Dear Seattle,
You’re screwed, and it’s the mayor and city council’s fault.
Best ‘luck with the riots.
Luv&Kisses,
Police
Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger @BearBussjaeger
Tweeted on July 25, 2020
[This was in response to this open letter from the Chief of Police to local businesses and residents.:
We live in interesting times.—Joe]
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
Jason Sullivan and Bill Binney
July 11, 2020
Binney & Sullivan: An Open Letter Challenge To Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey On Censorship
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
We should be able to agree that, in today’s ever-coarsening discourse, there are dangerous echoes of these fictional characters who anticipated the Bolsheviks and Stalinists—the destroyers of ancient civilizations who burned it all down only so they could rebuild the world in their own image.
We know how this turned out, and for those who have forgotten, or for those who are too young or ignorant to know, we should remind them over and over: Those who questioned the revolution, objected to any of its ends or means, thought there might be something worth preserving, were deemed hostile combatants or hapless chumps whose false consciousness inhibited progress. In the end, they were all airbrushed. In the end, the way one escaped this airbrushing was to signal, with a great and inauthentic virtue, that one was not a hostile combatant by spotlighting the real enemies of progress. Whether these enemies were real or “real” was immaterial. Only idiots worried about the truth. There was no truth. What was most important was to keep one’s head down and, if need be, accuse wantonly. Accuse! Accuse! Accuse! Or as Americans like to say, the best defense is a good offense. Everyone knew this would never lead to the place they had been promised it would lead to, but what else was there to do? As the violence ratcheted up, it was necessary to signal with ever greater ferocity, to name more names, to out more wrong-thinkers, until all that was left was the pathetic, bloodless corpse of a country dislodged from itself.
When I imagine this people we are becoming, I think of old men I have interviewed, in Moscow, Minsk, Brest, Kiev, Tblisi, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, who once spent a year or two or 10 or 20 in a camp in the far north or far east of Russia. This was in the 1940s and ’50s. Their crime was usually petty or not even a crime. It often had to do with survival—stealing a stale loaf of bread. Or talking to the wrong person, or saying something impolitic. Or being accused, without any evidence, of something worse.
Peter Savodnik
July 14, 2020
Woke America Is a Russian Novel
[Via Ed Driscoll.
So, it’s not just me seeing the parallels between Russia and the U.S.—Joe]
So when do we switch from “punch a Nazi” to “punch a wokester?”
Glenn Reynolds
THIS IS, OF COURSE, THE WHOLE POINT OF “WOKENESS.”
July 23, 2020
[The context is Survey: Majority of Americans Afraid of Expressing Political Beliefs.
One of the commenters to Reynolds post brought the sarcasm with
But I’ll be 100% honest when you call me and ask who I’m voting for..
Just like the polls on gun ownership can be trusted.—Joe]
By differentially taxing different groups of voters, the incumbent leader can encourage emigration of one of the groups, and maximize the share of the voters who support him. While benefiting the incumbent, these taxes may actually impoverish the area and make both groups worse off.
Edward L. Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer
2013
JLEO, V21 N1 1T he Curley Effect: The Economics of Shaping the Electorate
[Via a comment by Richard in regard to Cascading failures in policing where he said:
Look up the Curley Effect. This was perfected by Coleman Young, mayor of, you guessed it, Detroit
I haven’t read the whole paper yet. The Appendix looks particularly interesting. It starts with:
I was going to make a big blog post after reading this paper and several others on the topic address the current situation in Seattle, Portland, and other cities, then extrapolate the concepts to corporate cultures. I didn’t get around to it because I worked late on some work stuff then one of my daughters called and we talked for quite a while. Maybe tomorrow.—Joe]
Democrats want to eliminate the electoral college, the Senate, the 1st amendment, the 2nd amendment for sure, and the rest of the constitution, our borders, citizenship, carbon based fuels, cars, cows.
And the first step in their scheme is to eliminate Trump.
We better fight like hell or those of us who aren’t shot during the disarmament or who don’t starve when fuel and food are eliminated are going to be slaves.
Rawhide Wraith@olddustyghost
Tooted on September 28, 2019
[There’s far too much truth in this.—Joe]
When enough blue-collar workers get canceled because they are too busy doing their hard and valuable to society jobs to bother with the sensitivities of the latest update from the grievance studies departments of the academic elite, they will get together and build a fucking killdozer and the pushback will be diesel-powered.
