Tag: Culture Wars

Civilization vs. Barbarians

Nope. Too Late.

Politics

The Raj tries to explain why God-Emperor Trump should try to heal the nation and bring its fractured pieces back together again (cf. Humpty Dumpty):

America, right now, despite the aforementioned affluence and peacefulness, is a truly unpleasant place to live. We are not loving our neighbors.
The unfortunate result of this, despite its being inherently unfair, is that Trump alone can and must lead the way in curing this condition. No one else is in a position to do it and he cannot expect his enemies to help him, if past performance is any indication.
In order to really “make America great again,” so we can indeed live with each other, even if Durham indicts half a dozen of his opponents, even if he wins a smashing victory in November, the president must resist two powerful temptations: vengeance and gloating.
He should be “the good father,” which he evidently is to his own children, not the angry or cheated man, which he is to his political opponents, justifiably or not.

Sorry, but that’s just not gonna happen, Rog, despite the noble intent.  For two opposing factions to come together, there has to be some common ground and some comity on both sides.

We conservatives have tried both (bipartisanship, polite grassroots movements like the Tea Party, and moderate Republican presidents like George W. Bush), and the fucking Commies have responded with feral intensity to trash all of it.

Unity can only come under three sets of circumstances:  a common basis for society, a shared enemy, or a desire to be united.  We have no common ground between Left and conservatists;  in fact, we’re diametrically opposed.

Actually, we do have a shared enemy, all right, except we conservatives are becoming united against the Commies (they’ve always  been united against us), and the common enemy we now have is each other.

We’re way past wanting to be united.  The Left has called us every epithet under the sun;  they’ve started treating  us conservatives like we’re totalitarian Nazis not worthy of even being allowed to eat dinner in peace;  and if we dare to express opposition to them, we’re attacked either literally by their Pantifa goons, or in the media by the shouting heads at CNN et al.  It takes two sides to want to be united, and the Left isn’t interested because they’ve begun to believe their own insane propaganda.

So no, I don’t think President Trump should try to bring the two sides together.  In the first place, such an effort will fail because the Left (and their Never-Trumper noch schleppers) absolutely hate his guts and will repulse (not would — there’s no conditional circumstance) and revile any of his approaches.  Secondly, even moderate conservatives are starting to learn what we ultra-conservatives have known all along:  no matter how much we try, the only time the Left will accept us is when we do precisely what they  want, and only then.  “Bipartisan” to the Left, in other words, means “we’ll agree to do something with you only as long as you’ll agree to do exactly what we  want”.

Frankly, I’m sick of it.  There are two socio-political groups in this country, and each one has a diametrically-opposite idea to the other of what this country should look like and how it should be governed.  Our Humpty-Dumpty nation has fallen off the wall and is finished, over, done with.

There are two solutions:  geographic partition, and actual civil war.  (If this sounds similar to 1860, it is.  People always wonder how things could come to such a pass back then;  now it should be quite apparent.  The problem now is that the Left is trying to paint Middle America as the slave owners, when in fact the opposite is the case.)

I would prefer the first solution — even though partition itself would cause violence to break out as the details became known and acted upon.  As for the second solution:  frankly, I’m getting to the point where I think I’d just have to handle whatever a genuine civil war might bring, and let the chips fall where they may.  One thing I do know is that I will be the last to start it, but once engaged I will do my level best to finish it.

You see, I’m not interested in living the rest of my life in a California- or New York-type of society.  That’s not what I signed on for when I immigrated, back in the mid-1980s.  I suspect that there are lots more immigrants like me, and still more people among the native-born population who have seen their civil rights eroded and their society turning more into Southern California.

I’m not the only conservative who feels this way, if the events in Virginia are any kind of portent.

