Quote of the day—Timothy H. Lee

Whether restrictionists are guilty of deliberate dishonesty, simple ignorance or some amalgam thereof is open to speculation.

But what’s beyond debate is the fact that gun controllers’ agenda is untethered from simple, demonstrable fact.

Timothy H. Lee
September 5, 2019
Gun Controllers: The Most Uninformed Among Leftist Subgroups
[Via an email from Paul K.

The political left is experiencing a mass delusion on a scale which is beyond anything I have knowledge of. Some people, at the higher levels, are certainly guilty of deliberate dishonesty. A very large percentage are guilty of willful ignorance. Some are guilty of simple ignorance. And, finally, some are useful idiots.

The final sorting of these different types of people I leave for the judges and juries.—Joe]

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4 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Timothy H. Lee

  1. “The political left is experiencing a mass delusion on a scale which is beyond anything I have knowledge of.”

    Wrong. You have knowledge of hundreds of millions dead as the result of mass delusion on a national and international scale, much of it occurring within your lifetime. I remember, as a kid in the 1960s, adults telling me, after reading Silent Spring, that they could no longer hear birds chirping because industry has poisoned them all. Delusion, much?

    I’ve made jokes about this, which of course aren’t really jokes at all because they depict reality, such as; “They’ll be shaking their fists at the sky whenever the weather is unpleasant, screaming at the top of their lungs, ‘Damn you Republicans! Damn you all to hell!!!”

    I think (I hope) that what you mean to say is;
    “The political left is experiencing a mass delusion on a scale which is beyond anything I had previously thought possible in the Western World.”

    You’ve seen it, you’ve heard it all, but for reasons hard to explain you didn’t believe it could happen here.

    Maybe our own Normalcy Bias then, or what I’ll call “normalcy delusion”, is part of all this as well, for surely the fact that we never thought it could happen here has been a factor in allowing it, even inviting it, to happen here.

    At the same time let’s avoid getting too caught up in the supposed dichotomy of Republicans v. Democrats. The more effectively similar the two parties have become, the more vociferous their rhetoric toward one another. It’s as though their exaggerated posturing is required to maintain the illusion of fundamental ideological opposition. In the absence of fundamental idealogical opposition, I say the heightened posturing you describe can only serve to herd us toward investing our hopes in a party which is designed to betray us.

    Once again I quote one of Bill Clinton’s gurus;
    “The argument [that the] two parties should represent opposed ideas and policies, one perhaps of the right and the other of the left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinate and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority or method.” — Carroll Quigley, Bill Clinon’s mentor

    If that is indeed the operative philosophy in Washington, and I’ve said for decades that it is, then surely a continuing escalation in apparent party-verses-party conflict will be necessary to keep up the illusion for as long as possible.

    To summarize then;
    We’ve all known that mass delusion, and violent conflict resulting from such delusion, is a regular feature in human societies throughout history. We all know that the trajectory of the U.S., for generations, has been toward centralized authoritarianism, regardless of which party is in charge.

    What are the take-aways from this then? There are several possible, but here are some suggestions:

    1. Government is not your friend. It is not organized so as to make your life better. Rather, it is organized to benefit its own power, wealth, and above all its perceived authority. To the extent that it believes it needs your support, it will do whatever is necessary to garner that support. Failing that, it will do what is necessary to defer, deflect, or ignore your opposition. Failing that, it will do whatever is necessary to neutralize your opposition. Failing that, it will do whatever is necessary to neutralize you.

    2. Acknowledge that government is utterly and irretrievably corrupt. To the extent that there are any genuinely good people in government, it only serves as cover for the fundamentally corrupt nature of the Beast as a whole. To live a good and proper life then, you’ll have to place the minimum amount of investment (using that word as broadly as possible) in government and politics.

    3. As much as they’re desperate for us to believe it (and what you’re really talking abut here in your post is the desperation you’re seeing; desperation for us to believe the lie); our ultimate salvation will not, and cannot possibly, ever, come from the stroke of some politician’s pen.

    • Wrong. You have knowledge of hundreds of millions dead as the result of mass delusion on a national and international scale, much of it occurring within your lifetime.

      For a few decades the communists and socialists might be able to successfully claim there was no convincing evidence their political system was fatally flawed. They might even claim, with some credibility, that the execution of a few million people they would create a new race that would live in peace and harmony for centuries saving billions from hunger, war, and an early death. It might have been hard to prove them wrong until they tried and failed numerous times. Hence, it wasn’t necessarily provable as a delusion.

      That is clearly not the case now. There are an uncountable number of provable inconsistences and disregard for hard facts that clearly demonstrate the delusions.

      I have no particular love for republicans. The best that I can say about them is that they are somewhat more likely to abide by the law and follow a predefined and transparent process.

  2. “The political left is experiencing a mass delusion on a scale which is beyond anything I have knowledge of.”

    It was once said that small lies require the utmost secrecy, whereas the biggest lies are protected by our own incredulity.

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