J. KB
June 29, 2020
When you’ve lost the Atlantic…
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Anytime “AR-15” is trending, it triggers an intense reaction from the micro-penis community. Can’t wait for Trump to lose in November so all these morons have to hide in their survival bunkers again. Like the cowards they are.
Bleeding Heart Liberal Marine @zaharako
Tweeted on July 12, 2020
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
SCOTUS decisions versus childish insults and delusions… hmm… I’m going to side with SCOTUS.—Joe]
If those academics are actually interested in addressing the issue of violent crime, as opposed to trying to demonize gun owners who are 2A activists, they should delve into the subculture of gun ownership that doesn’t care about the law; criminals who use firearms in the commission of violent crimes. The fact that the team from Boston University doesn’t even acknowledge that subculture is just more proof that this study is nothing more than a junk science attempt to vilify those gun owners who are lobbying lawmakers and speaking out against threats to their Second Amendment rights.
Cam Edwards
July 11, 2020
New “Study” On Gun Culture Really An Attack On 2A Activism
[Via email from JPFO.
One of the excerpts from the article Edwards gives special attention is this one:
Those of us in public health must acknowledge the positive aspects of that culture and stop blaming law-abiding gun owners for the problem of firearm violence,” he says. “Instead, we need to address one very specific aspect of gun culture that the NRA has created that does not represent the overwhelming number of gun owners in this country
According to the “researchers” the “aspect of gun culture that the NRA has created“ and needs to be addressed is “Second Amendment activism”.
Really! How interesting.
Am I missing some interpretation in this?
First off, they have it just backward on the causation. They didn’t bother to do much research or they would have known about the NRA Revolt at Cincinnati in 1977 where the members of the NRA told the leadership activism was required.
Would they think people advocating for support of the right to freely associate and assemble also are a group of people someone “needs to address”? If so then they should be writing papers on the Black Lives Matter activists which people “need to address” instead of non-violent people using the legislative and judicial systems to protect specific enumerated rights.—Joe]
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles MacKay
1852
Preface to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds
[Via Jeffrey A. Tucker When Will the Madness End?
I haven’t read the book yet but I have it on my phone and it is next in my queue.
The current mass delusion has interesting parallels to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the hijacking of claims of racism against blacks by white Marxists. Read about it in America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence Days of Rage. Many of the people who lived through that gradually came to their senses and were perplexed how they could have believed the stuff they were so certain of.
I haven’t read any books on it but I’ve read some newspaper clippings from the 1930’s about socialism/communism being openly viewed with great popularity in our country. Again, within a relatively short period of years, such views were strongly disavowed and even suppressed by government action.
That such cycles into madness have occurred before, and our country recovered, gives me hope that we can recover from this cycle into a political hell as well.—Joe]
The morons at Brady still think if they can get a law passed, everyone is going to just obey it?
When everyone with a gun knows no one else is obeying the law? Imagine their surprise when we start playing Cowboys and Communist!
Were going to defeat Trump and pass a law! And that’s going to stop radical Hadji’s from making suppressed 22’s and assassinating people! It’s like watching Special Olympics Politics.
MTHead
July 11, 2020
Comment to Lies and deception—It’s their culture
[“…playing Cowboys and Communists” got a laugh from me.—Joe]
This presidential election will be a choice between systems we know from experience always succeed versus systems we know from experience always fail. Guess which one young people favor by a majority.
Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
Tweeted on July 10, 2020
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Capitalism is all about inequity. Communism is about equity. By its nature, capitalism is racist, sexist, discriminatory vs religion, creed and behavior other than greed. It’s easily observed that race and wealth are linked. Capitalism abuses the minority.
Got Doubt @GotDoubt
Tweeted on July 10, 2020
[If we ran the numbers I wouldn’t be surprised if communism actually does achieve a closer approximation to equality of outcome. Hundreds of millions of people are equally dead because of communism.
It is far better that there exist a few hundred billionaires and 10s of thousands of homeless people than 100 million are murdered by their own government each century.
That should be more than sufficient but that’s not the only issue I have with socialism/communism. There is a more fundamental issue I have.