The Virginia situation might yet be averted at the next election, by the way, which should see the Commies kicked out of statewide office.  And we as a nation might still get another five years of grace when Trump is reelected later in 2020.  After that, however, all bets are off.  I don’t think conservative people are going to go adopt the “reconciliation” that Roger Simon is advocating — there is no longer a future for gentleman-Republicans like George W. Bush in our polity.  I also know that the Left always  needs an enemy, and if there isn’t one, they’ll create one.  Which, right now, is us:  Middle America, Flyover Country, the White Patriarchy, Western European culture, Christians, the Deplorables, or any and all of the above.

So here we are.  Good luck to us all.

Threatened

Culture, Patriotism, Politics

From PJMedia comes this little snippet:

I’m not going to comment on the article itself, but on the poll about which it speaks.

You see, we all know about the attacks on our Second Amendment rights — Virginians most recently, Californians, New Yorkers and Illinoisans in perpetua — and of course we are, and should be, permanently vigilant about those, especially as its the fucking government — federal, state and local — who inflict gun control on us law-abiding citizens (aided and abetted, it should be said, by the Jackals Of The Press — JOTP — who never saw a gun they didn’t hate).

Likewise, the right to a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence, is often trampled upon by the fucking government — where, for example, law enforcement officers can lie to a suspect with impunity in order to extract a confession, but lying to a law enforcement officer carries a prison sentence (ask Martha Stewart).  You could also ask the late Richard Jewell about that — the Fibbies publicly named him a “person of interest”, whereupon the JOTP pounced on that and helped them in their pretrial conviction in the public eye.

It’s the other three freedoms that concern me almost as much, because those are under attack not only by government (e.g. “hate speech” — whatever that is) but also by non-governmental  institutions such as universities, corporations and social media (once again, aided and abetted by the JOTP).  We can all agree that murdering someone is bad;  but shouting “You filthy nigger!” as you murder him, according to the gummint, is somehow much, much  worse.

And you can join a completely fascist organization like Pantifa (despite their name) without penalty, but joining the KKK is OMG so  beyond the pale.  Yeah, I know:  joining a fascist organization is just freedom of association, but joining a racist organization… well, that deserves censure, saith the scolds and bureaucrats.

And FFS:  I’m not supporting the KKK, those morons;  I’m simply saying that freedom of association means you should be able to associate freely with anyone you want.  To my mind, Pantifa is just as bad as the Klan — but if we’re going to shut down an organization because of its lawless activities, how about rounding up and arresting every known member of MS-13?  Never mind, they’re just a Hispanic social club, right?  It is, as they say, to laugh.

Oh, and try to form a men-only club, and see how long it takes for a feminazi-inspired lawsuit to hit your doorstep.

Likewise, if we are free to practice our religion, feel free to wear a yarmulkah in downtown Dearborn in Michigan, just to see what happens.  And good luck wearing that crucifix around your neck as a customer service person working, say, for an airline.  Somehow, the very sight of said religious symbols are “provocative” to the adherents of other religions.  Well, I’m provoked beyond words by those niqabs  and burkas  that Muslim men force on their women, but I’m not going to kick the shit out of the man walking next to a woman so clad — as much as I’d like to.  And I wouldn’t want to ban the stupid clothing, either, unless we have a situation where a woman refuses to remove her veil for a driver’s licence photograph.  (“No face?  No licence” should be the rule, but noooo.)

Yeah, I know that all this is full of pitfalls and contradictions, but that’s all part of living in a free society, isn’t it?

What I’m saying is that we don’t, anymore.  Somehow, we’re having our freedoms circumscribed just because some people think that freedom is fine unless they get offended by the freedom of someone else.  Then it’s time for shitty laws and even worse, penalties.

Virginia Flashpoint #4

Marxists, Politics, The Gun Thing

If there’s any silver lining to the dire situation that ordinary Virginians are finding themselves (being at the mercy of a Democrat-dominated legislature and executive, that is), it’s that the latter bastards are showing the rest of us Americans exactly what they would do if they held the keys to the national  levers of power.

