent campus building dedicated to its former student, one of the leading figures of the Scottish enlightenment.
While he argued against the institution of slavery, Hume was condemned by student activists largely for a footnote in a 1758 essay in which he said he was “apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites”.
The David Hume Tower was rechristened 40 George Square with the university claiming that while Hume’s opinions were “not uncommon” when he wrote them more than 250 years ago, they “rightly cause distress today”.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) Years ago, when the SPLC (and the once-influential Little Green Footballs) tried to “cancel” me, I took solace in knowing that my many friends would reject this smear and, more than a decade down the line, everyone now sees how this Thought Police tendency has run completely amok — as some of us predicted it would.

Once you incentivize witch-hunting, you can be sure that some people will begin seeing evidence of witchcraft everywhere. Thus it is with “white supremacy,” a term which once was chiefly used to describe the Jim Crow regime, but which has since lost all meaning by being slung around irresponsibly as an all-purpose smear. Orwell once observed:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. 

To accuse someone of being a “white supremacist,” it ought to be necessary to prove they have advocated genocide or, at least, have spelled out a political platform for creating a latter-day apartheid. That is to say, unless someone is engaged in actively promoting violence and oppression, the accusation of “white supremacy” is erroneous, and perhaps “consciously dishonest,” as Orwell says. When we see this kind of Thought Police activity — people on the Internet claiming to have “exposed” such-and-so person as guilty of Wrongthink — rather than focusing our attention on the person accused of “white supremacy,” we should instead carefully scrutinize the accusers. What is their motive? What do they seek to gain by denouncing others as “extremists”?

Most of the time nowadays, it’s just partisan politics — Democrats trying to frighten voters by smearing Republicans as dangerous. But what could possibly be the motive, beyond virtue-signalling, for besmirching the character of David Hume, who died in 1776, and is therefore quite unlikely to endanger anyone? Hume’s unforgivable Thought Crime, we are told, involves a footnote in his essay, “Of National Characters.” Now, I daresay that not one in a thousand students at the University of Edinburgh has actually read this essay, which begins thus:

The vulgar are apt to carry all national characters to extremes; and having once established it as a principle, that any people are knavish, or cowardly, or ignorant, they will admit of no exception, but comprehend every individual under the same censure. Men of sense condemn these undistinguishing judgments: Though at the same time, they allow, that each nation has a peculiar set of manners, and that some particular qualities are more frequently to be met with among one people than among their neighbours.

Hume’s purpose is to argue against prejudicial generalizations about the character of people based upon their nationality. We might suspect that Hume was engaged in a bit of special pleading here as a Scot, given the sort of anti-Scottish stereotypes then prevalent in England. Still, the point he was trying to make is that it is “vulgar” to make such assumptions about any people. In arguing against the (then-popular) belief that conditions of climate shape “national characters,” Hume makes several enumerated points before reaching this paragraph:

If the characters of men depended on the air and climate, the degrees of heat and cold should naturally be expected to have a mighty influence; since nothing has a greater effect on all plants and irrational animals. And indeed there is some reason to think, that all the nations, which live beyond the polar circles or between the tropics, are inferior to the rest of the species, and are incapable of all the higher attainments of the human mind. The poverty and misery of the northern inhabitants of the globe, and the indolence of the southern, from their few necessities, may, perhaps, account for this remarkable difference, without our having recourse to physical causes. This however is certain, that the characters of nations are very promiscuous in the temperate climates, and that almost all the general observations, which have been formed of the more southern or more northern people in these climates, are found to be uncertain and fallacious.

It is at the end of this paragraph that Hume adds a footnote:

I am apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.

Certainly, if Hume were alive and running for public office, his authorship of this statement would make it difficult for him to get elected, to say the least. As it is, we’re dealing with a 179-word footnote in an essay about “National Characters.” Hume writes only that he is “apt to suspect” — that is to say, offering his best guest, based on however much direct observation and study he had done — as to the “original distinction between these breeds of men.” Supposing that any student at the University of Edinburgh had actually read this 1758 essay (which I doubt many have), are we supposed to imagine that they were offended by it? Or, conversely, that this footnote by Hume had persuaded them that “negroes” are indeed “naturally inferior”? We may imagine the serious-minded sophomore philosophy student who, poring over the collected works of Hume, find this footnote and suddenly cries, “Eureka! This explains everything!” No, of course not. Don’t be absurd.

But this is how the Thought Police operate, you see — the life’s work of Hume, comprising many tens of thousands of words written on a variety of subjects, must be cast aside because of this one footnote of less than 200 words and, rather conveniently, the author is not alive to defend himself. Hume is, in this sense, kind of like those Confederate soldiers whose reputations are posthumously besmirched by “activists” and “intellectuals” engaged in virtue-signalling at their expense. Knowing what kind of men those soldiers were — “of gunpowder reputation,” as was said of my great-grandfather’s regimental commander — one doubts any of these pipsqueak “activists” would dare insult them if they were alive, but defaming the dead is easy work. Hume was a man of formidable skill in argumentation, and if anyone at the time had found fault with this footnote in his essay, certainly Hume would have been capable of defending himself. As it was, of course, no one in 18th-century Europe had any reason to question Hume’s judgment on this matter. How many avid believers in racial equality were there in England in 1758? Few, if any, I’m sure, and probably they had more important matters to deal with than accosting a Scottish philosopher about a footnote.

Really, why was this deemed important enough to rename a building at the University of Edinburgh? Is it any wonder that donors are canceling their bequests? What a silly tempest in a teapot — “Ban the dead racist David Hume!” — yet the Eminent Scholars in charge of a university evidently took it seriously. Everyone involved in this disgrace ought to be ashamed of themselves, but our latter-day “intellectuals” don’t seem to have any sense of shame. “Get woke, go broke,” indeed.




 

Category: Education, Great Britain, Racism
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