That equality of outcome is presumed as a desirable goal should be challenged whenever it raises its ugly head. Does anyone seriously believe someone who consistently makes extremely poor life choices and ends up homeless, a drug addict, and gravely ill should have the same standard of living as someone who consistently makes good life choices? If so, then I have serious doubts about having sufficient things in common with such a person to enable meaningful communication. They would literally be living in an alternate reality from me.—Joe]
This is sick. Nobody in America should own an AR-15. PERIOD. The sale and transfer of all assault weapons needs to be banned. It is one of the most important steps we can take to reduce mass shootings in this country.
Alan Cohn for Congress @AlanMCohn
Tweeted on July 12, 2020
[Via a tweet from Law Firm of SolitaryPoorNastyBrutish&Short
@AubreyLaVentana.
This could only be partially true, at best, if the mass shootings Mr. Cohn is interested in preventing is that of rioters threatening to harm innocent people and their property.
I suppose that’s possible.
More likely is that Cohn is just a common liar advocating for evil like most other anti-gun politicians.
Just remember, “No one wants to take your guns”.—Joe]
They are not ‘liberals’. They are Leftists. The same people who slaughtered over 100 million of their fellows citizens in the last century once the Leftists gained unchallenged power.
Of course, the reason the Left has been working for decades to disarm you is so they can send the leftist-controlled mob to kill you and loot what you worked so hard for. Which means this is all well premeditated.
The Left are not accidentally incompetent, they are not confused, they are not mistaken. They are evil. You are their enemy and they will lie about their intentions until you are defenseless and then they can reveal what they really want to do to you and your family.
Moa
June 29, 2020
Comment to Leftist Lunatics Dox and Threaten Armed St. Louis Couple Who Protected Their Home From Black Lives Matter Mob During Protest
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Every morning I wake up pretty small government/libertarianish and every evening I go to bed wanting Trump to send in the military to nationalized the American media.
Absolute destroyers of our great nation.
Jesse Kelly @JesseKellyDC
Tweeted on June 29, 2020
[This comment to the above is also good for a laugh:
No contradiction. It’s ok to use the government to fight terrorists.
— Boomieleaks (@Boomieleaks) June 29, 2020
If this sounds like a seriously good idea keep in mind it might be self correcting without the use of force. Only 41% of the U.S. population trust the media. And many media outlets are failing or have failed in recent years.—Joe]
It is not transcendently stupid for the alleged anti-racism rioters to destroy a Lincoln statue, though, to normal people, it looks like the act of drooling morons. Now, a good number of these cesspeople are drooling morons, but that does not change the fact that trashing POTUS #16’s statuary is brilliant.
They have confused their targets – us – by casting off the constraints of coherence.
Oh wait, you thought that these folks were trying to make a point about racism being bad. And you thought, because that’s how those of us who weren’t raised on Instatwitbook, soy, and critical race theory, that if you point out that something is unreasonable then that will cause the person you were instructing to rethink it. After all, trashing some Honest Abe totem in order to illustrate how racism is double-plus-ungood is about a “12” on the 1-10 scale of unreasonability. And yet, you can point that out all day and they don’t care.
In fact, they laugh at you for doing so.
It’s not about making sense. It never was. It’s about making you kneel.
Kurt Schlichter
July 2, 2020
Stop Making Sense
[Just the other day I posted Not a contradiction which is somewhat related.
Some of his advice is similar to mine about not appeasing the terrorists (see also here and here):
So how do we beat them?
Step one is to understand the nature of the fight. It’s not one of right and wrong, though that’s how they like to disguise it. It is one of power. Give them nothing. Concede nothing. Stop trying to be reasonable with people who think a reasonable compromise is just impoverishing and disenfranchising you instead of stashing you in a gulag or worse.
Read the rest of his advice.—Joe]
If Trump is a Hatemongering, Evil, Racist and a Nazi
Then why aren’t his followers the ones Killing Cops, Destroying Statues, Looting Stores and Assulting Innocent Bystanders?
↤ℝ ™ ᎷᏗᎶᏗᎷᎧᎷ @__Kimberly1
Tweeted on July 8, 2020
[Good question.—Joe]
It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since, as Swift says, it is futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into, we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a power-directed system of thought.
Sir Roger Scruton
2006
A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism
Meme tooted by Tamera @tacsgc July 3, 2020
[See also my blog post The Communist Manifesto.—Joe]
Well, ya, because no government has ever killed its own people, like ever.
Tactical-reviews.com @Tactical_review
Tweeted on July 1, 2020
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