By now, we’re all familiar with the gun banning / confiscation / criminalization intent of Virginia’s state government — even to the extent of Head Bastard Gov. Northam having a tidy little budget set aside for prosecution and incarceration of law-abiding criminalized gun owners.  How nice.

But it doesn’t end there.  These fucking Commies are going after suburbanites, too [emphasis added]:

Democrats in Virginia may override local zoning to bring high-density housing, including public housing, to every neighborhood statewide — whether residents want it or not.
The measure could quickly transform the suburban lifestyle enjoyed by millions, permitting duplexes to be built on suburban lots in neighborhoods previously consisting of quiet streets and open green spaces. Proponents of “upzoning” say the changes are necessary because suburbs are bastions of segregation and elitism, as well as bad for the environment.

Of course, the environment just has  to be dragged in to support their weak-assed argument.  Although if anyone wants to see a truly  ravaged environment, I invite them to visit a low-income neighborhood, anywhere in the world.  Middle-class suburbs, likewise anywhere in the world, are paradise by comparison — until “affordable” housing is brought in, that is.  And right on cue:

The move, which aims to provide “affordable housing,” might be fiercely opposed by local officials throughout the state, who have deliberately created and preserved neighborhoods with particular character — some dense and walkable, others semi-rural and private — to accommodate people’s various preferences.

But Democrats tout a state-level law’s ability to replace “not in my backyard” with “yes, in your backyard.”

And if you think that this blight would not be inflicted on the rest of us with a Democrat-controlled U.S. House, Senate and Presidency, I have a New York bridge to sell you.

No doubt, as time goes by the Virginia pols are going to find more and more bastardy to inflict on their hapless citizenry.

I don’t think that this was quite what the Founders intended with the “laboratory of the states”;  but then they could never have conceived  of a socio-political statist condition such as “Marxism”.  Thank goodness, however, that in their wisdom they gave us the means to resist such iniquity, if conditions were to become intolerable.

Which is why the Marxists are so set on disarming us.

And here we are.  So what are we to do?  Well, duh:

And if we’re talking rooftops, then:

 

And if you think these fuckers won’t classify your beloved hunting rifles as “sniper” rifles, there’s another bridge in the New York area going cheap.  We won’t even talk about the “serious” rooftop option:

They’re already  going after these — no doubt because so many are used in drive-by shootings, of course. [eyecross]

Virginians, take note.  Ditto the rest of us.  Because the Communists will not stop until everyone is completely disarmed.

If you want more details about this bastardy, see Don Surber’s take, which is like mine only without the guns.

About Hacks

Bad News

One of the real pleasures I had while living at Free Market Towers a couple of years back was going out to the mailbox very early in the morning, retrieving the fresh edition of the Daily Telegraph, then reading the thing cover to cover while drinking my morning coffee, trying to finish it before the Free Markets woke up for breakfast.

If we had a decent daily newspaper Over Here, I’d subscribe to its print version in a heartbeat, but of course we don’t:  they’re all total shit, and of course infested with socialist hacks.

This isn’t, by the way, the modern-day meaning of the word, where “hacking” means breaking into someone else’s computer coding program, and “hacks” mean “shortcuts” or “gimmicks”.

In The Oldie days (explanation to follow), the word “hack” usually meant “journalist” — more specifically, a bad  journalist.  And in perusing the pages of a magazine I’d never heard of before (thankee, BritReader Jeff W), I found a lovely article about journalism, and journalists.

Of course, nowadays journalists are despised, and mostly deservedly so, for being hacks:  opinionated assholes who reveal their ignorance with every sentence they write (e.g. when talking about guns), and moreover, who write badly, unsupervised by editors who used to be a moderating influence, but who are now best described as “last week’s journalists” — i.e. no better than the journalists they’re supposed to be supervising.

But it wasn’t always like that.  Here’s an excerpt from the article I linked above:

It’s easy to maintain a simplistic stance if you never leave your desk. Google will reaffirm what you already know – or think you know. However if you take the time and trouble to go out and meet the people who are living through the things you’re reporting, and ask them what they think, you’ll soon find your opinions are tempered by reality. Real life is complex and contradictory. Successful columnists are often dogmatists, but good reporters are pragmatists. Regular contact with the folk they write about has taught them that life, and news, is rarely black and white.

It’s also easy to forget that journalists once had to follow an apprenticeship path before they could land a job with a prestigious — or at least popular — newspaper or magazine, that path being:  learning how to write proper journalese and prose in a small-town newspaper, and simple things such as interviewing subjects, collecting background material and in short, learning about the topics before committing them to print — all before graduating to a larger, or national publication.

It’s also worth remembering that this path seldom if ever required a university degree which, I think, stopped journalists back then from becoming part of the story:  as perpetual outsiders to the system they were reporting about, their job was to be skeptical about the topic — indeed, learning about the topic meant looking at it from all sides so that they could see through the spin being put on it by the interviewees.

Contrast that with today’s J-school poseurs, who graduate thinking that they’re qualified to write about everything, whereas in fact they’re unqualified to write about anything.  Nowadays, of course, they just parrot the spin because they literally don’t know any better.

Read the entire article:  like all good pieces of writing, it will educate you about the topic.  It will also increase your loathing for today’s so-called journalists, if that’s indeed possible.

And en passant, read a few more articles in The Oldie.  It’ll be worth your time.

Appearances Matter

Grooming

Despite the “we’re all equal” trope that seems to be all the rage today, !Science! tells us that it just ain’t so (emphasis added):

People perceive a person’s competence partly based on subtle economic cues emanating from the person’s clothing, according to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour by Princeton University. These judgments are made in a matter of milliseconds, and are very hard to avoid.
In nine studies conducted by the researchers, people rated the competence of faces wearing different upper-body clothing. Clothing perceived as “richer” by an observer—whether it was a T-shirt, sweater, or other top—led to higher competence ratings of the person pictured than similar clothes judged as “poorer,” the researchers found.
Given that competence is often associated with social status, the findings suggest that low-income individuals may face hurdles in relation to how others perceive their abilities—simply from looking at their clothing.

I’ve banged on about this topic several times before, but now that I have !Science! to back me up, I’m going to say it again, with feeling:

Appearances matter.

Dress like a slob, get treated like one.  Even worse, if the above study is to be believed, is that if you dress like a slob your competence  is going to be dismissed, especially when compared with someone who doesn’t look (as I’ve said before) as though he’s just come from a beach party by way of working on his friend’s car.

It doesn’t matter, by the way, how unfair  you think this prejudice is;  it’s simply the way of the world, and bleating about the unfairness of it won’t change a thing.

More Snowflakery

Pussification Parade, Snowflakes

Hard on the heels of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales atrocity comes this blast of fetid air from the zeitgeist :

The youngest generation’s greater willingness to embrace nontraditional gender norms has opened up a new market within the beauty industry: men’s makeup.
One-third of young men said they would consider wearing makeup, according to Morning Consult polling, while 23 percent of all men said the same. Founders of men’s cosmetic brands credit the increased interest among young men not only to a wider acceptance of the idea that gender is fluid but also to the pressure to be picture perfect at any moment, thanks to social media.
…
In August 2018, Chanel debuted a line of men’s makeup, called Boy de Chanel, that includes a foundation and an eyebrow pencil.

Okay, you all may snigger at this, but even I am not immune to the siren call of male cosmetics:  a little dab of Hoppe’s No. 9 behind the ears does wonders for the self-esteem.

I even carry a small bottle in my gun bag purse for the occasional touch-up.  (And all you Kroil and CLP devotees can get knotted.  If Hoppe’s was good enough for my Dad, and his  dad, it’s damn well good enough for me.)